SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2012 A brother is as easily forgotten as an umbrella. James Joyce Ulysses Recently having abandoned his RD Laing-influenced experiment in running a therapeutic community
- the so-called Concept House in Willesden
- maverick psychiatrist Zack Busner arrives at Friern Hospital a vast Victorian mental asylum in North London under a professional & a marital cloud. He has every intention of avoiding controversy but then he encounters Audrey Dearth a working-class girl from Fulham born in 1890 who has been immured in Friern for decades. A socialist a feminist & a munitions worker at the Woolwich Arsenal Audrey fell victim to the encephalitis lethargica sleeping sickness epidemic at the end of the First World War & like one of the subjects in Oliver Sacks Awakenings has been in a coma ever since. Realising that Audrey is just one of a number of post-encephalitics scattered throughout the asylum Busner becomes involved in an attempt to bring them back to life
- with wholly unforeseen consequences. Is Audreys diseased brain in its nightmarish compulsion a microcosm of the technological revolutions of the twentieth century? & if Audrey is ill at all
- perhaps her illness is only modernity itself? & what of Audreys two brothers Stanley & Albert: at the time she fell ill Stanley was missing presumed dead on the Western Front while Albert was in charge of the Arsenal itself a coming man in the Imperial Civil Service. Now fifty years later when Audrey awakes from her pathological swoon which of the two is it who remains alive? Radical in its conception uncompromising in its style Umbrella is Will Selfs most extravagant & imaginative exercise in speculative fiction to date.



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SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2012 For half a century Audrey Death has been in a state of semi-consciousness. Severed from the world of the living after falling victim to Encephalitis lethargica she has languished in Friern Barnet Mental Hospital. Then in 1971 maverick psychiatrist Dr Zack Busner arrives. Audrey's experiences of a bygone Edwardian London: her socialist lover her involvement with the Suffragists & her work in a munitions factory during the First World War alternate with Dr Busner's attempts to bring her back to life with a new & powerful drug. His investigations lead to revelations that are both shocking & tragic & which will return to haunt him decades later. ...

Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance" makes his comics writing debut in this outrageous superhero epic that Grant Morrison called " An ultraviolet psychedelic sherbet bomb of wit & ideas. The superheroes of the 21st century are here at last..." In an inexplicable worldwide event forty-seven extraordinary children were spontaneously born by women who'd previously shown no signs of pregnancy. Millionaire inventor Reginald Hargreeves adopted seven of the children; when asked why his only explanation was " To save the world." These seven children form The Umbrella Academy a dysfunctional family of superheroes with bizarre powers. Their first adventure at the age of ten pits them against an erratic & deadly Eiffel Tower piloted by the fearsome zombie-robot Gustave Eiffel. Nearly a decade later the team disbands but when Hargreeves unexpectedly dies these disgruntled siblings reunite just in time to save the world once again." ...

Marco Polo maps feature completely up-to-date digitally generated mapping. The high quality cartography with distance indicators & scale converters aid route planning. A fold-out overview map is ideal for route planning & 7 self-adhesive Marco Polo mark-it stickers can be used to pin-point a destination or route for future reference. Scenic routes & places of interest are highlighted
- ideal for touring holidays. The maps also contain a comprehensive index & city plans of Ancona Perugia & Pascara. Map Scale
- 1: 200 000.

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Large black Umbro branded pencil case with two zipped pockets. The first zip goes the full length of the pencil case giving access to the wide barrel shape with plenty of room for storage & the smaller zipped pocket at the front of the pencil case is ideal for those little items you need to keep close to h&. Approximate

Dimensions 22x 10x 7.5. Main colour is black with turquoise highlights.

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The iron wheel began to spin slowly at first then faster & faster. The room grew darker. As the light lessened so did the sound. Deeba & Zanna stared at each other in wonder. The noise of the cars & vans & motorbikes outside grew tinny.. . The wheel turned off all the cars & turned off all the lamps. It was turning off London. Zanna & Deeba are two girls leading ordinary lives until they stumble into the world of Un London an urban Wonderland where all the lost & broken things of London end up.. .and some of its lost & broken people too. Here discarded umbrellas stalk with spidery menace carnivorous giraffes roam the streets & a jungle sprawls beyond the door of an ordinary house. Un London is under siege by the sinister Smog & its stink-junkie slaves; it is a city awaiting its hero. Guided by a magic book that cant quite get its facts straight & pursued by Hemi the half-ghost boy the girls set out to stop the poisonous cloud before it burns everything in its path. They are joined in their quest by a motley band of Un London locals including Brokkenbroll boss of the broken umbrellas Obaday Fing a couturier whose head is an enormous pincushion & an empty milk carton called Curdle. The world of Un London is populated by astonishing frights & delights that will thrill the imagination. ...

These are a special limited edition set of both CSA Word Just William" titles read by Martin Jarvis. 1. " Just William
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The Unadulterated Cat is becoming an endangered species as more & more of us settle for those boring mass-produced cats the ad-men sell us
- the pussies that purr into their gold-plated food bowls on the telly. But the Campaign for Real Cats sets out to change all that by helping us to recognise a true unadulterated cat when we see one. For example: real cats have ears that look like they've been trimmed with pinking shears; real cats never wear flea collars.. .or appear on Christmas cards.. .or chase anything with a bell in it; real cats do eat quiche. & giblets. & butter. & anything else left on the table if they think they can get away with it. Real cats can hear a fridge door opening two rooms away.. .
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Unapologetic" is a brief witty personal sharp-tongued defence of Christian belief taking on Dawkins " The God Delusion" & Christopher Hitchens " God is Not Great". But it isnt an argument that Christianity is true
- because how could anyone know that (or indeed its opposite)? Its an argument that Christianity is recognisable drawing on the deep & deeply ordinary vocabulary of human feeling satisfying those who believe in it by offering a ruthlessly realistic account of the bits of our lives advertising agencies prefer to ignore. Its a book for believers who are fed up with being patronised for non-believers curious about how faith can possibly work in the twenty-first century & for anyone who feels there is something indefinably wrong literalistic anti-imaginative & intolerant about the way the atheist case is now being made. Fresh provoking & unhampered by niceness this is the long-awaited riposte to the smug emissaries of New Atheism."
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Unapologetic is a brief witty personal sharp-tongued defence of Christian belief taking on Dawkins' The God Delusion & Christopher Hitchens' God is Not Great. But it isn't an argument that Christianity is true
- because how could anyone know that (or indeed its opposite)? It's an argument that Christianity is recognisable drawing on the deep & deeply ordinary vocabulary of human feeling satisfying those who believe in it by offering a ruthlessly realistic account of the bits of our lives advertising agencies prefer to ignore. It's a book for believers who are fed up with being patronised for non-believers curious about how faith can possibly work in the twenty-first century & for anyone who feels there is something indefinably wrong literalistic anti-imaginative & intolerant about the way the atheist case is now being made. Fresh provoking & unhampered by niceness this is the long-awaited riposte to the smug emissaries of New Atheism.
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