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The Universe: A Biography makes cosmology accessible to everyone. John Gribbin navigates the latest frontiers of scientific discovery to tell us what we really know about the history of the universe. Along the way, he describes how the universe began; what the early universe looked like; how its structure developed; and what emerged to hold it all together. He describes where the elements came from; how stars and galaxies formed; and the story of how life emerged. He even looks to the future: is the history of the universe going to end with a Big Crunch or a Big Rip?

'Home looks nice. Allus does though, don't it? Perfick'And so the Larkins - Pop, Ma, Mariette, Zinnia, Petunia, Primrose, Victoria and Montgomery - return from an outing for fish and chips and ice cream one May evening. There, amid the rustic charms of home, they discover a visitor: one Cedric Charlton, Her Majesty's inspector of taxes.Mr Charlton is visiting to find out why junk-dealer Pop hasn't paid his tax - but nothing's that simple at the Larkins. Mariette takes a shine to 'Charley' - as Pop calls him - and before long the family have introduced the uncomplaining inspector to the delights of country living: the lusty scents of wild flowers, the pleasures of a bottle of Dragon's Blood, cold cream dribbled over a bowl of strawberries and hot, hot summer nights.In fact, soon Charley can't see any reason to return to the office at all . . .

From the outside Vicky Townsley would appear to have it all. Features Director of the hugely successful Poise! magazine, she lives alone in London, is single, solvent, and seriously successful. But she'd give it all up in a heartbeat for marriage, children, and a house in the country. Amber Winslow on the other hand, has exactly what Vicky Townsley wants; a huge stone mansion in Highfield Connecticut, children and a busy charitable commitment for the local Women's League. But Amber isn't happy either. She hasn't found quite the fulfillment she had expected from being a full-time wife and mother, so when she spots a double page spread in Poise! magazine asking married readers to life swap with a glamorous, single journalist in London, she sits down and writes a letter. But she never expects to be picked... Life Swap is the story of what really happens when two women decide to walk in one another's shoes for one month. It's the story of the grass not being as green as you might think, and of discovering that happiness is not always where you expect it to be.

Before Easter 1916 Dublin had been a city much like any other British city, comparable to Bristol or Liverpool and part of a complex, deep-rooted British world. Many of Dublin's inhabitants wanted to weaken or terminate London's rule but there remained a vast and conflicting range of visions of that future: far more immediate was the unfolding disaster of the First World War that had put 'home rule' issues on ice for the duration. The devastating events of that Easter changed everything. Both the rising itself and-even more significantly-the ferocious British response ended any sense at all that Dublin could be anything other than the capital of an independent country, as an entire nation turned away in revulsion from the British artillery and executions. As we approach the 90th anniversary of the rebellion it is time for a new account of what really happened over those fateful few days. What did the rebels actually hope to achieve? What did the British think they were doing? And how were the events really interpreted by ordinary people across Ireland? Vivid, authoritative and gripping, Easter 1916 is a major work.

That s the one! she cried. That s the bottom I m after. Darling, you have the most gorgeous bottom! Nicholas s dad has a plan to make some fast cash. Nappies! Some disposable-nappy people are looking for a beautiful botty for their new advert and all Nicholas s baby brother has to do is pass the audition. What could possibly go wrong?

In his monthly accounts of what he's read along with what he may one day read Nick Hornby brilliantly explores everything from the classic to the graphic novel, as well as poems, plays, sports books and other kinds of non-fiction. If he occasionally implores a biographer for brevity, or abandons a literary work in favour of an Arsenal match, then all is not lost. His writing, full of all the joy and surprise and despair that books bring him, reveals why we still read, even when there's football on TV, a pram in the hall or a good band playing at our local pub.

Not Quite the Diplomat describes what has been happening in Britain, Europe and the world since 1997 from the perspective of one at the heart of international events. In examining how we got to where we are, he writes candidly about many of the major players and what happened behind closed doors. In arguing about where we should be, he writes with the directness of a man freed at last from the bonds of diplomatic restraint. Will the British still be trying to work out who we are and what we want to be as the world moves on? How far can Europe expand - and is Europe all a terrible mistake or where our destiny lies? Does the old, fractured Western alliance still have the time and the will to shape the world before the rise of India and China? Chris Patten's answers to these questions are pungent and devastatingly well informed. No recent book by a politician of any political persuasion has been so engaging, so outspoken - and often so funny. If Chris Patten is no longer the diplomat, it is the readers of this book who are the beneficiaries.

