Wands at the ready! Whether you`re a Hufflepuff or a Slytherin, from an old wizarding family or new to the wizarding world, your magical journey usually begins at Ollivanders wand shop. In this spellbinding hardcover book, Harry Potter film fans of all ages can explore Ollivanders & learn what makes a w&. Then take a wand for a spin as you discover the most magical moments from the Harry Potter films in this incredible book. The wand included activates seven different spell sounds. Simply perform the proper wand motion, hold the wand over the spell you wish to use, & tap the button. It`s just like magic! ...

You are electing to join a secret underground movement. Membership will require you to conduct research on your immediate environment & complete a variety of assignments designed to creatively disrupt your everyday life. That is all you need to know for now. All else will be revealed in time. Society wants us to live a planned existence. The path of the wanderer is not this! The path of the wanderer is an experiment with the unknown. To be idle, to play, to daydream. The Wander Society offers us all a way to experience the joys & possibilities of unplanned time. ...

Part of a new series Legends from the Ancient North, The Wanderer tells the classic tales that influenced JRR Tolkien`s The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings. ” Therefore I may not think, throughout this world, why cloud cometh not on my mind when I think over all the life of earls, how at a stroke they have given up hall, mood-proud thanes. So this middle earth each of all days ageth & falleth”. (J.R.R). Tolkien spent much of his life studying, translating & teaching the great epic stories of northern Europe, filled with heroes, dragons, trolls, dwarves & magic. He was hugely influential for his advocacy of Beowulf as a great work of literature &, even if he had never written The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings, would be recognised today as a significant figure in the rediscovery of these extraordinary tales. Legends from the Ancient North brings together from Penguin Classics five of the key works behind Tolkien`s fiction. They are startling, brutal, strange pieces of writing, with an elemental power brilliantly preserved in these translations. They plunge the reader into a world of treachery, quests, chivalry, trials of strength. They are the most ancient narratives that exist from northern Europe & bring us as near as we will ever get to the origins of the magical landscape of Middle-earth (Midgard) which Tolkien remade in the 20th century. ...

The beautiful, questing second novel in Tim Pears` acclaimed West Country trilogy. Two teenagers, bound by love yet divided by fate, forge separate paths in pre-First World War Devon & Cornwall 1912. Leo is on a journey. Aged thirteen & banished from the secluded farm of his childhood, he travels through Devon, grazing on berries & sleeping in copses. Behind him lies the past, & before him the West Country, spread out like a tapestry. But a wanderer is never alone for long, try as he might
- & soon Leo is taken in by gypsies, with their waggons, horses & vivid attire. Yet he knows he cannot linger, & must forge on to Penzance, towards the western horizon... Lottie is at home. Life on the estate continues as usual, yet nothing is as it was. Her father is distracted by the promise of new love & Lottie is increasingly absorbed in the natural world: the profusion of wild flowers in the meadow, the habits of predators, & the mysteries of anatomy. & of course, Leo is absent. How will the two young people ever find each other again? In The Wanderers, Tim Pears`s writing, both transcendental & sharply focused, reaches new heights, revealing the beauty & brutality that coexist in nature. Timeless, searching, charged with raw energy & gentle humour, this is a delicately wrought tale of adolescence; of survival; of longing, loneliness & love.
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As they look to the stars, what are they missing back home? ` Phenomenal. A transcendent journey into the mysteries of space & self. Howrey`s expansive vision left me awestruck` RUTH OZEKI, author of A Tale for the Time Being The best of Helen Kane exists in space. If she doesn`t go back up, she`ll be consigned to a lesser version of herself on a planet that has also seen better days. Helen is an experienced astronaut with a NASA position & a struggling grown-up daughter who needs her but when, at fifty-three, she is offered a place on the training programme for the first mission to Mars, the most realistic simulation ever, she cannot refuse a last chance to walk among the stars. Her fellow astronauts are Sergei, a gruff Russian whose teenage sons are less mysterious to him than they`d like to think; & Yoshi, who wants to prove himself worthy of the wife he has drifted apart from. The three will be enclosed for months in a tiny craft, while outside their loved ones negotiate everyday life on Earth. How far will the wanderers travel in the pursuit of endeavour, & what will it be like to come home? Station Eleven meets We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves in this brilliantly inventive & sharply observed novel of science, ambition, endeavour & family. ` An astounding, insightful, exhilarating ride` HELEN SEDGWICK, author of The Comet Seekers `A stealthily brilliant novel. A distinct, shimmering vision of who we are.. . at once simple, gorgeous & profoundly moving` PETER NICHOLS, author of The Rocks ...

