The Wood Life
£20.00From a one-of-a-kind England cricketer comes a one-of-a-kind self-help book. The kind no one knew they needed – until now!
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From a one-of-a-kind England cricketer comes a one-of-a-kind self-help book. The kind no one knew they needed – until now!

It’s March 2020 and a calamity is unfolding. A group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next six months new friendships and romances will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge, forcing each character to reevaulate whom they love and what matters most. The unlikely cast of characters include: a Russian-born novelist; his Russian-born psychiatrist wife; their precocious child obsessed with K-pop; a struggling Indian American writer; a wildly successful Korean American app developer; a global dandy with three passports; a young flame-thrower of an essayist, originally from the Carolinas; and a movie star, The Actor, whose arrival upsets the equilibrium of this chosen family.

Dorset, 1642. When bloody civil war breaks out between the King and Parliament, families and communities across England are riven by different allegiances. A rare few choose neutrality. One such is Jayne Swift, a Dorset physician from a Royalist family, who offers her services to both sides in the conflict. Through her dedication to treating the sick and wounded, regardless of belief, Jayne becomes a witness to the brutality of war and the devastation it wreaks. Yet her recurring companion at every event is a man she should despise because he embraces civil war as the means to an end. She knows him as William Harrier, but is ignorant about every other aspect of his life. His past is a mystery and his future uncertain. The Swift and the Harrier is a sweeping tale of adventure and loss, sacrifice and love, with a unique and unforgettable heroine at its heart.

Bill Birtles was rushed out of China in September 2020, forced to seek refuge in the Australian Embassy in Beijing while diplomats delicately negotiated his departure in an unprecedented standoff with China’s government. Five days later he was on a flight back to Sydney, leaving China without any Australian foreign correspondents on the ground for the first time in decades. A journalist’s perspective on this rising global power has never been more important, as Australia’s relationship with China undergoes an extraordinary change that’s seen the detention of a journalist Cheng Lei, Canberra’s criticism of Beijing’s efforts to crush Hong Kong’s freedoms, as well as China’s military activity in the South China Sea and its human rights violations targetting the mostly Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang province.

For nearly 20 years Steve Cummings determinedly blazed his own winning trail in international cycling. A maverick who defied the dominant teams to record a sequence of gloriously improbable victories, he has lived and raced with legends of the sport – Cavendish, Wiggins, Froome, Thomas and others – about whom he has strong views and untold stories. This autobiography takes the reader from Steve’s earliest days as a junior, pounding across the flatlands of the Wirral, through his love-hate relationships with the British Cycling track cycling squad, to his series of top-level breakaway victories in the Tour de France, Tour of Britain and Vuelta a España and – rather than standout physical talent – how developing his own strategies and training techniques enabled him to succeed against the odds.

From Somerset stalwart to acclaimed writer and broadcaster, Vic Marks has lived a life steeped in cricket. In ‘Late Cuts’ he takes us beyond the boundary rope, sharing the parts of the game fans don’t get to see, from the food served at tea-time (then: sweaty ham. Now: quinoa, cranberry and feta salad) to the politics of the dressing room. With chapters on what it feels like to be dropped, how to be a good twelfth man, captaincy, selection and more, this amusing and insightful collection will delight all cricket lovers.

Though it remains by far the world’s most famous mountain, in recent years Everest’s reputation has changed radically, with long queues of climbers on the Lhotse Face, lurid tales of frozen corpses and piles of high altitude trash. It wasn’t always like this though. Once Everest was remote and inaccessible, a mysterious place, where only the bravest and most heroic dared to tread. The first attempt on Everest in 1922 by George Leigh Mallory and a British team is an extraordinary story full of controversy, drama and incident, populated by a set of larger than life characters straight out of Boys Own and Indiana Jones. The expedition ended in tragedy when, on their third bid for the top, Mallory’s party was hit by an avalanche that left seven men dead. Mick Conefrey tells the story of the expedition.

This is the memoir from Australia’s much-loved comedian, Hannah Gadsby, whose stand-up show and self-described swan-song, ‘Nanette’, won the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2017 before transferring to New York, where it went on to achieve critical acclaim.

Nellie Melba is remembered as a squarish, late middle-aged woman dressed in furs and large hats, an imperious Dame whose voice ruled the world for three decades and inspired a peach and raspberry dessert. But to succeed, she had to battle social expectations and misogyny that would have preferred she stay a housewife in outback Queensland rather than parade herself on stage. She endured the violence of a bad marriage, was denied by scandal a true love with the would-be King of France, and suffered for more than a decade the loss of her only son – stolen by his angry, vengeful father. Despite these obstacles, she built and maintained a career as an opera singer and businesswoman on three continents which made her one of the first international superstars. Robert Wainwright presents a very different portrait of this great diva.

Meet the Gogartys; cantankerous gran Millie (whose eccentricities include a penchant for petty-theft and reckless driving); bitter downtrodden son Kevin (erstwhile journalist whose stay-at-home parenting is pushing him to the brink); and habitually moody, disaffected teenage daughter Aideen. When Gran’s arrested yet again for shoplifting, Aideen’s rebelliousness has reached new heights and Kevin’s still not found work, he realises he needs to take action. With the appointment of a home carer for his mother, his daughter sent away to boarding school to focus on her studies and more time for him to reboot his job-hunt, surely everything will work out just fine. But as the story unfolds, nothing goes according to plan and as the calm starts to descend into chaos we’re taken on a hilarious multiple-perspective roller-coaster ride that is as relatable as it is far-fetched.

Dorset, 1642. When bloody civil war breaks out between the King and Parliament, families and communities across England are riven by different allegiances. A rare few choose neutrality. One such is Jayne Swift, a Dorset physician from a Royalist family, who offers her services to both sides in the conflict. Through her dedication to treating the sick and wounded, regardless of belief, Jayne becomes a witness to the brutality of war and the devastation it wreaks. Yet her recurring companion at every event is a man she should despise because he embraces civil war as the means to an end. She knows him as William Harrier, but is ignorant about every other aspect of his life. His past is a mystery and his future uncertain. The Swift and the Harrier is a sweeping tale of adventure and loss, sacrifice and love, with a unique and unforgettable heroine at its heart.

In ‘Maths Tricks to Blow Your Mind’, Kyle presents over 50 viral maths problems with background information, explanations and solutions to similar problems, all in a humorous, accessible and inclusive manner. Want to dazzle and delight your friends and family? This book shows you how!
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