DECEMBER 2008
NEW TITLES AND MISSED PREVIOUSLY
FICTION
HARDBACK
Love All - Elizabeth Jane Howard
A beautiful, moving, melancholic and elegiac novel set in the late 1960s in Melton, a small town in the West Country. The story revolves around a disparate group of people who come together there to establish an arts festival. £14.99 at The Book Case.
PAPERBACK
Spellbound - Margit Sandemo
In the freezing Norwegian winter of 1581 the plague robs seventeen year-old Silje Arngrimsdotter of all her family. Homeless, starving and shepherding two newly-orphaned infants, she heads in desperation for the warmth of the funeral pyres blazing beyond the city gates of corpselittered Trondheim. £7.00
Witch-hunt - Margit Sandemo
Continues the story of Silje Arngrimsdotter as she struggles to come to terms with the harshness of life in a high mountain valley among the witches and warlocks of the mysterious Ice People. £7.00
Cell Block Five - Fadhil Al-Azzawi, trans. William M. Hutchins
The first Iraqi prison novel, written in 1971 and later made into a feature film in Syria. Being plucked from a Baghdad cafe and deposited in a cell block for political prisoners is a wakeup call for Aziz, the novel's hero and narrator, a young man who has been living on automatic pilot. £7.99
Gold Dust - Ibrahim al_Koni
Rejected by his tribe and hunted by the kin of the man he killed, Ukhayyad and his thoroughbred camel flee across the desolate Tuareg deserts of the Sahara. Between bloody wars against the Italians in the north and famine raging in the south, Ukhayyad rides for the remote rock caves of Jebel Hasawna. £8.99
Extraordinary Engines: The Definitive Steampunk Anthology - ed. Nick Gevers £7.99
REISSUES
Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K Jerome, £7.99
Mark on the Wall & Other Short Fiction - Virginia Woolf, £6.99
Great Ghost Stories (Naxos CD)
"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe, "The Horla" by Guy de Maupassant, "Sredni Vashtar" by Saki, "The Mark of the Beast" by Rudyard Kipling, "Lost Hearts" by M. R. James and "The Furnished Room" by O. Henry. Read by Dermot Kerrigan. £10.99
Rose Tremain: Evangelista's Fan, £6.99
- Colonel's
Daughter, £7.99
- Garden of the Villa Mollini: and Other
Stories, £6.99
NON-FICTION
ART AND CRAFT
Women Who Read are Dangerous - Stefan Bollman
A compelling selection of paintings, drawings, prints and photographs of women reading through the ages. £14.95
Treasures of Botanical Art: Icons from the Shirley Sherwood and Kew Collections - Shirley Sherwood; Martin Rix
Marks the inaugural exhibition of the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art at Kew. This book features 200 paintings and drawings from both the Kew and Shirley Sherwood collections, providing an overview of the artists from the 1600s through to contemporary artists, and demonstrating the importance of botanical illustration. £25.00
Untitled: Street Art in the Counter Culture - Gary Shove
"The definitive book covering street art today." Containing works attributed to: Banksy, Faile, DFace, Swoon, Bast, Blu, Blek Le Rat, Nick Walker, Obey, Dolk, Judith Supine, Eine, Gaia, Elbowtoe, Hush, Copyright, Mir, Dan Witz, Space Invader, Armsrock, Doze Green, Know Hope, Logan Hicks, Skullphone, WKInteract, Skewville, Borf, Ame72, Sam3, Eelus, Miss Bugs, Rene Gagnon, The London Police, Michael De Feo and many many more. £14.95
Lost Crafts: Rediscovering Traditional Skills - Una McGovern
An engaging introduction to a range of traditional crafts and activities. One hundred skills are described and illustrated, from trout-guddling to lacemaking, beekeeping to drystone walling. £19.99
BIOGRAPHY
Dear Fatty - Dawn French, £18.99
Entirely Up to You, Darling - Richard Attenborough; Diana Hawkins
Richard Attenborough and Diana Hawkins have been friends and colleagues for nearly 50 years.They have now teamed up to write this frank and funny account of their unlikely partnership and his extraordinary life. £20.00
Parky: My Autobiography - Michael Parkinson, £20.00
CURRENT AFFAIRS
The Selfish Capitalist: Origins of Affluenza - Oliver James
A rallying cry to the Government to reduce our levels of distress by adopting a form of unselfish capitalism, this hard-hitting and thought-provoking work tells us why our personal well-being must take precedence over the wealth of a tiny minority if we are to cure ourselves of this disease. £8.99
The State of the World Atlas - Dan Smith
With over 50 full colour world maps and pages of vivid graphics, this book breaks down hardcore statistics to provide a compelling, succinct analysis of the latest available social, economic and political data. £12.99
Letters to the Editor 2008 - Nigel Wilmott; Rory Foster (Guardian Newspapers). £10.99
ENVIRONMENT
Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction - Mark Maslin
A concise and accessible explanation of the key topics in the debate: looking at the predicted impact of climate change, exploring the political controversies of recent years, and explaining the proposed solutions, fully updated for 2008. £7.99
Ecology: A Pocket Guide - Ernest Callenbach
Offering essential environmental wisdom for the twenty-first century, this lively, compact book explains more than sixty basic ecological concepts in an easy-to-use A-to-Z format.
FOOD
Clarissa's Comfort Food - Clarissa Dickson Wright
Who better to write a collection of recipes to celebrate comforting food than the knowledgeable gourmet Clarissa Dickson Wright? Including recipes like Chicken Soup and Dumplings, Fish Stew, Paella and Steamed Sponge Pudding, using everyday ingredients and simple cooking methods. £19.99
The Urban Cookbook: Creative Recipes for the Graffiti Generation - King Adz
Jerk chicken with hot pepper gravy, Ras-el-hanout lamb, Trinchada, Potjiekos, Rajad's perfect steak: King Adz explores five of the world's greatest cities to seek out and cook forty dishes in all. From Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam to London and New York, his road-trip rules were to use public transport, eat street food, and stay in cheap, locally run hotels. £16.95.
The Good Food Guide 2009 - ed. Elizabeth Carter, £16.99
Wise Words and Country Ways for Cooks - Ruth Binney
A charming collection of cooking and kitchen-based sayings, proverbs and country wisdom, often proving that 'old wives' tales' are just as relevant today as they were in times past. £9.99
GARDENING
Inspirational Gardens - Automobile Association
Introduces the reader to some of the most remarkable gardens from around the world - tiny town courtyards and colourful exotic spaces, rambling landscape estates, and quaint cottage gardens. Highly photographic, with directions, opening times and contact details. £25.00
The Polytunnel Companion - Jayne Neville, £9.99
HISTORY
What on Earth Happened?: The Complete Story of the Planet, Life and People from the Big Bang to the Present Day - Christopher Lloyd
An energetic book with over 200 colour photographs and illustrations. £25.00
It's All Greek to Me: From Homer to the Hippocratic Oath: How Ancient Greece Has Shaped Our World - Charlotte Higgins, £12.99
LANGUAGE & WORDS
A Display of Lights (9): The Lives and Puzzles of "The Telegraph"'s Six Greatest Cryptic Crossword Setters - Val Gilbert (£9.99)
Concise Oxford English Dictionary, new ed of 11th revised edition, £25
Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations ed. Susan Ratcliffe
From Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde to Fidel Castro and Dolly Parton, this dictionary features 4,000 of the best quotations of past and present. £9.99
LIFESTYLE
The "Everything" Green Wedding Book: Plan an Elegant, Affordable, Earth-Friendly Wedding - Wenona Napolitano, £9.99
The Green Home: Hundreds of Practical Ideas for Eco-Friendly Living
Covers a wide range of topics from homemade cleaning products and low-energy heating to natural gardening methods. £9.99.
Computing for the Older and Wiser: Get Up and Running on Your Home PC - Adrian Arnold
Developed from the author's own tutorial notes teaching the computer to an older audience, this friendly, jargon-free book covers the uses and parts of a computer, customizing the desktop, word processing and printing, email and the Internet, and even tips on buying a computer and enlisting family members to help set it up. £12.99.
Green Crafts for Children - Emma Hardy, £12.99
MBS
In My Own Words by His Holiness the Dalai Lama: An Introduction to His Teachings and Philosophy - His Holiness the Dalai Lama, ED. Rajiv Mehrotra, £9.99
Llewellyn's 2009 Witches' Datebook, £9.99
The "Everything" Wicca and Witchcraft Book: Rituals, Spells, and Sacred Objects for Everyday Magick - Skye Alexander, £9.99
Sacred Geography: Geomancy - Co-creating the Earth Cosmos - Marko Pogacnik
Geomancy is an ancient word which refers to the visible and invisible dimensions of the earth. This book is a practical guide to the hidden dimensions of over 170 different locations around the world, all presented as original drawings. The reader is encouraged to explore and develop their own experiences of the geomantic phenomena presented, which in turn promotes a more loving and responsible relationship with the earth and the cosmos. £20.00
The Paranormal Caught on Film: Amazing Photographs of Ghosts, Poltergeists and Other Strange Phenomena - Melvyn Willin, £12.99
NATURE AND ANIMALS
Equus - Tim Flach
Large and glorious illustrated celebration of the horse from an award-winning photographer. £30.00
The Secret Life of Cows - Rosamund Young
New edition of this study of family and herd relationships, communicatin and playing - an enjoyable and poignant read. With new text by Compassion in World Farming. £7.99
Clouds - Eric M. Wilcox
This irresistible book, with a chapter for each of the ten major cloud types, combines science with beauty, presenting approximately 100 superb cloud photographs, with explanatory captions. £16.99
NOSTALGIA
Malcolm Root's Pageant of Transport - Malcolm Root; Tom Tyler
From the popular transport artist, colourful pictures of life in Britain as it used to be. (£19.99)
The Eleven-Plus Book: Genuine Exam Questions from Yesteryear
Is the nation really dumbing down? Are exams easier than they were in the good old days? Now's the chance to find out whether age really does equal wisdom with "The Eleven-Plus Book". £9.99
The O Level Book: Genuine Exam Questions from Yesteryear
Settles that age-old argument between the generations: were the exams of yesteryear really harder than anything children have to face today in the age of calculators and spell checkers? Are contemporary kids less intelligent than previous generations? £9.99
SCIENCE
Chaos: A Graphic Guide - Ziauddin Sardar; Iwona Abrams
Explains how chaos makes its presence felt in many varieties of event, from the fluctuation of animal populations to the ups and downs of the stock market. It also examines the roots of chaos in modern mathematics and physics, and explores the relationship between chaos and complexity, the new unifying theory which suggests that all complex systems evolve from a few simple rules. (£6.99)
Crisp Packet Fireworks: Maverick Science to Try at Home - Chris Smith; Dave Ansell
Want to know how to create fireworks from a crisp packet? Turn rice into quicksand? Generate a cloud in a lemonade bottle? How about build a toaster-powered hot air balloon, or work out the speed of light using margarine and a microwave? In this book, you'll find these and over 40 more incredible experiments to try at home. £9.99
TRAVEL
Stephen Fry in America
Britain's best-loved comic genius Stephen Fry turns his celebrated wit and insight to unearthing the real America as he travels across the continent in his black taxicab. £18.00
A Year of Festivals - Lonely Planet
This guide to the World's Greatest Happenings takes you around the world in pursuit of festivals in all their flamboyant color and variety. £16.99
Trout at Ten Thousand Feet - John Bailey
Personal fishing tales from around the world written with great energy, enthusiasm and respect for the wild - and laced with witty and apposite line drawings throughout. £7.99
An Afghan Journey - Roger Willemsen
Only a few months after a 25-year-long war ended in Afghanistan, Roger Willemsen accompanied a friend on her journey home: from Kabul to Kunduz, through the legendary steppe to the river Oxus, the boundary to Tadzhikistan. This is his journal of travels in this country. (£12.99)
Children’s Books
Tales of Beedle the Bard - J. K. Rowling
The first new book from J. K. Rowling since the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" played a crucial role in assisting Harry, aided by his friends Ron and Hermione, to finally defeat Lord Voldemort. Fans will be thrilled to have this opportunity to read the tales in full. There are five tales: 'The Tale of the Three Brothers', which is recounted in Deathly Hallows, plus 'The Fountain of Fair Fortune', 'The Warlock's Hairy Heart', 'The Wizard and the Hopping Pot', and 'Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump'. Each has its own magical character and will bring delight, laughter and the thrill of mortal peril.
Brisingr - Christopher Paolini
The Third book in the
Inheritance Cycle. Following the colossal battle against the Empire's warriors,
Eragon and Saphira narrowly escaped with their lives. But, more awaits the
Rider and his dragon, as Eragon finds himself bound by promises he may not be
able to keep, including his oath to cousin Roran to help rescue his beloved
Katrina.
Quentin Blake’s A Christmas Carol
Quentin Blake's joyous
illustrations, full of colour and fun, guide the reader through the lively (and
occasionally scary) journey to find the meaning of Christmas. This unabridged
edition contains a forward by the illustrator and is the ultimate Christmas
gift book.
Advent Calendars
The Book Case has a selection of very special Advent calendars. Beautifully designed and illustrated they make a perfect seasonal gift.
FICTION
HARDBACK
La's Orchestra Saves the World - Alexander McCall Smith
It's 1939 and the war in Europe casts a long shadow. In a sleepy town in Suffolk, the generous and determined widow, La, forms an amateur orchestra to entertain the locals and soothe her own broken heart. She recruits Felix, a refugee from Poland, to play the flute, and a touching friendship emerges. (£10.99 at The Book Case)
The Blue Manuscript - Sabiha Al Khemir
"The Blue Manuscript" is the ultimate prize for any collector of Islamic treasures. But does it still exist, and if so, can it be found? In search of answers to these questions, an assortment of archaeologists heads for a remote area of Egypt, where they work with local villagers to excavate a promising site. But as social and cultural preconceptions amongst both visitors and hosts start to unravel, the mystery seems only to deepen and darken ... (£15.99 at The Book Case)
The Original Frankenstein - Mary Shelley, ed. Charles E. Robinson
This new edition from the Bodleian Library allows us for the first time to read the story in Mary's original hand and also to see how her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley edited his wife's prose. The result is a more rapidly paced novel that is arranged in different chapters, and hear Mary's genuine voice which sounds to us more modern, more immediately colloquial than her husband's learned, more polished style. (£12.99 at The Book Case)
PAPERBACK
Revelation - C.J. Sansom
Spring, 1543. King Henry VIII is wooing Lady Catherine Parr. Archbishop Cranmer and the embattled Protestant faction at court are watching keenly, for Lady Catherine is known to have reformist sympathies. Matthew Shardlake, meanwhile, is working on the case of a teenage boy who has been placed in the Bedlam insane asylum. (£12.99)
T is for Trespass - Sue Grafton
It was like being in the presence of a snake, first hissing its presence and then coiled in readiness. I didn't dare turn my back or take my eyes off of her. I stood very still. (£6.99)
Unforgotten - Clare Francis
After five years, lawyer Hugh Gwynne's most difficult case has finally come to court. His client Tom Deacon is claiming damages for post-traumatic stress after a car accident in which he witnessed the death of his young daughter by fire. (£6.99)
A Poisoned Mind - Natasha Cooper
A man is killed when a chemical explosion takes place on his farm. His impoverished widow, Angie, is fighting for compensation from the waste management company who chose to store their dangerous chemicals on her land. This brings her up against barrister Trish Maguire, equally determined to protect her clients - the company. (£6.99)
A Good War - Patrick Bishop
From the author of Bomber Boys and Fighter Boys, a novel about a Polish airman and maverick Irish soldier whose lives intertwine during WWII. (£6.99)
REISSUES
Poor Miss Finch - Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collin's intriguing story about a blind girl, Lucilla Finch, and the identical twins who both fall in love with her, has the exciting complications of his better known novels, but it also overturns conventional expectations. (£8.99)
Chilling Ghost Stories - Read by: Anthony Donovan (Naxos CDs)
A chilling collection of ghost stories containing "Rats" by MR James, "The Raven and Berenice" by Edgar Allan Poe, "The Birthday of the Infanta" by Oscar Wilde, "A Tough Tussle" by Ambrose Bierce and "The Signalman" by Charles Dickens. (£10.99)
The Complete Stories - Alice Walker (£7.99)
NON-FICTION
ART & CRAFT
Mervyn Peake: The Man and His Art - Sebastian Peake &Alison Eldred, ed. G.Peter Winnington (£19.95)
Sisley in England and Wales - Christopher Riopelle & Ann Sumner (£7.95)
Visions of Splendour in Islamic Art and Culture - Nasser D. Khalili
Shows the magnificence of Islamic architecture and exquisite objects from one of the world's most important private collections of Islamic art, The Khalili Collection. (£14.99)
If the Paintings Could Talk - Michael Wilson (£12.95)
Paper: Tear, Fold, Rip, Crease, Cut - ed. Raven Smith (£24.95)
The Art of Japanese Craft: 1875 to the Present - Felice Fischer (£11.99)
Japanese Tattoo Art Stained Glass Coloring Book - Stephen Vance Gache (£5.99)
BIOGRAPHY
A Book of Silence - Sara Maitland
After a noisy upbringing as one of six children, and adulthood as a vocal feminist and mother, Sara Maitland began to crave silence. Over the past five years, she has spent periods of silence in the Sinai desert, the Australian bush, and a remote cottage on the Isle of Skye. (£15.99 at The Book Case)
All Our Yesterdays: An Anthology of Childhood Memories - ed. Gervase Phinn
An anthology of childhood memories from medieval times to the present day. (£9.99)
At Large and at Small: Confessions of a Literary Hedonist - Anne Fadiman
The author ruminates on her passions, both literary and everyday. From mourning the demise of letter-writing to revealing a monumental crush on Charles Lamb, from Balzac's coffee addiction to making ice-cream from Liquid Nitrogen, she draws us into a world of hedonistic pleasures and literary delights. (£8.99)
COMMUNICATION
British Sign Language for Dummies - City Lit
Takes you through grammar and sentence structure, and also presents the vocabulary you need to communicate in a wide variety of everyday situations so you can start to sign right away. (£19.99)
COOKERY
Steaming! - Annette Yates
A Right Way book. Steaming retains the food's tenderness, shape, colour and texture, as well as using little or no fat and preserving the vitamins which are usually lost through boiling. (£4.99)
ENVIRONMENT
Good Green Guide for Small Businesses - Impetus Consulting
Guides the reader through taking an environmental audit of their business; addresses how to minimise the impact of office essentials, such as utilities, insulation, recycling and waste, electrical equipment, water systems, lighting options, food and drink, and office cleaning arrangements and products; discusses the effect that going green will have on the company's bottom line.(£12.99)
Ten Technologies to Save the Planet - Chris Goodall
The world will only avoid runaway global warming with the help of technological breakthroughs. Chris Goodall profiles ten technologies to watch, explaining how they work and telling the stories of the inventors and entrepreneurs driving them forward. (£9.99)
Eco Design: A Contemporary Guide to Sustainable Design - Blanche Craig (£24.95)
GAMES, HOBBIES & NOSTALGIA
The Right Way to Play Chess - David Brine Pritchard
Since its first publication in 1950, "The Right Way to Play Chess" has taught chess to generations of beginners, taking them to the standard expected of good club players. (£6.99)
Giant Crosswords: 100 Two-speed Puzzles from the "Saturday Mail": v. 1 (£6.99)
New Cryptic Crosswords: A New Compilation of 100 "Daily Mail" Crosswords: v. 6 (£5.99)
"Daily Telegraph" Book of Word Games (£6.99)
"Daily Telegraph" Bumper Christmas Sudoku (£7.99)
Peter and Pauline on Hollyhock Farm - R A E Linney,
In this facsimile reprint of a book from 1951, nine-year-old twins go from the city to the farm - where they encounter two grey Ferguson tractors and all the implements with which they work. They're taught about the revolutionary Ferguson system and the genius of inventor Harry Ferguson, for this book was first published by Harry Ferguson Ltd as a promotional item. It is beautifully produced, with evocative colour pictures, a gem for Ferguson enthusiasts everywhere. (£9.95)
GEOGRAPHY
Northern England Raised Relief Map
A framed raised relief map of the North of England, 1:1400,000. Offering rivers, roads, contours and spot heights, it covers the area from Newcastle upon Tyne to Wolverhampton including the Isle of Man. Choice of light or dark frame. (£13.99)
Solid and Drift Geological Map - Huddersfield - British Geological Survey (£12)
HISTORY
In Search of the Knights Templar: A Guide to the Sites in Britain - Simon Brighton
A practical, step-by-step guide to Templar haunts - some of the most atmospheric sites in Britain. Detailed commentary helps throw new light on ancient mysteries. (£8.99)
Postcards from Political Icons: Leaders of the Twentieth Century
From the Bodleian Library, a unique collection of unusual and surprisingly personal images of the individuals who influenced and shaped the course of the twentieth century in the political arena. (£8.99)
We Will Not Fight...: The Untold Story of WWI's Conscientious Objectors - Will Ellsworth-Jones
Explores Conscientious Objection in WWI through an extraordinary personal story of two British brothers - one who was prepared to die fighting; the other who was prepared to die refusing to fight. (£8.99)
Guerrilla Warfare - ‘Yank' Levy
In 1941, Britain was under heavy bombardment, and there was concern about Nazi paratroopers landing in Britain. From practical experience in the Spanish Civil War. 'Yank' Levy trained soldiers of the Home Guard how to use surveillance, defend against tanks and armoured vehicles, how to fight in towns and across country and against a well-supplied, highly-trained and mobile occupying force. (£5.99)
The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan - Yasmin Khan (£9.99)
The partition of India in 1947 promised its people both political and religious freedom - through the liberation of India from British rule, and the creation of the Muslim state of Pakistan. In reality the geographical divide effected an even greater schism of the population, benefiting the few at the expense of the very many, exposing huge numbers of the population to desperate and devastating consequences. (£9.99)
The Spy Who Came in from the Co-op: Melita Norwood and the Ending of Cold War Espionage - David Burke
Melita Norwood, the last of the atomic spies, was finally run to ground in 1999, but at 87 she was deemed too old to prosecute. Her crime: the shortening of the Soviet Union's atomic bomb project by up to 5 years. (£16.99 at The Book Case)
The Family Tree Detective: A Manual for Tracing Your Ancestors in England and Wales - Colin D. Rogers
Long-awaited fourth edition. (£11.99)
HUMOUR
If...Reigns Supreme - Steve Bell
This is a latest collection of brilliant comic strips from the nation's favourite cartoonist. It satirises the past 2 years of current affairs and features the infamous demonic grin of Cherie Blair, John Prescott as a rotund, yet instantly recognisable British Bulldog, and every member of our colourful royal family. (£8.99)
The QI Annual 2009 - John Mitchinson; John Lloyd (£12.99)
Little Bit o’ Nonsense about Sheep - Henry Brewis (£4.99)
Mrs Mills Solves All Your Problems: Wit and Wisdom from the "Sunday Times" Agony Diva (£6.99)
Essential Dykes to Watch Out for - Alison Bechdel
Brings together for the first time one of the most important and avidly read strips of the last thirty years and confirms Alison Bechdel's reputation as one of the finest cartoonists at work today. (£12.99)
Bad Dogs Have More Fun: Selected Writings on Family, Animals and Life from the "Philadelphia Inquirer" - John Grogan
Combining humour, wit, poignancy and affection, these columns provide insight into the intriguing and wonderful world we live in. (£7.99)
LIFESTYLE
Gothic: Dark Glamour - Valerie Steele; Jennifer Park
'Gothic' is an epithet with a strange history - evoking images of death, destruction, and decay. Ironically, its negative connotations have made the gothic an ideal symbol of rebellion for a wide range of cultural outsiders. (£19.99)
Fabulous Frocks - Sarah Gristwood & Jane Eastoe
"It is more than eighty years since Coco Chanel invented the little black dress, but every woman still has one in her wardrobe today. It's decades since women discovered trousers and separates, but every woman dreams of wearing a glorious, glamorous gown at least once, whether it's on a Hollywood red carpet, or just on her wedding day." (£25)
LIVING
Coping with Your Partner's Death - Geoff Billings
The death of a partner in later life entails a host of unfamiliar changes and many tasks such as dealing with probate and tax, at a time when people are perhaps least well equipped to deal with them. This book is intended for the partner left behind by the 700,000-plus people who die in the UK each year. (£7.99)
LITERATURE & BOOKS
Sonnets, Bonnets and Bennetts: A Literary Quiz Book - James Walton
With questions ranging from the unexpected to the reassuringly canonical, this fabulous compendium of literary knowledge is the perfect gift for all book lovers. (£12.99)
Words and Pictures: Writers, Artists and a Peculiarly British Tradition - Jenny Uglow
Explores the relationships between artists and writers: the illustrations of "Paradise Lost" and "Pilgrim's Progress"; Hogarth and Fielding, a writer and artist dealing with common material; Wordsworth and Thomas Bewick, a poet and engraver working separately, but imbued with the spirit of their age; and the writers and artists who collaborate from the start, beginning with Dickens and Phiz. (£12.99)
H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life - Michel Houellebecq
The controversial author Michel Houellebecq focuses his considerable analytical skills on H.P. Lovecraft, one of the seminal horror writers of the early 20th century. (£8.99)
The Yellow-lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History - Lewis Buzbee
Celebrates the unique experience of the bookstore--the smell and touch of books, the joy of getting lost in the deep canyons of shelves, and the silent community of readers. (£8.99)
MEDIA
The Bedside "Guardian" 2008 - Martin Kettle
The very best news stories, features and photographs to have appeared in the "Guardian" from the previous year. (£14.99)
"Strictly Come Dancing" Annual 2009 - Alison Maloney (£12.99)
MIND BODY SPIRIT
Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness - Christopher Lane
In the 1980s, a small group of leading psychiatrists met behind closed doors and literally rewrote the book on their profession. With little scientific justification and sometimes hilariously improbable rationales, hundreds of conditions, among them shyness, are now defined as psychiatric disorders and considered treatable with drugs. With dry wit, Christopher Lane demolishes the facade of objective research behind which the revolution in psychiatry has hidden. (£10.99)
Overcome Panic and Anxiety: 121 Tips, Advice and Resources for Calmer Living - Linda Manassee Buell (£6.99)
Easy Pilates - Mina Stephens
Simple and effective Pilates sessions for busy people. Once you've got to grips with the 45-minute sequence, you can try the 20-minute routine designed to wake you up and get you ready to face your day. Or if you have shoulder and neck or back problems, there are 10-minute sessions to help alleviate the pain. The jacket folds out to form an at-a-glance wall chart for quick reference. (£6.99)
Easy Tai Ji - Robert Parry
Presents the most popular style of Tai Ji - the short yang form - in easy steps. Divided into lessons, the routine is easy to follow, and each movement is accompanied by a foot diagram, so you can see exactly how to step. The jacket folds out to form a handy at-a-glance wall chart for quick reference to the whole routine. (£6.99)
Tell Me What to Eat If I Have Diabetes: Nutrition You Can Live with - Elaine Magee (£8.99)
Tell Me What to Eat If I Have Irritable Bowel Syndrome: Nutrition You Can Live with - Elaine Magee (£8.99)
The Green Man Tree Oracle: Ancient Wisdom from the Spirit of Nature - John Matthews
The Green Man is the very spirit of nature, and an ancient and popular icon of the natural world. The new edition includes a detailed gazetteer to help find him, a stunning deck of oracle cards and a beautiful replica Green Man foliate head. (£17.99)
Earth Grids: the secret patterns of Gaia’s Sacred Sites - Hugh Newman (£4.99)
Nature Spirits - Danu Forest (£4.99)
NATURE & SMALLHOLDING
Consider the Birds: How They Live and Why They Matter - Colin Tudge
Colin Tudge explores the life of birds, all around the globe. From the secrets of migration to their complicated family lives, their differing habitats and survival techniques to the secrets of flight, this is a fascinating account of how birds live, why they matter, and whether they really are dinosaurs. (£25)
Where to Watch Birds in Yorkshire: Including the Former North Humberside - John R. Mather
3rd edition - a detailed account of over 100 of the best birdwatching sites in Yorkshire. Every site is described with directions for access and distances for travel as well as lists of all species to be found at the various seasons. (£16.99)
Philip’s Stargazing 2009 - Heather Couper and Nigel Henbest
Month by month guide to the night sky. (£6.99)
Keeping Poultry and Rabbits on Scraps - Claude Goodchild; Alan Thompson
First issued in 1941, this book enabled the meagre official wartime rations to be supplemented in thousands of homes by a regular supply of eggs and meat, at a minimum of trouble and expense. It now reappears, in response to many requests. (£6.99)
OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES AND SPORT
Call Out Mountain Rescue: A Pocket Guide to Safety on the Hill - ed. Judy Whiteside, Mountain Rescue (£9.99)
Climbing Games - Paul Smith
