- Table View
- List View
Walker: The boy who can talk to dogs
by Shoo RaynerAll Walker wants is a dog, but his mother is allergic. So he decides to set up his own business walking everyone else’s. This works better than he could have imagined when he finds he can talk to the dogs and understand what they say to him! The dogs lead him to a terrible puppy farm hidden in the wood by Arlington Wherewithall, a famous TV star and owner of a pet food company, the richest man in their area. He knows nobody will believe him, so it is down to Walker and the dogs to stop the farm and save the puppies
Unleashed: The compelling crime novel guaranteed to give you the creeps (Matt Hunter)
by Peter Laws‘IT’S A CRIME STORY WOUND UP IN SUPERNATURAL, NERVE-JANGLING CREEPINESS. BE WARNED, YOU’LL BE PEERING UNDER THE BED BEFORE YOU SWITCH OUT THE LIGHT!’ PETERBOROUGH TELEGRAPHFifteen years ago, 29 Barley Street in Menham, south London became notorious as the scene of alleged poltergeist activity and then as a crime scene with the death of young Holly Wasson. The shadow cast by this episode is still felt in the town, and among the gang of friends who were caught up in the tragic events. That shadow looms larger than ever when one of the group dies in horrific and strange circumstances.Matt Hunter, former church minister and now university professor, is called in to advise the police on the possible ritualistic elements of the death. And he is forced to ask himself, are forces beyond the grave at work or is a flesh-and-blood killer at large?
The Intrusions (Carrigan & Miller #3)
by Stav SherezWINNER OF THE 2018 THEAKSTON OLD PECULIER CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEARA GUARDIAN AND SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR, 2017'A Silence of the Lambs for the internet age.' Ian Rankin'Utterly riveting and truly terrifying.' Laura Wilson, GuardianWhen a distressed young woman arrives at their station claiming her friend has been abducted, and that the man threatened to come back and 'claim her next', Detectives Carrigan and Miller are thrust into a terrifying new world of stalking and obsession.Taking them from a Bayswater hostel, where backpackers and foreign students share dorms and failing dreams, to the emerging threat of online intimidation, hacking, and control, The Intrusions explores disturbing contemporary themes with all the skill and dark psychology that Stav Sherez's work has been so acclaimed for.Under scrutiny themselves, and with old foes and enmities re-surfacing, how long will Carrigan and Miller have to find out the truth behind what these two women have been subjected to?
Stop Dead (A DI Geraldine Steel Thriller #5)
by Leigh RussellFinalist for The People’s Book Prize‘UNMISSABLE’ – LEE CHILD * ‘A RARE TALENT’ – DAILY MAIL * ‘BRILLIANT’ – JEFFERY DEAVERWhen a successful businessman is the victim of a vicious murder, all evidence points to his wife and her young lover. But then the victim's business partner suffers a similarly brutal fate and when yet another body is discovered, seemingly unrelated, the police are baffled. The only clue is DNA that leads them to two women: one dead, the other in prison.With rumours growing of a serial killer in the city, the pressure to solve the case is high. But can Geraldine find the killer before there’s yet another deadly attack?'Stop Dead is a whodunit of the highest order' - CrimeSquadFor fans of Mark Billingham, Angela Marsons and Peter JamesLook out for more DI Geraldine Steel investigations in Cut Short, Road Closed, Dead End, Death Bed, Stop Dead, Fatal Act, Killer Plan, Murder Ring, Deadly Alibi, Class Murder and Death RopeDon't miss the DI Ian Peterson series: Cold Sacrifice, Race to Death and Blood Axe
Battle Of The Beetles (The\battle Of The Beetles Ser. #3)
by M. G. LeonardThe beetle adventure continues as Darkus and his friends seek wicked Lucretia Cutter's secret Biome in the Amazon rainforest. If they can't stop her from unleashing her hoard of giant Frankenstein beetles, the planet will never be the same again ...
Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume II: 1956 – 1963
by Sylvia PlathSylvia Plath (1932-1963) was one of the writers that defined the course of twentieth-century poetry. Her vivid, daring and complex poetry continues to captivate new generations of readers and writers. In the Letters, we discover the art of Plath's correspondence. Most has never before been published, and it is here presented unabridged, without revision, so that she speaks directly in her own words. Refreshingly candid and offering intimate details of her personal life, Plath is playful, too, entertaining a wide range of addressees, including family, friends and professional contacts, with inimitable wit and verve.The letters document Plath's extraordinary literary development: the genesis of many poems, short and long fiction, and journalism. Her endeavour to publish in a variety of genres had mixed receptions, but she was never dissuaded. Through acceptance of her work, and rejection, Plath strove to stay true to her creative vision. Well-read and curious, she simultaneously offers a fascinating commentary on contemporary culture.Leading Plath scholar Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil, editor of The Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962, provide comprehensive footnotes and an extensive index informed by their meticulous research. Alongside a selection of photographs and Plath's own drawings, they masterfully contextualise what the pages disclose.This selection of later correspondence witnesses Plath and Hughes becoming major, influential contemporary writers, as it happened. Experiences recorded include first books and other publications; teaching; committing to writing full-time; travels; making professional acquaintances; settling in England; building a family; and buying a house. Throughout, Plath's voice is completely, uniquely her own.
Swimming Home: A Novel
by Deborah LevyAs he arrives with his family at the villa in the hills above Nice, Joe sees a body in the swimming pool. But the girl is very much alive. She is Kitty Finch: a self-proclaimed botanist with green-painted fingernails, walking naked out of the water and into the heart of their holiday. Why is she there? What does she want from them all? And why does Joe's wife allow her to remain? Swimming Home is a subversive page-turner, a merciless gaze at the insidious harm that depression can have on apparently stable, well-turned-out people. Set in a summer villa, the story is tautly structured, taking place over a single week in which a group of beautiful, flawed tourists in the French Riviera come loose at the seams. Deborah Levy's writing combines linguistic virtuosity, technical brilliance and a strong sense of what it means to be alive. Swimming Home represents a new direction for a major writer. In this book, the wildness and the danger are all the more powerful for resting just beneath the surface. With its biting humour and immediate appeal, it wears its darkness lightly. Swimming Home was also shortlisted for the New York Times Notable Book of 2012 and the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize 2013. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012 and National Book Awards Author of the Year 2012
A Long Shadow
by Caroline Kington‘Brilliantly weaves the past with the present…I couldn’t put it down’ – Joanna LumleyWhen farmer Dan Maddicott is found shot dead in one of his fields, he leaves behind a young family and a farm deep in debt. Although the coroner records accidental death, village rumours suggest he has taken his own life so that the insurance payout can save his family from ruin.Dan’s wife, Kate, refuses to believe the gossip and is determined to prove to herself, and her children, that his death was an accident. But could it have been murder? Kate discovers a set of old diaries containing secrets that may reveal how Dan really died.Set against the backdrop of the farming crisis of the turn of the 21st century, Caroline Kington’s absorbing family drama also tells the secret history of another resident of the farm, decades before, whose tragic tale will come to have major repercussions in the present day.
The Neon Bible
by John Kennedy TooleThe accomplished and evocative first novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Confederacy of Dunces.John Kennedy Toole wrote The Neon Bible for a literary contest at the age of sixteen. The manuscript was finally published twenty years after Toole's death.The Neon Bible opens with a young man named David, on a train, leaving the small Southern town he's grown up in for the first time. What unspools is the tender and tragic coming-of-age story of a lonely child, a story that revolves around David's unorthodox friendship with his great-aunt Mae - a former stage performer who is fiercely at odds with the conservative townspeople - and the everyday toll of living in an environment of religious fanaticism. From the opening lines of The Neon Bible, David is fully alive, naive yet sharply observant, drawing us into his world through the sure artistry of John Kennedy Toole.John Kennedy Toole's tender, nostalgic side is as brilliantly effective as his corrosive satire. If you liked To Kill A Mockingbird you will love The Neon Bible. - Florence King
Arthur and Me
by Sarah Todd TaylorTomos is not having a good time on the school trip. The class bully has taken his lunch and the teachers are fed up with him always getting in trouble. When he falls down a hole and wakes the sleeping King Arthur, this seems like his chance to please his Arthur-mad teacher and finally win at something. But Arthur is not the hero he's learned about in class. He's nervous, scruffy, and all the knights pick on him. And then there is the Chicken of Doom...In this prizewinning, hilarious story, Tomos has to learn how to be a hero himself.
