It would have been hard to have missed what was written on the wall. Painted in giant whitewashed letters: SHARKEY IS A GRASS. I hadnt a clue who Sharkey was but I knew one thing. Sharkeys a dead man I said. Leo knows the value of never grassing & that you never grass on your friends. Everybody too knows the gang leaders in town. & you dont grass on them. Not unless you dont value your life
- like Sharkey. & then Leo is unlucky enough to witness the murder of one gang leader by another a man called Armour. Leo is petrified as he realises what he is witnessing & even more petrified when he realises that Armour has seen him. Sure that he is drawing his own last breath Leo silently says goodbye to his family & everybody he knows. But all Armour does is wink at Leo very slowly & leave the scene of the crime. Leo draws a long breath of relief. He has got away with it. But he hasnt
- not really. Leo will live to regret that wink & realise that Armour has an insidious hold on him & his family which will test his family relationships & his very sense of what is right & wrong. It will take bravery luck & sheer daring to extricate himself from Armours deadly web. A riveting & hard-hitting new novel from Cathy Mac Phail.

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John Healy the son of poor Irish immigrants in London grows up hardened by violence & soon finds himself overwhelmed by alcoholism. He ends up in the grass arena: the parks & streets of the inner city where beggars thieves prostitutes & killers fight for survival & each day brings the question of where to find the next drink. In his searing autobiography Healy describes with unflinching honesty his experiences of addiction his escape through learning to play chess in prison & his ongoing search for peace of mind. ...

In this great drama Marius the general who saved Rome from barbarian invasion & became consul an unprecedented six times has fallen into decline. Sulla his closest associate has withdrawn himself from his commanders circle in preparation for his own bid for power. As a deadly enmity develops between the two men Rome must fight its own battle for survival
- first against her neighbouring Italian states then against the barbaric Asian conqueror. Births deaths prophecies & rivalries combine to create a whirlwind of drama & a remarkable insight into the passion & torment of ancient Rome.
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The second book in the Tales of the Otori" trilogy continues the epic story of Otori Takeo & Shirakawa Kaede the young lovers whose fate is played out in an ancient Oriental world where ritualized codes of high honor counter the cruelty of savage blood-feuds. Takeo has pledged his life to the Tribe a secret clan of spies & assassins who claim his legendary supernatural skills for their own ruthless purposes in doing so he must deny his birthright as an Otori lord
- & his love for Kaede. If he does not serve them the Tribe will kill him. Kaede separated from Takeo must use her intelligence beauty & cunning to assert her place in a world of all-powerful men
- who must never know that she is carrying Takeo's child. In growing from boy to man Takeo must make a choice
- & the dangerous path he undertakes is a journey of high adventure treachery & passion that establishes this extraordinary trilogy as one of the most brilliant & enduring works of modern fiction. " Grass For His Pillow" the sequel to " Across the Nightingale Floor" shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal is one of the most eagerly-awaited novels of 2003. Lian Hearn has created a brilliantly imagined culture. Here is epic storytelling whose appeal crosses genres genders & generations."


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The classic first novel from the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2007. Doris Lessing brought the manuscript of The Grass is Singing with her when she left Southern Rhodesia & came to England in 1950. When it was first published it created an impact whose reverberations we are still feeling & immediately established itself as a landmark in twentieth-century literature. Set in Rhodesia it tells the story of Dick Turner a failed white farmer & his wife Mary a town girl who hates the bush. Trapped by poverty sapped by the heat of their tiny brick & iron house Mary lonely & frightened turns to Moses the black cook for kindness & understanding. A masterpiece of realism The Grass is Singing is a superb evocation of Africas majestic beauty an intense psychological portrait of lives in confusion & most of all a passionate exploration of the ideology of white supremacy. ...

