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The Opposite Bastard
by Simon PackhamForced to take employment as live-in carer for a genius quadriplegic undergraduate, failed actor Timothy Salt is not optimistic. His charge, Michael Owen, is only at Oxford to please his devoted mum. When ersatz aristo Phillip Sydney offers the leading role in his student production of Hamlet to Michael, Timothy’s humiliation seems complete. Meanwhile, fellow student thespian Anna Jenkins, deciding that Phillip is the ‘perfect gentleman’ who Mummy so wants her to find, accepts the part of Ophelia. Then TV producer Nikki Hardbody (Kids with Cancer and Pepé: The Boy with No Nose) arrives to immortalise Michael in her latest documentary, and Timothy realizes that the only way he can salvage any self-respect is by sabotaging the production of Hamlet. Michael, meanwhile, is horrified to find himself falling for Anna. As rehearsals progress, Anna discovers that her perfect partner isn’t Phillip Sydney after all. No one is more delighted than cynical Nikki Hardbody. The Opposite Bastard is a dark comedy of manners. An uproarious and moving commentary on love, disability, dignity, political correctness and media opportunism, it is a strikingly original and provocative debut.
The Order of the Phoenix Park
by Twenty MajorFor three years Twenty Major has written a daily blog. Now though comes a tale so bizarre and abominable that mere words on a computer screen wouldnt have been able to do it justice. These words need to be on paper ...When Twenty Major's friend, record-shop-owner Tom OFarrell is brutally shot in the stomach, his dying act was to scrawl the number 60 in blood on his chest and dial Twenty's number into his phone. When Twenty is called to the scene of the crime he hasnt a clue why Tom was trying to contact him or what the hell the number 60 means. But himself and Tom go back a long way and he vows to find Tom's killer.Then things take a turn for the worse: Folkapalooza is announced - a massive free concert due to take place in the Phoenix Park with headlining acts Damien Rice, James Blunt and David Gray.Something is wrong, really wrong. Why are people obsessed with Folkapalooza? What has turned the Goths outside the Central Bank into acoustic loving drips? Who is the ginger albino and how does it all link to Tom?Can Twenty, Jimmy the Bollix, Stinking Pete, Dirty Dave, Lucky and even Ron himself, save the people of Dublin and, less importantly, the rest of Ireland, from a fate that is, quite literally, worse than death? And solve a murder along the way?
Otherhood
by William SutcliffeFirst published as Whatever Makes You Happy, the hilarious and moving novel about mothers and their adult sons will soon be a Netflix original movie starring Felicity Huffman, Angela Bassett and Patricia ArquetteThree sons. Three mums. One week.Matt, Daniel and Paul were childhood friends. Now in their thirties, they've lost touch and have only one thing in common: their mothers. Little do they know that, having spent a cardless Mother's Day discussing how their emotionally dysfunctional offspring should be settling down, Carol, Gillian and Helen have decided to pay their wayward sons a visit. On the same day, they turn up on their sons' doorsteps, uninvited and unannounced. Their plan is to reestablish the mother-son bond by moving in for one week. Just a week. Surely that's not a lot to ask...
Otherhood
by William SutcliffeIn this witty novel--originally published as Whatever Makes You Happy--that inspired Netflix's major motion picture Otherhood, three mothers try to save their grown sons from themselves.Gillian, Helen, and Carol are three suburban mothers who have known each other since their respective sons were babies, and have met in a regular coffee group for years. These days, their sons are a bunch of thirty-four-year-old slackers: they have no wives and no children, never call, and seem unlikely to outgrow their post-adolescent lifestyles anytime soon. After yet another fruitless Mother's Day, Carol has an outlandish but irresistible idea: each woman will go drop in on her son for an unexpected weeklong visit and find out what's really keeping him from responsible adult life. Together, and with mixed success, the mothers set out to whip their sons into shape. Laugh-out-loud funny and remarkably insightful about family life, Otherhood will appeal to parents who yearn for a closer relationship with their adult children, and for the younger generation who seem to want the opposite, but will never quite relinquish the hope that their parents will swoop in and make everything better.