The Hungry Ghosts
by Shyam SelvaduraiIn Buddhist myth, those that have desired too much in life may be reborn as “hungry ghosts”- spirits with a stomach so large they can never be full. Six year-old Shivan is boarded up in his grandmother's mansion in Sri Lanka. While civil unrest brews outside, Shivan is fighting small battles of his own: the matriarch of his mysterious family wants to groom him as the heir to her vast and corrupt empire. Shivan stands helpless as she sidelines his mother and sister and evicts vulnerable families from their homes. Unwilling to carry the burden of her expectations, Shivan dreams of escape to the West. Yet ghosts will follow you across continents. As the years pass, and Shivan's sexuality gradually comes to light, events spiral out of control and threaten to separate him from his family once and for all. 'The Hungry Ghosts is an exquisite tale of differences and how they can tear apart both a country and the heart - not just once, but many times, until the ghosts are freed. An unsettling and moving account of a family - and a nation - at war with their own selves' Tan Twan Eng 'Unflinchingly insightful, Shyam Selvadurai's new novel evokes the clashing manifestations of human desire and longing in two continents.' Pankaj Mishra 'A ravishing portrait not just of one man but of an entire country's search for a resting place' Tash Aw 'A tender and haunting meditation on the long reach of the past' Michelle de Kretser
The Rock 'N' The Roll. 'N That
by Steven J. Gill“Rock ‘n’ roll is a nuclear blast of reality in a mundane world where no-one is allowed to be magnificent.” The former manager of The Runaways said that. The mad bastard. And Johnny Harrison swore by it. He had to. Almost forty, fully paid up member of the rat race and bored sh*tless. He had to believe in something. Then something happened. Something magnificent. A once in a lifetime band dropped out of the sky and right into his lap. A band unaware of just how great they could be. A band that had no idea what was about to hit them. A band that needed someone to light the fuse. That someone was Johnny Harrison and the truth was he needed them so much more. They were his ticket out. That’s how it is with THE ROCK ‘N’ THE ROLL. ‘N’ THAT. Buy your ticket and take the ride.
Uki and the Outcasts (The Five Realms)
by Kieran LarwoodFrom bestselling author and winner of the Blue Peter Best Story Book Award, Uki and the Outcasts is the first in a new trilogy set in the world of Podkin One-Ear.'EXCELLENT,' says the bard. 'It's probably a good idea for you to know about him.''Wait . . . him? Who's him?' said Rue.'Uki,' says the bard. 'Uki Patchwork. The Magpie Demon. Uki of the Two Furs.'From the Ice Wastes beyond the Cinder Wall emerges an unlikely hero. Rejected by his village and left to die, young Uki is given life and unique powers by a long-buried spirit from the time of the Ancients . . . and a life or death mission.Joined by two other outcasts - a trained assassin who refuses to kill people and a very short rabbit who rides the fastest jerboa on the plains - Uki must capture Valkus, the Spirit of War, before rabbitkind destroys itself in conflict.A thrilling new book set in the Five Realms of Podkin One-Ear.'Storytelling perfection.' Sophie Anderson'One of my sons very favourite authors.' Romesh Ranganathan'Superb.' Max Porter
To Leave with the Reindeer
by Olivia RosenthalTo Leave with the Reindeer is the account of a woman who has been trained for a life she cannot live. She readies herself for freedom, and questions its limits, by exploring how humans relate to animals. Rosenthal weaves an intricate pattern, combining the central narrative with many other voices – vets, farmers, breeders, trainers, a butcher – to produce a polyphonic composition full of fascinating and disconcerting insights. Wise, precise, generous, To Leave with the Reindeer takes a clear-eyed look at the dilemmas of domestication, both human and animal, and the price we might pay to break free.
Chance Developments: Unexpected Love Stories
by Alexander McCall SmithIt is said that a picture may be worth a thousand words but an old photograph can inspire many more. In this beguiling book, Alexander McCall Smith casts his eye over five chanced-upon photographs from the era of black-and-white photography and imagines the stories behind them. Who were those people, what were their stories, why are they smiling, what made them sad? What emerges are surprising and poignant tales of love and friendship in a variety of settings - an estate in the Highlands of Scotland, a travelling circus in Canada, an Australian gold-mining town, a village in Ireland, and the Scottish capital, Edinburgh. Some will find joy and fulfilment - others would prefer happier endings. Each of them, though, will find love, and that is ultimately what matters.
