Every ending starts with a beginning; every beginning, an end. Boyd & Vita have been separated for six years when Boyd asks if he can move back into the house they still own, bringing with him his twenty-seven-year-old girlfriend, Honey. Of course Vita agrees: enough water has travelled under enough bridges since her marriage to Boyd ended & she is totally over him; nothing can touch her now. Boyd & Honey move in & everyone is happy, or so it seems. However, all three are keeping secrets. ...

Marina Benjamin grew up in London, feeling estranged from her family`s Middle Eastern ways, refusing to speak Arabic or eat their food. But when Benjamin had her own child a few years ago, she realized that she was losing her link to the past, inspiring a journey to Baghdad & into her family`s history. Her discoveries will haunt anyone who seeks to understand a country whose ongoing struggles continue to command the world`s attention. By turns moving & funny, ” Last Days in Babylon” is an adventure story, a riveting history & a timely reminder that behind today`s headlines are real people whose lives are caught in the crossfire of misunderstanding, prejudice & ambition. ...

By the end of the nineteenth century, Detroit, founded by the French as a fur-trading post, was thriving. In 1913 Henry Ford began mass-producing cars at his Model T plant, transforming the area into the Silicon Valley of its day. By 1920 it was the fourth largest city in America & by the mid-1950s General Motors had become the single biggest employer on earth. Here indeed was 'the most modern city in the world, the city of tomorrow'. But by the time Berry Gordy founded Motown Records in 1960
- thereby creating twentieth-century Detroit's other great assembly line
- the cracks were already beginning to show: big industry was looking elsewhere for cheaper sites, cheaper labour & better tax breaks; urban planning was in meltdown; corruption was rife; racial tensions were running high. The 1967 riots
- at the time the worst in US history
- left 43 dead, more than 7, 000 arrested & 3, 000 buildings destroyed. Detroit, a former beacon of the capitalist dream, had degenerated into an urban wilderness where unemployment ran at 50 per cent. With more guns in the city than people, the murder rate was the highest in America
- three times that of New York. Mark Binelli returned to live in his native Detroit after a break of many years. He tells the story of the boom & the bust
- & of the new society to be found emerging from the debris: Detroit with its urban farms & vibrant arts scene; Detroit as a laboratory for the post-industrial, post-recession world. Here's what an iconic rust-belt city now looks like & how it might transform & regenerate itself in the twenty-first century.





...

Once America`s capitalist dream town, the Silicon Valley of the Jazz Age, Detroit became the country`s greatest urban failure, having fallen the longest & the furthest. The city of Henry Ford, modernity, & Motown found itself blighted by riots, arson, unemployment, crime & corruption. But what happens to a once-great place after it has been used up & discarded? Who stays there to try to make things work again? & what sorts of newcomers are drawn there? Mark Binelli returned to his native Detroit to explore the city`s swathes of abandoned buildings, miles of urban prairie, & streest filled with wild dogs, to tell the story of the new society emerging from the debris. Here he chronicles Detroit with its urban farms & vibrant arts scene, Detroit as a laboratory for the post-industrial, post-recession world, Detroit reimagined as a city for a new century. ...

A thriller of a war that never was
- of survival in an impossible city
- of surreal cataclysm. In The Last Days of New Paris,

...

It`s two decades since Chris Stewart moved to his farm on the wrong side of a river in the mountains of southern Spain & his daughter Chloe is preparing to fly the nest for university. In this latest, typically hilarious dispatch from El Valero we find Chris, now a local literary celebrity, using his fame to help his old sheep-shearing partner find work on a raucous road trip; cooking a TV lunch for visiting British chef, Rick Stein; discovering the pitfalls of Spanish public speaking; &, most movingly, visiting famine-stricken Niger for Oxfam. Yet it`s at El Valero, his beloved sheep farm, that Chris remains in his element as he, his wife Ana & their assorted dogs, cats & sheep weather a near calamitous flood & emerge as newly certified organic farmers. His cash crop? The lemons & oranges he once so blithely drove over, of course. ...

