Longlisted for the 2011 MAN BOOKER PRIZE for Fiction FAR TO GO is a powerful & profoundly moving story about one familys epic journey to flee the Nazi occupation of their homeland in 1939. Pavel & Anneliese Bauer are affluent secular Jews whose lives are turned upside down by the arrival of the German forces in Czechoslovakia. Desperate to avoid deportation the Bauers flee to Prague with their six-year-old son Pepik & his beloved nanny Marta. When the family try to flee without her to Paris Marta betrays them to her Nazi boyfriend. But it is through Martas determination that Pepik secures a place on a Kindertransport though he never sees his parents or Marta again. Inspired by Alison Picks own grandparents who fled their native Czechoslovakia for Canada during the Second World War FAR TO GO is a deeply personal & emotionally harrowing novel. ...

At the height of the Seven Years War Great Britain made an audacious strike at the heart of Spanish colonial power in the Caribbean. Gathering troops from bases in Britain & Canada & sailing across the Atlantic in secrecy was an incredible feat. The raid on Havana took Spanish colonial forces completely by surprise & following vicious fighting the city defences at El Moro collapsed. Havana the jewel in the Spanish colonial crown now belonged to Britain. The success of the raid influenced British military policy for centuries as the true potential off amphibious warfare was realized. ...

Ashley Dartnells mother was a glamorous American her father a dashing Englishman each trying to slough off their past & upgrade to a more romantic & exotic present in Iran. As the story starts Ashley is eight years old & living in Tehran in the 1960s: the Shah was in power life for Westerners was rich & privileged. But somehow it didnt all add up to a fairytale. There were bankruptcies & prisons betrayals & lovers lies & evasions. & throughout it all Ashleys passionate & strong-willed mother Genie. Stories of mothers & daughters are some of the most compelling in contemporary memoir from The Liars Club & The Glass Castle to Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight & Bad Blood. Farangi Girl deserves to be in their company. Its an honest & endlessly recognisable portrait of a mother by a daughter who loved her (and was loved in return). Against this extraordinary background Ashleys journey into adulthood was more helter-skelter than most & this portrait of a bewitching & endlessly inventive mother is surprising & deeply moving. ...

Farewell My Lovely is a classic novel by Raymond Chandler the master of hard-boiled crime. Eight years ago Moose Malloy & cute little redhead Velma were getting married
- until someone framed Malloy for armed robbery. Now his stretch is up & he wants Velma back. PI Philip Marlow meets Malloy one hot day in Hollywood & out of the generosity of his jaded heart agrees to help him. Dragged from one smoky bar to another Marlowe's search for Velma turns up plenty of dangerous gangsters with a nasty habit of shooting first & talking later. & soon what started as a search for a missing person becomes a matter of life & death... Anything Chandler writes about grips the mind from the first sentence". (Daily Telegraph). " One of the greatest crime writers who set standards others still try to attain". (Sunday Times). " Chandler is an original stylist creator of a character as immortal as Sherlock Holmes". (Anthony Burgess). Best-known as the creator of the original private eye Philip Marlowe Raymond Chandler was born in Chicago in 1888 & died in 1959. Many of his books have been adapted for the screen & he is widely regarded as one of the very greatest writers of detective fiction. His books include The Big Sleep The Little Sister Farewell My Lovely The Long Good-bye The Lady in the Lake Playback Killer in the Rain The High Window & Trouble is My Business."
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A poignant & brilliant sequel to Dandelion Wine from the author of Fahrenheit 451 In Green Town Illinois Douglas Spaulding is in the midst of a small civil war with the old pitted against the young in this the second book in Bradburys semi-fictionalised account of his childhood. As the school boards figure of authority Mr Calvin C. Quartermain attempts to outwit the boys at every turn their antics increase & become ever more daring & mischevious. Once the shadow of winter draws across Green Town the boys quickly realise that their enemy is not so much the senior members of their own community but rather time itself which is ever ebbing away just beyond the reach of their most daring trick yet: a bold attempt to sabotage the towns clock. ...

