Do you remember trying to solve the Rubiks cube whilst dressed in your He-Man picture pyjamas? Did you try to make cool sound effects with your mouth like Jones from Police Academy? Or maybe you swooned over Scott & Charlenes (aka Jason & Kylies) wedding of the year? If that sounds like you theres no mistaking you were a child of the eighties. Rev up your De Lorean switch on the Flux Capacitor & take a cruise back through the decade that made you the person you are today. This amusing & entertaining collection of reminiscences will jog the memories of all who grew up in the same decade where greed was good mullets were cool & white dog poo littered the streets. ...

The extraordinary events of the 1982 Formula One season are still hard to believe 25 years on. Most memorable of all was the thrilling fight for the title
- the 16 races were won by 11 different drivers
- & the controversy surrounding the deaths of three men two of them Grand Prix icons. There were also ominous sub-currents not least the FOCA-FISA war the struggle between the turbo & normally aspirated teams & the driver rebellion over super licences. Packed with fresh insight from interviews & new research this superbly illustrated all-colour book captures all the drama of a remarkable year.

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Nineteen Eighty Threes" three intertwining story lines see the " Quartets" central themes of corruption & the perversion of justice come to a head as BJ the rent boy from " Nineteen Seventy Four" the lawyer Big John Piggott
- whos as near as you get to a hero in Peaces world
- & Maurice Jobson the senior cop whose career of corruption & brutality has set all this in motion find themselves on a collision course that can only end in a terrible vengeance. " Nineteen Eighty Three" is an epic tale which concludes an extraordinary body of work confirming Peace as the most innovative & remarkable new British crime writer to have emerged for years."

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John Lowe was at the forefront of the fight for jobs during the twelve months of the miners strike from 1984-5 as the elected chairman of Clipstone Collierys strike committee in the largely working county of Nottinghamshire. The dirty war fought by the Thatcher Government to defeat the formidable National Union of Mineworkers transformed him from passive family man into political animal: witness to many disturbing events he recorded his experiences in a diary so they would never be forgotten. There is the initial confusion & scramble to organise; the London rally which the police sought to turn into a riot; his arrest & fast-tracking through the court system; the legendary pensioner friend Sid beaten black & blue at a police roadblock; unifying events such as Christmas; the slow trickle back to work; & finally the dreaded day the strike ended
- & first harrowing weeks back at the coalface among people he despised. With the scars left by the dispute still fresh upon him he reflected upon events both at local & national level. If Spirit Alone Won Battles interweaves his diaries & this reflection is illustrated by an exhaustive collection of photographs correspondence court documents & campaign literature. It is a tale of heartbreak; but also a testament to the unquenchable spirit & stomach to fight of men & women with a just cause.
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Ingenious chilling & darkly comic 1985" is a terrifying vision of the future by the great postmodern storehouse of British writing Anthony Burgess. In characteristically daring style Anthony Burgess combines two responses to Orwells 1984 in one book. The first is a sharp analysis: through dialogues parodies & essays Burgess sheds new light on what he called an apocalyptic codex of our worst fears creating a critique that is literature in its own right. Part two is Burgess own dystopic vision written in 1978. He skewers both the present & the future describing a state where industrial disputes & social unrest compete with overwhelming surveillance security concerns & the dominance of technology to make life a thing to be suffered rather than lived. Together these two works form a unique guide to one of the twentieth centurys most talented imaginative & prescient writers. Several decades later Burgess most singular work still stands." ...

Book Two of 1Q84 ends with Aomame standing on the Metropolitan Expressway with a gun between her lips. She has come tantalisingly close to meeting her beloved Tengo only to have him slip away at the last minute. The followers of the cult leader she assassinated are determined to track her down & she has been living in hiding completely isolated from the world. However Tengo has also resolved to find Aomame. As the two of them uncover more & more about the strange world of 1Q84 & the mysterious Little People their longing for one another grows. Can they find each other before they themselves are found? ...

Haruki Murakami is an international phenomenon. When Books One & Two of his latest masterpiece 1Q84" were published in Japan a million copies were sold in one month & the critical acclaim that ensued was reported all over the globe. Readers were transfixed by the mesmerising story of Aomame & Tengo & the strange parallel universe they inhabit. Then one year later to the surprise & delight of his readers Murakami published an unexpected Book Three bringing the story to a close. In order to reflect the experience of "1Q84s" first readers Harvill Secker is publishing Books One & Two in one beautifully designed volume & Book Three in a separate edition. A long-awaited treat for his fans "1Q84" is also a thrilling introduction to the unique world of Murakamis imagination. This hypnotically addictive novel is a work of startling originality & as the title suggests a mind-bending ode to George Orwells " Nineteen Eighty-Four". (The number 9 in Japanese is pronounced like the letter Q). The year is 1984. Aomame sits in a taxi on the expressway in Tokyo. Her work is not the kind which can be discussed in public but she is in a hurry to carry out an assignment & with the traffic at a st&-still the driver proposes a solution. She agrees but as a result of her actions starts to feel increasingly detached from the real world. She has been on a top-secret mission & her next job will lead her to encounter the apparently superhuman founder of a religious cult. Meanwhile Tengo is leading a nondescript life but wishes to become a writer. He inadvertently becomes involved in a strange affair surrounding a literary prize to which a mysterious seventeen-year-old girl has submitted her remarkable first novel. It seems to be based on her own experiences & moves readers in unusual ways. Can her story really be true? Both Aomame & Tengo notice that the world has grown strange; both realise that they are indispensable to each other. While their stories influence one another at times by accident & at times intentionally the two come closer & closer to intertwining." ...

Book Two of 1Q84" ended with Aomame standing on the Metropolitan Expressway with a gun between her lips. She knows she is being hunted & that she has put herself in terrible danger in order to save the man she loves. But things are moving forward & Aomame does not yet know that she & Tengo are more closely bound than ever. Tengo is searching for Aomame & he must find her before this world's rules loosen up too much. He must find her before someone else does." ...

The year is 1984. Aomame sits in a taxi on the expressway in Tokyo. Her work is not the kind which can be discussed in public but she is in a hurry to carry out an assignment & with the traffic at a st&-still the driver proposes a solution. She agrees but as a result of her actions starts to feel increasingly detached from the real world. She has been on a top-secret mission & her next job will lead her to encounter the apparently superhuman founder of a religious cult. Meanwhile Tengo is leading a nondescript life but wishes to become a writer. He inadvertently becomes involved in a strange affair surrounding a literary prize to which a mysterious seventeen-year-old girl has submitted her remarkable first novel. It seems to be based on her own experiences & moves readers in unusual ways. Can her story really be true? Aomame & Tengos stories influence one another at times by accident & at times intentionally as the two come closer & closer to intertwining. As 1Q84" accelerates towards its conclusion both are pursued by persons & forces they do not know & cannot underst&. As they begin to decipher more about the strange world into which they have slipped so they sense their destinies converging. What they cannot know is whether they will find one another before they are themselves found. "1Q84" is a magnificent & fully-imagined work of fiction
- a thriller a love-story & a mind-bending ode to George Orwells " Nineteen Eighty-Four". It is a world from which the reader emerges stunned & altered."
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The year is 1Q84. This is the real world there is no doubt about that. But in this world there are two moons in the sky. In this world the fates of two people Tengo & Aomame are closely intertwined. They are each in their own way doing something very dangerous. & in this world there seems no way to save them both. Something extraordinary is starting. ...