Challenge and train your hands, feet, body and brain with over 120 climbing games. This book is for anyone wanting to have fun climbing while developing crucial skills. The games described can be used in a wide range of activities from working on specific skills to fun warm-ups. (£9.99)
Winter Climbing+ - Neil Gresham; Ian Parnell
The third in the critically acclaimed series of instructional books from Rockfax. "Winter Climbing+" wastes no time in revealing shortcuts to the skills that make a sound winter climber. The book assumes the reader has no prior-knowledge of winter climbing and starts with the basic skills and equipment then progresses gradually to the more subtle movement skills and tactical elements that allow for rapid progress into higher levels of difficulty. (£19.95)
Mountain Bikes - Yorkshire Dales South
Cycling for Women (£12)
Trout at Ten Thousand Feet - John Bailey
Collection of personal fishing tales from around the world. (£7.99)
Fishing's Greatest Misadventures - ed. Tyler McMahon; Paul Diamond (£11.99)
PHILOSOPHY & ETHICS
The Choice of Hercules: Pleasure, Duty and the Good Life in the 21st Century - A.C. Grayling
Duty or Pleasure was the legendary choice which faced Hercules. Grayling addresses the everyday ethical choices which confront us all. (£7.99)
Bending the Rules: The Twenty-first Century Morality - Robert A. Hinde
Do-unto-others-as-you-would-have-them-do-unto-you. And yet it is considered acceptable to kill the enemy in war; for a businessman to do the best for himself; for a lawyer to argue professionally for a position he would personally reject. Are the moral rules we live by more flexible than they seem at first sight? (£8.99)
POETRY & DRAMA
The Spoken Word : Ted Hughes: Poetry in the Making
This two-CD set draws on the broadcasts Ted Hughes made for schools, particularly the highly praised "Listening and Writing" series, later published as "Poetry in the Making", in which Hughes aimed to encourage an interest in imaginative writing in 10-14 year olds. Hughes explains the origins and development of some of his most famous animal poems, such as "The Thought-Fox and Pike", and suggests techniques of concentration for translating thoughts into poems. (£15.95)
The Spoken Word: Ted Hughes: Poems and Short Stories
This two-CD set is drawn from the BBC Radio broadcasts of Ted Hughes and features live and studio recordings of the poet introducing and reading his own work. The recordings include his earliest surviving poetry broadcast and extensive selections from "Remains of Elmet" and "Moortown Diary", plus selections from his "Crow" poems and two complete short stories, "The Harvesting" and "Snow". (£15.95)
Because You Died: Poetry and Prose of the First World War and After - Vera Brittain, ed. Mark Bostridge
This collection of Vera Brittain's poetry and prose, some of it never published before, commemorates the men she loved - fiance, brother and two close friends - who served and died in the First World War. It draws on her experiences as a VAD nurse in London, Malta, and France, and illustrates her growing conviction of the wickedness of all war. (£12.99)
The Night Shift - ed. Michael Baron; Andy Croft; Jenny Swann
This anthology celebrates the romance of the awake world at night and its brutal shady side. (£9.99)
The Mammoth Book of Limericks - Glyn Rees (£7.99)
Oresteia - Aeschylus, trans. Christopher Collard
"Agamemnon", "Libation Bearers", "Eumenides" - Aeschylus' Oresteia is the only trilogy to survive from Greek tragedy. In this family history, Fate and the gods decree that each generation will repeat the crimes and endure the suffering of their forebears. (£6.99)
Medea and Other Plays - Euripides, trans. James Morwood
Euripides was one of the most popular and controversial of all Greek tragedians, and his plays are marked by an independence of thought, ingenious dramatic devices, and a subtle variety of register and mood. He is also remarkable for the prominence he gave to female characters, whether heroines of virtue or vice. (£7.99)
POLITICS & CURRENT AFFAIRS
Rights of Man, Common Sense, and Other Political Writings - Thomas Paine, ed. Mark Philp (£7.99)
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Noam Chomsky; Edward S. Herman
The modern mass media can best be understood in terms of a 'propaganda model'. News and entertainment companies dedicate themselves to profit within the established system. Their interests require that they support the governing assumptions of state and private power. (£12.99)
The Essential Chomsky - Noam Chomsky
In a single volume, the seminal writings of the world's leading philosopher, activist, linguist, and critic, published to coincide with his eightieth birthday. (£14.99)
Anarchism for Beginners - Marcos Mayer (£8.99)
Perverting the Course of Justice: The Hilarious and Shocking Inside World of British Policing - Inspector Gadget (£7.99)
Dirty Wars: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam - Mark Curtis
Shows how Britain has helped create the Islamic jihadist terrorism that now threatens us. Exploring how the bombings of 7/7 can be traced back to groups and individuals trained and supported by Britain, Curtis draws on formerly secret government files to unravel a long recent history of British governments' secret collusion with and direct involvement in Islamic terrorism, from 1945 to the present day. (£16.99)
The Other - Ryszard Kapuscinski
Ryszard Kapuscinski takes a fresh look at the Western idea of the Other: the non-European or non-American. He observes how today we continue to treat the non-European as an alien and a threat, an object of study that has not yet become a partner in sharing responsibility for the fate of the world. (£9.99)
SCIENCE
Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain - Maryanne Wolf
‘A pathbreaking look at the reading brain'. Human beings invented reading only a few thousand years ago. And with this invention, we changed the very organisation of our brain, which in turn expanded the ways we were able to think, which altered the intellectual evolution of our species. (£8.99)
On the Origin of Species - Charles Darwin, ed. Gillian Beer
New edition from Oxford World Classics. (£8.99)
The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution - Deborah E. Harkness
Explores the streets, shops, back alleys, and gardens of Elizabethan London where a boisterous and diverse group of men and women shared a keen interest in the study of nature and formed a patchwork scientific community whose practices set the stage for the Scientific Revolution. (£12.99)
TRAVEL
Capturing the Mountains: The Lake District Through the Lens of the Abraham Brothers, ed. Susan Steinberg; Susan Steinberg
A collection of superb Lake District photographs from the late Victorian/Edwardian era, of climbing and outdoor scenes, taken by Keswick's renowned climbing photographers, George and Ashley Abraham.This book revives over 100 Abraham historical photographs of the Lake District, in large-format classic black and white. (£25)
Face to Face: Polar Portraits
Brings together in a single volume rare, unpublished treasures from the historic collections of the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI), with cutting-edge modern imagery from expedition photographer Martin Hartley. Showcases the very first polar photographs of 1845 through to images from the present day. It features the first portraits of explorers, some of the earliest photographs of the Inuit, the first polar photographs to appear in a book, and rare images never before published from many of the Heroic-Age Antarctic expeditions. (£25)
Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes - Maurice Isserman; Stewart Angas Weaver
The first successful ascent of Mount Everest in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa teammate Tenzing Norgay is a familiar saga, but less well known are the tales of many other adventurers who also came to test their skills and courage against the world's highest and most dangerous mountains. (£25)
Ice Road Truckers DVD
Follows the lives of men working at the top of the world in a job that only a few would dare. The mission: to haul critical supplies across 350 miles of frozen lakes to Canada’s remote billion-dollar diamond mines. Along the way the truckers contend with the most treacherous conditions imaginable: brutal temperatures, severe blizzards, frostbite and sleep deprivation, while constantly hoping that the 28 inches of ice won’t give way and plunge them to their deaths. (£19.95)
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Ages 0-5yrs
That's not My Angel - Fiona Watt
Seasonal offering from the series which combines illustrations with a variety of different textures to touch and feel, helping very young children develop important language and sensory skills. Ages: 1+ yrs. (£5.99)
Ages 5-9yrs
Grimble at Christmas - Clement Freud
A classic first published in 1974. 10-year-old Grimble is worried that his absent-minded parents have forgotten about Christmas. With only nine days to go, he decides to organise it himself. Ages: 6+ yrs (£7.99)
Ages 9-11yrs
The Tales of Beedle the Bard - J. K Rowling
The first new book from J. K. Rowling since the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" played a crucial role in assisting Harry, aided by his friends Ron and Hermione, to finally defeat Lord Voldemort. Fans will be thrilled to have this opportunity to read the tales in full. Ages: 8+ yrs (£6.99)
Teenage
Double Cross - Malorie Blackman
The fourth in the Noughts and Crosses series that tackles racial prejudice and gang conflict. Despite his best intentions, Tobey finds himself drawn into the shady world of gangs in an effort to make some money.Ages: 12 + yrs (£12.99)
OCTOBER 2008
FICTION
HARDBACK
A Most Wanted Man - John Le Carre
A half-starved young Russian man in a long black overcoat is smuggled into Hamburg at dead of night. He has an improbable amount of cash secreted in a purse round his neck. He is a devout Muslim. Or is he? (£16.99 at The Book Case)
The Beacon - Susan Hill
'The farmhouse was called The Beacon and they had been born and reared there.' The story of what happens within a family when one of the brothers publishes his 'misery memoir' (£9 at The Book Case)
The Widows of Eastwick - John Updike
More than three decades have passed since the events described in "The Witches of Eastwick" and the three divorcees - Alexandra, Jane and Sukie - have left town, remarried, and become widows. And then, one summer, they decide to go back to Eastwick. (£16.99 at The Book Case)
PAPERBACK
The Man in the Picture: A Ghost Story - Susan Hill
This book offers the chilling tale of a painting so terrifying, its secrets will haunt those who see it. It is a ghost story by the author of "The Woman in Black", to be read by the fire on a cold winter's night. (£6.99)
People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks
From the author of 'March' and 'Year of Wonders'. In the aftermath of the Bosnian War, a young book conservator arrives in Sarajevo to restore a lost treasure, the Sarajevo Haggadah, a Jewish prayer book. But the trip will also set in motion a series of events that threaten to rock Hannah's orderly life. (£7.99)
Will - Christopher Rush
William Shakespeare is dying - in this novel he looks back over his life. The author has taught Shakespeare for thirty years. Being filmed with Ben Kingsley. (£8.99)
The Last Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko
While on holiday in Scotland, visiting a macabre tourist attraction, 'The Dungeons of Edinburgh', a young Russian tourist is murdered. As the police grapples with the fact that the cause of the young man's death was a massive loss of blood, the Watches are immediately aware that there is a renegade vampire on the loose. (£11.99)
The Almost Moon - Alice Sebold
Helen Knightly has spent a lifetime trying to win the love of a mother who had none to spare. And as this electrifying novel opens, she steps over a boundary she never dreamt she would even approach. (£7.99)
Charlemagne and Roland: A Novel - Allan Massie
A truly European monarch, Charlemagne was king of the Franks from 768 to 814 and for some of that time king of the Lombards, too. Today both France and Germany look to him as a founding figure of their respective countries. (£7.99)
Dark Horse - John Francome
This racing thriller plunges the reader into an exhilarating world of high stakes, wealth and corruption. Ten years ago, a car crash left a girl dead and four friends from racing school with a dark secret. (£6.99)
The Whole Truth - David Baldacci
'I need a war ...' Nicolas Creel, a super-rich arms dealer, decides that the best way to boost his business is to start a new cold war - and he won't let anything or anyone get in his way. (£6.99)
World without End - Ken Follett
On the day after Halloween, in the year 1327, four children slip away from the cathedral city of Kingsbridge. They are a thief, a bully, a boy genius and a girl who wants to be a doctor. In the forest they see two men killed. (£8.99)
A Carrion Death - Michael Stanley
A debut crime novel set against a backdrop of poachers, witch doctors, diamond smugglers and corruption...They find the first body near a waterhole considered magical by the local bush people. (£7.99)
Soul Catcher - Michael White
Augustus Cain has an uncanny, if unwelcome, ability to track the most elusive runaway slaves. And to repay a debt and keep his horse, he must head north from Virginia and retrieve a runaway named Rosetta. But why is the bounty on her head so large? (£7.99)
Illegal Action - Stella Rimington
The third thriller from the former head of MI5, featuring MI5 officer Liz Carlyle, now dealing with the Russian spies who are spying on the international financial community that has made London its base. (£6.99)
Necropath - Eric Brown
From the local author of Helix, this scifi novel is set on the Bengal Space Station. (£7.99)
REISSUES
Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire - Charles Dickens et al, ed. Melisa Klimaszewski
Building on the success of his Christmas number for 1852, "A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire", Dickens used the same framing concept in 1853. This wide-ranging round features tales of angels, ghosts, and marriages that are as treacherous as they are inspiring. (£6.99)
Ghost Stories Vol 2 - M R James, read by Derek Jacobi (2 CDs, 2h30m) (£12.99)
Spine Chillers - M.R. James (1 CD, 1.30 hr)
5 chilling stories from M.R. James, originally recorded for the Radio 4 Woman's "Hour in Christmas 2007". (£8.99)
Lois the Witch: and Other Stories - Elizabeth Gaskell
Fear of Satan becomes murder in the name of God. Newly orphaned, the God-fearing and heart-broken Lois is sent across the Atlantic to live with her uncle's family in Salem, but on her arrival she finds herself the object of cruel hostility, potent jealousy and mad desire. (£7.99)
Complete Prose Tales - Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin (£9.99)
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressell (£8.99)
The Dunwich Horror: and Other Stories - H.P. Lovecraft
In the degenerate, unliked backwater of Dunwich, Wilbur Whately is born of unnatural parentage, and grows at an uncanny pace to an unsettling height. The boy's arrival simply precedes that of a true horror: one of the Old Ones, that forces the people of the town to hole up by night, fearful for their lives. (£7.99)
The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories, ed. Michael Cox; R.A. Gilbert
Ranging from the early 19th century to the 1960s, the collection reveals the development of the genre, and showcases many of its greatest expositors - from Sir Walter Scott, H. G. Wells, M. R. James, T. H. White, Walter de la Mare, and Elizabeth Bowen in the UK to Edith Wharton in America. (£9.99)
The Haunted Dolls' House: and Other Stories - M. R. James
Evil comes with many different faces. M R James' chilling ghost stories reveal a world where the familiar becomes diabolical, the smallest object can lead to unimaginable horror, and evil brushes against everyday life in the most unexpected and sinister of ways. (£7.99)
Little Boy Lost - Marghanita Laski
"If you like a novel that expertly puts you through the wringer, this is the one." An English soldier returns to a blasted and impoverished France during World War Two in order to trace a child lost five years before. But is this small, quiet boy in a grim orphanage really his son? And what if he is not? (£9.00)
Mariana - Monica Dickens
Monica Dickens, the great granddaughter of Charles Dickens, published "Mariana" in 1940 when she was only twenty-four years old. It’s the often-comical story of a typical English girl growing up in the 1930s. (£9.00)
The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault - Angela Carter
Angela Carter adapted Perrault's work in the 18th century on stories from the oral tradition and set out to adapt the stories for modern readers of English. (£8.99)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy, read by Imogen Stubbs (Naxos CDs, £13.99)
NON-FICTION
ART AND CRAFT
Printmaking: Techniques and New Approaches - ed. Blanche Craig (£24.95)
Breakdowns - Art Spiegelman
His legendary first book expanded and revised. (£20)
Inked - Teneues
A fascinating catalogue of visual imagery and personal folly. Tattoos are forever ... (£12.50)
BIOGRAPHY
Graham Greene: A Life in Letters ed. Richard Greene
This substantial volume presents a new and engrossing account of the author’s life constructed out of his own words. (£9.99)
Not Quite World's End: A Traveller's Tales - John Simpson
A lively and upbeat look at the challenges and the changes the world has gone through in his life and long career. (£7.99)
In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures - Helen Mirren (£9.99)
COOKERY
The Full English Cassoulet: Making Do In the Kitchen - Richard Mabey
30 years after his "Food for Free", Richard Mabey offers another joyous exploration of local ingredients, broadening your horizons by travelling, vernacular heritage, and making use of everything. "Life's too short NOT to stuff a mushroom." (£16.99)
Gary Rhodes 365: One Year. One Book. One Simple Recipe for Every Day (£25)
Jamie's Ministry of Food: Anyone Can Learn to Cook in 24 Hours - Jamie Oliver
'The aim of this book is to completely inspire people who have no interest in food to have a go' - Jamie Oliver. We need to look back at the way our grandmothers and great- grandmothers cooked - wholesome, tasty food that was simple and quick to prepare. (£25)
The River Cottage Diary 2009 - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (£12.99)
A seasonal companion to engage and inspire throughout all the seasons, such as baking bread, bee-keeping, fishing, herb-foraging and roasts for Christmas. Made on 100% recycled paper, with recipe cards, perforated sheets, colour photos, seasonal tables, conversion charts, shooting seasons and a directory of useful websites.
ENVIRONMENT
Renewable Energy: A User's Guide - Andy McCrea
Crowood Press so probably practical. (£16.99)
Sold Out: How I Survived a Year of Not Shopping - Robert Llewellyn
After a long and painful Christmas shopping expedition, Robert Llewellyn had a revelation. He had enough stuff; he'd had enough of rampant consumerism; he would simply stop shopping for a whole year. (£7.99)
Ban the Plastic Bag: A Community Action Plan for a Carrier Bag Free World - Rebecca Hoskins (£4.99)
GARDENING
"Gardeners' World" Top Tips - Louise Hampden (£9.99)
HERITAGE
The Tain - trans. Ciaran Carson
"The Tain Bo Cualinge", centrepiece of the eighth-century Ulster cycle of heroic tales, is Ireland's great epic. It tells the story of a great cattle-raid, the invasion of Ulster by the armies of Medb and Ailill, Queen and King of Connacht, and their allies, seeking to carry off the great Brown Bull of Cualige. The hero of the tale is Cuchulainn, the Hound of Ulster, who resists the invaders single-handed while Ulster's warriors lie sick. (£8.99)
Beowulf - ed. Heather O'Donoghue, trans. Kevin Crossley-Holland
Oxford World’s Classics. (£5.99)
Exeter Book of Riddles - Kevin Crossley-Holland (£8.95)
Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas ed. Gwyn Jones
The remote and inhospitable landscape of Iceland made it a perfect breeding-ground for heroes. The Icelandic sagas relate the adventurous lives of individuals and families between 930 and 1030, which began as oral tales but were skilfully documented in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and are now regarded as written literature. (£6.99)
Le Morte Darthur: The Winchester Manuscript - Sir Thomas Malory, ed. Helen Cooper
The definitive English version of the stories of King Arthur, Le Morte Darthur was completed in 1469-70 by Sir Thomas Malory, 'knight-prisoner'. In a resonant prose style, Malory charts the tragic disintegration of the fellowship of the Round Table, destroyed from within by warring factions. (£8.99)
English Fairy Tales and Legends - Rosalind Kerven
Most of our childhood tales are from overseas. This book revives our best home-grown tales, each one linked with a specific place or county in England. (£14.99)
HISTORY
Fred Dibnah's Buildings of Britain - David Hall
Fred Dibnah’s interest was not in architectural theory but in the practicalities of how things were built and here he takes us on a tour of Britain's great historic buildings explaining how they managed to build them. (£18.99)
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World - Niall Ferguson
Shows that finance is in fact the foundation of human progress and financial history is the essential back-story behind all history. The evolution of credit and debt was as important as any technological innovation in the rise of civilization, from ancient Babylon to the silver mines of Bolivia. (£25)
Railway Blunders - A. Vaughan
The two hundred years of railway developmentt in Britain are littered with good intentions and disasters. (£12.99)
Somme Mud - E.P.F. Lynch, ed. Will Davies
In 1916 the majority of the young men proudly waved off by the crowds as they embarked for France had no idea of the reality of the trenches of the Somme. Private Lynch was just 18 when he enlisted; he survived his time in the trenches and upon his return from France in 1919 he wrote "Somme Mud" in pencil in over 20 school exercise books. (£7.99)
Nella Last's Peace: The Post-war Diaries of Housewife 49 - ed. Patricia Malcolmson; Robert Malcolmson
Picking up where bestseller Nella Last's "War" left off, this diary of 1945-48 delves into the private life of housewife and mother Nella Last as well as that of her family, friends and neighbours. Nella, 55 when the war ends, writes of what ordinary people felt during those years of privation, hope and the re-building of Britain, providing a moving and inspiring account of the years that shaped the society we live in today. (£8.99)
The American Future: A History - Simon Schama
America is conducting an intense self-examination about the trajectory of its history; how it came to find itself in multiple crises and how an America that began as 'the last best hope for mankind' came to be so suspected and vilified around much of the world. Simon investigates. (£20)
Remember, Remember (The Fifth of November): The History of Britain in Bite-Sized Chunks - Judy Parkinson (£9.99)
HUMOUR
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue: v. 11 - BBC (2 CDs, 2 hrs) (£12.99)
"Just a Minute": The Best of 2008 - BBC (2 CDs, 2 hrs) (£12.99)
Colemanballs 14 - ed Barry Fantoni (£4.99)
Private Eye Annual (£9.99)
Isle of Wight to Get Ceefax: And Other Groundbreaking Stories from Newsbiscuit - John O'Farrell (£9.99)
Last Chorus: The Humphrey Lyttleton Collection (£14.99)
Sartre's Sink - Mark Crick
From the author of "Kafka's Soup", essential DIY tips of the world's greatest writers. (£12.99)
Little Black Book of Red Tape - Ian Vince
Based on the popular Social Scrutiny website - the wellies that come with a 24-page instruction book and the council workers who are prohibited from making tea in case they burn themselves. (£6.99)
Your Mother Doesn't Work Here: Painfully Polite and Hilariously Hostile Notes - Kerry Miller
Have you ever been the recipient of a nagging reminder to do the dishes or turn down the music, imbued with a faux friendliness and stuck on a Post-It for all to see? A collection all of the most popular notes submitted to the website, all sharing a common sense of frustration channelled into a 'helpful' note. Welcome to the hilarious and compelling world of the passive-aggressive. (£9.99)
Idler’s Diary 2009 - Tom Hodkinson
Illustrated in technicolour, this diary features appointment pages interspersed with things to do, recipes, drawings, arcana, and poems. It also includes a list of all medieval feast days. A diary for those looking for a less slavish attitude to life.
"FWD This Link": A Rough Guide to Staying Amused Online When You Should be Working - Rhodri Marsden (£5.99)
The Timewaster Diaries: A Year in the Life of Robin Cooper (£6.99)
Daily Mash: Halfwit nation - Neil Rafferty and Paul Stokes (£9.99)
"Halfwit Nation: Frontline Reporting from the War on Stupid by the Daily Mash".
Advanced Banter - Stephen Fry; John Lloyd; John Mitchinson
Those thoughtful gentlemen at QI have come up with this big, useful, funny and really very good book of quotations. (£14.99)
Cat Nav: A Mad Moggy's Road Atlas of Great Britain and Ireland - Mike Mosedale (£4.99)
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People - Toby Young
A hilarious account of the journalist’s five years steadily working his way down the New York food chain, from glossy magazine editor to crash-test dummy for interactive sex toys. (£7.99)
IDEAS
Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth - Margaret Atwood
An intelligent, wide-ranging book that examines the metaphor of debt and the role it takes in our lives. "Debt" is like air - something we take for granted and never think about until things go wrong. (£9.99)
What Should I Believe? - Dorothy Rowe
Religion has suddenly become a political power. It affects us all, whether we're religious or not. Dorothy Rowe separates the political from the personal, the power-seeking from the compassionate. She shows how, if we use our beliefs as a defence against our feelings of worthlessness, we feel compelled to force our beliefs on to other people by coercion or aggression. However, it is possible to create a set of beliefs, expressed in the religious or philosophical metaphors most meaningful to us, which allow us to live at peace with ourselves and other people. (£9.99)
Other Colours - Orhan Pamuk
Essays ranging from lyrical autobiography to criticism of literature and culture, from humour to political analysis, from delicate evocations of his friendship with his daughter Ruya to provocative discussions of Eastern and Western art. (£9.99)
LIFESTYLE
The Spend Less Pocketbook: 365 Tips for a Better Quality of Life While Actually Spending Less - Rebecca Ash (£5.99)
The Lesbian Bible: 101 Titbits from Ladygay Life - Clare Lydon
A wry and witty look at lesbian life in handy pocket form. (£4.99)
The Coming Out Bible: 101 Tales of Pride and Prejudice - Clare Lydon
Aims a modern-day lens at the lesbian and gay community, taking a snapshot of what it's like coming out in the modern era - whether it's to your family, friends, colleagues or the person staring back from the mirror. (£4.99)
How to be a Silver Surfer - Emma Aldridge (£7.99)
Computing for Beginners, Jackie Sherman (£8.99)
The Seniors' Survival Guide: New Tricks for Old Dogs - Geoff Tibballs
The ultimate manual for modern living, "The Seniors' Survival Guide" includes everything from buying and selling on eBay and using that internet thingy, to understanding teen-speak, tackling global warming and negotiating telephone helplines. (£10)
LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE
The Spoken Word: British Writers (3 CDs, British Library)
Around 30 writers talk will be about their lives and work. The recordings derive primarily from BBC broadcasts, the earliest of them dating from the 1930s. Among the writers included will be Rudyard Kipling, Virginia Woolf, Ian Fleming and Harold Pinter. The majority of the recordings have not been published before. (£19.95)
March Hares and Monkeys' Uncles - Harry Oliver (£7.99)
MATHS AND SCIENCE
One Hundred Essential Things You Didn't Know You Didn't Know: Answered! - John Barrow
Mathematics can tell you things about the world that can't be learned in any other way. From winning the lottery, placing bets at the races and escaping from bears to sports, Shakepeare, Google, game theory, drunks, divorce settlements and dodgy accounting; this book has all the answers! (£10)
Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities - Ian Stewart
A book of mathematical oddities: games, puzzles, facts, numbers and delightful mathematical nibbles for the curious and adventurous mind. (£10.99)
Numeroids: Any Number of Things You Didn't Know....and Some You Did - Donough O'Brien; Anthony Weldon (£9.99)
MBS
Benedictus: A Book of Blessings - John O'Donohue
'We have fallen out of belonging. Consequently, when we stand before crucial thresholds in our lives, we have no rituals to protect, encourage and guide us as we cross over into the unknown. For such crossings, we need to find new words. (£6.99)
The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parent's Guide to Getting Your Child to Sleep - from Birth to 5 - Jennifer Waldburger; Jill Spivack (£9.99)
Living with Teenagers: It's One Hell of a Bumpy Ride
Based on the anonymous Guardian column of the same name, this is a deliciously painful, unflinchingly honest look at what it's like towatch your children grow up into classic teenagers. (£6.99)
Your Angel is Waiting to Help: Find Her and Let Her Touch You - Cassandra Eason (£8.99)
The Wonder of Unicorns - Diana Cooper
For all those people who aspire to help others and to change the world for the better, even if it is just their small corner of it. Using the meditations, rituals and ceremonies in this book the reader will be able to connect to their own Unicorn just as they would connect to their own Guardian Angel.(£8.99)
Froth on the Cappuccino: How Small Pleasures Can Save Your Life - Maeve Haran (£6.99)
Angel Kids - Jacky Newcomb
Includes the delightful encounters that children have with their guardian angels and loved ones on the other side of life. (£7.99)
Angel Therapy Oracle Cards - Doreen Virtue
A deck which is appropriate for beginners as well as those experienced with divination cards. (£11.99)
Daily Guidance from Your Angels: 365 Angelic Messages - Doreen Virtue (£12.99)
A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels and Other Subversive Spirits - Carol Mack; Dinah Mack (£10.99)
The Golden Tarot - Liz Dean
Includes full deck of 78 tarot cards, and a guide book (£12.99)
Quick and Easy Pilates: 5-minute Routines for Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere - Karen Smith (£5.99)
Quick and Easy Face Massage: 5-minute Massages for Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere - Beata Aleksandrowicz (£5.99)
The Secret Pleasures of the Menopause - Christiane Northrup
Dr. Northrup candidly guides you toward experiencing life after 50 as the most pleasurable time of your life.
