It's surprising what you can find by simply stepping out to look. Award-winning poet Kathleen Jamie has an eye & an ease with the nature & landscapes of Scotland as well as an incisive sense of our domestic realities. In Findings" she draws together these themes to describe travels like no other contemporary writer. Whether she is following the call of a peregrine in the hills above her home in Fife sailing into a dark winter solstice on the Orkney islands or pacing around the carcass of a whale on a rain-swept Hebridean beach she creates a subtle & modern narrative peculiarly alive to her connections & surroundings." ...

It is the day before Christmas Eve & there is lots to do but disaster strikes when Pettson sprains his ankle. How can they celebrate Christmas now with no tree ham meatballs or gingerbread? For all their resourcefulness Findus & Pettson are close to giving up when suddenly there is a knock on the door... ...

As Sandro gets to grips with the dispiriting realities of life as a private detective touting for business among old contacts & following errant teenagers an old case comes back to haunt him... Once the subject of a routine investigation back in Sandros early days as an investigator Loni Meadows
- the glamorous charming & ruthless director of an artistic Trust based in a castle in the hills outside Florence
- is found dead in circumstances Sandro cannot convince himself are accidental. However inconvenient his suspicions might be both to Sandro
- whose marriage appears to be disintegrating
- & to Meadowss erstwhile employers at the Trust he presses ahead with the case. & as Sandro attempts to uncover the truth of Loni Meadowss violent & lonely death he finds himself drawn into the lives of the castles highly strung community & the closed world they inhabit in the Casentinos isolated hills.""



...

A Fine & Private Place: Jesmond Old Cemetery tells the remarkable story of Newcastles own necropolis since its opening in 1836. This Highgate of the North contains a wealth of social history. From merchants to murder victims from philanthropists to fever fatalities Alan Morgan also describes over 100 of the famous
- & not so famous
- who lie in Jesmond Old Cemetery. John Dobson the founder of Fenwicks Bainbridges Malings the Hancock Museum & many others who helped shape the city we know today found their last resting place here. The haunting beauty of the cemetery & some extraordinary examples of the monumental masons art are celebrated in fine photography.

...

For carvers or crafters looking to create something different this gorgeous book offers the novel & romantic idea of a lovespoon
-
...

The only woman to serve as a soldier in the First World War the Englishwoman Flora Sandes became a hero & media sensation when she fought for the Serbian Army & pursued a distinguished career in its ranks as officer. This account charts her incredible story from her tomboyish childhood in genteel Victorian England her mission to Serbia as a Red Cross volunteer & subsequent military enrolment her celebrity lecture tours of Europe her marriage to a fellow officer & her survival of a Gestapo prison during the Second World War to her final years in Suffolk. A fascinating character of her times & an inspiration to women the world over Flora Sandes is brought to life & restored to her rightful place in history by this authorized biography
- compiled with the help of her family & using hitherto unused private papers & photographs.
...

If you loved A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian you'll love The Fine Colour of Rust. Single mother Loretta Boskovic may have fantasies about dumping her two kids in the orphanage & riding off on a Harley with her dream lover but her reality is life in a dusty country town called Gunapan. A self-dubbed 'old scrag' Loretta's got a big heart & a strong sense of injustice. So when Gunapan's primary school is threatened with closure & there's a whiff of corruption wafting through the corridors of the local council she stirs into action. She's short of money influence & a fully functioning car but she does have loyal friends who'll do whatever it takes to hold on to the scrap of world that is home. The Fine Colour of Rust is a wryly funny beautifully observed life-affirming novel about friendship love & fighting for things that matter. In Loretta Boskovic Paddy O' Reilly (writing as P. A. O' Reilly) has created a truly endearing heroine who gives us all permission to dream. ...

In 1955 former nightclub manageress Ruth Ellis shot dead her lover David Blakely. Following a trial that lasted less than two days she was found guilty & sentenced to death. She became the last woman to be hanged in Britain & her execution is the most notorious of hangman Albert Pierrepoint's 'duties'. Despite Ruth's infamy the story of her life has never been fully told. Often wilfully misinterpreted the reality behind the headlines was buried by an avalanche of hearsay. But now through new interviews & comprehensive research into previously unpublished sources Carol Ann Lee examines the facts without agenda or sensation. A portrait of the era & an evocation of 1950s club life in all its seedy glamour A Fine Day for a Hanging" sets Ruth's gripping story firmly in its historical context in order to tell the truth about both her timeless crime & a punishment that was very much of its time." ...

The fantastic new collection of stories from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ' The Shipping News' & ' Brokeback Mountain'. ' Fine Just The Way It Is' marks Annie Proulx's return to the Wyoming of ' Brokeback Mountain' & the familiar cast of hardy unsentimental prairie folk. The stories are cast over centuries & capture the voices & lives of the settlers this sagebrushed & weatherworn country has known from the native Indian tribes to the modern day ranch owners & politicians & their cowboy forebears. In 'A Family Man' an old man nearing the end of his life unburdens himself of the weighty family secrets that were his father's unwelcome legacy. ' Them Old Cowboy Songs' follows Archie & Rosie a young pioneer couple & their hardships in their attempt to homestead in the exposed wintry expanses of the prairie & ' Testimony of the Donkey' finds a young international couple Marc & Caitlin struggling with much more modern concerns & confronting uncertainty as their relationship comes to its end. These are stories of desperation & hard times often marked by an inescapable sadness set in a landscape both brutal & magnificent. Enlivened by folk tales flights of fancy & details of ranch & rural work they juxtapose Wyoming's traditional character & attitudes
- confrontation of tough problems prejudice persistence in the face of difficulty
- with the more benign values of the new west. These are bold elegant & memorable pieces & once more confirm Annie Proulx as one of the most talented unique short story writers in the language.

...

Based on a true story A Fine Line is a heart rendering tale of severe childhood abuse where survival was against the odds & to the amazement of the police & medical professionals. Each chapter reveals another layer where once bitten into you want to reach the core. ...