Lost on a remote Sumatran volcano...pursued through a Tokyo backstreet by a Japanese gangster...picnicking with the French Foreign Legion in the Horn of Africa: Frank Gardner's idea of a holiday is not everyone's. But ever since his student days the BBC security correspondent has done some epicly hard travelling in a remarkable number of countries. Drawing on the diaries sketches & photos he kept during his travels his immaculately observed accounts of these often strange sometimes daring adventures form the backbone of his new book. In June 2004 while on what should have been a routine assignment in Riyadh his life
- never mind his ability to travel the world
- was nearly brought to a violent end by Islamist gunmen. Frank survived against all the odds & through force of will has found himself looking towards far horizons once more. He's not only been skiing in the Alps scuba diving in the Red Sea & explored the jungles of Cambodia he is also reporting once more from far-flung destinations like Afghanistan & Colombia
- & this is a man who no longer has the use of his legs... This is Frank Gardner's compelling personal account of the myriad adventures that made him the man he was on that fateful day
- & of the journeys he's made since & how they've helped him to become the remarkable & inspiring individual he is today.



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The Far Pavilions" is the story of an English man
- Ashton Pelham-Martyn
- brought up as a Hindu. It is the story of his

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Patrick O' Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely acknowledged to be the greatest series of historical novels ever written. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of their beginning with Master & Commander these evocative stories are being re-issued in paperback with smart new livery. This is the tenth book in the series. It is still the War of 1812. Patrick O' Brian takes his hero Jack Aubrey & his tetchy sardonic friend Stephen Maturin on a voyage as fascinating as anything he has ever written. They set course across the South Atlantic to intercept a powerful American frigate outward bound to play havoc with the British whaling trade. If they do not come up with her before she rounds the Horn they must follow her into the Great South Sea & as far across the Pacific as she may lead them. It is a commission after Jack's own heart. Maturin has fish of his own to fry in the world of secret intelligence. Aubrey has to cope with a succession of disasters
- men overboard castaways encounters with savages storms typhoons groundings shipwrecks to say nothing of murder & criminal insanity. That the enemy is in fact faithfully dealt with no one who has the honour of Captain Aubrey's acquaintance can take leave to doubt.
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Longlisted for the 2011 MAN BOOKER PRIZE for Fiction FAR TO GO is a powerful & profoundly moving story about one familys epic journey to flee the Nazi occupation of their homeland in 1939. Pavel & Anneliese Bauer are affluent secular Jews whose lives are turned upside down by the arrival of the German forces in Czechoslovakia. Desperate to avoid deportation the Bauers flee to Prague with their six-year-old son Pepik & his beloved nanny Marta. When the family try to flee without her to Paris Marta betrays them to her Nazi boyfriend. But it is through Martas determination that Pepik secures a place on a Kindertransport though he never sees his parents or Marta again. Inspired by Alison Picks own grandparents who fled their native Czechoslovakia for Canada during the Second World War FAR TO GO is a deeply personal & emotionally harrowing novel. ...

At the height of the Seven Years War Great Britain made an audacious strike at the heart of Spanish colonial power in the Caribbean. Gathering troops from bases in Britain & Canada & sailing across the Atlantic in secrecy was an incredible feat. The raid on Havana took Spanish colonial forces completely by surprise & following vicious fighting the city defences at El Moro collapsed. Havana the jewel in the Spanish colonial crown now belonged to Britain. The success of the raid influenced British military policy for centuries as the true potential off amphibious warfare was realized. ...

Farewell My Lovely is a classic novel by Raymond Chandler the master of hard-boiled crime. Eight years ago Moose Malloy & cute little redhead Velma were getting married
- until someone framed Malloy for armed robbery. Now his stretch is up & he wants Velma back. PI Philip Marlow meets Malloy one hot day in Hollywood & out of the generosity of his jaded heart agrees to help him. Dragged from one smoky bar to another Marlowe's search for Velma turns up plenty of dangerous gangsters with a nasty habit of shooting first & talking later. & soon what started as a search for a missing person becomes a matter of life & death... Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence". (Daily Telegraph). " One of the greatest crime writers who set standards others still try to attain". (Sunday Times). " Chandler is an original stylist creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes". (Anthony Burgess). Best-known as the creator of the original private eye Philip Marlowe Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 & died in 1959. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen & he is widely regarded as one of the very greatest writers of detective fiction. His books include The Big Sleep The Little Sister Farewell My Lovely The Long Good-bye The Lady in the Lake Playback Killer in the Rain The High Window & Trouble is My Business."
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A poignant & brilliant sequel to Dandelion Wine from the author of Fahrenheit 451 In Green Town Illinois Douglas Spaulding is in the midst of a small civil war with the old pitted against the young in this the second book in Bradburys semi-fictionalised account of his childhood. As the school boards figure of authority Mr Calvin C. Quartermain attempts to outwit the boys at every turn their antics increase & become ever more daring & mischevious. Once the shadow of winter draws across Green Town the boys quickly realise that their enemy is not so much the senior members of their own community but rather time itself which is ever ebbing away just beyond the reach of their most daring trick yet: a bold attempt to sabotage the towns clock. ...

In 1918 Ernest Hemingway went to war to the 'war to end all wars'. He volunteered for ambulance service in Italy was wounded & twice decorated. Out of his experiences came his early masterpiece A Farewell to Arms. In an unforgettable depiction of war Hemingway recreates the fear the comradeship the courage of his young American volunteers & the men & women he encounters along the way with conviction & brutal honesty. A love story of immense drama & uncompromising passion A Farewell to Arms offers a unique & unflinching view of the world & people by the winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature. ...

Written when Ernest Hemingway was thirty years old & lauded as the best American novel to emerge from World War I A Farewell to Arms" is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front & his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield- weary demoralised men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty & desertion
- this gripping semi-autobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war & the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote the ending to "A Farewell to Arms" thirty-nine times to get the words right. This edition collects all of the alternative endings together for the first time along with early drafts of other essential passages offering new insight into Hemingways craft & creative process & the evolution of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Featuring Hemingways own 1948 introduction to an illustrated reissue of the novel a personal foreword by the authors son Patrick Hemingway & a new introduction by the authors grandson Sean Hemingway this edition of "A Farewell to Arms" is truly a celebration."
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Now that Fairacre school no longer faces the threat of closure Miss Read is looking forward to a few more years of teaching before retirement. But best-laid plans often go awry. Unexpectedly her health begins to fail & she faces some tough decisions about her future. Meanwhile rumours abound about Miss Reads old friend Mr Mawne
- now a widower; a handsome newcomer to town takes a shine to the stalwart headmistress; Miss Read keeps a watchful eye on the courtship of a friend; & village life goes on.
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