MEDIA
Who's Who in "The Archers" 2009 - Keri Davies (£5.99)
The Really Bloody Dangerous Book for Boys - Ben Ickenson
Ideas you really shouldn’t try at home under any circumstances - real stuntmen and women explain how they do it. (£9.99)
MUSIC
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain - Oliver Sacks
Examines the powers of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians and everyday people - those struck by affliction, unusual talent and even, in one case, by lightning - to show not only that music occupies more areas of the brain than language does, but also that it can calm and organize, torment and heal. (£8.99)
NATURE AND ANIMALS
Know Your Cattle by Jack Byard
A sequel to the popular sheep identification guide. (£4.99)
Notes from Walnut Tree Farm - Roger Deakin
For the last six years of his life, Roger Deakin kept notebooks in which he wrote his daily thoughts, impressions and feelings, whether it be observing the teeming ecosystem that was Walnut Tree Farm, thinking about the wider environment, walking in his fields or on Mellis Common. (£20)
On Cats - Doris May Lessing
A collection of Doris Lessing's charming and celebrated writings about cats - her celebrated collection of stories, 'Particularly Cats and Rufus', and the poignant though unsentimental memoir, 'The Old Age of El Magnifico'. (£6.99)
Ray Mears’ Vanishing World - Raymond Mears
Ray Mears has travelled the world for much of his life learning and teaching wilderness skills. Now he reflects on his experiences in some of the most remote and beautiful places on Earth along with his own stunning photographs of the landscapes and peoples he's encountered.(£20)
Hugh's Hedgehog: Obsession, Nostalgia and a Very British Animal - Hugh Warwick
A Prickly Affair - one man’s quest to better understand our prickly friends. (£14.99)
NOSTALGIA
Barbara Cartland's Etiquette Handbook: A Guide to Good Behaviour from the Boudoir to the Boardroom
An evocative (or hilarious, depending on your point of view) insight into the manners of an England that has largely disappeared. (£8.99)
The Well-dressed Woman's Do's and Don’ts - Elise Vallee (£5.99)
Don'ts for Dancers - Karsinova (£2.99)
Motor Do's and Don’ts - Harold Pemberton (£2.99)
England, Our England - Alan Titchmarsh
An anthology and miscellany of everything an Englishman should know: From Austen to Wordsworth, Jerusalem to Scout's Honour, Kings and Queens of England to Land of Hope and Glory, Savile Row tailors to Jermyn St Shirt Makers, tying a Windsor knot to making a pot of tea, Victoria sponge to fish pie, the rules of cricket to Gilbert and Sullivan operas (£7.99)
OUTDOOR & INDOOR ACTIVITIES
Bear Grylls's Great Outdoors Adventures
Channel 4 tie-in. More of us than ever before are spending weekends and holidays climbing mountains, surfing waves, kayaking on rivers or simply walking in the wilderness. Britain's most intrepid survival expert shares his years of experience of the world's most extreme terrain to help enhance your enjoyment of the wilderness. (£18.99)
The Pocket Dangerous Book for Boys: Wonders of the World - Conn Iggulden; Hal Iggulden
Impress your friends and family with your amazing knowledge of the solar system, your indepth insights into fossils and dinosaurs, your amazing ability to name the seven wonders of the world (£8.99)
The Pocket Daring Book for Girls: Things to Do - Andrea J. Buchanan; Miriam B. Peskowitz
Brilliant things to do selected from The Daring Book for Girls - the only book for all feisty, fun-loving, adventure-seeking girls - How to Make and Fly a Kite, How to Survive in the Wild, How to Make the Best Tree Swing Ever, and many other fun filled activities to keep you entertained. (£8.99)
POETRY
Paradise Lost - John Milton
With 12 black and white engravings from the first illustrated edition 1688. Oxford. (£9.99)
Selected Poetry - Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. Catherine Phillips (£6.99)
The Not Dead - Simon Armitage
Poems originally aired on
Channel 4 in 2007, due to be re-shown in November this year. The poems focus on
the testimonies of veterans of the Gulf, Bosnia and Malayan wars.
(£6.99)
Answering Back: Living Poets Reply to the Poetry of the Past - Carol Ann Duffy
Carol Ann Duffy has invited fifty of her peers to choose and respond to a poem from the past. (£8.99)
PLAYS AND THEATRE
The Merchant of Venice - William Shakespeare, Read by: Antony Sher & cast (Naxos CDs, £10.99)
The Pantomime Book - Paul Harris
Expanded with a section on classic routines and gags. (£9.95)
Theatre of the Oppressed - Augusto Boal
This new edition of "Theater of the Oppressed" brings a classic work on radical drama fully up to date and includes a new introduction by the author Augusto Boal. Boal restores theatre to its proper place as a popular form of communication and expression. (£12.99)
POLITICS
The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx; Friedrich Engels (£7.99)
The Voice of Hope: Conversations with Alan Clements - Aung San Suu Kyi
The result of the secret and dangerous meetings Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest in Burma, had over several years with Alan Clements: unquestionably the most wide-ranging collection of her views on the political situation inside Burma, her non-violent approach to democracy and human rights, her Buddhist beliefs, her family, and how she keeps a sense of meaning and purpose under the most appalling conditions. (£7.99)
From Anger to Apathy: The Story of Politics, Society and Popular Culture in Britain Since 1975 - Mark Garnett
In 1975, Britons spent much of their time complaining - and for good reasons. Yet evidence suggests that the British people were happier in those days than they have been in the early years of the twenty-first century; they were also much more inclined to cast votes in general elections. (£9.99)
Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance - Simon Critchley
Identifies a massive political disappointment at the heart of liberal democracy. Arguing that what is called for is an ethics of commitment that can inform a radical politics, it culminates in an argument for anarchism as an ethical practice and a re-motivating means of political organization. (£9.99)
SPORT
Don't Mention the Score: A Masochist's History of England's National Football Team - Simon Briggs (£12.99)
TRAVEL
The Good Pub Guide 2009 - Alisdair Aird; Fiona Stapley (£15.99)
Good Hotel Guide Great Britain & Ireland 2009 (£20)
2009 Collins Map of Europe (£4.99)
2009 Collins Map of France (£4.99)
New Rough Guides to India and South East Asia
The Lonely Planet Best in Travel 2009
The world's hottest trends, destinations, journeys and experiences. (£15.99)
New Lonely Planet Guides to Barcelona and Paris
Touching the Void - Joe Simpson
Reissue of this heart-stopping account of Joe Simpson's terrifying adventure in the Peruvian Andes with his climbing partner Simon. (£7.99)
SEPTEMBER 2008
FICTION
HARDBACK
From A to X: Some Letters Recuperated by John Berger
In the dusty, ramshackle town of Suse lives A'ida. Her letters to her imprisoned insurgent husband tell of daily events in the town, and of its motley collection of inhabitants. But Suse is under threat, and the smallest details and acts of humanity assume for A'ida a life-affirming significance, acts of resistance against the forces that might otherwise extinguish them. (£12.99)
Fine Just the Way it is: Wyoming Stories - Annie Proulx
This new collection of stories returns to the Wyoming of Brokeback Mountain and the familiar cast of hardy, unsentimental prairie folk. (£10.99 at The Book Case)
Indignation - Philip Roth
It is 1951 in America, the second year of the Korean War. A studious, law-abiding, intense youngster is beginning his sophomore year on the pastoral, conservative campus of Ohio's Winesburg College - not at the local college where he originally enrolled because his father, the sturdy, hard-working neighbourhood butcher, seems to have gone mad. (£14.99 at The Book Case)
The Private Patient - P.D. James
A notorious investigative journalist books into a private clinic in Dorset for the removal of a disfiguring facial scar but she was never to leave Cheverell Manor alive. Dalgliesh and his team are called in to investigate the murder. (£16.99 at The Book Case)
PAPERBACK
Exit Ghost - Philip Roth
Nathan Zuckerman comes back to New York, the city he left eleven years before. Alone on his New England mountain, Zuckerman has been nothing but a writer: but now walking the streets like a revenant, he quickly makes three connections that explode his carefully protected solitude. (£7.99)
Real World - Natsuo Kirino
In a suburb on the outskirts of Tokyo, four teenage girls drift through a hot smoggy August and tedious summer school classes. Then dependable Toshi's next-door neighbour is found brutally murdered and the girls suspect Worm, the neighbour's son and a high school misfit. (£7.99)
The Quiet Girl - Peter Hoeg
From the author of "Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow", a fast-paced philosophical thriller set in Denmark in the here and now. (£7.99)
A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. (£7.99)
The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce - Paul Torday
From the author of "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen". Late one summer evening, Wilberforce - rich, young, and work-obsessed - makes a detour on his way home to the vast undercroft of Caerlyon Hall, and the domain of Francis Black, a place where wine, hospitality and affection flow freely. (£7.99)
The Septembers of Shiraz - Dalia Sofer
Set in Tehran during the aftermath of the 1979 revolution, this understated, beautifully told literary debut follows the Amin family as they cope with their father’s false imprisonment for spying. (£7.99)
Nina Todd Has Gone - Lesley Glaister
Nina Todd is not the sort of person you'd notice - and that's the way she likes it. When she meets Rupert in a hotel, it leads to an empty adulterous encounter that she'd rather forget. But it soon becomes clear that Rupert won't. (£7.99)
The Gum Thief - Douglas Coupland
Roger is a middle-aged and divorced 'aisles associate' at a Staples outlet. His co-worker Bethany is facing fifty more years of shelving Post-it notes. Then Bethany discovers Roger's notebook and finds that he's writing diary entries pretending to be her - and weirdly, he's getting it right. (£7.99)
The Night Climbers - Ivo Stourton
The 'Tudor Night Climbers' scale Cambridge University's turrets after dark, transforming it into a dangerous playground of spiralling heights. A first-year student, James, begins to fall for the only female in the group, the enigmatic and beautiful Jessica. (£6.99)
The Queue - Vladimir Sorokin, trans. Sally Laird
From an innovative young Russian writer - in Soviet Russia people queue patiently even though no one knows what they are queuing for. Sorokin's magic pen turns this framework into a mini-picaresque novel with a hero of sorts. Readers with some imagination will enjoy following Vadim and his co-queuers through their days and nights on line and off (£7.99)
Lords of the Bow - Conn Iggulden
Second novel in Conn Iggulden's bestselling Conqueror series, bringing to the story of Genghis Khan brilliantly to life. (£6.99)
This Year it Will be Different - Maeve Binchy
Stories of the lives of wives, husbands, children, friends and lovers from the bestselling author. (£7.99)
The Bone Garden - Tess Gerritsen
When a human skull is dug up in a garden near Boston, Dr Maura Isles is called in to investigate. She quickly discovers that the skeleton - that of a young woman - has been buried for over a hundred years. (£6.99)
REISSUES
Haunted House - Charles Dickens
A Yuletide gathering in an eerie country retreat inspires ghost stories from Dickens, Gaskell and Wilkie Collins (£6.99)
A Certain Justice - P.D. James
Distinguished barrister Venetia Aldridge agrees to defend Garry Ashe, accused of the brutal murder of his aunt; but just four weeks later, she is found dead. Commander Adam Dalgliesh, is called in to investigate. Tenth in the Dalgleish series. (£7.99)
The Evil Seed - Joanne Harris
Updated reissue of Joanne Harris's first novel. Alice comes to realize that her instinctive hatred of Joe’s new girlfriend may not just be due to jealousy as she’s plunged into a nightmare world of obsession, revenge, seduction – and blood. (£6.99)
NON-FICTION
BIOGRAPHY
Shakespeare's Wife - Germaine Greer
Ann Hathaway has been mocked and vilified by scholars for centuries. Yet Shakespeare became the very poet of marriage, exploring the sacrament in all its aspects, spiritual, psychological, sexual and sociological. Is it possible that Ann was the inspiration? Part-biography, part-history, "Shakespeare's Wife"reconstructs Ann's life, and the daily lives of Elizabethan women. (£8.99)
Final Curtains: Top Drawer Memorial Services 1993-2007, Reviewed by Ned Sherrin for the Pages of the Oldie (£7.99)
Driving Miss Smith: A Memoir of Linda Smith - Warren Lakin (£7.99)
Miracles of Life - J. G. Ballard
Beginning with the events that inspired his classic novel, 'Empire of the Sun', in this revelatory autobiography Ballard charts the course of his astonishing life. (£7.99)
Spilling the Beans - Clarissa Dickson Wright
Clarissa was born into wealth and privilege, as a child. Her mother was an Australian heiress, her father was a brilliant surgeon to the Royal family. But he was also a tyrannical and violent drunk. Clarissa’s ambition led her to a career in the law. but when her adored mother died suddenly, it was to lead to a mind-numbing decade of wild over-indulgence. (£7.99)
Travels on the Dance Floor: One Man's Journey to the Heart of Salsa - Grevel Lindop
When poet and biographer Grevel Lindop took up salsa dancing in rainy Manchester, his qualifications were size 12 feet and excruciating adolescent memories of ballroom dancing lessons. But salsa has a way of taking over your life. (£14.99)
CURRENT AFFAIRS
Turning Back the Clock - Umberto Eco
With his customary sharpness and wit, Umberto Eco explains the tragic steps backwards that have been taken since 2000. After the Cold War, the "Hot War" has made its come-back in Afghanistan and Iraq. Exhuming Kipling's "Great Game", we have gone back to the clash between Islam and Christianity. This book proposes not so much that we resume a forward march, but at the very least that we cease marching backwards. (£9.99)
Gomorrah: Italy's Other Mafia - Roberto Saviano
The Camorra, an organized crime network with a global reach and large stakes in construction, high fashion, illicit drugs and toxic-waste disposal, is the deciding factor in why Campania has the highest murder rate in all of Europe and why cancer levels there have skyrocketed in recent years. Since publishing his expose the author has received so many death threats that he has been assigned police protection. (£8.99)
Real England: The Battle Against the Bland - Paul Kingsnorth
Kingsnorth is concerned over the "Bluewatering" of the landscape, the steamrollering of big business and the effect of globalisation on our country. He is an excellent guide to what we are losing, how it’s happening and why. (£7.99)
The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life - Richard Sennett
First published in 1970, this book is an exploration of communities and how they live in cities, putting forward the view that order breeds narrow, violence-prone lives, while an 'equilibrium of disorder' brings vigour and diversity to urban life. (£10.99)
The Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories - James McConnachie; Robin Tudge (£12.99)
FOOD AND DRINK
WI Book of Preserves - Carol Tennant (£14.99)
50 Step-by-step Home Made Preserves: Delicious Easy-to-follow Recipes for Jams, Jellies and Sweet Conserves - Maggie Mayhew (£4.99)
Good Beer Guide 2009 - ed. Roger Protz (£14.99)
100 Belgian Beers to Try Before You Die! - Tim Webb; Joris Pattyn (£12.99)
Cooking in a Bedsitter - Katharine Whitehorn
From pre-microwave days, the classic, practical and entertaining handbook of quick, simple meals when you only have one burner and very little space. (£8.99)
GAMES, HOBBIES, ACTIVITIES & NOSTALGIA
Card Games for One - Peter Arnold (£5.99)
Bridge: Winning Ways to Play Your Cards - Paul Mendelson (£5.99)
The "Antiques Roadshow" Book of Collectables (£20)
Miller's Antiques Price Guide 2009: 30th Edition - Judith Miller (£30)
Guinness World Records 2009 (£20)
In Fact - Prospect Magazine
Thousands of 'did-you-knows' that
will make you think - the Gaza strip is slightly smaller than Sheffield; Queen
Victoria spoke Urdu and Hindi; peanuts are an ingredient in dynamite; by the
age of five, children have acquired 85 per cent of the language they will have
as adults. (£12.99)
The Really Useful Grandparents' Book - Eleo Gordon; Tony Lacey; Nanette Newman
Like the Dangerous Book for Boys from a grandparent’s perspective - what to do with your grandchildren when you have them for a long weekend - build a tree house, make a curiosity box, play chess ... (£18.99)
Visual Aid: Stuff You've Forgotten and Lesssons You Didn't Quite Get Round to Learning ed. Duncan McCorquodale
Provides the answers to the little questions in life in a simple colourful and engaging way. Included are: colour wheels, universal flags, star constellations, correct tablesettings, how reflexology works, the Italian wine regions, how to tie a knot, how to use chopsticks, sign language, morse code and many more. (£7.95)
The "Eagle" Annual of the Cutaways - ed. Daniel Tatarsky
After Dan Dare, the most famous and fondly remembered part of the Eagle comic was the cutaway: beautifully detailed drawings of the inner workings of pretty much anything: from steam trains, jet liners and racing cars, to oil wells, suspension bridges and tube lines beneath Piccadilly Circus. (£14.99)
The Bumper Book of Roy of the Rovers
Collects together 20 years’ worth of classic material from the Golden Age of British Annuals. (£12.99)
"Daily Telegraph" Cryptic Crosswords: No. 62 (£4.99)
"Daily Telegraph" Quick Crosswords: No. 48 (£4.99)
How to Do Just About Anything in Excel - Reader's Digest (£9.99)
GARDENING
The Bedside Book of the Garden - D.G. Hessayon (£12.99)
HISTORY
A Little History of the World - E.H. Gombrich
Now in paperback the young Gombrich’s attractive and concise version of the story of man from the stone age to the atomic bomb. (£6.99)
Lancashire's Sacred Past - Linda Sever
From Prehistory to the Viking Period - monuments, buildings, copses, stone circles and early churches. (£14.99)
Infamous Lancashire Women - Issy Shannon
From the well-known local journalist, a collection of female Lancastrian witches, thieves, fraudsters and murderers with 100 photos and engravings! (£12.99)
The Knights Templar in Yorkshire - Diane Holloway
Takes the reader on an intimate tour of the ten major Templar sites established in Yorkshire, and reveals what life was like for their inhabitants - how the land was farmed, what the population ate, how they were taxed and local legends. (£12.99)
Reading Matters: Five Centuries of Discovering Books - Margaret Willes
It is easy to forget in our own day of cheap paperbacks and mega-bookstores that until very recently books were luxury items. This book examines how people acquired and read books from the sixteenth century to the present, focusing on the personal relationships between readers and the volumes they owned. (£19.99)
The Hell-fire Clubs: Sex, Satanism and Secret Societies - Evelyn Lord
The Hell-Fire Clubs scandalized eighteenth-century English society as rumours of their orgies, recruitment of prostitutes, extensive libraries of erotica, extreme rituals, and initiation ceremonies spread. This thoroughly researched book gives an accurate portrait of their membership, beliefs, activities, and the reasons for their proliferation, first in the British Isles and later in America. (£19.99)
We Saw Spain Die - Paul Preston
Based on a huge trove of diary and personal letter material regarding principally British and American, but also Russian and French, correspondents, "We Saw Spain Die" is a study of how the war correspondent came of age. (£20)
HUMOUR
Britain at Play - Heath Robinson
British pastimes and their eccentricities. (£21.99)
How to Avoid Huge Ships: And Other Implausibly Titled Books - Diagram Group
2008 marks the 30th anniversary of the Diagram Prize, the momentous annual contest to determine the oddest book title of the year. Here is a joyous celebration of the barmy side of publishing.(£9.99)
Medicine Balls: Consultations with the World's Greatest TV Doctor - Dr. Phil Hammond
The world is full of TV doctors, but only Dr Phil has appeared on "Have I Got News For You" seven times and "Countdown" nineteen times. He is also Private Eye's medical correspondent. Transcripts of his most life-enhancing consultations and comedy, including 89 Minutes to Save the NHS. (£6.99)
Lost in the Post - Kevin Boniface
A postman’s eye of provincial English life by Huddersfield postman of more than 15 years. (£8.99)
The Pub Landlord's Book of British Common Sense - Al Murray
We live in an age of waffle, mumbo-jumbo and bad thinking. We're forever being fed dodgy information by so-called experts. Thank God then for Al Murray. here to put good old-fashioned British common sense back where it belongs. (£7.99)
The "Oldie" Annual 2009 - Richard Ingrams (£9.99)
I Once Met: A Collection of Chance Meetings from "The Oldie" - Richard Ingrams (£7.99)
How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read - Pierre Bayard
In this provocative book, Pierre Bayard contends that in this age of infinite publication, the truly cultivated person is not the one who has read a book, but the one who understands the book's place in our culture. (£8.99)
MBS
Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art - Lewis Hyde
The Trickster spirit, playful, mischievous, subversive, amoral, is a great bother to have around, but paradoxically also indispensable. (£8.99)
Witches Almanac Spring 2009 to Spring 2010 - Theitic (£8.99)
Hedge Witch: Spells, Crafts and Rituals for Natural Magick - Silver RavenWolf (£13.99)
The Angel Almanac - Angela McGerr
Packed within vocations, affirmations and a host of heavenly information, this beautiful package also includes a CD containing angelic meditations to aid life balance and inner peace. (£12.99)
Why is God Laughing?: One Man's Journey to Joy and Spiritual Optimism - Deepak Chopra
A profound and light-hearted, look at the connection between spiritual awareness, optimism and humour (£12.99)
Meditation for Beginners - Jack Kornfield
Guided meditations, including a CD. (£11.99)
MUSIC
The Right Way to Read Music - Harry Baxter
Whether you are learning to play a piano, blow a trumpet, conduct an orchestra or sing, the essentials of music notation are the same. This book is a complete approach to musical study, from the first note you read to the beginnings of harmony. (£5.99)
NATURE & OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES
"Guardian" Book of the Countryside - Phil Daoust
From the spread of the railways and flight to the cities in the early nineteenth century, through to the floods and global warming on the 21st century, this is a timely reminder of just how much the British countryside has endured over the last 200 years. (£12.99)
Collins Mushroom Miscellany - Patrick Harding
A compilation of all of the fascinating biological , folklore, uses and history. (£14.99)
Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum - Richard Fortey
An intimate biography of the Natural History Museum, celebrating the eccentric personalities who have peopled it and capturing the wonders of scientific endeavour, academic rigour and imagination. (£8.99)
Beechcombings: The Narratives of Trees - Richard Mabey
Beech trees reached Britain about 8,000 years ago, and they were workhorses, not ornaments. Mabey covers Europe as well as Britain, and his beeches are characterful; he writes about the bluebells, orchids, fungi, deer and badgers associated with them, as well as the narratives we tell about trees and the images we make of them. (£8.99)
Moveable Feasts: An Outdoor Enthusiast's Guide to What to Eat and How to Cook it - Amy-Jane Beer; Roy Halpin
A guide to optimal nutrition and camp cooking for anyone that needs to cook or eat outdoors, in two parts: information and practical advice on everything from choosing the best energy-giving foods to building a fire pit and avoiding water borne illnesses; and over a hundred easy-to-follow recipes for nutritious, mouth-watering camp meals that will fuel you well into the next day's action. (£12.95)
The Southern Fells - Mark Richards
The modern rucksack reference for the discerning fell adventurer. One of eight books providing a comprehensive and contemporary guide to the fells of the English Lake District. (£12.95)
The Stargazer's Guide: How to Read Our Night Sky - Emily Winterburn
A starry sky has the capacity to fill us with wonder. A stargazer is anyone who's ever found themselves looking at the stars and wanting to know a bit more. This book will guide you through what there is to see in the sky, why it's interesting and how previous generations have viewed and interpreted it, organised month by month. (£14.99)
Stargazers' Almanac 2009: Monthly Guide to the Stars and Planets (£14.99)
PHILOSOPHY
Towards the Light: The story of the struggles for Liberty and Rights that made the modern West - A.C. Grayling
The often-violent conflicts of the 15th and 16th centuries were sparked by the pursuit of freedom of thought: the English Civil War and revolutions in America and France. Now governments under pressure find it necessary to restrict rights in the name of freedom. (£8.99)
The Atheist's Bible: An Illustrious Collection of Irreverent Thoughts - Joan Konner
Brings together the best of the great scientists, writers, philosophers, and comedians throughout history who have questioned the wisdom (and sanity) of organised religion. (£9.99)
Introducing Logic - Dan Cryan; Sharron Shatil; Bill Mayblin (£6.99)
Introducing Nietzsche - Laurence Gane (£6.99)
Introducing Ethics - Dave Robinson; Chris Garratt (£6.99)
POETRY & DRAMA
The Cambridge Introduction to Sylvia Plath - Jo Gill (£10.99)
The Brontes, Selected Poems - York Notes (£6.99)
Penguin's Poems for Life - ed. Laura Barber
Taking its inspiration from Shakespeare's idea of the "seven ages" of a human life, this new anthology brings together the best-loved poems in English to inspire, comfort and delight readers for a lifetime. (£9.99)
Under Milk Wood and Other Plays - Dylan Thomas (Naxos CD)
Read by Richard Burton, Hugh Griffith and Richard Bebb (£10.99)
Gerard Manley Hopkins (Naxos CD)
Read by: Jeremy Northam (£8.99)
POLITICS
Citizens to Lords: A Social History of Western Political Thought from Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages - Ellen Meiksins Wood
An innovative approach to the history of political theory, tracing the development of the Western tradition from classical antiquity through the late Middle Ages and examining the ideas of canonical thinkers as creative responses to the social relations and conflicts of their time and place. (£19.99)
More Time for Politics: Diaries 2001-2007 - Tony Benn (£8.99)
SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS
Smoot's Ear: The Measure of Humanity - Robert Tavernor
Measures are the subject of this unusual book, in which Robert Tavernor offers a fascinating account of the various measuring systems human beings have devised over two millennia. (£10.99)
SPORT
A Cultured Left Foot: The Eleven Elements of Footballing Greatness - Musa Okwonga
Laid out here are the eleven key elements that make up footballing greatness, in a thinking-man's study of the beautiful game. Highlighting such elements as Vision, Toughness, Graft, Endurance and Madness, "A Cultured Left Foot" is an insightful and amusing study into the finer points of the world's favourite game. (£8.99)
The Original Rules of Rugby - The Bodleian Library
Reproduces both the first rules of the game, drawn up at Rugby School in 1845 and the first rules of the Rugby Football Union, published in 1871. It also includes images from the unique manuscript held at the Rugby Football Union as well as nineteenth-century illustrations of the game. (£5.99)
TRAVEL
India's Unending Journey: Finding Balance in a Time of Change - Mark Tully
Sir Mark Tully embarks on a journey that takes in the many faces of India, and explores how successfully India reconciles opposites, marries the sensual with the sacred, finds harmony in discord, and treats certainty with suspicion. (£8.99)
Biografi - Lloyd Jones
Biografi became become the centre of a heated controversy. Was it fact or fiction? Had Lloyd Jones concocted his story of life in the new Albania? Or was it travel literature as its publishers insisted? Equal parts travelogue, political reportage and bizarre mystery novel, Lloyd Jones crosses Albania as it reinvents itself - a volatile, surreal wonderland where nothing is quite as it seems. (£7.99)
Lonely Planet Travel Book: Mini
A diminutive, square re-packaging of the original The Travel Book, with every country on the planet captured in photographs and evocative text both updated for this re-incarnation. (£9.99)
New Lonely Planet guides to New Zealand, "Brussels Bruges Antwerp & Ghent" and
New York City and a new Rough Guide to New Zealand
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
For babies and toddlers
There’s a Yeti in My Shed –
Daniel Postgate
There’s a yeti in our potting shed./I can’t
believe my eyes./I never thought you’d get a yeti/In a shed that size!"
Meet a new and entertaining character, a gigantic but friendly YETI! Full of
energetic pictures. (£5.99)
For younger
children
How the Whale Became by Ted Hughes, illustrated by
Jackie Morris
Long ago when the world was brand new, before animals or
birds, the sun rose into the sky and brought the first day. Ted Hughes' classic
version of the creation myths is beautifully illustrated by Jackie Morris.
(£9.99)
Mr Gum and the Dancing Bear by Andy Stanton
Do
you like bears called Padlock? Course you do. Do you like hot-air balloons?
