In darkness I count my blessings like Manman taught me. One. I am alive. Two. There is no two. Haiti 2010: in the aftermath of the earthquake a boy lies trapped beneath the rubble: terrified thirsty & alone. Shorty is a child of the slums a teenager who has seen enough violence to last a lifetime & who has been inexorably drawn into the world of the gangsters who rule his broken city: men who dole out money with one hand & death with the other. But Shorty has a secret: a flame of revenge that burns inside him fuelling his determination to find his beloved twin sister stolen from him five years ago. In the darkness the lines between the present & the past begin to blur & as Shorty fights for life his struggle becomes part of a two-hundred-year-old story
- a story of courage & betrayal of freedom & of hope. Shorty may not be quite as alone as he believes...
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What would dogs ask for if they knew how? In the Sunday Times" bestseller " In Defence of Dogs" John Bradshaw an anthropologist at Bristol University who has been at the centre of the latest research into what makes dogs tick gives us the answers. Overturning the most common myths about dogs' emotions & behaviour this book shows how we should really treat our pets & stands up for dogdom: not the wolf in canine clothes not the small furry child not the trophy-winner but the real dog who wants to be part of the family & enjoy life
- mankind's closest friend. This is the real science that every dog lover needs to know."
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Michael Pollans In Defence of Food" is a simple invitation to junk the science ditch the diet & instead rediscover the joys of eating well. This book is a celebration of food. By food Michael Pollan means real proper simple food
- not the kind that comes in a packet or has lists of unpronounceable ingredients or that makes nutritional claims about how healthy it is. More like the kind of food your great-grandmother would recognize. By following a few pieces of advice (Eat at a table
- a desk doesnt count. Dont buy food where youd buy your petrol!) you will enrich your life & your palate & enlarge your sense of what it means to be healthy & happy. Its time to fall in love with food again. " Brings home the real wonder of eating food". (" Sunday Times"). " Instantly makes redundant all diet books & 99 per cent of discussions around healthy eating... Sense at last". (" Daily Mail"). " Pollan invites us to grab our pots & pans & cook some real food for dinner". (" Time Out"). " Read this witty book for a healthier life & diet". (" The Times"). " Eminently sensible". (Fay Maschler " Keynote"). "A must-read.. .satisfying rich.. .loaded with flavour". (" Sunday Telegraph"). For the past twenty years Michael Pollan has been writing about the places where the human & natural worlds intersect: food agriculture gardens drugs & architecture. His most recent book about the ethics & ecology of eating is " The Omnivores Dilemma" named one of the ten best books of 2006 by the " New York Times" & the " Washington Post". He is also the author of " The Botany of Desire" "A Place of My Own" & " Second Nature"."

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Is global emancipation a lost cause? Are universal values outdated relics of an earlier age? In this combative major new work philosophical sharpshooter Slavoj A i A ek takes on the reigning ideology with a plea that we should reappropriate several lost causes & looks for the kernel of truth in the totalitarian politics of the past. Examining Heidegger's seduction by fascism & Foucault's flirtation with the Iranian Revolution he suggests that these were the right steps in the wrong direction. Highlighting the revolutionary terror of Robespierre Mao & the Bolsheviks A i A ek argues that while these struggles ended in historic failure & monstrosity this is not the entire story. There was in fact a redemptive moment that gets lost in the outright liberal-democratic rejection of revolutionary authoritarianism & the valorization of soft consensual decentralized politics. A i A ek claims that particularly in the light of the forthcoming ecological crisis we should reinvent revolutionary terror & the dictatorship of the proletariat in the struggle for universal emancipation. We need to courageously accept the return to this cause
- even if we court the risk of a catastrophic disaster. In the words of Samuel Beckett: Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
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Dare she disobey the King? Kiara Fredrick is living an ordinary life until one whirlwind romance with Sheikh Azrin & the largest diamond ring in the Khatan desert later Kiara discovers that not only is she a princess but shes also become public property overnight. As Azrin stands to take the throne Kiara discovers that royal life might be enough to destroy their once strong marriage... But Kings of Khatan do not divorce
- & Queens of Khatan should know better than to ask... Can Kiara remain defiant in the face of a craving hotter than the scorching desert sands?
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A novel that fearlessly explores the line between principled defiance & blind fanaticism John Steinbecks In Dubious Battle" contains an introduction & notes by Warren French in " Penguin Modern Classics". This book is brutal. I wanted to be merely a recording consciousness Steinbeck said of " In Dubious Battle" which aroused immense controversy when first published in 1936. It follows the fortunes of Jim Nolan disenfranchised & alone his family destroyed by the system. Desperate to find his place in the world Jim joins the Communist Party & becomes entangled in a strike of migrant workers which spirals out of control unflinchingly detailing the apocalyptic violence that breaks out when the masses become the mob. This fast-paced compelling novel is at once a brilliant observation of social & political turmoil & a moving story of a young mans struggle for identity. " In Dubious Battle" explores & dramatises many of the ideas & themes key to Steinbecks writing. John Steinbeck (1902-68) winner of the Pulitzer Prize & the Nobel Prize for literature is remembered as one of the greatest & best-loved American writers of the twentieth century. During the Second World War Steinbeck served as a war correspondent his journalism later collected in " Once There Was a War" (1958) & he was awarded the Norwegian Cross of Freedom for his portrayal in " The Moon is Down" (1942) of Resistance efforts in northern Europe. His best-known works include the epics " The Grapes of Wrath" (1939) & " East of Eden" (1952) & his tragic novella " Of Mice & Men" (1937). John Steinbecks complete works are published in " Penguin Modern Classics". If you enjoyed " In Dubious Battle" you might also like Upton Sinclairs " The Jungle" also available in " Penguin Classics". " Sweeps along with the torrential impetus of a great natural fire impelled by a poetic energy". (" Guardian"). " Dramatically intense beautifully written. It is the real thing; it has a vigour of sheer storytelling that may sweep away many prejudices". (" New Republic")." ...

