All Points North" is part-memoir & part-excursion. Charting the rugged & uneven terrain of a writers formative years
- from
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It is the end of the summer. The tourists have already gone & now the sun is abandoning the Lake Districts damp valleys. Only a lone camper remains enjoying the quiet. He plans to stay just long enough to prepare for a trip to the East. But then the owner of the campsite asks him to paint a fence & he innocently obliges. Soon other odd jobs pile up until little by little he becomes ensnared in the ominous out-of-season. ...

One by one the boys begin to fall... In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys fresh-faced & idealistic are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the 'glorious war'. With the fire & patriotism of youth they sign up. What follows is the moving story of a young 'unknown soldier' experiencing the horror & disillusionment of life in the trenches. ...

All Quiet on the Western Front" is probably the most famous anti-war novel ever written. The story is told by a young unknown soldier in the trenches of Flanders during the First World War. Through his eyes we see all the realities of war; under fire on patrol waiting in the trenches at home on leave & in hospitals & dressing stations. Although there are vividly described incidents which remain in mind there is no sense of adventure here only the feeling of youth betrayed & a deceptively simple indictment of war
- of any war
- told for a whole generation of victims."

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The 1970s
- the decade of tanktops & glamrock punks perms & powercuts. They call it the decade that taste forgot but people in
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By replacing pens & pencils with needle & thread & paint with fabric applique Chloe Owens has applied artistic principles to sewing & created these unique projects showing her true passion for handcrafted things. Packed full of 35 crafty ideas Chloe uses a wide variety of techniques
- from embellishment & adornment to freehand embroidery
- that are forward thinking but still inspired by vintage style. Split into five chapters start by making something fun for a lunch with friends in Cooking Up A Storm. There are pretty placemats table decorations & even an apron for the hostess. In Cuddly Companions you will find a giraffe lion & bonkers bobtail bunnies to sew each one decorated with pretty stitches. Gifts comes next with tote bags & quilts that friends will love to receive. If you adore long lie-ins then Rest Your Weary Head has pillows with applique & embellishments plus a Holly Golightly inspired eyemask. Finally Room Decorations has wall murals & hangings to add a splash of colour to your home. Every project comes with step-by-step instructions & adorable artworks making everything so simple to stitch. There is also a handy techniques section & templates to help you along the way. So what are you waiting for? Grab a needle & thread & get down to some seriously creative crafting.

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Laugh out loud Marian Keyes Hugely Enjoyable Kathy Burke There are some things in life you can always rely on. Living in the shadow of your perfect brother Joey getting the flu over Christmas & your Mother showing you up in the supermarket. Then there are some things you really dont count on happening: a good dose of fame getting completely trashed at an awards ceremony & catching your fella doing something unmentionable on your wedding day. This is my story its dead tragic. You have been warned... Jodie Xx ...

All Souls" is a compelling black comedy of Oxford life by Javier Marias whose highly-anticipated new novel " The Infatuations" is published in 2013. This Penguin Modern Classics edition features a new Introduction by John Banville author of " The Sea". The pretty young tutor Clare Bayes attracts many eyes at an Oxford college dinner not least those of a visiting Spanish lecturer (desperate to escape his conversation with an obese economist about an eighteenth-century cider tax). As they begin an affair meeting in hotel bedrooms away from the eyes of Clare's husband the Spaniard finds himself increasingly drawn into the strange world of Oxford 'one of the cities in the world where the least work gets done' in a story of lust loneliness vanity & memory. Filled with brilliant set pieces & pin-sharp observation " All Souls" is a masterpiece of black humour." ...

Written by GRANT MORRISON Art & cover by FRANK QUITELY The complete 12-issue run of ALL-STAR SUPERMAN by Morrison & Quitely is collected in a single trade paperback! Witness the Man of Steel in exciting adventures featuring Lex Luthor Jimmy Olsen Lois Lane Bizarro & more! Plus: Superman goes toe-to-toe with Bizarro his oddball twin & the new character Zibarro also from the Bizarro planet. ...

Andy Seed is beginning his fifth year teaching at Cragthwaite Primary in the Yorkshire Dales & as always a new term is full of surprises. These take the form of a beautiful but not terribly bright student on placement from the local teacher training college & a particularly pushy & problematic parent with a fine line in complaining. It looks like Andy's pupils are the least of his problems... At home in Applesett things aren't all rosy either. Barbara is forced to take a job as a postie to help pay the mortgage which means finding someone to look after Tom & Reuben. When two old friends move into the village it looks like the problem has been solved but it soon transpires that rural life is not for everyone. As always the book is peppered with the hilarious & heartwarming incidents that a life living & working with children inevitably contains. ...