Showing 1–12 of 30 resultsSorted by latest
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£9.99
‘In the Dream House’ is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing experience with a charismatic but volatile woman, this is a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Each chapter views the relationship through a different narrative lens, as Machado holds events up to the light and examines them from distinct angles. She casts a critical eye over legal proceedings, fairy tales, Star Trek and Disney villains, as well as iconic works of film and fiction, infusing all with her characteristic wit, playfulness and openness to enquiry. The result is a powerful book that explodes our ideas about what a memoir can do and be.
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£8.99
‘Do you have a list of your books, or do I just have to stare at them?’ Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland. With more than a mile of shelving, real log fires in the shop and the sea lapping nearby, the shop should by an idyll for bookworms. Unfortunately, Shaun also has to contend with bizarre requests from people who don’t understand what the shop is, home invasions during the Wigtown Book Festival and Granny, his neurotic Italian assistant who likes digging for river mud to make poultices. ‘The Diary of a Bookseller’ (soon to be a major TV series) introduced us to the joys and frustrations of life lived in books. Sardonic and sympathetic in equal measures, ‘Confessions of a Bookseller’ will reunite readers with the characters they’ve come to know and love.
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£6.99
Ours is the age of contagious anxiety. We feel overwhelmed by the events around us, by injustice, by suffering, by an endless feeling of crisis. So, how can we nurture the parts of ourselves that hope, trust and believe in something better? And how can we stay sane in this age of division? In this powerful, uplifting plea for conscious optimism, Booker Prize-nominated novelist and activist Elif Shafak draws on her own memories and delves into the power of stories to bring us together. In the process, she reveals how listening to each other can nurture democracy, empathy and our faith in a kinder and wiser future.
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£8.99
After her father’s sudden death, Alexandra Fuller realises that if she is going to weather his loss, she will need to become the parts of him she misses most. So begins ‘Travel Light, Move Fast’, the unforgettable story of Tim Fuller, a self-exiled black sheep who moved to Africa to fight in the Rhodesian War before settling as a banana farmer in Zambia.
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£8.99
When the young son of an Aryan Brotherhood of Texas gang captain goes missing, Ranger Darren Matthews has no choice but to investigate the crime. Following the election of Donald Trump, a new wave of racial violence has swept the state. Dark, swampy and filled with skeletal trees, Caddo Lake is so large it crosses into Lousiana. This is deep country and the rule of law doesn’t mean much to the Brotherhood, beyond what it can do for them. A further complication is that Brotherhood is squatting on the land of a former Freedmen’s community, and one of the last descendants of these former slaves is actually a suspect in the possible murder of the missing boy. Instructed by his lieutenant to use the investigation to gather more evidence that might help to take down the Texas chapter of the Brotherhood, Darren is playing very dangerous game indeed.
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£9.99
Teenagers are tough and anyone who has their own needs help. Witty, enjoyable and genuinely insightful, this book is now updated with how to deal with everything from social media to online threats and porn, as well as looking at all the difficult issues of bringing up teenagers, school, sex, drugs and more. But it’s the title of the second chapter, ‘What They Do and Why’ that best captures the book’s spirit and technique, explaining how to translate teenage behaviour into its true, often less complicated meaning. One key mistake, for instance, is getting in no-win conflicts instead of having the wisdom to shut up when shutting up would be the most effective, albeit least satisfying, thing to do. Another is taking offence when the teenager views you, the adult, as idiotic. And there’s advice on what to do when this happens.
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£16.99
Georgina Landemare saw herself as ordinary, although her accomplishments – and the life she lived – were anything but. She started her career as a nursemaid and ended it cooking for Winston Churchill, a man to whom food was central, not only as a pleasure by itself, but as a diplomatic tool in a time when the world was embroiled in a worldwide war. ‘Victory in the Kitchen’ is a culinary biography: a life lived through food, ranging from rural Berkshire to wartime London, via Belle Epoque Paris and prohibition-era New York.
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£20.00
Elected MP for Londonderry in 1955, Robin Chichester-Clark was at the forefront of Northern Irish politics for almost 20 years during one of the most turbulent periods for the province. A son and grandson of Northern Irish MPs, he held leading positions in both government and opposition, although remaining outside the UK government when Edward Heath came to power in 1970 because of his brother’s position as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Heath later made him Minister of State for Employment. His dynamic career in politics was followed by over 30 years in active philanthropy, fundraising for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and medical research, as well as several commercial directorships.
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£12.99
At his death in 1955, Calouste Gulbenkian was the richest man in the world, known as ‘Mr Five Percent’ for owning 5% of Middle East oil production. For half a century everyone from the Ottoman Sultans to Joseph Stalin sought his advice on oil policy, the latter rewarding him with Rembrandts from Russia’s Hermitage Museum. Today the companies that Gulbenkian created – including Shell and Total – are household names, while the international agreements he brokered still shape the fortunes of Iraq, Venezuela and other oil-producing countries across the globe. Yet Gulbenkian’s secrecy has ensured that his remarkable story remained untold – until now.
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£14.99
A London cycle courier with a taste for adventure, Emily Chappell entered an extraordinary new race – The Transcontinental – in which riders must find their own way, entirely unassisted, across Europe in the shortest time possible. On her second attempt, she won the women’s event, covering nearly 4000 miles in 13 days and ten hours, sleeping in short bursts wherever exhaustion took her. In the aftermath of a win that troubled as much as pleased her she worked with Mike Hall, the founder of the race, until his tragic death on the road. ‘Where There’s a Will’ is a book about a normal person finding the capacity to do something extraordinary; the paradoxes of comradeship, competition, vulnerability and will and the shock of grief, combined in a beautifully written and very human story.
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£8.99
Christmas is a season of overindulgence. For most of us, that means an extra mince pie, a second helping of turkey, or perhaps a third glass of mulled wine. But for some among us, the festive season is a time to settle old scores, dispatch new enemies and indulge – in murder. Here, ten masters of the genre serve up mystery and mayhem aplenty. From a dowager’s missing diamonds to a Christmas party gone horribly wrong, these classic crime stories will delight, puzzle and satisfy long after the last strands of tinsel have been packed away.
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£10.99
Since prehistory, dogs have served as man’s best friend, giving us loyalty, assistance and boundless inspiration. Dogs offer comfort and amusement to their owners; they provide solace when we’re sad, entertaining antics when we’re bored and affection every day. To poets in particular, these beloved creatures are the most bountiful muses, as they bark, yip, hunt, fetch, growl and slumber, reflecting back at us our most heartfelt tenderness and often rewarding us with unconditional love we scarcely deserve. ‘Dog Poems’ offers a litter of verses in celebration of our most faithful companions by some of the greatest poets of all time.
