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Welkin Weasels (Welkin Weasels #2)
by Garry KilworthThe land of Welkin is in trouble! Not only is it at risk of flood, but now the rat hordes are on the move, fighting to gain dominance over the other animals.... Sylver's search for the elusive humans - their only hope - leads him and his intrepid band of weasels to an enormous ruined castle, deep in the heart of the bleak flatlands of Darkmoor. Here he meets Clive of Coldkettle, the leader of the red squirrels - who are in a state of permanent war with the grey squirrels. Can Sylver suceed in his quest whilst caught in the midst of such a savage conflict?
Welkin Weasels (Welkin Weasels #3)
by Garry KilworthSylver and his band of weasels take to the high seas in search of the humans who mysteriously deserted the land of Welkin many years ago. On their tail is the seasick Sheriff Falshed, commanded by the stoat rulers to stop Sylver at any cost. And if that's not bad enough, behind them is a ship crammed to the gunwales with bloodthirsty rats, convinced that Sylver is secretly hunting a pirate's treasure...
Pocket Cats: Dancing Dreams (Pocket Cats #6)
by Kitty WellsMaddy has always wanted a cat, but now she's got something even better - three small ceramic cats which come to life and give her magical powers!Maddy can hardly wait to start classes at Summer Ballet School. And when Ollie comes to life again, everything is perfect! But of course they have a problem to solve... Maddy's new friend Anna is scared to tell her mum that she doesn't want to be a ballerina. Can Maddy's special cat magic help Anna stand up for her real hopes and dreams?
Pocket Cats: Cat Burglar (Pocket Cats #4)
by Kitty WellsMaddy has always wanted a cat, but now she's got something even better - three small ceramic cats which come to life and give her magical powers!There's a thief in Maddy's neighbourhood, and it's up to Maddy and Greykin to stop them! Determined to catch the thief red-handed, Maddy sets up a stakeout in the back garden. But everything goes wrong, and then something terrible happens: Greykin is stolen! Can Maddy stop the thieves on her own?
Pocket Cats: Lucky Star (Pocket Cats #5)
by Kitty WellsMaddy has always wanted a cat, but now she's got something even better - three small ceramic cats which come to life and give her magical powers!Maddy is thrilled to see Nibs again. But Nibs is NOT happy about their new problem: it involves a dog! Star is a gorgeous golden retriever, but he's sad because his glamorous owner doesn't love him. Can Maddy and Nibs find a way to make him happy?
Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life
by Susie HarriesBorn Nikolai Pewsner into a Russian-Jewish family in Leipzig in 1902, Nikolaus Pevsner was a dedicated scholar who pursued a promising career as an academic in Dresden and Göttingen. When, in 1933 Jews were no longer permitted to teach in German universities, he lost his job and looked for employment in England. Here, over a long and amazingly industrious career, he made himself an authority on the exploration and enjoyment of English art and architecture, so much so that his magisterial county-by-county series of 46 books on The Buildings of England (first published 1951 - 74) is usually referred to simply as 'Pevsner'. As a critic, academic and champion of Modernism, Pevsner became a central figure in the architectural consensus that accompanied post-war reconstruction; as a 'general practitioner' of architectural history, he covered an astonishing range, from Gothic cathedrals and Georgian coffee houses to the Festival of Britain and Brutalist tower blocks.Susie Harries explores the truth about Nikolaus Pevsner's reported sympathies with elements of Nazi ideology, his internment in England as an enemy alien and his sometimes painful assimilation into his country of exile. His Heftchen - secret diaries he kept from the age of 14 for another sixty years - reveal hidden aspirations and anxieties, as do his numerous letters (he wrote to his wife, Lola, every day that they were apart).Harries is the first biographer to have read Pevsner's private papers and, through them, to have seen into the workings of his mind.Her definitive biography is not only rich in context and far-ranging, but is also brought to life by quotations from Pevsner himself. He was born a Jew but converted to Lutheranism; trained in the rigour of German scholarship, he became an Everyman in his copious commissions, publications, broadcasts and lectures on art, architecture, design, education, town planning, social housing, conservation, Mannerism, the Bauhaus, the Victorians, Zeitgeist, Englishness and how a nation's character may, or must, be reflected in its art. His life - as an outsider yet an insider at the heart of English art history - illuminates both the predicament and the prowess of the continental émigrés who did so much to shape British culture after 1945.
