Ben Joe is the only boy in a family of six sisters Mama & Gram. He is studying for a law degree in New York when he hears his eldest sister Joanne has left her husband & returned home with her baby girl. Out of a mixture of homesickness & duty Ben Joe returns to the home in which he has always felt like an outsider. ...

This novel owes as much to poetry as it does to prose. Its opening an invocation of the life of the city is strongly reminiscent of Audens Night Mail in its hypnotic portrait of industrialised society... An assured debut Erica Wagner The Times. On a street in a town in the North of England ordinary people are going through the motions of their everyday existence
- street cricket barbecues painting windows...A young man is in love with a neighbour who does not even know his name. An old couple make their way up to the nearby bus stop. But then a terrible event shatters the quiet of the early summer evening. That this remarkable & horrific event is only poignant to those who saw it not even meriting a mention on the local news means that those who witness it will be altered for ever. Jon Mc Gregors first novel brilliantly evokes the histories & lives of the people in the street to build up an unforgettable human panorama. Breathtakingly original humane & moving IF NOBODY SPEAKS OF REMARKABLE THINGS is an astonishing debut. The work of a burning new talent.. . Jon Mac Gregor writes like a lyrical angel Daily Mail
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Twenty years ago rower Greg Searle won Gold in the Coxed Pair alongside his brother Jonny at the Barcelona Olympic Games. At the age of 20 he received an MBE & by the time he had reached his mid-thirties his glorious career as an international athlete was over. Or was it? If Not Now When? is a book about obsession; about the drive to be the best you can be whatever your age. In April 2010 & almost two decades older than the rest of the British rowing squad Greg made the decision to come out of retirement & go for gold again at the London 2012 Olympics. His journey gets to the very heart of what it means to compete; teamwork & loyalty the struggle to deal with disappointment & the will to win. In the 2012 final Greg won bronze as part of the mens eight & sealed his status as Olympic legend. ...

Calvinos masterpiece opens with a scene thats reassuringly commonplace: apparently. Indeed its taking place now. A reader goes into a bookshop to buy a book: not any book but the latest Calvino the book you are holding in your hands. Or is it? Are you the reader? Is this the book? Beware. All assumptions are dangerous on this most bewitching switch-back ride to the heart of storytelling. ...

Fresh out of Veterinary College & shoulder-deep in an uncooperative cow James Herriots first job is not panning out exactly as expected.. . To a Glaswegian like James 1930s Yorkshire appears to offer an idyllic pocket of rural life in a rapidly changing world. But even life in the sleepy village of Darrowby has its challenges. On the one hand there are his new colleagues Siegfried & Tristan Farnon two brothers who attract a constant stream of local girls to whom James is strangely invisible. On the other he must contend with herds of semi-feral cattle gruff farmers with incomprehensible accents & an overweight Pekingese called Tricki Woo... Heartbreaking & hilarious in equal measure If Only They Could Talk is a book for all those who find laughter & joy in animals & who know & understand the magic & beauty of Britains wild places. Bulls with sunstroke pigs on the run & a cake-eating Peke with a betting habit.. .I grew up reading James Herriots book & Im delighted that thirty years on they are still every bit as charming heartwarming & laugh-out-loud funny as they were then Kate Humble Its a pleasure to be in James Herriots company Observer After an evening among his tales anyone with as much as a dog or a budgerigar will feel he should move to Darrowby at once Yorkshire Post ...

Berlin 1934. The Nazis have been in power for just eighteen months but already Germany has seen some frightening changes. As the city prepares to host the 1936 Olympics Jews are being expelled from all German sporting organisations
- a blatant example of discrimination. Forced to resign as a homicide detective with Berlin's Criminal Police Bernie is now house detective at the famous Adlon Hotel. Two bodies are found
- one a businessman & the other a Jewish boxer. As Bernie digs to unearth the truth he discovers a vast labour & construction racket designed to take advantage of the huge sums the Nazis are spending to showcase the new Germany to the world. It is a plot that finds its dramatic & violent conclusion twenty years later in pre-revolutionary Cuba.

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This is the new paperback edition of a beautiful & unique book which explains facts about the worlds population in a simple & fascinating way. Instead of unimaginable billions it presents the whole world as a village of just 100 people. We soon find out that 22 speak a Chinese dialect & that 17 cannot read or write. We also discover the peoples religions their education their standard of living & much much more... This book provokes thought & elicits questions. It cannot fail to inspire childrens interest in world geography citizenship & different customs & cultures whether they read it at home or at school. ...

From the author of Flowers in the Attic comes Book Three of the internationally bestselling Dollanganger family saga. The family was now living as far as possible from the haunting scenes of their past & in the sunshine & joy of their new life with the children & their shared love they tried to forget the anguish of their loveless inheritance. But the hidden secrets of the past rose up to trouble them. Their parents' dark heritage began to haunt them once more. The rage & hatred they felt returned to torment & twist the new generation. Only if they could forgive their mother & forgo their final revenge could they at last find the peace they so desperately sought. ...

With the moral stamina & intellectual pose of a twentieth-century Titan this slightly built duitful unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth steadfastly to think it through & then to render it comprehensible in lucid unpretentious prose. He was profoundly in touch with the minutest workings of the most endearing human events & with the most contempible. What has survived in Levi's writing isn't just his memory of the unbearable but also in THE PERIODIC TABLE & THE WRENCH his delight in what made the world exquisite to him. He was himself a magically endearing man the most delicately forceful enchanter I've ever known"
- PHILIP ROTH"
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With the moral stamina & intellectual pose of a twentieth-century Titan this slightly built duitful unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth steadfastly to think it through & then to render it comprehensible in lucid unpretentious prose. He was profoundly in touch with the minutest workings of the most endearing human events & with the most contempible. What has survived in Levis writing isnt just his memory of the unbearable but also in THE PERIODIC TABLE & THE WRENCH his delight in what made the world exquisite to him. He was himself a magically endearing man the most delicately forceful enchanter Ive ever known"
- PHILIP ROTH"
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