As lovely as one of the precious gems at her parents' jewellery store Amber Taylor is shy & introspective
- qualities misread by
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An atmospheric exploration of a child's anxiety by the 2000 Hans Christian Andersen Medal Winner. One night a boy is woken by a terrible sound. A storm is breaking lightning flashing across the sky. In the morning Dad is gone & Mum doesn't seem to know when he'll be back. The next day Mum asks her son to take a cake to his sick grandma. Don't go into the forest " she warns. " Go the long way round." But for the first time the boy chooses to take the path into the forest where he meets a variety of fairy tale characters & discovers the fate of his father." ...

' The price of life is death'. For Mallory as for all of his generation death was but 'a frail barrier that men crossed smiling & gallant every day'. As climbers they accepted a degree of risk unimaginable before the war. What mattered now was how one lived & the moments of being alive. While the quest for Mount Everest may have begun as a grand imperial gesture it ended as a mission of revival for a country & a lost generation bled white by war. In a monumental work of history & adventure Davis asks not whether George Mallory was the first to reach the summit of Everest but rather why he kept climbing on that fateful day. ...

If the quest for Mount Everest began as a grand imperial gesture as redemption for an empire of explorers that had lost the race to the Poles it ended as a mission of regeneration for a country & a people bled white by war. Of the twenty-six British climbers who on three expeditions (1921-24) walked 400 miles off the map to find & assault the highest mountain on Earth twenty had seen the worst of the fighting. Six had been severely wounded two others nearly killed by disease at the Front one hospitalized twice with shell shock. Three as army surgeons dealt for the duration with the agonies of the dying. Two lost brothers killed in action. All had endured the slaughter the coughing of the guns the bones & barbed wire the white faces of the dead. In a monumental work of history & adventure ten years in the writing Wade Davis asks not whether George Mallory was the first to reach the summit of Everest but rather why he kept on climbing on that fateful day. His answer lies in a single phrase uttered by one of the survivors as they retreated from the mountain: The price of life is death. Mallory walked on because for him as for all of his generation death was but a frail barrier that men crossed smiling & gallant every day. As climbers they accepted a degree of risk unimaginable before the war. They were not cavalier but death was no stranger. They had seen so much that it had no hold on them. What mattered was how one lived the moments of being alive. For all of them Everest had become an exalted radiance a sentinel in the sky a symbol of hope in a world gone mad. ...

Paul Broks draws on his long experience as a neuropsychologist to create a unique mosaic of neurological tales metaphysical parables & autobiographical reflections. Interspersing real life stories with speculative fictions Into the Silent Land describes ordinary people whose extraordinary situations have much to teach us about chance compassion & human resilience in the face of adversity. It is a book that penetrates the readers imagination & lingers in the memory long after the final page. ...