The Secret Garden
by Frances Hodgson BurnettWhat little girl can turn a whole household upside down and breathe new life back into a strange, old manor? The wonderfully contrary, strong-willed, angry, misunderstood Mary Lennox.When Mary Lennox is sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody says she is the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It is true, too. Mary is pale, spoilt and quite contrary. But she is also horribly lonely. Then one day she hears about a garden in the grounds of the Manor that has been kept locked and hidden for years.And when a friendly robin helps Mary find the key, she discovers the most magical place anyone could imagine...The perfect heart-warming story for young readers and young-at-heart readers alike.'The book is brim full of magic and joy' Sunday Telegraph
Microcosms
by Claudio MagrisAmid wars, failed revolutions and the shifting of frontiers, the bit-part players often have the best tales to tell - an astonishing, genre-blurring travelogue from Italian master Claudio Magris.In the tiny borderlands of Istria and Italy, from the forests of Monte Nevoso, to the hidden valleys of the Tyrol, to a Trieste café, Microcosms pieces together a mosaic of stories - comic, tragic, picaresque, nostalgic - from life's minor characters. Their worlds might be small, but they are far from minimalist: in them flashes the great, the meaningful, the unrepeatable significance of every existence.
Quest for Justice: Towards Homosexual Emancipation
by Antony GreyIn 1967, after a ten-year campaign, the laws which treated all homosexual acts between males as crimes in England and Wales were altered to permit such behavior between two consenting men aged over twenty-one in private. Twenty-five years on, the profound significance of that change, and the nature of the struggle that was waged to achieve it, are not always fully appreciated. Gay people and their lifestyles are still the subjects of considerable controversy and entrenched prejudice, and today's gay rights campaigners are justified in believing that many more sweeping changes in legal and social attitudes are now called for.Quest for Justice is the inside story of the battle for the Wolfenden reforms, told by one of its main protagonists. Antony Grey was Secretary of the Homosexual Law Reform Society during much of the campaign and for some time afterwards. Here, besides giving his personal account of the reform campaign, he comments on the subsequent course of the developing movement for gay rights, and his own not always entirely harmonious relations with it. He also describes the rising power of the 'moral majority' backlash, and its bitter attacks upon the liberalisers whom it miscalled 'permissive'.Whilst expressing disappointment at the slow progress of human sexual rights during recent years, and a sense of ever greater urgency, with the advent of AIDS, for the widespread acceptance of much more frank and realistic attitudes, Antony Grey concludes on a hopeful note, foreseeing a sexually saner twenty-first century in which updated moral, social and legal attitudes will combine to promote, rather than hinder, human happiness.
Pandora's Breeches: Women, Science and Power in the Enlightenment
by Patricia Fara'Had God intended Women merely as a finer sort of cattle, he would not have made them reasonable.' Writing in 1673, Bathsua Makin was one of the first women to insist that girls should receive a scientific education. Despite the efforts of Makin and her successors, women were excluded from universities until the end of the nineteenth century, yet they found other ways to participate in scientific projects.Taking a fresh look at history, Pandora's Breeches investigates how women contributed to scientific progress. As well as collaborating in home-based research, women corresponded with internationally-renowned scholars, hired tutors, published their own books and translated and simplified important texts, such as Newton's book on gravity. They played essential roles in work frequently attributed solely to their husbands, fathers or friends.
Put Me Back on My Bike: In Search of Tom Simpson
by William FotheringhamDiscover the story of Britain’s ultimate cyclist and his ill-fated race during the 1967 Tour de France, from the bestselling author of Half Man Half BikeTom Simpson was an Olympic medallist, world champion and the first Briton to wear the fabled yellow jersey of the Tour de France. He died a tragic early death during the 1967 Tour. A man of contradictions, Simpson was one of the first cyclists to admit to using banned drugs, and was accused of fixing races, yet the dapper 'Major Tom' inspired awe and affection for the obsessive will to win which was ultimately to cost him his life. Put Me Back on My Bike revisits the places and people associated with Simpson to produce the definitive story of Britain's greatest ever cyclist. The fully revised and updated edition of William Fotheringham's classic biography features a new foreword and postscript further exploring the truth behind the legend.‘The best cycling biography ever written' Velo ‘A beautiful explanation of why Simpson's legend still exerts such a powerful hold’ Sunday Times
Nobody's Child
by Val WoodWhen Laura Page returns to the remote Holderness village of Welwick, it is to try and discover the mystery of her mother Susannah's early life. Now a prosperous businesswoman in Hull, Susannah never speaks of her childhood, when she was brought up with the terrible stigma of bastardy - of being nobody's child.Susannah's own mother, Mary-Ellen, born into poverty and living in a labourer's cottage, had the misfortune to fall in love with a local landowner's son. She was his one and only great love, but was unable to acknowledge their child and had to watch her growing up in hardship. As the years passed and Laura began to be curious about her mother's past, so too did she become aware of the mystery about her own father.
