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 ...

When the newly qualified vet James Herriot arrives in the small Yorkshire village of Darrowby he has no idea of the new friends he will meet or adventures that lie ahead. From the author whose books inspired the BBC series All Creatures Great & Small this first volume of unforgettable memoirs chronicles James Herriots first years as a country vet with the signature storytelling magic that has made him a favourite the world over. Here is a book for all those who find laughter & joy in animals & who know & understand the magic of wild places & beautiful countryside ...

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. ...

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"
...

Mark Wilkinson has three names. He left his own behind in the rainy north of Engl&. American immigration knows him as Joe Novak. & at the Valhalla the mysterious complex where he sells lofty ambition & dark desires he goes by Mr Jones. Since he was eighteen Mark has been running away. Running from his small town his vanished mother his broken father. But one night in Las Vegas shocked by violence & ambushed by memories he is propelled back to his real name & his real past. Back to Bethany Wilder: carnival queen partner in dreams & tragic ghost. From the acclaimed author of Ten Stories About Smoking comes an electrifying novel about the power of dreams to destroy of memory to distort -- & of what it means to be home. ...

The international bestseller from the master of suspense. A mafia conspiracy & one women against the world. Tracy Whitey is on top of the world. Young beautiful intelligent she is about to marry into wealth & glamour
- until betrayed by her own innocence she finds herself in prison framed by a ruthless mafia gang & abandoned by the man she loves. Beaten & broken but surviving with her dazzling ingenuity Tracy emerges from her savage ordeal
- determined to avenge those who have destroyed her life. Her thirst for revenge takes her from New Orleans to London from Paris to Madrid & Amsterdam. Tracy is playing for the highest stakes in a deadly game. Only one man can challenge her
- hes handsome persuasive & every bit as daring. Only one man can stop her
- an evil genius whose only hope of salvation is in Tracys destruction...



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Why did the flushing toilet take two centuries to catch on? Why did Samuel Pepys never give his mistresses an orgasm? Why did medieval people sleep sitting up? When were the two dirty centuries? Why did gas lighting cause Victorian ladies to faint? Why for centuries did people fear fruit? All these questions will be answered in this juicy smelly & truly intimate history of home life. Lucy Worsley takes us through the bedroom bathroom living room & kitchen covering the architectural history of each room but concentrating on what people actually did in bed in the bath at the table & at the stove. From sauce-stirring to breast-feeding teeth-cleaning to masturbation getting dressed to getting married this book will make you see your home with new eyes. ...