The first book in the long-running Wallander crime series. Every morning Hakan von Enke takes a walk in the forest near his apartment in Stockholm. However, one winter's day he fails to come home. It seems that the retired naval officer has vanished without trace. Detective Kurt Wallander is not officially involved in the investigation but he has personal reasons for his interest in the case. ...

Every morning Hakan von Enke takes a walk in the forest near his apartment in Stockholm. Then, one day he fails to come home. Detective Kurt Wallander is not officially involved but Hakan`s son is engaged to his daughter Linda. A few months earlier Hakan was eager to talk to Kurt about a controversial incident from his past. Could this be connected to his disappearance? When Hakan`s wife also goes missing, Wallander is determined to uncover the truth but the investigation will force him to look back over his own past, as he comes to the unsettling realisation that even those we love the most can remain strangers to us... ...

An unforgettable adventure story of two journeys, one hundred years apart, into the untravelled heart of Burma. Part travelogue, part history, part reportage, The Trouser People is an enormously appealing & vivid account of Sir George Scott, the unsung Victorian adventurer who hacked, bullied & charmed his way through uncharted jungle to help establish British colonial rule in Burma. Born in Scotland in 1851, Scott was a die-hard imperialist with a fondness for gargantuan pith helmets & a bluffness of expression that bordered on the Pythonesque. But, as Andrew Marshall discovered, he was also a writer & photographer of rare sensibility. He spent a lifetime documenting the tribes who lived in Burma`s vast wilderness & is the author of The Burman, published in 1882 & still in print today. He also not only mapped the lawless frontiers of this ”geographical nowhere”
- the British Empire`s eastern-most land border with China
- but he widened the imperial goalposts in another way: he introduced football to Burma, where today it is a national obsession. Inspired by Scott`s unpublished diaries, Andrew Marshall retraces the explorer`s intrepid footsteps from the moldering colonial splendor of Rangoon to the fabled royal capital of Mandalay. In the process he discovers modern Burma, a hermit nation misruled by a brutal military dictatorship, its soldiers, like the British colonialists before them, nicknamed ”the trouser people” by the country`s sarong-wearing civilians. Wonderfully observed, mordantly funny, & skillfully recounted, ` The Trouser People` is an offbeat & thrilling journey through Britain`s lost heritage & a powerful expose of Burma`s modern tragedy.

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` Perhaps that moment had been exceptional, but still, I felt alive. That pressure on my chest means being alive.` Forty-nine, with a kind face, no serious ailments (apart from varicose veins on his ankles), a good salary & three moody children, widowed accountant Martin Santome is about to retire. He assumes he`ll take up gardening, or the guitar, or whatever retired people do. What he least expects is to fall passionately in love with his shy young employee Laura Avellaneda. As they embark upon an affair, happy & irresponsible, Martin begins to feel the weight of his quiet existence lift
- until, out of nowhere, their joy is cut short. The intimate, heartbreaking diary of an ordinary man who is reborn when he falls in love one final time, this beloved Latin American novel has been translated into twenty languages & sold millions of copies worldwide, & is now published in Penguin Classics for the first time.
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This is the remarkable story of tea & its uses from ancient times to the present. The narrative takes the reader from the jungles of Southeast Asia to the splendor of the Tang & Song Dynasties in China, from the tea ceremony aesthetics of medieval Japan to the fabled tea & horse trade of Central Asia, from the advent of Britain`s love affair with tea to the tea party that sparked the American Revolution. Throughout the centuries, tea has inspired artists, enhanced religious experience, played a pivotal role in the emergence of world trade, & helped trigger major wars. No other drink has touched the lives of so many people in so many different ways. ” The True History of Tea” brings all these disparate strands together in an erudite tale full of quirky facts & unexpected byways, celebrating the common heritage of a beverage we have all come to love. ...

Matt Charman, Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Stephen Spielberg`s Bridge of Spies, & Mammoth Screen, producers of Poldark & Victoria, are producing a big budget TV series based on the book. Maxwell Knight was a paradox. A jazz obsessive & nature enthusiast (he is the author of the definitive work on how to look after a gorilla), he is seen today as one of MI5`s greatest spymasters, a man who did more than any other to break up British fascism during the Second World War
- in spite of having once belonged to the British Fascisti himself. He was known to his agents & colleagues simply as M, & was rumoured to be part of the inspiration for the character M in the James Bond series. Knight became a legendary spymaster despite an almost total lack of qualifications. What set him apart from his peers was a mercurial ability to transform almost anyone into a fearless secret agent. He was the first in MI5 to grasp the potential of training female agents. M is about more than just one man however. In its pages, Hemming reveals for the first time in print the names & stories of seven men & women recruited by Knight, on behalf of MI5, & then asked to infiltrate the most dangerous political organizations in Britain at that time. Until now, their identities have been kept secret outside MI5. Drawn from every walk of life, they led double lives-often at great personal cost-in order to protect the country they loved. With the publication of this book, it will be possible at last to celebrate the lives of these courageous, selfless individuals. Drawing on declassified documents, private family archives & interviews with retired MI5 officers as well as the families of MI5 agents, M reveals not just the shadowy world of espionage but a brilliant, enigmatic man at its centre.
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National Bestseller Don`t despair. Don`t retreat. Fight back. The stunning election of Donald J. Trump rocked an already divided ...

Keith Mabbut is at a crossroads in his life. When he is offered the opportunity of a lifetime
- to pen the biography of the elusive
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The truth about Christmas
- its traditions unravelled! Have you ever wondered:
- Who decided to celebrate Jesus` birthday on

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