You might think a book with no pictures seems boring & serious. Except.. .here`s how books work. Everything written on the page has to be said by the person reading it aloud. Even if the words say.. .BLORK. Or BLUURF. & even if the words include things like BLAGGITY BLAGGITY & MY HEAD IS made from BLUEBERRY PIZZA! That`s the rule. That`s the deal. Brilliantly irreverent & very, very silly, The Book With No Pictures will delight kids & have them begging for more. From award-winning US comic writer & actor, B. J. Novak. ...

Fans of Wimpy Kid & Tom Gates will love the hilarious fifth instalment from Timmy Failure, aka the world`s greatest detective. The only thing you need to know about Timmy`s latest memoir is that it was never meant for publication. Timmy`s detective log was stolen, & if this book gets out, Timmy will be grounded for life. Or maybe even longer. Because while Timmy was meant to be focusing on schoolwork, he was continuing his detective work in a garden shed. You don`t need the details. Just know this: there`s a Merry, a Larry, a missing tooth & a disappearing friend. But don`t tell Timmy`s mother! ...

In The Book, Keith Houston reveals that the paper, ink, thread, glue & board from which a book is made tell as rich a story as the words on its pages-of civilisations, empires, human ingenuity & madness. In an invitingly tactile history of this 2, 000 year-old medium, Houston follows the development of writing, printing, the art of illustrations, & binding to show how we have moved from cuneiform tablets & papyrus scrolls to the hardcovers & paperbacks of today. Sure to delight book lovers of all stripes with its lush, full-colour illustrations, The Book gives us the momentous & surprising history behind humanity`s most important-and universal-information technology. Praise for Shady Characters: ” Punctuation is not a mere ornament or a curiosity-it is essential, & we need to know about it. Keith Houston`s history is entertaining & readable.”-The Guardian ” Engaging typographical journeys... Houston brings to life a history of ingenuity & imagination.”-The Times ”[S]cholarly, highly readable &, on some deeper level, slightly deranged.”-The Spectator ” Refreshing...the stories he uncovers along the way are fascinating.”-The Telegraph ” Shady Characters might make you look at books...in an entirely new way.”-Nature ...

For more than twenty years, Sultan Khan defied the authorities to supply books to the people of Kabul. He was then arrested, interrogated & improsooned, & watched illiterate soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. Award-winning Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad spent four months living with him & his family in 2002. This is their story, the most intimate look yet at ordinary life for those who have weathered Afghanistan`s extraordinary upheavals. One husb&, two wives, five children, & many other relatives sharing four small rooms opened up their lives, unforgettably. Through this close-knit household, we gain an intimate view
- as few outsiders have seen it
- of life in an Islamic country just beginning to find its way between the forces of modernity & tradition.

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERSOON TO BE A MAJOR FILM PRODUCED BY JULIA ROBERTSNothing is as permanent as it appears... Denver, 1962 Kitty Miller has come to terms with her unconventional single life. She loves the bookshop she runs with her best friend, Frieda, & enjoys complete control over her day-to-day existence. Then the dreams begin. Denver, 1963 Katharyn Andersson is married to Lars, the love of her life. They have beautiful children, an elegant home, & good friends. It`s everything Kitty Miller once believed she wanted
- but it only exists when she sleeps. Convinced that these dreams are simply due to her overactive imagination, Kitty enjoys her nighttime forays into this alternate world. But with each visit, the more irresistibly real Katharyn`s life becomes. Can she choose which life she wants? If so, what is the cost of staying Kitty, or becoming Katharyn?A hauntingly powerful novel that freshly considers the timeless question
- ` What if?`

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In a small East Anglian town, Florence Green decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop. Hardborough becomes a battleground. Florence has tried to change the way things have always been done, & as a result, she has to take on not only the people who have made themselves important, but natural & even supernatural forces too. Her fate will strike a chord with anyone who knows that life has treated them with less than justice. ...

We`re not talking about rooms that are just full of books. We`re talking about bookshops in barns, disused factories, converted churches & underground car parks. Bookshops on boats, on buses, & in old run-down train stations. Fold-out bookshops, undercover bookshops, this-is-the-best-place-I`ve-ever-been-to-bookshops. Meet Sarah & her Book Barge sailing across the sea to France; meet Sebastien, in Mongolia, who sells books to herders of the Altai mountains; meet the bookshop in Canada that`s invented the world`s first antiquarian book vending machine. & that`s just the beginning. From the oldest bookshop in the world, to the smallest you could imagine, The Bookshop Book examines the history of books, talks to authors about their favourite places, & looks at over two hundred weirdly wonderful bookshops across six continents (sadly, we`ve yet to build a bookshop down in the South Pole). The Bookshop Book is a love letter to bookshops all around the world. ”A good bookshop is not just about selling books from shelves, but reaching out into the world & making a difference.” (David Almond). The Bookshop Book

Includes:: interviews "es from David Almond, Ian Rankin, Tracy Chevalier, Audrey Niffenegger, Jacqueline Wilson, Jeanette Winterson & many, many others.

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In early 2009 a strange sort of business plan landed on the desk of a pinstriped bank manager. It had pictures of rats & moles in rowing boats & archaic"es about Cleopatra`s barge. It asked for a GBP30, 000 loan to buy a black-&-cream narrowboat & a small hoard of books. The manager said no. Nevertheless The Book Barge opened six months later & enjoyed the happy patronage of local readers, a growing number of eccentrics & the odd moorhen. Business wasn`t always easy, so one May morning owner Sarah Henshaw set off for six months chugging the length & breadth of the country. Books were bartered for food, accommodation, bathroom facilities & cake. During the journey, the barge suffered a flooded engine, went out to sea, got banned from Bristol &, on several occasions, floated away altogether. This account follows the ebbs & flows of Sarah`s journey as she sought to make her vision of a floating bookshop a reality. ...

Need experience on your Gap Year? Try murder. Bored of the `mango smoothie` trail & keen to spice up their Facebook albums, & perhaps also their sex lives, Jake & Will take a tour into China`s jungle borderland with Burma. Their guide, however, has his own agenda & gradually the two gap-year students slip into a nightmarish spiral of murder & moral decay; their chance of survival determined by a game of hide & seek played out with deadly crossbows. This is a fast paced, adrenaline ride of a novel: ” Deliverance” meets ” Lord of the Flies”. ...

With an introduction by novelist Rachel Kushner In the vanishing world of the Old West, two cowboys begin an epic adventure, & their own coming-of-age stories. In All the Pretty Horses, John Grady Cole`s search for a future takes him across the Mexican border to a job as a ranch hand & an ill-fated romance. The Crossing is the story of sixteen-year-old Billy Parham, who sets off on a perilous journey across the mountains of Mexico, accompanied only by a lone wolf. Eventually the two come together in Cities of the Plain, in a stunning tale of loyalty & love.A true classic of American literature, The Border Trilogy is Cormac Mc Carthy`s award-winning requiem for the American frontier. Beautiful & brutal, filled equally with sorrow & humour, it is a powerful story of two friends growing up in a world where blood & violence are conditions of life. ...