This de luxe collector's edition features the first edition text & eight full-colour plates with an exclusive colour frontispiece illustration. The book is quarterbound with a special gold motif stamped on the front board & is presented in a matching slipcase. There are tales of Middle-earth from times long before The Lord of the Rings & the story told in this book is set in the great country that lay beyond the Grey Havens in the West: lands where Treebeard once walked but which were drowned in the great cataclysm that ended the First Age of the World. In that remote time Morgoth the first Dark Lord dwelt in the vast fortress of Angband the Hells of Iron in the North; & the tragedy of Turin & his sister Nienor unfolded within the shadow of the fear of Angband & the war waged by Morgoth against the lands & secret cities of the Elves. Their brief & passionate lives were dominated by the elemental hatred that Morgoth bore them as the children of Hurin the man who had dared to defy & to scorn him to his face. Against them he sent his most formidable servant Glaurung a powerful spirit in the form of a huge wingless dragon of fire. Into this story of brutal conquest & flight of forest hiding-places & pursuit of resistance with lessening hope the Dark Lord & the Dragon enter in direly articulate form. Sardonic & mocking Glaurung manipulated the fates of Turin & Nienor by lies of diabolic cunning & guile & the curse of Morgoth was fulfilled. The earliest versions of this story by J.R.R. Tolkien go back to the end of the First World War & the years that followed; but long afterwards when The Lord of the Rings was finished he wrote it anew & greatly enlarged it in complexities of motive & character: it became the dominant story in his later work on Middle-earth. But he could not bring it to a final & finished form. In this book Christopher Tolkien has constructed after long study of the manuscripts a coherent narrative without any editorial invention. ...

' The Children of Lovers are Orphans'. Proverb. Bestselling novelist author of Lord of the Flies" William Golding was a famously acute observer of children. What was it like to be his daughter? In this frank & engaging family memoir Judy Golding recalls growing up with a brilliant loving sometimes difficult parent. The years of her childhood & adolescence saw her father change from an impecunious schoolteacher to a famous novelist. Once adult she came to understand some of the internal conflicts which led to his writing. The Golding family life both ordinary & extraordinary always kept its characteristic warmth humour complexity anger & love danger & insecurity. This is a book about family & parents about lovers & their children & about our impact on one another
- for good or ill."
...

This is a st&-alone thriller from P. D. James. The year is 2021. No child has been born for twenty-five years. The human race faces extinction. Under the despotic rule of Xan Lyppiat the Warden of England the old are despairing & the young cruel. Theo Faren a cousin of the Warden lives a solitary life in this ominous atmosphere. That is until a chance encounter with a young woman leads him into contact with a group of dissenters. Suddenly his life is changed irrevocably as he faces agonizing choices which could affect the future of mankind. ...

From Eduardo Galeano one of Latin America's greatest living writers author of the Memory of Fire trilogy comes Children of the Days a new kind of history that shows us how to remember & how to live. This book is shaped like a calendar. Each day brings with it a story: a journey feast or tragedy that really happened on that date from all possible years & all corners of the world. From Abdul Kassem Ismail the tenth-century Persian who never went anywhere without his library
- all seventeen thousand books of it on four hundred camels; to the Brazilian city of Sorocaba which on February 8 1980 responded to the outlawing of public kissing by becoming one huge kissodrome; to July 1 2008 the day the US government decided to remove Nelson Mandela's name from its list of dangerous terrorists Children of the Days takes aim at the pretensions of official history & illuminates moments & heroes that we have all but forgotten. Through this shimmering historical mosaic runs a common thread one that joins humanity's darkest hours to its sweetest victories. Children of the Days is the story of our lives. Eduardo Galeano is the great master of fragments & splinters a prince of the absurdly truthful. Children of the Days his Calendar of Human History is an immensely varied gathering of facts & oddments & truths & stories of every kind. Underlying them all is a passionate & humane concern for the underdog the poor the forgotten. How this can be so funny & at the same time so moving is a great mystery". (Philip Pullman). " Bedtime stories you remember? This is a book of stories for each day of the year addressed to adults. Stories of the historical human venture. Each story half a page. Put it beside your bed & the bed of those you love". (John Berger). " Marries meticulous journalistic detail with lyrical flair... Comprises 365 vignettes that range from the birth of Chekhov (January 29)
- " He wrote as if he were saying nothing. & he said everything"
- to The Saddest Match in History (November 21). But where to start? On QI Alan Davies might pick January 1 the first day of the year. It's where Galeano begins too but only so his inner Stephen Fry can point out that for Mayas Jews Arabs the Chinese & others this day doesn't herald the New Year at all before adding the optimistic kicker that given the transience of time this day is as good as any other "to be bright & joyous as the colours of an outdoor market". Of course like most people I dipped in on my birthday". (Shaun Phillips The Times). " Galeano performs the sort of extraordinary feats of compassion artistry & imagination achieved in fiction by his fellow visionary Latin American writers especially Borges Garcia Marquez & Bolano". (Booklist starred review). " Galeano's prose is nearly lulling in its lyricism". (Neil Gordon New York Times Book Review). " The elegance of Galeano's words
- they're just penetrating so beautiful". (San Francisco Chronicle Danny Glover). " Galeano is a superstar in the Hispanic world... His writing is full of candour empathy humane concern [and] he has a wonderful eye for the quirky.. .he evokes the wonders of a remarkable world that is not so bad after all". (John Paul Rathbone Financial Times). " The telling of such secret histories makes it easy to see why Galeano is one of Latin America's most influential writers.. .he has produced literature that will endure monuments to the imagination". (Toby Green The Independent). Eduardo Galeano is one of Latin America's most distinguished writers. He is the author of the three-volume Memory of Fire; Open Veins of Latin America; Soccer in Sun & Shadow; The Book of Embraces; Walking Words; Upside Down; & Voices in Time. Born in Montevideo in 1940 he lived in exile in Argentina & Spain for years before returning to Uruguay. His work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. He is recipient of many international prizes."



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Everyone thought when the alarm bell rang that it was just another fire practice. But the first bombs had fallen on Hamburg & Leningrad the headmaster said & a full-scale nuclear attack was imminent. Its a real life nightmare. Sarah & her family have to stay cooped up in a tightly sealed kitchen for days on end dreading the inevitable radioactive fall-out & the subsequent slow torturous death which seems almost preferable to surviving in a grey dead world choked by dust. But then from out of the dust & the ruins & the desolation comes new life a new future & a whole brave new world... ...

Mark & Lily have been banished from Agora the ancient city-state where everything is for sale
- memories emotions
- even children.

...

The publisher claims that we are born into a world controlled by unseen forces that have plagued & manipulated humanity for thousands of years. David Icke exposes these forces & their methods of human control & he claims to reveal a fantastic web of global manipulation orchestrated by forces beyond this physical realm. ...

A PLANET LIES OPEN TO ATTACK. THERE IS STILL HOPE
- BUT TIME IS RUNNING OUT The Starways Congress has gathered a fleet to destroy
...

In The Children of the New Forest Cavalier & Roundhead battle it out in the turbulent setting of the English Civil war & provide the background for this classic tale of four orphans as they face adversity survival in the forest reconciliation & eventual forgiveness. This is the first enduring historical novel for children which conjures up as much magic today as it did on first publication. The freedom from adult constraint allied with the necessary disciplines to survive in a hostile world make for a gripping read. ...

Gavril Nagarian Lord Drakhaon of Azhkendir is believed dead
- perished in the heat of battle. Yet he still lives & is entrusted
...