At the end of the nineteenth century China is rocked by foreign attacks & local rebellions. The only constant is the power wielded by one woman Tzu Hsi also known as Empress Orchid who must face the perilous condition of her empire & devastating personal losses. In this sequel to the bestselling Empress Orchid" Anchee Min brings to life one of the most important figures in Chinese history a very human leader who sacrifices all she has to protect both those she loves & her doomed empire." ...

The Last Escape" by Tony Rennell & John Nichol is an extraordinary look at the final days of World War II. As WW2 drew to a close hundreds of thousands of British & American prisoners of war held in camps in Nazi-occupied Europe faced the prospect that they would never get home alive. In the depths of winter their guards harried them on marches out of their camps & away from the armies advancing into the heart of Hitler's defeated Germany. Hundreds died from exhaustion disease & starvation. " The Last Escape" is told through the testimony of those heroic men now in their seventies & eighties & telling their stories publicly for the first time. " Gripping moving & thoughtful. The excellent team of Nichol & Rennell have done it again". (Patrick Bishop author of " Fighter Boys"). John Nichol is a former RAF flight lieutenant whose Tornado bomber was shot down on a mission over Iraq during the first Gulf War. He was captured & made a prisoner of war. Tony Rennell is a writer for the " Daily Mail" & a former deputy editor of the " Sunday Times". Their previous books include " The Last Escape" " Tail-End Charlies" & " Medic"." ...

Ernest Hemingway once said that a good story was like an iceberg; what is visible is always smaller than the part that remains hidden beneath the water which confers intensity mystery power & meaning on what floats on the surface. This is certainly true of the fourteen stories here the first collection by the universally acclaimed Chilean author to be published in English. Imbued with the melancholy folklore of exile as Roberto Bolano once put it & set largely in the world of the Chilean diaspora in Central America & Europe the narrators of these stories are usually writers grappling with private quests (Bolanos beloved failed generation) who typically speak in the first person as if giving a deposition like witnesses to a crime. They are characters living in the margins on the edge in constant flight from nightmarish threats. In Sensini an elderly South American writer instructs another younger writer also living in exile in the subterfuges of entering work for provincial literary prizes. The title story tells of a journey to Acapulco that gradually becomes a descent into the underworld. Dance Card provides the reader with sixty-nine reasons not to dance with Pablo Neruda. & the story Mauricio (The Eye") Silva opens with the following sentence: Mauricio Silva also known as The Eye always tried to avoid violence even at the risk of being considered a coward but violence real violence is unavoidable at least for those of us who were born in Latin America during the fifties & were about twenty years old at the time of Salvador Allendes death." ...

Few novels have caused as much controversy as Hubert Selby Jr.s notorious masterpiece. Described by various reviewers as hellish & obscene it tells the stories of New Yorkers who at every turn confront the worst excesses in human nature. Yet there are moments of exquisite tenderness in these troubled lives. Georgette the transvestite who falls in love with a callous hoodlum; Tralala the conniving prostitute who plumbs the depths of sexual degradation; & Harry the strike leader who hides his true desires behind a boorish masculinity are unforgettable creations. Last Exit to Brooklyn" was banned by British courts in 1967 a decision that was reversed the following year with the help of a number of writers including Anthony Burgess." ...

Meet the Hunter family: Adam Kate & their children Hal & Charlotte. & Prince their black Labrador. Prince is an earnest young dog striving hard to live up to the tenets of the Labrador Pact (Remain Loyal to Your Human Masters Serve & Protect Your Family at Any Cost). Other dogs led by the Springer Spaniels have revolted. Their slogans are Dogs for Dogs not for Humans & Pleasure not Duty. Mentored by an elderly Labrador called Henry Prince takes his responsibilities seriously & as things in the Hunter family begin to go badly awry
- marital breakdown rowdy teenage parties attempted suicide
- his responsibilities threaten to overwhelm him. & down in the park its even worse: Henry has disappeared; Falstaff the Springer Spaniel wants to lead Prince astray; Joyce the Irish wolfhound has been murdered. In the end Prince is forced to break the Labrador Pact & take desperate action to save his Family.