Ottoline Goes to School (Ottoline #2)
by Chris RiddellMeet Ottoline and her hairy, helpful friend Mr. Munroe. Ottoline is off to the Alice B. Smith School for the Differently Gifted, but she is rather worried that she doesn't have a special gift. Mr. Munroe is more worried about the ghost who is said to haunt the school halls at night. Does Ottoline discover her hidden talent and can they expose the spook?Full of gorgeous, intricate black and white illustrations, Ottoline Goes to School is the second exciting Ottoline adventure from the award-winning Chris Riddell, author of Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse.
Paddington and the Christmas Surprise (Paddington Ser.)
by Michael BondA funny, festive picture book about Paddington, the beloved, classic bear from darkest Peru.
The Parliamo Glasgow Omnibus
by Stanley BaxterVisitors to the great Scottish metropolis of Glasgow are often puzzled by the colourful patois of the local citizens. A conversation about the weather opens with the mysterious phrase, 'Scummindooninbuckets'. In a bar your companions, apparently of Russian origin, greet each other with the names 'Amfurrahoff ', 'Giezahoff ' and 'Seezahoff '. You overhear a young damsel in the arms of her lover utter the ancient Celtic endearment, 'Takyurhonaffmabum'. At a Hogmanay party you offer the hostess a packet of wine-gums, and she thanks you in the lilting language of her Hebridean ancestors: 'Meanjiolbampoat! ' All at sea? Don't despair! Professor Stanley Baxter is here to teach you all you need to know about the rich Glaswegian tongue in this omnibus edition of his legendary language course, Parliamo Glasgow. Now illustrated with hilarious drawings by Bob Dewar, this guide will replace your confusion with complete understanding - and tears of laughter.
Patrick O’Brian 3-Book Adventure Collection: The Road To Samarcand, The Golden Ocean, The Unknown Shore
by Patrick O’BrianThree of Patrick O’Brian’s glorious adventure novels in one ebook for the first time. If you love the Aubrey-Maturin series then you’ll adore these.
The Penguin of Death
by Edward MonktonThings you need to know about The Penguin of Death:He is strangely attractive because of his enigmatic smileHe can kill you in any 1 of 412 different ways This eccentric addition to the Monkton collection is unusually sinister unlike any of the other titles in the series.
Permanent Rose: Permanent Rose Njr 2018 Book 3 Permanent Rose Njr (Casson Family #3)
by Hilary McKayPermanent Rose is the third book in Hilary McKay's laugh-out-loud, award-winning Casson Family series.It's a long hot, never-ending summer, with no letters for Rose.Tom went back to America, and Rose hasn't heard from him since. No phone calls, no messages, nothing at all. New friend David, however hard he may be trying, is no replacement.And home doesn't offer relief either: Dad's left Mum for a young model, Caddy is questioning her imminent wedding and Saffy is trying to find her real father.Rose is determined to find Tom in New York. But what else will she find on the way?Follow the family's adventures in the rest of the beloved series: Saffy's Angel, Indigo's Star, Caddy Ever After, Forever Rose and Caddy's World.
Peter Pan: Complete And Unabridged (Collins Classics)
by J.M. BarrieHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.
