If I knew I was going to die today Id still want to hear the cricket scores
- J.H. Hardy. Prepare to be hit for six by this witty
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A Mulliner collection In the Angler's Rest drinking hot scotch & lemon sits one of Wodehouse's greatest raconteurs. Mr Mulliner his vivid imagination lubricated by Miss Postlethwaite the barmaid has fabulous stories to tell of the extraordinary behaviour of his far-flung family: in particular there's Wilfred inventor of Raven Gypsy face-cream & Snow of the Mountain Lotion who lights on the formula for Buck-U-Uppo a tonic given to elephants to enable them to face tigers with the necessary nonchalance. Its explosive effects on a shy young curate & then the higher clergy is gravely revealed. Then there's his cousin James the detective-story writer who has inherited a cottage more haunted than anything in his own imagination. & Isadore Zinzinheimer head of the Bigger Better & Brighter Motion Picture Company. Tall tales all
- but among Wodehouse's best.
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When a body is found floating in the Thames river lock one damp & dreary morning Superintendent Duncan Kincaid & Sergeant Gemma James are summoned from Scotland Yard to the Chiltern Hills outside London. The dead man is Connor Swann son-in-law of London's most renowned opera personalities. & prints on his neck suggest that Swann was strangled. As Duncan & Gemma explore the quiet woods above the Thames & the flamboyant world of London opera in search of answers they discover a tangled web of family secrets & hidden emotions. & when Duncan finds himself dangerously drawn to a suspect he & Gemma must sort out their complicated feelings for one another... ...

Whitman is today regarded as Americas Homer or Dante & his work the touchstone for literary originality in the New World. In Leaves of Grass he abandoned the rules of traditional poetry
- breaking the standard metred line discarding the obligatory rhyming scheme & using the vernacular. Emily Dickinson condemned his sexual & physiological allusions as disgraceful but Emerson saw the book as the most extraordinary piece of wit & wisdom that America has yet contributed. A century later it is his judgement of this autobiographical vision of the vigour of the American nation that has proved the more enduring. This is the most up-to-date edition for student use with full critical apparatus. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford Worlds Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxfords commitment to scholarship providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features including expert introductions by leading authorities helpful notes to clarify the text up-to-date bibliographies for further study & much more.
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Whether its leaves on the line or the wrong kind of snow whether the extortionately priced curled-up sandwich on sale in the buffet car or the militancy of the rail unions that seem to be endlessly on strike over nothing everyone in Britain has an opinion about our railways. After the weather they are probably the countrys most reliable talking point. With Telegraph readers being the trenchant choleric & waggish letter-writers that they are our railways have always figured high on the list of subjects requiring a missive to the Editor. Now in this fascinating & hilarious selection Gavin Fuller has put together the best letters on trains to the paper over the years. Here is the end of Steam & the start of Eurostar; the punctuality of Swiss trains & the signal failures of ours; the laments for the branch lines lost under the Beeching cuts & also for the much-missed peace & quiet of a railway carriage replaced by the menace of personal stereos & fellow passengers booming Im On The Train! into their mobile phones. ...

In one of the most remarkable memoirs of recent years the acclaimed writer respected thinker & outspoken former bishop Richard Holloway takes us back through a life defined by the biggest questions: Who am I? & what is God? At the tender age of fourteen Richard Holloway left his home in the Vale of Leven north of Glasgow & travelled hundreds of miles to be educated & trained for the priesthood by a religious order in an English monastery. It was an intense cloistered education for an impressionable young man. By twenty-five he had been ordained & was working in the slums of Glasgow. Throughout the forty years that followed Richard touched the lives of many people in the Church & in the wider community. But behind his confident public face lay a restless unquiet heart & a constantly searching mind. How can anyone claim a complete understanding of the mystery of existence? Why is the Church which claims to be the instrument of Gods love so prone to cruelty & condemnation? & how can a man live with the tension between public faith & private doubt? In his long-awaited memoir Richard seeks to answer these questions & to explain how after many crises of faith he finally & painfully left the Church. It is a wise poetic & fiercely honest book. As a portrait of an inner life plagued by doubt it is unsurpassed. ...

This book is the winner of the PEN/ Ackerley Prize 2013. At the tender age of fourteen Richard Holloway left his home town of Alexandria north of Glasgow & travelled hundreds of miles to be educated & trained for the priesthood at an English monastery. By the age of twenty-five he had been ordained & was working in the slums of Glasgow. Through the forty years that followed Richard touched the lives of many people as he rose to one of the highest positions in the Anglican Church. But behind his confident public faith lay a restless heart & an inquisitive mind. Poignant wise & fiercely honest Leaving Alexandria is a remarkable memoir of a life defined by faith but plagued by doubt. ...

London 1933. Some two months after an Indian woman Usha Pramal is found murdered in a South London canal her brother turns to Maisie Dobbs to find the truth about her death. Not only has Scotland Yard made no arrests but evidence indicates they failed to conduct a full & thorough investigation. Before her death Usha was staying at an ayahs hostel a refuge for Indian women whose British employers had turned them out. As Maisie learns Usha was different from the hostels other lodgers. But with this discovery comes new danger
- soon another Indian woman who was close to Usha is found murdered before she can speak out. As Maisie is pulled deeper into an unfamiliar yet alluring subculture her investigation becomes clouded by the unfinished business of a previous case. & at the same time her lover James Compton gives her an ultimatum she cannot ignore.. .
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It is a cold February night in 1925 when two teenage sisters
- Mollie & Annemarie
- escape from their home in a tiny Irish village.

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Working as a ladys maid to Miss Olivia Mercer in Liverpool in 1919 Phoebe-Ann Parkinson dreams of a grander future. But when a tragic attack threatens her sister Emilys life Phoebe-Ann is driven from the Mercer household & into the arms of Jake one of the notorious drunken Malone clan. Phoebe-Ann is abandoned by her family & her dreams are turning into a nightmare. But as Emily begins to recover Phoebe-Ann is able to look forward to leaving Liverpool & her past behind her. ...