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All That is Solid Melts into Air by Darragh McKeon is an exceptionally moving novel of interwoven lives, set amidst one of the most iconic disasters in living memory.'Daring, ambitious, epic, moving' Colm T ib n'Exhilarating, thrilling, brilliantly imagined, beautifully written' Colum McCannRussia, 1986. In a run-down apartment block in Moscow, a nine-year-old piano prodigy practices silently for fear of disturbing the neighbours. In a factory on the outskirts of the city, his aunt makes car parts, trying to hide her dissident past. In the hospital, a surgeon immerses himself in his work to avoid facing his failed marriage. And in a rural village in Belarus, a teenage boy wakes up to a sky of the deepest crimson. Outside, the ears of his neighbour's cattle are dripping blood. Ten miles away, at the Chernobyl Power Plant, something unimaginable has happened. Now their lives will change forever.All That is Solid Melts into Air is an astonishing novel of terrifying beauty that captures the end of an era.Darragh McKeon was born in 1979 and grew up in the midlands of Ireland. He has worked as a theatre director, and lives in New York. This is his first novel.

Argo by Antonio Mendez and Matt Baglio - the declassified CIA story behind the Oscar-winning filmWINNER OF 'BEST PICTURE' AT THE ACADEMY AWARDS, THE BAFTAS AND THE GOLDEN GLOBESTehran, November 1979. Militant students stormed the American embassy and held sixty Americans captive for a gruelling 444 days. But until now the CIA has never revealed the twist to the Iran Hostage Crisis: six Americans escaped.The escape plot was run by Antonio Mendez, head of the CIA's extraction team and a master of disguise. Mendez came up with an idea so daring and potentially foolish that it seemed destined for Hollywood... and indeed it was. He invented a fake sci-fi film called 'Argo' (from the actual name of the CIA mission, a reference to Jason and the Argonauts). After announcing the production to the movie industry, Mendez put together a team of real 1970s Hollywood actors, directors and producers - along with covert CIA officers. They would travel to revolutionary Iran under a foreign film visa, and while 'scouting locations' throughout the country they would track down the six Americans who were hiding out. After giving them false identities as part of the film crew, they would spirit them back across the border.One part 'Ocean's 11' and another part 'Black Hawk Down', Mendez's mind-bogglingly complicated and risky gamble paid off: each escapee was extracted without a shot being fired. Mendez is considered one of the greatest officers in CIA history. The story of this, his greatest mission, has never been told.Now an acclaimed film directed by and starring Ben Affleck, with Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin and John Goodman' Antonio Mendez was cited by Richard Clarke as one of the top two or three CIA agents in history. His He received the Intelligence Star for his rescue of six Americans from revolutionary Iran, and has received the CIA's Intelligence Medal of Merit and the Trailblazer Medallion. He continues to consult for the CIA. He and his wife, also a famed agent, were technical consultants on the television series 'The Agency' and founding board members of the International Spy Museum in Washington.Matt Baglio is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist. His writing appears regularly in the Daily Mail and the Associated Press.

The original Fifty Shades of Grey, Edith Templeton's novel Gordon has been banned, pirated and published under various names for almost fifty yearsPost-war London. Louisa, a smartly dressed young woman in the midst of a divorce, meets a charismatic man in a pub, and within an hour has been sexually conquered by him on a garden bench. Thus begins her baffling but magnetic love affair with Richard Gordon.Gordon, a psychiatrist, keeps Louisa in his thrall with his almost omniscient ability to see through her, and she is equally gripped by the unexpected pleasure of complete submission. Subjecting herself to repeated humiliations at his hands, but quite unable and unwilling to free herself from his control, Louisa and Gordon sink further and further into the depths - both psychologically and sexually.An extraordinary novel of psycho-sexual entanglement that was banned for indecency in England in 1966, in Gordon, Edith Templeton captures one of the most unusual and disturbing love stories ever written.'Templeton's characters are not passive or self-doubting. Their pleasure in sexual submission is a mark of their toughness: they can take what their men give them' The New York Times'Sexual perversion, masochistic dependency, obsession and suicide' Telegraph'An unsettling tale of sexual obsession' The New Yorker'It is unlikely that any young woman will write a book as good, as honest, as provocative as Gordon' Telegraph'Superbly written and unsettling' Beryl BainbridgeEdith Templeton was born in Prague in 1916 and spent much of her childhood in a castle in the Bohemian countryside. Her short stories began to appear in The New Yorker in the 1950s and caused a major stir because of their sexual explicitness (these stories are available in one volume entitled The Darts of Cupid as a Penguin ebook). Gordon first appeared in 1966 under the pseudonym Louise Walbrook and was subsequently banned in England and Germany; it was then pirated around the world, appearing under various titles. In 2001, Edith Templeton agreed to publish the novel, with its original title, under her own name. She died in 2006.

Winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 'One of the most shamefully under-read great British authors of the past 100 years' Sarah WatersThe poet Sylvia Townsend Warner rose to sudden fame with the publication of her classic feminist novel Lolly Willowes in 1926, but never became a conventional member of London literary life, pursuing instead a long writing career in her own individualistic manner. Cheerfully defying social norms of the day, Warner lived in an openly homosexual relationship with the poet Valentine Ackland for almost forty years. Together, they were committed members of the Communist party and travelled twice to Spain during the Civil War, but Warner paid for her outspokenness with years of neglect, and channelled much of her emotional and intellectual energy into letters, poems and heart-breaking diaries that remained unpublished during her lifetime. In this enthralling and enlightening biography, Claire Harman tells the story of Warner's remarkable life and restores her to her rightful place as one of Britain's most unique and brilliant writers."e;As passionate and truthful, elegant and enchanting as its subject."e; George D Painter"e;Harman skilfully weaves Sylvia's stories and letters into the biography, and the brilliance of the samples on display constantly takes you aback... Outstanding"e; Sunday Times

What Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir, and Naomi Wolf did for feminism, senior editor of The Atlantic Hanna Rosin does for a new generation of women: an explosive new argument for why women are winning the battle of the sexes.Women are no longer catching up with men. By almost every measure, they are out-performing them. Women in Britain hold half the jobs Women own over 40% of China's private businesses 75% of couples in fertility clinics are requesting girls, not boy Women will outnumber men in the UK medical profession by 2017 In 1970, women in the US contributed to 2-6% of the family income. Now it is 42.2%This is an astonishing time. In a job market that favours people skills and intelligence, women's adaptability and flexibility makes them better suited to the modern world.In The End of Men, Hanna Rosin reveals how this has come to pass and explains its implications for marriage, sex, children, work, families and society.Exposing old assumptions and drawing on examples from across the globe, Rosin shows us how we must all adapt to a radically new way of working and living.'One of the most controversial books since Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth' Stylist'Explosive' Daily Mail'Fascinating' Sunday Times

Winter Games is a dazzling tale of secrets and betrayal: perfect reading for fans of The Bolter by Frances Osborne, and the writing of the Mitfords.Munich, 1936. She doesn't know it, but eighteen-year old Daphne Linden has a seat in the front row of history. Along with her best friend, Betsy Barton-Hill, and a whole bevy of other young English upper-class girls, Daphne is in Bavaria to improve her German, to go to the Opera, to be 'finished'. It may be the Third Reich, but another war is unthinkable, and the girls are having the time of their lives. Aren't they? London, 2006. Seventy years later and Daphne's granddaughter, Francie Fitzsimon has all the boxes ticked: large flat, successful husband, cushy job writing up holistic spas . . . The hardest decision she has to make is where to go for brunch - until, that is, events conspire to send her on a quest to discover what really happened to her grandmother in Germany, all those years ago.'A rip-roaring read' Evening Standard'There's never a dreary moment in this blast of a book . . . Johnson's descriptions are irresistibly exuberant . . . As addictively, fizzily invigorating as the Alpine air itself' Daily Mail'Johnson delivers a genuine sense of time and place . . . there isn't a dull sentence in this sure-footed novel' Jenny Colgan, Telegraph'An excellent romp. Full of 'tally-ho' Mitfordian charm . . . a witty, fast read' Red'Excellent on period detail, the blundering innocent abroad and young heartbreak' Sunday Times'The Jane Austen of W11' ScotsmanRachel Johnson is a journalist who has written two previous novels and two volumes of diaries. The Mummy Diaries, Notting Hell, Shire Hell and A Diary of The Lady are all available now from Penguin.

New from Dave Eggers, National Book Award finalist A Hologram for the KingIn a rising Saudi Arabian city, far from weary, recession-scarred America, a struggling businessman pursues a last-ditch attempt to stave off foreclosure, pay his daughter's college tuition, and finally do something great. In A Hologram for the King, Dave Eggers takes us around the world to show how one man fights to hold himself and his splintering family together in the face of the global economy's gale-force winds. This taut, richly layered, and elegiac novel is a powerful evocation of our contemporary moment - and a moving story of how we got here.'A master of the surprising metaphor, Eggers's great skill is in tracking the exuberant chaos of thought, with all its sudden poignancies and unexpected joys' Daily Telegraph'Among the most influential writers in the English language' GQ 'Eggers can write like an angel' Tablet

Paul Theroux invites us to join him on one of his most exotic and tantalizing adventures exploring the coasts and blue lagoons of the Pacific Islands, and taking up residence to discover the secrets of these isles.Theroux is a mesmerizing narrator brilliant, witty, keenly perceptive as he floats through Gauguin landscapes, sails in the wake of Captain Cook and recalls the bewitching tales of Jack London and Robert Louis Stevenson. Alone in his kayak, paddling to seldom visited shores, he glides through time and space, discovering a world of islands, their remarkable people, and in turn, happiness. A sharp, fascinating and highly entertaining book Theroux at his best Daily Telegraph.

