The Bees is Carol Ann Duffys first collection of new poems as Poet Laureate & the much-anticipated successor to the T. S. Eliot Prize-winning Rapture. After the intimate focus of the earlier book The Bees finds Duffy using her full poetic range: there are drinking songs love poems poems to the weather poems of political anger; her celebrated Last Post (written for the last surviving soldiers to fight in the First World War) showed that powerful public poetry still has a central place in our culture. There are elegies too for beloved friends & -- most movingly -- the poets own mother. As Duffys voice rises in this collection her music intensifies & every poem patterns itself into song. Woven & weaving through the book is its presiding spirit: the bee. Sometimes the bee is Duffys subject sometimes it strays into the poem or hovers at its edge -- & the reader soon begins to anticipate its appearance. In the end Duffys point is clear: the bee symbolizes what we have left of grace in the world & what is most precious & necessary for us to protect. The Bees is a work of great ecological & spiritual power & Duffys clearest affirmation yet of her belief in the poem as secular prayer as the means by which we remind ourselves what is most worthy of our attention & concern our passion & our praise. ...

Beautiful & moving poetry for the real world Jeanette Winterson Guardian Wonderful.. .a poet alert to every sound & shape of language Sunday Telegraph The Bees is Carol Ann Duffys first collection of poems as Poet Laureate. In it she uses her full poetic range: there are drinking songs love poems poems of political anger; there are elegies too for beloved friends & -- most movingly -- the poets own mother. Woven & weaving through the book is its presiding spirit: the bee. Sometimes the bee is Duffys subject sometimes it strays into the poem or hovers at its edge. In the end Duffys point is clear: the bee symbolizes what we have left of grace in the world & what is most precious & necessary for us to protect. The Bees at once intimate & public is a work of great power from one of our most cherished poets. Swooningly glorious The Times Indisputably her best volume Sunday Times Duffy is magnificent grounded heartfelt dedicated to the notion that poetry can give us the music of life itself Scotsman ...

An intriguing introduction to the fascinating world of bees & wasps with a specially written easy-to-read text amazing & extraordinary photographs & step-by-step visual explanations. A slim & unintimidating book which belies its contents
- a wealth of information much of which will be new even to adults.
...

From the Belgian coast across the fields of Flanders over the valley of the Somme & down the line to the Argonne: all the major battlefields of the First World War
- Ypres Arras Cambrai Amiens St. Quentin Mons Le Cateau Reims Verdun & St. Mihiel
- are criss-crossed in this book over more than thirty different routes each clearly shown on a Michelin map. Every significant feature is described in detail. Indispensable for anyone contemplating a tour of the battlefields in Belgium & France this book combines the years of knowledge travel & research of its author Rose Coombs who worked at the Imperial War Museum in London for nearly forty years. Since her death in 1991 After the Battle's" editor Karel Margry has travelled every route checking & revising the text where necessary as well as re-photographing every memorial. Many new ones have been added including the new cemetery at Fromelles inaugurated in July 2010 yet we have striven to keep true to the flavour of Rose's original concept...before endeavours fade."

...

Tessa has just a few months to live. Fighting back against hospital visits endless tests drugs with excruciating side-effects Tessa compiles a list. Its her To Do Before I Die list. & number one is sex. Released from the constraints of normal life Tessa tastes new experiences to make her feel alive while her failing body struggles to keep up. Tessas feelings her relationships with her father & brother her estranged mother her best friend her new boyfriend all are painfully crystallized in the precious weeks before Tessas time finally runs out. Before I Die" is a brilliantly-crafted novel heartbreaking yet astonishingly life-affirming. It will take you to the very edge." ...

Fiona Phillips is one of our best-loved television presenters. Well-known for being warm chatty & down to earth she attended her local comprehensive in Southampton before studying English in Birmingham. For over twelve years she presented GMTV during which time she interviewed some of the most famous & influential people on the planet from film stars to royalty politicians to local heroes. But in August 2008 Fiona announced that she was to quit the job she loved revealing that her father Phil had been diagnosed with Alzheimers just a year after her mother had died of the same disease & that she had decided to devote more time to him & to her family. Before I Forget" is a wonderfully honest account of growing up in the 1960s & 70s within a complex family. During her childhood her father could sometimes be distant & demanding which both saddened her & drove her to succeed her mother always the devoted wife & the steady heart of the family. When Fiona lands the job at GMTV she revels in how proud they are of her achievement. When her mother & then her father succumb to Alzheimers we share in Fionas sadness as she movingly describes watching them fade away one moment interviewing George Clooney the next taking a call from Pembrokeshire Social Services to say that her mother had wandered away from her care home. " Before I Forget" is an extraordinary book which will resonate with Fionas millions of fans & the millions of people who day-by-day are going through or have gone through the same experiences." ...

As I sleep my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking Im still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me.. . Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name your identity your past even the people you love
- all forgotten overnight. & the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story. Welcome to Christines life. See Judys Review See Richards Review Download A Sample Chapter Of Before I Go To Sleep See S. J. Watson talk about her book Reading Group Questions Read an exclusive Q&A with S. J. Watson Write a Review for Before I Go To Sleep Judys Review Wow. What a creepy disturbing unsettling & thoroughly frightening novel this is. I loved it. So compelling is Before I Go To Sleep that I finished it in two straight readings before & after lunch. Only good manners & the presence of guests kept me from reading it during lunch. It is one of the most arresting debut novels I have read in years. SJ Watson creates from the first page a psychological thriller with which the reader completely identifies. It is impossible not to imagine how one would cope with the extreme stresses & challenges that Christine wakes up to each & every day. Although she has absolutely no memory of the past she is able to remember what happens during each new day as it unfolds. But when she goes to sleep everything is wiped clean. So Christine keeps a diary in which she records her daily re-births. Her husband Ben tells her about her past; she obsessively writes it all down. She sees a psychiatrist who is trying to restore her memory & she writes his comments down too. Gradually through the diary she dimly begins to reconstruct the person she once was & might still be. But one day she opens the pages to read a freshly-written sentence. Dont trust Ben. Christine is aghast. She has no comprehension what this warning to herself means. But she is determined to find out. Richards Review Weve all had those where am I? mo"
...

Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name your identity your past even the people you love
- all forgotten overnight. & the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story. Welcome to Christine's life.
...

As I sleep my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking Im still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me... Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name your identity your past even the people you love
- all forgotten overnight. & the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story. Welcome to Christines life.
...

Having grown up on the quiet island of Guernsey Betty Dean cant wait to start her new life in London. On a mission to find Clara Pickle
-
...