This is a new edition of master illustrator Anthony Brownes first book full of visual surprises. Toby is fed up. Fed up with books fed up with toys fed up with everything. But when he walks through the magic mirror things are amazingly different. Toby can hardly believe his eyes! Anthony Brownes first book is full of the surreal details & visual humour that have made him one of the worlds most popular & acclaimed picture book artists. ...

Through the Narrow Gate is Karen Armstrongs memoir of life inside a Catholic convent in the 1960s. With gentleness & honesty Armstrong takes her readers on a revelatory journey that begins with her decision at the age of seventeen to devote her life to God as a nun. yet once she embarked upon her spiritual training she encountered a frightening & oppressive world fossilized by tradition which moulded isolated & pushed her to the limit of what she could endure. ...

Two years of war have taken a terrible toll on Pearl Street Liverpool. German bombs have reduced some houses to rubble & most of the inhabitants have lost friends & family. While sisters Eileen & Sheila share the anxious burden of absent husbands the conflict for others brings excitement & freedom. Kitty Quigley stuck at home for years with an invalid father is forced to register for war work & is delighted to become an auxiliary nurse. & Jessica Fleming struggling to earn a living finds herself & friend Rita increasingly drawn to the glamour & excitement of the Yanks. ...

In these seventeen essays (and one short story) the 2011 Man Booker Prize winner examines British French & American writers who have meant most to him as well as the cross-currents & overlappings of their different cultures. From the deceptiveness of Penelope Fitzgerald to the directness of Hemingway from Kipling's view of France to the French view of Kipling from the many translations of Madame Bovary to the fabulations of Ford Madox Ford from the National Treasure Status of George Orwell to the despair of Michel Houellebecq Julian Barnes considers what fiction is & what it can do. As he writes in his preface ' Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is how we live it what it might be for how we enjoy & value it & how we lose it.' When his Letters from London" came out in 1995 the " Financial Times" called him "our best essayist". This wise & deft collection confirms that judgment." ...

With his infectious energy & charisma Gok Wan has an incredible gift of making women feel more confident within themselves
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When Lockhart Flawse is catapulted out of his upper-class & rapunzel-esque life with the curmudgeonly Flawse Senior he must enter the world of suburbia & marriage. Rendered an absolute twit in modern society by his medieval upbringing Lockhart must resort to drastic tactics in his attempt to return to Flawse House. Faced with the horrors of suburbia he must either terrorise blackmail & potentially kill an entire street of his tenants or attempt to find his unknown & elusive father in order to inherit the estate. However with the belief that he was dropped into his mother's arms by a stork killing a street of people may be the wiser option for the socially inept young man. He is also under mounting pressure as it may all be in vain if his gold-digging mother-in-law has her way. Now the wife of Flawse Senior she has decided that if Lockhart's wealthy grandfather can't have the decency to die on his own she will take matters into her own hands. ...

It's the May Day holiday & a fair has come to the village of Thrush Green. The residents of Thrush Green all have their own views about the fair. For young Paul just recovered from an illness it is a joy to be allowed out to play at the fair; for Ruth who returned to the soothing tranquillity of Thrush Green nursing a broken heart the fair is a welcome distraction from her own problems. & for Dr Lovell the fair brings an unexpected new patient. Then there is Mrs Curdle the long-standing matriarch of the fair. For her this year's visit to Thrush Green awakens mixed feelings & a difficulty she doesn't want to face... Full of Miss Read's inimitable charm & humour THRUSH GREEN is a wonderful introduction to this bestselling series. ...

Koom Valley
- that was where the trolls ambushed the dwarfs or the dwarfs ambushed the trolls. It was far away. It was a long time
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A hilarious picture book from Nick Butterworth the highly-regarded prize-winning creator of Percy the Park Keeper. In a fantastical land where even warthogs are beautiful the peace is shattered one day by the deafening thud of something very large nearby. Is it a monster? None of the animals feels brave enough to find out but they know of an Ugly Beast who might be able to help. & when they find him the animals are in for a truly monstrous surprise. ...

VOTED AS READERS' FAVOURITE DISCWORLD NOVEL IN THE DISCWORLD CUP 2010! ' Some people would be asking: whose side are you on? If you're not for us you're against us. Huh. If you're not an apple you're a banana' When it comes to racial hatred & sectarian violence the phrase 'vive la difference' is usually one of the furthest from the tip of the mob's tongue. When a whole city is poised on the very brink of anarchy it only requires one thing to pitch it over the edge. Like the murder of one of the key participants for example... ...