Ian Young spent a summer as a medical student in a provincial maternity unit in Algeria. This book is taken from the diary he began on arrival, when he found himself the privileged witness of the insides not just of Kabyl women, but also some much-trumpeted ideology. The immediate villains are a couple of expatriate Bulgarian gynaecologists. Dr Vasilev, at the closing stages of a career of fathomless incompetence, forms a bond of affection with the author & they spend many hours in the office over an old route map of Bulgaria, discussing mileages & motorcycles as Maternity drifts beneath them like an abandoned ship. Dr Kostov packs a powerful bedside punch & saves his humanitarian feelings for the health of the Deutschmark. The two form a macabre comic team as they take the reader through a series of medical nightmares. But their lot is scarcely more enviable than that of their female victims: the foreign doctors are the unhappy executors, working in blood, excrement & death, of the most respected attitudes in Algeria. ” The Private Life of Islam” is a ruthlessly clear-sighted view of a particular place at a particular time. It is also a classic in the art of story-telling.`A real achievement, personal as well as literary`
- David Pryce-Jones, ” The Times”. `A parable of the reality behind a vast amount of modern social & political fantasy, even in the most developed of countries`
- David Holden, ” Sunday Times”.

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` Borman approaches her topic with huge enthusiasm & a keen eye for entertaining...this is a very human story of a remarkable family, full of vignettes that sit long in the mind.` Dan Jones, The Sunday Times ` Tracy Borman`s eye for detail is impressive; the book is packed with fascinating courtly minutiae...this is a wonderful book.` The Times ` Borman is an authoritative & engaging writer, good at prising out those humanising details that make the past alive to us.` The Observer ` Fascinating, detailed account of the everyday reality of the royals... This is a book of rich scholarship.` Daily Mail ` Tracy Borman`s passion for the Tudor period shines forth from the pages of this fascinatingly detailed book, which vividly illuminates what went on behind the scenes at the Tudor court.` Alison Weir `I do not live in a corner. A thousand eyes see all I do.` Elizabeth I The Tudor monarchs were constantly surrounded by an army of attendants, courtiers & ministers. Even in their most private moments, they were accompanied by a servant specifically appointed for the task.A groom of the stool would stand patiently by as Henry VIII performed his daily purges, & when Elizabeth I retired for the evening, one of her female servants would sleep at the end of her bed. These attendants knew the truth behind the glamorous exterior. They saw the tears shed by Henry VII upon the death of his son Arthur. They knew the tragic secret behind ` Bloody` Mary`s phantom pregnancies. & they saw the `crooked carcass` beneath Elizabeth I`s carefully applied makeup, gowns & accessories. It is the accounts of these eyewitnesses, as well as a rich array of other contemporary sources that historian Tracy Borman has examined more closely than ever before. With new insights & discoveries, & in the same way that she brilliantly illuminated the real Thomas Cromwell
- The Private Life of the Tudors will reveal previously unexamined details about the characters we think we know so well.
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This book contains an introduction by Lucy Hughes-Hallett. Robert is a difficult & disturbed young man. He comes from a troubled family background & turns to his Calvinist faith for solace but finds it hard to get along with other people, particularly his brother & his dissolute father. After he falls in with the mysterious & charming Gil-Martin his actions become more & more extreme. He convinces himself that he is one of the lucky few who have been chosen for heaven & that therefore all his actions are automatically right & good...even murder. ...

It is Scotland in the early eighteenth century. Fear & superstition grip the l&. Robert Wringhim, a boy of strict Calvinist upbringing, is corrupted by a shadowy figure who calls himself Gil-Martin. Under his influence Robert commits a series of murders which he regards as `justified` by God under the tenets of his faith. Hogg`s masterpiece is a brilliant portrayal of the power of evil & a scathing critique of organised religion. Superbly crafted & deftly executed, it resists any easy explanation of events: is this stranger a figment of Robert`s imagination, or the devil himself? ...

Peking, 1914. Eight-year-old Eastern Jewel peers from behind a screen as her father, Prince Su makes love to a servant girl. Caught spying by her thirteenth sister, Eastern Jewel's sexual curiosity sees her banished to live with distant relatives in Tokyo, then forced into a passionless marriage in freezing Mongolia. Increasingly isolated, at night she is plagued by disturbing fantasies & unsettling dreams. But she refuses to be pinned down by anyone
- least of all a man
- & in the dazzling city of Shanghai she puts her thrill-seeking nature to work spying for the Japanese, spurning everything she once held dear Based on the real-life story of Yoshiko Kawashima, Chinese princess turned ruthless Japanese spy, The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel is an intoxicating tale of sexual manipulation & self-discovery that spans three countries & a world war.

