Despite inhabiting a great city renowned for its impeccable restraint the extended family of 44 Scotland Street is trembling on the brink of reckless self-indulgence. Matthew & Elspeth receive startling
- & expensive
- news on a visit to the Infirmary Angus & Domenica are contemplating an Italian menage a trois & even Big Lou is overheard discussing cosmetic surgery. But when Bertie Pollock
- six years old & impatient to be seven
- mislays his meddling mother Irene one afternoon a valuable lesson is learned: that wish-fulfilment is a dangerous business. Warm-hearted wise & very funny The Importance of Being Seven brings us a fresh & delightful set of insights into philosophy & fraternity among Edinburgh's most loveable residents.



...

Malcolm Fox & his team are back investigating whether fellow cops covered up for Detective Paul Carter. Carter has been found guilty of misconduct but what should be a simple job is soon complicated by a brutal murder & a weapon that should not even exist. A trail of revelations leads Fox back to 1985 a year of desperate unrest when letter-bombs & poisonous spores were sent to government offices & kidnappings & murders were plotted. But while the body count rises the clock starts ticking & a dramatic turn of events sees Fox in mortal danger. ...

Malcolm Fox is back... Fox & his team are investigating whether fellow cops covered up for Detective Paul Carter. Carter has been found guilty of misconduct with his own uncle
- also in the force
- proving to be his nemesis. But what should be a simple job is soon complicated by a brutal murder & a weapon that should not even exist. A trail of revelations leads Fox back to 1985 a year of desperate unrest when letter-bombs & poisonous spores were sent to government offices & kidnappings & murders were plotted. But while the body count rises the clock starts ticking & a dramatic turn of events sees Fox in mortal danger.

...

Young Minnie Sidgwick was just twelve years old when her cousin twenty-three-year old Edward Benson proposed to her in 1853. Edward went on to become Archbishop of Canterbury & little Minnie
- as Mary Benson
- to preside a social world that ranged from Tennyson Henry James & Oscar Wilde to foreign royalty & Queen Victoria herself. Yet Mrs Bensons most intense relationships were not with her husband & his associates but with other women. When the Archbishop died Mary
- Ben to her intimates
- turned down an offer from the Queen to live at Windsor & set up home in a Jacobean manor house with her friend Lucy Tait. As Good as God as Clever as the Devil is the sometimes touching sometimes hilarious story of one lovable brilliant woman & her trajectory through the often surprising opportunities & the remarkable limitations of a Victorian womans life.""



...

Much discussed & often maligned precious little is known or understood about North Korea the world's most controversial & isolated country. In The Impossible State" Victor Cha pulls back the curtain providing an unprecedented insight into North Korea's history the rise of the Kim family dynasty & the obsessive personality cult that surrounds them. He illuminates the repressive regime's complex economy & culture its appalling record of human-rights abuses its belligerent relationship with its neighbours & the United States & analyzes the regime's major security issues
- from the seemingly endless war with its southern counterpart to its terrifying nuclear ambitions
- all in the light of the destabilizing effects of Kim Jong-il's recent death. How has this enigmatic nation-state continued to survive when it regularly violates its own citizens' inalienable rights & has suffered severe famine global economic sanctions a collapsed economy & near-total isolation from the rest of the world? Cha reveals a land facing a pivotal & disquieting transition of power from tyrannical father to inexperienced son & delves into the ideology that leads an oppressed starving populace to cling so fiercely to its failed leadership. With rare personal anecdotes from the author's time in Pyongyang & his tenure as a White House adviser this engagingly written authoritative & highly accessible account offers much-needed answers to the most pressing questions about North Korea & ultimately warns of a regime that might be closer to its end than many might think
- a political collapse for which the Western world may be woefully unprepared."


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Impossible to Resist Imposing & brooding Dr Jacob Wolff has built a wall around his heart as impregnable as the mountain on which he lives. Until with one simple request Hollywood beauty Ariel knocks it down... But Ariel hired him to protect her not bed her. Now Jacob finds himself lusting for the one woman he can never have. The Maids Daughter He thought he was done rescuing women in need. After all playing hero got millionaire Devlyn Wolff into enough trouble already! Still when a car accident lands Gillian at his feet he cant walk away...not even when he learns her connection to his past. Now seducing the maids daughter will lead him where he never meant to go... ...

A new title in Young Reading Series Three" which is aimed at children whose reading ability & confidence allows them to tackle longer & more complex stories. Today Impressionist paintings draw blockbuster crowds to museums & art galleries & sell for millions at auction. But who were the artists that painted 150 years ago why did they upset people & how did they come to be known as the Impressionists? Developed in consultation with Alison Kelly who is a senior lecturer in education & an early reading specialist from Roehampton University. Beautifully produced hardback with ribbon marker." ...

A hundred practical techniques for encouraging spontaneity & originality by catching the subconscious unawares...here is an inexhaustible supply of zany suggestions for unfreezing the petrified imagination" Daily Telegraph A leading figure in the theatre Keith Johnstone lays bare his techniques & exercises to foster spontaneity & narrative skill for actors. These techniques & exercises were evolved in the actors' studio when he was Associate Director of the Royal Court & then in demonstrations to schools & colleges & ultimately in the founding of a company of performers called The Theatre Machine. Divided into four sections " Status" " Spontaneity" " Narrative Skills" & " Masks & Trance" arranged more or less in the order a group might approach them the book sets out the specific approaches which Johnstone has himself found most useful & most stimulating. The result is a fascinating exploration of the nature of spontaneous creativity." If teachers were honoured in the British theatre along-side directors designers & playwrights Keith Johnstone would be as familiar a name as are those of... Jocelyn Herbert Edward Bond & other young talents who were drawn to the great lodestone of the Royal Court Theatre in the late 1950s. As head of the script department Johnstone played a crucial part in the development of the 'writers' theatre..." Irving Wardle" ...

The story begins when a seemingly harmless kitten limps into the Burrell familys garden. The kitten gets bigger & bigger & soon the family apart from the narrator David are in thrall to the creature. They slowly descend into squalor & slothas they are sucked into the service of the enormous black cat that has taken over their lives. Eventually David breaks the spell & sends in a pack of dogs to see off the cat who makes a dramatic exit through the lounge window & is flattened by a passing truck. ...

You are not what you eat
- you are what you can digest. This fascinating book outlines why good digestion is vital to your overall
...