' There stood before me an ancient man swathed in a dark & tattered fleece his long hair & beard matted with filth his face grey with grief & age. Holding the sword out in front of me I backed away until I felt the sink behind me & I could go no further. His eyes followed me all the way.' When Bun Bendle is struck blind he feels like he is drowning in blackness. But the discovery of an ancient tomb & a strangely familiar sword changes him forever. This classic book weaves a contemporary tale with Arthurian legend in a way that is utterly spellbinding. ...

Selina Bruce has impulsively left behind her lawyer fiance in London & flown alone to a tiny island off the Spanish coast. She is searching for the father she has never known but what she finds is an unexpected truth about herself & the man she plans to marry. For exotic San Antonio offers Selina more than the penetrating brilliance of the noonday sun. It offers the mysterious George Dyer who holds the key not only to her past.. .but to her heart. ...

Coco Chanel high priestess of couture created the look of the chic modern woman: her simple & elegant designs freed women from their corsets & inspired them to crop their hair. By the 1920s Chanel employed more than two thousand people in her workrooms & had amassed a personal fortune. But at the start of the Second World War Chanel closed down her couture house & went to live quietly at the Ritz moving to Switzerland after the war. For more than half a century Chanels life from 1941 to 1954 has been shrouded in rumour. Neither Chanel nor her biographers have told the full story until now. In this explosive narrative Hal Vaughan pieces together Chanels hidden years from the Nazi occupation of Paris to the aftermath of the Liberation. He uncovers the truth of Chanels anti-Semitism & long-whispered collaboration with Hitlers officials. In particular Chanels long relationship with Spatz Baron von Dincklage previously described as a tennis-playing playboy & German diplomat & finally exposed here as a Nazi master spy & agent who ran an intelligence ring in the Mediterranean & reported directly to Joseph Goebbels. Sleeping with the Enemy" tells in detail how Chanel became a German intelligence operative Abwehr agent F-7124; how she was enlisted in spy missions & why she evaded arrest in France after the war. It reveals the role played by Winston Churchill in her escape from retribution; & how after a nine-year exile in Switzerland with Dincklage & despite French investigations into her espionage activities Coco was able to return to Paris & triumphantly reinvent herself
- & rebuild the House of Chanel. As Hal Vaughan shows far from being a heroine of France Chanel was in fact one of its most surprising traitors."
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Amy Bella Chloe Daisy & Emily are friends at school & have their own Alphabet Club (just look at their initials!). Daisy is the newest member & is desperate to fit in even though Chloe is very unfriendly to her at times. When the girls begin planning sleepover parties for their birthdays Daisy is dreading her own
- she doesn't know what her friends will make of her rather special older sister.. .
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This is not a play. This is a poem in several registers set at night on the Severn Estuary. Its subject is moonrise which happens five times in five different forms: new moon half moon full moon no moon & moon reborn. Various characters some living some dead all based on real people from the Severn catchment talk towards the moment of moonrise & are changed by it. The poem which was written for the 2009 festival of the Severn aims to record what happens when the moon moves over us
- its effect on water & its effect on voices
- Alice Oswald A Sleepwalk on the Severn" is a poem for several voices set at night on the Severn Estuary. Its subject is moonrise which happens five times in five different forms: new moon half moon full moon no moon & moon reborn. Various characters some living some dead
- all based on real people from the Severn catchment
- talk towards the moment of moonrise & are changed by it. Commissioned for the 2009 festival of the Severn Alice Oswalds breathtakingly original new work aims to record what happens when the moon moves over the sublunary world: its effect on water & its effect on language."



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In The Sleepwalkers" acclaimed historian & author of " Iron Kingdom" Christopher Clark examines the causes of the First World War. The moments that it took Gavrilo Princip to step forward to the stalled car & shoot dead Franz Ferdinand & his wife were perhaps the most fateful of the modern era. An act of terrorism of staggering efficiency it fulfilled its every aim: it would liberate Bosnia from Habsburg rule & it created a powerful new Serbia but it also brought down four great empires killed millions of men & destroyed a civilization. What made a seemingly prosperous & complacent Europe so vulnerable to the impact of this assassination? In " The Sleepwalkers" Christopher Clark retells the story of the outbreak of the First World War & its causes. Drawing on many fresh new sources this account reveals a Europe very different from the familiar picture putting Serbia & the Balkans at the centre of the story. Starting with the brutal assassination of Alexander I of Serbia in 1903 Clark shows how far from being the place of enviable stability it appears to us Europe was racked by chronic problems: a multipolar fractured multicultural world of clashing ideals terrorism militancy & instability which was fatefully saddled with a conspicuously ineffectual set of political leaders. He shows how the rulers of Europe who prided themselves on their modernity & rationalism behaved like sleepwalkers stumbling through crisis after crisis & finally convincing themselves that war was the only answer. Reviews: " Formidable.. .one of the most impressive & stimulating studies of the period ever published". (Max Hastings " Sunday Times"). " The arguments [ Clark] sets out in this quite superb account of the causes of the First World War are so compelling that they effectively consign the old historical consensus to the bin.. .a masterpiece. Its not often that one has the privilege of reading a book that reforges our understanding of one of the seminal events of world history". (" Mail Online"). "A brilliant contribution". (" Times Higher Education"). " Clark is fully alive to the challenges of the subject. Planting himself at the contingent end of the spectrum he prefers to establish how the war happened rather than to explain why by means of hindsight... It is a refreshing approach. He provides vivid portraits of leading figures...[ He] also gives a rich sense of what contemporaries believed was at stake in the crises leading up to the war". (" Irish Times"). About the author: Christopher Clark is Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge & a Fellow of St Catharines College. He is the author of " The Politics of Conversion" " Kaiser Wilhelm II" & " Iron Kingdom". Widely praised around the world " Iron Kingdom" became a major bestseller. He has been awarded the Officers Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany." ...