A Richard and Judy Summer 2013 Book Club pick.The Sea Change by Joanna Rossiter is a haunting and moving novel about a mother and a daughter, caught between a tsunami and a war.Yesterday was Alice's wedding day. She is thousands of miles away from the home she is so desperate to leave, on the southernmost tip of India, when she wakes in the morning to see a wave on the horizon, taller than the height of her guest house on Kanyakumari beach. Her husband is nowhere to be seen.On the other side of the world, unhappily estranged from her daughter, is Alice's mother, Violet. Forced to leave the idyllic Wiltshire village, Imber, in which she grew up after it was requisitioned by the army during World War Two, Violet is haunted by the shadow of the man she loved and the wilderness of a home that lies in ruins.Amid the debris of the wave, Alice recollects the events of the hippie trail that led to her hasty marriage as she struggles to piece together the fate of the husband she barely knows. Meanwhile, Violet must return to Imber in order to let go of the life that is no longer hers - and begin the search for her daughter.Joanna Rossiter grew up in Dorset and studied English at Cambridge University before working as a researcher in the House of Commons and as a copy writer. In 2011 she completed an MA in Writing at Warwick University. The Sea Change is her first novel. She lives and writes in London.

The Orange Prize long listed debut novel by the author of The German BoyIn 1958, in a small Devon village, on an idyllic summer afternoon, two children are drowned. Their parents, Isabel and Robert, are overcome with grief but, as time passes, their tragedy becomes part of the everyday fabric of village life. One summer's day, thirty years later, Anna arrives. She comes to the village on a whim, hoping to start afresh - and, without telling anyone she is pregnant, goes to live with Isabel. For a time the women find solace in each other's company, but the baby's arrival causes powerful feelings of loss and heartbreak to surface, and Anna must question whether Isabel's feelings towards her child are entirely benign. . . 'Wastvedt, like Alice Sebold in The Lovely Bones, casts a wide net that goes beyond the immediate family. Captivating and evocative' Toronto Globe and Mail'Accomplished, dramatic, with a finale that Du Maurier herself would have been proud of' Daily Mail'Moving, impressive, strongly atmospheric. A remarkable achievement' Penelope LivelyBorn in 1954, Patricia Wastvedt grew up in Blackheath, south London, and spent her summers in Kent. She has a degree in Creative Arts and an MA in Creative Writing, and her first novel, The River, written in her late forties, was long-listed for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, The German Boy, is available in Penguin. She teaches at Bath Spa University, and is also a manuscript editor. She lives and writes in a cottage in Somerset.

Katherine Hill's Violet Hour is blazing debut about a woman who just can't stop herself from destroying what she loves most.For a moment that afternoon, it was only woman and water, the Bay in all its sickening glory squaring itself for a fight.Life hasn't always been perfect, but for Abe and Cassandra Green, an afternoon on the San Francisco Bay might be as good as it gets. He's a doctor piloting his new sailing boat. She's a sculptor finally getting a bit of recognition. Their beautiful daughter Elizabeth is off to Harvard at the end of the summer. But then there is a terrible row. Cassandra has been unfaithful. In a fit of insanity, Abe throws himself off the boat. A love story that begins with the end of a marriage, The Violet Hour follows a 21st century American family through past and present, from a lavish New York wedding to the family funeral home in suburban Washington, from a drunken PTA party to a scene of unexpected public violence. In this deeply resonant novel intimacy is fragile and the search for gratification breeds destruction. Here is a family ripped apart by desire. And here is a family possibly reborn.Katherine Hill was born in Washington, D.C., in 1982. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in many publications including n+1, The Believer, Bookforum, Colorado Review and the San Francisco Chronicle. This is her first novel.

Justin Quinn's Mount Merrion: a gripping family story spanning half a century, in the mould of Jonathan Franzen and John Lanchester.Declan and Sinead Boyle are pillars of society - born into prosperous families, educated at Dublin's finest schools, dwellers in a fine house in a leafy suburb. So why are they in so much trouble?Declan wants to serve his country - but he also wants to serve his own ambition. Sinead wonders if she is allowed, in the Ireland of the sixties and seventies, to have ambitions at all. Their son, Owen, seems intent on squandering the advantages of a prosperous upbringing and an expensive education. Their daughter Issie, gifted and attractive, has all the options in the world - and keeps choosing the wrong one.Mount Merrion, the dazzling debut novel by Justin Quinn, tells the story of the Boyles from Declan and Sinead's first meeting, in the late fifties, through decades of success, failure and tragedy. Set against the brilliantly realized backdrop of a changing Ireland, it is a page-turning drama, a biting satire and a lovingly detailed portrait of a marriage and a family.'Imaginative and compassionate ... Mount Merrion is about how a decent man, anxious to play by the rules - even if they're someone else's rules - can make the sort of choices that may end up ruining him' Mail on Sunday (four stars)'Taking the form of a family saga, [Quinn's] assured debut plays out over half a century - a state-of-the-nation novel as told through the fast-changing fortunes of middle-class married life ... his novel is filled with perfectly judged moments' Independent 'Mesmerising ... The story is a page-turner, and Quinn's prose consistently light and controlled' Irish Independent'A book that people will find hard to put down ... a gripping story' Sunday Business Post'A great story ... both beautifully written and a well-paced page-turner' Irish Times'Justin Quinn's debut novel is poignant - but it is also fiercely and poetically written, a beautifully observed trajectory of the rise and fall of a society and its assumptions, through the medium of a family story ... This is one of the best books of the year' Evening Herald'Exquisite' Irish Examiner'Absorbing ... A closely and sympathetically observed portrait of family life and Ireland's changing face, Quinn's wide-ranging tale culminates in a conclusion of considerable pathos' Daily Mail'An impressively accomplished trip through forty-odd years of Ireland's recent history ... quite brilliant' RT Guide 'A bona fide thumping good read' Image'An ambitious take on both personal dramas and the altering political landscape of Europe' Sunday Telegraph'An epic yet intimate account of one family caught in the maelstrom of recent history' Metro Herald'Accomplished ... as a condition-of-Ireland novel it makes for salutary reading' TLS'Mount Merrion is epic and intimate, deliciously observed and wholly enjoyable. Justin Quinn is a shining talent.' Claire Kilroy