The Songbird
by Val WoodThe choice was hers - fame and fortune or true love.Poppy Mazzini, born in Hull over her father's grocery shop, lives up to the promise of her fiery red hair and Italian ancestry. Her lovely singing voice and good looks lead her to her great ambition - to go on the stage and see her name top of the bill. She becomes a music hall star both in her native town and in the south, after an appearance in the theatre at Brighton - she even performs in Paris, to tremendous acclaim. But when her first love, an ambitious shoemaker in her home town, becomes engaged to someone else Poppy is devastated. She disappears, believing that she will never return to her life of stardom. But her fame cannot be kep a secret...
Rubbish!: Dirt On Our Hands And Crisis Ahead
by Richard GirlingWe can no longer cope with our waste. Every hour in the UK we throw away enough rubbish to fill the Albert hall - a statistic quoted so often that perhaps we've stopped imagining what it means. And every year the flow accelerates.This is the story of our rubbish - from the first human bowel movement to the littering of outer space. With a hankerchief to his nose, Girling picks through our fridge mountain, our crumbling sewers, trading waste, packaging waste, hazardous industrial waste... it is a mucky saga of carelessness, greed and opportunism, wasted opportunity and official bungling. But Rubbish! is also a plea for us to consider other kinds of waste: the trashing of our landscape, the unstoppable floods of junk that clog our mailboxes, litter the skies and foul the airwaves...Rubbish! may not be a conventional battle cry but this is unmistakably a call to arms - not just for the three 'R's - reduce, re-use, recycle - but for us to fight for new ideas, brave initiative rather than reliance on old systems that are crumbling before our eyes.
The Stone House
by Marita Conlon-McKennaEverything changes for Kate, Moya and Romy when they receive word that Maeve Dillon, their mother, is critically ill. It is time to return from Dublin, London and New York to Rossmore and the old stone house overlooking the Irish Sea where they grew up. But ancient jealousies surface as each sister confronts the past and the decisions they have made.For work-driven Kate it is time to take stock of her role as a high-flying ambitious lawyer and single parent; life is a battle between work and looking after Molly with little time for a proper relationship. Even Patrick, the man she once fell for, has ended up marrying her sister. Beautiful and intense Moya must take a hard look at her marriage to the charming but unfaithful Patrick and consider her own worth. For wild child Romy who has travelled the world and hasn't put a foot on Irish soil for years, it is time to finally stop running and find the courage to confront her family.A good and caring mother, Maeve Dillon has somehow over the years labelled each of her three daughters: Moya the beautiful, Kate the brains, and Romy, the bold and wild one. Now it is finally time for all three to break out of the box.
Those In Peril: A dramatic, feel-good and moving WW2 saga, perfect for curling up with
by Margaret MayhewA powerful and emotional saga set in World War Two, perfect for fans of Katie Flynn, Fiona Valpy and Kristin Hannah.READERS ARE LOVING THOSE IN PERIL!"A feel good, love story that maybe we all experience in our lifetime." - 5 STARS"As always...well written in an easy style and I found it hard to put down. The housework had to wait until I had finished it! It is a must for all Mayhew fans." - 5 STARS"loved this book, from beginning to end. I want to read all the books written by Margaret Mayhew now..." - 5 STARS********************************************TWO RESISTANCE FIGHTERS CAUGHT IN A BLOODY, SECRET WAR...AND AN INTENSE LOVE TRIANGLE. June 1940. France has fallen to the Nazis and painter Louis Duval flees his homeland to join the Resistance. He is soon caught up in the movement and finds himself in dangerous circumstances alongside Lieutenant - Commander Alan Powell, unfit for active service and overseeing operations.But that is not the only battle they will fight. For Alan can't help but find himself drawn to Barbara Hillyard, a young widow and Duval's landlady - but she only has eyes for the dashing Frenchman...
The Sun Book Of Short Stories
by VariousTo celebrate the launch of Quick Reads in 2006, The Sun ran a short story competition called 'Get Britain Reading' in order to find the hidden talent among its ten million readers.It was judged by Sun columnist and bestselling author Jane Moore.The Sun Book of Short Stories contains a selection of the winning entries.They may make you smile, laugh or cry - but all of them are sure to entertain you.
