Set in the tumultuous last year of Leo Tolstoy's life, The Last Station centres on the battle for his soul waged by his wife & his leading disciple. Torn between his professed doctrine of poverty & chastity on the one hand & the reality of his life of hedonism on the other, Tolstoy makes a dramatic flight from his home. Too ill to continue beyond the tiny station of Astapovo, he believes he is dying alone, while outside over one hundred newspapermen are awaiting hourly reports on his condition. Narrated in six different voices, The Last Station is a richly inventive novel that dances bewitchingly between fact & fiction. ...

Marrakech is the heart & lifeblood of Morocco's ancient storytelling tradition. For nearly a thousand years, storytellers have gathered in the Jemaa el Fna, the legendary square of the city, to recount ancient folktales & fables to rapt audiences. But this unique chain of oral tradition that has passed seamlessly from generation to generation is teetering on the brink of extinction. The competing distractions of television, movies & the internet have drawn the crowds away from the storytellers & few have the desire to learn the stories & continue their legacy. Richard Hamilton has witnessed at first hand the death throes of this rich & captivating tradition &, in the labyrinth of the Marrakech medina, has tracked down the last few remaining storytellers, recording stories that are replete with the mysteries & beauty of the Maghreb. ...

Marrakech is the heart & lifeblood of Morocco`s ancient storytelling tradition. For nearly a thousand years, storytellers have gathered in the Jemaa el Fna, the legendary square of the city, to recount ancient folktales & fables to rapt audiences. But this unique chain of oral tradition that has passed seamlessly from generation to generation is teetering on the brink of extinction. The competing distractions of television, movies & the internet have drawn the crowds away from the storytellers & few have the desire to learn the stories & continue their legacy. Richard Hamilton has witnessed at first hand the death throes of this rich & captivating tradition &, in the labyrinth of the Marrakech medina, has tracked down the last few remaining storytellers, recording stories that are replete with the mysteries & beauty of the Maghreb. ...

Limpet, Steffan & Jared. Three best friends crammed into a clapped-out rust bucket of a car on a whirlwind road trip to forget their troubles & see out the end of the summer. But no matter how far they drive, they can`t escape the hidden secrets & slow-burning romance that could upset the balance of their friendship
- perhaps forever.
...

It`s the Summer of 1967. The sun shines brightly over Boundary Pond, a holiday haven on the US-Canadian border. Families relax in the heat, happy & carefree. Hours tick away to the sound of radios playing ` Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds` & `A Whiter Shade of Pale`. Children run along the beach as the heady smell of barbecues fills the air. Zaza Mulligan & Sissy Morgan, with their long, tanned legs & silky hair, relish their growing reputation as the red & blonde Lolitas. Life seems idyllic. But then Zaza disappears, & the skies begin to cloud over... ...

In The Last Train to Zona Verde, Paul Theroux grippingly & compellingly examines the places & people he encounters as he journeys by bus from Cape Town to Luanda. From there, he plans to travel by train to the Green Zone, where African traditions & values, & wild animals survive. By doing so, he shows us an Africa away from the typical tourist destinations in what, he admits, will probably be his last trip through this continent. His bus trip through South Africa, Namibia & Angola proves to be a long & difficult journey. His vivid writing style allows us to witness the squalid bus stations, the suburban shantytowns, the poverty & the semi anarchy that seem all-pervasive in this account ...

In The Last Train to Zona Verde, Paul Theroux grippingly & compellingly examines the places & people he encounters as he journeys by bus from Cape Town to Luanda. From there, he plans to travel by train to the Green Zone, where African traditions & values, & wild animals survive. By doing so, he shows us an Africa away from the typical tourist destinations in what, he admits, will probably be his last trip through this continent. His bus trip through South Africa, Namibia & Angola proves to be a long & difficult journey. His vivid writing style allows us to witness the squalid bus stations, the suburban shantytowns, the poverty & the semi anarchy that seem all-pervasive in this account – an account in which the author only occasionally lightens the mood with dark & dry humour. The conditions of the people & countries he observes offer many opportunities for reflection on such issues as the growing Chinese presence, foreign aids, game reserves & political leadership. The Last Train to Zona Verde tells of the sad reality endemic to these regions, & as a result, the author is critical & angry in places. He reveals the dark side of what he calls “the kingdom of light”; a place he loves, but the poverty & desperation, along with the injustice he finds there, upsets him. He concludes that Africa’s hopes for improvement lie in the Green Zone; yet, he ultimately cannot face going there. ...

