The Tudors were an odd bunch, more odd than their subjects, perhaps. When they weren`t beheading wives & enemies they were threatening to, or going around earning themselves nicknames like ` Bloody Mary` & ` The 9 Day Queen`. The Tudors: A Very Peculiar History tells the story of the Tudor monarchs, their castles, their lives & their subjects in a time when it was fashionable to slash up your clothes for that fresh from battle A” look. The book details each monarch`s reign & casts light on the more bizarre elements of their time in power, right down to an analysis of their seals & signatures & the various torture & execution methods they liked to use. ...

Infamous for the murder of Maria Iribarne, the artist Juan Pablo Castel is now writing a detailed account of his relationship with the victim from his prison cell: obsessed from the first moment he saw her examining one of his paintings, Castel had become fixated on her over the next months & fantasized over how they might meet again. When he happened upon her one day, a relationship was formed which swiftly convinced him of their mutual love. But Castel`s growing paranoia would lead him to destroy the one thing he truly cared about... Sabato`s first novel ” El Tunel” (translated as ” The Outsider” or ” The Tunnel”), written in 1948, is framed as the confession of the painter Juan Pablo Castel, who has murdered the only woman capable of understanding him. Sabato`s novels were praised by authors such as Albert Camus & Graham Greene. ...

Crossrail, the ` Elizabeth` line, with its spacious, light-filled stations, is simply the latest way of traversing a very old east-west route through what was once country side to the old city core & out again. Visiting Stepney, Liverpool Street, Farringdon, Tottenham Court Road (alias St Giles-in-the-Fields) & the route along Oxford Street (alias the Way to Oxford & also Tyburn) this richly descriptive book traces the course of many of these historical journeys across time as well as space. Archaeology disinters layers of actual matter; one may also disinter the lives that walked where many of our streets, however altered in appearance, still run today. These people spoke the names of ancient farms, manors & slums that now belong to our squares & tube stations. They endured the cycle of the seasons as we do; they ate, drank, laughed, worked, prayed, despaired & hoped in what are essentially the same spaces we occupy today. As The Tunnel Through Time expertly shows, destruction & renewal are a constant rhythm in the city`s story. ...

Crossrail, the ` Elizabeth` line, with its spacious, light-filled stations, is simply the latest way of traversing a very old east-west route through what was once countryside to the old City core & out again. Visiting Stepney, Liverpool Street, Farringdon, Tottenham Court Road (alias St-Giles-in-the-Fields) & the route along Oxford Street (alias the Way to Oxford & also Tyburn) this richly descriptive book traces the course of many of these historical journeys across time as well as space. Archaeology disinters layers of actual matter; one may also disinter the lives that walked where many of our streets, however altered in appearance, still run today. These people spoke the names of ancient farms, manors & slums that now belong to our squares & tube stations. They endured the cycle of the seasons as we do; they ate, drank, laughed, worked, prayed, despaired & hoped in what are essentially the same spaces we occupy today. As The Tunnel Through Time expertly shows, destruction & renewal are a constant rhythm in the city`s story. ”A forensic researcher...an imaginative historical sensibility & way of revisiting the past
- as if approaching it through the back door
- that has both subtlety & poignancy”. (Financial Times).

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`A story with so much inherent drama... a kaleidoscopic cold war story.` The Guardian In the summer of 1962, one year after the rise of the Berlin Wall, a group of daring young West Germans risked prison, Stasi torture & even death to liberate friends, lovers, & strangers in East Berlin by digging tunnels under the Wall. Then, as the world`s press heard about the secret projects, two television networks raced to be the first to document them from the inside, funding two separate tunnels for exclusive rights to film the escapes. In response, President John F. Kennedy & his administration, wary of anything that might raise tensions & force a military confrontation with the Soviets, maneuvered to quash both documentaries. As Greg Mitchell`s riveting narrative unfolds, we meet extraordinary characters: the legendary cyclist who became East Berlin`s most wanted man; the tunneller who had already served four years in the East German gulag; the Stasi informer who betrays the `CBS tunnel`; the young East Berliner who escapes with her baby, then marries one of the tunnellers; & an engineer who would later help build the tunnel under the English Channel. Capturing the hopes & fears of everyday Berliners, the chilling reach of the Stasi secret police, & the political tensions of the Cold War, The Tunnels is breaking history, a propulsive read whose themes still reverberate today. ...

Eighty years have passed since Mustafa Kemal Atat?rk founded the Turkish Republic out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire & set it on the path of modernisation. He was determined that his country should be accepted as a member of the family of civilised nations. Today Turkey is a rapidly developing country, an emergent market & a medium-sized regional power with the second strongest army in NATO. It is an open country which attracts millions of tourists, thousands of foreign businessmen & hundreds of researchers. They enjoy Turkish hospitality & experience its rich landscape & history, but many find it hard to form an overall picture of the country. In this sequel to his acclaimed biography of Atat?rk, Andrew Mango provides such an overall portrait, tracing the republic`s development since the death of its founder & bringing to life the Turkish people & their vibrant society. The Turks Today interprets the latest academic research for a broader audience, making this highly readable book the authoritative work on modern Turkey. ...

An unsettling new collection of Henry James`s best short stories exploring ghosts & the uncanny, edited by Susie Boyt. In ` The Turn of the Screw`, one of the most famous ghost stories of all time, a governess becomes obsessed with the belief that malevolent forces are stalking the children in her care. But are the children really in danger
- & if so, from who? The novella is accompanied here by several more tales exploring human psychology through ghostly visitations & the uncanny, including ` The Romance of Certain Old Clothes`, ` The Last of the Valerii`, ` Sir Edmund Orme`, ` Owen Wingrave`, ` The Friend of the Friends`, ` The Third Person` & ` The Jolly Corner`. This is the final volume of three new Penguin Classics collections representing the best of Henry James`s short fiction. The other volumes are ` The Aspern Papers & Other Tales`, focussing on themes of art & literature, & ` Daisy Miller & Other Tales`, exploring Anglo-American relations.
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Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector`s Library is a series of beautiful special gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector`s Library are books to love & treasure. This edition of Henry James`s classic ghost stories features an afterword by bestselling author Kate Mosse OBE.A young governess is employed to look after two orphaned siblings in a grand country house. Isolated & inexperienced, she is at first charmed by the children
- but gradually suspects that they may not be as innocent as they seem. She soon begins to see sinister figures at the window, but do they exist solely in her imagination, or are they ghosts intent on a terrible & devastating task? The Turn of the Screw is one of the most famous & eerily equivocal ghost stories ever written. Owen Wingrave is the story of a son in a long line of military heroes who refuses to follow tradition, yet proves his bravery in a haunted room.
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The Turn of the Screw tells the story of a young governess sent to a country house to take charge of two orphans. Unsettled by a sense of intense evil in the house she soon becomes obsessed with the idea that something malevolent is stalking the children in her care. Meanwhile The Aspern Papers explores obsession of a more worldly kind, with its tale of a literary historian determined to get his hands on some letters written by a great poet. Such is his drive, he is quite prepared to use trickery & deception to achieve his aims... ...

In these extraordinary tales about ordinary people from ordinary places, Tim Winton describes turnings of all kinds: second thoughts, changes of heart, nasty surprises, slow awakenings, abrupt transitions. The seventeen stories overlap to paint a convincing & cohesive picture of a world where people struggle against the terrible weight of their past & challenge the lives they have made for themselves. ...