Unforbidden Pleasures is the dazzling new book from Adam Phillips, author of Missing Out and Going SaneAdam Phillips takes Oscar Wilde as a springboard for a deep dive into the meanings and importance of the Unforbidden, from the fall of our 'first parents' Adam and Eve to the work of the great twentieth-century psychoanalytic thinkers.Unforbidden pleasures, he argues, are always the ones we tend not to think about, yet when you look into it, it is probable that we get as much pleasure, if not more, from them. And we may have underestimated just how restricted our restrictiveness, in thrall to the forbidden and its rules, may make us.Adam Phillips' latest ambitious project explores the philosophical, psychological and social complexities that govern human desire and shape our reality.Praise for Adam Phillips:'Britain's foremost psychoanalytic writer' The New Yorker'Phillips is one of the finest prose stylists in the language, an Emerson for our time' - John Banville 'Every mind-blowing book from Adam Phillips suspends all the certainties we are most attached to and somehow makes this feel exhilarating' - Deborah Levy 'Phillips radiates infectious charm. The brew of gaiety, compassion, exuberance and idealism is heady and disarming' - Sunday Times 'The best psychotherapist in Britain and one of our greatest contemporary psychoanalytic thinkers' New Statesman'Brilliantly amusing and often profoundly unsettling... [he is] the Martin Amis of British psychoanalysis' The Times

Warsaw Boy is the remarkable true story of a sixteen-year old boy soldier in war-torn Poland. Poland suffered terribly under the Nazis. By the end of the war six million had been killed: some were innocent civilians - half of them were Jews - but the rest died as a result of a ferocious guerrilla war the Poles had waged. On 1 August 1944 Andrew Borowiec, a fifteen-year-old volunteer in the Resistance, lobbed a grenade through the shattered window of a Warsaw apartment block onto some German soldiers running below. 'I felt I had come of age. I was a soldier and I'd just tried to kill some of our enemies'.The Warsaw Uprising lasted for 63 days: Himmler described it as 'the worst street fighting since Stalingrad'. Yet for the most part the insurgents were poorly equipped local men and teenagers - some of them were even younger than Andrew.Over that summer Andrew faced danger at every moment, both above and below ground as the Poles took to the city's sewers to creep beneath the German lines during lulls in the fierce counterattacks. Wounded in a fire fight the day after his sixteenth birthday and unable to face another visit to the sewers, he was captured as he lay in a makeshift cellar hospital wondering whether he was about to be shot or saved. Here he learned a lesson: there were decent Germans as well as bad. From one of the most harrowing episodes of the Second World War, this is an extraordinary tale of survival and defiance recounted by one of the few remaining veterans of Poland's bravest summer. Andrew Borowiec dedicates this book to all the Warsaw boys, 'especially those who never grew up'.Andrew Borowiec was born at Lodz in Poland in 1928. At fifteen he joined the Home Army, the main Polish resistance during the Second World War, and fought in the ill-fated Warsaw Uprising. After the war he left Poland and attended Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in Cyprus with his English wife Juliet.

John Guy, one of our most acclaimed and successful historians, brings a colossal figure of British history vividly to life in this unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Thomas Becket. Read by Roy McMillan. Behind the legend, there was a man. In 1120 the wife of a Norman drapers merchant gave birth to a baby boy in Londons bustling Cheapside. Despite his sickly constitution, middle-class background and unremarkable abilities, he rose within the space of thirty-five years to become the most powerful man in the kingdom, second only to Henry II himself. At his height, he led seven hundred knights into battle, brokered peace between nations, held the ear of the Pope and brought one of the strongest rulers in Christendom to his knees. And within three years of his bloody assassination, he was a saint whose cult had spread the length and breadth of Europe, and a legend who remains as controversial and compelling today as he was during his life. The story of Thomas Becket is the story of an enigma, as well as of one of the most tumultuous periods in English history. Drawing on a vast array of contemporary records, personal letters and first-hand accounts, John Guy has reconstructed a psychologically compelling, stunningly nuanced and utterly convincing account of this most remarkable man, the dramatic times in which he lived and the pivotal role he played in his nations history.