Course you do. Do you like tall sailing ships with mad sea captains, and
horrifying old villains and words like 'wab!', 'tungler' and 'kelp'? COURSE you
do! Well, this book's got all of those things - and a lot more besides! For 7+
(£4.99)
For older children
Tamburlaine’s Elephants
by Geraldine McCaughrean
Rusti is a Tartar, travelling and pillaging
with the legendary Horde of Tamburlaine, Conqueror of the World. He dreams of
honour and riches, and is proud to capture his first prisoners - an elephant
and her keeper. Amidst the death and destruction, an unlikely friendship takes
hold. For 11+. (£5.99)
Oathbreaker by Michelle Paver
To fulfil his oath of revenge,
Torak must brave the hidden valleys of the Deep Forest, where the clans have
reverted to the savagery of an earlier time. Here, he finally learns why he is
the Sprit Walker and discovers the true cost of revenge. (£9.99)
Cherub:The General - Robert Muchamore
Tenth instalment in the
hugely successful series and James and Lauren are off to America to help train
the army, getting into trouble in Las Vegas. (£6.99)
AUDIO
Alan Bennett Children's Collection (BBC CDs)
Boxed set collection of stories read by Alan Bennett: Winnie the Pooh, House at Pooh Corner, Wind in the Willows, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. (£35)
AUGUST 2008
FICTION
HARDBACK
Man in the Dark - Paul Auster
Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident. Plagued by insomnia, he tries to push back thoughts of things he would prefer to forget by telling himself stories about a parallel world in which America is not at war with Iraq but with itself. (£12.99 at The Book Case)
PAPERBACK
Harm - Brian Aldiss
In the very near future Paul Ali, a young science fiction writer, has been arrested for no compelling reason. He is held as prisoner B, without a lawyer and isolated, beaten up and questioned. To escape from this humiliation he writes - in the privacy of his mind - a science fiction novel set on a planet in every sense a thousand light years away. But gradually the two worlds start to converge ... (£7.99)
Life Class - Pat Barker
In the spring of 1914 a group of students at the Slade School of Art have gathered for a life-drawing class. Paul Tarrant withdraws from an intriguing fellow student, Elinor Brooke, in the face of competition from a well-known painter, but finally, in the first few days of war, they turn to each other. (£7.99)
Pontoon - Garrison Keillor
Welcome to Lake Wobegon and another classic humorous tale of small-time life and colourful characters. (£7.99)
The Careful Use of Compliments - Alexander McCall Smith
More from the Sunday Philosophy Club, as Isabel Dalhousie tries to get through life with a clear conscience despite baby Charlie, his father Jamie, her furious niece Cat, her son and her formidable housekeeper Grace. (£6.99)
What I Was - Meg Rosoff
Coming of age story set in the early ‘60s on the East Anglian coast where a fragile wooden hut owned by an enigmatic and beautiful Finn. is battered daily by the sea. (£6.99)
The Point of Rescue - Sophie Hannah
Sally is watching the news with her husband when she hears a name she ought not to recognise: Mark Bretherick. But the man on the news is someone she has never seen before. (£6.99)
Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson
Set in south-east Asia and the US, and spanning two decades, it ostensibly tells the story of Skip Sands, a CIA spy who may or may not be engaged in psychological operations against the Viet Cong - but also takes the reader on a surreal and vivid journey. (£8.99)
Exit Music - Ian Rankin
It's late autumn in Edinburgh and late autumn in the career of Detective Inspector John Rebus. As he tries to tie up some loose ends before retirement, a murder case intrudes. A dissident Russian poet has been found dead in what looks like a mugging gone wrong. (£7.99 but due to be part of our 3/2 offer)
The Draining Lake - Arnaldur Indridason
In the wake of an earthquake, the water level of an Icelandic lake drops suddenly, revealing the skeleton of a man half-buried in its sandy bed. There is a large hole in the skull and a heavy communication device is attached to it, bearing inscriptions in Russian. (£6.99)
REISSUES
Medieval Comic Tales - ed. Derek Brewer
From humour to farce, from sophisticated literary parody to blunt crudeness. Piety jostles blasphemy, and sex and death are everywhere good for a joke. From the French, Spanish, Dutch, German, medieval Latin, Italian and English. (£9.99)
Sylvia’s Lovers - Elizabeth Gaskell (£7.99)
The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy
'The woman is no good to me. Who'll have her?' (£5.99)
In a Glass Darkly - J Sheridan Le Fanu
‘The ideal reading...for the hours after midnight'. Le Fanu’s writings draw on the Gothic tradition, elements of Irish folklore, and even on the social and political anxieties of his Anglo-Irish contemporaries. (£7.99)
Law and the Lady, Wilkie Collins (£8.99)
Under Western Eyes - Joseph Conrad (£7.99)
The Awakening: And Other Stories - Kate Chopin
'She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before.' Kate Chopin was one of the most individual and adventurous of nineteenth-century American writers, whose fiction explored new and often startling territory. (£7.99)
The Tortoise and the Hare - Elizabeth Jenkins
Imogen, the beautiful and much younger wife of a distinguished barrister Evelyn Gresham, is facing the greatest challenge of her married life. Their neighbour Blanche Silcox, competent, middle-aged and ungainly, the very opposite of Imogen, seems to be vying for Evelyn's attention - and she may be succeeding. (£7.99)
The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
When a freak cosmic event renders most of the Earth's population blind, Bill Masen is one of the lucky few to retain his sight. (£7.99)
Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham
The classic story of the power wielded by science in our lives, asking how much trust we should place in those we appoint to be its guardian. (£7.99)
God on the Rocks - Jane Gardam
During one glorious summer between the wars, the realities of life and the sexual ritual dance of the adult world creep into the life of young Margaret Marsh. (£7.99)
The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels - Danny Fingeroth
Includes the medium's history, from sequential art in Egyptian tombs, through the superhero boom of the 1940s to the birth of the graphic novel movement and the latest online offerings. (£11.99)
NON-FICTION
ART
How to Read Chinese Paintings - Maxwell K. Hearn
Spanning a thousand years of Chinese art, these landscapes, flowers, birds, figures, religious subjects, and calligraphies illuminate the main goal of every Chinese artist: to capture not only the outer appearance of a subject but also its inner essence. Beautiful book. (£18.00)
Tiger Seen on Shaftesbury Avenue: The National Gallery's Grand Tour
Over the course of twelve weeks in summer the London streets of Soho, Piccadilly and Covent Garden were lined with some of the world's most famous paintings, turning the West End into a giant gallery. This book shows the pictures on the streets and some reactions. How about something similar in Hebden Bridge? (£10.95)
BIOGRAPHY
Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and His Scandalous Duchess - Alison Weir
Katherine Synford was first the mistress, and later the wife, of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster. Her charismatic lover was one of the most powerful princes of the fourteenth century and Katherine was renowned for her beauty and regarded as enigmatic, intriguing and even dangerous. (£8.99)
Selective Memory - Katharine Whitehorn
Katharine Whitehorn pioneered the first of the personal columns. She told us how it really was. She was funny - and smart. The Observer's star columnist for 40 years, she is also famous for Cooking in a Bedsitter. (£8.99)
Penguin Great Ideas Series, £4.99 each, including:
A Confession - Leo Tolstoy
Days of Reading - Marcel Proust
ENVIRONMENT
Seven Wonders for a Cool Planet: Everyday Things to Help Solve Global Warming - Eric Sorensen
What do a clothesline, a locally grown tomato, and a microchip have in common? They're all ordinary things, or ""wonders"", that can have extraordinary impact in the fight against global warming. (£5.99)
FOOD
Preserves: River Cottage Handbook No. 2 - Pam Corbin
Preserving is a centuries-old way to make the most out of every season, stretching the more bountiful months into the sparser ones - and what's more, it is fun, rewarding and easy to learn. (£12.99)
The Really Useful Ultimate Vegetarian Student Cookbook - Helen Aitken
Packed with recipes that are cheap, good for you and very easy to cook with limited equipment. Everything you need to know about buying and storing food, which equipment is really necessary, what to eat to keep you healthy, and useful tips about food hygiene. (£4.99)
GARDENING
The Organic Fruit and Vegetable Gardener's Year: A Seasonal Guide to Growing What You Eat - Graham Clarke
An indispensable guide for the aspiring organic gardener from the Guild of Master Craftsmen. (£14.99)
HISTORY
Roman Roads - Hugh Davies
The vast networks of roads throughout the Roman Empire were vital to the expansion of Roman culture, power and influence across the world and one of their principal uses was the transportation of the Legions to strategic bases in the most direct way possible. This book details the planning, construction and maintenance of these road networks, and discusses the different types of Roman road found in areas of Britain, and their many uses. (£6.99)
Tickets Please!: A Nostalgic Journey Through Railway Station Life - Paul Atterbury
A winning mix of railway and social history, all brought to life by wonderful photographs and illustrations, many never seen before. (£14.99)
LANGUAGE
Collins Scrabble Dictionary (£5.99)
Teach Yourself Beginner's Polish - Nigel Gotteri; Joanna Michalak-Gray (£9.99)
There are also CDs available.
Linguistics for Beginners - Terrence W. Gordon (£8.99)
LIFESTYLE
The Siblings' Busy Book - Lisa Hanson; Heather Kempskie
200 activities that kids of different ages can enjoy together. (£6.95)
Napkin Origami: 25 Creative and Fun Ideas for Napkin Folding - ed. Brian Sawyer
Why fold a napkin into an ordinary square when it can become a swan, bread holder, or pirate's ship?
NATURE
This Birding Life: The Best of the "Guardian's" Birdwatch - Stephen Moss
A birdwatching autobiography, from early cootwatching as a young boy, through teenage cycle trips toDungeness, to adult travels around the world as a TV producer. (£7.99)
A Sky Full of Starlings: A Diary of a Birding Year - Stephen Moss
Stephen Moss began on 1 January 2007, to chronicle each species of bird as he was seeing it for the first time last year, and continued to do so until 31 December. The result is both a unique chronicle of Britain's natural history and a touching and funny piece of autobiography - a year of life measured out in birds. (£12.99)
Crow Country - Mark Cocker
Rooks and jackdaws are both members of the same bird family, corvids or "crows". Prompted by the twice-daily flight-lines of rooks and jackdaws over over his house, Mark Cocker followed them and began a nationwide search, piecing together their inner lives, the British relationship with the rook and the richness hidden in that sombre voice. "Crow Country" is a prose poem in a long tradition of English pastoral writing. and a powerful restatement of the central importance of nature in human affairs. (£8.99)
Corvus: A Life with Birds - Esther Woolfson
Living with a talking magpie named Spike, Chicken the rook, and, recently, a baby crow named Ziki, Esther Woolfson has been amazed by the corvids’ intelligence, personality and capacity for affection, and has learnt aspects of bird behaviour which would otherwise have been impossible to know - the way they happily become part of the structure of a family, how they communicate, their astonishing empathy. (£16.99)
In Her Element: Women and the Landscape - An Anthology, ed. Jane
MacNamee
20 women writers from all over Wales recount their deep
personal connections to the landscapes which have shaped their lives,
presenting nature as a healer and teacher.
The Edible Mushroom Book - Anna Del Conte; Thomas Laessoe
A gourmet's guide to foraging and cooking mushrooms. From common puffballs to golden wax caps, morels to chanterelles, find out how to forage, prepare and cook delicious mushrooms that are wild, fresh and free. (£12.99)
The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History - David Beerling
Puts plants centre stage, revealing the crucial role they have played in driving global changes in the environment, in recording hidden facets of Earth's history, and in helping us to predict its future. Reveals how plummeting carbon dioxide levels removed a barrier to the evolution of the leaf; how plants played a starring role in pushing oxygen levels upwards, and it strengthens fascinating and contentious fossil evidence for an ancient hole in the ozone layer. (£8.99)
Silent Fields: The Long Decline of a Nation's Wildlife - Roger Lovegrove
Since time immemorial mankind has taken it upon himself to wage war against nature -- against those species of birds and mammals which he believes conflict with his livelihood. This remarkable book is about that war of attrition against the native mammals and birds of England and Wales from the middle ages to the present day. (£12.99)
PHILOSOPHY
Kierkegaard for Beginners - Donald D Palmer (£8.99)
Foucault for Beginners - Lydia Alix Fillingham (£8.99)
Penguin Great Ideas Series, £4.99 each, including: Man Alone with Himself - Friedrich Nietzsche
PLAYS & FILM
Made in Yorkshire - Tony Earnshaw
A glorious celebration of
all the feature films shot in the county from the inception of film to the
present day, including in-depth accounts of more than 30 movies. With a
foreword by the Oscar-winning screenwriter Ronald Harwood, whose film The
Dresser, shot in Bradford, York and and Halifax, features prominently.
(£25.00)
Antigone, Oedipus the King and Electra - Sophocles
Love and loyalty, hatred and revenge, fear, deprivation, and political ambition: these are the motives which thrust the characters portrayed in these three Sophoclean masterpieces on to their collision course with catastrophe. (£5.99)
Shakespeare for Beginners - Brandon Toropov (£8.99)
Reel to Real: Race, Sex and Class at the Movies - Bell Hooks
Movies matter - that is the message of this classic collection of essays on film. They matter on a personal level, providing us with unforgettable moments, even life-changing experiences and they can confront us, too, with the most profound social issues of race, sex and class. (£11.99)
POLITICS & CURRENT AFFAIRS
I Wouldn't Start from Here: Travels in Twenty-first Century Terror, Torture and Torpor - Andrew Mueller
A journey through 21st-century warzones and hotspots in the company of Mueller who asks awkward questions of perpetrators, vicitms and optimists alike (£8.99)
Citizenship: A Very Short Introduction - Richard Bellamy
Interest in citizenship has never been higher. But what does it mean to be a citizen of a modern, complex community? Why is citizenship important? Can we create citizenship, and can we test for it? (£7.99)
NHS Plc: The Privatisation of Our Health Care - Allyson M Pollock (reissue)(£9.99)
Penguin Great Ideas Series, £4.99 each, including:
Useful Work v. Useless Toil - William Morris
An Appeal to the Toiling, Oppressed and Exhausted Peoples of Europe - Leon Trotsky
Concerning Violence - Frantz Fanon
REFERENCE
Pears Cyclopaedia 2008-2009, ed. Chris Cook (£20)
Official DSA Theory Test For Car Drivers & Highway Code - new edition
TRAVEL
Great British Journeys - Nicholas Crane
Eight traveller-chroniclers - Gerald of Wales, HV Morton, Celia Fiennes, John Leland, Daniel Defoe, William Cobbett, Thomas Pennant, and William Gilpin, who travelled through the north of England by boat in 1770. (£8.99)
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush - Eric Newby
When Eric Newby, improbably earning his living in the London haute-couture trade, sent his fateful cable - 'Can You Travel Nuristan June?' - it was the first step on a legendary journey from Mayfair to Afghanistan and the mountains of the Hindu Kush, north-east of Kabul. 50th anniversary ed. (£8.99)
Flightless: Incredible Journeys without Leaving the Ground
Inspires readers to visit new destinations, and to find new way to get there other than by flying. The stories remind us that reducing one's carbon emissions also brings with it the joy of travel. (£7.99)
The Kindness of Strangers - ed. Don George
A collection of original stories by acclaimed writers, including Jan Morris, Tim Cahill, Simon Winchester, Dave Eggers, and Anthony Sattin, exploring the theme of finding good fortune on the road. With a preface by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. (£7.99)
I Was a Potato Oligarch: Travels and Travails in the New Russia - John Mole (£9.99)
Meeting the Medicine Men: An Englishman's Travels Among the Navajo - Charles Langley (£9.99)
Lake District - Lesley Anne Rose
From Crimson Publishing, an
attractive and colourful guide to help visitors get the most out of their time
in the Lake District, be it a two-week holiday, short break or long weekend.
From Blue Guides, the little “art/shop/eat” guides to Paris and Barcelona at £4.99 each
From Explorer, a selection of city mini maps (£2.99 each) and mini guides (£5.99 each)
A new Sunflower Guide to Eastern Crete
DIARIES AND CALENDARS
2009 is on its way! We already have in stock the Hebden Bridge calendar, a range of Moleskine diaries and New Internationalist Planner 2009 (£8.95) Our excellent range of colourful calendars and other posh diaries will start arriving this month.
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Ages 0-5yrs
From publishers with the enchanting name of Picthall and Gunzi, a range of colourful board books.
Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears - Emily Gravett
The paperback edition of the novelty picture book, with elements including flaps, die-cuts and a fold-out map. Young children will identify with the little mouse who uses the pages of this book to document his fears - from loud noises and the dark to being sucked down the plughole. Ages: 0-3 yrs. (£6.99)
Ages 5-9yrs
My Dad's a Birdman- David Almond
Lizzie and Dad live in a rainy town in the north of England. It's just the two of them, and Auntie Doreen, who pops round to check Lizzie's spellings and tell Dad he's daft - and make them nice hot dumplings. But today there's something unusual going on: why is Dad building himself a pair of wings and studying the birds to see how they fly? . Ages: 8+ yrs (£6.99)
Ages 9-11yrs
Firestorm: Dragon Orb - Mark Robson
Dragons in Areth each have a single predestined rider and a single life mission, given to them by the Oracle. But this once-powerful being is now fatally damaged. Only the dragons and their riders can save it! Ages: 10+ yrs (£6.99)
Teenage Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox - Eoin Colfer
The eagerly anticipated 6th book in the multi-award winning series and teenage criminal mastermind, Artemis Fowl has a new mission - and this time, it's personal. His mother is dangerously ill, and the only way to find a cure is for Artemis - with Holly Short by his side - to go back in time to battle his younger and more evil self. Ages 10+ (£12.99)
JULY 2008
FICTION
PAPERBACK
The Road Home - Rose Tremain
Lev is on his way to Britain to seek work, so that he can send money back to Eastern Europe to support his mother and little daughter. We see the road through Lev's eyes, and we share his dilemmas. (£7.99)
The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett
HM the Queen drifts accidentally into reading when her corgis stray into a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace. She reads widely and intelligently. Her reading naturally changes her world view and her relationship with people like the oleaginous prime minister and his repellent advisers. (£6.99)
Starbook - Ben Okri
The tale of a prince and a maiden in a mythical land where a golden age is ending. Their fragile story considers the important questions we all face, exploring creativity, wisdom, suffering and transcendence in a time when imagination still ruled the world. (£7.99)
The People on Privilege Hill - Jane Gardam
On a wet day in Dorset, Sir Edward Feathers QC, his scruffy neighbour and sparring partner, Veneering, and Fiscal-Smith, the meanest lawyer ever to make a fortune at the Bar, walk to a luncheon party at Privilege Hill, an old house with a chequered history. (£7.99)
The Ghost - Robert Harris
Britain's former prime minister is holed up in a remote, ocean-front house in America, struggling to finish his memoirs, assisted by a professional ghostwriter - a man more used to working with fading rock stars and minor celebrities than ex-world leaders. (£7.99)
Crime - Irvine Welsh
Detective Inspector Ray Lennox, recovering from a mental breakdown, meets two women in a seedy bar in strip-mall Florida, and finds himself resonsible for a terrified ten-year-old girl. (£12.99)
The Anti-Social Behaviour of Horace Rumpole - John Mortimer
ASBOs may be the pride and joy of New Labour, but they don't cut much ice with Horace Rumpole - he takes the old-fashioned view that if anyone is going to be threatened with a restriction of their liberty then some form of legal proceeding ought to be gone through first. (£7.99)
The Stone Gods - Jeanette Winterson
On the airwaves, all the talk is of the new blue planet - pristine and habitable, like our own 65 million years ago, before we took it to the edge of destruction. And off the air, Billie and Spike are falling in love. (£7.99)
First Among Sequels - Jasper Fforde
Thursday Next is back. And this time it's personal ... In this world of dangerously short attention spans, there's no rest for the literate. Can Thursday stop Pride and Prejudice being turned into a vote-em-off reality book? Who killed Sherlock Holmes? And will Thursday get her teenage son out of bed in time for him to save the world? (£6.99)
Not in the Flesh - Ruth Rendell
Searching for truffles in a wood, a man and his dog unearth something less savory. The body, as Chief Inspector Wexford is informed later, has lain buried for ten years or so, and the post-mortem can not reveal the precise cause of death. (£6.99)
End Games - Michael Dibdin
Aurelio Zen is posted to Calabria, where in the heart of a tight-knit traditional community there has been a brutal murder. The final Aurelio Zen novel from the late master of Italian crime fiction.(£6.99)
Stone Cold - David Baldacci
Oliver Stone and the Camel Club are back for their most dangerous adventure yet. Casino king and vicious thug Jerry Bagger is hunting Annabelle Conroy, who conned him out of millions. (£6.99)
The Return - Hakan Nesser
An unmissable hospital appointment is looming for Inspector Van Veeteren when a corpse is found rolled in a rotting carpet by a young child playing in a local beauty spot. From the popular Swedish crime author of "Borkmann’s Point". (£7.99)
REISSUES
The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
It is 1962 and the Second World War has been over for seventeen years: people have now had a chance to adjust to the new order. The Mediterranean has been drained to make farmland, the population of Africa has virtually been wiped out and America has been divided between the Nazis and the Japanese. (£6.99)
New Oxford World’s Classics editions:
The Professor - Charlotte Bronte
The Professor challenged contemporary expectations of the novel by its brevity, realism, and insistence on a working career both before and after marriage for its hero and heroine. The action begins against a background of the fight for better factory conditions in the 1830s. (£6.99)
Agnes Grey - Anne Bronte
Anne Bronte's first-person narrative describes the pressures endured by nineteenth-century governesses - the isolation, the frustration, and the insensitive and sometimes cruel treatment meted out by employers and their families. (£5.99)
Germinal - Emile Zola
Zola's 1885 masterpiece of working life, exposing the inhuman conditions of miners in northern France in the 1860s. New edition from Oxford World’s Classics. (£8.99)
The Ladies' Paradise - Emile Zola
Octave Mouret, the owner-manager of a great Parisian late 19th-century department store, masterfully exploits the desires of his female customers. In his private life as much as in business he is the great seducer. But one of his salesgirls refuses to be commodified. (£6.99)
The Masterpiece - Emile Zola
The most autobiographical of the twenty novels in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series. Set in the 1860s and 1870s, it provides a unique insight into his career as a writer and his relationship with Cezanne, a friend since their schooldays in Aix-en-Provence. It also presents a well-documented account of the turbulent Bohemian world in which the Impressionists came to prominence despite the conservatism of the Academy and the ridicule of the general public. (£7.99)
No Name - Wilkie Collins
Two young women find they are legally illegitimate and struggle to cope with their changed status, by very different methods. (£6.99)
Basil - Wilkie Collins
In Basil's secret and unconsummated marriage to the linen-draper's sexually precocious daughter, and the shocking betrayal, insanity, and death that follow, Collins reveals the bustling, commercial London of the nineteenth century wreaking its vengeance on a still powerful aristocratic world. (£7.99)
About Love and Other Stories - Anton Chekhov (£7.99)
The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service - Erskine Childers
Sardonic civil servant Carruthers reluctantly accepts an invitation to join a college friend on a sailing holiday in the Baltic - where they discover a German plot to invade England. (£7.99)
NON-FICTION
BIOGRAPHY
The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street - Charles Nicholl
In 1612 Shakespeare gave evidence at the Court of Requests in Westminster - the only occasion his spoken words were ever recorded. A remarkable work of detection to reveal a portrait of Shakespeare as a lodger in a house in Silver Street in bustling Elizabethan London. (£8.99)
The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals - Dorothy Wordsworth
A unique record of her life with her brother William, at the time when he was at the height of his poetic powers, with valuable insights into the daily life of the poet and his friendship with Coleridge, and remarkable for their spontaneity and immediacy, and for the vivid descriptions of people, places, and incidents. New OWC edition. (£8.99)
80 Years in the Dales - Hannah Hauxwell
This first major book on Hannah for eight years traces the extraordinary life of a delightful personality who has never lost her links with the Dales countryside. It includes many hitherto unpublished photographs. (£15.99)
A Voyage Round John Mortimer - Valerie Grove
Novelist, playwright and barrister John Mortimer has led an extraordinarily rich life, privately and professionally, much of it in the public eye. This is a riveting account of the life of one of the great figures of our time. (£9.99)
My Booky Wook - Russell Brand
'My life is a series of embarrassing incidents strung together by telling people about those embarrassing incidents.' (£7.99)
HISTORY
Rock Art and Ritual: Interpretive Studies within Prehistoric Landscapes of the North York Moors - Brian A. Smith; Alan A. Walker
The first major interpretive work about prehistoric rock motifs in this area based on the authors' extensive fieldwork. It includes new interpretations of the Brow Moor monument and cup-marked stones, while studying the monuments in relation to the surrounding landscape and re-evaluating astronomical and calendrical associations. (£14.99)
Discovery of France - Graham Robb
A stunning journey through the historical landscape of France. (£9.99)
HOBBIES AND PUZZLES
"Guardian" Crosswords: Quick One - Hugh Stephenson (£6.99)
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
The Writer's Handbook 2009 - ed. Barry Turner (£14.99)
MUSIC
Humphrey Lyttelton's Best of Jazz
Looks in detail at a wide range of great jazz figures and their classic recordings, with plenty of lively historical background, from the late great Humph. (£9.99)
NATURE
The Wild Places - Robert Macfarlane
An intellectual and physical journey in time as well as space. Mixes history, memory and landscape in a strange and beautiful evocation of wildness and its vital importance. (£8.99)
A Gleaming Landscape: A Hundred Years of the "Guardian's" Country Diary, ed. Martin Wainwright
Martin Wainwright's sparkling compilation of a hundred years of the "Guardian's" much-loved Country Diary includes neighbours woken at midnight to be shown a glow-worm; a beached shark to be saved from the council binmen; a peregrine flushed during the Normandy landings; the prevalence of owls in First World War trenches full of vermin, and an earnest preoccupation with stoats. (£7.99)
How to be Wild - Simon Barnes
From the author of "How To Be A Bad Birdwatcher", this takes the reader on a journey through a year, with sparrows and flying squirrels, elephants, badgers and mosquitoes as companions. (£8.99)
Philip's Mini Guide to Mushrooms - Geoffrey Kibby (£4.99)
Philip's Mini Guide to Trees - Chris Humphries; Bob Press; David Sutton (£4.99)
Philip's Mini Guide to Weather - Storm Dunlop (£4.99)
POETRY AND DRAMA
New editions from Oxford World's Classics:
The Odyssey - Homer, trans. Walter Shewring (£5.99)
The Iliad - Homer, trans. Robert Fitzgerald (£6.99)
Aeneid - Virgil, trans. Frederick Ahl
The story of Aeneas' seven-year journey from the ruins of Troy to Italy, where he becomes the founding ancestor of Rome, is a narrative on an epic scale. Frederick Ahl's new translation echoes the Virgilian hexameter. (£8.99)
Tales of the Elders of Ireland - ed. Ann Dooley; Harry Roe
The first complete translation of the late Middle Irish Acallam na Senorach. It contains the earliest and most comprehensive collection of Fenian stories and poetry, intermingling the contemporary Christian world of Saint Patrick, the earlier pagan world of the ancient, giant Fenians and Irish kings, and the parallel, timeless Otherworld, peopled by ever-young, shape-shifting fairies. (£7.99)
Othello - William Shakespeare (Naxos CDs)
This highly acclaimed performance, which ran recently at the Donmar Warehouse in London, features Chiwetel Ejiofor as the Moor Othello, Ewan McGregor as the scheming Iago, and Kelly Reilly as the gentle Desdemona. (£13.99)
SCIENCE AND MATHS
Making Time: Why Time Seems to Pass at Different Speeds and How to Control it - Steve Taylor (£8.99)
One to Nine: The Inner Life of Numbers - Andrew Hodges (£7.99)
SMALLHOLDING
Choosing and Keeping Ducks and Geese - Liz Wright (£12.99)
THOUGHT
Chomsky: A Guide for the Perplexed - John Collins
Shows how Chomsky's linguistic theory, philosophy and politics are all connected, and by so doing helps the reader to understand this key thinker's massive contribution to twentieth-century thought. (£12.99)
TRAVEL
Narrowboat Dreams: A Journey North by England's Waterways - Steve Haywood
"A cantankerous old git" travels by traditional narrowboat along two newly opened Pennine canals from Banbury through the vibrant modernity of Manchester, to "the trendy affluence of Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire's answer to London's ciabatta belt". Hurrah! (£7.99)
From the Mull to the Cape: A Gentle Bike Ride on the Edge of Wilderness - Richard Guise
Richard Guise went on a 600-mile, 16-day bike ride through the Highlands of Scotland, from the Mull of Kintyre in the south to Cape Wrath in the north, taking in long sections of the dramatically beautiful west coast along the way. Includes midges and severe bouts of traditional Highland weather. (£7.99)
The Oregon Trail - Francis Parkman
The gripping account of Francis Parkman's journey west across North America in 1846. (£8.99)
