Martine is looking forward to the holidays & riding Jemmy, her white giraffe, until an accident sends her & Ben on a journey to the Matobo Hills wilderness in Zimbabwe. It is a lawless l&, where nothing is as it seems. When they uncover a plot in which the fate of a magnificent leopard & the lost treasure of an African King are mysteriously linked, their friendship faces its greatest test. Far from home & the help of Grace & Tendai, & with Gwyn Thomas languishing, under false accusations, in jail, Martine & Ben must use every survival skill they possess. They`ll come face to face with Griffin, Mercy, Mr Ratcliffe (known as Rat), Magnus the hornbill, & a witch doctor, not to mention Khan, the last leopard. They must decide who their friends are, & who are enemies, as they race against time to save the world`s rarest leopard & each other. This third African adventure is written with all the zest & skill that have endeared so many readers to THE WHITE GIRAFFE & DOLPHIN SONG. ...

David Gilmour`s biography of Giuseppe di Lampedusa unearths the life story of the creator of ” The Leopard”, one of the great novels of the twentieth century. A book whose imagery, once tasted, haunts the reader forever. ” The Leopard” describes the golden era of the nineteenth-century Sicily in all its sensual, fading, aristocratic glory. But beneath the surface lurk Sicily`s millenial contagions
- corruption, brutality & inequality. Who wrote this masterpiece, this work of art? the answer is as unlikely as one might hope. This is a fascinating meditation on what it is that makes a writer.
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Spanning forty years, two women`s stories of love, loss & betrayal are intertwined in this award-winning novel by Jojo Moyes, internationally bestselling author of Me Before You, After You & the new bestseller Still Me. `A fabulous, emotional & evocative book
- perfect for anyone who loves Mad Men` Sophie Kinsella When journalist Ellie looks through her newspaper`s archives for a story, she doesn`t think she`ll find anything of interest. Instead she discovers a letter from 1960, written by a man asking his lover to leave her husband
- & Ellie is caught up in the intrigue of a past love affair. Despite, or perhaps because of her own romantic entanglements with a married man. In 1960, Jennifer wakes up in hospital after a car accident. She can`t remember anything
- her husb&, her friends, who she used to be. & then, when she returns home, she uncovers a hidden letter, & begins to remember the lover she was willing to risk everything for. Ellie & Jennifer`s stories of passion, adultery & loss are wound together in this richly emotive novel
- interspersed with real `last letters`.



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Nick Ostler`s The Last Lingua Franca looks at the rise & fall of world languages, prompting the quesiton ”in the twenty-first century, can we really take the dominance of English for granted?”. In their time, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Sanskrit & Persian have each been world languages, sweeping the globe for centuries at a time. & yet they have all been displaced, just as Nicholas Ostler predicts English will be. What forces drive these linguistic currents? What characteristics do lingua francas share? & most importantly, how do they lose their power? In this revelatory book, Ostler explores the rise of a linguistic diversity that we could never before have imagined. ...

In this provocative & persuasive new book, Nicholas Ostler challenges our assumption that English will continue to dominate as the global lingua franca. Drawing on his encyclopaedic knowledge of world languages & their history, Ostler reveals that just as past great languages like Latin & Sanskrit have died out, so English will follow. The influence of English now is hard to exaggerate
- it is the world's preferred medium for business, science & entertainment, & is claimed to be a basic educational tool like mathematics or computing. So is it here to stay? For the last four centuries, the dominant world power has been English-speaking, but the global balance of power is shifting. & in countries like Brazil, Russia & China, English plays no part in the national tradition. Although globalization has helped the rise of English, trade, migration, economic development & technological innovation are now changing the way we access & use language. Ostler shows how we are headed towards a much more multilingual & diverse future. & as English retreats, no single language will take its place. We can embrace this future but first we need to accept it: the last competitive advantage of native English-speakers will soon be consigned to history.
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A New Statesman Book of the Year London. A city apart. Inimitable. Or so it once seemed. Spiralling from the outer limits of the Overground to the pinnacle of the Shard, Iain Sinclair encounters a metropolis stretched beyond recognition. The vestiges of secret tunnels, the ghosts of saints & lost poets lie buried by developments, the cycling revolution & Brexit. An electrifying final odyssey, The Last London is an unforgettable vision of the Big Smoke before it disappears into the air of memory. ...

THE NEW YORK TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER A hero can`t always be good... Joe Rickman, head of clandestine operations in the Middle East, has been kidnapped, & with him top secret CIA information that could prove disastrous in the wrong hands. Mitch Rapp must find Rickman at all costs. But something doesn`t add up & he soon suspects something even more sinister is afoot. With elements inside his own government working against him, Rapp will have to make to make a tough call between playing the hero & playing nice. Or will he be stopped dead before he can succeed?AMERICAN ASSASSIN, book one in the series, is soon to be a MAJOR MOTION PICTURE starring Dylan O` Brien (Maze Runner), Taylor Kitsch (True Detective) & Michael Keaton. Praise for the Mitch Rapp series ` Sizzles with inside information & CIA secrets` Dan Brown `A cracking, uncompromising yarn that literally takes no prisoners` The Times ` Vince Flynn clearly has one eye on Lee Child`s action thriller throne with this twist-laden story... instantly gripping` Shortlist ` Action-packed, in-your-face, adrenalin-pumped super-hero macho escapist fiction that does exactly what it says on the label` Irish Independent ` Mitch Rapp is a great character who always leaves the bad guys either very sorry for themselves or very dead` Guardian ...

In 1960, when Sir Francis Chichester first raced singlehanded across the Atlantic, it was widely regarded as an insane stunt. Nowadays, the Singlehanded Transatlantic Race is not only accorded the greatest of respect but is also recognised as a true test of stamina & seamanship. Almost half a century after Chichester`s achievement, amateur sailor Paul Heiney entered the race to prove that the Corinthian spirit of the transatlantic pioneers can still get you from one side of the Atlantic to the other
- if you try hard enough. ” The Last Man Across the Atlantic” is an honest account of what it is like to be out there alone. Even the strongest yacht takes a battering after 3, 000 miles & there`s no pit stop for repairs. Sails are torn, water goes sour, the last apple turns to mush & there`s still three weeks to go before sight of l&. Paul Heiney fully expected to be the last man across the Atlantic & said it didn`t bother him in the slightest. ` It`s enough to be able to say you climbed Everest without having to run up it as well. & this is the sailing Everest
- for me, anyway.`

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From Oliver Bullough, the acclaimed author of the Orwell Prize-shortlisted, Let Our Fame Be Great, a study
- part travelogue,
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” Wonderful... These are the chronicles of a writer who truly knows Russia”. (New York Times). Award-winning writer Oliver Bullough travels the country from crowded Moscow train to empty windswept village, following in the footsteps of one extraordinary man, the dissident Orthodox priest Father Dmitry. His moving, terrifying story is the story of a nation: famine, war, the frozen wastes of the Gulag, the collapse of communism & now, a people seeking oblivion. Bullough shows that in a country so willing to crush its citizens, there is also courage, resilience & flickering glimmers of hope. ...