When the Taliban took control of Kabul, Kamila Sidiqi & all the women of Kabul saw their lives transformed. Overnight, they were banned from schools & offices & even forbidden from leaving their front doors on their own. The economy collapsed & young men left the city in search of work & security. Desperate to help her family & support her five brothers & sisters at home, Kamila began sewing cothes in her living room. Little did she know that the tailoring business she started to help her siblings would be the beginning of a dressmaking business that would create jobs & hope for one hundred neighbourhood women & would come to mean the difference between starvation & survival for hundreds of families like her own. ...

Calling all dressmakers! This is a fully updated version of the best selling The Dressmaker`s Technique Bible, complete with an all-new fabric guide to choosing the right fabric for the right garment. Dressmaking is having a renaissance, driven by hugely successful programmes such as the Great British Sewing Bee & Project Runway. This dressmaking handbook offers all the guidance you need to create beautiful clothes, whether you are following a pattern, adding embellishments or starting from scratch. This is a fully updated, new edition of best selling book, The Dressmaker`s Technique Bible, which has sold thousands of copies due to its in depth instruction & comprehensive content. It

Includes:: step by step instructions for a wide range of dressmaking techniques from basic patterns through to couture designs making it suitable for beginners as well as more experienced sewers. Easy-to-follow, highly illustrated instructions explain the essential dressmaking techniques
- allowing you to work confidently from a pattern to create beautiful clothes that fit perfectly. It features an at-a-glance guide to basic garment shapes & styles, cross referenced with the relevant techniques throughout the book. Suitable for beginners, or those who are already designing or making their own clothes, this is the perfect reference book for anyone interested in dressmaking & sewing.


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Intelligent, ambitious & a rising star in the French artillery, Captain Alfred Dreyfus appeared to have everything: family, money, & the prospect of a post on the General Staff. But his rapid rise had also made him enemies
- many of them aristocratic officers in the army`s High Command who resented him because he was middle-class, meritocratic & a Jew. In October 1894, the torn fragments of an unsigned memo containing military secrets were retrieved by a cleaning lady from the waste paper basket of Colonel Maximilien von Schwartzkoppen of the German embassy in Paris. When French intelligence discovered they harboured a spy in their midst, Captain Dreyfus, on slender evidence, was charged with selling military secrets to the Germans, found guilty of treason by unanimous verdict & sentenced to life imprisonment on the notorious Devil`s Isl&. The fight to free the wrongfully convicted Dreyfus
- over twelve long years, through many trials
- is a story rife with heroes & villains, courage & cowardice, dissimulation & deceit. One of the most infamous miscarriages of justice in history, the Dreyfus affair divided France, stunned the world & unleashed violent hatreds & anti-Semitic passions which offered a foretaste of what was to play out in the long, bloody twentieth century to come. Today, amid charged debates over national & religious identity across the globe, its lessons throw into sharp relief the conflicts of the present. In the hands of historian, biographer & prize-winning novelist Piers Paul Read, this masterful epic of the struggle between a minority seeking justice & a military establishment determined to save face comes dramatically alive for a new generation.