2009 Road Atlases of Britain from the AA, Collins and Philip’s.
Toxic Airlines - Tristan Loraine
Tells the story of contaminated air on aircraft - an issue that those who fly need to know. (£9.99)
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Ages 0-5yrs
Hairy Maclary’s Hat Tricks - Lynley Dodd
It's a blusterous, gusterous, dusterous day and Hairy Maclary is ready to play. The rhyming text, appealing characters and illustrations make these firm picture book favourites with generations of children. Ages: 2+ yrs. (£5.99)
Ages 5-9yrs
Roman Things To Make and Do - Leonie Pratt
Suitable for gung ho gladiators, striving centurions and aspiring Caesar's, this title contains Roman themed activities, including a soldier's helmet and sword. It contains information boxes with facts about the Romans.Ages: 5+ yrs (£4.99)
Ages 9-11yrs
Percy Jackson & The Battle Of The Labyrinth - Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson, young demi-god, is back in a 4th adventure and with a striking new foil cover look. A dangerous enemy has found his way through an ancient labyrinth built by the legendary Daedalus, and is intent on destruction. Can Percy and his friends find Daedalus and unlock the mysteries of the maze? Ages: 10+. (£9.99)
Teenage
Superior Saturday - Garth Nix
Arthur Penhaligon has wrested five of the Keys from their immortal guardians, the Trustees of the Will. But gaining the Sixth Key poses a greater challenge than any he has ever faced before. Ages: 9-12 yrs (£5.99)
JUNE 2008
FICTION
HARDBACK
Vows of Silence - Susan Hill
A gunman is terrorising young women in the Cathedral town of Laffteron. What - if anything - links the apparently random murders? Is the marksman with the rifle the same as the killer with the handgun? "The Vows of Silence" is a sequel to the "Various Haunts of Men", "The Pure in Heart" and "The Risk of Darkness". (£10.99 at The Book Case)
Sea of Poppies - Amitav Ghosh
From the author of "Glass Palace", an epic saga, set just before the Opium Wars, centred on an old slaving-ship, The Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its crew a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts. (£16.99 at The Book Case)
PAPERBACK
Falling Man - Don DeLillo
There is September 11 and then there are the days after, and finally the years. "Falling Man" begins in the smoke and ash of the burning towers and traces the aftermath of this global tremor in the intimate lives of a few individuals. (£7.99)
Making Money - Terry Pratchett
The long-awaited, brand new adult Discworld novel no 31. Who would not to wish to be the man in charge of Ankh-Morpork's Royal Mint and the bank next door? But the Chief Cashier is almost certainly a vampire and there's something nameless in the cellar ... (£7.99)
Where Three Roads Meet - Salley Vickers
It is 1938 and Sigmund Freud, suffering from cancer, has been permitted by the Nazis to leave Vienna for England. But his last months are made vivid by the arrival of a stranger, who comes and goes according to Freud's state of health. (£7.99)
Michael Tolliver Lives - Armistead Maupin
Michael Tolliver, the sweet-spirited Southerner in "Tales of the City" series, now 55, tells his story in his own voice. (£7.99)
After Dark - Haruki Murakami
Murakami, acclaimed master of the surreal, returns with a stunning new novel, where the familiar can become unfamiliar after midnight, even to those that thrive in small hours. (£7.99)
If You Liked School, You'll Love Work - Irvine Welsh
His first short-story collection since "The Acid House", Irvine Welsh sets us five tricky questions. (£7.99)
The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton
A lost child, a terrible secret and a mysterious inheritance. From the author of "The House at Riverton". (£7.99)
Girl Meets Boy - Ali Smith
Ali Smith's re-mix of Ovid's most joyful metamorphosis is a story about the kind of fluidity that can't be bottled and sold. It is about girls and boys, girls and girls, love and transformation, a story of puns and doubles, reversals and revelations. Funny and fresh, poetic and political, "Girl Meets Boy" is a myth of metamorphosis for the modern world. (£7.99)
The End of Mr. Y - Scarlett Thomas
When Ariel Manto uncovers a copy of "The End of Mr. Y" in a second-hand bookshop, she can't believe her eyes. She knows enough about its author, the outlandish Victorian scientist Thomas Lumas, to know that copies are exceedingly rare. And, some say, cursed.With Mr. Y under her arm, Ariel finds herself thrust into a thrilling adventure of love, sex, death and time-travel. (£7.99)
Mad Woman on the Bridge and Other Stories - Su Tong
From the author of "Raise the Red Lantern". Set during the fall-out of the Cultural Revolution, these bizarre and delicate stories capture magnificently the collision of the old China of vanished dynasties, with communism and today's tiger economy. (£7.99)
Love Falls - Esther Freud
When Lara's father, a man she barely knows, invites her to accompany him on holiday, she finds herself far away from the fumes of London's Holloway Road in the sun-scorched hillsides of Tuscany. (£7.99)
Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks - Christopher Brookmyre
New satirical crime novel from the author of "Quite Ugly One Morning" - Jack Parlabane finds himself coming back from the dead. (£7.99)
The Rain Before it Falls - Jonathan Coe
A story of three generations of women whose destinies reach from the English countryside in World War II to London, Toronto, and southern France at the turn of the new century. From the author of "The Rotters' Club". (£7.99)
What Will Survive - Joan Smith
Lebanon makes the British headlines when an Englishwoman dies in a
landmine explosion near the town of Nabatiyeh. Reporters descend on her
Somerset home. (£7.99)
Playing for Pizza - John Grisham
Rick Dockery provides the worst single performance in the history of American Football, is dropped from the team and finds himself playing for the mighty Panthers of Parma, Italy. (£6.99)
Self's Deception - Bernhard Schlink
Private investigator Gerhard Self receives a request to track down the daughter of Herr Salger, the Assistant Secretary of Bonn, who's been absent from her translation classes at the university. Repelled by the pomposity of the government official, he rejects the case. But an insistent letter--and five thousand marks--changes his mind. (£6.99)
The Twilight Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko
Third of the Night Watch series of vampire novels set in post-Soviet Moscow. Agent Anton Gorodetsky's holiday is abruptly shortened when an urgent call from his boss Gesar forces him to return to work. (£7.99)
The Ice People - Maggie Gee
The earth is slowly returning to aridity and cold. A universal freeze has also descended upon relationships between men and women, who live in morbid segregation, with feathered robots as sexual partners. (£7.99)
Spellbound: The Legend of the Ice People - Margit Sandemo
Silje Angrimsdotter's life is turned upside down when the streets of Trodheim on Norway's northern coast is stricken by the plague. It has gripped her village and wiped out her family and she is forced to flee. (£7.00)
REISSUES
The Arabian Nights: based on the text edited by Muhsin Mahdi, trans. Husain Haddawy
A new deluxe trade paperback edition, the well-received translation being based on a landmark reconstruction of the earliest extant manuscript version. (£9.99)
To Build a Fire and Other Favorite Stories - Jack London (£3.50)
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Tales - Washington Irving (£3.50)
Ulysses - James Joyce
Set entirely on one day, 16 June 1904, "Ulysses" follows Leopold Bloom and Stephen Daedalus as they go about their daily business in Dublin. From this starting point, James Joyce constructs a novel of extraordinary imaginative richness and depth. This edition is the accepted reference text for James Joyce studies. (£8.99)
We - Yevgeny Zamyatin, trans. Hugh Aplin
Written in 1921, a story of a dystopian future that influenced "1984". Inside its glass dome the One State is a place of mathematical precision, a community where everything is everyone's and integrity, clarity and unerrring loyalty reign over all. (£8.99)
The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy - Mike Ashley (£7.99)
The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics - Paul Gravett (£12.99)
The Road to Samarcand - Patrick O'Brian
From the stormy South China Seas to the steppes of Central Asia, this is the gripping story of a young man's adventurous spirit leading him on a journey full of fearsome tribes, great danger, friendship and treasure. (£7.99)
On the Road: The Original Scroll - Jack Kerouac (£10.99)
More new editions from Oxford World’s Classics:
Memoirs from the House of the Dead - Fyodor Dostoevsky
In this almost documentary account of his own experiences of penal servitude in Serbia, Dostoevsky describes the physical and mental suffering of the convicts, the squalor and the degradation, in relentless detail. (£8.99)
Notes from the Underground: WITH The Gambler - Fyodor Dostoevsky (£7.99)
The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky (£7.99)
The Karamazov Brothers - Fyodor Dostoevsky
Both a brilliantly told crime story and a passionate philosophical debate. (£6.99)
The Man Who Would be King: and Other Stories - Rudyard Kipling (£5.99)
Kim - Rudyard Kipling (£6.99)
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and Related Tales - Edgar Allan Poe
An archetypal American story of escape from home and family which traces a young man's rite of passage through a series of terrible brushes with death during a fateful sea voyage. But it also goes much deeper, as Pym encounters various interpretative dilemmas, at last leaving the reader with a broken-off ending that defies solution. Plus eight short tales which are linked to Pym. (£7.99)
The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale - Joseph Conrad (£6.99)
Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson
An influential cycle of short stories concerning life in a small Ohio town at the end of the nineteenth century. At the centre is George Willard, a young reporter who becomes the confidant of the town's 'grotesques' - solitary figures unable to communicate with others. . (£7.99)
A Room of One's Own, and Three Guineas - Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf considers with energy and wit the implications of the historical exclusion of women from education and from economic independence. New edition from Oxford World’s Classics. (£5.99)
Orlando: a Biography - Virginia Woolf
The story of the cross-dressing, sex-changing Orlando who begins life as a young noble in the sixteenth century and moves through numerous historical and geographical worlds to finish as a modern woman writer in the 1920s. The book is in part a happy tribute to Vita Sackville-West. (£6.99)
The Waves - Virginia Woolf
Traces the lives and interactions of seven friends in an exploratory and sensuous narrative. (£5.99)
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
This masterpiece concerns the Ramsay family and their summer guests on the Isle of Skye before and after the First World War. (£6.99)
NON-FICTION
ART, CRAFT AND PHOTOGRAPHY
Time - Andy Goldsworthy; Terry Friedman
A sequence of works made around his home in Scotland often shown in series recording their gradual disappearance or transformation is followed by Goldsworthy's diaries of visits to five locations in North America and Europe. (£24.95)
David Bellamy's Watercolour Landscape Course (£12.99)
Watercolour Landscapes - David Bellamy, OBE (£8.99)
Quick Sketching - Carl Cheek (£5.95)
Composition: The Anatomy of Picture Making - Harry Sternberg (£5.95)
Famous Aircraft in Origami: 18 Realistic Models - Jose Maria Chaquet Ulldemolins (£10.95)
The Joy of Kites - Hans Silvester
From China to Bolivia, from Italy to Sri Lanka, each of Hans Silvester’s photographs catches the beauty and grace of these objects, which belong both to the world of children and adults alike. (£16.95)
Very Vintage: The Guide to Vintage Patterns and Clothing - ed. Raven Smith (£24.95)
Paisley Designs Coloring Book - Marty Noble (£3.95)
BIOGRAPHY
The Platform of Time: Memoirs of Family and Friends - Virginia Woolf
Taking family, friends and servants as her subjects, Virginia Woolf here presents a series of impressions of the people around her. (£8.99)
Peeling the Onion - Gunter Grass
A searingly honest memoir that evokes Grass' modest upbringing in Danzig, his time as a boy soldier fighting the Russians and concludes with the writing of his masterpiece, "The Tin Drum", in Paris. (£8.99)
Che: A Graphic Biography - Spain Rodriguez
This dramatic and extensively researched book portraying Che’s struggle through the medium of the underground political comic - one of the most prominent countercultural art forms since the 1960s. (£9.99)
Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes: A Year in the Life of Our Farm - Rosie Boycott
A terrible car accident forced Rosie Boycott, previously editor of the "Daily Express", to rethink her life, and she and her husband work a small farm in Somerset. (£7.99)
CURRENT AFFAIRS & SOCIETY
Wikinomics - Don Tapscott; Anthony Williams
Shows how businesses can collaborate creatively with their customers to succeed in the age of Wikipedia, YouTube and Linux: "Economist" Book of the Year, "Financial Times" Book of the Year, shortlisted for the "Financial Times" Business Book of the Year. (£8.99)
Hold Everything Dear: Dispatches on Survival and Resistance - John Berger
A vital response to today's global economic and military tyranny. From Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 and 7/7, to resistance in Ramallah and traumatic dislocation in the Middle East, it is a profound meditation on what political resistance means today. (£7.99)
Complaint - Julian Baggini
Whereas we once complained about the things that really matter, now we are most likely to be stirred by late trains and bad television programmes. Examines what we complain about, why we do so, the different kinds of complaints we make, why men and women complain about different things, why we complain less than Americans, and whether we should complain differently! (£10.99)
Queuing for Beginners: The Story of Daily Life from Breakfast to Bedtime - Joe Moran
Exploring the history of everyday activities during a typical day, starting with eating breakfast and ending with sleeping, Joe Moran tells a story about hidden social and cultural changes in Britain since the Second World War. (£8.99)
DRAMA
Bacchae and Other Plays - Euripides
"Iphigenia among the Taurians"- a story of escape and contrasting Greek and barbarian civilization; "Bacchae"- a profound exploration of the human psyche, dealing with the appalling consequences of resistance to Dionysus, "Iphigenia at Aulis"- the ultimate dysfunctional family as natural emotion is tested in the tragic crucible of the Greek expedition against Troy, "Rhesus" - a thrilling, action-packed Iliad in miniature, dealing with a grisly event in the Trojan War. New OWC edition. (£7.99)
Stories from Shakespeare: No. 3 - ed. David Timson (Naxos CD)
Read by Juliet Stevenson & Simon Russell Beale: including Much Ado About Nothing, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale, Measure for Measure and All's Well That Ends Well. (£13.99
Under Milk Wood (CD) - Dylan Thomas
Richard Burton and Sian Phillips as the first and second voices. Dylan Thomas' lyrical masterpiece traces the lives of a group of villagers in a tiny Welsh seaport. (£12.99)
FOOD
The Abel and Cole Cookbook: Easy, Seasonal, Organic - Keith Abel (£12.99)
How it All Vegan!: Irresistible Recipes for an Animal Free Diet - Tanya Barnard; Sarah Kramer (£9.99)
HISTORY
The Annals: The Reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero - Cornelius Tacitus
A gripping account of the Roman emperors who followed Augustus, and of the murders, sycophancy, plotting, and oppression that marked this period in Rome; plus the earliest and most detailed account of Boudicca's rebellion in Britain, the great fire of Rome in the reign of Nero, and the persecution of the Christians that followed. (£10.99)
England: 1000 Things You Need to Know - Nicholas Hobbes
Despite a thousand years of glorious history, the people of England know surprisingly little about the facts and fables, people and places and events and emblems that have shaped their country and its heritage.(£8.99)
Spitfire Pilot - David Crook; Richard Overy
Written in 1940, this is a personal account of the Battle of Britain - seen through the eyes of a pilot of the famous 609 Squadron, which shot down over 100 planes in that epic contest. (£8.99)
Service Slang - ed. J. L. Hunt (Flying Officer); A. G. Pringle (Lieutenant) Illustrated by: C. Morgan (Flying Officer)
A light-hearted survey of expressions prevalent in the Army, Navy and R.A.F. during the Second World War. Originally published in 1943. (£7.99)
HUMOUR
The Heart of the Dales - Gervase Phinn
Gervase Phinn is back with his tales of life as a schools inspector in Yorkshire. (£7.99)
Sod Abroad: Why You'd be Mad to Leave the Comfort of Your Own Home - Michael Moran
Ok, it’s not absolutely certain that you’ll catch a fatal bout of food-poisoning or be banged up in jail as a drugs mule. But you might. Why would a sane person risk it? Holidays aren’t economical, they aren’t ecological, and they’re not much bloody fun. (£7.99)
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
Writers' and Artists' Yearbook 2009 (£14.99)
The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature - Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker analyses what our use of words can tell us about ourselves, the use of space and motion as metaphors for more abstract ideas, and the deeper structures of human thought shaped by evolutionary history, as well as the emotional impact of language. (£9.99)
Collins Easy Learning Polish Dictionary (£8.99)
MBS
The Analects - Confucius
Compulsory reading in the late Imperial period for all who wished to enter the Civil Service or Government, Confucius’s sayings and those of his disciples form the foundation of a distinct social, ethical, and intellectual system. New OWC edition. (£7.99)
A Book of Uncommon Prayer - Theo Dorgan
A collection of spiritual and devotional texts, drawn from both inside and outside the limits of the world's religious traditions and intended for believers and non-believers alike. (£8.99)
The Art of Dying - Peter Fenwick; Elizabeth Fenwick
Neuropsychiatrist Dr Peter Fenwick believes that consciousness may be independent of the brain and so able to survive the death of the brain. He hopes to help change attitudes so that we in the West can face up to death and embrace it as a significant and sacred part of life. (£9.99)
Still - In the Storm: How to Manage Your Stress and Achieve Balance in Life - Ann Williamson
An accessible programme of exercises that offer long-term stress solutions. (£6.99)
Change Your Life: 10 Steps to Get What You Want - John Bird
An honest, upfront guide to getting what you want from The Big Issue founder John Bird (£10.99)
Complete Baby and Childcare: Everything You Need to Know for the First Five Years - Miriam Stoppard (£16.99)
Old Moore's Almanack 2009 (£2.99)
NATURE
Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees - Roger Deakin
A celebration of the transforming magic of trees, exploring the 'fifth element' of wood as it exists in nature, in our souls, in our culture and our lives. From the walnut tree at his Suffolk home, Roger Deakin embarks upon a quest that takes him through Britain, across Europe, to Central Asia and Australia, in search of what lies behind man's profound and enduring connection with wood and with trees. (£8.99)
PHILOSOPHY
The Birth of Tragedy - Friedrich Nietzsche
In its wide-ranging discussion of the nature of art, science and religion, Nietzsche's argument raises important questions about the problematic nature of cultural origins which are still of concern today. New OWC edition. (£7.99)
POETRY
Homer's the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey": A Biography (A Book That Shook the World) - Alberto Manguel
Shows how these two poems, written nearly three thousand years ago, have come to resonate throughout the world. (£8.99)
The Satires - Juvenal
New OWC edition. (£8.99)
Betjeman's Britain: Poems from the BBC Archive
A collection of poems read by the poet John Betjeman on radio and live from theatres and halls. (£12.99)
Two Cures for Love - Wendy Cope
A new selection of her poems, with notes. (£12.99)
SPORT
Blazing Saddles: The Cruel and Unusual History of the Tour De France - Matt Rendell (£9.99)
TRAVEL
The Yorkshire Dales - South and West: Howgills, Dentdale, Ribblesdale, Airedale, Wharfdale - Dennis R. Kelsall; Jan Kelsall (£12.00)
Essentials: Trail Riding and Techniques, £6.99
Pocket Mountains: The Yorkshire Dales - Dominic North (£6.99)
New Rough Guides to Britain, the Scottish Highlands and Islands and Sicily
Lanzarote: Hotspots (£4.99)
Gran Canaria: Hotspots (£4.99)
The High Places: Leaves from a Lakeland Notebook - Harry Griffin
Better known as Harry Griffin, and for fifty years the Guardian's country diarist, A.H. Griffin also wrote a weekly feature called 'Leaves from a Lakeland Notebook' for the Lancashire Evening Post for almost thirty years until his death in 2004. This is a selection of those articles with illustrations by Alfred Wainwright. (£12.99)
Mountain: Exploring Britain's High Places - Griff Rhys Jones
Climbing the big mountains like Snowdon, Ben Nevis and Scafell Pike and many others besides gave Griff an insight into the passion and devotion our high places inspire - and turned a mountain virgin into a mountaineer. Well almost... (£8.99)
Long Way Down - Ewan McGregor; Charley Boorman
A 15,000-mile journey with two new BMWs from John O'Groats to Cape Agulhas on the southernmost tip of South Africa. Riding through spectacular scenery, often in extreme temperatures, Ewan and Charley faced their hardest challenges yet. (£7.99)
The Cook, the Rat and the Heretic: In the Shadow of Rennes-le-Chateau - Hugo Soskin
Hugo Soskin, son of best-selling author on Rennes-le-Chateau Henry Lincoln, has no time for the French Pyrenean village and its mysteries. He is fed up with the whole subject of how a nineteenth-century priest came to be a millionaire overnight and why he built so many bizarre clues into his church and his home. But when he and his wife decide to drive an old camper van to Spain to start a new life, they can't resist a tiny peek en route at the village. (£7.99)
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
New editions of Ladybird’s edited classics at £1.99 each: Alice in Wonderland, Black Beauty, Gulliver’s Travels, Oliver Twist, Jungle Book, Three Musketeers, Treasure Island, Wind in Willows: Ladybird seem to be one of the better editions for sticking to the style of the original!
Finn Family Moomintroll - Tove Jansson (CD)
Read by Hugh Laurie. (£9.99)
Look Out, Secret Seven - Enid Blyton (CD)
Read by Sarah Greene (£9.99)
MAY 2008
FICTION
HARDBACK
Alfred and Emily - Doris Lessing
The first book after Doris Lessing’s Nobel Prize takes her back to her childhood in Southern Africa and the lives, both fictional and factual, that her parents lead. 'I think my father's rage at the trenches took me over, when I was very young, and has never left me. Do children feel their parents' emotions? Yes, we do, and it is a legacy I could have done without.’ (£14.99 at The Book Case)
The Siege - Ismail Kadare
The Ottoman Army - the most powerful the world had known by that time - lays siege to a Christian fortress in the mountains of Albania. Above the colourful host looms the great dark wall of the citadel that has to be overcome. (£14.99 at The Book Case)
PAPERBACK
The World According to Bertie - Alexander McCall Smith
Poor put-upon Bertie is still struggling to escape his overbearing mother's influence, his yoga lessons and his pink bedroom while wondering why new baby brother Ulysses looks uncomfortably like his psychotherapist. (£6.99)
When We Were Romans - Matthew Kneale
Nine-year-old Lawrence is the man in his family, watching protectively over his mother and his wilful little sister Jemima. When the three of them suddenly move to Rome it seems at first to be a great adventure: a long drive through the night to the city of popes and emperors. But his mother's behaviour becomes increasingly erratic, and the threat that had forced them to Italy seems to have followed them there. (£7.99)
Cheating at Canasta - William Trevor
From a chance encounter between two childhood friends to the memories of a newly widowed man to a family grappling with the sale of their ancestral land, Trevor examines with grace and skill the tenuous bonds of our relationships, the strengths that hold us together, and the truths that threaten to separate us. (£7.99)
The Dig - John Preston
In the long hot summer of 1939, Mrs Petty, the widowed farmer, has had her hunch proved correct that the strange mounds on her land hold buried treasure. (£7.99)
The Camel Bookmobile - Masha Hamilton
Once a fortnight, a nomadic settlement in the dusty Kenyan desert awaits the arrival of three camels laden down with panniers of books. This is a scheme set up to bring books to scattered tribes whose daily life is dominated by drought, famine and disease. But one day a book is stolen. (£6.99)
The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato
Nora Manin decides to leave her fractured life in London to start again in Venice - and there begins to unravel the story of her ancestor, Corradino Manin, the greatest artist of glass that the famous island of Murano ever produced. (£7.99)
The Town with No Twin - Barry Pilton
Sequel to "The Valley". Beneath the surface of an idyllic rural town, personalities clash, hatreds simmer and blackmail and sexual debauchery abound, while the Mayoress wants to commission a town statue from a provocative drunk, and the penniless commodore plans to hire out his mansion to a dishonest film crew. (£7.99)
Are You with Me? - Stephen Foster
When fifteen year-old Tom finds himself in the back of a stolen car, driven by local wideboy Luke, he doesn't at first feel perturbed; until, that is, the car and its occupants find themselves upside-down on a lonely beach. (£6.99)
The Law of Dreams - Peter Behrens
It is 1846, the height of the Great Hunger in Ireland, and young Fergus is forced to grow up fast and begins an epic journey from innocence to experience. (£8.99)
Zoo Station - David Downing
Complex thriller set in the 1930s - evocation of Nazi Germany on the eve of war. (£7.99)
REISSUES
The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon - Alexandre Dumas
The lost final novel by the master of the epic swashbuckling adventure stories: The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers. The last cavalier is Count de Sainte-Hermine, Hector, whose elder brothers and father have fought and died for the Royalist cause during the French Revolution. (£8.99)
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Three musketeers. Two enemies. One major battle.' 'All for one and one for all!' Country boy d'Artagnan is desperate to join the King's elite band of bodyguards, the Musketeers. (£8.99)
The Eternal Husband - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
A surreal tale of duality and interchanging rivalry when a rich idle man has to confront the husband of his dead mistress. (£2.50)
Devils - Fyodor Dostoevsky
This new translation also includes the chapter 'Stavrogin's Confession', which was considered to be too shocking to print. New Oxford World Classics edition.(£8.99)
East Lynne - Ellen Wood
'Coward! Sneak! May good men shun him, from henceforth! may his Queen refuse to receive him! You, an earl's daughter! Oh, Isabel! How utterly you have lost yourself!' When the aristocratic Lady Isabel abandons her husband and children for her wicked seducer, more is at stake than moral retribution. New Oxford World Classics edition.(£9.99)
Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev
Turgenev's masterpiece about the conflict between generations is as fresh, outspoken, and exciting today as it was in when it was first published in 1862. New Oxford World Classics edition.(£6.99)
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
New Oxford World Classics edition.(£5.99)
Arrow are reissuing a large number of the P G Wodehouse books at £7.99 each, including The Code of the Woosters, Right Ho, Jeeves, Summer Lightning, Piccadilly Jim and Something Fresh - 'You don't analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour.' Stephen Fry
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - Winifred Watson
Miss Pettigrew, an approaching-middle-age governess, was accustomed to a household of unruly English children. When her employment agency sends her to the wrong address, her life takes an unexpected turn. First published in 1938, now a film. (£9.00)
Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Donnes
Explores English domestic life at the time of WWII, separation, fear, evacuation, obsession with food and the social revolution of wartime. (£9.00)
Hungry Hill - Daphne Du Maurier
'I tell you your mine will be in ruins and your home destroyed and your children forgotten ...but this hill will be standing still to confound you.' So curses Morty Donovan when 'Copper John' Brodrick builds his mine at Hungry Hill. Back in print after 20 years. (£7.99)
The Rough Guide to Classic Novels - Simon Mason
Get the lowdown on the best fiction ever written. Over 230 of the world's greatest novels are covered, from "Quixote" (1614) to Orhan Pamuk's "Snow" (2002), with information about their plots and their authors - and suggestions for what to read next. (£7.99)
NON-FICTION
ART, ARCHITECTURE & PHOTOGRAPHY
Objects - Martin Parr
A comprehensive account of eccentric objects collected by Parr over 25 years. (£19.95)
Manchester: The Northern Quarter - Mike Rose
Examines the wide range and varied character of the historic buildings which constitute the Northern Quarter's townscape, and the forces and trends which have contributed to its appearance. (£7.99)
Work: The World in Photographs - Leah Bendavid-Val
Images culled from National Geographic's vast photographic archive as well as other important collections presenting a wonderfully varied group portrait of people at work all over the years and the last two centuries. (£9.99)
BIOGRAPHY
Young Stalin - Simon Sebag Montefiore (£9.99)
The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters, ed. Charlotte Mosley
The never-before published letters of the legendary Mitford sisters, alive with wit, affection, tragedy and gossip: a charismatic history of the century's signal events played out in the lives of a controversial and uniquely gifted family. £12.99)
The Endless Tide - Iain R. Thomson (£7.99)
The Long Horizon - Iain R. Thomson (£7.99)
From the author of Isolation Shepherd
Kathleen: The Life of Kathleen Ferrier 1912-1953 - Maurice Leonard
The inspirational story of Blackburn-born contralto Kathleen Ferrier, drawing on a variety of sources, from photographs, diaries, and private letters, to the memoirs and recollections of those who knew her best. (£12.99)
Now Then Lad...: A Yorkshire Dales Copper on the Beat - Mike Pannett
Mike Pannett has just taken up a new posting in rural North Yorkshire. It's quite a change from the Met, where he dealt with riots on the capital's streets, drug gangs in Battersea and gun crime in Croydon. (£7.99)
Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know - Sir Ranulph Fiennes (£7.99)
DRAMA
Four Revenge Tragedies: "Spanish Tragedy", The "Revenger's Tragedy", The "Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois", and The "Atheist's Tragedy", ed. Maus
New Oxford World Classics edition.(£6.99)
Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh
In a definitive career-length interview, Mike Leigh reflects on all that has gone into the making of his unique body of work. Director of "Secrets and Lies", "Vera Drake" and the now-legendary "Abigail's Party". (£14.99 at the Book Case)
"No Fear Shakespeare Illustrated - Graphic Novels" is a series based on the translated texts of the plays found in "No Fear Shakespeare". Forthcoming are Macbeth, Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet. Each book features an illustrated cast of characters, helpful plot summary, line-by-line translations of the play and illustrations.
ENVIRONMENT
Energise! - James Woudhuysen; Joe Kaplinsky
A concise, provocative, authoritative guide to the issues surrounding global warming and the future of the world's energy supplies. (£7.99)
FOOD
River Cafe Cookbook Easy - Rose Gray; Ruth Rogers (£17.50)
GAMES, HOBBIES & PASTIMES
The "Idler": Issue 41: QI Issue - Dan Kieran, ed. Tom Hodgkinson
Our culture needs some fresh air. We are boring ourselves to death by re-packaging the same flavorless pap based on a patronizing and second-hand version of what we think other people want. Meanwhile, out there, the world is as complex, beautiful and mysterious as ever. (£10.99)
The Book of Idle Pleasures - ed. Tom Hodgkinson; Dan Kieran
A restorative gift book for the stressed out, tired and hassled. An antidote to our non-stop culture, it is a welcome compendium of timeless delights. (£9.99)
Computers for Seniors for Dummies - Nancy C. Muir
This friendly guide walks readers through the basics: how to turn on the computer, use the keyboard and mouse, find your way around the Windows Vista operating system, understand files and folders, and so on. It uses a larger text font and a larger size for figures and drawings, making the book accessible and easy to read. (£13.99)
Know Your Tractors - Chris Lockwood
Now you can all spot sheep successfully, try spotting tractors! (£4.99)
Chambers Pocket Card Games - Peter Arnold (£5.99)
The Mammoth Book of Boys Own Stuff - Jon E. Lewis
A staggeringly large guide to all that a modern boy needs to know and to do (£7.99)
The Mammoth Book of Poker - Paul Mendelson (£7.99)
The Grandads' Book: For the Grandad Who's Best at Everything - John Gribble
There's no one quite like your Grandad, with all his daft jokes, songs, old-fashioned games and crazy stories. "The Grandads' Book" celebrates this most wonderful of family members with a miscellany of all the things that make grandads great. (£9.99)
Things to Do with Dad - Chris Stevens
Perfect for people lacking inspiration, "Things To Do With Dad" is packed with cool, fun and original games, projects and activities that will captivate both kids and dads alike. (£10)
The Games Book: How to Play the Games of Yesterday - Huw Davies
Entries include: Spooky games - "Murder in the Dark"; Playground games - "What's the Time Mr. Wolf?"; Swimming games - Sharks and Minnows; Card games - Gin Rummy; Paper games - Consequences; Ball games - Sevens; Car games - Back Seat Snooker. (£5.00)
The Nursery Rhyme Book: Remember the Rhymes of Yesterday
Entries include: Little Miss Muffet; Hey Diddle, Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle; Oranges and Lemons; Round and Round the Mulberry Bush; Three Blind Mice; Humpty Dumpty; Ring a Ring O' Roses; and, Little Jack Horner. (£5.00)
Assortment of new colouring and puzzle books from Dover including the Alhambra, Pirates and Mandalas
GARDENING
Mr Marshal's Flower Book: Being a Compendium of the Flowers Portraits of Alexander Marshal Esq.
