Embrace the process of writing & the rich potential of conscious creativity & mindfulness with this enlightening insight into mindful writing. Exploring how writing mindfully can create deeper connections with your words, your characters, & yourself, this carefully crafted manual invites you to embrace the writing process as much as the completed work; plotting out sparkling stories with a Zen-like awareness. Through meditative exercises, engaging anecdotes, & astute notes on perception, imagination, & focus, author helps you to to flow, flourish & lose yourself in writing. Containing 20 mindful writing exercises, this unique guide explores how conscious writing creates mindful awareness, offering a fresh angle on shifting writer`s block. ...

Following on in the same vain of The Joy of Sheds, The Joy of Pubs is an intoxicating publication detailing everything & anything you want to know about pubs. It celebrates the many facets of the traditional British pub over the years, with chapters on: Pub Characters, Pub Games, Pub Fiddles (how the licensee has shafted his customers over the years), Pub Teams & Pub History from Geoffrey Chaucer to Jeffrey Bernard. It features the great pubs of literature
- Robert Louis Stevenson`s Admiral Benbow, Daphne du Maurier`s Jamaica Inn & Charles Dickens` The Grapes; the great pubs of film
- The Crown Inn at Amersham (Four Weddings & a Funeral), the Crown Inn at Wells (Hot Fuzz); the great pubs of TV
- apart from the Rover`s Return, Queen Vic & Woolpack. It features tales of barring, of dodgy deals of riotous lock-ins & of strange hauntings. The perfect present for anyone who loves their pub or just the idea that they have a pub. Word count: 30, 000


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The Joy of Sheds is a shed miscellany that chronicles man`s need for a small space on his own. It`s a humorous look at every aspect of the shed experience, mixed with shed facts & some practical information too. Many famous people have created in sheds. Inventor Trevor Baylis thought up the clockwork radio in a shed, George Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalian in one & Dylan Thomas would compose poetry in his. The average UK male does not tend to devote his shed to poetry, though. Along with chapters on how to customize your shed into an exotic creation, ” Pimp Your Shed”, there are ” Shed Facts”: Almost a fifth of men have had an accident in a shed, it`s the single most dangerous place in the home after the kitchen. Other chapters include ” Shed Vision”, on the typical items stored in sheds, & ” The Genus Shed”, which places the shed in the Linnaean order of buildings. ” Shed Experience” pulls in shed stories from around the world, but particularly Australia, & there are also tales of the ” Euro-Shed”. There are chapters on ” Sheds in Literature” (Lady Chatterly`s Lover & Cold Comfort Farm), ” Sheds at the Movies”, & ” Sheds in Music”. ...

This pocket-sized miscellany, packed with fascinating facts, handy hints & captivating stories "es from the world of walking, is perfect for anyone who knows the incomparable joy & freedom of lacing up your hiking boots & heading for the hills. ...

As well as being the most celebrated diarist of all time, Samuel Pepys was also a hearty drinker, eater & connoisseur of epicurean delights, who indulged in every pleasure seventeenth-century London had to offer. Whether he is feasting on barrels of oysters, braces of carps, larks' tongues & copious amounts of wine, merrymaking in taverns until the early hours, attending formal dinners with lords & ladies or entertaining guests at home with his young wife, these irresistible selections from Pepys' diaries provide a frank, high-spirited & vivid picture of the joys of over-indulgence
- & the side-effects afterwards.
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It is 1942 & the island of Malta is under siege by the dominant German air force. Out of the smoke & magnesium glare of bomb blast steps Rocco Raven, native of Brooklyn, New York, apprentice radioman & expert secondhand car dealer. His only contact is an American secret serviceman, Fingerley, whose rank upgrades with their every meeting & whose purpose is known to no-one but himself. Far from finding a role for Rocco, Fingerley leaves him to face the chaos alone. On only his second day there, his billet, on the top floor of a brothel, is blown to pieces. Without contacts or belongings, Rocco is left to wander the devastated streets of Valetta in a bewildered daze until he sees an apparition, a beautiful, ethereal woman. She is Melita, the Jukebox Queen of Malta, who spends her time delivering the jukeboxes wrought by her cousin from old automobile & gramophone parts to the bars & restaurants which must accommodate the beleagured civilian & military populations. It is the beginning of an extraordinary relationship that is at once passionate & guarded, which flourishes as the island`s fortunes decline. Under the threat of starvation & in a world populated by the eccentrics of war, Rocco`s seems to be the lone voice of sanity, until he too is affected by the madness around him & succumbs to the voluntary thrill of danger... The Jukebox Queen of Malta is an extraordinary novel of passion & intrigue set in a world which seems perilously balanced between what is real & what is not. It is a magnificently evocative piece of storytelling, where the bizarre & heady atmosphere of a society under siege masks the uneasy truce between the Allied occupiers & the Maltese natives, & where the physical beauty is only tainted by the sense of mystery desecrated. ...

Upton Sinclair`s dramatic & deeply moving story exposed the brutal conditions in the Chicago stockyards at the turn of the nineteenth century & brought into sharp moral focus the appalling odds against which immigrants & other working people struggled for their share of the American dream. Denounced by the conservative press as an un-American libel on the meatpacking industry, this book was championed by more progressive thinkers, including then president Theodore Roosevelt, & was a major catalyst to the passing of the Pure Food & Meat Inspection act, which has tremendous impact to this day. ...

There was a story Jahir used to tell me. About how the first humans were born with wings. Can you imagine what that would be like? To fly anywhere in the world without worrying about having the right papers? Mico has left his family, his home, his future. Setting out in search of a better life, he instead finds himself navigating one of the world`s most inhospitable environments
- the Jungle. For Mico, just one of many `unaccompanied children`, the Calais refugee camp has a wildness, a brutality all of its own. A melting pot of characters, cultures, & stories, the Jungle often seems like its own strange world. But despite his ambitions to escape, Mico is unable to buy his way out from the ` Ghost Men`
- the dangerous men with magic who can cross borders unnoticed. Alone, desperate, & running out of options, the idea of jumping onto a speeding train to the UK begins to feel worryingly appealing. But when Leila arrives at the camp one day, everything starts to change. Outspoken, gutsy, & fearless, she shows Mico that hope & friendship can grow in the most unusual places, & maybe, just maybe, they`ll show you the way out as well.

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The Jungle Books tell the story of the irrepressible Mowgli, who is rescued as a baby from the jaws of the evil tiger, Shere Khan. Raised by wolves & guided by Baloo the bear, Mowgli & his animal friends embark on a series of hair-raising adventures through the jungles of India. ...

Mowgli`s story comes to life in this classic retelling of Rudyard Kipling`s The Jungle Book, featuring beautiful, vibrant illustrations by Migy Blanco. Mowgli loves living in the jungle with his wolf family & his friends Baloo the bear & Bagheera the panther. He`s been learning the ways of the jungle ever since he was a little boy. But when the tiger Shere Khan tries to turn the pack against Mowgli, making him feel unwelcome, Mowgli realizes he may not belong here after all. But what will happen when it`s time for the boy to leave the wolf pack that raised him to go live with his people? ...