The Forging of a Rebel is an unsurpassed account of Spanish history & society from early in the twentieth century through the cataclysmic events of the Spanish Civil War. Arturo Barea`s masterpiece charts the author`s coming-of-age in a bruised & starkly unequal Spain. These three volumes recount in lively detail Barea`s daily experience of his country as it pitched toward disaster: we are taken from his youthful play & rebellion on the streets of Madrid, to his apprenticeship in the business world & to the horrors he witnessed as part of the Spanish army in Morocco during the Rif War. The trilogy culminates in an indelible portrait of the Republican fight against Fascist forces in which the Madrid of Barea`s childhood becomes a shell & bullet-strewn warzone. Combining historical sweep & authority with poignant characterization & novelistic detail, The Forging of a Rebel is a towering literary & historical achievement. ...

David & Jo Henniger are on their way to a party at their old friends` home, deep in the Moroccan desert. But as a groggy David navigates the dark desert roads, two young men spring from the roadside, the car swerves & collides with one of the boys... Meanwhile, festivities at the house are in full flow. Under the watchful eyes of their Moroccan staff, the extravagant hosts attend to the whims of their glittering, insatiable guests as the party rages on into a new day. The stage is set for a weekend in which David & Jo must come to terms with their fateful act & its shattering consequences. ...

Grass grows almost everywhere. To most of us it is a common everyday thing, scarcely worth mention. Yet its influence on the life & character of an island people has been more profound that of the seas around our shores. As Britain's first farmers herded their cattle across the lonely hills, they made a momentous discovery. Working with stone axes to clear the ancient forest they found that in its place grew grass. For more than five thousand years Britain's grasslands have brought wealth & prosperity, building a powerful overseas trade. They fed the fast-growing towns of Tudor Britain, were the foundation of modern capitalism &, with parks & lawns, they civilised the city. Cricket, football & rugby now played around the world have their origins on the grass turf. ...

An international bestseller, this is a German soldier`s first-hand account of life on Russian front during the second half of the Second World War. When Guy Sajer joins the infantry full of ideals in the summer of 1942, the German army is enjoying unparalleled success in Russia. However, he quickly finds that for the foot soldier the glory of military success hides a much harsher reality of hunger, fatigue & constant deprivation. Posted to the crack Grosse Deutschland division, with its sadistic instructors who shoot down those who fail to make the grade, he enters a violent & remorseless world where all youthful hope is gradually ground down, & all that matters is the brute will to survive. As the biting cold of the Russian winter sets in, & the tide begins to turn against the Germans, life becomes an endless round of pounding artillery attacks & vicious combat against a relentless & merciless Red Army. A book of stunning force, this is an unforgettable reminder of the horrors of war. ...

Bestselling author Charlie Connelly returns with a First World War memoir of his great uncle, Edward Connelly, who was an ordinary boy sent to fight in a war the likes of which the world had never seen. But this is not just his story; it is the story of all the young forgotten soldiers who fought & bravely died for their country The Forgotten Soldier tells the story of Private Edward Connelly, aged 19, killed in the First World War a week before the Armistice & immediately forgotten, even, it seems, by his own family. Edward died on exactly the same day, & as part of the same military offensive, as Wilfred Owen. They died only a few miles apart & yet there cannot be a bigger contrast between their legacies. Edward had been born into poverty in west London on the eve of the twentieth century, had a job washing railway carriages, was conscripted into the army at the age of eighteen & sent to the Western Front from where he would never return. He lies buried miles from home in a small military cemetery on the outskirts of an obscure town close to the French border in western Belgium. No-one has ever visited him. Like thousands of other young boys, Edward`s life & death were forgotten. By delving into & uncovering letters, poems & war diaries to reconstruct his great uncle`s brief life & needless death; Charlie fills in the blanks of Edward`s life with the experiences of similar young men giving a voice to the voiceless. Edward Connelly`s tragic story comes to represent all the young men who went off to the Great War & never came home. This is a book about the unsung heroes, the ordinary men who did their duty with utmost courage, & who deserve to be remembered. ...

` Secrets, tragedy, hidden pasts & family secrets all set in glorious Provence
- I loved this` Santa Montefiore Secrets ripen
...

More than 300 years ago, Taiwan was a controversial topic in London thanks to a stupendous fraud perpetrated by a Frenchman claiming to have been born there. He made up an entire fantasy for the island with a fake history, a fake language & long list of outrageous claims that made his book, A Description of Formosa, a publishing sensation in London in 1704. Even the Bishop of London swallowed Psalmanazar`s story & invited him to teach his (fake) Formosan language at Oxford University. The Formosa fantasy world he created, including elephants & camels, gold mines & outlandish religious sacrificial ceremonies, almost rivals Tolkein`s Middle Earth, with the crucial difference that many people believed it to be real. This is the story of one of the great frauds in literary history. ...

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN`S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2013 Dorothy Forrest is immersed in the sensory world around her; she lives in the flickering moment. From the age of seven, when her odd, disenfranchised family moves from New York City to the wide skies of Auckl&, to the very end of her life, this is her great gift & possible misfortune. Through the wilderness of a commune, to falling in love, to early marriage & motherhood, from the glorious anguish of parenting to the loss of everything worked for & the unexpected return of love, Dorothy is swept along by time. Her family looms & recedes; revelations come to light; death changes everything, but somehow life remains as potent as it ever was, & the joy in just being won`t let her go. In a narrative that shifts & moves, growing as wild as the characters, The Forrests is an extraordinary literary achievement. A novel that sings with colour & memory, it speaks of family & time, dysfunction, ageing & loneliness, about heat, youth, & how life can change if `you`re lucky enough to be around for it`. ...

When a man is found stabbed & floating beneath the cliffs of the Newfoundland coast, the small outpost of Hampden is swept up in a storm of suspicion & paranoia. Grief-stricken & still struggling to cope with the death of one of their own a year earlier, the troubled Now family are among the first to be suspected of the killing. As the mystery around the murdered man unfolds, the lies spiral, the stakes rise & the once close-knit town becomes a prison that no one can escape. ...

Ah Ling: son of a prostitute & a white `ghost`, dispatched from Hong Kong as a boy to make his way alone in 1860s California. Anna May Wong: the first Chinese film star in Hollywood, forbidden to kiss a white man on screen. Vincent Chin: killed by a pair of Detroit auto workers in 1982 simply for looking Japanese. John Ling Smith: a half-Chinese writer visiting China for the first time, to adopt a baby girl. Inspired by three figures who lived at pivotal moments in Chinese-American history, & drawing on his own mixed-race experience, Peter Ho Davies plunges us into what it is like to feel, & be treated, like a foreigner in the country you call home. Ranging from the mouth of the Pearl River to the land of golden opportunity, this remarkable novel spans 150 years to tell a tale of familial bonds denied & fragmented, of tenacity & pride, of prejudice & the universal need to belong. ...