National Geographic Greatest Portraits tells the story of portrait photography through the eyes
- & words
- of five accomplished

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A childhood that saw her abandoned on the doorstep of a convent & then abused by her adoptive parents left Christine Hart vulnerable & desperate to find somewhere that she belonged. A quest to trace her real father led her along a confused & complex path to the prison cell of the notorious Moors murderer Ian Brady & thereafter to a life of espionage & subterfuge. Christine worked undercover for the British security services & then for a series of Fleet Street newspapers. She got to the core of notorious terrorist groups & witnessed first-hand the nefarious methods for which the UK media were to be vilified. Her continuing fascination with evil then drew her into the web of Los Angeles serial killer Ken Bianchi
- the notorious Hillside Strangler. In For the Kill is the remarkable absorbing & sometimes shocking story of the authors search for her own identity
- a quest that has taken her into the very heart of darkness.

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The tenth Richard Bolitho novel in Alexander Kents spectacularly successful series deals with Bolithos life as a young lieutenant aboard the Trojan an eighty-gun ship of the line. The year is 1777 when the revolution in America has erupted into a full-scale war. The navys main task is to prevent military supplies from reaching Washingtons armies & to destroy the fast-growing fleet of French & American privateers. As a junior officer Bolitho is often bewildered by swiftly changing events but in a ship of the line under a hard & determined captain he has little opportunity for uncertainty. At a time of shortages & sudden death even a lieutenant can find himself faced with tasks & decisions more suitably given to officers of greater experience
- & as the Trojan goes about her affairs the threat to Bolitho & his companions makes itself felt from New York to the Caribbean.
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This deeply engaging book introduces the reader to the creative chaos of the tiny Parisian studio of the great sculptor Alberto Giacometti from the moment he & his brother Diego arrived in 1927 with all their possessions in a wheelbarrow until Alberto's death in 1966. Michael Peppiatt relates how the artist first worked there as a member of the Surrealist movement & then how he gradually made his mark on Paris' artistic literary & intellectual worlds. After an enforced wartime exile in Geneva in a miserable hotel he returned to Paris & to the same broken-down little shed of a studio behind Montparnasse where he struggled to realize his pared-down vision of mankind & which became a magnet for many of the great artists & writers of the time (from Picasso & Braque to Balthus from Breton & Genet to Beckett). Peppiatt prefaces his story with a poignant personal narrative of how as a young man he arrived in Paris with an introduction from Francis Bacon to Giacometti; the encounter was forestalled by the artist's very recent death but Peppiatt instead got to know the key people in Giacometti's world. He explains how the studio now dismantled seems to be both Giacometti's most important artwork encompassing countless complete or unfinished works & the archive of years of struggle. With Giacometti's death it became his greatest achievement containing as it did the traces of a lifetime's search for truth. This vivid exploration of one of the most evocative & influential spaces in 20th-century art connects us with both a unique career & an entire outstanding moment in French culture. ...