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The classic, bestselling account of the infamous Kray twins, now a major film, starring Tom Hardy. Reggie & Ronnie Kray ruled London`s gangland during the 60s with a ruthlessness & viciousness that shocks even now. Building an empire of organised crime that has never been matched, the brothers swindled, extorted & terrorised
- while enjoying a glittering celebrity status at the heart of the swinging 60s scene, until their downfall & imprisonment for life.
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This is a picture books of great beauty & hope about the power we have to transform our world. On a mean street in a mean city, a thief tries to snatch an old woman`s bag. But she finds she can`t have it without promising something in return
- to ”plant them all”. When it turns out the bag is full of acorns, the young thief embarks on a journey that changes her own life & the lives of others for generations to come. Inspired by the belief that a relationship with nature is essential to every human being, & that now, more than ever, we need to renew that relationship, The Promise is the story of a magical discovery that will touch the heart & imagination of every reader, young & old. With poignant simplicity, honesty & lyricism, Nicola Davies evokes a powerful vision of a world where people & nature live in harmony. & Laura Carlin`s delicate illustrations capture a young girl`s journey from a harsh, urban reality to the beauty & vitality of a changed world. This is a story with a strong ”green” message. It features remarkable design & illustrations. It is lavishly produced with jacket.
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This is a picture book of great beauty & hope about the power we have to transform our world. On a mean street in a mean city, a thief tries to snatch an old woman`s bag. But she finds she can`t have it without promising something in return
- to ”plant them all”. When it turns out the bag is full of acorns, the young thief embarks on a journey that changes her own life & the lives of others for generations to come. Inspired by the belief that a relationship with nature is essential to every human being, & that now, more than ever, we need to renew that relationship, The Promise is the story of a magical discovery that will touch the heart & imagination of every reader, young & old. With poignant simplicity, honesty & lyricism, Nicola Davies evokes a powerful vision of a world where people & nature live in harmony. & Laura Carlin`s delicate illustrations capture a young girl`s journey from a harsh, urban reality to the beauty & vitality of a changed world. It is moving, touching, unforgettable. It received a Bologna Ragazzi Award Special Mention in 2014. It is a story with a strong ”green” message. It features breathtaking design & illustration.
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Whenever an august figure departs the world of cricket, The Daily Telegraph records a decorous tribute. There will certainly be an obituary
- in days of yore penned by the doyen of cricket writers, E.W. Swanton, in recent times unafraid to be a lot more whimsical, waspish, & even extremely funny. There will often be an appreciation by one of the paper`s stable of cricket correspondents, such as Derek Pringle, Michael Henderson or Scyld Berry, most likely drawing on their memories of having played against the subject or watched his deeds. & sometimes a hero`s demise will prompt a heartfelt tribute from someone whose only qualification as an elegist is their own eloquence, as John Major displays on Denis Compton & Michael Parkinson on Keith Miller. & those cricket lives deemed worthy of memorialising need not be illustrious Test careers, though all the great names from Bradman to Bedser, Cowdrey to D` Oliviera, are here. They can also be quixotic county mavericks like ` Bomber` Wells, self-effacing professionals like Tom Cartwright & Derek Shackleton, or charismatic one-offs like Colin Milburn or the Nawab of Pataudi. They may not even be cricketers, but rather much-loved commentators & broadcasters like Brian Johnston & Christopher Martin-Jenkins, players-turned-umpires like David Shepherd & Bill Alley, or, like the Bishop of Liverpool who previously opened for Sussex & Engl&, have made their name equally elsewhere. Their achievements are often hymned by their peers
- Mark Nicholas on his Hampshire team-mate Malcolm Marshall, Tony Lewis on John Arlott, Colin Croft on Alf Valentine, & Simon Hughes on facing the fearsome Sylvester Clarke. Here, then, are more than eighty greats of the game
- Australians & South Africans alongside Somerset yeomen & Yorkshire`s finest. For any cricket lover, this little book is an endlessly browsable testament to the sheer richness & variety of the cricketing life.


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From the detention centre on Ellis Isl&, Ludwig Somner looks across a small stretch of water to the glittering towers of New York, which whisper seductively of freedom after so many years of wandering through a perlious, suffering Europe. Remarque`s final novel, left unfinished at his death, tells of the precarious life of the refugee – life lived in hotel lobbies, on false passports, the strange, ill-assorted refugee community held together by an unspeakable past. For Somner, each new luxury
- ice cream served in drugstores, bright shop windows, art, a new suit, a new romance
- has a bittersweet edge. Memories of war & inhumanity continue to resurface even in this peaceful promised l&.A haunting snapshot of a unique time, place & predicament, this is another powerful comment from Remarque on the devastating effects of war.

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