` Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, & in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality.`
- Jonas Salk, inventor
...

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ALI SMITHA classic of fantastic literature, Leonora Carrington`s The Hearing Trumpet is the occult twin to Alice in Wonderl&, published with an introduction by Ali Smith in Penguin Modern Classics. One of the first things ninety-two-year-old Marian Leatherby overhears when she is given an ornate hearing trumpet is her family plotting to commit her to an institution. Soon, she finds herself trapped in a sinister retirement home, where the elderly must inhabit buildings shaped like igloos & birthday cakes, endure twisted religious preaching & eat in a canteen overlooked by the mysterious portrait of a leering Abbess. But when another resident secretly hands Marian a book recounding the life of the Abbess, a joyous & brilliantly surreal adventure begins to unfold. Written in the early 1960s, The Hearing Trumpet remains one of the most original & inspirational of all fantastic novels. Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) was a British born Surrealist painter & writer described, alongside people such as Pablo Picasso & Joan Miro, as one of the leading lights of the Surrealist movement. Born in Lancashire to a strict Catholic family, she first came into contact with surrealism through her lover, Surrealist painter Max Ernst, before moving to Mexico in 1942. The Hearing Trumpet, her most famous piece of writing, was first published in France in 1974. If you enjoyed The Hearing Trumpet, you might like Fernando Pessoa`s The Book of Disquiet, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.` Reading The Hearing Trumpet liberates us from the miserable reality of our days` Luis Bunuel` One of the most original, joyful, satisfying & quietly visionary novels of the twentieth century` Ali Smith` This book is so inspiring...I love its freedom, its humour & how it invents its own laws. What specifically do I take from her? Her wig` Bjoerk ...

Stan & Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of economic & social collapse. Living in their car, surviving on tips from Charmaine`s job at a dive bar, they`re increasingly vulnerable to roving gangs & in a rather desperate state. So when they see an advertisement for the Positron Project in the town of Consilience
- a `social experiment` offering stable jobs & a home of their own
- they sign up immediately. All they have to do in return for this suburban paradise is give up their freedom every second month, swapping their home for a prison cell. At first, all is well. But slowly, unknown to the other, Stan & Charmaine develop a passionate obsession with their counterparts, the couple that occupy their home when they are in prison. Soon the pressures of conformity, mistrust, guilt & sexual desire take over, & Positron looks less like a prayer answered & more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled.

...

` Sensual, evocative & rich with observational truth, this is a vivid & intricate portrait of three extraordinary women` Jeremy Page, author of Closing Time `I will describe it as best I can. This is their story. Or perhaps just mine. Let us begin, again... ` A vivid & inventive debut novel about four generations of women in a family, their past & their legacy, which evokes the work of Kate Atkinson, Tessa Hadley & Virginia Baily. On a brisk day in 1970, a daughter arrives at her mother`s home to take care of her as she nears the end of her life. ` Home` is the sprawling Italian castle of Roccasinibalda, & Diana`s mother is the legendary Caresse Crosby, one half of literature`s most scandalous couple in 1920s Paris, widow of Harry Crosby, the American heir, poet & publisher who epitomised the ` Lost Generation`. But it was not only Harry who was lost. Their incendiary love story concealed a darkness that marked mercurial Diana & still burns through the generations: through Diana`s troubled daughters Elena & Leonie, & Elena`s young children. Moving between the decades, between France, Italy & the Channel Islands, Tamara Colchester`s debut novel is an unforgettably powerful portrait of a line of extraordinary women, & the inheritance they give their daughters. ` This is a bold, striking & confident novel filled with vivid, sometimes shocking, scenes. It spans decades, generations & continents without ever feeling disjointed. This is a stunning introduction to an intriguing new voice in British fiction, who does real justice to her prodigious forebear` Netgalley reviewer ...

” The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” was Carson Mc Cullers` first novel, written in 1940. Set in a small town in the American South, it is the story of a group of people who have little in common except that they are all hopelessly lonely. A young girl, a drunken socialist & a black doctor are drawn to a gentle, sympathetic deaf mute, whose presence changes their lives. This powerful exploration of alienation is both moving & perceptive. ...

A mass grave is uncovered in a devastated Croatian village, & the mutilated body of a young Englishwoman, Dorrie Mowat, is exhumed. Her mother, who detested Dorrie when she was alive, is determined to find out how her daughter died. But with civil war tearing apart the former Yugoslavia, none of the authorities are interested in what they view as a minor war crime. She employs private investigator, Bill Penn, a former MI5 officer, who anticipated a short trip to Zagreb where he will compile a meaningless report & receive a good fee at the end of it. But once he has seen the killing ground, Penn becomes determined to find the truth behind the young woman`s death. As Penn searches for evidence of war crimes, he finds himself pitted against a ruthless opponent who will stop at nothing to cover his tracks... ...

Today Orkney retains a vast archaeological treasury of buildings, artefacts & evidence from this time. In recognition of this, ” The Heart of Neolithic Orkney” was inscribed on the World Heritage List by UNESCO in 1999. Because of their outstanding universal value, ” The monuments of Orkney, dating back to 3000-2000BC, are outstanding testimony to the cultural achievements of the Neolithic peoples of northern Europe.” This guide covers all of the monuments in the nominated area, as well as many contemporary places of interest throughout Orkney. The village of Skara Brae, stone circles of the Ring of Brodgar & the Standing Stones of Stenness, & Maeshowe Chambered Cairn are described in depth. Isolated standing stones, such as the Watchstone, chambered cairns, such as Unstan & more enigmatic sites all over Orkney are included. The major current excavations at the Ness of Brodgar & Links o` Noltland on Westray show that much remains to be discovered about Neolithic Orkney. Numerous smaller scale digs in various other places have elucidated the study of Neolithic houses. Small settlements & isolated homesteads were widespread across Orkney during the Neolithic, reaching a peak c.3000BC, before sharply falling until c.2800BC. There was a revival which peaked c.2500BC, followed by abandonment c.250 years later. ...

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JAMES WOOD. Scobie, a police officer serving in a wartime West African state, is distrusted, being scrupulously honest & immune to bribery. But then he falls in love, & in doing so he is forced to betray everything he believes in, with drastic & tragic consequences. ...

The Heart of Tuscany set of four hiking maps at 1:50, 000 from Kompass covering in all an area from Pistoia north of Florence, across Chianti & the hills of Siena, to Monte Amiata, & in the coastal region from Pisa to Piombino. Coverage

Includes:: Lucca, Livorno & the Etruscan Riviera, San Gimignano, San Miniato, Volterra, Poggibonsi, Monticiano, Montalcino, etc. Contours are at 40m intervals, with a 2-km UTM grid. In addition to the region

...

Camp Chippewa, 1962. Thirteen-year-old Nelson, loner & over-achiever, is nicknamed the Bugler as he proudly sounds the reveille each morning. This is the summer that everything changes, marking the beginning of Nelson`s uncertain friendship with a popular boy named Jonathan, & the discovery of his father`s betrayal, which tears his family apart. As time moves on, Nelson, irrevocably scarred from the Vietnam War, becomes Scoutmaster of Camp Chippewa, while Jonathan marries, divorces, & transforms his father`s business. When something unthinkable happens during a visit from Jonathan`s grandson & daughter-in-law, the aftermath tests the depths
- & the limits
- of Nelson`s selflessness & bravery. Nickolas Butler`s The Hearts of Men is a powerful, wise & deeply affecting novel about the slippery definitions of right & wrong, family & fidelity, & the redemptive power of friendship.

...