Tricksters
by Norman MacLean'Norman MacLean's best novel yet' - Ronald Black, The Scotsman 'Norman is a 24-carat comedy jewel that just keeps sparkling' - Bruce Morton, BBC Radio Scotland 'Norman MacLean is the Billy Connolly of the Gaidhealtachd' - Calum MacDonald, Runrig A comedian, singer, composer, musician, linguist, actor, author and a favourite of Sean Connery and Billy Connolly's, Norman MacLean is a living legend in the Gaelic world. Tricksters takes the reader on a rambunctious journey around Scotland with endearing but oddly-matched couple, Murdo and Rachel. Murdo is a semi-pro thespian struggling with an alcohol problem; Rachel is constantly on the brink of ending their relationship. And there's the truly appalling television director, Sam, whose Machiavellian schemes are aided by a heavy-drinking Presbyterian heretic from Lewis. When all converge in the Tartan Pagoda Hotel, Uist, what could possibly go right? A hilarious page-turner, Tricksters blends the high style of John Lanchester and the low-life snappy dialogue of George V. Higgins - and it's beautifully translated for the Teuchters by the author.
Memories - From Moscow to the Black Sea: From Moscow To The Black Sea
by TeffiAn enthralling, elegant, emotional account of a journey into exile, by the wonderful TeffiMoscow, 1918. Following the Revolution, people are leaving the city in droves - bound for the Black Sea, and from there to Europe and beyond. In late autumn, the celebrated writer Teffi is invited on a reading tour; having elegantly navigated the bureaucratic waters for her visa, she spends the winter travelling from Moscow to Kiev, and from there to Odessa and on to Novorossisk, first by train and then by ship. On the shores of the Black Sea, as Spring arrives, Teffi is advised to go abroad for a time, until things have settled down in Russia. She reluctantly agrees, not fully realising that this would be the beginning of her permanent exile from her beloved country.The great Teffi's memoir of her last months in Russia is, for all its melancholy, marked by her characteristic wit, sense of irony and generosity of spirit. Her descriptions of her journey across two thousand miles of Russia, during which she encounters illness, hardship and sorrow in the company of a multitude of refugees, are almost unbearably moving at times - but also irresistibly vivid, and utterly unforgettable.Teffi (1872-1952) wrote poems, plays, stories, satires and feuilletons, and was renowned in Russia for her wit and powers of observation. Following her emigration in 1919 she settled in Paris, where she became a leading figure in the ŽmigrŽ literary scene. Now her genius has been rediscovered by a new generation of readers, and she once again enjoys huge acclaim in Russia and across the world. Her short-story collection Subtly Worded is also published by Pushkin Press, and the non-fiction collection Rasputin and Other Ironies will also be published in May 2016.
The White Goddess: An Encounter (Galley Beggar Britain Ser.)
by Simon GoughThe White Goddess: An Encounter is a mesmerising tale of sex, lies and divided loyalties. Set between the magic of a bohemian Majorca and the horror of Franco's Madrid, it is a haunting evocation of a lost time and place, dominated by the extraordinary power of Robert Graves, one of the 20th century’s greatest writers. When 10-year-old Simon Gough went to Majorca in 1953 he thought he had landed in paradise. Far from the misery of his English boarding school and his parents' divorce, he fell in love - with the tiny village of Deya, with his wild cousin Juan and most of all with his beloved ”Grand-Uncle” Robert Graves. When he returned in 1960, paradise had been overrun by beatniks and marijuana - and Simon liked it all the more. But soon he fell for the enchanting Margot Callas, Robert Graves' muse. He found himself entangled in a web of lies and deceit and playing a game whose rules he didn’t understand. The repercussions would haunt him for the rest of his life. The Observer says: "Impassioned, with all the intensive drama a youthful affair entails, this "autobifantasy" (as Gough calls it) is as much about a love of a place - the freedom and beauty of Dei? contrasts with the brutality of Franco's Madrid - as of a person. In fact, some of the finest parts of the book are not about Callas but the touching portrait of Graves and his wife Beryl; a tender, observant record both of their relationship and their real selves in their later years."
Blue is the Night (The Blue Trilogy #3)
by Eoin McNamee1949. Lance Curran is set to prosecute a young man for a brutal murder, in the 'Robert the Painter' case, one which threatens to tear society apart. In the searing July heat, corruption and justice vie as Harry Ferguson, Judge Curran's fixer, contemplates the souls of men adrift, and his own fall from grace with the beautiful and wilful Patricia. Within three years, Curran will be a judge, his nineteen year old daughter dead, at the hands of a still unknown murderer, and his wife Doris condemned to an asylum for the rest of her days. In Blue Is the Night, it is Doris who finally emerges from the fog of deceit and blame to cast new light into the murder of her daughter - as McNamee once again explores and dramatizes a notorious and nefarious case.
