` Everybody remembers where they were the day they heard that Paddy de Courcy was getting married`. But for four women in particular, the big news about the charismatic politician is especially momentous.. . Stylist Lola has every reason to be interested in who Paddy`s marrying
- because she`s his girlfriend, yet she definitely isn`t the bride-to-be.. . Journalist Grace wants the inside story on the de Courcy engagement & thinks Lola holds the key.. .while Grace`s sister, Marnie, still can`t forget her first love: a certain Paddy de Courcy. & what of the soon-to-be Mrs de Courcy? Alicia will do anything for her fiance & is determined to be the perfect wife. But does she know the real Paddy? Four very different women. One awfully charming man. & the dark secret that binds them all...
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In an unforgettable tribute to the far latitudes, Gretel Ehrlich travels across Greenl&, the largest island on earth. Greenland is the largest island on earth. All but five percent of it is covered by a vast ice sheet, an enduring remnant of the last ice age. Despite a uniquely hostile environment, it has been inhabited continuously for thousands of years. Greenlanders retain many of their traditional practices. Some still hunt on sleds made from whale & caribou with packs of dogs; others fashion harpoons from Narwhal tusks; entranced shamans make soul fights under the ice. The modern population lives on the edge of a stone- & ice-age world & has reached a unique understanding of it. Ehrlich mixes stories of European anthropologists who have recorded the ways of the Inuit, with artists who have lived briefly on Greenland`s fringe in order to try to capture its extraordinary pure light. She travels across this unearthly landscape in the company of men & women who have a deep bond with it, & with them she discovers the realm of the Great Dark, ice pavilions, polar bears & Eskimo nomads. She learns about hunting & endurance, inuit languages, legends & ghosts. Conjuring up Greenland`s cruel, beautiful landscape, she shows that it is a land endowed with magical & mysterious properties. St Brendan, the sixth century Irish monk, described one of its huge glaciers as `a floating crystal castle the colour of a silver veil, yet hard as marble & the sea around it as smooth as glass & white as milk.` It has lost none of its power to enthral. ...

” In the summer of 2009, the leader of the dreaded Tamil Tiger guerrillas was killed, bringing to a bloody end the stubborn & complicated civil war in Sri Lanka. For nearly thirty years, the war`s fingers had reached everywhere: into the bustle of Colombo, the Buddhist monasteries scattered across the isl&, the soft hills of central Sri Lanka, the curves of the eastern coast near Batticaloa & Trincomalee, & the stark, hot north. With its genius for brutality, the war left few places, & fewer people, untouched. What happens to the texture of life in a country that endures such bitter conflict? What happens to the country`s soul? Samanth Subramanian gives us an extraordinary account of the Sri Lankan war & the lives it changed. Taking us to the ghosts of summers past, & to other battles from other times, he draws out the story of Sri Lanka today
- an exhausted, disturbed society, still hot from the embers of the war. Through travels & conversations, he examines how people reconcile themselves to violence, how religion & state conspire, how the powerful become cruel, & how victory can be put to the task of reshaping memory & burying histories. This Divided Island is a harrowing & humane investigation of a country still inflamed.”
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” In the summer of 2009, the leader of the dreaded Tamil Tiger guerrillas was killed, bringing to a bloody end the stubborn & complicated civil war in Sri Lanka. For nearly thirty years, the war`s fingers had reached everywhere: into the bustle of Colombo, the Buddhist monasteries scattered across the isl&, the soft hills of central Sri Lanka, the curves of the eastern coast near Batticaloa & Trincomalee, & the stark, hot north. With its genius for brutality, the war left few places, & fewer people, untouched. What happens to the texture of life in a country that endures such bitter conflict? What happens to the country`s soul? Samanth Subramanian gives us an extraordinary account of the Sri Lankan war & the lives it changed. Taking us to the ghosts of summers past, & to other battles from other times, he draws out the story of Sri Lanka today
- an exhausted, disturbed society, still hot from the embers of the war. Through travels & conversations, he examines how people reconcile themselves to violence, how religion & state conspire, how the powerful become cruel, & how victory can be put to the task of reshaping memory & burying histories. This Divided Island is a harrowing & humane investigation of a country still inflamed.”
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Dogs know that their human is the greatest in the whole world! They`ll stop at nothing to show their owners just how much they love them. They`ll remodel the garden, lick the dishes clean & keep the bed nice & warm. They just can`t figure out why their displays of affection don`t always get the reaction they deserve... Discover a dog`s infinite love for their human in this hilarious dog`s-eye view of life. ...

