A portrayal of the troubled countries of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador & Nicaragua, as the author travels through them by train & bus. The author shows daily lives lived against a backdrop of continued & seemingly endless political friction & conflicts, in places that exhibit the contradictions inherent in an area of which Porfirio Diaz said: ” Poor Mexico! So far from God, so close to the United States”. It is an observation that serves as an epigraph to the book, as a means of showing how fervent Catholicism can live side by side with extreme violence, how people can show alternating friendliness & suspicion towards strangers, & how the attitudes with which Central America & the United States regard one another can be a mixture of both fear & longing. ...

” Acclaimed restaurateur Dany Chouet helped shape French cuisine in Australia throughout the 1970s & 80s through her successful restaurants Upstairs, Au Chabrol & Cleopatra. Now back in south-west France, she & her partner are wooing international customers with gourmet tours & Dany`s quintessential country cooking. In her first book, So French, Dany tells her fascinating life story which is interwoven with more than 60 timeless recipes & complemented by stunning images taken at her home & guesthouse in the south of France. This is truly a book to treasure. From traditional garlic & onion soup to hearty salt cod & potato ragout & sweet nectarine & raspberry gratin, browsing through the pages of So French is sure to make your tastebuds tingle & your thoughts travel to Provence.” ...

In rural Illinois two tenant farmers share much, finally too much, until jealously leads to murder & suicide. A tenuous friendship between lonely teenagers
- the narrator, whose mother has died young, & Cletus Smith, the troubled witness to his parent`s misery
- is shattered. After the murder & upheavals that follow, the boys never speak again. Fifty years on, the narrator attempts a reconstruction of those devastating events & the atonement of a lifetime`s regret.

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` This is the real globalism, a glorious cacophony that seeks no common ground other than attitude.` Marlon James, winner of the Booker Prize So Many Islands breaks out bold new writing from the distant shores of countries in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Indian & Pacific Oceans. Here you will find poems about revolution & protest. You will be transported to Marakei, `the women`s island`, & join the battle to save a beached whale. Alongside family politics, So Many Islands tackles nuclear testing & climate change global issues that are close to the heart of these precariously poised communities. Giving voice to their challenges & triumphs, these writers create a vibrant portrait of what it is like to live & love on the small islands they call home. Readers everywhere will find universal connections with these words & worlds. Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Bermuda, Cyprus, Grenada, Jamaica, Kiribati, Malta, Mauritius, Niue, Rotuma (Fiji), Soma, Singapore, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines, Tonga, Trinidad & Tobago ...

A sweeping, heartbreaking novel following Daniel in his troubled marriage with Rosie as they navigate the unsettled time between the World Wars. Rosie & Daniel have moved to Ceylon with their little daughter to start a new life at the dawn of the 1920s, attempting to put the trauma of the First World War behind them, & to rekindle a marriage that gets colder every day. However, even in the lush plantation hills it is hard for them to escape the ties of home & the yearning for fulfilment that threatens their marriage. Back in Engl&, Rosie`s three sisters are dealing with different challenges in their searches for family, purpose & happiness. These are precarious times, & they find themselves using unconventional means to achieve their desires. Around them the world is changing, & when Daniel finds himself in Germany he witnesses events taking a dark & forbidding turn. By turns humorous & tragic, gripping & touching, So Much Life Left Over follows a cast of unique & captivating characters as they navigate the extraordinary interwar years both in England & abroad. ...

Jean Daragane, writer & recluse, has purposely built a life of seclusion away from the Parisian bustle. He doesn`t see many people, he rarely goes out: he spends his life in a solitary world of his own making. His peace is shattered however, one hot September afternoon, by a threatening phone call from a complete stranger, who claims to have found Daragane`s old phone book & wants to question him about a particular name it contains. But when Daragane agrees to meet the mysterious Gilles Ottolini, he realises that
- try as he might
- he cannot place the name ” Guy Torstel” at all. Yet Ottolini is desperate for any information on this man... Finding himself suddenly entangled in the lives of Ottolini & his beautiful, but fragile young associate, Daragane is drawn into the mystery of a decades-old murder that will drag him out of his lonely apartment & force him to confront the memory of a long-suppressed personal trauma. Imbued with nostalgia, subtlety, & its own unique poetry, this darkly mysterious novel weaves a spell that provokes as much as it entrances.

...

Jean Daragane, writer & recluse, has purposely built a life of seclusion away from the Parisian bustle. He doesn`t see many people, he rarely goes out: he spends his life in a solitary world of his own making. His peace is shattered however, one hot September afternoon, by a threatening phone call from a complete stranger, who claims to have found Daragane`s old phone book & wants to question him about a particular name it contains. But when Daragane agrees to meet the mysterious Gilles Ottolini, he realises that
- try as he might
- he cannot place the name ” Guy Torstel” at all. Yet Ottolini is desperate for any information on this man... Finding himself suddenly entangled in the lives of Ottolini & his beautiful, but fragile young associate, Daragane is drawn into the mystery of a decades-old murder that will drag him out of his lonely apartment & force him to confront the memory of a long-suppressed personal trauma. Imbued with nostalgia, subtlety, & its own unique poetry, this darkly mysterious novel weaves a spell that provokes as much as it entrances.