Tales: Nonsuch Classics
by Edgar Allan PoeTales, by Edgar Allan Poe, is a collection of twenty-five stories from the literary father of the mysterious and the macabre. These individual pieces, which include 'The Fall of the House of Usher'. And 'Silence: A Fable', together make up the body of both Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, and Tales of the Folio Club. Taken as a whole, Poe's writing has cast its dark and exquisite shadow over many genres of literature, from the mysteries of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to the science fiction of Jules Verne, but in this collection the author's ability to explore the darker corners of the readers' psyche comes to the fore. Such is the power of his story-telling that his tales retain their eerie power to delight and terrify in equal measure more than a century and a half after his death.
White and Red
by Dorota MaslowskaAn audacious, fresh portrait of marginalized, fatalistic post-Communist youth. Andrzej 'Nails' Robakoski is a tracksuited slacker who spends most of his time searching for his next line of speed and dreaming up conspiracy theories about the national economy. Dumped by his girlfriend Magda, a beautiful seductress, he turns to Angela, a proselytizing vegetarian Goth, and then to Natasha, a hellcat who tears his house apart looking for speed, followed by Ala, the nerdy economics student who was the girlfriend of the friend who stole Magda. In the background, a xenophobic campaign against the growing Russian black market escalates, resulting in citizens painting their houses in national colours, and a pageant to crown one of the girls as Miss No Russkies... or did it all just happen in Nails' fevered mind?With inventive and visceral language that is by turns poetic, hilarious, disturbing and dirty, White and Red is a powerful portrait of love, hopelessness and political burnout in contemporary Eastern Europe.
The Winter Station
by Jody ShieldsAn aristocratic Russian doctor races to contain a deadly plague in an outpost city in Manchuria - before it spreads to the rest of the world. 1910: people are mysteriously dying at an alarming rate in the Russian-ruled city of Kharbin, a major railway outpost in Northern China. Strangely, some of the dead bodies vanish before they can be identified. During a dangerously cold winter in a city gripped by fear, the Baron, a wealthy Russian aristocrat and the city's medical commissioner, is determined to stop this mysterious plague. Battling local customs, an occupying army, and a brutal epidemic with no name, the Baron is torn between duty and compassion, between Western medical science and respect for Chinese tradition. His allies include a French doctor, a black marketeer, and a charismatic Chinese dwarf. His greatest refuge is the intimacy he shares with his young Chinese wife - but she has secrets of her own. Based on a true story that has been lost to history, set during the last days of imperial Russia, The Winter Station is a richly textured and brilliant novel about mortality, fear and love.
The Professionals (Stevens & Windermere #1)
by Owen LaukkanenFour friends, caught in a terrible job market, joke about turning to kidnapping to survive. And then, suddenly, it's no joke. For two years, the strategy they devise works like a charm - until they kidnap the wrong man. Now two groups are after them - the law, in the form of veteran state investigator Kirk Stevens and hotshot young FBI agent Carla Windermere, and an organized crime outfit looking for payback. As they crisscross the country in a series of increasingly explosive confrontations, each of them is ultimately forced to recognize the truth: the real professionals, cop or criminal, are those who are willing to sacrifice everything.
Alex, the Dog and the Unopenable Door
by Ross MontgomeryAlex Jennings is a boy with a problem.His mum's sent him away to boarding school because his father, the most famously failed explorer in the history of the Cusp, has escaped from hospital again, yelling 'squiggles'.Make that two problems.Now the evil Davidus Kyte and all his henchmen are after Alex, convinced he alone knows the meaning of the word 'squiggles'.OK, make that three - Alex Jennings is a boy with a lot of problems. But with the help of a talking dog and a girl with unfeasibly sharp teeth, he just might have what it takes to cross the Forbidden Lands, escape the evil Davidus Kyte, and find out what lies beyond the Cusp . . .
Nostalgia
by Jonathan BuckleyThe small Tuscan town of Castelluccio is preparing for its annual festival, a spectacular pageant in which a leading role will be taken by the self-exiled English painter Gideon Westfall. A man proudly out of step with modernity, Westfall is regarded by some as a maestro, but in Castelluccio - as in the wider art world - he has his enemies, and his niece - just arrived from England - is no great admirer either. At the same time a local girl is missing, a disappearance that seems to implicate the artist. But the life and art of Gideon Westfall form just one strand of Nostalgia, a novel that teems with incidents and characters, from religious visionaries to folk heroes. Constantly shifting between the panoramic and the intimate, between the past and the present, Nostalgia is as intricately structured as a symphony, interweaving the narratives of history, legend, architecture - and much more - in a kaleidoscope of facts and invention.