No Nettles Required: The Reassuring Truth About Wildlife Gardening
by Ken ThompsonIn 2003 a MORI poll for the Royal Horticultural Society revealed that an extraordinary number of us are interested in attracting wildlife into our gardens. It also indicated, however, that many of us have no idea how to go about it. Information is sparse, and public opinion seems to suggest that gardens that are plentiful in wildlife are unattractive, expensive to upkeep and hard work to maintain. But this couldn't be further from the truth.In this illuminating book, Ken Thompson explains that encouraging wildlife is actually entirely compatible with ordinary gardening, costs next to nothing and is almost completely effortless. Packed with helpful hints and tips, the book shows us how easy it is to fill our gardens with everything from foxes, frogs and mice to butterflies, ladybirds and literally thousands of fascinating creepy-crawlies. Why should we? Because we'll be promoting the biodiversity of the UK, we'll be reconnecting with nature, getting more from our gardens, and we'll be doing our plants a favour.
Size Matters: a witty and warm-hearted comedy from bestselling author Judy Astley
by Judy AstleyFans of Carole Matthews, Jenny Colgan, Lucy Diamond and Milly Johnson will love this uplifting and upbeat comic novel from bestselling author Judy Astley. The perfect dose of escapism!'As irresistible as triple choc fudge cake - with extra cream' -- Mail on Sunday'A witty take on a modern dilemma' -- Woman and Home'You'll love this funny novel' -- Sun'Real wit...The story is so entertaining' -- Scottish Daily Record'A refreshingly good read' -- ***** Reader review'Good fun' -- ***** Reader review'I couldn't put the book down. Great read!' -- ***** Reader review****************************************************************************************Does losing weight make you a happier person?Jay has always envied her cousin Delphine. While Jay was brought up in a large, noisy and chaotic family, Delphine was indulged, perfectly dressed with a co-ordinated bedroom, an immaculate wardrobe, dancing lessons and monogrammed silver-backed hairbrushes.Now Jay lives happily with her architect husband and their three teenage children, running a successful cleaning company and trying to keep some kind of order on her disorderly household, while Delphine has long since disappeared to Australia with her second husband.But Jay does sometimes wonder whether she should be more like her cousin - utterly well-organised and with a seemingly perfect body.So Jay decides to diet. But what should it be? She tries a range, with a variety of successes and failures.But then Delphine reappears, with a third husband in prospect and the same old air of apparently effortless superiority. But Jay never considers that perhaps Delphine is the envious one...
Unchained Melanie: The perfect, light-hearted, feel-good romance to settle down with
by Judy AstleyLet bestselling author Judy Astley sweep you away with this uplifting, laugh-out-loud romance. Perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan, Milly Johnson and Trisha Ashley."Warm, funny, unerringly true to life" - Katie Fforde"A light, enjoyable read you won't be able to resist warming to" - Daily Mail"With sharp dialogue that will have you laughing out loud, and well drawn characters to boot, this is an enjoyable light read" - Sunday Mirror"Really enjoyable...very amusing" -- ***** Reader review"I loved it" -- ***** Reader review************************************************************IS THERE LIFE AFTER MARRIAGE?When Melanie finds herself single again after years of being one half of a couple, her friends predict loneliness, frustration, disaster and her parents are convinced she's a failure in life. But Melanie is overwhelmingly excited to be able to do her own thing - she plans a programme of behaving badly, after a lifetime of behaving properly.With her daughter off to university and ex-husband Roger married off at last - to his lamentably young girlfriend - she has a Free House, and she intends to make the most of it.But is the single life quite all it's cracked up to be?
Trouble In Paradise: A fantastically funny and feel-good tale from the East End…
by Pip GrangerPerfect for fans of Donna Douglas and Nancy Revell, a heart-warming saga set in post war London from Sunday Times bestselling author Pip Granger. "She brings the East End to life..." - Barbara Windsor"Read it straight through..." - ***** Reader review."Love her writing." - ***** Reader review.***************************1945: The end of the war spreads joy through London, but for Zelda Fluck the news isn't all good. The end to hostilities will bring her violent husband Charlie home. It also sets off a chain of events that brings more strife and destruction to the people of Paradise Gardens in Hackney than did the Blitz.That's not all. Zelda's nephew, Tony, is hanging around Brian Hole, a one-boy crime wave and only child of Ma Hole, leader of the local spivs.But Tony can sing - he has, in fact, the voice of an angel - and Zelda's friend, Zinnia knows a voice coach in Soho whose lessons may be able to straighten Tony out. The people Zelda meets there change her life. Will she find a way out of Hackney and her failed marriage?Trouble in Paradise is a prequel to Pip Granger's Rosie novels...