` How long do I have?` I force a laugh.` Not long, ` he says very quietly. ` They have confirmed your sentence of death. You are to be beheaded tomorrow. We don`t have long at all.` Jane Grey was Queen of England for nine days. Using her position as cousin to the deceased king, her father & his conspirators put her on the throne ahead of the king`s half-sister Mary, who quickly mustered an army, claimed her crown & locked Jane in the Tower. When Jane refused to betray her Protestant faith, Mary sent her to the executioner`s block. There Jane turned her father`s greedy, failed grab for power into her own brave & tragic martyrdom. ` Learn you to die` is the advice that Jane gives in a letter to her younger sister Katherine, who has no intention of dying. She intends to enjoy her beauty & her youth & find love. But her lineage makes her a threat to the insecure & infertile Queen Mary &, when Mary dies, to her sister Queen Elizabeth, who will never allow Katherine to marry & produce a potential royal heir before she does. So when Katherine`s secret marriage is revealed by her pregnancy, she too must go to the Tower. ` Farewell, my sister, ` writes Katherine to the youngest Grey sister, Mary. A beautiful dwarf, disregarded by the court, Mary finds it easy to keep secrets, especially her own, while avoiding Elizabeth`s suspicious glare. After watching her sisters defy the queen, Mary is aware of her own perilous position as a possible heir to the throne. But she is determined to command her own destiny & be the last Tudor to risk her life in matching wits with her ruthless & unforgiving cousin Elizabeth. Praise for Philippa Gregory: ` Meticulously researched & deeply entertaining, this story of betrayal & divided loyalties is Gregory on top form` Good Housekeeping ` Gregory has popularised Tudor history perhaps more than any other living fiction writer...all of her books feature strong, complex women, doing their best to improve their lives in worlds dominated by men` Sunday Times ` Engrossing` Sunday Express ` Popular historical fiction at its finest, immaculately researched & superbly told` The Times ...

One hundred years have passed since Robert Falcon Scott's beleagured expeditionary team arrived at the South Pole, only to find that they had been beaten by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. The most feted explorer of his generation, Amundsen counted the discovery of the Northwest Passage, in 1905, as well as the North Pole amongst his greatest achievements. In the golden age of polar exploration Amundsen, whose revolutionary approach to technology transcends polar & nautical significance, was a titan among men. However, until now, his story has rarely featured as more than a footnote to Scott's tragic failure. Reviled for defeating Scott but worshipped by his men, Amundsen was pursued by women & creditors throughout his life before disappearing on a rescue mission for the Italian Fascist who had set off in an airship to claim the North Pole for Mussolini. The Last Viking is the life of a visionary & a showman, who brought the era of Shackleton to an end, put the newly independent Norway on the map & was the twentieth century's brightest trailblazing explorer. Against the backdrop of the race to conquer the most inhospitable corners of the earth, The Last Viking stands alongside The Worst Journey in the World for its grim immediacy of heroism & hardship. Bestriding the generation defined by adventure & the unquenchable desire for discovery, it is the mesmerising story of courage, misery, friendship & the ultimate price paid for immortality. ...

Volcanoes have fascinated & terrified people for ages. They have destroyed cities & ended civilizations. John Dvorak, the acclaimed author of Earthquake Storms, looks into the early scientific study of volcanoes & the life of the man who pioneered the field, Thomas Jaggar. Educated at Harvard, Jaggar went to the Caribbean after Mount Pelee exploded in 1902, killing more than 26, 000 people. Witnessing the destruction & learning about the horrible deaths these people had suffered, Jaggar vowed to dedicate himself to a study of volcanoes. What followed was fifty years of global travel to eruptions in Italy, Alaska, Central America, Japan & the Pacific. In 1912, he built a small science station at the edge of a lake of molten lava at Kilauea volcano in the Hawaiian Islands, with the goal of solving the mystery of why volcanoes erupt & how they could be predicted. Jaggar found something else at Kilauea: true love. She was Isabel Maydwell, a widowed school teacher who came to Kilauea to restart her life. For more than twenty ears, she & Jaggar ran the science station, living in a small house at the edge of a high cliff that overlooked the lava lake. Maydwell would quickly becoming one of the world s most astute observers of volcanic activity. Mixed with tales of myths & rituals, as well as the author s own experiences & insight into volcanic activity, The Last Volcano reveals the lure & romance of confronting nature in its most magnificent form the edge of a volcanic eruption. ...