The only surviving example of a 17th-century Flower Book, reproducing the original watercolours to take the reader through a year in a garden of the period (£9.95)
HISTORY
Europe Between the Oceans: 9000 BC to AD 1000 - Barry Cunliffe
In this magnificent book, the distinguished archaeologist Barry Cunliffe sees Europe not in terms of states and shifting land boundaries, but as a geographical niche particularly favoured in facing many seas, with great transpeninsular rivers and a rich diversity of natural resources. It became one of the most innovative regions on the planet, bearing restless adventurers who traversed the globe to trade and often to settle. (£30)
The Civil War - Julius Caesar
Caesar's masterly account of the celebrated war between himself and his great rival Pompey, from the crossing of the Rubicon in January 49 B.C. to Pompey's death and the start of the Alexandrian War in the autumn of the following year. New Oxford World Classics edition.(£7.99)
The Histories - Cornelius Tacitus; W.H. Fyfe
Cornelius Tacitus, widely acknowledged as the greatest of all Roman historians, describes with cynical power the murderous 'Year of the Four Emperors' - AD 69 - when in just a few months the whole of the Roman Empire was torn apart by civil war. New Oxford World Classics edition.(£8.99)
Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy - Barbara Ehrenreich
Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture. She discovers that the same elements come up in every human culture throughout history: a love of masking, carnival, music-making and dance. (£8.99)
Fire and Steam: A New History of the Railways in Britain - Christian Wolmar
Celebrates the vision and determination of the ambitious Victorian pioneers who developed this revolutionary transport system and the navvies who cut through the land to enable a countrywide network to emerge, up to the present day. (£8.99)
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom - T.E. Lawrence
"Encompasses an account of the Arab Revolt against the Turks during the First World War alongside general Middle Eastern and military history, politics, adventure and drama. It is also a memoir of the soldier known as 'Lawrence of Arabia'." (£9.99)
A History of Modern Britain - Andrew Marr
Confronts head-on the victory of shopping over politics. It tells the story of how the great political visions of New Jerusalem or a second Elizabethan Age, rival idealisms, came to be defeated by a culture of consumerism, celebrity and self-gratification. (£8.99)
Best of British: A Celebration of Brilliant Britain - Georgina Eade (£5.00)
MBS
My Year Off: Rediscovering Life After a Stroke - Robert McCrum
'When I was just forty-two I suffered a severe stroke. Paralysed on my left side and unable to walk, I was confined to hospital for three months, then spent about a year recovering, slowly getting myself back into the world. When I was seriously ill in hospital, I longed to read a book that would tell me that I might expect in convalescence and also give me something to think about...' (£7.99)
Teach Yourself Successful Potty Training - Geraldine Butler; Bernice Walmsley (£6.99)
Pure - Barefoot Doctor
'Leave Your Former Self behind and step this way. You are about to meet the most powerful person in the world: You.’ (£9.99)
In God We Doubt: Confessions of a Failed Atheist - John Humphrys
Throughout the ages believers have been persecuted -- usually for believing in the "wrong" God. So have non-believers who have denied the existence of God as superstitious rubbish. Today it is the agnostics who are given a hard time. (£7.99)
The Wise Heart: Buddhist Psychology for the West - Jack Kornfield (£12.99)
The Way of a Pilgrim - trans. Nina A. Toumanova
An anonymous
Russian peasant attempts to follow St Paul's advice to "pray without ceasing,"
offering profound theological and philosophical observations and a portrait of
19th-century Russian life. (£3.50)
The Little People of the British Isles: Pixies, Brownies, Sprites and Other Rare Fauna - Paul Johnson (£4.99)
Becoming Clairvoyant: Develop Your Psychic Abilities to See into the Future - Cassandra Eason (£11.99)
MUSIC
This is Your Brain on Music: Understanding a Human Obsession - Daniel J. Levitin
A comprehensive explanation of how humans experience music. Using musical examples from Bach to the Beatles, Levitin reveals the role of music in human evolution, shows how our musical preferences begin to form even before we are born and explains why music can offer such an emotional experience. (£8.99)
The 2008 Proms Guide (£6.00)
NATURE
Wild Food - Ray Mears & Gordon C. Hillman
Ray Mears has travelled the world to see how native people manage to live on just what nature provides. What's always frustrated him is not knowing how our own ancestors fed themselves. In this book he travels back ten thousand years to a time before farming to learn how our ancestors found, prepared and cooked their food. (£14.99)
British Orchids: A Site Guide - Roger Bowmer
A handy reference
to the locations of the 51 species of wild orchid native to the British Isles.
Author lives in Littleborough.
The Bird Book - Rob Hume, ill. Peter Hayman
Produced with similar values to "The Art Book", the paintings are reason alone to buy the book but this is also a useful bird recognition guide: the artwork is accurate, with more than enough plumage and anatomical detail to separate every species. (£8.99)
PHILOSOPHY
Plato for Beginners - Robert J. Cavalier (£8.99)
Defence of Socrates, Euthyphro, Crito - Plato, ed. Gallop
These new translations present Plato's remarkable dramatization of the momentous events surrounding the trial of Socrates in 399 BC, on charges of irreligion and corrupting the young. New Oxford World Classics edition.(£6.99)
Meditations on First Philosophy: With Selections from the Objections and Replies - Rene Descartes
New Oxford World Classics edition.(£8.99)
POETRY
Why Poetry Matters - Jay Parini
A deeply felt meditation on poetry, its language and meaning, and its power to open minds and transform lives. By the end of the book, Parini has recovered a truth often obscured by our clamorous culture: without poetry, we live only partially, not fully conscious of the possibilities that life affords. (£14.99)
The Love Poems - Ovid
New Oxford World Classics edition. (£7.99)
Selections from the "Canzoniere" and Other Works - Francesco Petrarch
New Oxford World Classics edition. (£6.99)
In Person: 30 Poets Filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce, ed. Neil Astley (book + 2 DVDs)
Thirty poets from around the world read to you in person. This is a new concept in publishing: your own personal poetry festival brought into your home. Each poet reads to you for about ten minutes - up to half a dozen poems chosen from across the range of their work, sometimes saying a few things about the poems. (£12.00)
POLITICS
The Assault on Reason: How the Politics of Blind Faith Subvert Wise Decision-making - Al Gore (£8.99)
The Blair Years - Alastair Campbell
Taken from Alastair Campbell's daily diaries, it charts the rise of New Labour and the tumultuous years of Tony Blair's leadership, providing the first important record of a remarkable decade in our national life. (£6.99)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope - Tariq Ali
Drawing on first-hand experience of Venezuela and meetings with Hugo Chavez, Tariq Ali shows how Chavez's views have polarized Latin America and examines the hostility directed against his administration. (£8.99)
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism - Naomi Klein
Free markets, we're told, mean free people. Yet around the world this 'freedom' is being paid for in blood. When a catastrophe occurs - whether war, terrorist attack or natural disaster - there are people cleaning up and cashing in. (£8.99)
Worst-case Scenario Almanac Politics - David Borgenicht; Turk Regan
The most scandalous, dangerous, incompetent, and downright awful people to ever seek power. The most lavish palaces, the bloodiest coups, the stupidest declarations ... (£9.99)
SPORT
Provided You Don't Kiss Me: 20 Years with Brian Clough - Duncan Hamilton
Duncan Hamilton was there through all the madness, the success, the failures, the fall-outs, the drink, and the crumbling of Brian Clough's heady twenty years as manager of Nottingham Forest. (£8.99)
The Original Laws of Cricket - The Bodleian Library
The complete text of the original laws of cricket, illustrated with images from the manuscript held at the MCC and from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The Rules of Association Football, 1863: The First FA Rule Book - The Bodleian Library
TRAVEL
New Rough Guides to England, Greece and Scotland and new Lonely Planet Guides to Canada, Egypt, Scotland and Georgia, Armenia & Azerbaijan
PocketComms - James Fergus Wyatt
A sheaf of sturdy plastic cards with 1000+ easily understood drawings and diagrams to assist a traveller with limited local language skills to communicate in a wide range of situations. (£7.99)
Get by in Polish Travel Pack
Wild: An Elemental Journey - Jay Griffiths
Describes an extraordinary odyssey, courageous and sometimes dangerous, to wildernesses of earth and ice, water and fire. This book is also a journey into that greatest of uncharted lands - wild mind - as the author explores the words and meanings which shape our ideas and our experience of our own wildness. (£8.99)
Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things: An Impossible Journey from Kabul to Chiapas - Gary Geddes
Geddes’ fascination with 5th-century Buddhist monk Huishen culminated in a modern retracing of his epic journey. As the Silk Road morphs into superhighways, and ancient sculptures turn into military targets, Geddes glimpses, in the collision of past and present history, important clues for imagining a workable future. (£8.99)
Best of British Festivals - Lucy Green
Britain has something for all musical tastes, from the Glastonbury, Reading and V festivals, the Green Man festival and Creamfields to Edinburgh, the Good Food Summer Festival, the Stilton World Cheese Rolling Championships, the Llangollen International Eisteddfod; or the Outsider Festival or Larmer Tree festival.This is a fun-seeker's guide with a difference, giving you the low-down on the best events taking place up and down the country, in every month of the year. (£9.99)
The Scent Trail: A Journey of the Senses - Cecilia Lyttleton
One woman's journey across the world as she explores the magic and history behind the ingredients of her own bespoke perfume. Author is Hebden Bridge-based.
The Aran Islands - John M. Synge
A slow-paced reflection of life on the islands by the Irish playwright ibn 1901, reflecting his belief that beneath the Catholicism of the islanders it was possible to detect a substratum of the older pagan beliefs of their ancestors. Illustrated by Jack B. Yeats, brother of the poet. (£9.99)
Travels with Herodotus - Ryszard Kapuscinski
Records how Kapuscinski set out on his first forays - to India, China and Africa - with the great Greek historian constantly in his pocket - so that he often feels he is embarking on two journeys - the first his assignment as a reporter, the second following Herodotus' expeditions. (£8.99)
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Ages 0-5yrs
Whale Gets Stuck - Karen Hayles
When Whale gets stuck on an ice floe, will his friends be able to rescue him? Wonderful illustrations help tell this story of friendship with a gentle ecological theme Ages: 2+ yrs. (£5.99)
Ages 5-9yrs
Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People - Dav Pilkey
Captain Underpants returns to face his nemesis, the evil Captain Blunderpants. Laughs, evil, horror and high adventure in this all new story now in paperback. Ages: 7+ yrs (£4.99)
The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook - Joyce Lankester Brisley
Milly-Molly-Mandy - instantly recognizable in her pink candy-striped dress - has enchanted generations of readers. This facsimile edition features 21 cheerful stories, ideal for reading aloud. (£8.99)
Ages 9-11yrs
Archaeology Detectives - Simon Adams
A guide that covers subjects like techniques and interpreting evidence, with stories of real excavations. Ages: 9-12 yrs (£14.99)
Just Henry - Michelle Magorian
From author of "Goodnight Mister Tom", a gripping mystery-thriller set in post-war Britain. (£6.99)
Teenage
Hurricane Gold - Charlie Higson
Now in paperback, the latest in the Young Bond series features an action-packed, non-stop adventure set in the Mexican jungle. Ages: 10+ yrs (£6.99)
APRIL 2008
FICTION
HARDBACK
The Enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie
A tall,
yellow-haired young European traveller calling himself 'Mogor dell'Amore', the
Mughal of Love, arrives at the court of the real Grand Mughal, the Emperor
Akbar, with a tale to tell that begins to obsess the whole imperial capital.
(£16.99 at The Book Case)
The Butt - Will Self
Tom
Brodzinski is a man who takes his own good intentions for granted. But when he
finally decides to give up smoking, a moment's inattention to detail becomes
his undoing. Flipping the butt of his final cigarette off the balcony of the
holiday apartment he's renting with his family, he badly burns a fellow
countryman. (£12.99 at The Book
Case)
PAPERBACK
Engleby - Sebastian
Faulks
Mike Engleby says things that others dare not even think and is
devoid of scruple or self-pity. Yet beneath the disturbing surface of his
observations lies an unfolding mystery of gripping power.
(£7.99)
Day - A.L. Kennedy
Alfred Day wanted his
war. In its turmoil he found his proper purpose as the tail-gunner in a
Lancaster bomber; he found the wild, dark fellowship of his crew, and –
most extraordinary of all - he found Joyce, a woman to love. But that's all
gone now. (£7.99)
Farewell Britannia: A Family Saga of
Roman Britain - Simon Young
From brilliant young ex-Hebden Bridge
historian a multi-generational family, part Roman, part Celtic (invaders
intermarrying with natives) to tell the dramatic story of 400 years of Roman
rule in Britain. (£8.99)
Ines of My Soul - Isabel
Allende
The story of the first Spanish woman to arrive on the shores of
Chile with the Conquistadors in the 1500s. A real historical figure, Ines
Suarez helped to claim the territory for Spain and to found the first Spanish
settlement in Santiago. (£7.99)
South of the River -
Blake Morrison
A tale of five people, two rivers, and many Englands,
metropolitan and rural, black and white, gloriously readable and brimming with
art and life. (£7.99)
A Tranquil Star: Unpublished
Stories - Primo Levi
A landmark selection of his short stories opens up
a world of wonder, love, cruelty and curious twists of fate, where nothing is
as it seems. (£8.99)
Slam - Nick Hornby
"Whoever
invented skateboarding is a genius. There's only one skater, and his name's
Tony Hawk." Nick Hornby's new novel for teenagers it confronts issues such as
teenage pregnancy love and friendship. (£7.99)
The
Post-birthday World - Lionel Shriver
From the author of We Need to
Talk About Kevin. It all hinges on one kiss. Using a parallel universe
structure, we follow Irina's life as it unfolds under the influence of two
drastically different men. (£7.99)
Runt - Niall
Griffiths
On leaving school a sixteen-year-old boy goes to live with his
uncle on a remote Welsh hill-farm. His aunt has recently committed suicide
after losing her livestock in the foot-and-mouth epidemic and his uncle has
turned, once again, to the bottle. (£7.99)
The Reluctant
Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid
Booker shortlisted story of how a the life
of a promising young Pakistani graduate in the US is changed following 9/11.
(£7.99)
Zugzwang - Ronan Bennett
From the Guardian
chess columnist, a chess thriller which was originally serialised in the
Observer. St Petersburg, 1914. Dr Otto Spethmann, a famous psychoanalyst, is
implicated in a murder. But he is preoccupied with Avrom Rozental, the
brilliant chess master who is due to play the most important competition of his
life but is on the verge of a breakdown. (£7.99)
The
Lollipop Shoes - Joanne Harris
Seeking refuge and anonymity in the
cobbled streets of Montmartre, Yanne and her daughters live peacefully, if not
happily, above their little chocolate shop. The wind has stopped – at
least for a while. (£7.99)
The Blood of Flowers - Anita
Amirrezvani
Set in seventeenth-century Iran, the story of a village girl
whose dreams of marriage end on the death of her father. She and her mother are
reduced to servitude until she reveals a talent for designing carpets -- an
invaluable skill. (£6.99)
The Carhullan Army - Sarah
Hall
The world has changed. War rages in South America and China, and
Britain - now entirely dependent on the US for food and energy - is run by an
omnipresent dictatorship known simply as The Authority. Assets and weapons have
been seized, and women are compulsorily fitted with contraceptive devices.
(£7.99)
My Name is Salma - Fadia Faqir
Slipping
back and forth between the olive groves of the Levant and the rain-slicked
pavements of Exeter, this novel tells how a young Muslim asylum-seeker in
England runs from a brother who wants to commit honour killing
(£7.99)
The Bastard of Istanbul - Elif Shafak
One
rainy afternoon in Istanbul, a woman walks into a doctor's surgery. 'I want an
abortion', she announces. She is nineteen years old, and unmarried. What
happens that afternoon is to change her life, and the lives of everyone around
her. (£7.99)
Thirteen - Sebastian
Beaumont
Compared to E F Benson and M R James – the bizarre
experiences of a nightshift taxi driver whose exhaustion alters his perception
of reality, luring him into a twilight world.
(£7.99)
Murder at Deviation Junction - Andrew
Martin
A train hits a snow drift in the frozen Cleveland Hills. In the
process of clearing the line a body is discovered, and so begins a dangerous
case for struggling Edwardian railway detective, Jim Stringer.
(£7.99)
The Children of Hurin - J. R. R. Tolkien. ed.
Christopher Tolkien
Restored from Tolkien's manuscripts and presented
for the first time as a fully continuous and standalone story.
(£8.99)
REISSUES
The Little White Horse
– Elizabeth Goudge
It is 1842 and Maria Merryweather finds herself
in a house of secrets and mystery in a world caught up in time. Read by Juliet
Stevenson who plays Miss Heliotrope in the 2008 film based on the book. "I
absolutely adored The Little White Horse. It had a cracking plot. It was
scary and romantic in parts and had a feisty heroine." - J. K. Rowling.
(£9.99)
NON-FICTION
ART AND
CRAFT
Escher, Graphic Work (£7.99)
Money
Folding: Making Banknotes into Gifts You Can Spend - Jannie Van
Schuylenburg-Ter Aar (£6.99)
The Watercolour Wheel
Book - John Barber
The basic principles of colour mixing and applying
colour, with eight step-by-step projects designed to teach you the most
rewarding watercolour techniques, and an interactive colour wheel to see
the results of mixing different colours. (£9.99)
Build
Your Own Paper Plane Air Force - Trevor Bounford
(£9.99)
BIOGRAPHY
The Sum of Our Days - Isabel Allende
Leaving off from
where her famous memoir 'Paula' ends, 'The Sum of Our Days' reveals the
aftermath of the author's daughter's death and how the Allende managed to
survive the experience with the help of close friends and family. (£15.99
at The Book Case)
Jesus of Nazareth - Pope Benedict
XVI
In his first book written as Benedict XVI the Pope seeks to salvage
the person of Jesus from recent 'popular' depictions and to restore Jesus' true
identity as discovered in the Gospels.
(£8.99)
Shakespeare: The World as a Stage - Bill
Bryson (£7.99)
George Eliot - Jenny Uglow
One
of the most brilliant writers of her day, George Eliot (1819-1880) was also one
of the most talked about. Intellectual and independent, she had the strength to
defy polite society with her highly unorthodox private life, so why did she
deny her fictional characters the same opportunities?
(£8.99)
The Fight for Fordhall Farm - Ben Hollins;
Charlotte Hollins
The astonishing story of a young brother and sister
faced with an unimaginable task -- escaping eviction from their home that had
been in their family since the 1700s, and saving their livelihood.
(£9.99)
My Life on a Hillside Allotment - Terry
Walton
Terry Walton has kept an allotment for over 50 years in the
Rhondda Valley, starting when he was 4, helping on his dad's plot on the side
of the mountain, and being sent to cut bracken and collect sheep manure to feed
the rows of vegetables. By the time he was 11 he had his own plot and soon
established an allotment empire to grow the vegetables and flowers he sold to
local customers. (£7.99)
Chosen by a Horse - Susan
Richards
A 40-something woman with a background of childhood abuse and
adult alcoholism takes in a derelict mare, and it turns her life around. Funny
and moving; the reactions of her other horses are also unforgettable.
(£7.99)
CURRENT AFFAIRS
Globalisation,
Democracy and Terrorism - Eric Hobsbawm
(£8.99)
Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the
Hidden Battle for the World Food System - Raj Patel
(£8.99)
The No-nonsense Guide to International Migration
- Peter Stalker (£6.99)
The Olive Grove - Deborah
Rohan
A Palestinian family's transition from wealth and comfort to
statelessness and poverty, documenting the Moghrabi family's fight for
survival, their struggle against Turkish and British domination and the
following Zionist occupation. (£12.99)
Rebel, Rebel: How
to Start a Revolution - Bibi Van Der Zee
Fewer and fewer of us may be
turning out to vote, but individual campaigning has never been more effective -
or as crucial. From nuisance neighbours and airport expansion, to world debt
and climate change, this timely guide shows how everyone can campaign for a
better world. (£14.99)
Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia - John
Gray
A manifesto on the need to abandon crusades – for religion,
utopia, democracy, human advance (£8.99)
ENVIRONMENT
The World without Us - Alan
Weisman
What if mankind disappeared right now, forever? ...what would
happen to the Earth in a week, a year, a millennium? Could the planet's climate
ever recover from human activity? How would nature destroy our huge cities and
our myriad plastics? (£8.99)
Green Cleaning: Natural
Hints and Tips – Margaret Briggs
(£2.99)
FOOD
Easy to Make! One-pot -
Good Housekeeping Institute (£5.99)
Easy to Make!
Salads and Dressings - Good Housekeeping Institute
(£5.99)
Easy to Make! Speedy Meals - Good Housekeeping
Institute (£5.99)
Easy to Make! Wok and Stir-fry -
Good Housekeeping Institute (£5.99)
Animal,
Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara Kingsolver; Steven L. Hopp; Camille
Kingsolver
The author of “Poisonwood Bible” and her family
attempt a year of eating only local food, much of it from their own garden.
With characteristic warmth, Kingsolver shows us how to put food back at the
centre of the political and family agenda. Part memoir, part journalistic
investigation, and full of original recipes. (£8.99)
Slow
Cooking Through the Seasons - Carolyn Humphries (£8.99)
The Omega 3 Cookbook: Over 100 Smart Recipes for Body and
Brain - Michael Van Straten
(£4.99)
GARDENING
RHS Plant Finder
2008-2009 (£14.99)
The New Self-Sufficient Gardener:
The Complete Illustrated Guide to Planning, Growing, Storing and Preserving
Your Own Garden Produce - John Seymour (£20)
How to
Grow Beans, Peas, Asparagus, Artichokes and Other Shoots - Richard Bird
(£6.99)
How to Grow Successful Tomatoes - Richard
Bird (£6.99
HISTORY
The Great
Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live in - Hugh
Kennedy
The Arab armies overran the whole Middle East, North Africa and
Spain within a generation. They annihilated the thousand-year-old Persian
Empire and reduced the Byzantine Empire to little more than a city-state.
Within a hundred years of the Prophet's death, Muslim armies destroyed the
Visigoth kingdom of Spain, and crossed the Pyrenees to occupy southern France.
This is the first popular English language account of this astonishing remaking
of the political and religious map of the world.
(£12.99)
Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval
Empire - Judith Herrin
For a thousand years an extraordinary empire
combined orthodox Christianity with paganism, classical Greek learning with
Roman power, to produce a great and creative civilization which for centuries
held in check the armies of Islam. (£8.99)
How We Built
Britain - David Dimbleby
How did we get from the fortified tower to the
grand open mansion and back again to the gated communities of today? How did we
lose the marketplace to the out-of-town shopping mall? The dramatic and heroic
story of Britain's architecture – the extraordinary buildings that define
a nation and which grew out of the experiences and beliefs of the British
people. (£14.99)
The Industrial Revolutionaries: The
Creation of the Modern World 1776-1914 - Gavin Weightman
This vivid
social history reminds us machines are mere gadgets unless there are people to
make good use of them. Gavin Weightman charts of the spread of
industrialism from Britain to Europe, North America and Japan.
(£9.99)
White Cargo: The Forgotten History of Britain's
White Slaves in America - Don Jordan; Michael Walsh
Drawing on letters,
diaries, and court and government archives this book tells how in the 17th and
18th centuries, 300,000 British people – including street children and
prostitutes - became chattels in America to labour in the tobacco fields and
provide 'breeders' for Virginia. (£8.99)
Workhouse: The
People, the Places, the Life Behind Doors - Simon Fowler
(£8.99)
Life On a Convict Ship – David Brandon
(£4.99)
Life in Wellington’s Army – Paul Isemonger
(£4.99)
Postcards from the Trenches – intro. Andrew
Roberts
A collection of postcards portraying the strange subterranean
world of the WWI trenches. (£7.99)
Great Speeches of the
20th Century - The "Guardian" (£12.99)
The Original
Highway Code: Reproductions of Highway Code Booklets from the Thirties, Forties
and Fifties
Including signalling with your whip before the introduction
of indicators. (£7.99)
HUMOUR
QI: The
Pocket Book of General Ignorance - John Lloyd; John Mitchinson
A
comprehensive catalogue of all the misconceptions, mistakes and
misunderstandings in 'common knowledge' that will make you wonder why anyone
bothers going to school. Paperback. (£6.99)
The Little
Book of Senior Moments - Shelley Klein (£3.50)
Pam
Ayres in Potting On (CD)
New Radio 4 comedy series about a couple
running a garden centre who are facing middle age. 2h 48 (£15.99)
Ladies of Letters Go Green (CD)
(£8.99)
MBS
The Power of a Positive No -
William Ury
The most powerful word in the language is one that most
people find difficult to say. Yet when we know how to use it correctly, it has
the power to profoundly transform our lives. (£8.99)
Get
Out of My Life: But First Take Me and Alex into Town - Tony Wolf; Suzanne
Franks
Teenagers are tough and anyone who has their own needs help. Here
it is: a witty, enjoyable and genuinely helpful guide that breaks the mould.
(£8.99)
Is Anybody Up There? Adventures in Faith and
Doubt - Paul Arnott
As a young boy Paul Arnott believed in Adam and Eve,
Father Christmas and Baby Jesus. As he got older he found things weren't so
simple but what seems clear to Arnott is that to deny our spiritual side is to
deny our history, our humanity and crucially, a great deal of humour.
(£12.99)
Yoga for Beginners: 5000 Years of History and
Philosophy - Jon Platania
(£8.99)
MEDIA
The Unofficial Facebooker's
Social Survival Guide - Sarah Herman; Lucy York
Ever woken from a night
of revelry to find your drunken antics the subject of a tagfest? Ever
accidentally wall-posted yourself into a relationship row or been hunted by a
school-days stalker? How to navigate the perilous pitfalls of life online while
having as much fun as possible.
(£2.99)
MUSIC
Gig – Armitage
Punk, mod, new romantic and acclaimed poet Simon Armitage discusses the
music and poetry which have been instrumental to his life. Andrew Marvell, Ted
Hughes, Pulp and Joy Division all make appearances as he looks back on a
lifetime's worth of gigs. (£14.99 at The Book Case)
The
"Guardian" Book of Playlists: The Best of the "Guardian's" Readers Recommend -
Dorian Lynskey
The vast number of tracks available online can make the
choice of what music to download a bewildering process. The Guardian's weekly
'Readers Recommend' column offers imaginative and idiosyncratic suggestions for
music to download on a selected theme.
(£6.99)
NATURE
The Guide to British Garden
Birds - BBC Audiobooks
A helpful, practical guide recorded on location
in the Somerset Levels, in the garden of keen birdwatcher, writer and
broadcaster Stephen Moss. (£8.99)
Teach Yourself Weather
- Peter Inness (£8.99)
OUTDOOR
ACTIVITIES
Wild Swimming: 150 Hidden Dips in the Rivers, Lakes and
Waterfalls of Britain - Daniel Start (£14.95)
Cool
Camping: France - Nicola Williams; Keith Pow, Sam Didcock; Paul Sullivan
(£14.95)
Cool Camping: England - Jonathan Knight;
Paul Marsden; Andy Stothert (£14.95)
Wild Gym: Join
the DIY Exercise Revolution - Peta Bee
Cash in your gym membership and
get fit outside instead - it's not only better for you, it's often cheaper too!
(£14.99)
PHILOSOPHY
The Meaning of Life: A
Very Short Introduction - Terry Eagleton
Eagleton contends that in a
world where we need to find common meanings, it is important that we set about
answering the question of all questions; and, in conclusion, he suggests his
own answer. (£6.99)
POETRY
The Colossus -
Sylvia Plath
The only volume of poetry that was published during her
lifetime, in 1960. New edition. (£9.99)
Old English
Poems and Riddles – trans. Chris McCully
Including riddles, charms,
the major elegies, religious meditations such as the "Dream of the Rood," epics
such as "The Battle of Maldon," and several long sections from "Beowulf." The
translator tries to show that Old English verse was not merely crudely
alliterative, but a set of stylistic techniques which allowed for great
subtlety, thematic pacing, and even tenderness.
(£9.95)
POLITICS
Marx: A Beginner's Guide -
Andrew Collier (£9.99)
SCIENCE &
MATHS
Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense
of Right and Wrong - Marc Hauser
Marc Hauser evaluates recent
developments in evolutionary biology, cognitive science, developmental
psychology, economics and anthropology to provide a new way of understanding
the tension between temptation and control. (£12.99)
Wholly Irresponsible Experiments - Sean Connolly
Do try these
at home! "Wholly Irresponsible Experiments" brings back the fun of being
twelve. Scores of experiments take in a dazzling array of explosions, geysers,
rockets and some outright oddities. £7.99)
Simplexity:
The Simple Rules of a Complex World - Jeffrey Kluger
Why does kicking
the TV work? What can the US military learn from the lowly bacterium? Why are
the instruction manuals for cell phones incomprehensible? Simple things can be
more complicated than they seem, and complex things more
simple.
(£7.99)
50 Mathematical Ideas You Really Need to Know -
Tony Crilly
By exploring the subject through its 50 key insights - from
the simple (the number one) and the subtle (the invention of zero) to the
sophisticated (proving Fermat's last theorem) - this book shows how mathematics
has changed the way we look at the world around us.
(£8.99)
STATIONERY
Flukebook - Tara
Publishing, India
Each notebook is unique and made of recycled
materials in India. (£8.99)
TRAVEL
Narrow
Dog to Indian River - Terry Darlington
Having survived their voyage to
Carcassonne, you would expect pensioners Terry and Monica Darlington and their
whippet, Jim looked to the New World for their extraordinary new
adventure...No-one has ever sailed an English narrowboat in the US before, for
reasons that soon become clear . (£14.99)
Dreaming of
Jupiter - Ted Simon
“Jupiter’s Travels”, an account of a
four-year journey round the world by motorbike, was a number one bestseller in
the late 1970s. In 2001, at the age of 69, Ted Simon decided to retrace
his journey. (£9.99)
In Search of Kazakhstan: The Land
That Disappeared - Christopher Robbins
Borat has got it all wrong.