The beautiful, questing second novel in Tim Pears` acclaimed West Country trilogy. Two teenagers, bound by love yet divided by fate, forge separate paths in pre-First World War Devon & Cornwall Lonely & grieving for her exiled best friend, thirteen-year-old Lottie feels a prisoner. Her only solace is her study of the natural world around her father`s estate: the strange profusion of its plants, the beauty & brutality of its predators, its mysterious dances of life, death & survival. Grazing on berries & sleeping in copses, Leo travels alone through the wild, strange tapestry of the West Country towards Penzance. But a wanderer is never alone for long
- & when the gypsy waggons rattle into view, Leo is drawn into a colourful & dangerous world far beyond his imagination. Author Biography: Tim Pears is the author of nine novels, including In the Place of Fallen Leaves (winner of the Hawthornden Prize & the Ruth Hadden Memorial Award), In a Land of Plenty (made into a ten part BBC series), Landed (shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2012 & the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize 2011, winner of the MJA Open Book Awards 2011) &, most recently, The Horseman, the first book in this trilogy. He has been Writer in Residence at Cheltenham Festival of Literature & Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Oxford Brookes University. He lives in Oxford with his wife & children. timpears.com
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The lake of Lop-nor, the `heart of the heart of Asia`, is one of the world`s strangest phenomena. Situated in the wild Chinese province of Xinjiang, Lop-nor
- `the wandering lake`- has for millennia been in a perpetual state of flux, drifting north to south, often tens of kilometres in as many years. It was once the lifeblood of the great Silk Road kingdom of Lou-lan, which flourished in this otherwise barren region 2, 000 years ago & its peculiar movements confused even Ptolemy, who marked the lake twice on his map of Asia. Following `the pulse-beats of Lop-nor as a doctor examines a patient`s heart`, Sven Hedin became captivated by its peripatetic movements & for forty years his destiny was inextricably linked with that of this mysterious lake & the region surrounding it. His last journey to Lop-nor was in 1934, just days after he was released as a prisoner of General Ma Chung-yin (the rebel leader of Xinjiang). Travelling the length of the Konche-daria & Kum-daria rivers by canoe, Hedin embarked on his last Central Asian expedition & proved what he had always suspected
- that Lop-nor did indeed shift position
- & why. When he camped on its vast banks at night, Lop-nor was deep & full. Today, this once great lake
- a mighty reservoir in the desert
- is nothing but windblown sand & salty marsh. The third in Sven Hedin`s ” Central Asia” trilogy, ” The Wandering Lake” is arguably his most famous work. It is, typically, a gripping story of adventure & discovery but it is also a rare account of a now-vanished world; a masterpiece by one of history`s last great explorers.




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What was it about Hjoggbole, a farming village in the northernmost part of Sweden, that created so many idiots
- & writers? There
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` Fresh, energetic, & completely hilarious, The Wangs vs. the World is my favorite debut of the year.` Jami Attenberg, author of Saint Mazie & The Middlesteins Charles Wang has just lost the cosmetics fortune he built up since emigrating to the US. Gone are the houses, the cars, & the incredible lifestyle. Faced with this loss, he decides to take his family on a trip to China & attempt to reclaim his ancestral lands. But first they must go on a cross-country journey from their foreclosed Bel-Air home to the Upstate New York retreat of his eldest daughter, Saina. Charles takes his other two children out of schools that he can no longer afford & packs them into the only car that wasn`t repossessed-along with their wealth-addicted stepmother, Barbra. But with his son waylaid by a much-older temptress in New Orleans, his wife ready to defect for a set of 1, 000-thread-count sheets, & an epic smash-up in North Carolina, Charles may have to choose between the old world & the new, between keeping his family intact & finally, finally fulfilling his dream of China. ...

Are you ready for the truth about World War Two? In the first of an extraordinary three-volume account of the war on l&, in the air & at sea, James Holland reveals not only the truth behind the familiar legends of the Second World War but he also unveils those lesser known events which were to have the greatest significance. The first book to consider the economic, political & social as well as the military aspects of World War Two, this is a unique retelling of a monumental event in all its terrible & majestic glory. Holland has spent over twelve years unearthing new research, visiting archives, battlefields & the very people who fought & lived through the conflict. He has, in his own accessible & inimitable style, written an account to redefine our understanding of the war. It is unlike anything else on the subject. ...