The House of the Dead is a stark account of Dostoyevskys own experience of penal servitude in Siberia. In graphic detail he describes the suffering of the convicts
- their squalor & degradation their terror & resignation from the rampages of a pyschopath to the brief serenity of Christmas Day. Amid the horror of labour in the sub-zero work camp we hear the stories of the prisoners & live through the freezing isolation & pain of day after day of misery. We see a young intellectual forced to live eat & sleep with men from a background of cruelty coarseness & brutality. The Gambler is set in a spa town with its casino & international clientele. Alexey Ivanovitch is a young tutor in the household of a general. He is both observer & actor in the tempest which surrounds his impoverished employer as he envies & mocks the airs & pretensions of his supposed superiors. Everyone is waiting for the death of Granny the generals rich aunt but so far from dying she turns up alive & well & makes her way to the casino..
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Welcome to the house of the mosque... Iran 1950. Spring has arrived & as the women prepare the festivities Sadiq waits for a suitor to knock on the door. Her uncle Nosrat returns from Tehran with a glamorous woman while on the rooftop Shahbal longs only for a television to watch the first moon landing. But not even the beloved grandmothers can foresee what will happen in the days & months to come. In this uplifting bestseller Kader Abdolah charts the triumphs & tragedies of a family on the brink of revolution. ...

As a girl Clara del Valle can read fortunes make objects move as if they had lives of their own & predict the future. Following the mysterious death of her sister Rosa the Beautiful Clara is mute for nine years. When she breaks her silence it is to announce that she will be married soon to the stern & volatile landowner Esteban Trueba. Set in an unnamed Latin American country over three generations The House of the Spirits" is a magnificent epic of a proud & passionate family secret loves & violent revolution." ...

Spanning four generations Isabel Allende's magnificent family saga is populated by a memorable often eccentric cast of characters. Together men & women spirits the forces of nature & of history converge in an unforgettable wholly absorbing & brilliantly realised novel that is as richly entertaining as it is a masterpiece of modern literature. ...

A legendary ruin. An ancient mystery. Will unveiling the past transform the future? San Francisco 2007. Madeline Moretti is grieving for her fiance. Nothing brings her joy any more & Maddie's grandmother a fiery Italian sends her to Tuscany to heal. Here Maddie is immersed in the mystery of a ruined villa. Destroyed centuries ago in a legendary storm on the Eve of St Agnes it has been known ever since as the Casa al Vento
- the House of the Wind. Tuscany 1347. Mia hasn't spoken since her mother's death & lives in silence with her beloved aunt. One dark night a couple seek refuge in their villa. Used to welcoming passing pilgrims Mia is entranced by the young bride's radiance & compassion but mystified by her reluctance to reveal even her name. Where has she come from & why must her presence be a secret? Centuries apart each searching for a way to step into her future Mia & Maddie will be haunted by the myth of the woman who walked unscathed from the ruins of the House of the Wind.
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' From the moment I crossed the mountain I fell in love. With the place which was more beautiful than any place I'd ever seen. With the people I met there. & with a way of looking at life that was deeper richer & wiser than any I'd known before. When I left I dreamt of clouds on the mountain. I kept going back.' We all lead very busy lives & sometimes it's hard to find the time to be the people we want to be. Twelve years ago Felicity Hayes-Mc Coy left the hectic pace of the city & returned to Ireland to make a new life in a remarkable house on the stunning Dingle peninsula. Beautifully written this is a life-affirming tale of rediscovering lost values & being reminded of the things that really matter. ...

If You Dont Know Me By Now " " The Love I Lost " " The Soul Train Theme " " Then Came You " " Aint No Stoppin Us Now"--the distinctive music that became known as Philly Soul dominated the pop music charts in the 1970s. In A House on Fire John A. Jackson takes us inside the musical empire created by Kenny Gamble Leon Huff & Thom Bell the three men who put Philadelphia Soul on the map. Here is the eye-opening story of three of the most influential & successful music producers of the seventies. Jackson shows how Gamble Huff & Bell developed a black recording empire second only to Berry Gordys Motown pumping out a string of chart-toppers from Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes the Spinners the OJays the Stylistics & many others. The author underscores the endemic racism of the music business at that time revealing how the three men were blocked from the major record companies & outlets in Philadelphia because they were black forcing them to create their own label sign their own artists & create their own sound. The sound they created--a sophisticated & glossy form of rhythm & blues characterized by crisp melodious harmonies backed by lush string-laden orchestration & a hard-driving rhythm section--was a glorious success producing at least twenty-eight gold or platinum albums & thirty-one gold or platinum singles. But after their meteoric rise & years of unstoppable success their production company finally failed brought down by payola competition a tough economy & changing popular tastes. Funky groovy soulful--Philly Soul was the classic seventies sound. A House on Fire tells the inside story of this remarkable musical phenomenon." ...

Life was good for Liz & Jack Sutherl&. In eighteen years of marriage they had built a family a successful law practice & a warm happy home near San Francisco in a house on Hope Street. But one Christmas morning in the midst of joy & children's laughter tragedy strikes & Liz is left alone facing painful questions in the face of unbearable loss. How can she go on without her husband her partner her best friend? The months pass & Liz finds the strength to return to work & tend to her children. Then a devastating accident sends her oldest son to hospital
- & brings a doctor called Bill Webster into her life. As the long days of summer blend into autumn a new relationship offers new hope. With the anniversary of her husband's death approaching Liz will face one more crisis before she can look back at a year of mourning & change
- & ahead to the beginning of a new life in the house on Hope Street.

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Athens 1942
- two sisters divided by politics & tragedy... In 2008 Antigone Perifanis returns to her old family home in Athens
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One woman's quest to discover the dark secret at the heart of a family. Actor Gwydion Morgan's dramatic appearance at Jessica Mayhew's psychotherapy practice coincides with a turbulent time in her own life
- her husband has just revealed that he's spent the night with a much younger woman. Gwydion son of the famous Evan Morgan is good looking & talented but mentally fragile tormented by an intriguing phobia. Jessica is determined to trace the cause of his distress. So when his mother phones to say he is suicidal Jessica decides to make a house call. The Morgans live in a grand cliff-top mansion overlooking a rocky bay with its own private jetty. It's a remote & somewhat sinister place. On her visit Jessica finds out that an au pair who looked after Gwydion as a child drowned in the bay in mysterious circumstances. Could it be that Gwydion witnessed her death? In her quest to help her client Jessica finds herself becoming embroiled in the Morgans' poisonous family dynamic. At the same time she has to deal with the demands of her own domestic life: her struggle to keep her marriage intact as well as her older daughter's increasingly defiant behaviour. & then of course there is the growing attraction she feels towards her new client...
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