A passionate and entertaining guide to spotting and decoding the delusions we live under.Oil companies advertise their green credentials. Billionaires organise 'grassroots' political movements. Cuts that target the poor are billed as progressive. Casually dressed employees play table football in airy open-plan offices, but work longer hours than ever before. To Eliane Glaser, these are all signs of the maddeningly surreal gap between appearance and reality in modern life. With the melting away of conflicts between East and West in the Cold War and Right and Left in our politics, the big ideologies were consigned to history. But Get Real argues that agendas never really disappeared. They just went undercover, creating a looking-glass world in which reality is spun and vested interests appear in disguise.Busting the jargon and unravelling the spin, Get Real reveals the secrets about modern life that we were never supposed to know. It puts the truth and the power to choose firmly in our hands, because only by telling it like it is can we improve – and maybe even save – our world for real.
‘Charming…romance, wit and a fabulous “all is lost” moment’ Sue Moorcroft, bestselling author of The Christmas PromiseIf you can’t stand the heat…Rome is the city of love and seduction, right? Not if you find yourself staying in a beautiful apartment with your childhood-friend-turned-arch-enemy, Will Ryan…no matter how hot he is!Romance is the last thing on Lisa’s mind. She’s got more important things to focus on, like hunting down her estranged father. Except when her search falls at the first hurdle, Will doesn’t just help her get back on track, he also shares the romantic sights – and exquisite tastes – of the Eternal City, and Lisa starts to wonder if it’s not just Rome seducing her.Only, as Lisa and Will dig into the past, neither of them is prepared for the long-buried secrets they reveal. Secrets that will turn both their world’s upside down …‘A perfect mix of Italian food, the city of Rome, romance, hidden family secrets, friendship and fabulous descriptive storytelling’ Rachel’s Random Reads
Renowned industrial expert Geoffrey Owen analyses the complex reasons behind the delayed modernisation of British industry.In 1945, following the economic hardship of the war years, British industry looked forward with confidence to re-establishing links with its traditional trading partners in the Empire, and in the years of reconstruction which followed enjoyed unprecendented growth and prosperity. But the emergence of an economically vigorous and fiercely competitive Europe forced Britain to come to terms with some fundamental industrial weaknesses and to question where her economic destiny lay as the ‘miracle economies’ of France and Germany began to overtake her own.Through case studies of key industries from textiles to pharmaceuticals, steel to electronics, Owen offers a vivid account of Britain’s industrial progress, and argues that since the late 1970s British industry has undergone a painful but necessary transformation which has rapidly modernised the UK economy.At the start of a new millennium, as Britain once again debates its relationship with an ever more unified Europe, Geoffrey Owen provides a timely appraisal of the often troubled path that Britain has taken from Empire to Europe.
A story from Lisa McInerney to stir the heart and awaken vital conversations about love.Heidi wanders around the market to by fudge for her girlfriend, Cass. But why can she not deliver it to the hospital herself? What has she done?
A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time as an ebook.A personal advertisement written in code attracts the attention of Tuppence Beresford. When Tuppence suspects that the code involves the Three Arts Ball, she persuades Tommy to attend dressed in costume. Tuppence’s suspicions prove to be correct when a murder takes place, but as all of the guests are dressed in masquerade, identifying the killer may be more difficult than first thought…
Heartwarming, inspirational and genuinely touching, Finding Harmony is the remarkable true story of an extraordinary dog that rescued a woman from the depths of depression and transformed a family for ever.A keen mountaineer, Sally Hyder was in her prime and loving life. She shared her passion for climbing with her partner Andrew and it was a dream come true when Andrew proposed at Everest Base Camp. For them, climbing mountains made anything seem possible and represented their attitude to life.But a year after Sally and Andrew were married Sally was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. She was only 28 and was training to be a Macmillan nurse – she wanted to care for the terminally ill. But Sally was determined the disease wouldn't slow her down: she went back to work looking after others and, despite warnings that her condition could deteriorate in pregnancy, went on to have three beautiful children.But it was when her youngest child Melissa was diagnosed with severe autism that Sally began to spiral into depression. Sally felt guilty about the pressures faced by her elder daughter Clara in her role as carer. Sally worried that she was missing out on the freedom of childhood.She needed help. Unsure who to turn to, she happened upon Canine Partners and an extraordinary dog called Harmony. They formed an instant bond; Harmony can perform over 100 chores – from putting groceries into the trolley to handing over Sally's purse at the till. Harmony is an unending source of comfort: she intuitively knows when Sally is in pain and calms Melissa when she suffers panic attacks.Harmony has given Sally the ability to start living once more, and become a mother again in her own way. She has shown Sally that the sky's the limit and, with a taste for independence that she hadn't felt since her mountaineering days, Sally set her sights on the peaks of Ben Nevis once more.In August 2010 Sally planned to climb the hardest of the Munro Mountains. Sadly her first attempt was thwarted after her motorised wheelchair short-circuited. But Sally is a fighter and reached the summit in June 2011 with her husband by her side. And Harmony too, of course.
