Henry VIII has proclaimed himself Supreme Head of the Church & the country is waking up to savage new laws rigged trials & the greatest network of informers ever seen. Under the order of Thomas Cromwell a team of commissioners is sent through the country to investigate the monasteries. There can only be one outcome: the monasteries are to be dissolved. But on the Sussex coast at the monastery of Scarnsea events have spiralled out of control. Cromwell's Commissioner Robin Singleton has been found dead his head severed from his body. His horrific murder is accompanied by equally sinister acts of sacrilege -- a black cockerel sacrificed on the alter & the disappearance of Scarnsea's Great Relic. Dr Matthew Shardlake lawyer & long-time supporter of Reform has been sent by Cromwell into this atmosphere of treachery & death. But Shardlake's investigation soon forces him to question everything he hears & everything that he intrinsically believes.. . ...

Gripping insightful & deft Maggie O' Farrell's third novel is a haunting story of the way our families shape our lives. It was winner of the Somerset Maugham Award. On a cold February afternoon Stella catches sight of a man she hasn't seen for many years but instantly recognises. Or thinks she does. At the same moment on the other side of the globe in the middle of a crowd of Chinese New Year revellers Jake realises that things are becoming dangerous. They know nothing of one another's existence but both Stella & Jake flee their lives: Jake in search of a place so remote it doesn't appear on any map & Stella for a destination in Scotland the significance of which only her sister Nina will underst&. ...

Its 1936 in West London & fifteen-year-old May Stubbs & her family have endured the worst of The Depression. Looking forward to a more prosperous future they take on a derelict cricket pavilion convert it into a caf? & general store & find it quickly becomes the hub of the community. Then May contracts tuberculosis & the way ahead looks less certain. Leaving her best friend Betty Lane & lifelong soul mate George Bailey behind she is sent away to fight off the illness. But on her return to London she finds things have changed. & when war is declared it is clear that serious complications & heartache lie in store for them all. ...

The award-winning Number One bestseller & Queen of crime fiction Val Mc Dermid carves out a stunning psychological thriller. ...

THE SHADOW OF THE EAGLE
- 1814: Napoleon has abdicated & the ' Great War' is at an end. As King Louis XVIII is escorted back to
...

Edie Burchill & her mother have never been close but when a long lost letter arrives with the return address of Milderhurst Castle Kent printed on its envelope Edie begins to suspect that her mother's emotional distance masks an old secret. Evacuated from London as a thirteen year old girl Edie's mother is chosen by the mysterious Juniper Blythe & taken to live at Millderhurst Castle with the Blythe family. Fifty years later Edie too is drawn to Milderhurst & the eccentric Sisters Blythe. Old ladies now the three still live together the twins nursing Juniper whose abandonment by her fiance in 1941 plunged her into madness. Inside the decaying castle Edie begins to unravel her mother's past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Milderhurst Castle & Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in the distant hours has been waiting a long time for someone to find it... ...

As they dazzle all the men at Queen Victorias jubilee ball Beth & Milly Goodwin seem to be mirror images of one another: beautiful graceful & rich they can take their pick of any man in St Helens. Only those who know them best realize that Millys dark brown eyes hide a wild untamed wantonness while Beths silvery-grey ones betray her idealism & kindness. But the only man in the room either of them wants is the one who could destroy both their lives. Hugh sixteenth Lord Thornley is a rake who needs to marry an heiress to restore the fortune his father gambled away. Even a lowly daughter of a glass manufacturer will do
- provided she is biddable & strong & willing to bear the son he needs. Beth he decides will make him the perfect wife. But it is Milly who traps him into a loveless marriage
- & sets in motion a chain of events that could destroy everything they hold dear.

...

This delightful book of writer-to-writer correspondence joins a full shelf of volumes in the genre yet it is perhaps the first set of such letters ever transacted via the Internet. Also unusual at least for correspondents in the twenty-first century is that Frederic Raphael & Joseph Epstein have never met nor even spoken to each other. But what is most rare about this book is the authors abundant talent for entertaining their readers as much when the topic is grave as when it is droll. Raphael & Epstein agree to embark on a year-long correspondence but other rules are few. As the weeks progress their friendship grows & each inspires the other. Almost any topic large or small is considered: they write of schooling parents wives children literary tastes enmities delights & beliefs. They discuss their professional lives as writers their skills or want of them respective experiences with editors producers & actors & in priceless passages scattered throughout the letters they assess such celebrated figures as Gore Vidal Christopher Hitchens Sontag/ Leibowitz Malcolm Gladwell Harold Bloom George Steiner Harold Pinter Isaiah Berlin George Weidenfeld & Robert Gottlieb among many others. Epstein & Raphael capture a year in their letters but more they invite us into an intimate world where literature cinema & art are keys to self-discovery & friendship. ...

In September 1914 as the fate of Europe was being decided along the banks of the Marne thousands of young men across Britain continued to flock to the recruiting stations. One of these was Matthew Richardson who joined the 1/7th Battalion of the Manchester Regiment. But their destination was not Flanders or France but Egypt Sudan & ultimately Gallipoli where the fighting was as bitter as any on the Western Front. Twice Matthew Richardson was plunged into a major battle. On the first occasion an act of reckless bravery earned him the DCM; on the second he was severely wounded. But through all these events he kept up a steady correspondence with his family back home. These letters published here for the first time form a continuous narrative which tells the story of this remarkable odyssey from peace to war & of its hero's return. ...

How does a literary historian end up thinking in terms of z-scores principal component analysis & clustering coefficients? The essays in Distant Reading led to a new & often contested paradigm of literary analysis. In presenting them here Franco Moretti reconstructs his intellectual trajectory the theoretical influences over his work & explores the polemics that have often developed around his positions. From the evolutionary model of Modern European Literature " through the geo-cultural insights of " Conjectures of World Literature" & " Planet Hollywood " to the quantitative findings of " Style inc." & the abstract patterns of " Network Theory Plot Analysis " the book follows two decades of conceptual development organizing them around the metaphor of "distant reading " that has come to define
- well beyond the wildest expectations of its author
- a growing field of unorthodox literary studies."

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