In Ghost Milk Iain Sinclair exposes the dark underbelly of the Olympics 2012 Burrowing under the perimeter fence of the grandest of Grand Projects - the giant myth that is 2012's London Olympics - Ghost Milk explores a landscape under sentence of death and soon to be scorched by riots. This is a road map to a possible future as well as Iain Sinclair's most powerful statement yet on the throwaway impermanence of the present.'Wonderful, sharp, amusing, grippingly atmospheric. One of our most dazzling prose stylists' Daily Telegraph'A scorching diatribe' Independent'Sinclair views London through a distortingly surreal lens; a striking visual poetry and tart black comedy are extracted from even the most hopeless of London locations. For those unfamiliar with Sinclair's work, Ghost Milk is a good place to start' Spectator'Inventive, dazzling, arresting. Sinclair lays bare the human consequences and mourns the disruption of communities, the erasure of history and of a sense of place and continuity. This is Sinclair at his best. He is the archetypal whistleblower, a pricker of vainglorious and self-promoting hyperbole. A superb chronicle of an improbable dream that has descended to a nightmare. It is essential reading for all Londoners curious about their city' Dan Cruickshank, New Statesman'Be warned: Ghost Milk reads like some whimsical meld of the poet Allen Ginsberg, comic books writer Alan Moore and an anarchists' message board. Highly alienating' Evening Standard'A wounding assault' DJ Taylor, Independent on Sunday'Sinclair's literary excavations of London's memory go deeper than anyone's' Time Out'Brilliant' Robert Macfarlane, Guardian Iain Sinclair is the author of Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Encore Award); Landor's Tower; White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings; Lights Out for the Territory; Lud Heat; Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein); Radon Daughters; London Orbital, Dining on Stones, Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire and Ghost Milk. He is also the editor of London: City of Disappearances.

An immortal story of chivalry, treachery and death told anew for our timesThe legend of King Arthur has retained its appeal and popularity through the ages: Mordred's treason, the knightly exploits of Tristan, Lancelot's fatally divided loyalties and his love for Guenevere, the quest for the Holy Grail. Now retold by Peter Ackroyd with his signature clarity, charm and relish for a good story, the result is not only one of the most readable accounts of the knights of the Round Table but also one of the most moving.

On the evening of March 16, 2008, Bear Stearns, a swashbuckling eighty-five-year-old institution in the financial world, sold itself for an outrageously low price to the $2 trillion global behemoth JP Morgan Chase. Bear Stearns no longer existed, and the calamitous financial meltdown of 2008 had begun. What went wrong?In House of Cards bestselling author and former investment banker William Cohan gives the reader a front-row seat at Wall Street's catastrophic unravelling at the seams, and the end of the Second Gilded Age on Wall Street. Through the prism of Bear Stearns, he shows how a combination of risky bets, corporate political infighting, lax government regulations and truly bad decision-making have wrought havoc on the world financial system.Cohan's minute-by-minute account of those ten days in March makes for breathless reading, as the bankers at Bear Stearns struggled to contain the cascading series of events that would doom the firm, as the US government and federal bank began to realize the dire consequences for the world economy should the company go bankrupt. But HOUSE OF CARDS does more than recount the incredible panic of the first stages of the financial meltdown. William D. Cohan beautifully demonstrates why the seemingly invincible Wall Street money machine came crashing down. He chronicles the swashbuckling corporate culture of Bear Stearns, the strangely crucial role competitive bridge played in the company's fortunes, the brutal internecine battles for power, and the deadly combination of greed and inattention that helps to explain why the company's leaders ignored the danger lurking in Bear's huge positions in mortgage-backed securities.Full of insider knowledge and larger-than-life characters, such as Ace Greenberg, Bear Stearns' miserly, take-no-prisoners chairman and his profane, colorful rival Jimmy Cayne, whose world-champion-level bridge skills were a lever in his corporate rise and the firm's demise; and Jamie Dimon, the blunt-talking CEO of JPMorgan Chase, who won in the end, House of Cards is a shocking tale of greed, arrogance and stupidity in the financial world, and the consequences for all of us.