No Peace For The Wicked: The East-End is brought to life in this heart-warming Cockney saga
by Pip GrangerPerfect for fans of Donna Douglas and Nancy Revell, a feel-good, uplifting and funny saga set in post war London from Sunday Times bestseller Pip Granger. "A colourful, deeply nostalgic evocation of Soho in the Fifties, drawing heavily on the author's own childhood." -- CHOICE"She brings the East End to life" -- BARBARA WINDSOR"Lovely book - enjoyed it immensely. Very funny and very accurate of London in the 1950s." -- ***** Reader review"A brilliant, amusing, unputdownable book." -- ***** Reader review**********************************************THE WAR MAY BE LONG OVER BUT LIFE IN SOHO IS ANYTHING BUT CALM...1956: Lizzy is working in Soho when Peace, the daughter of her employer Bandy Bunion's estranged sister, comes to stay. Peace is a beautiful sixteen-year-old part-Chinese girl who has run away from boarding school and who has no intention of going back. Having lost her own daughter - Rosie's best friend - to leukaemia two years previously, she feels a special bond with Peace. She also feels that life has been rather quiet recently; but things are about to change dramatically... When Peace goes missing a second time, and no one knows where she's gone, it looks as though there's only one thing to do. Lizzy asks TC - her new man and a policeman - to help her find Peace, and the first place they must visit is the dock area in Limehouse...No Peace for the Wicked paints a picture of 1950s Soho so authentic you feel as though you are there...
Not All Tarts Are Apple: A perfectly feel-good comic saga from the East End
by Pip GrangerA wonderfully warm and charming London saga, set in the Soho of the 1950s. If you like Donna Douglas and Nancy Revell, you'll love this! "She brings the East End to life..." - Barbara Windsor"A poignant story with a strong authentic backdrop..."-Woman & Home"I enjoyed this book so much and would recommend it to anyone..." -- ***** Reader review"Great fun to read, amusing..." -- ***** Reader review********************************WINNER OF THE HARRY BOWLING PRIZE FOR FICTION.WHAT IF EVERYTHING YOU KNEW COULD BE TAKEN FROM YOU IN A FLASH? Rosie has always lived with her eagle-eyed Auntie Maggie and Uncle Bert in their café in Soho, often visited by her mother - the mysterious, and often drunk, Perfumed Lady. Yet, her mother's family - landed gentry who hail from a country estate near Bath - are desperate to get their hands on Sophie and will stop at nothing - even kidnap- to get her...Will Rosie have to leave the Soho and the neighbours she knows and loves - Great Aunt Dodie, Madame Zelda and Paulette, Sharky, Maltese Joe and the Campini Family who run the delicatessen in Old Compton Street - for good? Rosie's story continues in The Widow Ginger.
The Widow Ginger: A heart-warming and upliftingly funny saga from the East End
by Pip GrangerPerfect for fans of Donna Douglas and Nancy Revell, a feel-good, colourful and comic saga set in post war London from Sunday Times bestseller Pip Granger. "Packed with sharp authentic detail, this tale told through a child's eyes brings to life a colourful world of great characters from a bygone age." -- HOME & COUNTRY"Loved this book. Could not put it down, read it in two sittings..." -- ***** Reader review"I enjoyed every minute of it and was sad when I finished it..." -- ***** Reader review***********************************ALL WAS CALM AND NORMAL...UNTIL A STRANGER CAME INTO TOWN...1954, Soho, London. Rosie, and her beloved Auntie Maggie are opening up their café in Old Compton Street for Uncle Bert's breakfast special when the Widow Ginger comes to call.The Widow Ginger, an ex-GI with ice-cold blue eyes, is especially scary. He has unfinished business with Uncle Bert- business that includes being cheated on his share of a 'liberated' lorry-load of guns and explosives during the War - and he intends to make sure he now gets paid in full.And this isn't all: the lovely Luigi appears to be suffering from a severe case of unrequited lust; Bert and the local Mafioso Maltese Joe have had an acrimonious falling-out; and, most worrying of all, Rosie's best friend Jenny has begun to keel over mysteriously in the school playground....The Widow Ginger continues Rosie's story (started in Not All Tarts Are Apples) and paints a picture of 1950s Soho so authentic you feel as though you are there...
Tropic Of Ruislip
by Leslie ThomasTROPIC OF RUISLIP is a sage for life on a modern executive housing estate, seething with the fears, snobbereis, frustrations and lusts of well-heeled young couples trundling uneasily towards middle age.