Its almost Christmas. Cecilia lies sick in bed as her family bustle around her to make her last Christmas as special as possible. Cecilia has cancer. An angel steps through her window. So begins a spirited & engaging series of conversations between Cecelia & her angel. As the sick girl thinks about her life & prepares for her death she changes subtly in herself & in her relationships with her family. Jostein Gaarder is a profoundly optimistic writer who writes about death with wisdom compassion & an enquiring mind. THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY will not only bring comfort to the bereaved. It will move & amaze everyone who reads it. ...

It is a luminous spring day in Venice as Commissario Brunetti & Inspettore Vianello come to the rescue of Vianello's friend Marco Ribetti who has been arrested while protesting against chemical pollution of the Venetian lagoon only to be faced by the fury of Marco's father-in-law owner of a glass factory on the island of Murano. But clearly there is another victim who has uncovered the guilty secret of the polluting glass foundries of the island of Murano & whose body is found dead in front of the furnaces which burn at 1400 degrees night & day. The victim has left clues in a copy of Dante & Brunetti must descend into an inferno to discover who is burning the land & fouling the waters of the lagoon. A man is dead
- but will politics & expedience prevent the killer from striking again?
...

Alex joins his father on a business trip to Amsterdam. During the day he hangs out with the daughter of a family friend. They visit the usual sights but also coffee shops & flea markets off the beaten track. At one of these markets Alex spots an ancient-looking mask. Before he knows what hes doing he buys it. Later in his hotel room he feels compelled to put the mask on. Alex is sucked into a parallel Amsterdam one from centuries before which begins to reveal the dark past of both the building he is staying in & the little girl who once lived there.. .edging stealthily towards the terrible twist. ...

Journeying through England on horseback the intrepid seventeenth-century traveller Celia Fiennes recorded every sight & experience of her adventure in her journal from her delight at countryside cakes & the beauty of remote landscapes to the challenges of disagreeable landladies choppy sea crossings & a troublesome horse. Describing potteries in Staffordshire cheesemaking in Cheshire dyers in Exeter & tin miners in Cornwall her writings give an unrivalled glimpse into an England of bustling industry & rich variety. Generations of inhabitants have helped shape the English countryside
- but it has profoundly shaped us too. It has provoked a huge variety of responses from artists writers musicians & people who live & work on the land
- as well as those who are travelling through it. English Journeys" celebrates this long tradition with a series of twenty books on all aspects of the countryside from stargazey pie & country churches to mans relationship with nature & songs celebrating the patterns of the countryside (as well as ghosts & love-struck soldiers)."

...

Romania Bulgaria Hungary & Slovakia were all German allies in the Second World War unlike the other countries of Europe which had either been forcibly occupied by the Nazis or remained neutral.SOE Missions mounted within their borders were thus doubly hazardous for they were conducted in enemy-populated territory heavily policed by military forces & gendarmerie. Furthermore all these states had well developed & experienced security services usually supplemented by Gestapo & Abwehr units.A further complication to the activities of SOE in these countries was that they had all been effectively conceded by Western Allies to Russia; not surprisingly therefore operations in the Soviet sphere of influence were to prove diabolically difficult. This is a story about the courage of individuals in the face of overwhelming odds. Hunger ill-health exhaustion cold & treachery all combined to make life for those members of SOE who parachuted into these Fascist outposts of Fortress Europe as insufferable as it was dangerous. ...

Jo is ill & has to stay in bed for the day but her mum promises to bring her home a surprise to make her feel better. All day long Jo looks out of the window waiting for her mum to return & in the meantime sees all her friends from the neighbourhood including the postman the window cleaner & Mrs Ali from next door. But when will Mum be back with her surprise for Jo? ...

John Stotts new daily devotional covers the entire narrative of the Bible all the seasons of the church year & every essential Christian teaching in a single volume. One of the most highly respected Bible teachers of our times John Stotts completely original readings get to the heart of each of the 365 carefully selected biblical passages. ...

A step-by-step guide to physical theatre in both theory & practice. The book is full of detailed exercises & inspiring ideas. There is also a bibliography & a contact list of training courses in the UK & abroad. Structured on a foundation learned from 12 years of teaching Dymphna Callery's book introduces the reader to the principles behind the work of certain key 20th-century theatre practitioners (Artuad Grotowski Meyerhold Brook & Lecoq among others) & offers exercises by which their theories can be turned into practice & their principles explored in action. The book takes the form of a series of workshops starting with the preparation of the body through awareness articulation energy & neutrality. A section on mask-work is followed by further work on the body investigating presence complicite play audience rhythm sound & e-motion. The book culminates in sections on devising & on the physical text. ...

Thomas can't work out what goes on in the tiny minds of his toddler twin sisters. They sing all the time but never get the words right. They think cats enjoy being dressed up as fairies. But who else can Thomas turn to when they all get locked out of the house? Besides it's a brilliant idea to pop them through the cat-flap & tell them to look for the keys. Isn't it.. .? ...

Aria has struggled to build a life for herself outside Reverie. It hasn't be easy adjusting to life in the wilderness but the struggle has been worth it with Perry by her side. But Perry has other challenges. His people are looking to him for answers. Answers about what happened to his nephew & what's happening to their world. & they don't trust the privileged Aria one of the enemy in their midst. Soon Perry'll be forced to chose between the tribe that looks to him for leadership & the girl that looks to him for love. ...