The Book of Dave is Booker-shortlisted author Will Self's dazzling sixth novel What if a demented London cabbie called Dave Rudman wrote a book to his estranged son to give him some fatherly advice? What if that book was buried in Hampstead and hundreds of years later, when rising sea levels have put London underwater, spawned a religion? What if one man decided to question life according to Dave? And what if Dave had indeed made a mistake?Shuttling between the recent past and a far-off future where England is terribly altered, The Book of Dave is a strange and troubling mirror held up to our times: disturbing, satirizing and vilifying who and what we think we are. At once a meditation upon the nature of received religion, a love story, a caustic satire of contemporary urban life and a historical detective story set in the far future - this compulsive novel will be enjoyed by readers everywhere, including fans of Martin Amis and Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange.'Vivid, visceral and breathtakingly ambitious, this is Self's best yet' GQ'Mindboggling ... darkly hilarious ... A fascinating book' Evening StandardWill Self is the author of nine novels including Cock and Bull; My Idea of Fun; Great Apes; How the Dead Live; Dorian, an Imitation; The Book of Dave; The Butt; Walking to Hollywood and Umbrella, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He has written five collections of shorter fiction and three novellas: The Quantity Theory of Insanity; Grey Area; License to Hug; The Sweet Smell of Psychosis; Design Faults in the Volvo 760 Turbo; Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys; Dr. Mukti and Other Tales of Woe and Liver: A Fictional Organ with a Surface Anatomy of Four Lobes. Self has also compiled a number of nonfiction works, including The Undivided Self: Selected Stories; Junk Mail; Perfidious Man; Sore Sites; Feeding Frenzy; Psychogeography; Psycho Too and The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Prawn Cracker.

How can we make the governments on which we depend for our welfare and survival behave like servants rather than masters? This is the oldest question in politics. It has been grappled with, but never satisfactorily answered, for thousands of years. In much of the world states remain oppressive, secretive and violent. It is no surprise that so much recent political theory has been concerned with how to protect people from dangerous states. Yet the only things as bad as states that are too strong are states that are too weak. The old democracies of western Europe and north America have achieved a rough balance between being too strong and too weak, yet still suffer from constant crises of moral purpose. There is a growing trend of anti-politics, manifest in falling turnouts and party membership, and an assumption that politicians represent the worst venality rather than the highest ideals. Something has gone badly wrong in our relationship with power. This book explains why we have arrived at this point, what can be done to change the world, and how the power of governments can be used for good.

John Donne's life story is inextricably tied up with the fabric of a society in the throes of religious persecution. His family had long been subject to the terror inflicted upon Catholics under the reign of Elizabeth I, and while his brother languished in prison, and his mother and uncles fled to exile in Europe, Donne was consumed by the question of his own faith and by trying to figure out what it is that connects human beings - and keeps them apart.In his biography of Donne, John Stubbs chronicles not only a long and bitter sectarian conflict, but also the love story of a young couple who broke the rules of their society, and paid the ultimate price.From the raucous streets of late sixteenth-century London to the personal and political intrigues of Donne's family and public life, from the horrors of the Reformation to the delight of Donne's poetry, John Stubbs' book is a vivid, dazzling biography of an extraordinary man, as well as a compelling portrait of England at a time of bewildering transformation..

HOMO BRITANNICUS tells the epic history of life in Britain, from man s very first footsteps to the present day. Drawing on all the latest evidence and techniques of investigation, Chris Stringer describes times when Britain was so tropical that man lived alongside hippos and sabre tooth tiger, times so cold we shared this land with reindeer and mammoth, and times colder still when we were forced to flee altogether. This is the first time we have known the full extent of this history: the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project, led by Chris, has made discoveries that have stunned the world, pushing back the earliest date of arrival to 700,000 years ago. Our ancestors have been fighting a dramatic battle for survival here ever since.

For nine years Adam has been the centre of his mother, Cara s, world. And, she thinks, she has been the centre of his. Until the day he disappears. When he is found in the woods behind his school, beside the body of a little girl whom Cara has never heard of before, it feels as if her world has been torn apart. As Adam is locked into silence, unable to tell his mother what he has seen, Cara s desperation to understand her little boy becomes fiercer than ever. A heartrending, utterly unputdownable story of the tangled bond between mother and child, Eye Contact engages the heart and will not let it go.