The perfect Cornish holiday escape. A 3-book short story collection from Sunday Times bestseller, Fern Britton.THE STOLEN WEEKEND, Short StoryBest friends Penny Leighton and Helen Merrifield had swapped their hectic London lives for the leisurely pace of life in a pretty Cornish village. But they’re both in need of a respite from their Pendruggan men.The two women cook up a scheme to leave them behind and get back to London for a weekend of blissful indulgence. But you know what they say about the best laid plans… Will Penny and Helen’s stolen weekend be everything they’ve dreamed of, or something else entirely?A CORNISH CAROL, Short StoryThis will be one Christmas they’ll never forget…Piran Ambrose is the epitome of brooding male. But Pendruggan’s Mr Rochester is in danger of becoming its Ebeneezer Scrooge when he is driven to distraction by the villagers’ over-the-top Christmas celebrations.When Piran’s bad temper risks spoiling Christmas for everyone, something drastic needs to be done. So, over one Christmas Eve, three very special people pay Piran a visit, determined to show him what Christmas is really all about…THE BEACH CABIN, Short StoryEd and Charlotte have been married for fifteen years, but they have been drifting apart and now Ed suspects that Charlotte may be involved with another man.Desperate not to lose her, he decides a family holiday is just what they need and rents a cottage on the cliffs near the picturesque Cornish village of Pendruggan.So into their car the family all pile – will their Cornish escape be the holiday to make them… or break them?
A collection of the latest brilliant Sunday Times bestsellers from Fern Britton.THE HOLIDAY HOMEEach year, the Carew sisters embark on their yearly trip to the family holiday home, Atlantic House, set on a picturesque Cornish cliff.Constance, loving wife to philandering husband Greg, has always been outwitted by her manipulative sibling Prudence, but this year she’s finally had enough.When an old face reappears on the scene, years of simmering resentments reach boiling point, but little do the women know that a long-buried secret is about to crawl out of the woodwork . . .A SEASIDE AFFAIRWhen the residents of the Cornish seaside town of Trevay discover that their much-loved theatre is about to be closed, they are up in arms. It falls to hotshot producer and vicar’s wife Penny Leighton to devise a rescue plan, and she starts to pull in some serious favours.The town is soon deluged by actors, all keen to take part in a charity season at the theatre. One of the new supporters is Jess Tate, girlfriend of TV heartthrob Ryan Hearst. His career is on the rise while her own is in the doldrums. But everything is about to change. Trevay must put on the show of its life – can the villagers, and Jess, hold on to the thing they love the most?A GOOD CATCHBeautiful Greer Clovelly is used to getting her own way. She’s been in love with Jesse Behenna since her first day at school and she’s determined that one day, they’ll be married.Loveday Carter loves Jesse too. But living in the shadow of her friend has become a way of life, and she knows that what Greer wants, she usually gets.Jesse, caught in the middle, faces an agonising choice. And what about his best friend Mickey, who worships the ground that Loveday walks on?As the dark clouds start to gather the four friends find themselves weathering a storm – one that has the power to sink them all . . .
Described as ‘a masterpiece’ by critics, this remarkable book tells the story of war through the lives and deaths of a single family. Absolutely unforgettable new writing.If you loved The English Patient or Rohinton Mistry’s Fine Balance or Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers, you will love this book.Three young men gazed at him from silver-framed photographs in his grandmother’s house, ‘beheld but not noticed, as angels are in a frieze full of mortal strugglers’. They had all been in the Second World War, a fact that surprised him. Indians had never figured in his idea of the war, nor the war in his idea of India – and he thought that he had a good idea of both.One of them, Bobby, even looked a bit like him, but Raghu Karnad had not noticed until he was the same age as they were in their photo-frames. Then he learned about the Parsi boy from the sleepy south Indian coast, so eager to follow his brothers-in-law into the colonial forces and onto the front line. Manek, dashing and confident, was a pilot with India’s fledgling air force; gentle Ganny became an army doctor in the arid North-West Frontier. Bobby’s pursuit would carry him as far as the deserts of Iraq and the green hell of the Burma battlefront.The years 1939-45 might be the most revered, deplored and replayed in modern history. Yet India’s extraordinary role has been concealed, from itself and from the world. In riveting prose, Karnad retrieves the story of a single family – a story of love, rebellion, loyalty and uncertainty – and with it, the greatest revelation that is India’s Second World War.Farthest Field narrates the lost epic of India’s war, in which the largest volunteer army in history fought for the British Empire, even as its countrymen fought to be free of it. It carries us from Madras to Peshawar, Egypt to Burma – unfolding the saga of a young family amazed by their swiftly changing world and swept up in its violence.
An amusing, informative, controversial and utterly irreverent history of the world’s favourite word.F, U, C and K – four letters that can cause outrage, scandal, embarrassment or instant relief if you hit your thumb with a hammer.In this wide-ranging and frequently hilarious history of the F-word, Rufus Lodge searches out the origins of our language’s most popular obscenity, and chronicles its dramatic arrival in our everyday lives. As he discovers, the F-word can be heard among aristocrats and astronauts, rock stars and royals, poets and politicians, even in the company of Father Ted and Basil Brush.No-one is safe from the F-word’s outrageous progress, as innocent animals, fragrant mothers and squeaky-clean TV hosts are dragged into the fray. The cast of characters includes Shakespeare, the Beatles, Andy Murray, T.S. Eliot, Elton, Camilla and everyone unfortunate enough to live in an Austrian town with a very embarrassing name.F*** is a cavalcade of priceless anecdotes, historical research, filthy jokes and definitions too devious for any decent dictionary – guaranteed to make you laugh, and broaden your vocabulary*.* The publisher takes no responsibility for any embarrassment caused when readers drop the F-bomb after reading this book.