'I didn't want you to come here.' So says the note that the boy Edmund Hooper passes to Charles Kingshaw upon his arrival at Warings. But young Kingshaw & his mother have come to live with Hooper & his father in the ugly isolated Victorian house for good. To Hooper Kingshaw is an intruder a boy to be subtly persecuted & Kingshaw finds that even the most ordinary object can be turned by Hooper into a source of terror. In Hang Wood their roles are briefly reversed but Kingshaw knows Hooper will never let him be. Kingshaw cannot win not in the last resort. He knows it & so does Hooper. & the worst is still to come... This extraordinary evocative novel boils over with the terrors of childhood & won the Somerset Maugham Award. ' Hill's exploration of a juvenile ghoul & his natural prey is a brilliant tour de force'
- Guardian"."
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The genius behind such classic songs as Suzanne" " Bird on the Wire" & " Hallelujah" Leonard Cohen has been one of the most important & influential songwriters of our time a man of spirituality emotion & intelligence whose work has explored the definitive issues of human life
- sex religion power meaning love. Yet before he even began recording Cohen was an accomplished literary figure whose poetry & novels brought him considerable recognition. His dual careers in music & literature have transformed one another his songs revealing a literary quality rare in the world of popular music & his poetry & prose informed by a rich musicality. "I'm Your Man" explores the facets of Cohen's life
- from his early childhood in Montreal to his entree into the worlds of literature & music his immersion in Jewish culture obsession with Christian imagery & deep commitment to Buddhist detachment
- including the five years he spent at a monastery outside of Los Angeles & his ordainment as a Rinzai Zen Buddhist Monk. Sylvie Simmons draws on Cohen's private archives & a wealth of interviews with many of his closest associates colleagues & other artists whose work he has inspired as well as professors Buddhist monks & rabbis to share stories & details never before revealed & correct mistakes propounded in previous works. Unlike other biographies "I'm Your Man" gives equal time to Cohen's poetry & prose & balances his intellectual & religious sides. The result is this deeply insightful well-rounded portrait of an artist whose reach vision & incredible talent has had a profound impact on multiple generations & who continues to create magic today."


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I've lost it.: ( The only thing in the world I wasn't supposed to lose. My engagement ring. It's been in Magnus' family for three generations. & now the very same day his parents are coming I've lost it. The very same day. Do not hyperventilate Poppy. Stay positive!! :) A couple of glasses of bubbly with the girls & Poppy's life has gone into meltdown. Not only has she lost her engagement ring but in the panic that followed she's lost her phone too. When she spots an abandoned phone in a bin it seems it was meant to be. Finders Keepers! Except the phone's owner elusive businessman Sam Roxton doesn't agree. He wants his phone back & doesn't appreciate Poppy reading all his messages & wading into his personal life. Can things get any more tangled? ...

i-ssassins is part of the HEROES series created with series editor Frank Cottrell Boyce. Luke Kitson is training with ELITE a crack team of young hackers used by MI5 & currently investigating Your Life a new social networking site with vast ambitions. But disappearances begin
- first members of the site next MI5 agents & finally one of the ELITE hackers. Luke must infiltrate Your Lifes skyscraper headquarters & find his friend. One hundred floors. One thousand people who will do anything to stop him. Can Luke prove that he belongs to the ELITE?
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CONSIDER PHLEBAS The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died billions more were doomed. Moons planets the very stars themselves faced destruction cold-blooded brutal & worse random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender. Within the cosmic conflict an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture & the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza the Changer & his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries human & machine actually to find it & with it their own destruction. USE OF WEAPONS The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue dirty tricks or military action. The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity & pushed him towards his present eminence but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought. The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a burnt-out case. But not even its machine intelligence could see the horrors in his past. THE PLAYER OF GAMES The Culture
- a human/machine symbiotic society
- has thrown up many great Game Players & one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board computer & strategy. Bored with success Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad cruel & incredibly wealthy to try their fabulous game.. .a game so complex so like life itself that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked blackmailed almost murdered Gurgeh accepts the game & with it the challenge of his life
- & very possibly his death.


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This is a true story of a force of licensed to kill secret agents commanded by a real war time secret service chief code names M with whom Ian Fleming worked & upon whom his James Bond stories were based. Brigadier Colin Gubbins was M the Special Operations Executive was his Secret Service Professor Dudley Newitt was Q & Captain Gus March-Phillips commanded Maid of Honor Force the team of James Bonds who in a daring operation sailed a Q ship to West Africa & stole three enemy ships from a neutral Spanish port on the volcanic island of Fernando Po. Ian Fleming worked closely with M to oil the wheels that made the operation possible & prepared the cover story in which the British Government lied in order to conceal British responsibility for the raid. Ms agents prepared the ground on Fernando Po even enmeshing the Governor in a honey trap. March-Phillips & his team carried out the raid successfully in January 1942 despite much opposition from the local regular Army & Navy commanders & in the face of overwhelming odds. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden told Flemings lies on the international stage denying any British complicity in the operation. As a result a secrecy embargo enveloped Operation POSTMASTER until recently. The author an experienced criminal QC proves beyond doubt that this thrilling operation & the men who carried it out were the inspiration for Flemings James Bond. ...

CASINO ROYALE: Read by Dan Stevens LIVE & LET DIE: Read by Rory Kinnear MOONRAKER: Read by Bill Nighy DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER: Read by Damian Lewis FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE: Read by Toby Stevens DR NO: Read by Hugh Quarshie GOLDFINGER: Read by Hugh Bonneville ...

In 1942 Lieutenant-Commander Ian Fleming was personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence
- the dynamic figure behind
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In 1942 Lieutenant-Commander Ian Fleming was personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence
- the dynamic figure behind
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LET IT BLEED: Rebus finds himself sucked into an investigation that throws up more questions than answers. Was the Lord Provosts daughter kidnapped or just another runaway? & why on earth is Rebus invited to a clay pigeon shoot at the home of the Scottish Offices Permanent Secretary? Drawn into the machine that is modern Scotland Rebus confronts the fact that some of his enemies may be beyond justice. BLACK & BLUE: Rebus is juggling four cases trying to nail one killer
- & doing it under the scrutiny of an internal inquiry led by a man hes just accused of taking backhanders from Glasgows Mr Big. Added to that there are TV cameras at his back investigating a miscarriage of justice making Rebus a criminal in the eyes of millions of viewers. Just one mistake is likely to mean a slow & unpleasant death or worse still losing his job. THE HANGING GARDEN: DI John Rebus is on the trail of a WWII war criminal
- until the running battle between two rival gangs on the city streets arrives at his door. When his daughter is the victim of a hit-&-run Rebus is forced to acknowledge that there is nothing he wouldnt do to bring down the prime suspect
- even if it means cutting a deal with the devil.


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