Phantom Hitchhikers and Decoy Ducks: The strange stories behind the urban legends we can't stop telling each other
by Albert Jack'Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. Was Sir Winston Churchill really a Druid? Did Charlie Chaplin lose a lookalike competition? Did The Who's drummer Keith Moon drive his Rolls Royce into a swimming pool? The man with the answers is Albert Jack...' - Daily ExpressFrom Walt Disney's frozen head to the kidnap of JFK's brain, Albert Jack gathers together all the strangest, sickest, funniest and most unforgettable urban legends and recounts them with his usual deadpan humour. But this is more than just a collection of urban legends, it is also a detective story. Exploring the real events behind conspiracy theories, the exaggerations of history and the assumptions of old wives’ tales, Albert Jack shows us that the truth can definitely be stranger than fiction…
Pigs Have Wings: (Blandings Castle) (Blandings Castle #4)
by P. G. WodehouseBlandings is now a major BBC One television series starring Jennifer Saunders and Timothy Spall. Can the Empress of Blandings win the Fat Pigs class at the Shropshire Show for the third year running? Galahad Threepwood, Beach the butler and others have put their shirt on this, and for Lord Emsworth it will be paradise on earth. But a substantial obstacle lurks in the way: Queen of Matchingham, the new sow of Sir Gregory Parsloe Bart. Galahad knows this pretender to the crown must be pignapped. But can the Empress in turn avoid a similar fate?In this classic Blandings novel, pigs rise above their bulk to vanish and reappear in the most unlikely places, while young lovers are crossed and recrossed in every room in Blandings Castle.
Pigs Might Fly!: Mudpuddle Farm (Mudpuddle Farm)
by Michael MorpurgoJoin the fun on the farm! A charming, funny story from award-winning author Michael Morpurgo, hilariously illustrated throughout by Shoo Rayner, and perfect for readers of 5 and up.
Playing With Fire (Skulduggery Pleasant #2)
by Derek LandyMeet Skulduggery Pleasant: detective, sorcerer, warrior. Oh yes. And dead.
Playing With Fire (Skulduggery Pleasant #2)
by Derek LandyShe’s twelve. He’s dead. But together they’re going to save the world. Hopefully. The second book in the bestselling Skulduggery Pleasant series.
Pontoon: A Lake Wobegon Novel
by Garrison KeillorIn Lake Wobegon lives a good Lutheran lady who wishes for her ashes placed inside a bowling ball and dropped into the lake. Meanwhile, a wedding between a veterinary aromatherapist and her boyfriend Brent is set to take place aboard a pontoon boat. A delegation of renegade Lutheran pastors from Denmark has come to town, and there's Raoul of the cigars and tinted shades, come to visit his elderly lover. All is in readiness for the wedding - the French champagne, the flying Elvis, the giant duck decoys - and then something quite unexpected happens . . .
Poppy Shakespeare: A Novel
by Clare AllanHighly original and darkly funny, Clare Allan's debut novel explores the relationship between N., a patient in a mental institution, and Poppy Shakespeare, a new and disturbingly 'sane' arrival who finds herself having to feign mental illness in order to be released. There are 25 residents at the Dorothy Fish, one for each letter of the alphabet - the 'X' chair is vacant. The day hospital sits on the bottom floor of an impossibly tall tower, stretching so high into the sky that its uppermost residents can see right round the world and back in through the window behind them. The system is simple: the crazier you are, the higher up the tower they put you. When Poppy Shakespeare arrives, N. has already been at Dorothy Fish for thirteen years, and spends her days quietly, smoking in the common room and swapping medication with her fellow patients. But what happens in the next six months will change both of their lives forever. In this inventive and brutally comic novel, Clare Allan captures the familiar and sometimes terrifying idiosyncrasies of a modern institution, asking the question: who is mad and who is sane? And who gets to decide? By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Poppy Shakespeare is a significant achievement of voice and insight.
The Princess Diaries: Seventh Heaven (The\princess Diaries #Bk. 7)
by Meg CabotSeventh Heaven by Meg Cabot is the seventh book charting the (mis)adventures of Princess Mia, The Princess Diaries.Poor Mia. Not only has she made a total ass of herself with J.P. (a.k.a. the Guy Who Hates It When They Put Corn in the Chili), trying to prove that she's a super-chilled party girl but she's also bankrupted the student council. Way to go, Princess. Just as Mia's scared that she's lost Michael and a ton of money, Grandmere steps in up with a fund-raising plan. She's going to stage a musical in front of the world's hottest celebs - and the reluctant star will be none other than Princess Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo!