If it weren't for the nightmares Ben would say he had a good life. He's happy with his steady job; he loves his wife & kids. But it's hard to ignore the dark violent images that are so vivid that he often worries that the dreams are real. Toby also suffers from nightmares. & the scars on his fifteen-year-old body are a ghostly reminder of actions he doesn't remember or underst&. Two people two separate unremarkable lives. But when their dreams & doubts collide & become too powerful to ignore one fact will become clearer than any other
- that the truth they are running towards is the very thing from which they should be fleeing.
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The pacy sensitive & formidably argued history of the causes of the First World War from acclaimed historian & author Christopher Clark. Sunday Times & Independent Books Of The Year 2012. The moments that it took Gavrilo Princip to step forward to the stalled car & shoot dead Franz Ferdinand & his wife were perhaps the most fateful of the modern era. An act of terrorism of staggering efficiency it fulfilled its every aim: it would liberate Bosnia from Habsburg rule & it created a powerful new Serbia but it also brought down four great empires killed millions of men & destroyed a civilization. What made a seemingly prosperous & complacent Europe so vulnerable to the impact of this assassination? In The Sleepwalkers Christopher Clark retells the story of the outbreak of the First World War & its causes. Above all it shows how the failure to understand the seriousness of the chaotic near genocidal fighting in the Balkans would drag Europe into catastrophe. Reviews: Formidable.. .one of the most impressive & stimulating studies of the period ever published". (Max Hastings Sunday Times). " Easily the best book ever written on the subject...A work of rare beauty that combines meticulous research with sensitive analysis & elegant prose. The enormous weight of its quality inspires amazement & awe... Academics should take note: Good history can still be a good story". (Washington Post). "A lovingly researched work of the highest scholarship. It is hard to believe we will ever see a better narrative of what was perhaps the biggest collective blunder in the history of international relations". (Niall Ferguson). "[ Reading The Sleepwalkers] it is as if a light had been turned on a half-darkened stage of shadowy characters cursing among themselves without reason...[ Clark] demolishes the standard view... The brilliance of Clark's far-reaching history is that we are able to discern how the past was genuinely prologue... In conception steely scholarship & piercing insights his book is a masterpiece". (Harold Evans New York Times Book Review). " Impeccably researched provocatively argued & elegantly written.. .a model of scholarship". (Sunday Times Books of the Year). " Superb.. .effectively consigns the old historical consensus to the bin... It's not often that one has the privilege of reading a book that reforges our understanding of one of the seminal events of world history". (Mail Online). "A monumental new volume... Revelatory even revolutionary... Clark has done a masterful job explaining the inexplicable". (Boston Globe). "superb... One of the great mysteries of history is how Europe's great powers could have stumbled into World War I... This is the single best book I have read on this important topic". (Fareed Zakaria). "A meticulously researched superbly organized & handsomely written account Military History Clark is a masterly historian... His account vividly reconstructs key decision points while deftly sketching the context driving them...A magisterial work". (Wall Street Journal). " This compelling examination of the causes of World War I deserves to become the new standard one-volume account of that contentious subject". (Foreign Affairs). "A brilliant contribution". (Times Higher Education). " Clark is fully alive to the challenges of the subject... He provides vivid portraits of leading figures...[ He] also gives a rich sense of what contemporaries believed was at stake in the crises leading up to the war". (Irish Times). " In recent decades many analysts had tended to put most blame for the disaster [of the First World War] on Germany. Clark strongly renews an older interpretation which sees the statesmen of many countries as blundering blindly together into war". (Stephen Howe Independent Books of the Year). About the author: Christopher Clark is Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge & a Fellow of St Catharine's College. He is the author of The Politics of Conversion " ...

Find out what makes baby snooze & slumber in this gorgeous new title from Usborne's popular & expanding touchy-feely series for babies & toddlers. Catherine Mac Kinnon's delightful pastel illustrations combine with appealing text & the softest of touchy-feely textures on every spread to make this book a delight that's sure to be enjoyed again & again. The tactile touch-feely textures familiar nursery characters & simple words ensure that this book will appeal to every baby toddler & parent. ...

Three little kittens arent sleepy at all! One wants to jump another wants to play & the last wants a bite to eat. But after Mama Cat brushes their fur gives them some milk & sings them a lullaby one two three little kittens drift off to sleep. With gentle rhythmic verse little ones will love to snuggle up with these soft cozy kitties at bedtime. The book Sleepy Kittens is read aloud in a pivotal emotional scene of the animated movie Despicable Me. Our board book will include adorable fuzzy kitten finger puppets! ...