Showing 177–192 of 235 resultsSorted by latest
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£9.99
Before anyone else is awake, Elle Bishop heads out for a swim in the glorious freshwater pond below ‘The Paper Palace’ – the gently decaying summer camp in the back woods of Cape Cod where her family has spent every summer for generations. As she passes the house, Elle glances through the screen porch at the table from the dinner the previous evening; empty wine glasses, candle wax on the tablecloth, echoes of laughter of family and friends. Then she dives beneath the surface of the freezing water to the shocking memory of the sudden passionate encounter she had the night before, up against the wall behind the house, as her husband and mother chatted to the guests inside. So begins a story that unfolds over 24 hours and across 50 years, as decades of family legacies, love, lies, secrets and one unspeakable incident in her childhood lead Elle to the precipice of a life-changing decision.
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£10.99
We all know the pressure of feeling like we should be grinding 24/7 while simultaneously being told that we should ‘just relax’ and take care of ourselves, like we somehow have to decide between success and sanity. It’s a seemingly impossible choice, and one that doesn’t reflect the complex working world we find ourselves in. Hardly Working, entrepreneur and self-proclaimed ‘lazy workaholic’ Grace Beverley confronts this unrealistic and unnecessary split, and offers a fresh take on how to navigate modern life. Full of practical advice for helping you focus when you’re finding it hard to get stuff done and for stepping back when you’re on the edge of burnout, the book provides a productivity blueprint for a new generation. Insightful, curious and refreshingly honest, it will make you reflect on what you want from your life and work – and then help you chart a path to get there.
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£8.99
Gordon D’Arcy has achieved a lot in his short life. He has won the Six Nations with Ireland and the European Cup with Leinster. Not bad for a boy who’s still at school! Now, he has a brand-new opportunity – the chance to play for the famous British and Irish Lions as they tour South Africa. But before he can get on the plane, he must overcome the injury that threatens to end his career, and make the difficult choice between rugby and friendship.
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£10.99
1974, on the island of Cyprus. Two teenagers, from opposite sides of a divided land, meet at a tavern in the city they both call home. The tavern is the only place that Kostas, who is Greek and Christian, and Defne, who is Turkish and Muslim, can meet, in secret, hidden beneath the blackened beams from which hang garlands of garlic, chilli peppers and wild herbs. This is where one can find the best food in town, the best music, the best wine. But there is something else to the place: it makes one forget, even if for just a few hours, the world outside and its immoderate sorrows. In ‘The Island of Missing Trees’, prizewinning author Elif Shafak brings us a rich, magical tale of belonging and identity, love and trauma, memory and amnesia, human-induced destruction of nature, and, finally, renewal.
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£10.99
Following the international critical acclaim of ‘The Cost of Living’, this final volume of Deborah Levy’s ‘Living Autobiography’ is an exhilarating, thought-provoking and boldly intimate meditation on home and the spectres that haunt it.
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£10.99
A producer. A novelist. An actress. It is summer in 1968, the year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. While the world is reeling our trio is involved in making a rackety Swingin’ Sixties British movie in sunny Brighton. All are leading secret lives. As the film is shot, with its usual drastic ups and downs, so does our trio’s private, secret world begin to take over their public one. Pressures build inexorably – someone’s going to crack. Or maybe they all will.
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£10.99
In a small town in Sweden, it appears to be an ordinary day. But look more closely, and you’ll see a mysterious masked figure approaching a bank. Two hours later, chaos has descended. A bungled attempted robbery has developed into a hostage situation – and the offender is refusing to communicate their demands to the police. Inside the building, fear quickly turns to irritation for the seven strangers trapped inside. If this is to be their last day on earth, shouldn’t it be a bit more dramatic? But as the minutes tick by, they begin to suspect that the criminal mastermind holding them hostage might be more in need of rescuing than they are.
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£10.99
Nina Dean has arrived at her early thirties as a successful food writer with loving friends and family, plus a new home and neighbourhood. When she meets Max, a beguiling romantic hero who tells her on date one that he’s going to marry her, it feels like all is going to plan. A new relationship couldn’t have come at a better time – her thirties have not been the liberating, uncomplicated experience she was sold. Everywhere she turns, she is reminded of time passing and opportunities dwindling. Friendships are fading, ex-boyfriends are moving on and, worse, everyone’s moving to the suburbs. There’s no solace to be found in her family, with a mum who’s caught in a baffling mid-life makeover and a beloved dad who is vanishing in slow-motion into dementia.
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£10.99
This is Stephen Fry’s bewitching retelling of the legend of Troy – a tale of love and war, passion and power.
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£12.99
In the years just before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, conservative politicians and intellectuals across Europe and America celebrated a great achievement, felt a common purpose and, very often, forged personal friendships. The euphoria quickly evaporated, the common purpose and centre ground gradually disappeared and eventually – as this book compellingly relates – the relationships soured too. Anne Applebaum traces a familiar history in an unfamiliar way, looking at the trajectories of individuals caught up in the public events of the last three decades. When politics become polarized, which side do you back? If you are a journalist, an intellectual, a civic leader, how do you deal with the re-emergence of authoritarian or nationalist ideas in your country?
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£9.99
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders. But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing 80 but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it’s too late?
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£10.99
Astrid Strick has always tried to do her best for her three children. Now, they’re finally grown up – but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Elliot doesn’t have any idea who he really is, or how to communicate with his own sons. Porter is, at last, pregnant – but feels incapable of rising to the challenge. Nicky has fled to distant New Mexico, where he’s living the bohemian dream. And Astrid herself is up to things that would make her children’s hair curl. Until now, the family have managed to hide their true selves from each other. But when Nicky’s incorrigibly curious daughter Cecelia comes to stay, her arrival threatens to upturn everything.
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£8.99
Gordon D’Arcy is an ordinary boy, but he’s not so ordinary once he gets a rugby ball in his hands. He’s the star player for Wexford Wanderers and dreams of one day wearing the Ireland jersey. A dream like that means hard work, raw talent and never losing sight of your goals. But Gordon has a wild streak that often lands him in trouble. Mum and Dad think that if he can just channel his energy, all will be well. Then something utterly mad happens and he gets a chance to live his biggest dream. Can he stay on his game and do everyone proud? Or will trouble follow him – like it usually does?
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£9.99
Interleaving ten completely new and unpublished stories with some of her best-loved pieces from the New Yorker and elsewhere, Zadie Smith presents a dizzyingly rich and varied collection of fiction.
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£9.99
She came from nothing. They had everything. How far will they go to keep their fortune? Avery only has one plan: keep her head down, win a scholarship and work for a better future. Until an eccentric billionaire dies, and leaves her almost his entire fortune. And no one, least of all Avery, knows why. Suddenly she must move into the secret passage filled Hawthorne House, where every room bears the billionaire’s love of puzzles, riddles and codes. On top of that, Avery must share the mansion with all his surviving relatives – a family hellbent on discovering how she got ‘their’ money.
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£8.99
Nat, a 47 year-old veteran of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, believes his years as an agent runner are over. He is back in London with his wife, the long-suffering Prue. But with the growing threat from Moscow Centre, the office has one more job for him. Nat is to take over The Haven, a defunct substation of London General with a rag-tag band of spies. The only bright light on the team is young Florence, who has her eye on Russia Department and a Ukrainian oligarch with a finger in the Russia pie. Nat is not only a spy, he is a passionate badminton player. His regular Monday evening opponent is half his age: the introspective and solitary Ed. Ed hates Brexit, hates Trump and hates his job at some soulless media agency. And it is Ed, of all unlikely people, who will take Prue, Florence and Nat himself down the path of political anger that will ensnare them all.
