Life is never a bed of roses for the Toveys & their beloved Siamese cats Solomon & Sheba. For one thing theyve got Annabel the donkey to contend with & the thorny matter of her troublesome stomach after she overindulges on the apple harvest. More calamities ensue when Doreen & her husband Charles return from a riding course in the Scottish wilderness & Solomon thinks they have brought the Loch Ness Monster home with them. Then Sheba baffles her owners with a series of mysterious disappearances. What with Annabel adopting a cat of her own Charles taking up the piano Father Adams flying hat & Solomons determined efforts to catch a hare there are endless adventures in store in this loveable witty classic. ...

Alex & Ethan are brothers growing up on an estate where there are just two choices: sport or crime. Ethan is a promising footballer & when he is selected to go on a training programme in the US he feels sure that he has found his chance to escape the gangs that dominate his streets. But as life spirals out of control for his brother Alex & things unexpectedly take a turn for the worse for Ethan he finds himself drawn into the midst of an explosive feud with the gun at its heart. The gun can make a weak man strong. The gun is the cowards fist. The gun is power. In this tense gripping & absorbing real life thriller Alan Gibbons explores the complex issue of gun crime & the far-reaching consequences it can have. ...

Rudy Baylor is a newly qualified lawyer: he has one case & one case alone to save himself from his mounting debts. His case is against a giant insurance company which could have saved a young man's life but instead refused to pay the claim until it was too late. The settlement could be worth millions of dollars but there is one problem: Rudy has never argued a case in court before & he's up against the most expensive lawyers that money can buy. ...

Are you optimistic or pessimistic? Glass half-full or half-empty? Do you look on the bright side or turn towards the dark? These are easy questions for most of us to answer because our personality types are hard-wired into our brains. As pioneering psychologist & neuroscientist Elaine Fox has discovered our outlook on life reflects our primal inclination to seek pleasure or avoid danger--inclinations that in many people are healthily balanced. But when our fear brain or pleasure brain is too strong the results can be disastrous as those of us suffering from debilitating shyness addiction depression or anxiety know all too well. Luckily anyone suffering from these afflictions has reason to hope. stunning breakthroughs in neuroscience show that our brains are more malleable than we ever imagined. In Rainy Brain Sunny Brain Fox describes a range of techniques--from traditional cognitive behavioural therapy to innovative cognitive bias retraining exercises--that can actually alter our brains circuitry strengthening specific thought processes by exercising the neural systems that control them. The implications are enormous: lifelong pessimists can train themselves to think positively & find happiness while pleasure-seekers inclined toward risky or destructive behavior can take control of their lives. Drawing on her own cutting-edge research Fox shows how we can retrain our brains to brighten our lives & learn to flourish. With keen insights into how genes life experiences & cognitive processes interleave together to make us who we are Rainy Brain Sunny Brain revolutionises our basic concept of individuality. We learn that we can influence our own personalities & that our lives are only as sunny or as rainy as we allow them to be. ...

Are you optimistic or pessimistic? Glass half-full or half-empty? Do you look on the bright side or turn towards the dark? These are easy questions for most of us to answer because our personality types are hard-wired into our brains. As pioneering psychologist & neuroscientist Elaine Fox has discovered our outlook on life reflects our primal inclination to seek pleasure or avoid danger-inclinations that in many people are healthily balanced. But when our 'fear brain' or 'pleasure brain' is too strong the results can be disastrous as those of us suffering from debilitating shyness addiction depression or anxiety know all too well. Luckily anyone suffering from these afflictions has reason to hope. stunning breakthroughs in neuroscience show that our brains are more malleable than we ever imagined. In Rainy Brain Sunny Brain Fox describes a range of techniques
- from traditional cognitive behavioural therapy to innovative cognitive bias retraining exercises
- that can actually alter our brains' circuitry strengthening specific thought processes by exercising the neural systems that control them. The implications are enormous: lifelong pessimists can train themselves to think positively & find happiness while pleasure-seekers inclined toward risky or destructive behavior can take control of their lives. Drawing on her own cutting-edge research Fox shows how we can retrain our brains to brighten our lives & learn to flourish. With keen insights into how genes life experiences & cognitive processes interleave together to make us who we are Rainy Brain Sunny Brain revolutionises our basic concept of individuality. We learn that we can influence our own personalities & that our lives are only as 'sunny' or as 'rainy' as we allow them to be.

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A tidal wave of pounding excitement from the first page to the last.. . Two & a half miles beneath the icy North Atlantic the mighty Titanic holds the key to the safety of the free world. The Americans want it. So do the Russians. Ace maritime troubleshooter Dirk Pitt faces one of the most stupendous tests of courage & ingenuity ever. Raise the Titanic is a spellbinding blockbuster of action & suspense. ...

Written in 1980 Raised From the Ground" was the novel with which Jose Saramago first found his distinctive voice & style. It is set in the Alentejo the rural area of Portugal where Saramagos family came from & follows the fortunes of the Mau-Tempo family (literally the Badweathers) from the beginning of the twentieth century through to its middle. While the First & Second World Wars rumble on in the background Joao Mau-Tempo suffers the suicide of his father a drunken cobbler followed by hardship as his mother tries to make ends meet in a society where the landowners are all-powerful & the life of a hired hand is unremittingly harsh. As communist ideas start to spread among the labourers Joao becomes politicised but ends up being imprisoned. Nevertheless the novel ends with optimism as in a May Day revolution the workers take over the land & form cooperatives. Highly political yet full of Saramagos characteristic humour & humanity this is a novel as full of love as it is of pain. It is a vivid moving tribute to the men & women among whom Saramago lived as a child & a fascinating insight into the early work of this literary giant." ...

First published in 1980 Saramago's prizewinning novel Raised from the Ground" follows the changing fortunes of the Mau-Tempo family
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Having a backyard garden just got a lot easier! Framed raised beds & a modular approach to growing vegetables means more production in less space & with less work. Whether you live on a small city lot or a multi-acre country estate this book has something for you. Nones shows you how to set up the raised-bed modular system & then gives in-depth descriptions of all gardening procedures: sowing seeds thinning transplanting cultivating mulching watering harvesting pest control composting crop rotation & seed saving. It s a complete gardening book for both the beginner & the experienced gardener. ...

Author Mary Lou Sullivan sat with Johnny Winter for hours of exclusive no-holds-barred interviews covering the guitar slingers entire career. From toughing it out in Texas to his appearance at Woodstock his affair with Janis Joplin his stadium-filling tours & washing out on drugs & the temptations of the road before finally fulfilling his dream of becoming a 100-per cent pure bluesman resurrecting the career of Muddy Waters & winning a Grammy Award for his effort this is a raucous roller coaster of a story. Rolling Stone" magazine has called Johnny Winter one of the greatest guitar players of all time. Ripped off & beaten down by unscrupulous managers strung out living the extreme highs & extreme lows of an uncompromising musician Johnny is a true rock n roll survivor. He has jammed with guitar heavies Hendrix Clapton & the Allman Brothers & paved the way for fellow Texas superstars Stevie Ray Vaughn & ZZ Top. Still on the road playing hundreds of gigs a year to his devoted adoring fans Johnny like this book is the real deal." ...