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After eight years as a soldier, Peter Ash came home from Iraq & Afghanistan with only one souvenir: what he calls `white static`, a buzzing claustrophobia due to post-traumatic stress that has driven him to spend a year roaming the US Pacific coast`s mountains & forests, sleeping under the stars. But when a friend from the Marines commits suicide, Ash returns to civilization to help the man`s widow & two young children. While repairing her dilapidated porch, he makes two unwelcome discoveries: the first is a dog, the largest, meanest, ugliest dog he`s ever laid eyes on; the second surprise is what the dog is guarding
- a suitcase containing $400, 000 in cash & four slabs of plastic explosive. Just what was his friend caught up in during his final days? Ash will find that the demons of war aren`t easy to leave behind...
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A single call from his Czech girlfriend catapults Trevor into a serious crisis. Desperate to get his mojo back, he blazes down Highway 99 in a rented Dodge Neon. But soon his journey to California is fraught with peril, & all he has for protection are a semi-automatic pistol, his trusty plastic visor & a flea-ridden cat. As the drugs & the heartbreak kick in, the question is no longer whether Trevor will get over his girlfriend`s infidelity, but whether he`ll get out alive. A fast-paced & hilarious contemporary odyssey, told with a searing clarity reminiscent of Willy Vlautin or Patrick de Witt, The Drive has all the adventure & surrealism of Hunter S Thompson`s Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
- but overlaid with heartfelt yearning & hope.
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On an East Coast isl&, full of tall pine moaning with sea gusts, Delilah moves into a cottage by the shore. The neighbours gossip as they watch her clean, her black hair tied back in a white rubber b&. They don`t like it when she plants a garden out front
- orange red Carpinus caroliniana & silvery blue hosta. Very unusual, they whisper. Across the driveway lives a man who never goes out. Delilah knows he`s watching her too & she likes the look of him, but perhaps life is too complicated already...
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This is the story of a drop of water, told by a science writer & illustrated with remarkable paintings. Meredith Hooper takes us back thousands of years to see where the Earth`s water came from, & how life began in the oceans & later moved onto l&. She describes the water cycle, the relationship between water & living things & between water & erosion. She also discusses important environmental issues & provides a fascinating collection of water facts. ...

` It is time Mick Herron was recognised in his own right as the best thriller writer in Britain today` Sunday Express Old spooks carry the memory of tradecraft in their bones, & when Solomon Dortmund sees an envelope being passed from one pair of hands to another in a Marylebone cafe, he knows he`s witnessed more than an innocent encounter. But in relaying his suspicions to John Bachelor, who babysits retired spies like Solly, he sets in train events which will alter lives. Bachelor himself, a hair`s breadth away from sleeping in his car, is clawing his way back to stability; Hannah Weiss, the double agent whose recruitment was his only success, is starting to enjoy the secrets & lies her role demands; & Lech Wicinski, an Intelligence Service analyst, finds that a simple favour for an old acquaintance might derail his career. Meanwhile, Lady Di Taverner is trying to keep the Service on an even keel, & if that means throwing the odd crew member overboard, well: collateral damage is her speciality.A drop, in spook parlance, is the passing on of secret information. It`s also what happens just before you hit the ground. ...

Jonathan is a private investigator in a decaying eastern European city, consumed by his work & his failing marriage. Approached one day by an elderly couple, he is presented with a faded photograph of their daughter, missing for nearly two decades. Troubled by the image of the little girl, who was the same age when she vanished as his own daughter is now
- he is compelled to find her. But one night, soon after taking on the case, as he walks across the bridge spanning the river that divides the city, he encounters a young woman crouched at the foot of a stone angel
- a woman who suddenly leaps into the icy water below. Without thinking, Jonathan plunges after her, & is soon drawn into her ghostly world of confusion, coincidence & intrigue, & the city he thought he knew turns strange & threatening. Haunting & deeply moving, The Drowned Detective is an intoxicating, atmospheric exploration of relationships, lies & betrayal
- confirming Neil Jordon as a master storyteller & a vital literary voice.


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When London is lost beneath the rising tides, unconscious desires rush to the surface in this apocalyptic tale from the author of ` Crash` & ` Empire of the Sun`, reissued here with a new introduction from Martin Amis. Fluctuations in solar radiation have melted the ice caps, sending the planet into a new Triassic Age of unendurable heat. London is a swamp; lush tropical vegetation grows up the walls of the Ritz & primeval reptiles are sighted, swimming through the newly-formed lagoons. Some flee the capital; others remain to pursue reckless schemes, either in the name of science or profit. While the submerged streets of London are drained in search of treasure, Dr Robert Kerans
- part of a group of intrepid scientists
- comes to accept this submarine city & finds himself strangely resistant to the idea of saving it. First published in 1962, Ballard`s mesmerising & ferociously imaginative novel gained him widespread critical acclaim & established his reputation as one of Britain`s finest writers of science fiction. This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard`s works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Robert Macfarlane, Martin Amis, James Lever & Ali Smith) & br&-new cover designs.

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