'Here's passion and addiction, guilt and damage, all the beautiful mess of family life. Carry the Onewill lift readers off their feet and bear them along on its eloquent tide' Emma Donoghue In the early hours of the morning, following a wedding reception, a car filled with stoned, drunk and sleepy guests accidentally hits and kills a girl on a dark country road. For the next twenty-five years, the lives of those involved are subtly shaped by this tragic moment.Through friendships and love affairs, marriage and divorce, parenthood, addiction, and the modest calamities and triumphs of ordinary days, Carry the One shows how one life affects another and how those who thrive and those who self-destruct are closer to each other than we'd expect.'Her deftly episodic novel of love, time and off-beat family life is warm, generous and wise. An enormously engaging novel' Daily Mail'Carry The Oneis a finely crafted novel, full of phrases you want to cut out and keep, and characters you think you know. It is delicate in its touch, yet huge in its reach' Observer'Superb . . . Anshaw sees her characters with startling clarity and no small helping of warmth and humour . . . Anshaw's writing [is] subtle, bemused, kind and smart, she nails moment after moment . . .Carry The Oneis a marvellous novel, grown-up, smart and emotionally intelligent about people who, like the rest of us, try but mostly fail to keep their ducks in a row' Patrick Ness, Guardian'A tender tale of what happens to ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances' Marie Claire'A funny, vivid and pingingly true story about longing and the pain of love. Anshaw conveys beefy emotions and life-changing events with the most gossamer of touches' Rachel Johnson, Vogue'If you love Jonathan Franzen, you'll love this compelling book' Entertainment Weekly

Consider, if you can, the case of Jacob Fowler, who heard what he thought was the sound of his own skull cracking between the jaws of a grizzly bear - only to discover that it was. Or the Arizonan jogger who ran a mile back to her car with a rabid fox clamped to her arm before driving to hospital for live-saving inoculations. Or the woman who was attacked by a hyena, dragged from her tent by her face and survived to tell of her ordeal.The dangers of the animal kingdom are the stuff of legend but the reality of man's vulnerability and of nature's savage power is far more various, improbable and chilling than even the most active imagination would fear. In this unique work of nature writing, you will encounter the most formidable predators on land and sea - as well as the most overlooked, bizarre and inventive hazards that mother nature has to offer. Meet the cougar that can leap 40 feet and clear 8-foot fences with a fully-grown deer in its jaws, the tapeworm that's been known to grow as long as 82 feet in the human gut and the elephant that single-handedly destroyed an oil tanker.Drawing on an enormous host of true encounters between man and beast, this is the world's most authoritative compendium of animal attacks on human beings. With mordant wit and expert timing, Gordon Grice provides a gripping journey to the dark side of the animal kingdom and a celebration of its humbling, savage glory.(Originally published in hardback as The Book of Deadly Animals.)

'No one ever sees me write. One of the triumphs of fiction is that it is created in the dark. It leaves my house in a plain wrapper, with no bloodstains. Unlike me, my stories are whole and indestructible.' In The Collected Stories, Paul Theroux's canvas stretches from London to South-East Asia, from Boston to Paris, from Africa to Eastern Europe and from Moscow to the tropics in this vibrant collection. Full of suspense and the unexpected, these stories by the acclaimed author of The Old Patagonian Express and Dark Star Safari delve into the worlds of a vast spectrum of characters and display throughout a flair that shows Theroux to be a master of the form.Praise for Paul Theroux:'A shimmering, kaleidoscopic and very entertaining collection' Sunday Telegraph'You close the book feeling you have read a single big narrative rather than a series of short ones . . . As a short-story writer, he makes a terrific novelist' Sunday Times'Theroux willingly explores the blighted territory of a failing marriage; the tangled jungle of a mad poet's secret anti-Semitism; the belated sexual guilt of a Hindu . . . A book of many and varied pleasures; to read it is to feel alert, curious, adventurous' Observer'Paul Theroux's writing is impeccable and thoughtfully entertaining . . . his artistry is individual, serene, yet also grainy with fierce truths' The Times'One needs energy to keep up with the extraordinary productive restlessness of Paul Theroux . . . [He is] the most gifted, most prodigal writer of his generation' Jonathan RabanPaul Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts in 1941 and published his first novel, Waldo, in 1967. His subsequent novels include The Family Arsenal, Picture Palace, The Mosquito Coast, O-Zone, Millroy the Magician, My Secret History, My Other Life, and, most recently, A Dead Hand. His highly acclaimed travel books include Riding the Iron Rooster, The Great Railway Bazaar, The Old Patagonian Express, Fresh Air Fiend, and Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. He divides his time between Cape Cod and the Hawaiian Islands.

Redmond O'Hanlon found few experienced adventurers willing to accompany him on his four-month trip up the Orinoco river and across the Amazon Basin. He wondered why... Was it perhaps the fear of contracting dysentery, rabies or river blindness? Or maybe it was a disinclination to meet peckish jaguars, vipers, anacondas and 640-volt electric eels? Surely it couldn t possibly be reluctance to swim among giant catfish, with their relatively harmless penchant for nipping off a person s feet? Fortunately, an old friend volunteered, having absolutely no idea what he was letting himself in for. But then O Hanlon didn t have much idea either. How the intrepid ornithologist and his sidekick managed to survive some serious travelling trouble makes for gripping, and hilarious, reading.

