” Guillermo Stein came to school in the middle of the year, arriving on a bicycle. None of us came to school by bicycle.” The Stein Report, a short novel set in the island of Majorca in the 1960s, kicks off with the arrival of a newcomer that will throw things off balance. Curious about him, Stein`s schoolmates will try to unravel the secrets concealed by this enigmatic character-a quest that will lead them to unveil unanswered questions of their own past & catch a fleeting glimpse of the adult world ahead of them. ...

The women of Stepford are not all that they seem... All the beautiful people live in idyllic Stepford, Connecticut, an affluent, suburban Eden populated with successful, satisfied hubbies & beautiful, dutiful wives. For Joanna Eberhart, newly arrived with her husband & two children, it all seems too good to be true
- from the sweet Welcome Wagon lady to all those cheerful, friendly faces in the supermarket checkout lines. But just beneath the town`s flawless surface, something is sordid & wrong
- something abominable with roots in the local Men`s Association. & it may already be too late for Joanna to save herself from being devoured by Stepford`s hideous perfection.

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When Steve meets Steve, neither can believe it. Surely one of them must be the first Steve, the best Steve, the Stevest Steve... The claims of each puffin become sillier & sillier as the argument descends into name-calling
- until both Steves realize there`s really no need to fall out over a name. The feuding puffins perfectly reflect the sort of silly arguments children have
- & The Steves shows just how pointless they are. The bold, brilliantly coloured, graphic illustrations will have you laughing out loud in this glorious book from Morag Hood, creator of the hilarious Colin & Lee, Carrot & Pea & I Am Bat.

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At the turn of the twentieth century, Arctic explorer Edward Mackley sets out to reach the North Pole & vanishes into the icy landscape without a trace. He leaves behind a young wife, Emily, who awaits his return for decades, her dreams & devotion gradually freezing into rigid widowhood. A hundred years later, on a sweltering mid-summer`s day, Edward`s great-gr&-niece Julia moves through the old family house, attempting to impose some order on the clutter of inherited belongings & memories from that ill-fated expedition, & taking care to ignore the deepening cracks within her own marriage. But as afternoon turns into evening, Julia makes a discovery that splinters her long-held image of Edward & Emily`s romance, & her husband Simon faces a precipitous choice that will decide the future of their relationship. Sharply observed & deeply engaging, The Still Point is a powerful literary debut, & a moving meditation on the distances
- geographical & emotional
- that can exist between two people.

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Pocket-size, brilliantly colourful, & easy to use, THE STOKES BEGINNER`S GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA contains everything you need to identify & enjoy birds in your backyard & beyond. Whether you`re age 9 or 90, whether you`re a novice or advanced birder, this book will help you identify birds quickly & accurately. It offers more than 580 stunning colour photographs, coverage of more than 250 species, key identification clues, descriptions of songs & calls, notes on feeding & nesting behaviour, advice on selecting bird feeders & binoculars, important behavioural information & key habitat preferences, & up-to-date range maps. The culmination of many years of research, observation, & study, this book is factually, visually, & organisationally superior to any other beginner`s guide on the market. ...

Marcia Williams brings the Stone Age to life in her much-loved comic strip style. Join Marcia Williams on a journey to the Stone Age. Meet the people of Clan Woolly as they hunt mammoths & reindeer, learn how to make fire, invent stone tools & turn wild wolves into tame dogs! Full of facts, jokes & colourful comic strips, this is the perfect introduction to the Stone Age
- a time before history was even invented!
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Above the town, on the hill brow, the stone angel used to st&. I wonder if she stands there yet... Hagar Shipley
- an irascible,
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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award & the Governor-General's Award, & short-listed for the Booker Prize. ' The Stone Diaries' is the story of one woman's life, a truly sensuous novel which relects & illuminates the unsettled decades of our century. This is the story of Daisy Goodwill, from her birth on a kitchen floor in Manitoba, Canada, to her death in a Florida nursing home nearly ninety years later. Through Daisy's life, Shields reflects & illuminates the unsettled decades of our century in this rich & poignant novel. ...

At twenty-three years old, forensic archaeologist Courtney Brkic joined a UN-contracted team excavating mass grave sites in eastern Bosnia. She was drawn there by her family history- her father is Croatian
- & she was fluent in the language. As she describes the gruesome work of recovering remains & transcribing the memories of survivors, she retells her family`s own catastrophic history in Yugoslavia. Alternating chapters explore her grandmother`s life
- her childhood in Herzegovina, early widowhood, & imprisonment during the Second World War for hiding her Jewish lover. The movement throughout the book between the past & the present has a powerful effect, evoking belonging & nationality, what it is to feel rooted in a particular country, how its landscape forms you; & also shedding light on the roots of violence & genocide.

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` The problems started the day we moved to Hastings...` When Gareth E. Rees moves to a dilapidated Victorian house in Hastings he begins to piece together an occult puzzle connecting Aleister Crowley, John Logie Baird & the Piltdown Man hoaxer. As freak storms & tidal surges ravage the coast, Rees is beset by memories of his best friend`s tragic death in St Andrews twenty years earlier. Convinced that apocalypse approaches & his past is out to get him, Rees embarks on a journey away from his family, deep into history & to the very edge of the imagination. Tormented by possessed seagulls, mutant eels & unresolved guilt, how much of reality can he trust?THE STONE TIDE is a novel about grief, loss, history & the imagination. It is about how people make the place & the place makes the person. Above all it is about the stories we tell to make sense of the world. ...