Grasshopper" is an enthralling chilling novel by the bestselling queen of crime Barbara Vine. They have sent me here because of what happened on the pylon. When Clodagh Brown writes these words at the age of nineteen she believes that she is leaving behind the traumatic events of her youth. But Clodagh soon learns that you can never entirely escape your past. In the aftermath of the incident on the pylon
- a gargantuan electrified grasshopper
- Clodagh goes off to university moves into a basement flat arranged by her unsympathetic family & finds freedom trekking across Londons rooftops with a gang of neighborhood misfits. As she begins a thrilling relationship with a fellow climber however both Clodagh & the reader are haunted by the memory of the pylon & of the terrible thing that happened there
- & by the eerie sense that another tragedy is just a footfall away. " Grasshopper" is a modern crime masterpiece that will have you gripped from the first page to the last. If you enjoy the novels of P.D. James Ian Rankin & Scott Turow you will love this book. " The Rendell/ Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together". (Ian Rankin). "A superb & original writer". (Amanda Craig " Express"). Barbara Vine is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell. She has written fifteen novels using this pseudonym including "A Fatal Inversion" & " King Solomons Carpet" which both won the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award. Her other books include: "A Dark Adapted Eye"; " The House of Stairs"; " Gallowglass"; " Astas Book"; " No Night Is Too Long"; " In the Time of His Prosperity"; " The Brimstone Wedding"; " The Chimney Sweepers Boy"; " Grasshopper"; " The Blood Doctor"; " The Minotaur"; " The Birthday Present" & " The Childs Child"."


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For the first time ever a DVD featuring exclusive video & audio material accompanies the latest New Naturalist volume a multimedia first for the series. Ted Benton offers a comprehensive account of the appearance variations behaviour habitat life-cycles & distribution of all the native British species of bush-crickets crickets groundhoppers & grasshoppers. Many details from direct field observation are included which are published here for the first time. With up-to-date information on newly arrived & recently established species as well as long-established non-native species
- such as the house cricket & greenhouse camel cricket
- Benton pays special attention to a key area of evolutionary thought that has stimulated an international research focus on grasshoppers & crickets. Recent approaches to mating & reproduction emphasise differences & even conflicts of interest between males & females. The sexually selected adaptations & counter-adaptations to such conflicts of reproductive interest are used to explain the astonishing diversity of reproductive behaviour exhibited by grasshoppers & crickets: male territorial behaviour coercive mating complex songs elaborate courtship performances the donation of edible nuptial gifts the reversal of sex-roles mate-guarding keeping of harems & in a few species parental care of the offspring. These chapters provide an introduction to the theoretical issues & an overview of many case studies drawn from research on orthopterans from across the world (but including British species where relevant). A unique DVD features many aspects of the behaviour of nearly all British species including song conflict courtship behaviour sex-role reversal & egg laying. The book is lavishly illustrated with colour photographs & line drawings covering all the British species (including immature stages in most cases) key habitats & many aspects of behaviour.

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Grating Spectroscopes & How to Use Them is written for amateur astronomers who are just getting into this field of astronomy. Transmission grating spectroscopes look like simple filters & are designed to screw into place on the eyepiece of a telescope for visual use or into the camera adapter for digicam or CCD imaging. Using the most popular commercially made filter gratings
- Rainbow Optics (US) & Star Analyzer (UK)
- as examples this book provides the reader with information on how to set up & use the grating one needs to obtain stellar spectrograms. It also discusses several methods on analyzing the results. This book is written in an easy to read style perfect for getting started on the first night using the spectroscope & specifically showing how the simple transmission filter is used on the camera or telescope. No heavy mathematics or formulas are involved & there are many practical hints & tips
- something that is almost essential to success when starting out. This book helps readers to achieve quick results & by following the worked examples they can successfully carry out basic analysis of the spectra.


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A gratin is any dish that has a crispy topping such as cheese or breadcrumbs & in this handy book you'll find recipes for classic gratins such as macaroni cheese as well as new & inventive ideas. Bakes are another timelessly popular method of cooking producing delicious results such as lasagne pastitsio & moussaka. Both gratins & bakes are perfect both for entertaining & feeding a hungry family. ...

In this book Louise has gathered together the insights & wisdom of some of the most inspirational teachers & authors she knows people who have demonstrated the power of gratitude in their own lives. Renowned contributors include Wayne Dyer Bernie Siegel Doreen Virtue Shakti Gawain Alan Cohen & Dan Millman. All profits from this book will benefit Louises non-profit organization The Hay Foundation. ...