Told for the first time in English, Paul Preston`s new book tells the story of a preventable tragedy that cost many thousands of lives & ruined tens of thousands more at the end of the Spanish Civil War. This is the story of an avoidable humanitarian tragedy that cost many thousands of lives & ruined tens of thousands more. It has many protagonists but centres on three individuals. One, Dr Juan Negrin, the victim of what might be termed a conspiracy of fools, tried to prevent it. Two bore responsibility for what transpired. One of those, Julian Besteiro, was guilty of culpable naivety. The other, Segismundo Casado behaved with a remarkable combination of cynicism, arrogance & selfishness. On 5 March 1939, the eternally malcontent Colonel Casado launched a military coup against the government of Juan Negrin. Ironically, he ensured that the end of the Spanish Civil War was almost identical to its beginning. As Mola, Franco & the other conspirators of 1936 had done, Casado led a part of the Republican Army in revolt against the Republican government. He claimed, as they had done, & equally without foundation, that Negrin`s government was the puppet of the Communist Party & that a coup was imminent to establish a Communist dictatorship. Casado`s ambition was to go down in history as the man who ended the Spanish Civil War. Instead he ensured the Republic ended in catastrophe & shame as Negrin`s attempts to achieve an honourable & negotiated peace with guarantees for the civilian population were thwarted & Franco & his forces wreaked havoc & revenge. Madrid collapsed into civil war & two thousand people died. Refugees fled reprisals in their thousands & those who couldn`t escape met a terrible fate. Paul Preston, the leading historian of 20th century Spain, tells this shocking story for the first time in English. It is a harrowing tale of how the flawed decisions of politicans can lead to tragedy. ...

Told for the first time in English, Paul Preston`s new book tells the story of a preventable tragedy that cost many thousands of lives & ruined tens of thousands more at the end of the Spanish Civil War. This is the story of an avoidable humanitarian tragedy that cost many thousands of lives & ruined tens of thousands more. It has many protagonists but centres on three individuals. One, Dr Juan Negrin, the victim of what might be termed a conspiracy of fools, tried to prevent it. Two bore responsibility for what transpired. One of those, Julian Besteiro, was guilty of culpable naivety. The other, Segismundo Casado behaved with a remarkable combination of cynicism, arrogance & selfishness. On 5 March 1939, the eternally malcontent Colonel Casado launched a military coup against the government of Juan Negrin. Ironically, he ensured that the end of the Spanish Civil War was almost identical to its beginning. As Mola, Franco & the other conspirators of 1936 had done, Casado led a part of the Republican Army in revolt against the Republican government. He claimed, as they had done, & equally without foundation, that Negrin`s government was the puppet of the Communist Party & that a coup was imminent to establish a Communist dictatorship. Casado`s ambition was to go down in history as the man who ended the Spanish Civil War. Instead he ensured the Republic ended in catastrophe & shame as Negrin`s attempts to achieve an honourable & negotiated peace with guarantees for the civilian population were thwarted & Franco & his forces wreaked havoc & revenge. Madrid collapsed into civil war & two thousand people died. Refugees fled reprisals in their thousands & those who couldn`t escape met a terrible fate. Paul Preston, the leading historian of 20th century Spain, tells this shocking story for the first time in English. It is a harrowing tale of how the flawed decisions of politicans can lead to tragedy. ...

Simon Armitage is rightly celebrated as one of the country`s most original & engaging poets; but he is also an adaptor & translator of some of our most important epics, such as Sir Gawain & the Green Knight, The Death of King Arthur & Homer`s Odyssey. The latter, originally a commission for BBC Radio, rendered the classical tale with all the flare, wit & engagement that we have come to expect from this most distinctive of contemporary authors, & in so doing brought Odysseus` return from the Trojan War memorably to life. ...

1870. Charles Dickens is dead. The final instalment of his last manuscript has vanished. The script was last seen addressed to the publisher whose fortunes depend on it. Since its sudden disappearance the only clue to its whereabouts is a trail of brutal murders. With his livelihood
- indeed his life
- in jeopardy, Dickens` publisher sets out to unravel the mystery. The trail leads him from bustling West End theatres, through grimy East End backstreets, into the fug of illicit opium dens, as the crime he hopes to solve ensnares him.

...