Eddy Merckx is to cycling what Muhammad Ali is to boxing or Pele to football: quite simply, the best there has ever been. Merckx was a machine. It wasn't just the number of victories (445); it was his remorseless domination that created the legend. He didn't just beat his opponents, he crushed them. ...

Insight depends on attentiveness, but can also strike us spontaneously as revelation. This collection features poems that are unified by the urge to look into things & reflect on them, but the responses they represent are as varied, & as revelatory, as the subjects they address. ...

Simon, an autistic nine-year-old, has inadvertently cracked the US government's new secret code, making him a prime security threat in the eyes of the FBI. With Programme Chief Nick Kudrow (Alec Baldwin) ordering his elimination, Simon's only hope of surv ...

Take off your thinking caps & toss 'em in a corner, 'cos you won't need 'em when you're watching this deliriously dumb thriller from 1997. Bruce Willis stars as a demoted FBI agent who comes to the aid of an autistic boy whose mind holds a potentially deadly secret. It seems that by gazing on a puzzle magazine & making order out of a hidden system of numbers, the 9-year-old autistic boy (Miko Hughes) has accidentally deciphered a sophisticated top-secret government code. This makes him the prime target of the ruthless bureaucrat (Alec Baldwin, in one of his silliest roles) & Willis comes to the rescue. This formulaic thriller sets up this plot with a lot of entertaining urgency but you can't give any thought to Mercury Rising or the whole movie collapses under the weight of its own illogic & nonsense. The redeeming values are the performances of Willis, young Hughes & newcomer Kim Dickens as a woman who agrees (perhaps too easily, it seems) to aid Willis in his plot to out manoeuvre the bad guys. Mercury Rising is not a waste of time compared to other formulaic thrillers but its entertainment value depends on how much you enjoy being smarter than the movie. ...

The hunt is finally over.

FBI agent Atlee Pine is at the end of her long journey to discover what happened to her

...

Meridon, the desolate Romany girl, is determined to escape the hard poverty of her childhood. Riding bareback in a travelling show, while her sister Dandy risks her life on the trapeze, Meridon dedicates herself to freeing them both from danger & want. But Dandy ...

Robert Merivel, physician & courtier to Charles II, loved for his ability to turn sorrow into laughter, now faces the agitations & anxieties of middle age. Questions crowd his mind: has he been a good father? Is he a fair master? Is he the King's frie ...

The gaudy years of the Restoration are long gone & Robert Merivel, physician & courtier to King Charles II, sets off for the French court in search of a fresh start. But royal life at the Palace of Versailles
- all glitter in front & squalor behind
- leaves him in despair, until a chance encounter with the seductive Madame de Flamanville.

...

Merlin must find a Ring of Power in order to save the kingdom! A gripping sequel to Young Merlin, plotting Merlin's journey from his youth to his mastery of magic. With a reading age of 8, this spellbinding story is also suitable for reluctant, struggling & dyslexic readers. ...

Kit Milner is caught up in a world of dreams & nightmares, trapping him in a sequence of breathtaking exploits. Kit grapples with human & inhuman deception & the guiles of a beautiful woman as he fights the burgeoning horror of the Powers of Darknes ...