Simon Schama brings Britain to life through its portraits, as seen in the five-part BBC series The Face of Britain and the major National Portrait Gallery exhibitionChurchill and his painter locked in a struggle of stares and glares; Gainsborough watching his daughters run after a butterfly; a black Othello in the nineteenth century, the poet-artist Rossetti trying to capture on canvas what he couldn't possess in life, a surgeon-artist making studies of wounded faces brought in from the Battle of the Somme; a naked John Lennon five hours before his death.In the age of the hasty glance and the selfie, Simon Schama has written a tour de force about the long exchange of looks from which British portraits have been made over the centuries: images of the modest and the mighty; of friends and lovers; heroes and working people. Each of them - the image-maker, the subject, and the rest of us who get to look at them - are brought unforgettably to life. Together they build into a collective picture of Britain, our past and our present, a look into the mirror of our identity at a moment when we are wondering just who we are. Combining his two great passions, British history and art history, for the first time, Schama's extraordinary storytelling reveals the truth behind the nation's most famous portrayals of power, love, fame, the self, and the people. Mesmerising in its breadth and its panache, and beautifully illustrated, with more than 150 images from the National Portrait Gallery, The Face of Britain will change the way we see our past - and ourselves.

Heart-breaking, uplifting and full of adventure, The Long Ride Home is the long-awaited sequel to the international bestseller The Horse Boy. Rowan came back from the shamans in Mongolia a changed boy. The three most debilitating effects of his autism - his incontinence, his endless tantruming, and his inability to make friends - were gone.But a year almost to the day since Rowan's improvement he started regressing: the accidents and tantrums reappeared, terrifying his father Rupert. Something had to be done.Father and son embarked on a new quest, journeying from the bushmen of Namibia to the coastal rainforests of Queensland, Australia and finally to the Navajo reservations of the American southwest, where Rowan was transformed - they had begun the Long Ride Home.'It is probably only once in a critical lifetime that one will be moved almost to tears ... a triumph of the human spirit' Telegraph (on The Horse Boy)'Magical, miraculous, uplifting' Daily Mail (on The Horse Boy)'Amazing, astonishing' Sunday Times (on The Horse Boy)Rupert Isaacson is British but lives with his family in Texas, USA. He is an ex-professional horse trainer and founder of The Horse Boy Foundation, which helps to make horses and nature available to other children, autistic or not, all over the world, including the UK. The Horse Boy was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller.

An ageing queen, an heirless state, conspiracy all round: here is the court of Elizabeth I as never known beforeHistory has pictured Elizabeth I as Gloriana, an icon of strength and power. But the reality, especially during her later years, was not so simple.In 1583 Elizabeth is fifty years old, past childbearing, but her greatest challenges are still to come: the Spanish Armada; the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots; relentless plotting among her courtiers. This gripping and vivid portrait of her life and times - often told in her own words ('You know I am no morning woman') - reveals a woman who is fallible, increasingly insecure, and struggling to lead Britain. This is the real Elizabeth, for the first time.

When Michael Woodford was made President and CEO of Olympus, he became the first Westerner ever to climb the ranks of one of Japan's corporate icons. Some wondered at the appointment - how could a gaijin (foreigner) who didn't even speak Japanese understand how to run a Japanese company? But within months Woodford had gained the confidence of colleagues and shareholders.Then his dream job turned into a nightmare.He learned about a series of bizarre mergers and acquisitions deals totalling $1.7 billion - a scandal which if exposed threatened to bring down the entire company. He turned to his fellow executives - including the chairman who had promoted him - for answers. But instead of being heralded as a hero for trying to save Olympus, Woodford was met with hostility and a cover-up.Within weeks he was fired in a boardroom coup that shocked the international business world. As rumours emerged of Yakuza (mafia) involvement in the scandal, Woodford fled Japan in fear of his life. He went straight to the press - becoming the first CEO of a multinational to blow the whistle on his own company.Following his departure Woodford faced months of agonizing pressure that threatened his health and his family life. But instead of succumbing he persisted, and eventually the men who had ousted him were held to account.Exposure is the story of how Michael Woodford chose the truth over a multimillion-dollar salary, and exposed the dark heart of the company he had dedicated his life to. He also paints a devastating portrait of corporate Japan - an insular, hierarchy-driven culture that prefers maintaining the status quo to exposing ugly truths. The result is a deeply personal memoir that reads like a thriller. As Woodford himself puts it, 'I thought I was going to run a health-care and consumer electronics company but found I had walked into a John Grisham novel.'

The Child's Child is the new crime novel by bestselling, prize-winning author Barbara Vine, pen-name for the late bestselling author Ruth Rendell What sort of betrayal would drive a brother and sister apart? When Grace and her brother Andrew inherit their grandmother's house, they surprise few people by deciding to move in together. But they've always got on well and the London house is large enough to split down the middle.There's just one thing they've not taken into account though. What if one of them wants to bring a lover to the house? When Andrew's partner James moves in, and immediately picks a fight about the treatment of gay men, the balance is altered - with almost fatal consequences.Barbara Vine's is the pen-name of Ruth Rendell, and The Child's Child is the first book she has published under that name since The Birthday Present in 2008. It's an intriguing examination of betrayal in families, and of those two once-unmentionable subjects, illegitimacy and homosexuality. A taut, thrilling read, it will be enjoyed by readers of P.D. James and Ian Rankin.'The Rendell/Vine partnership has for years been producing consistently better work than most Booker winners put together' Ian Rankin'She deploys her peerless skills in blending the mundane, commonplace aspects of life with the murky impulses of desire and greed.Ruth rendall has published fourteen novels under the Vine name, two of which, Fatal Inversion and King Solomon's Carpet, won the prestigious Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award. Also available in Penguin by Barbara Vine: The Minotaur, The Blood Doctor, Grasshopper, The Chimney Sweeper's Boy, The Brimstone Wedding, No Night is Too Long, Asta's Book, King Solomon's Carpet, Gallowglass, The House of Stairs, A Dark-Adapted Eye.

