Evidence that clears the name of a boy sentenced for killing his adopted mother arrives too late to save his life
- so who did
...

The Argyle family is far from pleased to discover one of its number has been posthumously pardoned for murder
- if Jacko Argyle
...

Believers in the theory of nominalism have set some Cambridge colleges at the throats of those who believe them to be heretics & Michael the Senior Proctor has his work cut out to keep the peace. When a nominalist is murdered during a riot Michael is certain he will easily find the killer amongst the Dominicans but before he can get any sense out of them his junior proctor Walcote is found hanged & he discovers that his trusted ally had arranged secret meetings at the St Ragelund Convent between men who would not normally be seen together
- & the nuns of St Ragelund are renowned for behaviour entirely inappropriate to their calling. Meanwhile Matthew Bartholomew learns that Michael his lifelong friend is in all probability the thief who relieved one of the anti-nominalist colleges of some of their most precious papers. If that charge were proved it would put paid to Michaels long term plans to become Master of Michaelhouse
- but would he kill to protect himself? Unable to believe his colleague would be capable of such acts Bartholomew knows the only way he can quiet his own conscience is to solve the murders himself.

...

The third instalment of Jack Whyte's templar trilogy. The Order
- a secret society of men from ancient noble families drawn together
...

During the twelve years from 1933 until 1945 the concentration camp operated as a terror society. In this pioneering book the renowned German sociologist Wolfgang Sofsky looks at the concentration camp from the inside as a laboratory of cruelty & a system of absolute power built on extreme violence starvation terror labor " & the business-like extermination of human beings. Based on historical documents & the reports of survivors the book details how the resistance of prisoners was broken down. Arbitrary terror & routine violence destroyed personal identity & social solidarity disrupted the very ideas of time & space perverted human work into torture & unleashed innumerable atrocities. As a result daily life was reduced to a permanent struggle for survival even as the meaning of self-preservation was extinguished. Sofsky takes us from the searing unforgettable image of the Muselmann
- Auschwitz jargon for the "walking dead"
- to chronicles of epidemics terror punishments selections & torture. The society of the camp was dominated by the S.S. & a system of graduated & forced collaboration which turned selected victims into accomplices of terror. Sofsky shows that the S. S. was not a rigid bureaucracy but a system with ample room for autonomy. The S.S. demanded individual initiative of its members. Consequently although they were not required to torment or murder prisoners officers & guards often exploited their freedom to do so
- in passing or on a whim with cause or without. The order of terror described by Sofsky culminated in the organized murder of millions of European Jews & Gypsies in the death-factories of Auschwitz & Treblinka. By the end of this book Sofsky shows that the German concentration camp system cannot be seen as a temporary lapse into barbarism. Instead it must be conceived as a product of modern civilization where institutionalized state-run human cruelty became possible with or without the mobilizing feelings of hatred."


...

An ingenious thriller in which young Detective Constable Trave uncovers a sophisticated plot at the heart of MI6 to assassinate Churchill & bring the Second World War & the whole Allied effort to an untimely end. It's 1940 & Bill Trave is a Detective Constable in his early thirties working in West London. France has fallen & the capital is being bombed both day & night
- it seems against all odds that Britain can survive the onslaught. Almost single-handedly Winston Churchill maintains the country's morale with the German enemy convinced that his removal would win them the War. Albert Morrison a rich widower forced into early retirement by failing eyesight is stabbed to death in his Chelsea flat. His only daughter Ava tells Trave that she would read the newspapers to him every evening & the night before his death he had become suddenly excited when she read him an obscure obituary notice. At Morrison's funeral Ava learns from an old colleague that her father worked for MI6 before the War. The obituary notice was a coded message preparing for an assassination although it does not specify the target. Trave realizes that there is a Nazi double agent within MI6 with a plan to assassinate Churchill & to set up another agent to take the blame. He is in a race against time to save Churchill for if he fails Britain's entire war effort could be at stake...
...

Eileen Battersby is the chief literature critic of The Irish Times" & is in the words of John Banville the finest fiction critic we have. But her first full-length book is not about international literature or the state of the novel. It is about dogs. Two dogs in particular with the unlikely names of Bilbo & Frodo. She adopted the first from a horrible dog pound & the second decided he liked her & moved in to join the family. She was in her very early twenties an intensely serious student & runner who had just moved to Ireland from California. The dogs became her most loyal companions for over twenty years witnesses to an often difficult human life & more important to her than most other humans. This book is about two animals with personalities emotions & prejudices. It is unlike any other book ever written about dogs. It is not sentimental or twee. Battersby became intimately involved in the lives of these intelligent shrewd creatures & brings them to life with rare passion & insight. She writes honestly & movingly about the reasons why for certain people
- especially women
- there is more integrity in the mysterious relationship with a mammal who cannot speak than there is in most of the relationships that human society has to offer."

...

One May evening in London as a result of a chance encounter & a split-second decision the young climatologist Adam Kindred loses everything
-
...

The only trilogy in Greek drama that survives from antiquity Aeschylus The Oresteia" is translated by Robert fagles with an introduction notes & glossary written in collaboration with W.B. Stanford in " Penguin Classics". In the " Oresteia" Aeschylus addressed the bloody chain of murder & revenge within the royal family of Argos. As they move from darkness to light from rage to self-governance from primitive ritual to civilized institution their spirit of struggle & regeneration becomes an everlasting song of celebration. In " Agamemnon" a kings decision to sacrifice his daughter & turn the tide of war inflicts lasting damage on his family culminating in a terrible act of retribution; " The Libation Bearers" deals with the aftermath of Clytemnestras regicide as her son Orestes sets out to avenge his fathers death; & in " The Eumenides" Orestes is tormented by supernatural powers that can never be appeased. Forming an elegant & subtle discourse on the emergence of Athenian democracy out of a period of chaos & destruction " The Oresteia" is a compelling tragedy of the tensions between our obligations to our families & the laws that bind us together as a society. Aeschylus (525-456 BC) was born near Athens. He wrote more than seventy plays of which seven have survived all translated for " Penguin Classics": " The Supplicants" " The Persians" " Seven Against Thebes" " Prometheus Bound" " Agamemnon" " The Libation Bearers" & " The Eumenides". If you enjoyed " The Oresteia" you might like Euripides " Medea & Other Plays" also available in " Penguin Classics". " Conveys more vividly & powerfully than any of the ten competitors I have consulted the eternal power of this masterpiece...a triumph". (Bernard Levin). " How satisfying to read at last a modern translation which is rooted in Greek feeling & Greek thought...both the stature & the profound instinctive genius of Aeschylus are recognised". (Mary Renault author of " The King Must Die")." ...

The Organic Baby &? Toddler Cookbook is a comprehensive but easy-to-follow guide to feeding babies from weaning to toddlerhood. It recommends a seasonal mainly raw or lightly cooked wholefood organic diet emphasising raw food in spring & summer & lightly cooked foods in autumn & winter. ...