What makes a man the greatest of all time? Eddy Merckx is to cycling what Muhammad Ali is to boxing or Pele to football: quite simply the best there has ever been. Throughout his professional career Merckx amassed an astonishing 445 victories. To put that in perspective Bradley Wiggins has fewer than forty. Merckx was a machine. It wasnt just the number of victories; it was his remorseless domination that created the legend. In 1969 while already comfortably leading the Tour de France Merckx hammered a further eight-&-a-half minutes out of his nearest rivals during an 85-mile solo break in the Pyrenees. He didnt just beat his opponents he crushed them. But his triumphs only tell half a story that

Includes:: horrific injury a doping controversy & tragedy. He was nicknamed The Cannibal for his insatiable appetite for victory but the moniker did scant justice to a man who was handsome sensitive & surprisingly anxious. For Britains leading cycling writer William Fotheringham the burning question remains why? What made Eddy Merckx so invincible? In Half Man Half Bike Fotheringham goes back to speak to those who were there at the time & those who knew Merckx best. The result is this extraordinary & definitive story of a man whose fear of failure would drive him to reach the highest pinnacles before ultimately destroying him.

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At first the prisoner scratches at the walls until her fingers bleed. But there is no escaping the room. With no way of measuring time her days weeks months go unrecorded. She vows not to go mad. She will not give her captors the satisfaction. She will die first. Copenhagen detective Carl Morck has been taken off homicide to run a newly created department for unsolved crimes. His first case concerns Merete Lynggaard who vanished five years ago. Everyone says shes dead. Everyone says its a waste of time. He thinks theyre right. The voice in the dark is distorted harsh & without mercy. It says the prisoners torture will only end when she answers one simple question. It is one she has asked herself a million times: Why is this happening? ...

Cameron Mac Donald has spent his life guided by duty. As the police chief of a small Massachusetts town that has been home to generations of his Scottish clan he is bound to the town's residents by blood & honor. Yet when his cousin Jamie arrives at the police station with the body of his wife & the bald confession that he's killed her Cam immediately places him under arrest. The situation isn't as clear to Cam's wife Allie. While she is devoted to her husband she finds herself siding against Cam seduced by the picture James paints of a man so in love with a woman that he'd grant all her wishes.. .even the one that meant taking her life. Into this charged atmosphere drifts Mia a new assistant at Allie's floral shop for whom Cam feels an instant & inexplicable attraction. While he aids the prosecution in preparing the case against Jamie who killed his terminally ill wife out of mercy Cam finds himself betraying his own wife. ...

Half dragon half woman can she save her friends soul
- without losing her heart? Mercy Wilson is a reporter in the San Francisco
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A year after arriving in France Englishman Paul West is still struggling with some fundamental questions: What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Why are there no health warnings on French nudist beaches? & is it really polite to sleep with your boss' mistress? Paul opens his English tea room & mutates (temporarily) into a Parisian waiter; samples the pleasures of typically French hotel-room afternoons; & on a return visit to the UK sees the full horror of a British office party through Parisian eyes. Meanwhile he continues his search for the perfect French mademoiselle. But will Paul find l'amour eternel or will it all end in merde? In his second comedy of errors Paul West continues to sabotage the entente cordiale. Author's apology: I'd just like to say sorry to all the suppository fans out there because in this book there are no suppositories. There are however lots of courgettes & I see this as progress. Suppositories to courgettes
- I think it proves that I'm developing as a writer." Stephen Clarke."
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Paul West is in deep financial merde. His only way out of debt is to accept a decidedly dodgy job that involves him touring America in a Mini while pretending to be typically British. Also in the car is Pauls French girlfriend Alexa & his American poet friend Jake whose main aim in life is to sleep with a woman from every country in the world. Preferably in the back of Pauls Mini. But as the little car battles from New York to Miami & then heads west leg-room turns out to be the least of Pauls troubles. His work is being sabotaged his tour plans are in tatters & his love life becomes a Franco-American war zone. & as Paul knows better than anyone when you mix love & war
- merde happens...
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One of the most popular & beloved introductions to the concept of faith ever written ' Mere Christianity' has sold millions of copies worldwide. The book brings together C.S. Lewis's legendary radio broadcasts during the war years in which he set out simply to 'explain & defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times'. Rejecting the boundaries that divide Christianity's many denominations ' Mere Christianity' provides an unequalled opportunity for believers & nonbelievers alike to absorb a powerful rational case for the Christian faith. ...

This is the third volume in the bestselling Wideacre Trilogy of novels. Set in the eighteenth century they launched the career of Philippa Gregory the author of The Other Boleyn Girl & The Virgin's Lover. Meridon a desolate Romany girl is determined to escape the hard poverty of her childhood. Riding bareback in a travelling show while her sister Dandy risks her life on the trapeze Meridon dedicates herself to freeing them both from danger & want. But Dandy beautiful impatient thieving Dandy grabs too much too quickly. & Meridon finds herself alone riding in bitter grief through the rich Sussex farmlands towards a house called Wideacre
- which awaits the return of the last of the Laceys. Sweeping passionate unique: ' Meridon' completes Philippa Gregory's bestselling trilogy which began with ' Wideacre' & continued with ' The Favoured Child'.
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As heard on Book at Bedtime BBC Radio 4. The gaudy years of the Restoration are long gone. Robert Merivel physician & courtier to Charles II loved for his gift to turn sorrow into laughter now faces the agitations & anxieties of middle age. Questions crowd his mind: has he been a good father? Is he a fair master? Is he the Kings friend or the Kings slave? In search of answers Merivel sets off for the French court. But Versailles
- all glitter in front & squalor behind
- leaves Merivel in despair until a chance encounter with Madame de Flamanville a seductive Swiss botanist allows him to dream of an honourable future. But will that future ever be his? Back home at Bidnold Manor his loyalty & medical skill are tested to their limits while the captive bear he has brought back from France begins to cause unlooked-for havoc in his heart & on his estate. With a cascade of lace at his neck & a laugh that can burst out of him in the midst of torment Merivel is a uniquely brilliant creation soulful funny outrageous & achingly sad. He is Everyman. His unmistakable self-mocking voice speaks directly to us down the centuries.

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Having brought the two worlds of Atlantis & Celtic Britain together in Book I the author now focuses on Merlin. In this second book Merlin tells his own story
- & his vision
- the vision of the Kingdom of Summer ruled by the Summer Lord. It is a story of love & passion triumph & tragedy with itw own special & powerful magic. The saving of the infant Arthur & the setting of the sword in the stone form both the climax to this book & the entry to the story of Arthur himself.

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