It is 1866, & Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men, who have met in secret to discuss a series of unsolved crimes. A wealthy man has vanished, a whore has tried to end her life, & an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates & fortunes that is as complex & exquisitely patterned as the night sky. The Luminaries is an extraordinary piece of fiction. It is full of narrative, linguistic & psychological pleasures, & has a fiendishly clever & original structuring device. Written in pitch-perfect historical register, richly evoking a mid-19th century world of shipping & banking & goldrush boom & bust, it is also a ghost story, & a gripping mystery. It is a thrilling achievement for someone still in her mid-20s, & will confirm for critics & readers that Catton is one of the brightest stars in the international writing firmament. ...

As the clock chimed the turn of the twentieth century, Lilly Nelly Aphrodite took her first breath. Born to a cabaret dancer & soon orphaned in a scandalous double murder, Lilly finds refuge at a Catholic orphanage, coming under the wing of the, at times, severe Sister August, the first in a string of lost loves. There she meets Hanne Schmidt, a teen prostitute, & forms a bond that will last them through tumultuous love affairs, disastrous marriages, & destitution during the First World War & the subsequent economic collapse. As the century progresses, Lilly & Hanne move from the tawdry glamour of the tingle-tangle nightclubs to the shadow world of health films before Lilly finds success & stardom in the new medium of motion pictures & ultimately falls in love with a man whose fate could cost her everything she has worked for or help her discover her true self. Gripping & darkly seductive, The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite showcases all the glitter & splendour of the brief heyday of the Weimar Republic, & the rise of Hollywood to its golden age. As it foreshadows the horrors of the Second World War, the novel asks what price is paid when identity becomes unfixed & the social order is upended. ...

A guidebook with 40 walks ranging from 3 to 11 miles, covering a very varied landscape in the Lune Valley & Howgill Fells, some of the most lovely & unspoiled countryside in northwest Engl&. Set between the Lake District & the Yorkshire Dales, the walking is hugely rewarding, with magnificent views & natural woodland full of wildlife. ...

This guidebook offers a wide range of walks from the source of the river Lune in the Howgill Fells to Glasson Dock, just below Lancaster. The 40 day walks range between 3 & 11 miles in length & are all illustrated with extracts of 1:50, 000 OS mapping. They explore the infinitely varied landscape as the river Lune flows between the Lake District & Yorkshire Dales national parks & the Forest of Bowland & Arnside & Silverdale Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Also included is a suggested 60-mile, 6-day route walking the River Lune from end to end, with lots of background information about the area`s history, geology & also all the local facilities to help you plan your trip. There are magnificent views from the empty hilltops, delightful natural woodlands full of wildlife, stunning secluded side valleys & open moorland vistas to be explored in Yorkshire, Cumbria & Lancashire. & the walks are equally superb at any time of the year. ...

In 1967, at the age of 23, Elizabeth Laird set off for Addis Ababa to take up her first teaching post. She was introduced to Haile Selassie, made a pilgrimage across the mountains on foot to the ancient city of Lalibela, hitched a ride on an oil tanker across the Danakil Desert, & was arrested for a murder she had not committed. Back in Britain, Laird established herself as a major author of fiction for children & young adults, but she always wanted to return to Ethiopia. Her chance came in the late 1990s, when the British Council in Addis Ababa invited her to collect folk stories from every region of the country. Encountering ex-guerrilla fighters, camel traders, Coptic nuns & tribespeople en route, Laird has written a remarkable account of her journey interwoven with a treasure trove of stories featuring princes & maidens, snakes & lions, zombies & hyena-women. ...

” If you give anything to a Norwegian (old meat tins are always thankfully received), he will give your hand a silent grip more expressive than many words” The Lure of the North is part of ` Found on the Shelves`, published with The London Library. The books in this series have been chosen to give a fascinating insight into the treasures that can be found while browsing in The London Library. Now celebrating its 175th anniversary, with over 17 miles of shelving & more than a million books, The London Library has become an unrivalled archive of the modes, manners & thoughts of each generation which has helped to form it. This book is special to us because it contains an essay by Edward Stanford Junior, the son of our founder who later took over the business. He wrote `A Cruise on the Hardanger Fiord` in 1881 about his tour to Norway. It`s an exceptional piece of travel writing, if we do say so ourself. ...

Vladimir Nabokov`s early novel is the dazzling story of the coarse, strange yet oddly endearing chess-playing genius Luzhin. Discovering his prodigious gift in boyhood & rising to the rank of International Grandmaster, Luzhin develops a lyrical passion for chess that renders the real world a phantom. As he confronts the fiery, swift-swooping Italian Grandmaster Turati, he brings into play his carefully devised defence. Making masterly play of metaphor & imagery, ” The Luzhin Defense” is the book that, of his early works, Nabokov felt `contains & diffuses the greatest warmth`. ...

` There are not so many places left where magic reigns without interruption & of all those I know, the coast of Lycia was the most magical.` Lycia, on the southwestern coast of Turkey, is an ancient land steeped in mystery, myth & legend. Home to the fiery chimera & to the great heroes Sarpedon & Penderus; heartland of worship for the goddess Leto & her children Apollo & Artemis; old ally of Troy, lure to conquering Cyrus & Alexander & to centuries of travellers, artists & writers
- Lycia, part of the ` Turquoise Coast` now attracts more tourists to her glimmering shores than any other part of Turkey. In the early 1950s, following the trail of ancient Persian & Greek traders, Freya Stark set out by boat to explore the Lycian coast. She was guided by the traces of Lycia`s rich history & cultural heritage. For all those who now follow in her wake, there can be no better, more evocative or knowledgeable guide to this, Turkey`s most enchanting coast.
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The Lycian Way is one of the few guides dedicated to Turkey’s popular long-distance walking route, written by walker Kate Clow. The guide covers the 500km long-distance walking route along the coastline & is organized into 29 daily walking stages, allowing walkers to complete the entire distance or to choose individual routes. A double-sided fold-out map at the back of the book gives an overview of the Lycian Way & general coverage of Turkey’s coastline. The guide is structured in three main parts
- an Introduction, History & Nature & The Route. A detailed introduction provides practical information on the Lycian Way, waymarking, when to walk, travelling independently, what to bring, sleeping & shopping & food & drink. Part 2 offers a brief history of Lycia, what to look out for & natural history, in addition to an exploration of rural Turkish life. Each stage of the route begins with a general overview of the day’s trek & hourly times indicate the progression of the walk throughout the day. Detailed route descriptions are accompanied by gradient profiles showing the difficulty of the walking as well as commentary on significant sites & places of interest on route. Black & white & colour photographs illustrate some of the highlights of the region.
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Imagine a disused living room in a grand house. In it is a tiger rug & a statue of a little girl. But is the tiger a real tiger, a fake or a magical carpet? Is the little girl real but bewitched or just a stone statue & will she ever come to life? By turns comical & lugubrious, the tiger gives the little girl plenty of versions of the truth, but how will she decide what is true & will she be able to break free? A parable about outgrowing your childhood & becoming what you want to be, this is a book for anyone who has ever felt `stuck` in their circumstances. ...