The Princess Diaries: Ten Out of Ten
by Meg CabotMeg Cabot's Ten Out of Ten is Princess Mia's final entry in the brilliant The Princess Diaries! Mia is about to turn eighteen and has decided to put down her princess pen for good. This is your one and only chance to find out how it all ends - including the answers to hotter than hot questions like: Is the practically perfect J.P. the real love of Mia's life? Will an election in Genovia mean the end of princessdom for Mia? Is she really the last virgin at Albert Einstein High? And finally, crucially, will Michael Moscovitz return from Japan and make a last-minute romantic gesture just in time to save our heroine from making a very big mistake??? You have so got to read the book!
QI: Pocket Book Of General Ignorance
by John Lloyd John MitchinsonQI: The Pocket Book of General Ignorance is an illuminating collection of fun facts, perfect for general knowledge, trivia and pub quiz enthusiasts. This number-one bestseller is a comprehensive catalogue of all the interesting misconceptions, mistakes and misunderstandings in 'common knowledge' that will make you wonder why anyone bothers going to school. Now available in this handy pocket-sized edition, carry it everywhere to impress your friends, frustrate your enemies and win every argument. Henry VIII had six wives. WRONG! Everest is the highest mountain in the world. WRONG! Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. WRONG! QI: The Pocket Book of General Ignorance is the essential set text for everyone who's proud to admit that they don't know everything, and an ideal sack of interesting facts with which to beat people who think they do. Perfect for trivia, pub quiz and general knowledge enthusiasts, this is a number-one bestseller from the authors of The Book of General Ignorance and 1,277 Facts To Blow Your Socks Off, packed with weird, wonderful and really quite interesting facts.
Rant: The Oral History of Buster Casey
by Chuck PalahniukRant is the oral history of one Buster 'Rant' Casey, in which an assortment of friends, enemies, detractors, lovers and relations have their say on the man who may or may not be the most efficient serial killer of our time. Rant is a darkly glittering anti-hero whose recreational drug of choice is rabies, and whose own personal Viagra is the venom of a black widow spider. He soon leaves his half-feral hometown for the big city, where he becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing. On designated nights, the Party Crashers chase each other in cars in the hope of a collision, and all the while Rant, the 'superspreader', transmits his lethal disease...
Reading the Oxford English Dictionary: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages
by Ammon Shea'If you are interested in vocabulary that is both spectacularly useful and beautifully useless, read on. I have read the OED so you don't have to...' Weighing in at 137 pounds, the Oxford English Dictionary is the word lover's Everest and the world's most exhaustive and exhausting dictionary - for instance, there are over 60,000 words on the various meanings of set and un- goes on for 451 pages. Like a lexicographical Edmund Hillary, Ammon Shea set out to boldly read, where no reader has gone before - from cover to cover.Reading the OED gives a very funny account of his coffee-fuelled twelve months lost inside its 20 volumes. Divided into 26 chapters, one per letter of the alphabet, this book is part personal narrative (exploring everything from love to glasses to the superiority of books over computers) and part a collection of Shea's favourite discoveries. These span from the oddly useful (parabore - a defence against bores) to the downright bizarre (natiform - shaped like buttocks) and takes in Nashe's eight different kinds of drunkenness and all kinds of other strangely memorable information along the way. Filled with curiosities, delights and surprises, Reading the OED is a feast for language obsessives, from a man who loves words (perhaps a little too much).
Reality Check
by A.M. GoldsherBad-gal singer Jenn Bradford is living the dream. But when her latest album gets distinctly un-dreamy reviews she comes down to earth with a crash. Jenn desperately needs a muse to get her music back on track. But who's going to inspire her? Elliot, the music journo who's tailing her around town? Kevin, her no-good but so good-looking ex? Surely not her boringly clean-cut and conservative neighbour Porter! He doesn't dig music - at least not Jenn's kind. But is it possible that he might just dig Jenn...?