Kazakhstan is far more interesting and entertaining than he'd have us believe.
In fact it's probably the most surprising country on earth, and certainly one
of the most tolerant. (£7.99)
Terra Nullius: A Journey
Through No One's Land - Sven Lindqvist
A beautifully described journey
across Australia's desert, and into its shocking past. Stretching from the
formation of the Australian continent 600 million years ago to the 2002 hunger
strikes in the Woomera detention camp, the book leaves us with a strong sense
of Australia’s geological and tragic human history.
(£7.99)
The Northeast and Yorkshire - Woodland
Trust
One of a series of guides from The Woodland Trust that describe
and illustrate beautiful woodland sites - both publicly owned and private - in
different regions throughout the UK. Fully illustrated with site maps and
photographs, these are the essential woodland guides for all tree lovers. This
one includes Hardcastle Crags. (£7.99)
The Northwest and
The Lake District - Woodland Trust (£7.99)
Far from
the Sodding Crowd: More Uncommonly British Days Out - Jason Hazeley; Alex
Morris; Joel Morris; Robin Halstead
Britons work longer hours than
almost any other nation in Europe. But how do we spend our precious days off?
When asked what you did at the weekend, will you mutter something about shelves
and how hard it was to park? (£14.99)
Pubs and Inns of
England and Wales - Alastair Sawday, ed. David Hancock
Over 900 special
pubs and inns throughout England and Wales. Lively write-ups paint an accurate
picture so you need never be stuck in a grim, swirly-carpeted, juke box-rattled
corner again. On top of that, clear symbols and indices show, where children
and pets are welcome, where there's a wide choice of beers, wines,
locally-sourced food, good gardens, great walks or an open fire.
(£14.99)
Chambers Hungarian Phrasebook
(£3.50)
Harrap's Slovene Phrasebook
(£3.95)
CHILDREN’S
Ages
0-5yrs
Tiger - Nick Butterworth
A board book edition of the
wonderfully illustrated book, following the antics of a kitten who pretends to
be a tiger. Ages: 0-3 yrs. (£5.99)
Five Little Ducks and
Other Stories - BBC
An exciting mix of songs, nursery rhymes, sound
puzzles and tongue twisters and short stories.
(£5.99)
Ages 5-9yrs
Trouble According to
Humphrey - Betty G Birney
Humphrey’s special World Book Day book
was extremely popular, and this new adventure features the resourceful hamster
in some brand new adventures. Ages: 6+ yrs (£4.99)
Ages
9-11yrs
Snakehead - Anthony Horowitz
Now finally in paperback,
Alex Rider’s latest adventure sees him on a secret mission in South East
Asia. Another page-turning extravaganza from the master of action-adventure.
Ages: 9+ yrs (£6.99)
Molly Moon, Micky Minus and the Mind
Machine - Georgia Byng
Molly’s on a mission to bring her long lost
twin brother home. Can she use her secret new weapon to defeat the Brainy Babe!
Ages 9 -11 yrs (£5.99)
Teenage
Once Upon a Time in the North
- Philip Pullman
A new story, together with memorabilia and
paraphernalia, as a companion to the trilogy, His Dark Materials. Beautifully
engraved by master engraver John Lawrence. Ages 12+ (
£9.99)
Red, Cherry Red - Jackie Kay
Jackie's latest
collection of poetry is for teenage/young adult readers - about identity,
grandmothers, the old days and the new days, trees, the moon, the sea, fire.
(£6.99 inc CD)
MARCH 2008
FICTION
HARDBACK
Child 44 – Tom Rob
Smith
KGB Officer Leo is blindly faithful to the Party line –
until he is ordered to arrest his own wife. Ridley Scott has bought the film
rights. (£10.99 at The Book Case)
The Miracle at Speedy
Motors - Alexander McCall Smith
When the best-known lady detective in
Botswana receives a threatening anonymous letter, she has to reconsider her
belief in a kind world and good neighbours. (£12.99 at The Book
Case)
A Partisan's Daughter - Louis De Bernieres
Chris
is bored, lonely, trapped in a loveless, sexless marriage. In his forties, he's
a stranger to the 1970s youth culture of London, a stranger to himself on the
night he invites a Yugoslavian hooker into his car. From the author of
“Captain Corelli's Mandolin". (£14.99 at The Book
Case)
Brida - Paulo Coelho
This is the story of Brida, a
young Irish girl, and her quest for knowledge. She has long been interested in
various aspects of magic, but is searching for something more.. (£12.99
at The Book Case)
PAPERBACK
Two Caravans - Marina
Lewycka
A field of strawberries in Kent ...And sitting in it two
caravans - one for the men and one for the women. The residents are from all
over. But these days England's not so pleasant for immigrants.
(£7.99)
The Gathering - Anne Enright
The nine
surviving children of the Hegarty clan gather in Dublin for the wake of their
wayward brother Liam. It wasn't the drink that killed him - although that
certainly helped - it was what happened to him as a boy in his grandmother's
house. Booker winner. (£7.99)
The Ghost - Robert
Harris
The narrator of this gripping novel is a professional ghostwriter
- cynical, mercenary, and with a nice line in deadpan humour. He jumps at the
chance to ghost the memoirs of Britain's former prime minister.
(£12.99)
Darkmans - Nicola Barker
A rowdy, riotous
tale, in which the medieval past takes on a face, name, and occupation and
roams around the humdrum town of Ashford, bringing chaos to the lives of those
it picks on. Booker shortlisted. (£8.99)
Resistance -
Owen Sheers
It is 1944, Germany has invaded Britain, and a group of
Welsh farmers' wives wake up to discover that their husbands are gone. A
portrait of a community under siege. (£7.99)
Guantanamo:
A Novel - Dorothea Dieckmann
Meticulously researched story of a young
German man of mixed Muslim Indian and German heritage, whose journey to his
father's country to claim his inheritance leads to his capture and deportation
to Guantanamo, In a remarkable literary experiment, Rashid's story is told in
six scenes, exploring the existential consequences for an isolated prisoner
coping with suppression and uncertainty. (£8.99)
The
Witch of Portobello - Paulo Coelho
From Athena's mysterious beginnings,
via an orphanage in Romania, to a childhood in Beirut and thence when war
breaks out, to London, where a dramatic turn of events occurs!
(£7.99)
Something Borrowed - Paul Magrs
Brenda
must face her demons, but first she needs toget to the bottom of the sinister
goings-on that threaten to overcome the all-too-quiet seaside town of Whitby.
Paul Magrs recently appeared at Todmorden Library.
(£7.99)
The Blue Fox – Sjon, trans. Victoria
Cribb
From a hunt through the stark Icelandic winter landscape for the
enigmatic blue fox to the world of a naturalist and his charge, Abba, who
suffers from Down's syndrome, and to a shipwreck off the Icelandic coast in the
spring of 1868. (£7.99)
Skin Lane - Neil
Bartlett
At 47, Mr. F's working life on London's Skin Lane is one
governed by calm, precision and routine. So when he starts to have frightening,
recurring nightmares, he does his best to ignore them. (£7.99)
The Spa Decameron - Fay Weldon
Ten high achieving ladies are
gathered together in the week between Christmas and the New Year, at the
expensive Castle Spa, seeking, through Botox, aromatherapy and general all
round pampering, a new beginning to their lives.
(£7.99)
The Steep Approach to Garbadale - Iain
Banks
Dark family secrets, a long-lost love affair and a multi-million
pound gaming business. (£7.99)
Losing You - Nicci
French
Nina Landry has given up city life for the isolated community of
Sandling Island, lying off the bleak east coast of England. At night the wind
howls. Sometimes they are cut off by the incoming tide. For Nina though it is
home. It is safe. Until Nina's teenage daughter Charlie fails to return from a
sleepover on the day they're due to go on holiday.
(£6.99)
Salt - Jeremy Page
It is May 1945 and as
church bells ring out Victory in Europe over the Norfolk saltmarshes, Goose's
daughter Lil is born. But as Lil enters Goose's world, her father leaves it, in
a makeshift boat bound - or so the story goes - for Germany, his home.
(£7.99)
Beneath the Bleeding - Val
McDermid
Terrifying new psychological. The race is on to uncover the
identity of a murderer with nothing to lose -- and everything to kill for.
(£6.99)
Sepulchre - Kate Mosse
1891.
Seventeen-year-old Leonie Vernier and her brother abandon Paris for the
sanctuary of their aunt's isolated country house near Carcassonne, the Domaine
de la Cade. But in the nearby woods, Leonie stumbles across a ruined sepulchre
- and a timeless mystery whose traces are written in blood.
(£10.99)
Queer Fish in God's Waiting Room - Lee
Henshaw
Set in and around the cities of New York, Mexico and Caracas, a
hilarious cautionary tale for elder brothers and their new girlfriends.
(£6.99)
REISSUES
On Horseback and Other
Stories - Guy de Maupassant (£6.99)
The Mammoth Book
of Best British Mysteries – ed. Maxim Jakubowski
Contributors
include Lee Child, Colin Dexter, Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Len Deighton,
John Harvey, and many more (£7.99)
The Mammoth Book of
the Best of Best New SF – ed. Gardner Dozois
A retrospective
compilation culling from the last 20 years including Stephen Baxter, Greg Bear,
William Gibson, Terry Bisson, Greg Egan, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert Reed, Robert
Silverberg, Bruce Sterling , Charles Stross, Michael Swanwick, and Gene Wolfe.
(£9.99)
Mary Barton - Elizabeth Gaskell
Mary
Barton is the pretty daughter of a factory worker who finds herself dreaming of
a better life when the mill-owner's charming son, Henry, starts to court her.
But when Henry is shot dead in the street, her childhood friend Jem becomes the
prime suspect and Mary finds her loyalties tested to the limit. (£6.99)
North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell
Milton is a sooty,
noisy northern town centred around the cotton mills that employ most of its
inhabitants. Arriving from a rural idyll in the south, Margaret Hale is
initially shocked by the social unrest and poverty she finds in her new
hometown. (£5.99)
Little Women & Good Wives - Louisa
May Alcott
In the Vintage Classics series, the story of the March girls
as they follow their varying paths to adulthood.
(£6.99)
The Sword in the Stone - T. H. White
The
extraordinary story of a boy called Wart -- ignored by everyone except his
tutor, Merlyn -- who goes on to become King Arthur. Reissued in Collins’s
Essential Modern Classics series. (£6.99)
And another
children’s book that ought to be read by adults – E. Nesbit’s
The Enchanted Castle, a favourite of Noel Coward and J B Priestley, and
praised by Gore Vidal. Now on Naxos CD: 2h30m
(£10.99)
NON-FICTION
ART
Collins
30-minute Pastels - Margaret Evans (£7.99)
Collins
30-minute Sketching - Alwyn Crawshaw (£7.99)
Contemporary Textiles: The Fabric of Fine Art - ed. Nadine Monem
(£24.95)
BIOGRAPHY
The Ballad of Dorothy
Wordsworth - Frances Wilson
Ordinarily presented as a sacrificial saint,
Dorothy Wordsworth was a talented writer and exceptional woman. In her
beautifully told biography, Frances Wilson brings Dorothy to life in all her
complexity. (£16.99 at The Book Case)
Elizabeth Gaskell: A Portrait in Letters, ed. J.A.V. Chapple; John
Geoffrey Sharps
Elizabeth Gaskell is best known as a novelist and
biographer, but she was also a lively and sensitive letter writer, with a
vivacious interest in all that was going on around her. (£14.99)
I Want to Live: The Diary of a Young Girl in Stalin's Russia - Nina
Lugovskaya
Thirteen-year-old Moscow schoolgirl Nina Lugovskaya began to
write a diary in 1932. Her indignant outbursts against the brutal raids and
purges of Stalin's terror appear alongside the more typical adolescent worries
about girlfriends, boys, parties and homework. Then in 1937 Stalin's secret
police ransacked Nina's home and discovered her diary. She, her mother and two
sisters were sentenced to five years' hard labour in the Gulag, followed by
seven years' exile in Siberia. (£6.99)
Infidel - Ayaan
Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali burst into international headlines following
the murder of Theo van Gogh by an Islamist who threatened she would be next.
Hirsi Ali's story tells how a bright, curious, dutiful little girl evolves into
a pioneering freedom fighter. (£7.99)
Unbowed: My
Autobiography - Wangari Maathai
The autobiography of Wangari Maathai,
Kenyan peace activist and environmentalist, who in 2004 became the first
African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. (£8.99)
My Grandmother: A Memoir - Fethiye Cetin, trans. Maureen Freely
Fethiye Cetin finally heard the truth from her grandmother: that she
was by birth a Christian and an Armenian, that her name was not Seher but
Heranush, that most of the men in her village had been slaughtered in 1915,
that she, along with most of the women and children, had been sent on a death
march. (£12.99)
CURRENT AFFAIRS and
DISCUSSION
The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the
Peace - Ali A. Allawi (£9.99)
Bring on the Apocalypse - George Monbiot
A new fusillade of
provocative thinking from George Monbiot, tackling science, political power,
war, religion, economics and culture. (£11.99)
The Lemon
Tree - Sandy Tolan
In the summer of 1967 three young Palestinians
ventured into the town of Ramla in Israel to see their childhood homes, from
which they and their families had been driven out nearly twenty years earlier.
One of them, Bashir, was met at the door by a young woman, a Jewish fugitive
from Bulgaria, who invited him in. This was the starting point for the story of
two families - one Arab, one Jewish - which spans the fraught modern history of
the region. (£8.99)
Angel of Grozny: Inside Chechnya -
Asne Seierstad
Asne Seierstad returns to Chechnya and discovers that
though the world's attention has moved on, the tragedy has continued, leaving a
brutalised society - with a particular toll on its children - in its wake..
(£14.99)
My Year Inside Radical Islam: A Memoir - Daveed
Gartenstein-Ross
Raised by parents who were Jewish by birth but
dismissive of strict dogma, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross converted to Islam in
college. The story of how a good faith can be distorted and a decent soul can
be seduced away from his principles. (£10.99)
God is Not
Great: How Religion Poisons Everything - Christopher Hitchens
(£8.99)
On the Wealth of Nations: A Book That Shook the
World - P.J. O'Rourke
American humorist shows why Adam Smith’s
seminal work is still relevant today. (£8.99)
A Point of
View - Lisa Jardine
A collection of the hugely popular talks that Lisa
Jardine has given on Radio 4 in "A Point of View" on Sunday mornings.
(£10.99 at The Book Case)
42: Deep Thought on Life - Mark
Vernon
Mark Vernon takes his inspiration from 42 of the funniest,
wisest, and quirkiest quotations about the big questions in life.
(£9.99)
The Indivisible Remainder - Slavoj Zizek
Combines Schelling
with popular film for a study of modern life. (£6.99)
Ghostly Demarcations: A Symposium on Jacques Derrida's Spectres of
Marx - Eagleton, Derrida, Negri, Jameson
Fredric Jameson, Antonio
Negri, Terry Eagleton, Pierre Macherey and others engage in a debate on Marx
with Jacques Derrida. (£6.99)
ENVIRONMENT
How to Live Off-grid: Journeys
Outside the System - Nick Rosen
People who live without mains water,
power or phone line might be backpackers, right-wing survivalists,
international business travellers or hippies; but all are outside or in-between
the criss-crossing lines of power, water and phone that delineate the civilised
world. (£7.99)
The Transition Handbook: From Oil
Dependency to Local Resilience - Rob Hopkins
We live in an oil-dependent
world, and have got to this level of dependency in a very short space of time,
using vast reserves of oil in the process without planning for when the supply
is not so plentiful. This manual will guide communities to begin an 'energy
descent' journey. Transition Towns are springing up all over the place: not
like Hebden Bridge to be behind ... (£10.95)
How to
Reduce Your Carbon Footprint: 365 Practical Ways to Make a Real Difference -
Joanna Yarrow (£4.99)
50 Ways to be a Greener Shopper
- Sian Berry (£5.99)
50 Ways to be a Greener
Traveller - Sian Berry (£5.99)
Fragile Earth: What's
Happening to Our Planet?
Natural disasters, climate change, the
exploitation of the world's resources and human development are changing our
planet at a relentless pace. Using over 200 stunning images from the air, land
and space, Fragile Earth brings together the most dramatic natural and man-made
events. (£12.99)
GARDENING
21st-century
Smallholder: From Window Boxes to Allotments - How to Go Back to the Land
without Leaving Home - Paul Waddington
Where do concerned citizens, keen
to explore alternative ways of living but lacking the land - look for guidance?
From a small terraced house, Paul Waddington has made it his business to find
out, and while trying it himself, has created a practical and absorbing
guidebook along the way. (£7.99)
Salad Leaves for All
Seasons: Organic Growing from Pot to Plot - Charles Dowding
(£9.95)
Vegetable Growing Month-by-month: The
Down-to-earth Guide That Takes You Through the Vegetable Year - John Harrison
(£5.99)
HISTORY
A People's History of
the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium - Chris Harman
(£12.99)
The Bible: The Biography - Karen Armstrong
The gestation of
the Bible as a complex and contradictory document created by scores of people
over hundreds of years. (£8.99)
Hubbub: Filth, Noise, and
Stench in England, 1600-1770 - Emily Cockayne
Transports us to a world
in which residents were scarred by smallpox, refuse rotted in the streets, pigs
and dogs roamed free, and food hygiene consisted of little more than spit and
polish. (£10.99)
Bomber Boys: Fighting Back 1940-1945 - Patrick Bishop
The
lives, human realities and the extraordinary risks that the painfully young
pilots took during the strategic air-offensive against Germany from 1939--1945.
(£7.99)
Austerity Britain: A World to Build - David
Kynaston
Beginning his groundbreaking series about post-war Britain,
Kynaston presents our nation through the eyes of those who lived there.
(£7.99)
In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century
- Geert Mak
Geert Mak spent the year 1999 criss-crossing the continent,
tracing the history of Europe from Verdun to Berlin, St Petersburg to
Auschwitz, Kiev to Srebrenica. His rare double talent as a sharp-eyed
journalist and a hugely imaginative historian makes "In Europe" a dazzling
account of that journey, full of diaries, newspaper reports and memoirs, voices
and his own observation of the wellsprings of memory.
(£9.99)
Teach Yourself to Fly - Nigel Tangye
One
of the first titles published in the Teach Yourself series. Written in 1938, on
the eve of the Second World War, this book's main purpose was to prepare all
short-service pilot recruits and conscripts before they were called for
service. Other Teach Yourself facsimile reprints include TY to Cook
(1930s), TY to Live and TY Etiquette. (1950s)
(£5.99)
HUMOUR
The "Guardian" Book of April Fool's Day
- Martin Wainwright
How April Fool's Day first came about, when it
developed into a media phenomenon, and the best examples from across the world
of April Fool spoofs over the years. (£7.99)
How to be a Good Husband - Bodleian Library (1930s) (£4.99)
How to be a Good Wife - Bodleian Library (1930s) (£4.99)
LIFESTYLE
Things to Do Now That You Have Retired
- Jane Garton (£6.99)
Things to Do Now That You're
Single Again - Eva Gizowska
(£6.99)
MBS
Quick and Easy Massage: 5-Minute
Massages for Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere - Beata Aleksandrowicz
(£5.99)
Quick and Easy Yoga: 5-Minute Routines for
Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere - Christina Brown
(£5.99)
The Only Tarot Book You'll Ever Need: Interpret
The Cards That Hold Your Future – Alexander Skye
(£6.99)
Ask Your Guides - Sonia Choquette
All
the information you need to help you connect with your spirit guides so that
you can enjoy all the love, abundance, and joy you're entitled to!
(£7.99)
Communication with All Life: How to Understand
and Talk to Animals - Joan Ranquet
Life" illustrates how to move past
the emotional patterns that create unwanted behaviour and ultimately
demonstrates that animal companions give humans the opportunity to enact
leadership and responsibility in their thoughts and feelings to ensure harmony
at home. (£8.99)
Instant Cosmic Ordering: Using Your
Emotions to Get the Life You Really Want - Now! - Barbel Mohr
How to use
the power of your emotions to attract to yourself the life you dream of, but
didn't feel was possible. (£7.99)
MUSIC
Icons of Pop Music: Bob Dylan - Keith Negus (£10.99)
NATURE
Woods, Hedges and Leafy Lanes - Richard
Muir (£12.99)
Know Your Sheep - Jack Byard
(£4.99)
POETRY
Out of the Blue - Simon
Armitage
Written in response in three anniversaries relating to three
separate conflicts, 9/11, VE day, and the Cambodian Civil War.
(£8.95)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Simon
Armitage
This new version of one of the earliest great stories of
English literature captures all of the magic and wonderful storytelling of the
original while also revitalising it with his own popular, funny and
contemporary voice. (£7.99; 2 CDs £12.99)
Naxos
Audiobooks “The Great Poets” (1 hr 15m, £8.99
each)
Shelley
Wordsworth
SCIENCE
The
Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing – ed. Richard Dawkins
A
celebration of the finest writing by scientists for a wider audience.
(£20)
Struck by Lightning - Jeffrey S.
Rosenthal
An entertaining look at the world of probabilities, explaining
the mechanics of randomness in fields as diverse as poker hands, email spam,
crime statistics, opinion polls and lottery jackpots.
(£8.99)
TRAVEL
Coast: The Walks –
BBC (£16.99)
Tropic of Capricorn- Simon Reeve
In his
greatest challenge yet, Simon Reeve, sets out on a global adventure circling
the world around the Tropic of Capricorn. He encounters sumptuous landscapes,
spectacular wildlife, strange rituals and desperate poverty.
(£17.99)
Ray Mears Goes Walkabout - Raymond
Mears
Ray Mears journeys through the wilderness of the Australian
Outback to learn about the people, the wildlife and the culture of this
extraordinary land. (£20)
Tents & Mud & Rock N
Roll – Sharon Watson
The Ultimate Guide to Festivals.
(£5.99)
New Lonely Planet guides to the USA,
Southeast Asia and Marrakesh and new Rough Guides to
Japan and Europe on a Budget
Independent Hostel Guide 2008 Britain and Europe - Sam Dalley (£4.95)
South Lakes: 20 Circular Walks with a Good Pub in the Middle - Meg Brady (£11.99)
The Good Guide to the Lakes - Tom Holman; Hunter Davies
(£7.99)
Basrayatha: The Story of a City - Muhammad
Khudayyir
A literary tribute to the city of the author's birth, Basra,
on the Shatt al-Arab waterway in southern Iraq. Khudayyir distinguishes between
the real city of Basra and the imagined city he created through stories,
experiences, and folklore. (£8.99)
Earthsong - Angelika Jung-Huttl
A spectacular collection
of breathtaking aerial photographs of the earth's surface, taken from all over
the world, dividing the planet into four parts, and celebrating the
immeasurable magnificence of our planet. (£19.95)
Welcome
to Everytown: A Journey into the English Mind - Julian
Baggini
Philosopher Julian Baggini pinpointed postcode S66 on the
outskirts of Rotherham, as England in microcosm - an area which reflected most
accurately the full range of the nation's inhabitants, and spent six months
living there, immersing himself in this
typical English Everytown, in order
to get to know the mind of a people. (£8.99)
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Ages 0-5yrs
Horton Hears a Who - Dr Seuss
The classic Dr Seuss tale, in
an abridged, board book format, to tie-in with the brand new film version due
out this month. Perfect for younger readers. Ages: 2+ yrs. (£5.99)
Ages 5-9yrs
Poems for Children - Ted Hughes
This collection brings
together the poems Ted Hughes wrote for children throughout his life. They are
arranged by volume starting with those for the very young and moving up to the
ones aimed at older children. Beautifully illustrated throughout by the
award-winning Raymond Briggs. Ages: 3+yrs (£9.99)
Ages 9-11yrs
Seventh Tower 1: The Fall - Garth Nix
The first of a
thrilling new fantasy adventure series, set on the Dark World, where society is
ranked according to its colour clan and the most precious commodity is light.
Nix's previous series, The Keys To The Kingdom, has been immensely popular.
Ages: 9-12 yrs (£5.99)
Puffin Classics 3 for 2 Offer
Puffin has relaunched their Classics series, containing novels like Call of the Wild, Black Beauty, The Secret Garden and Huckleberry Finn. They have stunning new cover art, and will be available for a limited period on a 3 for 2 offer. Ages: 9-12 yrs (£5.99)
Teenage
M is for Magic - Neil Gaiman
A rich and satisfying collection
of short stories by Neil Gaiman, crossing a range of genres. Be prepared to
laugh at the detective story about Humpty Dumpty's demise, spooked by the
sinister jack-in-the-box who haunts the lives of the children who own it, and
intrigued by the boy raised by ghosts in a graveyard. Ages: 12+ yrs
(£5.99)
FEBRUARY 2008
FICTION
HARDBACK
Friday Nights - Joanna
Trollope
It's Eleanor who starts the Friday nights. From her window she
sees two young women, with small children, separate, struggling and plainly
lonely - and decides to ask them in, and see what happens. (£16.99
at The Book Case)
His Illegal Self - Peter Carey
The
precocious son of radical ‘60s Harvard students is raised in isolated
privilege by his New York grandmother – but soon he is an outlaw, fleeing
down subways, abandoning seedy motels at night, and finally in a hippy commune
in the jungle
of tropical Queensland. (£14.99 at the Book
Case)
PAPERBACK
Exit Music - Ian
Rankin
Inspector Rebus’s acclaimed swansong, now in trade
paperback. (£10.99)
Burning Bright by Tracy
Chevalier
The Kellaways move from familiar rural Dorset to the tumult of
a cramped, unforgiving city – London in 1792. A surprising bond forms
between young Jem and streetwise Londoner Maggie Butterfield. Their friendship
takes a dramatic turn when they become entangled in the life of their
neighbour, the printer, poet and radical, William Blake.
(£6.99)
Faith Fox - Jane Gardam
When a popular
young mother dies in childbirth, a Surrey village finds itself landed with a
helpless, silent husband, and a tiny daughter, Faith: the baby must be packed
off to her father's peculiar family in the North.
(£7.99)
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive - Alexander
McCall Smith
As winter turns to spring across the red earth, acacia
trees and slow green rivers of Botswana, all is not quite as it should be on
Zebra Drive, home to Mma Ramotswe and her beloved husband.
(£6.99)
The Welsh Girl - Peter Ho Davies
In 1944,
a German Jewish refugee is sent to Wales to interview Rudolf Hess; in
Snowdonia, a seventeen-year-old girl, the daughter of a fiercely nationalistic
shepherd, dreams of the bright lights of an English city; and in a nearby POW
camp, a German soldier struggles to reconcile his surrender with his sense of
honour. A Richard and Judy choice. (£7.99)
Animal's
People - Indra Sinha
Jaanvar - Animal - walks on all fours, the
catastrophic result of what happened on That Night when, thanks to an American
chemical company, the Apocalypse visited his slums. Booker shortlisted.
(£7.99)
Cupid's Dart - David Nobbs
A 55-year-old
philosophy lecturer meets a twenty-something, horoscope reading, darts groupie
on train, and asks her out to dinner, and two worlds mingle. A touching and
hilarious story from the creator of Reginald Perrin
(£7.99)
Winter Under Water: or, Conversation with the
Elements - James Hopkin
When Joseph meets Marta, who has come to the UK
from Poland to research the forgotten histories of remarkable women from across
Europe, he is captivated, and Marta feels the same. 'A chilly and atmospheric
first novel about crossing
cultures ...Hopkin beautifully conveys the sense
of being a stranger in a strange land, struggling to reach a true understanding
of the woman he loves' (£7.99)
Oystercatchers –
Susan Fletcher
Amy lies in a coma. Her older sister, Moira, comes to
her in the evenings, sits beside her in a green-walled hospital room. Here,
Moira confesses. From the author of “Eve Green”.
(£7.99)
Seizure - Erica Wagner
Janet grew up with
her father; her mother, she was always told, died when she was three. But now,
living an ocean away from her childhood home, she unexpectedly inherits a
house. (£7.99)
Things to Make and Mend - Ruth
Thomas
At fifteen, Sally Tuttle and Rowena Cresswell were firm friends,
until a shocking event changed their lives. Now in their early forties, they
are estranged, both single mothers, both haunted with memories of their intense
friendship. (£7.99)
The Giles Wareing Haters' Club - Tim
Dowling
Rising-40 Giles is a freelance writer of amusing articles for a
national newspaper. One day, he happens to type 'Giles Wareing+unfunny' into a
search engine and discovers a thread entirely devoted to holding
everything he has ever written up to excoriating criticism and ridicule.
(£7.99)
Night Train to Lisbon – Pascal
Mercier
One man’s escape from a humdrum life in search of passion,
spontaneity and a mysterious Portuguese writer. International bestseller.
(£12.99)
Measuring Time – Helon Habila
In a
small Nigerian village live Mamo and LaMamo, twin sons of a domineering father.
