True Confessions of Adrian Mole Margaret Hilda Roberts & Susan Lilian Townsend" is the third book in Sue Townsend's brilliantly funny " Adrian Mole" series. Monday June 13th. I had a good proper look at myself in the mirror tonight. I've always wanted to look clever but at the age of twenty years & three months I have to admit that I look like a person who has never even heard of Jung or Updike. Adrian Mole is an adult. At least that's what it says on his passport. But living at home clinging to his threadbare cuddly rabbit ' Pinky' working as a paper pusher for the Do E & pining for the love of his life Pandora has proved to him that adulthood isn't quite what he expected. Still without the slings & arrows of modern life what else would an intellectual poet have to write about... Included here are two other less well-known diarists: Sue Townsend & Margaret Hilda Roberts a rather ambitious grocer's daughter from Grantham. Bestselling author Sue Townsend has been Britain's favourite comic writer for over three decades. " Essential reading for Mole followers". (" Times Educational Supplement"). " Wonderfully funny & sharp as knives". (" Sunday Times"). Sue Townsend is Britain's favourite comic author. Her hugely successful novels include eight " Adrian Mole" books " The Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman (Aged 55 )" " Number Ten" " Ghost Children" " The Queen & I" " Queen Camilla" & " The Woman Who Went to Bed For a Year" all of which are highly acclaimed bestsellers. She has also written numerous well-received plays. She lives in Leicester where she was born & grew up." ...

16 fascinating profiles of cases of misdeeds committed by men & women of the Civil War The epic battles of the Civil War have become the stuff of legend & the subject of a vast amount of literature. Much less known is the war behind the lines
- a war carried out by merciless guerrillas bloodthirsty mobs murderous vigilantes & sinister secret agents. True Crime in the Civil War delves into the conflicts criminal history profiling 16 cases of misdeeds committed by men & women on both sides of the fight. Civil War buffs will find newly uncovered information on a pair of obscure incidents: the 1863 murder of a Tennessee family by freed slaves living in a Union camp & an 1865 killing in North Carolina that immediately tested the nations commitment to equality. Also included are fresh accounts of some of the wars most notorious crimes including the short & brutal life of Bloody Bill Anderson the evils perpetrated behind Andersonvilles walls & the still-controversial Lincoln assassination conspiracy
- providing a stark reminder that those on the wars front lines werent the only ones facing danger.

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There is no knowing what lies in a mans heart. On a trip to buy ponies Frank Ross is killed by one of his own workers. Tom Chaney shoots him down in the street for a horse $150 cash & two Californian gold pieces. Rosss unusually mature & single-minded fourteen-year-old daughter Mattie travels to claim his body & finds that the authorities are doing nothing to find Chaney. Then she hears of Rooster
- a man shes told who has grit
- & convinces him to join her in a quest into dark dangerous Indian territory to hunt Chaney down & avenge her fathers murder.

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Merlin the Magician has remained an enthralling & curious individual since the idea was first invented in the twelfth century in the pages of Geoffrey of Monmouths History of the Kings of Britain". But although the Merlin of literature & Arthurian myth is well known Merlins historical impact & his relation to medieval magic are less familiar. In this book Anne Lawrence-Mathers explores just who he was thought to be & what he has meant to Britain. The twelfth-century Merlin was no folk soothsayer: he was a learned figure at the cutting edge of medieval science & adept in astrology cosmology prophecy & natural magic as well as being a seer & proto alchemist. He was a convincing & powerful figure & his famed prophecies helped to add credibility to the long lost history of Britain first revealed here to a European public. Merlins prophecies reassuringly foretold Britains path establishing an ancient ancestral line & linking biblical prediction with more recent times. Merlin helped to place British history within world history. Lawrence-Mathers also explores the meaning of Merlins magic across the centuries arguing that he embodied ancient Christian & pagan magical traditions recreated for a medieval court & adapted to fit a new moral climate. Linking Merlins perceived reality & power with the culture of the Middle Ages this remarkable book reveals the true impact of the most famous magician of all time." ...

From the acclaimed author of THE PIRATES DAUGHTER comes a story of three women born into the divided troubled paradise of Jamaica. Easter 1981. With Jamaica in a state of emergency the Landing family gathers to bury one of its own. For Monica Landing who had not spoken to her daughter for fifteen years the death of Lana is the cruellest kind of loss. For Lanas youngest sister Jean it is an imcomprehensible tragedy. All she knows is that her beloved homeland holds no future for her. But flight means crossing a landscape where soldiers turned executioners & armed gangs rule. It means making her way through the memories that engulf her with perhaps the only man she has ever loved by her side. THE TRUE HISTORY OF PARADISE captures the grace beauty & brutality that are indelible parts of the Jamaican experience. ...

'I lost my own father at 12 yrs of age & know what it is to be raised on lies & silences my dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you & will contain no single lie may I burn in hell if I speak false.' In a dazzling act of ventriloquism Peter Carey gives the Australian outlaw Ned Kelly a voice so wild passionate & original that it is impossible not to believe that the famous bush ranger himself is speaking from beyond the grave. Carey gives us Ned Kelly as orphan as Oedipus as horse thief farmer bush ranger reformer bank-robber police-killer & finally as his country's beloved Robin Hood. In 1878 Francis Harty a poor farmer said ' Ned Kelly is the best bloody man that has ever been in Benalla I would fight up to my knees in blood for him
- I have known him for years I would take his word sooner than another man's oath'. By the time of his hanging in 1880 a whole country would seem to agree
- & it is a measure of Peter Carey's achievement that he has not only made art from his country's great story but that he persuades us all to understand the true measure of that 'best bloody man'.

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Ford changed the face of the modern world. The incredible success of his motor car for the multitude transformed industry & society & made him the richest man on earth. His amazing story ranges from exhilarating success to personal tragedy & disappointment. Other titles in the series: Amelia Earhart Alexander the Great Captain Cook Cleopatra Eric the Red Galileo Gandhi Hans Christian Andersen Roald Dahl Thomas Edison & William Shakespeare. ...

In August 1900 ten-year-old Maddy has made a new friend on the sands of North Bay Scarborough. The summer stretches out before Maddy & Jessie with ice-creams Pierrot shows & lots of fun to be had. & Maddy is enjoying having someone to show around her home town relieved that the 'family business' Isaac Moon & Son Undertakers has not put Jessie off. While the two girls & the two families get to know each other trouble lies ahead for Maddy as secrets buried long before she was born return to Scarborough & the present. ...

In this colourful journal writer-illustrator Barbara Bash has re-created her chronicles of meditation & contemplative wandering during a series of solitary country retreats. Combining journal notes in calligraphy watercolour-&-pencil drawings she captures exquisite moments of magic in the natural environment: a dragonfly's brief pause a surprised deer in tall grass a lumbering skunk's visit the woods at twilight. Nature lovers gardeners & anyone who enjoys solitary country walks will recognise in Barbara a kindred spirit & will find hours of pleasure in these pages. ...

True North shows how anyone who follows their internal compass can become an authentic leader. This leadership tour de force ...