Written when Ernest Hemingway was thirty years old & lauded as the best American novel to emerge from World War I A Farewell to Arms" is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front & his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield- weary demoralised men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty & desertion
- this gripping semi-autobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war & the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote the ending to "A Farewell to Arms" thirty-nine times to get the words right. This edition collects all of the alternative endings together for the first time along with early drafts of other essential passages offering new insight into Hemingways craft & creative process & the evolution of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Featuring Hemingways own 1948 introduction to an illustrated reissue of the novel a personal foreword by the authors son Patrick Hemingway & a new introduction by the authors grandson Sean Hemingway this edition of "A Farewell to Arms" is truly a celebration."
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Now that Fairacre school no longer faces the threat of closure Miss Read is looking forward to a few more years of teaching before retirement. But best-laid plans often go awry. Unexpectedly her health begins to fail & she faces some tough decisions about her future. Meanwhile rumours abound about Miss Reads old friend Mr Mawne
- now a widower; a handsome newcomer to town takes a shine to the stalwart headmistress; Miss Read keeps a watchful eye on the courtship of a friend; & village life goes on.
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Cassandra Blake has raised her three motherless sisters. The girls are the pride of their book-loving impractical father & not in a hurry to marry. Then the American Civil War cuts off supplies of cotton to Lancashire the mills fall silent & there is no work. There is a stark choice: stay & risk starvation or pack up & begin again elsewhere. Cassandra has fallen in love with Reece Gregory but he cant support a wife. When hes given the chance to start a new life in Western Australia he seizes the opportunity promising to send for her. Then an old feud tears the family apart. Cassandra is kidnapped & her sisters are forced to sail with a group of desperate cotton lasses to Fremantle. Penniless & alone Cassandra is determined to find them again
- but when she is offered a way there is a painful price to pay.
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Modern physics is heady stuff. It seems that barely a week goes by without some new astounding science story; some revelation about hidden

Dimensions multiple universes the holographic principle or incredible cosmic coincidences. But is it true? What evidence do we have for super-symmetric squarks' or superstrings vibrating in an 11-dimensional space-time? How do we know that we live in a multiverse? How can we tell that the universe is a hologram projected from information encoded on its boundary? Doesn't this sound like a fairy story? In Farewell to Reality Jim Baggott asks whether all that we currently know about the universe is based upon science or fantasy. In addition he wonders whether these high priests of fairy tale physics
- such as John Barrow Paul Davies David Deutsch Brian Greene Stephen Hawking Michio Kaku Gordon Kane & Leonard Susskind
- are the emperor's latest tailors. Praise for Jim Baggott: A shimmering tour d'horizon. Quantum theory may deny us the possibility of properly comprehending physical reality but Baggott's account is smart & consoling". (Kirkus Reviews). " Jim Baggott's inspired
- & inspiring
- idea of presenting the history of quantum physics in terms of 40 key moments works both as an introduction for the uninitiated & as a refresher for anyone who thinks they know the story". (John Gribbin). "I never read such a good comprehensive account as Jim Baggott's.. .highly recommended". (A.N. Wilson). " The best popular science book of the year to date by far". (popularscience.co.uk)."





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This final book in Jennifer Worth's memories of her time as a midwife in London's East end brings her story full circle. As always there are heartbreaking stories such as the family devastated by tuberculosis & a ship's woman who 'serviced' the entire crew as well as plenty of humour & warmth such as the tale of two women who shared the same husband! Other stories cover backstreet abortions the changing life of the docklands infanticide as well as the lives of the inhabitants of Nonnatus House. We discover what happens with the gauche debutant Chummy & her equally gauche policeman; will Sister Monica Joan continue her life of crime? Will Sister Evangelina ever crack a smile? & what of Jennifer herself? The book not only details the final years of the tenements but also of Jennifer's journey as she moves on from the close community of nuns & her life takes a new path. ...