Take your first steps into the wilderness with Rusty the house cat as he leaves his home to go & live in the wild. A thrillling new feline fantasy series that draws you into a vivid animal world. When kittypet Rusty strays into the forest beyond his owners garden & is ambushed by a wild cat life as he knows it is over. After a brave fight he is invited to leave the twoleg world & join Thunderclan one of four cat tribes to train as a warrior. Rusty becomes Firepaw & learns laws of the wild
- hunting & fighting to protect the clans survival. When the fearsome Shadowclan threaten Thunderclans territory his warrior skills are put to the test. But how can he protect the clan when he suspects their own deputy of trechery?
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By examining the true story of Chris Mc Candless a young man who in 1992 walked deep into the Alaskan wilderness & whose SOS note & emaciated corpse were found four months later internationally bestselling author Jon Krakauer explores the obsession which leads some people to explore the outer limits of self leave civilization behind & seek enlightenment through solitude & contact with nature. An astonishingly gifted writer: his account of Alex Supertramp is powerfully dramatic eliciting sympathy for both the idealistic anti-consumerist boy
- & his parents Guardian A compelling tale of tragic idealism The Times
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The only child of a US naval officer & a charming mother Grace Houston is the centre of her parents universe
- until sudden tragedy
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Into The Woods is a revelation of the fundamental structure & meaning of all stories from the man responsible for more hours of drama on British television than anyone else John Yorke. We all love stories. Many of us love to tell them & even dream of making a living from it too. But what is a story? Hundreds of books about screenwriting & storytelling have been written but none of them ask ' Why?' Why do we tell stories? & why do all stories function in an eerily similar way? John Yorke has been telling stories almost his entire adult life & the more he has done it the more he has asked himself why? Every great thinker or writer has their theories: Aristotle David Hare Lajos Egri Robert Mc Kee Gustav Freytag David Mamet Christopher Booker Charlie Kaufman William Goldman & Aaron Sorkin
- all have offered insightful & illuminating answers. Here John Yorke draws on these figures & more as he takes us on a historical philosophical scientific & psychological journey to the heart of all storytelling. What he reveals is that there truly is a unifying shape to narrative
- one that echoes the great fairytale journey into the woods & one like any great art that comes from deep within. Much more than a 'how to write' book Into the Woods is an exploration of this fundamental structure underneath all narrative forms from film & television to theatre & novel-writing. With astonishing detail & wisdom John Yorke explains to us a phenomenon that whether it is as a simple fable or a big-budget 3D blockbuster most of us experience almost every day of our lives. Brimmingly insightful.. .fresh enlightening & accessible.. .a gripping read from beginning to end". (Robert Collins Sunday Times). " Terrifyingly clever... Packed with intelligent argument". (Evening Standard). " So detailed & engaging is his methodology that any consumer of books plays TV or films will find the experience enhanced; & scriptwriters themselves will find useful guidance
- because when you know the why the how is natural". (Robert Epstein Independent on Sunday). " This is a marvellous analysis of screenwriting & with any luck should help a great many people achieve their dreams". (Julian Fellowes writer/creator of Downton Abbey). " Another book on screenwriting! Oh how I wanted to hate it! I didn't. I loved it. Much of it was fresh to me. & always interesting always intelligent & for a writer always rewarding". (Jimmy Mc Govern screenwriter The Street & The Accused). " In an industry full of so called script gurus & snake oil salesmen at last there's a book about story that treats writers like grown ups. This isn't about providing us with an ABC of story or telling us how to write a script by numbers. It's an intelligent evaluation into the very nature of storytelling & is the best book on the subject I've read. Quite brilliant". (Tony Jordan screenwriter Life on Mars & Hustle). " Even for a convinced sceptic John Yorke's book with its massive field of reference from Aristotle to Glee & from Shakespeare to Spooks is a highly persuasive & hugely enjoyable read. It would be hard to beat for information & wisdom about how & why stories are told". (Dominic Dromgoole Artistic Director The Globe Theatre). " This book is intelligent well written incisive & most of all exciting. It is the most important book about scriptwriting since William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade". (Peter Bowker screenwriter Blackpool Occupation & Eric & Ernie). " Part ' How-to' manual part 'why-to' celebration Into The Woods is a wide-reaching & infectiously passionate exploration of storytelling in all its.. .exciting & thought-provoking". (Emma Frost screenwriter The White Queen & Shameless). " Into The Woods is an amazing achievement. It has a real depth & understanding about story a fantastically broad frame of reference & it's interesting & absorbing throughout. Full of i"


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This is the true story of a 24-hour period on Everest when members of three separate expeditions were caught in a storm & faced a battle against hurricane-force winds exposure & the effects of altitude which ended the worst single-season death toll in the peaks history. In March 1996 Outside" magazine sent veteran journalist & seasoned climber Jon Krakauer on an expedition led by celebrated Everest guide Rob Hall. Despite the expertise of Hall & the other leaders by the end of summit day eight people were dead. Krakauers book is at once the story of the ill-fated adventure & an analysis of the factors leading up to its tragic end. Written within months of the events it chronicles " Into Thin Air" clearly evokes the majestic Everest landscape. As the journey up the mountain progresses Krakauer puts it in context by recalling the triumphs & perils of other Everest trips throughout history. The authors own anguish over what happened on the mountain is palpable as he leads readers to ponder timeless questions." ...