Snow Blind is the fourth book in P.J. Tracy's bestselling Twin Cities series.The Dead of Winter... Minneapolis, winter's first white flakes; a park full of snowmen. But the layers of packed snow hide a ghoulish surprise.First, the bodies of two cops are found inside the snowmen and then a day later, in the countryside to the north, Sheriff Iris Rikker makes a similarly shocking discovery. Soon Detectives Gino and Magozzi are sent north through the worst blizzard Minnesota's seen for years to find what else links the investigations.But some secrets you don't want to uncover. And as the cases unravel, it seems snowmen aren't the only ones with something to hide...P.J. Tracy's cult thriller characters Grace MacBride and Detectives Gino and Magozzi are back for more in the fourth book in the Monkeewrench series. Follow their journeys in the rest of the series:Want to Play?, Live Bait, Dead Run, Play to Kill and Two Evils. Praise for P.J. Tracy:'A fast-paced, gripping read with thrills and devilish twists' Guardian'Outrageously suspenseful' Harlan Coben'P.J. Tracy is about to become a household name' Daily Mirror

Kith is Jay Griffiths's passionate examination of what it means to be a child.While travelling the world in order to write her award-winning book Wild, Jay Griffiths became increasingly aware of the huge differences in how childhood is experienced in various cultures. One central riddle, in particular, captured her imagination: Why are so many children in Euro-American cultures unhappy -- and why is it that children in many traditional cultures seem happier? In Kith, Jay Griffiths explores these questions and many more. Moving from communities in West Papua and the Arctic to the ostracised young people of contemporary Britain, she asks why we have enclosed our children in a consumerist cornucopia but denied them the freedoms of space, time and deep play. She uses history, philosophy, language and literature to illustrate children's affinity for the natural world and the essential quest element of childhood.Kith is Jay Griffiths' impassioned, illuminating analysis of a universal rite of passage and an antidote to books such as Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. In its urgent defence of the rights and needs of every child, it is a journey into the heart of human experience.'Kith could have been written by no-one but Jay Griffiths. It is ablaze with her love of the physical world and her passionate moral sense that goodness and a true relation with nature are intimately connected. She has the same visionary understanding of childhood that we find in Blake and Wordsworth, and John Clare would have read her with delight. Her work isn't just good -- it's necessary' Philip Pullman 'Jay Griffiths writes with such richness and mischief about the one thing that could truly save the world: its children' KT Tunstall'An impassioned, visionary plea to restore to our children the spirit of adventure, freedom and closeness to nature that is their birthright. We must hear it and act on it before it is too late' Iain McGilchristJay Griffiths is the author of Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time; Wild: An Elemental Journey; and A Love Letter from a Stray Moon, a novella about the life of Frida Kahlo. She is the winner of the inaugural Orion Book Award and of the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for the best new non-fiction writer to be published in the USA. She has also been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the World Book Day award.

A long-awaited reissue of the much-loved sequel to CARBONEL, King of the Cats. In this second story, published over forty years ago, Carbonel has been summoned to appear before the Great Cat but before he goes he has to find someone to look after his two royal kittens. And so he tracks down his young friends Rosemary and John to help out. The kittens are very sweet - but quite a handful as the children soon discover...

Cutting through the headlines and spin, this is the first book to give us a true picture of the reality on the ground, through the words of the people there - from commanders to intelligence officers, army doctors to ordinary soldiers. Providing eye-witness accounts that contradict the official stories and figures, they give a chilling picture of the deceit, stupidity, wishful thinking, lack of forward planning and total intellectual failure of those behind the invasion. The result is an extraordinary new insight into the plight of ordinary soldiers doing nightmarish jobs, and the real nature of the fighting in Iraq.

The Testament of Gideon Mack is James Robertson's acclaimed novel exploring faith and belief.For Gideon Mack, faithless minister, unfaithful husband and troubled soul, the existence of God, let alone the Devil, is no more credible than that of ghosts or fairies. Until the day he falls into a gorge and is rescued by someone who might just be Satan himself.Mack's testament - a compelling blend of memoir, legend, history, and, quite probably, madness - recounts one man's emotional crisis, disappearance, resurrection and death. It also transports you into an utterly mesmerising exploration of the very nature of belief.'Fascinating, extraordinary, strange, rich' Sunday Telegraph'Overwhelmingly compassionate and thought-provoking. Demands another read' Irvine Welsh, Guardian'Hugely enjoyable, very funny, deeply refreshing . . . its touch of devilry makes it even more of a joy' Herald'Fabulous . . . a work of the highest literary quality' Scotland on Sunday'Astonishingly accomplished, utterly compelling from start to finish . . . could well be the best novel published anywhere this year' Big Issue'James Robertson is a brilliant novelist. It's a long time since I read a novel in which the contemporary notions of faith and belief were so frankly tested' Ali SmithJames Robertson is the author of the novels The Fanatic, Joseph Knight, The Testament of Gideon Mack, And the Land Lay Still and The Professor of Truth. The Testament of Gideon Mack was longlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize, picked by Richard and Judy's Book Club, and shortlisted for the Saltire Book of the Year award, and And the Land Lay Still was the winner of the Saltire Book of the Year Award 2010.

