Thackeray's upper-class Regency world is a noisy & jostling commercial fairground predominantly driven by acquisitive greed & soulless materialism in which the narrator himself plays a brilliantly versatile role as a serio-comic observer. Although subtitled A Novel without a Hero Vanity Fair follows the fortunes of two contrasting but inter-linked lives: through the retiring Amelia Sedley & the brilliant Becky Sharp Thackeray examines the position of women in an intensely exploitative male world. ...

Becky Sharp is a poor orphan when she first makes friends with the lovely Amelia Sedley at Miss Pinkertons Academy for Young Ladies. She may not have the natural advantages of her companion but she more than makes up for it with her wit charm deviousness & determination to make a success of herself whatever the cost. Vanity Fair" is the story of Beckys spectacular rise & fall as she gambles manipulates & seduces her way through high society & the Napoleonic wars." ...

Standing at the crossroads of psychology & religion this catalyzing work applied the scientific method to a field abounding in abstract theory. William James believed that individual religious experiences rather than the precepts of organized religions were the backbone of the worlds religious life. His discussions of conversion repentance mysticism & saintliness & his observations on actual personal religious experiences
- all support this thesis. In his introduction Martin E. Marty discusses how James pluralistic view of religion led to his remarkable tolerance of extreme forms of religious behaviour his challenging highly original theories & his welcome lack of pretension in all of his observations on the individual & the divine.
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A woman vanishes in the fog up on 'the Hill' an area in Lafferton known for its tranquillity & peace. The police are not alarmed; people usually disappear for their own reasons. But when a young girl an old man & even a dog disappear no one can deny that something untoward is happening in this quiet cathedral town. Young policewoman Freya Graffham is assigned to the case she's new to the job compassionate inquisitive dedicated & needs to know
- perhaps too much. She & the enigmatic detective Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler have the task of unravelling the mystery behind this gruesome sequence of events. From the passages revealing the killer's mind to the final heart-stopping twist The Various Haunts of Men is an astounding & masterly crime debut & is the first in a magnificent series featuring Simon Serrailler.
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Marina Lewycka explores the clash of the generations in one extremely colourful family in her comic novel Various Pets Alive & Dead". For twenty years Doro & Marcus lived in a commune convinced lentils & free love would change the world. They didnt. What they did do was give their children a terror of radicalism dirt cooking rotas & poverty. Their daughter Clara wants nothing less conformist than her own clean bathroom. Their son Serge hides the awkward fact that hes a banker earning loadsamoney. So when Doro & Marcus spring a surprise on their kids
- just as the world is rocked in ways they always wished for
- the family is forced to confront some thorny truths about themselves..." Made me laugh at least once every chapter. Lewyckas fiction is unlike anything else around at present. The warmth of its zest its blend of quirky humane comedy & intellectual seriousness make this a novel to treasure". (" New Statesman"). " Wonderfully funny inventive & witty. Fizzes along from beginning to end". (" Daily Express"). " Hilarious. Lewyckas trademark humour is present in abundance.. .she is not only witty but astute. A charming beautifully observed novel". (" Independent on Sunday"). " Every bit as funny as "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian"". (" Good Housekeeping"). Bestselling author Marina Lewkyca has received great critical acclaim since the publication of her hilarious first novel "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" in 2005 which was the winner of the Bollinger Everyman Prize for Comic Fiction 2005 winner of the Saga Award for Wit 2005 shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2005 & longlisted for the Booker prize 2005. Her other humorous novels " Two Caravans" (published as " Strawberry Fields" in the USA & Canada) & " We Are All made from Glue" are also available from Penguin."

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Varjak Paw is a Mesopotamian Blue kitten. He lives high up in an old house on a hill. He's never left home but then his grandfather tells him about the Way
- a secret martial art for cats. Now Varjak must use the Way to survive in a city full of dangerous dogs cat gangs & strangest of all the mysterious Vanishings.
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Along with my own personal story I am going to write down a few things that may amuse you (or even take you down some other emotional path) & Ill let you in on a few so-far-unrevealed aspects of my life. Ill try to leave out the boring bits. Dont be thinking this is easy for me. Im darn good at getting under other peoples skin but opening up about my own life is quite a different matter. So how shall I portray myself? There are choices you know: Wife mother psychologist writer comedian actor dancer diver gypsy dreamer rich girl poor girl beggar girl thief. I am all of those & more. Tell you what you decide. You decide exactly what I am...A complicated childhood in Australia a bold move to London being a woman in a mans world on Not the Nine oclock News becoming Mrs Billy Connolly motherhood career changes & then Strictly Come Dancing
- told in her own inimitable style The Varnished Untruth is Pamela Stephensons own story.
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The Vatican Diaries is an inside look at one of the worlds most powerful & mysterious institutions by John Thavis. A humane & realistic & (yes) humorous picture of a mortal institution. To an old Prot like me its a tour of alien terrain & a bridge to old & dear friends". (Garrison Keillor). For thirty years John Thavis worked for the Catholic News Service in Rome & reported on the inner workings of the Vatican. The Vatican Diaries is his insightful & often very funny account of exactly what goes on in this unique & secretive institution. Its a place where cardinals fight private wars scandals are constantly threatening to undermine papal authority & reverence for the past comes up painfully against the considerations of modern life. He describes the politics surrounding the election of a new pope & the beatification of an old one the angst of dealing with the international issue of sexual abuse the intricacies of arranging a Papal visit to India the conflicts involved in trying to build a car park over an ancient Roman burial site
- & above all the unfathomable personality of the conservative Pope Benedict XVI the first pope to resign for 600 years. At this extraordinary moment of crisis in the Church Thavis account of its inner workings is invaluable. One closes John Thavis perceptive study reflecting on the Vaticans challenge: to persist in a secularizing world sometimes fascinated by the pomp & pageantry of St. Peters-but often hostile or increasingly indifferent to the Churchs determined mission to harmonize warring factions & bickering enemies even if both are on the same Catholic side New York Journal of Books John Thavis recently retired as the prizewinning chief of the Rome bureau of Catholic News Service where he had covered the Vatican since 1983. He is the past president of the International Association of Journalists Accredited to the Vatican & in 2007 the Catholic Press Association awarded him the Saint Francis de Sales Award the highest honour given by the Catholic press. He divides his time between Minnesota & Rome."
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For 40 years a battle has been waged over Vatican II between conservatives & liberals between those who want to go back to the sources" & those who champion "the spirit of the council." Benedict XVI is clearly one of those who started out as a liberal only to end up in the conservative camp. " Vatican II: Did Anything Happen?" is clearly on the side of those who think something unprecedented happened that a genie was let out of the bottle that will never be stuffed back. Comprised mainly of a collection of articles mostly but not all from Theological Studies that are without qualification some of the best analysis of the council ever written this book is a long overdue look at one of the most controversial & revolutionary chapters in the history of the Catholic Church." ...

In the peaceful garden of a London house a manhole cover has just been raised. Inside the cellar lie three bodies. Two men & a woman. None carry identification. The men have been there for twelve years; the woman for only two. For Inspector Wexford this is a case worth coming out of retirement for. Soon he is trying to establish who the victims in the vault are
- & most importantly who put them there. But a shocking development in his private life means that his search for the truth is about to become a lot more complicated...
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