...

When it comes to immigration, the population explosion, the collapse of the family, the north-south divide, devolution, or the death of the countryside, common wisdom tells us that we are in trouble; however, this is far from the truth. In his brilliant anatomy of contemporary Britain, leading geographer Daniel Dorling dissects the nation & reveals unexpected truths about the way we live today, contrary to what you might read in the news: The human mosaic: Most children who live above the fourth floor of tower blocks in England are Black or Asian. The higher you go in a building, the darker skinned children tend to be. Relationships: The more times a person`s heart is broken, the nearer they will tend to move to the sea. If you want to find a good man to marry head for the countryside. North & South: People in the south move home on average every seven years & job every eight years. This is a year faster than in the north of Engl&, but a year slower than is usual in Scotl&. Optimum population: Emmigrant nation
- There are twice as many grandchildren of British-born people living over-seas as there are people living in Britain who have grandparents who were themselves born abroad. The problem now is more about getting pregnant than a population explosion & we need more immigration not less. Immigration: Muslims are far more likely to marry non-Muslims in Britain than Christians are to marry non-Christians. The elderly: Most people in Britain never live long enough to experience being burgled. In some areas you would have to live for over five hundred years to have an `evens` chance of being a crime victim. Town & Country
- divided since the enclosures: Step children are most commonly found in the most leafy of idyllic rural villages. Nuclear family homogeneity is now an inner city phenomena. Why are there no cheap homes in the countryside any more? Transport: The greatest threat to life in Britain of all those aged under 40 is the car. For adults aged over 24 they most likely die as a driver, over 15 as a passenger, & over age 4 as a pedestrian. Work: There is no need for us to work until we drop
- all could retire early. Reviews for ” Injustice”: `A geographer maps the injustices of Selfish Capitalism with scholarly detachment`
- Oliver James. ` Dorling provides the brain-cleaning software we need to begin creating a happier society`
- Richard Wilkinson author of ” The Spirit Level”.




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Biologist & TV scientist Ben Garrod`s fun, funny, informative & collectable series about dinosaurs, launching with T. Rex, Diplodocus & Triceratops. Ben Garrod`s So You Think You Know About... Dinosaurs? is fun, funny & informative. This highly collectable, pocket-size series is the most up-to-date in 66 million years, featuring Tyrannosaurus Rex, Diplodocus, Triceratops, & introduced by Steve Backshall. The series continues with Velociraptor, Stegosaurus & Spinosaurus in September 2018. Did you know that not all dinosaurs were green & scaly, some were ginger & feathered, or that they didn`t all roar, they cooed like pigeons, or that the ultimate prehistoric predator was actually not a dinosaur? TV scientist, Dr Ben Garrod, is proud to be a geek as he mixes hard science & humour to prove that science is for everyone. All children know their dinosaurs but Ben encourages them to think differently, revealing how new discoveries & breakthroughs occur in science every day. By looking at the evolutionary arms race, prey, predators, place, time, groups & species, Ben reveals new-look dinosaurs. Palaeo art by Scott Hartman & Gabriel Ugueto & cartoon illustration by Ethan Kocak. Also available in audio download, read by the author. ...

Biologist & TV scientist Ben Garrod`s fun, funny, informative & collectable series about dinosaurs, launching with T. Rex, Diplodocus & Triceratops. Ben Garrod`s So You Think You Know About... Dinosaurs? is fun, funny & informative. This highly collectable, pocket-size series is the most up-to-date in 66 million years, featuring Tyrannosaurus Rex, Diplodocus, Triceratops, & introduced by Steve Backshall. The series continues with Velociraptor, Stegosaurus & Spinosaurus in September 2018. Did you know that not all dinosaurs were green & scaly, some were ginger & feathered, or that they didn`t all roar, they cooed like pigeons, or that the ultimate prehistoric predator was actually not a dinosaur? TV scientist, Dr Ben Garrod, is proud to be a geek as he mixes hard science & humour to prove that science is for everyone. All children know their dinosaurs but Ben encourages them to think differently, revealing how new discoveries & breakthroughs occur in science every day. By looking at the evolutionary arms race, prey, predators, place, time, groups & species, Ben reveals new-look dinosaurs. Palaeo art by Scott Hartman & Gabriel Ugueto & cartoon illustration by Ethan Kocak. Also available in audio download, read by the author. ...