'I LOVE THIS BOOK' LEE CHILDA teenage girl is missing. The clock is ticking. Find her, before he does . . . With the police struggling, CSI Darby McCormick is shocked to discover a terrified woman hiding in the shadows of a crime scene. A woman who was abducted herself, five years before, and has managed to escape. She could be their only lead.But what Darby doesn't know is that a serial killer has been prowling America for decades. A killer she's met before. Once, long ago, he tore her life apart. Now he wants to finish the job...Praise for Chris Mooney: 'One of the best thriller writers working today' Lee Child'This will keep you up past your bedtime' Karin Slaughter'If you want a thriller that will chill your blood, break your heart and make your pulse race, Chris Mooney is your man' Mark Billingham'Harrowing, gripping, haunting, gut-wrenching and beautifully written' Harlan Coben'I devoured The Missing in one greedy, breathless sitting. This is a scary, breakneck ride with thrills that never let up.' Tess Gerritsen

Fuck everyone from Holden Caulfield to Bridget Jones, fuck all the American and English phoney fictions that claim to speak for us; they don t know the likes of us exist and they never did. We are who we are because we grew up the Stornoway way. We do not live in the back of beyond, we live in the very heart of beyond Meet R Stornoway, drink-addled misfit, inhabitant of the Hebridean Isle of Lewis, and meandering man fighting to break free of an island he just can t seem to let go of

Brick Lane today is a place of extremes a street that's constantly reinventing itself. Blending history and reportage with personal testimony and urban myths, and interspersing these with maps and photography, On Brick Lane is a one-of-a-kind chronicle of one of London's most remarkable streets.Bringing to life the memories and realities of Brick Lane's many communities, Rachel Lichtenstein harnesses the voices of the famous, the infamous and the obscure, merging memoir, reportage, poetry, photography and local history. The result is as vibrant and fascinating as the neighbourhood it so movingly celebrates.

Dead Run is the third book in P.J. Tracy's bestselling Twin Cities series.It should have been a simple journey - a drive from Minneapolis to Green Bay, Wisconsin. But a couple of unplanned detours lead Grace MacBride, Annie Belinsky and police Deputy Sharon Mueller deep in the northern woods, far from civilization and a mobile phone signal. Then the car breaks down.The nervous search for a landline and a mechanic leads the women to Four Corners, a sleepy crossroads town. And place they soon wish they'd never stumbled on - because something terrible happened in Four Corners...Filled with the same crackling dialogue, pace and rich vivid characters as in previous novels, Dead Run firmly establishes P.J. Tracy as one of the most exciting thriller writers in the world. Fans of Karen Rose should be paying attention. Follow the characters' journeys in the rest of the series: Want to Play?, Live Bait, Snow Blind, Play to Kill and Two Evils. Praise for P.J. Tracy:'A thrilling page-turner with a nail-biting finish' Sunday Telegraph'P.J. Tracy is about to become a household name' Daily MirrorP.J. Tracy is the pseudonynm for the mother-and-daughter writing team of P.J. and Traci Lambrecht. They are the authors of the award-winning and best-selling thrillers Live Bait, Dead Run, Snow Blind, Play to Kill, Two Evils and the Richard and Judy Book Club pick Want to Play?. All six books feature detectives Gino and Magozzi and maverick computer hacker Grace MacBride. P.J. and Traci both live near Minneapolis, Minnesota.www.pjtracy.net

Ross O'Carroll-Kelly thought he knew all he needed to about women's bodies ... So there I was, roysh, in a state of basically very blissful ignorance, when suddenly Sorcha's up the Damien and I have to listen to, like, women's stuff. And now he's getting a biology lesson he could have SO lived without ... I am telling you, roysh, I never even knew nipples could crack and I was very happy not knowing it. I mean, all I knew about the whole scenario was six seconds of seriously good loving, and now I'm basically expected to be an expert on how to, like, breathe like Dorth Vader and deal with baby turds.Sometimes, life just isn't fair to the babe magnet supremo ... This is SO not good for my rep - but do you think Sorcha even, like, cares about that? Not focking likely!

