Recovering from a hip replacement operation, & suffering from a mid-life crisis, Iain Gately sets out to catch a tube. This is no London underground train, but rather that evanescent space, beneath the lip of a breaking wave, that every surfer yearns to visit. In all his years of surfing, Iain Gately has never caught one. He realises it is now or never. His quest takes him to the Atlantic beaches of England`s West Country, & to the sandbars & reefs of Galicia & the Canary Isl&. By turns funny, energetic & inspiring, The Secret Surfer is a tale of self-knowledge through endeavour, a beguiling blend of black humour, adventure & soul searching. Above all, it is a rousing call to all of us not to give up too soon. ...

Espionage & counter-espionage between the Soviets & the British during London`s Roaring Twenties At the height of the hedonistic Jazz Age, many in British society became convinced that they were under attack from the new Soviet state. Still reeling from the Russian revolution of 1917, disturbed by the development of militant workers movements at home, & deeply paranoid about the recent wave of Russian immigration to the UK, the British government tasked the intelligence services to look for evidence of espionage. Over the next decade, as the political pressure mounted, the spooks began to cast their net of suspicion wider, to include not only suspect Russians, but British aristocrats, Bloomsbury artists, ordinary workers, & even members of parliament. It was the biggest spying operation in British Intelligence`s peacetime history to date, undertaken with enthusiastic support from anti-Red crusaders like Winston Churchill, & its ramifications were profound. On the strength of the evidence uncovered, Britain deported hundreds of Russians & broke off diplomatic links with Moscow for more than two years. This was the first Cold War, & it not only set the rules of engagement for Russia & Britain for decades to come, but also sent shockwaves through the British establishment, bringing down a government & ending careers. Drawing on a wealth of recently declassified & previously unseen material, Timothy Phillips uncovers a world of suspicion & extremism, bureaucracy & betrayal set against the sparkling backdrop of cocktail-era London. The Secret Twenties shines fresh light on a glamorous decade, & offers a gripping account of the lives of the first Soviet spies, the British Secret Services that pursued them & the double agents in their midst. ...

In the 1920s, many in the British establishment became convinced that their way of life was being threatened by the new Soviet state. The British government launched vast spying operations in response, carrying out surveillance on not only suspect Russians, but British aristocrats, Bloomsbury artists, ordinary workers & even MPs. What they discovered had profound ramifications for the whole of British society, dividing the nation & laying the foundations for the later Cold War. Drawing on a wealth of recently declassified archives, The Secret Twenties tells the story of the first Soviet spies & the double agents in their midst, all of it set against the sparkling backdrop of cocktail-era London. ...

T.S. Spivet is a genius mapmaker who lives on a ranch in Montana. His father is a silent cowboy & his mother is a scientist who for the last twenty years has been looking for a mythical species of beetle. His brother has gone, his sister seems normal but might not be, & his dog
- Verywell
- is going mad. T.S. makes sense of it all by drawing beautiful, meticulous maps kept in innumerable colour-coded notebooks. He is brilliant, & the Smithsonian Institution agrees, though when they award him a major scientific prize they don`t suspect for a moment that he is twelve years old. So begins T.S.`s life-changing adventure, travelling two thousand miles across America to reach the awards dinner, the secret-society membership & the TV interviews that beckon. But is this what he wants? Do maps & lists explain the world? & why are adults so strange?

...

With pages & pages of stickers plus a brilliant pull out poster, this amazing book helps you to find out all about the secret world of Hello Kitty! Discover all of the things that Hello Kitty dreams about
- from being a superstar, fashion designer or superhero, to having lots of friends & being happy. Complete the pages with your stickers & enter into Hello Kitty`s secret world!
...

Few small islands play host to as much variety of landscape as Britain, from towering mountain ranges in the north, across rolling hills & cities of architectural splendour, to sandy beaches & rugged coves in the south. Shown here in all its majestic beauty, the stunning photographs include Loch Lomond, the Yorkshire Dales, Brighton Pavilion, & much more. ...

London, 1883: All is quiet at 125 Gower Street. Sidney Grice is swotting up on the anatomical structure of human hair whilst his ward, March Middleton, sneaks upstairs for her eighth secret cigarette of the day. The household is, perhaps, too quiet. So, when a beautiful young woman turns up at the door, imploring London`s foremost personal detective to solve the mystery of her father`s murder, Grice can barely disguise his glee. Mr Nathan Garstang was found slaughtered in his bed, but there is no trace of a weapon or intruder. A classic locked-room case. But what piques Grice`s interest is the crime`s link to one of London`s most notorious unsolved murders... ...

The Secrets of Happiness is an extraordinary tale of sisterhood, from Lucy Diamond author of The Beach Cafe. The best things in life.. .can be just around the corner Rachel & Becca aren`t real sisters, or so they say. They are stepsisters, living far apart, with little in common. Rachel is the successful one: happily married with three children & a big house, plus an impressive career. Artistic Becca, meanwhile, lurches from one dead-end job to another, shares a titchy flat, & has given up on love. The two of them have lost touch, but when Rachel doesn`t come home one night, Becca is called in to help. Once there, she quickly realizes that her stepsister`s life is not so perfect after all: Rachel`s handsome husband has moved out, her children are rebelling, & her glamorous career has taken a nosedive. Worst of all, nobody seems to have a clue where she might be. As Becca begins to untangle Rachel`s secrets, she is forced to confront some uncomfortable truths about her own life, & the future seems uncertain. But sometimes happiness can be found in the most unexpected places.. . ...

A breathtaking land of wildly varied landscapes, Ireland is shown here in all its awe-inspiring glory. From familiar tourist spots to seldom-seen vistas, this stunning new illustrated book captures the country as you've never seen it before. It covers the whole of the Emerald Isle from Ulster North to Munster South, from Giant's Causeway to the Cliffs of Moher. ...

There is Michelangelo, but also the mafia. Pavarotti, but also Berlusconi. The debonair Milanese, but also the infamous captain of the Costa Concordia cruise ship. This is Italy, admired & reviled, a country that has guarded her secrets & confounded outsiders for centuries. At a time when this Italian paradox is more evident than ever, cultural authority Corrado Augias poses the puzzling questions: how did it get this way? How can this peninsula be simultaneously the home of geniuses & criminals, the cradle of beauty & the butt of jokes? An instant 1 bestseller in Italy, Augias` latest sets out to rediscover the story
- different from the history
- of his country. Beginning with how Italy is seen from the outside & from the inside, he weaves a geo-historical narrative, passing through principal cities, re-reading classics & biographies of the people that have, for better or worse, made Italians who they are. From the gloomy atmosphere of Cagliostro`s Palermo to the elegant court of Maria Luigia in Parma, from the birth of the ghetto of Venice to the heroic blaze of the Neapolitan uprising against the Nazis, Augias sheds light on the true Italian character under the surface, explaining her not only to outsiders, but to Italians themselves. The result is a sort of novel of a nation, whose protagonists are both the figures we know from the history & literature, & characters long-hidden between the cracks of historical narrative & memory.

...