When one day the boys try and escape the village, only LaMamo succeeds - and in
time becomes a soldier well-versed in the ways of life and death. Mamo, too
sickly to leave, watches impotently as his detested father grows powerful and
corrupt, and he reaches for a pen. (£6.99)
The Sword in
the Stone - T. H. White, Naxos CDs, read by Neville
Jason
(£29.99)
REISSUES
The Law and
the Lady - Wilkie Collins (£6.00)
Humiliated and
Insulted - Fyodor Dostoevsky
(9.99)
NON-FICTION
ART AND
ARCHITECTURE
Collins Gem: Architecture – Timothy
Brittain-Catlin
(£4.99)
BIOGRAPHY
Miracles of Life - J. G.
Ballard
This memoir opens and closes in Shanghai, the city where J. G.
Ballard was born, and where he spent the most of the Second World War interned
with his family in a Japanese concentration camp. In the intervening chapters
Ballard creates a memoir that is both an enthralling narrative and a detailed
examination of the events which would profoundly influence his work.
(£14.99 at The Book Case)
Perfect Hostage – Justin
Wintle
The dramatic story of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma and the Generals.
(£8.99)
X-ray: The Unauthorized Autobiography – Ray
Davies
Disguised as the work of a nameless, faceless writer hired by an
Orwellian entity called ‘the Corporation’ to capture the essence of
Ray Davies, lead singer and songwriter of The Kinks and one of the greatest
rock ‘n’ rollers of all time, this book is part memoir, part social
history and part psychological thriller. (£9.99)
CURRENT
AFFAIRS
Big Ideas: The Essential Guide to the Latest Thinking
– James Harkin
Explains where concepts like ‘the long
tail’, ‘urban tribes’, ‘soft power’ and
‘metrosexual’ came from, what they mean, and what their critics say
about them. (£8.99)
ENVIRONMENT
Six Degrees : Our
Future on a Hotter Planet – Mark Lynas
An eye-opening and vital
account of the future of our earth, and our civilisation, if current rates of
global warming persist. (£8.99)
FOOD AND
DRINK
The Fairtrade Everyday Cookbook – Sophie Grigson;
George Alagiah; Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall; Joanne Harris; Ruth Rodgers; Rose
Gray
An everyday cookbook featuring produce that is seeded, nurtured and
provided by farmers and suppliers getting a better, fairer deal for their work.
(£16.99)
How to Cheat at Cooking – Delia Smith
Delia has sourced a range of pre-prepared foods (from tins, chill
cabinets, freezers and store cupboards) to help you short circuit cooking times
and techniques. (£20)
The Vitamin Murders: Who Killed
Healthy Eating in Britain? - James Fergusson
(£8.99)
GARDENING
Around the World in 80
Gardens – Monty Don
’If I have learned only one thing
from my travels around the world it is that no garden is an island. Context is
everything.’ Monty Don visits each continent in this landmark series on
gardens of the world. (£20)
The Yellow Book 2008: NGS Gardens Open for Charity Stephen Anderton;
Tim Wonnacott; Zac Goldsmith (£7.99)
An Ear to the
Ground: Understanding Your Garden – Ken Thompson
From Eden Project
Books. This entertaining book gives the answers to gardeners’
questions. (£7.99)
The Royal Horticultural Society
Allotment Notebook - Lia Leendertz (£12.99)
The
Natural Gardener: The Way We All Want to Garden - Val Bourne
How you can
use organic principles to create not only a healthy garden, with the balance to
control garden pests and other hazards in an environmentally friendly way, but
also one that has a special beauty. (£14.99)
The Tiny
Garden - Jane McMorland Hunter
Stairs, passages, light wells, the tops
of fire escapes - no site is too small for a garden, or the illusion of one.
This book shows you how you can create a garden in even the tiniest and most
unpromising of spaces.
(£12.99)
HISTORY
Inquisition: The Reign of
Fear - Toby Green
Today the word Inquisition implies dread, fear and a
withheld threat of torture. A secret police and a thought police, the
Inquisition produced a permanent state of fear But who were its targets? Why
did it provoke such fear? How and where did it operate? Why was it founded, and
why did it last for so long? (£8.99)
Inferno: The
Devastation of Hamburg, 1943 - Keith Lowe
In July of 1943, British and
American bombers launched an attack on the German city of Hamburg and for ten
days drenched the city with over 9,000 tons of bombs, with the intention of
erasing it entirely from the map. The fires they created were so huge they
burned for a month, and were visible for 200 miles.
(£8.99)
Life Series:
From Sutton, a new
series of small affordable history books bringing the past to life –
including:
Life in a Medieval Abbey - Peter Street
(£4.99)
Life in a Victorian Workhouse - Alan Gallop
(£4.99)
Life in a RAF Heavy Bomber Crew - Jonathan
Falconer (£4.99)
Can Any Mother Help Me? – Jenna
Bailey
Young mothers of the 1930s, isolated at home, exchanged ideas
through the Cooperative Correspondence Club.
(£8.99)
HOBBIES AND PUZZLES
The Daring Book
for Girls - Andrea J. Buchanan; Miriam B. Peskowitz
For active outdoor
girls, a response to “The Dangerous Book for Boys”.
(£20)
Collins Gem -- The Times Su Doku Book 2 - ed.
Wayne Gould (£4.99)
MBS
Overcoming
Diabetes: The Complete Complementary Health Programme – Dr. Sarah
Brewer (£12.99)
Overcoming High Blood Pressure: The
Complete Complementary Health Programme – Dr. Sarah Brewer
(£12.99)
Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and
Art – Lewis Hyde
Brings to life the playful and disruptive side of
the human imagination as it is embodied in the trickster mythology. From the
author of “Gift”. (£16.99)
The Messenger: The
Meanings of the Life of Muhammad - Tariq Ramadan
Leading Muslim scholar
Tariq Ramadan considers the ways in which the Prophet Muhammad's actions, words
and teachings can guide us in the modern world. It offers Muslims a new
understanding of Muhammad's life and introduces non-Muslims to the story of the
Prophet and to the riches of Islam. (£8.99)
Raphaels
Astronomical Ephemeris 2009 (£4.99)
The Mammoth Book
of Brain Workouts – Gareth Dr. Moore
(£7.99)
Growing Great Boys: 100s of Practical Strategies
for Bringing Out the Best in Your Son – Ian Grant
(£8.99)
Living with Teenagers: 3 Kids, 2 Parents, 1 Hell
of a Bumpy Ride
Based on the anonymously-penned Guardian column of the
same name. (£12.99)
MBS REISSUES
The
Miracle of Mindfulness - Thich Nhat Hanh (£7.99)
The
Tibetan Book of Living and Dying - Sogyal Rinpoche
(£7.99)
Women Who Run with the Wolves: Contacting the Power of
the Wild Woman -
Clarissa Pinkola Estes (£7.99)
How to
Practise: The Way to a Meaningful Life - Dalai Lama XIV
Bstan-'dzin-rgya-mtsho
(£7.99)
NATURE
The Wildlife of Britain's
Canals and Waterways: Towpath Guide - Jonathan Briggs
(£12.99)
POETRY
The New Faber Book of Love
Poems ed. James Fenton (£9.99)
Autumn Journal –
Louis MacNeice
Written between August and December 1938, “Autumn
Journal is a record of young MacNeice’s emotional and intellectual
experience during the turbulent months of late 1938.
(£9.99)
Poetry in the Making – Ted Hughes
A
reissue of his 1967 publication which accompanied his broadcasts to schools.
The purpose throughout is to lead on, via discussion of the poems, to some
direct encouragement to the children to think and write for themselves. He
makes the whole venture seem enjoyable, and somehow urgent.
(£9.99)
TRAVEL
Pies and Prejudice: In Search
of the North - Stuart Maconie
A Northerner in exile, Stuart Maconie goes
on a journey in search of the North, attempting to discover where the cliches
end and the truth begins, passing through Hebden Bridge as he goes. Now in a
standard paperback edition. (£7.99)
Confessions of an Eco
Sinner: Travels to Find Where My Stuff Comes from - Fred Pearce
Veteran
science writer travels from the market down his street to the ends of the earth
in search of where his belongings have come from and who has mined, grown or
made them, to discover his true footprint as one of 7 billion of us now living
on the planet. (£12.99)
Going as Far as I Can: The
Ultimate Travel Book - Duncan Fallowell
When the author was left some
money by a friend he decided to travel as far as possible from home so that he
need never travel again and could relax. This meant travelling to New Zealand,
where another fantasy soon asserted itself - 'to find the place of perfect
exile'. (£12.99)
The Cave of the Yellow Dog -
Dbyambasuren Davaa; Lisa Reisch
Davaa, a young filmmaker (and director
of “The Story of the Weeping Camel”, returns to her native
country and to the region where she grew up to show us life among the nomadic
people, through poetic writing and exquisite
photography(£7.99)
In Dorling Kindersley’s
Eyewitness Top Ten Travel Guides Series:
Paris Top 10
(£6.99)
London Top 10 (£6.99)
Marrakech Top 10
(£6.99)
Naples and the Amalfi Coast Top 10
(£6.99)
Dubrovnik and the Dalmatian Coast Top 10
(£6.99)
A new Mini Rough Guide to London, and a
new Rough Guide to Belgium and Luxembourg
New Lonely
Planet Guides to Italy, Denmark, Amsterdam, Crete, Tuscany &
Umbria, and Devon, Cornwall & Southwest England
New
Time Out Guides to Paris and
London
Organic Places to Stay in the UK - Linda Moss
(£10.95)
CHILDREN'S
BOOKS
Ages 0-5yrs
More Pants - Giles
Andreae
A picture book with rhyming text and illustrations
including a hippo, a limousine and a dinosaur in pants. A fantastic follow up
to the classic Pants.
Ages: 2+ yrs.
(£5.99)
Ages 5-9yrs
Mr Gum and the Power
Crystals - Andy Stanton
Mr Gum and a wacky cast of characters is back in
the fourth book of this series of which You're A Bad Man, Mr Gum
has won the Red House Children's Book Award, and has sold over 30,000 copies.
It has been described as a cross between Roald Dahl and Monty Python.
This series is a huge hit with younger independent readers. Ages: 6+ yrs
(£4.99)
Ages 9-11yrs
The Diamond of Drury Lane
- Julia Golding
Cat Royal is an orphan who lives at the back of
the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. She mingles with the high and low of society,
from the actors onstage to the lords and ladies in the stalls to the barrow
boys in the grimy marketplace. A reissue of the multi award winning novel,
available now for the first time in paperback, Set in 1790s Covent Garden, it's
packed with local colour and authentic detail. Ages: 9-12 yrs (£5.99)
Teenage
Lee Raven: Boy Thief - Zizou Corder
Lee Raven,
boy thief, has stolen something he really didn't mean to. Now he faces a
perilous flight through London (and the murky sewers below) as he tries to
escape capture - because Lee has stolen the Book of Nebo, a book that has
existed for thousands of years and tells every story and legend known to man.
Brand new title from the author of Lionboy. Ages 11+ yrs
(£6.99)
JANUARY 2008
FICTION
HARDBACK
Pontoon - Garrison
Keillor
A good Lutheran lady wants her ashes to be placed inside a
bowling ball and dropped into the lake, no prayers, no hymns, thank you very
much. The veterinary aromatherapist is having her wedding on a pontoon boat.
Then a delegation of renegade Lutheran pastors from Denmark arrive. It is Lake
Wobegon as you've imagined it - good loving people who drive each other
slightly crazy. (£14.99 at The Book Case)
Homecoming -
Bernhard Schlink
From the author of “The Reader”. As a child
raised by his mother in post-war Germany, Peter Debauer becomes fascinated by a
story he discovers in the proof pages of a novel edited by his
grandparents, the tale of a German prisoner of war who escapes from a
Russian camp. But the end is missing and Peter becomes obsessed by the question
of what happened when the soldier and his wife met again. (£12.99 at The
Book Case)
PAPERBACK
On Chesil Beach - Ian
McEwan
Booker-shortlisted story set in a seaside hotel, about how the
entire course of a life can be changed by a gesture not made or a word not
spoken. (£6.99)
The Cleft - Doris Lessing
Imagines
a mythical society free from sexual intrigue, free from jealousy, free from
petty rivalries: a society free from men. The Clefts are an ancient community
of women living in an Edenic, coastal wilderness. But with the unheralded birth
of a strange, new child -- a boy – the harmony of their community is
suddenly thrown into jeopardy. (£7.99)
A Concise
Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers - Xiaolu Guo
What happens when a
Chinese girl adrift in Britain falls for an Englishman adrift in life: a funny,
sexy, romantic novel. (£7.99)
The Widow and Her Hero -
Thomas Keneally
In 1943, when Grace and Leo Waterhouse married in
Australia, they were part of a young generation ready to sacrifice themselves
to win the war, while being confident they would survive. Sixty years on, as
Grace keeps revising her picture of what happened to Leo and his fellow
commandoes. (£7.99)
The Book Thief - Markus
Zusak
The story of a young German girl who steals books, of her family
and the Jewish boxer hidden in their basement as they struggle to survive in
Nazi Germany when the bombs begin to fall. Adult edition.
(£7.99)
The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters - G.W.
Dahlquist
Three unlikely but extraordinary heroes become involved in the
diabolical machinations of a cabal bent upon enslaving thousands through a
devilish 'process': (£7.99)
Lies - Enrique De
Heriz
Isobel, mother of three adult children and an anthropologist has
officially been pronounced dead following a boat accident in a remote part of
the Guatemalan jungle. But Isobel is very much alive and is hiding in a remote
shack in the jungle. She isn't ready to tell the world she's still alive and
she's not sure whether she ever will. (£7.99)
The
Pesthouse - Jim Crace
A devastated America exists in an imagined future.
Its technologies are forgotten, its communities have splintered and its
refugees, reversing the course of history, travel eastwards in search of safety
and a new start. (£7.99)
Skylark Farm - Antonia Arslan,
trans. Geoffrey Brock
In May 1915, after forty years, Yerwant is
planning a long-awaited reunion with his family – but at the same time, in
Turkey, his family begins a brutal odyssey of hunger and humiliation at the
hands of the Young Turks who are determined to rid their nation of minorities.
Translated from the Armenian. (£12.99)
Bad Traffic -
Simon Lewis
'This man have come from china to find his daughter who have
some trouble. He do not speak english'. Inspector Jian is a Chinese cop from
the Siberian border who thinks he's seen it all. But his search for his missing
daughter brings him to the meanest streets he's ever faced - in rural England.
(£7.99)
Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand - Fred
Vargas
Between 1943 and 2003 nine people have been stabbed to death with
a most unusual weapon: a trident. In each case, arrests were made, suspects
confessed their crimes and were sentenced to life in prison – but each
presumed murderer had lost consciousness during the night of the crime and has
no recollection of it. (£6.99)
Seeking Whom He May Devour
- Fred Vargas
In this frightening and surprising novel, the eccentric,
wayward genius of Commissaire Adamsberg is pitted against the deep-rooted
mysteries of one Alpine village's history and a very present problem: wolves.
(£6.99)
Special Assignments: the Further Adventures of
Erast Fandorin - Boris Akunin
More about Boris Akunin's popular Russian
detective. In this one he faces a deft, comedic swindler and master of disguise
and a brutal serial killer, driven by an insane, maniacal obsession, who
strikes terror into the heart of the Moscow slums in 1889.
(£6.99)
Rounding the Mark - Andrea
Camilleri
Montalbano bumps into a dead body during a bracing swim and
his detective instincts are aroused once more.
(£7.99)
Granta 100: ed. William Boyd
The 100th
edition includes pieces by Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, Bill Buford, AM Homes,
Ian Jack, Doris Lessing, Mario Vargas Llosa, Ian McEwan, Jayne Anne Phillips,
Nicholas Shakespeare and Helen
Simpson.
REISSUES
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber
of Fleet Street – ed. Robert L. Mack
Both gleeful and ghoulish, the
original tale of Sweeney Todd, first published in 1846-7, is an early classic
of British horror writing. An authoritative text of the first version of the
story ever to be published, as well as a lively introduction to its history and
reputation. (£5.99)
The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes - Nick
Rennison
A collection of short stories from the golden era of crime
writing, the late 19th and early 20th century.
(£9.99)
The Mammoth Book of Best Horror Comics – ed.
Peter Normanton (£12.99)
Great Horror Stories: Tales
by Stoker, Poe, Lovecraft and Others – ed. Grafton
(£3.50)
The White Family - Maggie Gee
Orange
Prize-shortlisted novel about race and the roots of violence within the family
and British society (£7.99)
NON-FICTION
ART
AND CRAFT
The Grammar of Ornament – Owen Jones
A
re-issue of Owen Jones’ classic book on design which was first published
in 1856. (£14.99)
Drawing and Sketching in Pencil –
Arthur L. Guptill (£10.00)
Sun Signs Stained Glass
Coloring Book – Marty Noble (£5.99)
Pinwheel
Designs – Wil Stegenga (£3.95)
Quilled Borders
and Motifs - Judy Cardinal (£6.99)
Quilled Wild
Flowers - Janet Wilson
(£6.99)
BIOGRAPHY
Trickster Travels -
Natalie Zemon Davis
An accessible and dramatic biography of Leo
Africanus, a sixteenth-century Moroccan born in Granada, captured by pirates
and presented to Pope Leo X, who asked him to write a book about Africa.
There’s also a novel about him by Amin Maalouf.
(£9.99)
Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer and Patriot – Anna
Beer
Of all the major English poets, John Milton was by far the most
deeply involved in the political and religious controversies of his time, and
actively engaged with the business of government, working as Cromwell’s
international secretary. On the personal level, he deserves an honest
re-assessment. Neither tyrant nor saint, he was a man who had intense and often
troubled relationships with both men and women throughout his life. (£18
at The Book Case)
The Last Princess - Matthew
Dennison
Beatrice was the last child born to Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert. Her father died when she was four and as Matthew Dennison relates
Victoria came to depend on her youngest daughter absolutely, but she also
demanded from her complete submission. (£10.99)
Edith
Wharton - Hermione Lee
A portrait of a fiercely modern author, writing
of sex, love, money and war - a woman of strong convictions and conflicting
ambitions and desires. (£10.99)
Achtung Schweinehund!
– Harry Pearson
Harry Pearson belongs to the great battalion of
British men who grew up playing with toy soldiers – refighting World War
II – and then stopped growing up. This is a celebration of those glory
days and a tale of obsession, glue and plastic kits.
(£7.99)
Hellfire and Herring: A Childhood Remembered -
Christopher Rush
An account of the author's childhood in the 1940s and
1950s in the little fishing village of St Monans.
(£8.99)
Assassins Cloak – an anthology of the
world’s greatest diarists – Alan Taylor, Irene Taylor
(£9.99)
CURRENT AFFAIRS
Affluenza - Oliver
James
There is currently an epidemic of 'affluenza' throughout the world
- an obsessive, envious, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses - that has resulted in
huge increases in depression and anxiety among millions. Over a nine-month
period, the author travelled around the world to try and find out why.
(£8.99)
The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in
the 21st Century – Will Hutton
China constitutes a fifth of the
world’s population. Over the last twenty years its economy has doubled.
The re-emergence of China as a superpower constitutes the biggest challenge the
world has had for more than a century. (£9.99)
Small Wars
Permitting: Dispatches from Foreign Lands - Christina Lamb
An
extraordinary collection of reportage that tells the story of some of the most
important world events of the past 16 years, from one of the most talented and
intrepid female journalists at work today and 2007 Foreign Correspondent of the
Year. (£8.99)
A Long Way Gone: The True Story of a Child
Soldier - Ishmael Beah
The first-person account of a 26-year-old who
fought in the war in Sierra Leone as a 12-year-old boy. What is war like
through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one
stop? This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and
heartbreaking honesty. (£7.99)
Estates: An Intimate
History – Lynsey Hanley
Lynsey Hanley was born and raised just
outside of Birmingham on what was then the largest council estate in Europe,
and she has lived for years on an estate in London’s East End. A vivid mix
of memoir and social history, an engaging and illuminating book about a corner
of society that the rest of Britain has left in the dark.
(£7.99)
Utopian Dreams – Tobias Jones
One
writer’s attempt to retreat from the ‘real world’ – which
is making him emptier and angrier by the day – and seek out the
alternatives to modern manners and morality. With his wife and baby in tow,
Jones spends a year with spiritualists, time-travellers, reformed drug addicts
and Quakers. (£7.99)
ENVIRONMENT
Rescue Our
World: 52 Brilliant Little Ideas for Becoming an Eco-hero - Natalia
Marshall (£4.99)
How Many Lightbulbs Does it Take to
Change a Planet?: 95 Ways to Save Planet Earth - Tony Juniper
The human
world sits on the brink of potentially catastrophic environmental change. The
latest science confirms that there is now only a decade left for action. Tony
Juniper. director of Friends of the Earth for England and Wales, presents his
programme for staving off environmental, economic and social disaster.
(£7.99)
The Rough Guide to Climate Change - Robert
Henson (£10.99)
Planet Chicken: The Shameful Story of
the Bird on Your Plate - Hattie Ellis (£7.99)
The
Aye-aye and I: A Rescue Mission in Madagascar - Gerald Durrell
When
Gerald Durrell visited Madagascar, home to five per cent of the world's plant
and animal species, creatures like the aye-aye were in danger of vanishing, due
to 'slash and burn' agriculture. Gerald Durrell decided to undertake a rescue
mission to bring aye-ayes back to his breeding centre on the island of Jersey.
(£7.99)
FOOD AND DRINK
Hungry: Easy Food for
Hungry People - Lindsey Bareham
The book of choice for students and
beginners everywhere! (£7.99)
Juices and Smoothies
Over 200 quick and tasty juice and smoothie recipes, all containing
essential nutrients to help maintain your health and vitality.
(£6.99)
Vegetable Juices: Over 30 Fresh Ideas for Detox,
Raw Power, Health and Well-being, Shown in 150 Vibrant Pictures - Suzannah
Olivier; Joanna Farrow (£6.99)
The Food Mood
Solution: All Natural Ways to Banish Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Stress,
Overeating, and Alcohol and Drug Problems and Feel Good Again - Jack
Challem (£8.99)
GAMES AND PUZZLES
Train
Your Brain: 10-minute Su Doku Workout – ed. Wayne Gould
(£5.99)
Penguin Sudoku 2008 - David J. Bodycombe
(£6.99)
Pocket Penguin Sudoku - David J. Bodycombe
(£3.99)
HISTORY
The English Year - Steve
Roud
An exploration of local customs and national festivities.
(£9.99)
The Death of Woman Wang - Jonathan D.
Spence
Paints a vivid picture of provincial China in the late 17th
century. Against an endless cycle of floods, plagues, crop failures, banditry
and heavy taxation, a tenacious tax collector, an irascible farmer, and an
unhappy wife act out a poignant drama at whose climax the wife, having run away
from her husband, returns to him, only to die at his hands.
(£7.99)
The Ghost Map: A Street, an Epidemic and the
Hidden Power of Urban Networks - Steven Johnson
The story of the
terrifying cholera epidemic that engulfed London in 1854 and the two unlikely
heroes who defeated the disease through a combination of local knowledge,
scientific research and map making. (£8.99)
Plain Tales
from the British Empire – Charles Allen
Gathers together Charles
Allen’s best-loved books on the British experience across the Empire:
“Plain Tales from the Raj”, “Tales from the South China
Seas” and “Tales from the Dark Continent”.
(£14.99)
HUMOUR
St Trinian's: The Cartoons -
Ronald Searle
Reissue of the hilarious Gothic satire on the English
boarding school that has inspired naughty schoolgirls for generations.
(£6.99)
MBS (See “Food” too for detox
diets)
GI Hip and Thigh – Rosemary Conley
(£6.99)
Beat the Bloat: Lose Weight, Feel Great! -
Helen Foster (£6.99)
48-hour Detox - Gill Paul
(£4.99)
Is it Just Me or are Sit Ups a Waste of Time? -
Graeme Hilditch
Which pieces of advice on keeping ourselves fit and
healthy should we believe? Personal trainer Graeme Hilditch uses his extensive
expertise in fitness and nutrition to explode some of the most common myths.
(£7.99)
The Flat Tummy Book - Denise Lewis
Most
people aiming for a flat stomach are going about it incorrectly, wasting time,
effort and money. But with the right advice, a flat stomach is within
everyone's reach. (£12.99)
15-minute Everyday Pilates:
Get Real Results Anytime, Anywhere: Four 15-minute Workouts – Alycea
Ungaro – book & 60-min DVD
(£12.99)
15-minute Total Body Workout: Get Real Results
Anytime, Anywhere, Four 15-minute Workouts on DVD – Joan
Pagano (£12.99)
The Illustrated Easy Way
for Women to Stop Smoking: The Liberating Guide to a Smoke-free Future –
Allen Carr & Bev Aisbett (£6.99)
Massage to Go:
Soothe Aches and Pains Calm Down Re-energize – Eilean Bentley
(£4.99)
Meditation to Go: Learn to Relax, De-stress, Find
Peace of Mind – Christina Rodenbeck
(£4.99)
Reflexology to Go: Relax and Unwind, Beat Common
Ailments, Feel Happier - Ann Gillanders
(£4.99)
Stress Relief to Go: Yoga, Meditation, Reiki,
Pilates, Feng Shui and More – Jonathan Hilton
(£4.99)
Yoga to Go: Relieve Tension, Feel Fitter, Balance
Body and Mind – Stella Weller (£4.99)
5-minute
NLP - Carolyn Boyes (£4.99)
The Art of Being Kind -
Stefan Einhorn
Stefan Einhorn passionately believes that kindness is one
of the finest things we can devote ourselves to, and is the single most
important factor for success in our lives. If we strive to be kind to others,
we simply cannot avoid doing ourselves good.
(£7.99)
Mastering Your Inner Critic - Melanie
Greene
Though many of us are unaware of it, everyone has messages
running through their head. Some of the messages are positive, but for many the
messages are negative and self critical: This book providse a range of tried
and tested techniques for transforming your inner critic.
(£8.99)
What Makes Women Happy - Fay Weldon
What
makes women happy? Nothing, for more than ten minutes at a time, so stop
worrying. A blend of philosophy, storytelling and self-help.
(£7.99)
The Rules of Parenting - Richard Templar; Ros
Jay
"A personal code for bringing up happy, confident children"
(£9.99)
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff...and it's All Small
Stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life -
Richard Carlson (new edition) (£9.99)
Psychometric
Tests for Graduates: Gain the Confidence You Need to Excel at Graduate-level
Psychometric and Management Tests - Andrea Shavick
(£9.99)
The Best Value 50+ Book Ever: 52 Brilliant Ways
to Enjoy Getting Older - Janet Butwell; Sally Brown; Monica Troughton
(£5.00)
The Dimensions of Paradise: Sacred Geometry,
Ancient Science, and the Heavenly Order on Earth - John Michell
(£11.99)
Islam for Beginners - M. I. Matar
(£8.99)
POETRY
The Book of Hopes and Dreams
– ed. Dee Rimbaud
Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Margaret Atwood,
Moniza Alvi, Penelope Shuttle, Ian Duhig, Michael Horovitz, Alan Brownjohn and
Lawrence Ferlinghetti join a host of others in this anthology of poetry that
aims to raise funds for the charity, Spirit Aid.
(£9.99)
The World's Favourite Love Poems - Suheil B.
Bushrui (£9.99)
The Poem and the Journey: 60 Poems
for the Journey of Life - Ruth Padel
From the author of "52 Ways of
Looking at a Poem": sixty poems by some of our finest poets to look at the idea
of the journey, through literature and through life.
(£8.99)
SCIENCE
The Universe: A Biography -
John Gribbin
Makes cosmology accessible to everyone.
(£7.99)
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly
Improbable - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Black Swans are the random events
that underlie our lives, from bestsellers to world disasters. Their impact is
huge and they're impossible to predict. This book shows us how to take
advantage of uncertainty. (£8.99)
SPORT AND OUTDOOR
ACTIVITIES S
The Boys' Book of Survival: How to Survive Anything,
Anywhere - Guy Campbell (£7.99)
Fitting Tack: Horse
Illustrated Simple Solutions - Toni McAllister
(£6.95)
Grooming: Horse Illustrated Simple Solutions -
Elizabeth Moyer (£6.95)
Byways, Boots and Blisters -
George Drower
The history of walking – famous walks and walkers and
key inventions such as the cagoule, the thermos flask and the rucksack.
(£14.99)
TRAVEL
From Alan Rogers:
Europe 2008: Quality Camping and Caravanning Sites
From
Lonely Planet, a new guide to Brazil and new Rough Guides
to London, Belgium & Luxembourg, the Baltic States and Paris,
and to travelling with babies and young children.
Enjoy
England - Self Catering 2008 (£11.99)
Britain's
Camping, Caravan and Holiday Parks 2008- VisitBritain
(£8.99)
Bed and Breakfast 2008 – VisitBritain
(£11.99)
Pets Come Too! 2008: Pet-friendly Hotels,
B&Bs and Self-catering Accommodation in England – VisitBritain
(£9.99)
The Kabul Beauty School: The Art of
Friendship and Freedom - Deborah Rodriguez
Arriving in Afghanistan in
2002 with nothing more than a beauty degree and a desire to help, Deborah
Rodriguez set out on a course of action that would change her life and those of
many Afghan women. (£7.99)