The Victoria System is Eric Reinhardt's acclaimed and controversial French bestseller.LONGLISTED FOR THE IMPAC DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD.NOMINATED FOR THE PRIX GONCOURT, THE PRIX RENAUDOT AND THE GRAND PRIX DU ROMAN DE L'ACADEMIE FRANCAISEDavid Kolski never sleeps with the same woman twice - apart from his wife.Then he meets Victoria. Head of people at a multinational company, by day she is a ruthless executive in a lightning-paced, high-pressured whirlwind of power and productivity. By night she likes good wine, luxurious hotel rooms, and abandoning herself to her sexual fantasies.David is soon addicted. Under crushing pressure at work to oversee the construction of a huge Paris tower-block in near-impossible circumstances, he takes new vigour and inspiration from his hard-headed capitalist lover. He works harder, faster and better, and then escapes to indulge in the most intense sexual passion he's ever experienced. But when Victoria offers to use her position to help him in his career, a dark shadow falls over their affair. Is she really capable of helping anyone other than herself, or is she hiding something from him? And who are the two men in the Audi he keeps seeing, always a few cars behind him?Complex, compelling and ambitiously structured, The Victoria System is a daringly sensual story of an obsession. Part erotica; part thriller; part novel of ideas, like a series of slightly angled mirrors held up to our globalised, capitalist society, the twists and turns of its narrative create a dazzling interplay of reflections and compel us to question the assumptions and forces of our modern world.'Dark, twisted and devastating. . . A big novel of amorous adventures in the era of the blackberry. Eric Reinhardt is the new Alexandre Dumas' Nouvel Observateur'Erotic, raw, violent and vertiginous . . . We often accuse French writers of navel-gazing and ignoring the world around them, but Eric Reinhardt is one of those who gives the lie to this clich ' Emmanuel Carr re, author of Limonov'Part classic, part tragedy, part thriller: Eric Reinhardt merges genres and invokes elusive echoes in this highly contemporary novel of a rare depth' Lib ration'The Victoria System is a fantastic and sensual modern thriller, like nothing I've ever read' Christian Louboutin'A powerful novel about the philosophical and moral consequences of ultra-liberalism, and a subtle reflection on the urges of the powerful' Marianne ric Reinhardt is one of the rising stars of French literature. He is the author of five novels and also a freelance publisher of art books. He lives and works in Paris. The Victoria System was first published in French in 2011 and was nominated for the Prix Goncourt, the Prix Renaudot and the Grand Prix du Roman de l'Acad mie Fran aise. It is ric Reinhardt's first novel to be translated into English.Sam Taylor is the English-language translator of HHhH, by Laurent Binet, and the author of the novels The Island at the End of the World, The Amnesiac and The Republic of Trees. He lives in France and the United States.

110 times wider than Earth; 15 million degrees at its core; an atmosphere so huge that Earth is actually within it: come and meet the star of our solar systemLight takes eight minutes to reach Earth from the surface of the Sun. But its journey within the Sun takes hundreds of thousands of years. What is going on in there? What are light and heat? How does the Sun produce them and how on earth did scientists discover this? In this astonishing and enlightening adventure, you'll travel millions of miles from inside the Sun to its surface and to Earth, where the light at the end of its journey is allowing you to read right now. You'll discover how the Sun works (including what it sounds like), the latest research in solar physics and how a solar storm could threaten everything we know. And you'll meet the groundbreaking scientists, including the author, who pieced this extraordinary story together.

In The Click Moment, Frans Johansson, author of The Medici Effect, shows how to stay ahead when you can't predict the futureSuccess is random. But we can capture this randomness and turn it in our favour.According to bestselling author Frans Johansson, planning and careful analysis no longer guarantee success. But dig deep into the actions of successful people and organizations and you find one common theme. A turning point occurs and they take advantage of that 'click moment' to change their fate.Diane von Furstenberg saw a matching skirt and top on TV and the wrap-dress was born. Microsoft Windows was on the brink of being shut down until two people met at a party. Starbucks sold brewing equipment until Howard Schultz experienced his first latte.These people capitalized on their luck and altered the course of their lives. The Click Moment shows how we can follow them by opening ourselves up to chance encounters and harnessing the forces of success that follow.

