White Fang by Jack London was published in 1906. It tells the story of White Fang part-dog & part-wolf as he fights for survival in the harsh landscapes of northwest Canada. Essential Classics is a wonderful new series that offers a quick way into a range of exciting stories. Fast-moving & accessible each story is a shortened dramatically illustrated version of the classic novel which loses none of the strength & flavour of the original. ...

In order to save his reputation & the honour of his house at school after he shames himself by running away from a fight between fellow pupils & toughs from the local town a studious schoolboy takes up the study of boxing. This charming early novel by P. G. Wodehouse plays a series of witty variations on the standard school story of the period balancing the minor heroics of the action against a humorously ironic commentary. The simple tale is given sparkle by vivid character drawing & the authors sharp ear for schoolboy dialogue. ...

This is the story of a journey like no other as Jacek Hugo-Bader makes his way across Siberia from Moscow to Vladivostok in the middle of winter. Travelling alone in a modified Russian jeep he traverses a continent that is two-&-a-half times bigger than America awash with bandits & not always fully equipped with roads. Along the way Hugo-Bader discovers a great deal of tragedy but also plenty of dark humour among the reindeer shepherds nomadic tribes the former hippies the shamans & the followers of some of the many arcane religions that flourish in this isolated impossible region. ...

When she is eleven years old Martine is orphaned & sent to live with her grandmother on a game reserve in South Africa. Her grandmother seems strangely unwelcoming & Martine has a difficult time settling in at her new school where she is conspicuously an outsider. But she has an ally in Tendai
- one of the keepers on the reserve from whom she learns the lore & survival techniques of the bush & in Grace
- who instantly senses there is something special about Martine. There are secrets about Sawubona (the reserve) just waiting to be revealed & rumours too about a fabled white giraffe
- a trophy for hunters everywhere. One night Martine lonely & feeling slightly rebellious too looks out of her window & see a young albino giraffe
- silver tinged with cinnamon in the moonlight. This is the beginning of her mysterious & magical adventures
- her discovery of her gift of healing & a secret valley that she travels to with the giraffe where shell find clues about her past & future. Above all its is a heart-warming story full of charm & atmosphere & Martines sheer delight in her giraffe friend & the fantastic landscape which is theirs to explore.




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Martine is eleven when she goes to live on a game reserve in South Africa. One night she looks out of her window & sees a giraffe
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This is the forgotten story of the million white Europeans snatched from their homes & taken in chains to the great slave markets of North Africa to be sold to the highest bidder. Ignored by their own governments & forced to endure the harshest of conditions very few lived to tell the tale. Using the firsthand testimony of a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow Giles Milton vividly reconstructs a disturbing little known chapter of history. Pellow was bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco who was constructing an imperial pleasure palace of enormous scale & grandeur built entirely by Christian slave labour. As his personal slave he would witness first-hand the barbaric splendour of he imperial court as well as experience the daily terror of a cruel regime. Gripping immaculately researched & brilliantly realised WHITE GOLD reveals an explosive chapter of popular history told with all the pace & verve of one of our finest historians. ...

Drawing closely on Bulgakovs personal experiences of the horrors of civil war as a young doctor The White Guard" takes place in Kiev 1918 a time of turmoil & suffocating uncertainty as the Bolsheviks Socialists & Germans fight for control of the city. It tells the story of the Turbins a once-wealthy Russian family as they are forced to come to terms with revolution & a new regime." ...

There will be days when you wonder at & question some of the risks you had to take the sacrifices you were forced to offer in the face of death. In Kiel Harbour 1945
- the war in Europe is at an end. But for Lieutenant Vere Marriott & the men of MGB 801 moored amid a nightmare of devastation it is an uneasy unsettled peace. New assignments ashore & afloat mean fresh tensions & conflicting emotions. For some glory now takes second place to profit. For others revenge at last seems within their grasp. No one is shooting at Marriott now. But dangers come thick & fast
- from confrontation with the Russians to his feelings for Fraulein Geghim. There is more to victory than survival.. .

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Harold Wilson's famous reference to 'white heat' captured the optimistic spirit of a society in the midst of breathtaking change. From the gaudy pleasures of Swinging London to the tragic bloodshed in Northern Ireland from the intrigues of Westminster to the drama of the World Cup British life seemed to have taken on a dramatic new momentum. The memories images & colourful personalities of those heady times still resonate today: mop-tops & mini-skirts strikes & demonstrations Carnaby Street & Kings Road Harold Wilson & Edward Heath Mary Quant & Jean Shrimpton Enoch Powell & Mary Whitehouse Marianne Faithfull & Mick Jagger. In this wonderfully rich & readable historical narrative Dominic Sandbrook looks behind the myths of the Swinging Sixties to unearth the contradictions of a society caught between optimism & decline. ...

Nothing on the tundra rotted.. . The whole history of human settlement lay exposed there under that big northern sky. There was nowhere here for bones to hide. On Craig Island a vast landscape of ice north of the Arctic Circle three travellers are hunting duck. Among them is expert Inuit hunter & guide Edie Kiglatuk; a woman born of this harsh beautiful terrain. The two men are tourists experiencing Arctic life in the raw but when one of the men is shot dead in mysterious circumstances the local Council of Elders in the tiny settlement of Autisaq is keen to dismiss it as an accident. Then two adventurers arrive in Autisaq hoping to search for the remains of the legendary Victorian explorer Sir James Fairfax. The men hire Edie -- whose ancestor Welatok guided Fairfax -- along with Edie's stepson Joe & two parties set off in different directions. Four days later Joe returns to Autisaq frostbitten hypothermic & disoriented to report his man missing. & when things take an even darker turn Edie finds herself heartbroken & facing the greatest challenge of her life.. .'A blazing star of a thriller: vivid tightly-sprung & satisfying on all levels. Encountering Edie Kiglatuk the toughest smartest Arctic heroine since Miss Smilla left me with that rare feeling of privilege you get on meeting extraordinary people in real life. A huge achievement' Liz Jensen author of The Rapture ' Edie is an ingenious & original creation but the most addictive character is the Arctic itself' Sunday Telegraph ...