St Petersburg 1917. The capital of the glittering Empire of the Tsars & a city on the brink of revolution where the jackals of the Secret Police intrigue for their own survival as their aristocratic masters indulge in one last, desperate round of hedonism. For Sandro Ruzsky, Chief Investigator of the city police, even this decaying world provides the opportunity for a new beginning. Banished to Siberia for four years for pursuing a case his superiors would rather he`d quietly buried, Ruzsky finds himself investigating the murders of a young couple out on the ice of the frozen river Neva. The dead girl was a nanny at the Imperial Palace, the man an American from Chicago &, if the brutality of their deaths seems an allegory for the times, Ruzsky finds that, at every turn, the investigation leads dangerously close to home. At the heart of the case, lies Maria, the beautiful ballerina Ruzsky once loved & lost. But is she a willing participant in what appears to be a dangerous conspiracy or likely to be it`s next, perhaps last, victim? In a city at war with itself, & pitted against a ruthless murderer who relishes taunting him, Ruzsky finds himself at last face to face with his own past as he fights to save everything he cares for, before the world into which he was born goes up in flames. ...

' Look after your sister, Tinashe'. Tinashe is a young Shona boy living in a small village in rural Rhodesia. The guerilla war of the late 1960s haunts the bushlands, but it only infrequently affects his quiet life; school, swimming in the river, playing with the other kids on the kopje. When his younger sister, Hazvinei, is born, Tinashe knows at once that there is something special about her. Their life in the village, once disturbed only by the occasional visits of his successful uncle & city cousin, Abel, now becomes entangled with the dual forces of the Shona spirit world & the political turmoil of the nation. As Tinashe, Hazvinei & Abel grow older, their destinies entangle in ways they never expected. Tinashe is prepared to follow his sister anywhere
- but how far can he go to keep her safe when the forces threatening her are so much darker & more sinister than he suspected? Andrea Eames weaves together folklore & suspense in this compelling tale of a boy struggling to do the right thing in an unpredictable world.
...

A classic of mountaineering literature, The White Spider tells the story of the harrowing first ascent of the Eiger`s North Wall, one of the most legendary & terrifying climbs in recorded history. Heinrich Herrer, author of Seven Years in Tibet, was a member of the four-man party that scaled the previously untouchable North Wall of the Eiger in 1938. In The White Spider, Herrer tells the story of this harrowing first ascent, a gripping first-hand account of daring & resilience in the high Swiss Alps. Moving from his own amazing experiences to the numerous later attempts to replicate his team`s achievements (some tragic failures, others spectacular successes), Herrer writes as well as he climbs, drawing the reader into a beguiling story of courage, strength & a confidence always on the edge of hubris. A new introduction by Joe Simpson, author of the acclaimed mountaineering epic Touching the Void, reminds us of the enduring relevance of this absolute classic. ...

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga won the Man Booker Prize 2008. Meet Balram Halwai, the ‘ White Tiger’: Indian servant, philosopher, entrepreneur, murderer… Born in a remote Indian village, the son of a rickshaw-puller, Balram is taken out of school by his family & put to work in a teashop. As he smashes coals & wipes tables, he nurses a dream of escape, of breaking away from the banks of Mother Ganga into whose murky depths have seeped the remains of a hundred generations. When a rich village landlord hires him as a chauffeur for his son & daughter-in-law, Balram’s re-education begins. Behind the wheel of a Honda, Balram comes to New Delhi. There he finds himself among cockroaches & traffic-jams, slums & shopping malls, 21st-century technology & medieval superstition. Trapped between his instinct to be a loyal son & servant, & his desire to better himself, & under the scrutiny of 36, 000, 005 gods, he discovers a new morality at the heart of the new India. Gradually Balram comes to see how the Tiger might escape his cage… Balram’s journey from darkness to the light of success is a brilliantly irreverent, blackly comic, deeply endearing & altogether unforgettable tour de force. ...

The White Tower, the gigantic structure at the heart of the building complex known as the Tower of London, gave that famed landmark its name. One of the most celebrated buildings of the London cityscape for nearly 1000 years, it is also the most complete eleventh-century palace in Europe. This book is a complete architectural, archaeological & historical study of White Tower & its context. Edward Impey & other distinguished experts integrate the most recent archaeological evidence with documentary research in order to trace the building`s structural development, its original & subsequent functions, & its architectural & historical significance. The book will be an important resource for scholars of European Romanesque castle architecture. ...

The Western Front dominates our memories of the First World War. Yet a million & half men died in North East Italy in a war that need never have happened, when Italy declared war on the Habsburg Empire in May 1915. Led by General Luigi Cadorna, the most ruthless of all the Great War commanders, waves of Italian conscripts were sent charging up the limestone hills north of Trieste to be massacred by troops fighting to save their homelands. This is a great, tragic military history of a war that gave birth to fascism. Mussolini fought in these trenches, but so did many of the greatest modernist writers in Italian & German
- Ungaretti, Gadda, Musil, Hemingway. It is through these accounts that Mark Thompson, with great skill & empathy, brings to life this forgotten conflict.
...

When George & Sabine Harwood arrive in Trinidad from England George instantly takes to their new life, but Sabine feels isolated, heat-fatigued, & ill at ease with the racial segregation & the imminent dawning of a new era. Her only solace is her growing fixation with Eric Williams, the charismatic leader of Trinidad`s new national party, to whom she pours out all her hopes & fears for the future in letters that she never brings herself to send. As the years progress, George & Sabine`s marriage endures for better or worse. When George discovers Sabine`s cache of letters, he realises just how many secrets she`s kept from him
- & he from her
- over the decades. & he is seized by an urgent, desperate need to prove his love for her, with tragic consequences...

...

Dive into THE WHITSTABLE HIGH TIDE SWIMMING CLUB
- the irresistible, feel-good novel from Katie May. Join Debs & Maisie & the
...

On January 21st, 2017, five million people in 82 countries & on all seven continents stood up with one voice. The Women`s March began with one cause, women`s rights, but quickly became a movement around the many issues that were hotly debated during the 2016 U.S. presidential race immigration, health care, environmental protections, LGBTQ rights, racial justice, freedom of religion, & workers rights, among others. In the mere 66 days between the election & inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 45th President of the United States, 673 sister marches sprang up across the country & the world. ABRAMS Image presents Why I March to honor the movement, give back to it, & promote future activism in the same vein ...

Early in the morning of Monday 8 July 1895, thirteen-year-old Robert Coombes & his twelve-year-old brother Nattie set out from their small, yellow-brick terraced house in East London to watch a cricket match at Lord`s. Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, the boys told their neighbours, & their mother was visiting her family in Liverpool. Over the next ten days Robert & Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning their parents` valuables to fund trips to the theatre & the seaside. But as the sun beat down on the Coombes house, a strange smell began to emanate from the building. When the police were finally called to investigate, the discovery they made sent the press into a frenzy of horror & alarm, & Robert & Nattie were swept up in a criminal trial that echoed the outrageous plots of the `penny dreadful` novels that Robert loved to read. In The Wicked Boy, Kate Summerscale has uncovered a fascinating true story of murder & morality
- it is not just a meticulous examination of a shocking Victorian case, but also a compelling account of its aftermath, & of man`s capacity to overcome the past.
...