Hilary Mantel Collection: Six of Her Best Novels
Our greatest living writer.Six of her best novels.Hilary Mantel is the first British writer to win two Man Booker Prizes. This set brings together six of her greatest novels – the first two books in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, the record-setting Man Booker prize-winners ‘Wolf Hall’ and ‘Bring Up the Bodies’.’ A Place of Greater Safety’ is an epic of Revolutionary France. The darkly comic ‘Beyond Black’ is a lively tale of a psychic and the impish spirits she summons. ‘The Giant, O’Brien’ tells the story of the legendary Charles Byrne and the surgeon who wanted his bones. And a family seeks refuge after an unfortunate African sojourn in ‘A Change of Climate’.For fans of the best literature eager to discover one of our greatest writers, this collection is essential reading.
High Tide: How Climate Crisis is Engulfing Our Planet
The No Logo of climate change – a book that shows how global warming is not a theory we should still debate, but something that has already happened on a global scale.Climate change is not a concern for the future. It's happening right now. In this book – based on the latest scientific evidence – the author takes us around the world to show the impact of global warming already being felt in people's lives.From sand-buried houses in China to thawing Alaskan plains, the author witnesses some of the worst effects of climate change at first hand. Some, like the floods in the UK, are near home. Others – like the drowning Pacific island of Tuvalu – are a world away from the exhaust pipes and factory chimneys that are actually causing global warming.But this isn't simply an inventory of disaster, it's a wry look at how people around the globe are coping as their world changes at unprecedented speed. In the process, the author eats whale blubber in Alaska, swims in shark-infested waters off the Great Barrier Reef and struggles to the top of Andean peaks in Peru. An adventure with a conscience and an argument with an urgent purpose, High Tide is an extremely important book.
Heroes, Villains and Velodromes: Chris Hoy and Britain’s Track Cycling Revolution
Fully updated to include the extraordinary scenes at London 2012, where Hoy won two more gold medals to bring his total to six and overtake Sir Steve Redgrave, this is the story of Britain's greatest ever Olympian.Chris Hoy has been instrumental in British track cycling's remarkable transformation from also-rans to world superpower. Now, having rewritten the record books as Olympic champion in four different cycling disciplines, and with six gold medals, Hoy has become a householdname and established himself in the pantheon of sporting greats.This is a fly-on-the-wall account of Hoy and his team as he prepared for the Beijing Olympics, where he became the first Briton in a century to win three gold medals in a single Games, and it has now been fully updated to include the extraordinary scenes at London 2012, where Hoy won two more gold medals, to bring his total to six and overtake Sir Steve Redgrave as Britain's greatest ever Olympian.The story begins with Hoy's introduction to cycling as a BMX racer and his progression to Olympic champion, and explains the origins and evolution of Britain's world-beating team. It includes a bizarre visit to the world's highest velodrome in Bolivia and a spellbinding journey from the razzmatazz of theEuropean six-day circuit to the craziness of the Japanese keirin races.Award-winning writer Richard Moore tracks Hoy throughout a season in the saddle, explores his motivations and mentors from a young age, and provides an unblemished insight into the mind of a champion and the largely unknown world of track cycling. It's a story that is fully updated with the remarkable events in Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012, two successive Olympic Games that were dominated by Hoy and the British track cycling team.
Haunted: Scariest stories from the UK's no. 1 psychic
For the first time, the UK's number one TV psychic shares some of his most personal stories and terrifying encounters with the spirit world, and what it’s really like to be ‘possessed’.The star of LIVINGtv's ‘Most Haunted’ and 'Ghost Towns' goes on a new journey that will chill you to the bone.Derek takes us with him into the darkest places of the spirit world where he confronts people taken over by demonic entities, the spirits of ancient Egyptians whose malevolent presence reaches beyond the tomb, those evil ghosts with unfinished business who are terrorising the living, and the dead who are determined to come back from the other side, and take Derek with them if they can…If you thought you'd already seen Derek's most terrifying battles with the dark side – think again.
Hannah’s Gift: Lessons from a Life Fully Lived
Transformative lessons in life learnt through a remarkable three-year-old girl's battle with cancer. From Hannah's story emerge five profound lessons – of truth, joy, faith, compassion and wonder – that have the power to change our lives.Every once in a while a book comes along that can change your life – a book so special, it is destined not just to be read but to be cherished, to be passed from one reader to another as a precious gift. Filled with wisdom and grace, tears and laughter, Hannah's Gift is one such book. Maria Housden shares the transformative lessons in living she received from her three-year-old daughter Hannah, who brought courage, honesty and joy to her struggle with cancer.During the last year of her short life, Hannah was fearless in the way she faced death – and irrepressibly joyful in the way she approached living. The little girl who wore her favourite red shoes into the operating theatre changed the life of everyone who came in contact with her. Now, in a book that preserves Hannah's indomitable spirit, Maria Housden offers the gift of her daughter's last year to all of us. In a lyrically told narrative, both moving and unforgettable, Housden recounts Hannah's battle with cancer in simple, straightforward language that transcends grief and fear to become a celebration.Hannah's Gift nourishes the soul with an ageless wisdom all the more invaluable for having come from someone so young. A remarkable story, remarkably told, it will bring comfort to anyone touched by loss and renewed faith in the power of love.
Gypsy Wedding Dreams: Ten dresses. Ten Dreams. All the secrets revealed.
