Life is a lot of fun for Wombat. There are lots of things he likes to do: shouting at the top of his voice stepping in circles until he falls over pulling funny faces & getting in a mess. But can you guess what he likes to do best of all? Ages 2-5. ...

Kelly knew that although Barney would always love her his restless soul would never allow him to stay but she could never have envisaged how his leaving would alter her life. Alone once more Kelly finds herself remembering the past: in particular what happened in the autumn of 1877 & how it destroyed her family. Filled with regrets & wishes that life may have been different Kelly begins to see that she must confront her past
- & only then will she finally be free.
...

A girl meets with danger on the beach when she is lured away by a strange boy; a bereaved wife enlists the help of a mysterious woman to perform rituals that will bring her dead husband back to life; a boys anger at his absent father leads him towards an act of destruction in the basement of his school. These are just some of the characters & events which are given life in A. J. Ashworths Scott Prize-winning collection Somewhere Else or Even Here. The stories described as dark & delicious by the writer Maggie Gee explore themes of loss & loneliness desire & hope -- with characters left to navigate the shifting landscapes of their lives. A. J. Ashworth captures with honesty the collisions that can happen between human beings whether its a couple facing up to life after the death of a child or lovers broken apart by infidelities either real or imagined. She explores those moments of realisation those turning points which will continue to resonate throughout the lives of her characters -- those people who even in small ways will be forever changed forever cut loose from their earlier selves. ...

Matheson's classic novel tells the moving romantic story of a modern man whose love for a woman he has never met draws him back in time to a luxury hotel in San Diego in 1896 where he finds his soul mate in the form of a celebrated actress of the previous century. Somewhere in Time" won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel & the 1979 movie version starring Christopher Reeve & Jane Seymour remains a cult classic whose fans continue to hold yearly conventions to this day." ...

We left Robert a long way from home a sixteen-year-old recruit in the RAF. Now we follow his escape from the Forces (until National Service a few years later!) his return to Glasgow & life down the pit. Once more Robert's fantastic memory for people places & anecdotes combined with an ear for individual voices & the brilliant ability to evoke a bygone sense of community will enchant his readers & sometimes appal them with the brutality of conditions he experienced. ...

This book looks at the Battle of the Somme which was planned as The Big Push" that would at last break the long stalemate on the Western Front in World War I. However the 18 divisions that went over the top between Arras & St-Quentin on the morning of 1 July 1916 walked into a battle that has gone down in the annals of human conflict as the slaughterhouse of a generation. The author has written other books about the history of World War I including " They Called it Passchendaele" & " The Roses of No Mans Land"." ...

On 1 July 1916 Douglas Haigs army launched the Big Push that was supposed finally to bring an end to the stalemate on the Western Front. What happened next was a human catastrophe: scrambling over the top into the face of the German machine guns & artillery fire almost 20 000 British & Commonwealth soldiers were killed that day alone & twice as many wounded
- the greatest loss in a single day ever sustained by the British Army. The battle did not stop there however. It dragged on for another 4 months leaving the battlefield strewn with literally hundreds of thousands of bodies. The Somme has remained a byword for the futility of war ever since. In this major new history Peter Hart describes how the battle looked from the point of view of those who fought it. Using never-before-seen eyewitness testimonies he shows us this epic conflict from all angles. We see what it was like to crawl across No Mans Land in the face of the German guns what it was like for those who stayed behind in the trenches
- the padres the artillerymen the doctors. We also see what the battle looked like from the air as the RFC battled to keep control of the skies above the battlefield.

...

' It's the end of the 1916 winter & the conditions are almost unbelievable. We live in a world of Somme mud. We sleep in it work in it fight in it wade in it & many of us die in it. We see it feel it eat it & curse it but we can't escape it not even by dying...'. Edward Lynch enlisted when he was just 18
- one of thousands of fresh-faced men who were proudly waved off by the crowds as they embarked for France. It was 1916 & the majority had no idea of the reality of the Somme trenches of the traumatised soldiers they would encounter there of the innumerable awful contradictions of war. Private Lynch was one of those who survived & on his return home in 1919 wrote Somme Mud" in pencil in over 20 school exercise books perhaps in the hope of coming to terms with all that he had witnessed there. Written from the perspective of an ordinary ' Tommy' & told with dignity candour & surprising wit " Somme Mud" is a testament to the human spirit for out of the mud that threatened to suck out a man's soul rises a compelling story of humanity & friendship. It is a rare & precious find."
...

On the first day of the Somme enlisted railwayman Jim Stringer lies trapped in a shell hole smoking cigarette after cigarette under the bullets & the blazing sun. He calculates his chances of survival
- even before they departed for France a member of Jim's unit had been found dead. During the st&-off that follows Jim & his comrades must operate by night the vitally important trains carrying munitions to the Front through a ghostly landscape of shattered trees where high explosive & shrapnel shells rain down. Close co-operation & trust are vital. Yet proof piles up of an enemy within & as a ferocious military policeman pursues his investigation into the original killing the finger of accusation begins to point towards Jim himself...
...

Some secrets are better left buried... When seventeen-year-old Phoebe Turner visits Wiltons Music Hall to watch her Aunt Cissy performing on stage she risks the wrath of her mother Maud who marches with the Hallelujah Army campaigning for all London theatres to close. While there Phoebe is drawn to a stranger the enigmatic Nathaniel Samuels who heralds dramatic changes in the lives of all three women. When offered the position of companion to Nathaniels reclusive wife Phoebe leaves her life in Londons East End for Dinwood Court in Herefordshire
- a house that may well be haunted & which holds the darkest of truths...
...