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Harry Patch the last British soldier alive to have fought in the trenches of the First World War is now 108 years old & one of very few people who can directly recall the horror of that conflict. Harry vividly remembers his childhood in the Somerset countryside of Edwardian Engl&. He left school in 1913 to become an apprentice plumber but three years later was conscripted serving as a machine gunner in the Duke of Cornwalls Light Infantry. Fighting in the mud & trenches during the Battle of Passchendaele he saw a great many of his comrades die & in one dreadful moment the shell that wounded him kill his three closest friends. In vivid detail he describes daily life in the trenches the terror of being under intense artillery fire & the fear of going over the top. Then after the Armistice the soldiers frustration at not being quickly demobbed led to a mutiny in which Harry was soon caught up. The Second World War saw Harry in action on the home front as a fire-fighter during the bombing of Bath. He also warmly describes his friendship with American GIs preparing to go to France & years later his tears when he saw their graves. Late in life Harry achieved fame meeting the Queen & taking part in the BBC documentary The Last Tommies finally shaking hands with a German veteran of the artillery & speaking out frankly to Prime Minister Tony Blair about the soldiers shot for cowardice in the First World War. The Last Fighting Tommy is the story of an ordinary mans extraordinary life. ...

Harry Patch 110 years old is the last British soldier alive to have fought in the trenches of the First World War. From his vivid memories of an Edwardian childhood the horror of the Great War & fighting in the mud during the Battle of Passchendaele working on the home front in the Second World War & fame in later life as a veteran The Last Fighting Tommy is the story of an ordinary man's extraordinary life. ...

Michael Simkins is the ultimate Sunday cricketer
- passionate obsessive technically inept & hopelessly deluded. When an injury
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This is the first short story collection from an acclaimed novelist with a wide & loyal readership. Many of the stories have won prizes been published or broadcast; some are new written especially for the collection. Several feature artists & are set in the past in a rural England; others are contemporary: stories set in London or Europe of love glimpsed lost or longed for. In Bratislava" is the brief encounter between a lonely businessman & young student in the aftermath of communism. Two or three look at illness & mortality: in " Last Fling" the title story a dying woman places a lonely hearts ad. All these stories are written with Sue Gees insight precision & delicacy of style & tone. Her last novel " Reading in Bed" (2007) was a " Daily Mail" Book Club Selection; her next will be published in 2012. Poignant & haunting immensely readable " Last Fling" is the perfect book between the two." ...

The Last Four Things" is the second in Paul Hoffman's remarkable series. Death Judgement Heaven & Hell. These are the " Last Four Things". Now there are Five Meet Thomas Cale Returning to the Sanctuary of the Redeemers Thomas Cale is told by the Lord Militant that the destruction of mankind is necessary; the only way to undo God's greatest mistake. Cale seemingly accepts his role in the ending of the world: fate has painted him as the Left Hand of God the Angel of Death. Absolute power is within his grasp the terrifying zeal & military might of the Redeemers a weapon for him to handle as simply as he once used a knife. But perhaps not even the grim power that the Redeemers hold over Cale is enough
- the boy who turns from love to poisonous hatred in a heartbeat the boy who switches between kindness & sheer violence in the blink of an eye. The annihilation that the Redeemers seek may well be in Cale's hands
- but his soul is far stranger than they could ever know. " The Last Four Things" follows on from " The Left Hand of God". It is the second instalment in a gripping trilogy by Paul Hoffman. Imagine if Phillip Pullman's " His Dark Materials" met Umberto Eco's " Name of the Rose". Fans of epic heroic fiction will love this series. Praise for Paul Hoffman: " This book gripped me from the first chapter & then dropped me days later dazed & grinning to myself". (Conn Iggulden). " Tremendous momentum". (" Daily Telegraph"). "A cult classic.. .". (" Daily Express"). Paul Hoffman is the author of four previous novels " The Last Four Things" (2011) " The Left Hand of God" (2010) " The Golden Age of Censorship" (2007) a black comedy based on his experiences as a film censor & " The Wisdom of Crocodiles" (2000) which predicted the collapse of the world financial system."

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