"e;Jo's pioneering 'spaced soothing' technique is a failsafe method that teaches babies to enjoy their sleep and empowers parents to understand their babies better."e; - Made for MumsBaby Secrets will guide you through the early weeks of your baby's life and take you into the blissful world of nighttime peace. Help your baby to find a calmer night time routine through a unique and proven method of intermittent soothing.Unlock top maternity nurse and sleep expert Jo Tantum's secrets, just as Barbara Want did when she gave birth to twins and found herself completely unprepared. You too can begin a happy, flexible routine based on your baby's natural patterns. Discover: The secrets of sleeping through the night How to cope with more than one How to calm their crying Simple feeding routines Flexible nap timesThis is the ultimate first-time-parenting guide, covering all aspects of caring for your baby. Jo's approach is warm, empowering for you as a parent and easy to follow and, as Barbara will testify, it works!

In 1919 a generation of young women discovered that there were, quite simply, not enough men to go round, and the statistics confirmed it. After the 1921 Census, the press ran alarming stories of the 'Problem of the Surplus Women - Two Million who can never become Wives...'. This book is about those women, and about how they were forced, by a tragedy of historic proportions, to stop depending on men for their income, their identity and their future happiness.

Side effects are things we do not intend. And, in this collection of essays, Adam Phillips examines how the things we don t mean, or mean perhaps to forget, prove to be those that are often most telling about our unconscious lives. Phillips also intends for us to question our conscious pursuit of happiness, explaining that, in refusing to admit and explore life s down sides, we can only be living half lives. And through his unique and incisive exploration of literature, Phillips also demonstrates what the great novelists have to tell us about ourselves. Both illuminating and fascinating on literature as well as life, Side Effects maps our edges as human beings, and, in doing so, goes some way to helping give shape to our lives.

The Wave Theory of Angels is Alison MacLeod's compelling mixture of thriller and philosophical exploration. Two widowed fathers named Giles. The first, woodcarver Giles of Beauvais in thirteenth-century France, whose unearthly skill leads the medieval Church to suspect him of heresy. The second, maverick twenty-first-century physicist Giles Carver, who risks his reputation and livelihood for a heretical theory.Both Gileses have daughters named Christina who each fall into a strange coma from which they will not wake. And in their dreams both girls struggle to return to the world that they left behind - a reality which seems to be turning away from them. Are the memories they cling to real? Is the lover they both dream of a protector - or a more sinister presence? And are the men who claim to be their fathers actually someone else entirely 'Part thriller, part philosophical treatise. Quite wonderful' Time Out'Weaves science with mystery, justified faith with prejudice . . . an unfolding thriller in which the big question is whether one can die of an excess of emotion' Independent on Sunday'A daring investigation of medieval philosophy, modern-day physics, and the relation of both to faith and desire . . . a novel with a passion for ideas. MacLeod has an engaged delight in the stuff of life' The Times Literary Supplement'Utterly delightful, beautifully written' Alberto ManguelAlison MacLeod was raised in Canada and has lived in England since 1987. She is the author of three novels, The Changeling, The Wave Theory of Angels and Unexploded, and of a collection of stories, Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction. Unexploded was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2013. Alison MacLeod is Professor of Contemporary Fiction at Chichester University and lives in Brighton.

If you're lost in love, you need The A-Z of Us, a novel that answers those age-old questions:Why can't a man and woman just be friends?Is it really a good idea to have sex with your best friend's sister?How do you tell your husband that you don't love him anymore?Ian thinks he has it all mapped out. He has a dream job as a travel writer and he's dating his dream woman. Everything seems to be on track ... until his best friend Gemma calls and he finds himself in unexplored territory, heading for a place where 'me' might just become 'us'.Gemma thinks she'll never need a map again. Not yet thirty, she's ended up in exactly the right place - just married, with a great career, and a fabulous almost-renovated house. But when she tells her husband she doesn't love him anymore, Gemma is forced to embark on a journey of the heart for which no maps have been written.The A-Z of Us is a heart-warming, funny and wise tale of the brave new world of relationships and what to do when the old maps no longer show us the way.