Thelma Madine, star of Channel 4’s Big Fat Gypsy Weddings and fairy godmother of Gypsy weddings, reveals the drama, secrets and surprises involved in ten gypsy weddings.Through the tales of ten elaborate Gypsy wedding dresses Thelma offers a new window onto the remarkable world of ten brides and their extravagant weddings. For Thelma’s young brides, a wedding dress is more than just a pretty white gown; for some it is a symbol of their fairytale-like hopes and dreams for the future, for others a mark of a long-standing friendship with a non-traveller they have welcomed into their community, and for a small group a sad reminder of day they know will never come.With each chapter based around the secrets and incredible truths hidden behind a different dress, Thelma’s second book is packed full of fascinating new stories. More drama, more dresses, more gypsies.By turns laugh-out-loud funny and achingly sad, and brimming with hilarious anecdotes and larger-than-life characters, Thelma’s book will amaze, amuse and entertain.Beautifully designed, and fully-illustrated throughout, it is crammed with glossy new photos, revealing never-before-seen dresses adorned with thousands of Swarovski crystals and hundreds of LED lights – an ideal gift for fans of Channel 4’s Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, My Big Fat Gypsy Valentine and Thelma’s Gypsy Girls.
Grumpy Old Men: A Manual for the British Malcontent
At last! A comprehensive, handy guide for the misery-guts in your life.Are you an irritable, crabby, cantankerous, malcontented old grump? Well relax, because you're not alone. Grumpy Old Men is an annotated, cross-referenced and fully illustrated manual for malcontents everywhere: the comprehensive Gripes of Wrath.A compilation of gripes and grumbles, illustrated with blood-boiling images such as derailed trains and traffic wardens throughout.The next time you find yourself enraged by pointless speed bumps, overcrowded trains, ill-mannered drivers, irritating adverts, inefficient customer help-lines, overbooked airlines, inconsiderate cyclists, slow-moving caravans, extortionate bank charges, persistent charity collectors, mindless hotel muzak, unfunny clowns or just plain miserable British weather, let this book take the strain.The ultimate in stress-relief for the 21st-Century Grouch.
Grub Street Irregular: Scenes from Literary Life
An engaging, wickedly funny and splendidly anecdotal memoir of a career spent among writers, agents, publishers and bookmen and women of every stripe.Jeremy Lewis's first memoir, 'Playing for Time', was hailed by James Lees-Milne as 'the funniest and best written book I've read for years.' His second, 'Kindred Spirits', was described by John Carey as 'sheer pleasure from start to finish'. Now he has written a third autobiographical account of his encounters with literary figures over the last two decades which fittingly caps the previous two.A rich sense of the absurd and a profound understanding of the extreme comicality of life, together with a delight in the oddities of human behaviour, are the hallmarks of Jeremy Lewis's world. Bumbling figures of the book trade and eccentric luminaries of Grub Street alike are grist to his mill; his characterisations of André Deutsch, James Lees-Milne, Alan Ross, Richard Cobb, Barbara Skelton and dozens of others – are written with huge warmth and affection.Seldom has modern literary life been described with such a sense of relish and enjoyment; and seldom has the reader been so richly entertained by a gallery of eccentric portraits.
Grow Your Own Drugs: A Year With James Wong
James Wong is back, putting his ethnobotanical expertise to use once again, with over 100 new, natural, cheap and easy remedies, showing you and those around you how to have a fantastically healthy year.Whether you're fed up with your hormones, worried about your baby's nappy rash, your partner is prone to a sore-throat, or leg-waxing is proving just too expensive to maintain, Grow Your Own Drugs: A Year With James Wong offers over 100 great new remedies to soothe all manner of common conditions and beauty problems – whenever they might flare up.James shows how easy it to have access to the right ingredients whatever the weather, with his easy-to follow seasonal focus – whether you've got a window box, a roof terrace, a country garden (or a computer to order the goods online…). His seasonal planner takes you right through from Spring to Winter, making sure you know what to plant when, the best time to harvest and how to create your own mini-apothecary (or store-cupboard) at home.Packed with James's personal top tips and easy solutions for both growing and making remedies, this is your must-have companion to help ward off any ailments and complaints which might crop up throughout the year, the natural, James Wong way.FEATURES:• Over 100 new remedies• New seasonal guide – how to make sure you have all the ingredients you need for a healthy body and mind all year round• New non-gardener's guide: if you're not green-fingered or don't have a garden, James reveals how to identify plants and how to source good quality ingredients online• More about James’s personal inspirations: how he came to a career in ethnobotany, how he goes about living his own GYOD year and why a seasonal approach is important and easy to adopt• James's top tips and new gift flashes (perfect for cheap, thoughtful presents)• New case studies: how people who've tried and tested the remedies have got on• New HOME section: brilliant natural and cheap remedies for home life. Contains pet flea powder, horsetail metal polish, wood polish, carpet deodoriser
Groomed: Part 3 of 3: Danger lies closer than you think
It’s late on Friday night when Casey’s mobile starts to ring. She is expecting it to be her daughter Riley. But it isn’t Riley. It’s a woman from the Emergency Duty Team. So begins Casey and Mike’s latest fostering challenge – a fifteen-year-old girl called Keeley who’s run away from her long-term foster home 25 miles away.The Jonathan Ross Show has just started when Casey gets the call. She thinks it will be Riley – telling her that her favourite actor is going to be on TV. But it’s something far more urgent: a fifteen-year-old girl who has run away from her foster family and accused her foster father of sexual abuse. The family deny in vehemently, but such an allegation can never be taken lightly, so a new home must be found for Keeley.Keeley is polite, but she’s sharp, and she has all the hallmarks of a child who has been in the system a long time, and knows how to play it. Whether the allegation is true or not, Casey knows there will be no winners here. If it is true, then a young girl’s life has been torn asunder. If not, then the heartache for the family will only be surpassed by the bleak outlook for Keeley.In the short term, it’s a case of providing a safe, supportive home for a vulnerable child. But with the dangerous world of the internet at her disposal, it seems this strong-minded youngster has her own ideas of where that safe place should be…