'A lovely book . . . wise at heart and filled with colourful characters' Joanne Harris, author of ChocolatA beautifully beguiling new novel from Salley Vickers, author of the bestselling Miss Garnet's Angel and winner of the 2007 IMPAC Dublin award.There is something special about the ancient cathedral in Chartres, with its mismatched spires and strange labyrinth. And there is something special too about Agn s Morel, the mysterious woman who is to be found cleaning it each morning.No one quite knows where she came from - not the diffident Abb Paul, who discovered her one morning twenty years ago, sleeping in the north porch; nor lonely Professor Jones, who pays her to tidy his chaotic house; nor Philippe Nevers, whose baby nephew she cares for. And yet everyone she encounters would surely agree that she has touched their lives in subtly transformative ways.But with a chance meeting in the cathedral one day, the spectre of Agn s' past returns, provoking malicious speculation from the local gossips. As the rumours grow uglier daily, Agn s is forced to confront her history and the mystery her origins finally unfolds.The Cleaner of Chartres is a compelling story of darkness and light; of traumatic loss and second chances. Told with a beguiling charm and wit, infused throughout with painful emotional truths, it speaks of the transformative power of love and mercy.'Salley Vickers is a novelist whose imaginative journey always promises magic and mystery. The Cleaner of Chartres shows her on top form in a rich weave of loss and redemption spiked with Ms Vickers' irrepressible wit' Robert McCrum, Observer'With its subtle combination of explorations of faith and love, The Cleaner of Chartres is something of a return to the terrain of Vickers's first novel, Miss Garnet's Angel. Certainly, it's another gem' Independent'Salley Vickers sees with a clear eye and writes with a light hand and she knows how the world works. She's a presence worth cherishing' Philip Pullman'Reveals itself as a surprising exploration of the mysteries of imagination and faith' Joanna Trollope, Book of the Year, Daily Telegraph'Rich, complex and haunting' Sunday Times'Subtle and utterly joyous...a contemporary moral and psychological drama every bit as absorbing as Miss Garnet's Angel' Sunday Times'A magical and at times sinister story about love, loss, secrets and forgiveness...with Chocolat-type charm' Scotland on Sunday'The Cleaner of Chartres is a return to form' Sunday Express 'Combining grace with gravity and wisdom with wit, this latest novel by Salley Vickers simply radiates soul' Red'If you're looking for a book to take you by surprise, Salley Vickers' latest is the perfect choice' PsychologiesSalley Vickers is the author of the word-of-mouth bestseller Miss Garnet's Angel and several other bestselling novels including Mr Golightly's Holiday, The Other Side of You and Dancing Backwards as well as a collection of short stories Aphrodite's Hat. She has worked as a cleaner, a dancer, a university teacher of literature and a psychoanalyst. She is currently a RLF fellow at Newnham College Cambridge and she divides her time between Cambridge and London.

Our perception of Greece conjures up many potent images: an ancient civilization brought alive by fable, hillsides dotted with sunbaked villages, lazy beaches lapped by crystal blue waters, the warmth and humour of its people. Yet if we look behind the picture-postcard imagery, the painful contradictions of the country begin to emerge. James Pettifer's classic text on Greece, now revised and updated with extensive new material, argues that it is vital to understand this country's present by looking at the far-reaching effects of its troubled past. He surveys the roots of Greek social, economic and political realities with intelligence and convincing clarity.

Chris Greenhalgh, screenwriter of the 2009 film Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, captures the love affair between two unforgettable people: Casablanca actress Ingrid Bergman and legendary photographer Robert Capa, in this heart-wrenching novel Seducing Ingrid Bergman.June, 1945.In newly liberated Paris, battle-ravaged photographer Robert Capa is drowning his sorrows. After ten years of recording horror and violence, he longs for for a diversion. Ingrid Bergman has been sent to entertain the troops and when she walks into the Ritz Hotel, Capa is enchanted. From the moment he slips a mischievous invitation to dinner under her door, the two find themselves helplessly attracted. Ingrid, tired of her passionless marriage, and her controlling film studio, is desperate for freedom and excitement. And Capa is willing to oblige. Dinners in caf s he can't afford. Night walks along the Seine. Dancing barefoot in nightclubs. Trysts in hotel rooms. He brings her back to life and she fills the hole inside him.With everything at stake, both Capa and Ingrid are presented with terrible choices.Full of the romantic glamour of 40s Paris and Hollywood, Seducing Ingrid Bergman tells the heart-wrenching story of the secret affair between the iconic Casablanca star and the famous photographer.'Delightful and engrossing . . . a marvellous piece of writing . . . I read it with huge enjoyment' Barbara Erskine, author of Whispers in the Sand'Greenhalgh's characters are sharply drawn, in particular the contrast between Bergman's inner turmoil and the slick celebrity seen by the public. Capas's self-image is equally conflicted, but together the two conjure a delicious tale of illicit freedom and, ultimately, thwarted love' Financial Times'From a jubilant, irresistibly romantic Paris just after World War II, to Hollywood during its golden age, Chris Greenhaugh's Seducing Ingrid Bergman rapturously depicts the doomed love affair of two icons of the twentieth century. Like its protagonists Ingrid Bergman and Robert Capa, this is a book with both a sentimental heart and a soul of grit. I loved it.' Melanie Benjamin, New York Times Bestselling author of The Aviator's Wife.Chris Greenhalgh is the prize-winning author of three volumes of poetry, a novel, and wrote the screenplay for Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, which occupied the prestigious closing slot at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. He lives with his wife and two sons in Sevenoaks.www.chris-greenhalgh.com