For those who loved The Alchemist, Siddhartha, & Jonathan Livingston Seagull, This Flawless Place Between is a mesmerising & uplifting story about death & dying. Interweaving themes from The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Portier takes us to Tibet & the scene of a motorcycle accident. Anne's life is over, but with the help of a stranger her spirit begins a cathartic voyage that carries her back through the traumas & ecstasies of her life. As she revisits her past, & the futures of those she will leave behind, Anne begins to accept not only her death but also her life
- & that what happens next will be up to her.
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Touching the Void was Joe Simpson`s account of his near fatal accident on Peru`s Siula Grande. He never expected to be in the same situation again. However fate had other ideas & later in the Himalayas another near fatal fall forced him to again examine why he should be so lucky when so many of his climbing friends & colleagues are not. This Game of Ghosts is the sequel to Touching the Void, & continues Joe simpson`s examination of his own psyche & also the motivations of climbers in general. This is a remarkable book by a remarkably lucky individual, a homage to a breed of men & women who to the rest of us appear to be touched by lunacy, but who are forever questing, forever valiant
- Sunday Express
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Selected from blog posts from 2006-present, This Generation tells the story of modern China from Han Han`s unique perspective. Writing on topics as diverse as racing, prostitution, & how to be a patriot, Han Han has written a diary that is not only invaluable for the English-speaking world to understand our rising Eastern partner & rival, but which will long be remembered as a millennial time capsule. The core of this anthology is drawn from the collection Qingchun (Youth), published in Taipei in 2010, but it also contains a sprinkling of both older & more recent pieces. Presented in chronological order, the sequence opens with a handful of early posts; it excerpts Han Han`s work more fully beginning in 2008, the year when he really hit his stride & his blog commanded a larger & larger audience in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. The anthology closes with Han Han`s controversial cluster of essays posted in the final days of 2011. ...

If you had told Helen two years ago that she would be getting up at 6 a.m. on Sundays to swim in a freezing reservoir & spending her Saturday nights unshowered & covered in mud in a pub, she would have spat out her champagne. But when everyone around you starts settling down, what else is a glamorous party girl to do but to launch herself into the world of endurance sport? For someone who didn`t even own a pair of flat shoes (and definitely no waterproofs), Helen would soon find she had a lot to learn. Join Helen on her hilarious & soul-searching journey as she swaps a life of cocktail bars & dating for the challenges & exhilaration of triathlons, trail runs, obstacle races, long-distance cycles & ocean swims... & sets herself the seemingly impossible goal of qualifying as a Team GB triathlete. ...

As Karl Maier makes clear in the preface to his diligent, urgent study of Africa`s largest nation, Nigeria is not a developing country, but an under-developing one. Rich in natural resources, since the British departed in 1960, ”the bastard son of imperialism” has gone from being the premier African voice to a dissenting cacophony made up of its various ethnic, geographic & religious groupings. At the start of the new Millennium, Nigeria looks in danger of succumbing to regionalism, the alter ego of globalisation, & could descend into a disastrous turmoil of regional violence unprecedented since the Biafran war. This is the third, & worst, scenario envisaged by Maier, as he concludes what is a richly researched & vigorous survey of the country & its people. Maier was an African correspondent for Western newspapers for 10 years, & reported from Nigeria from 1991 to 1993. He opens his account with the inauguration of President Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999, following it with swift analyses of historic Nigerian tensions, such as election monitoring, the numerous military coups, the battle of the Ogoni people in the Niger delta against oil producers & their own government, religious tensions between Muslims & non-Muslim communities, Sharia rule & the survival of the Igbo people. ...