Books

The British security and intelligence services have for decades been respected as the best in the world. The Quest for C is the story of the origins of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Security Service (MI5) in their immediate precursor, the Secret Service Bureau. The head of MI6 is known as "C"--not for Chief as often thought, but for Mansfield Cumming (1859-- 1923), its first head, and this book is as much a biography of Cumming as an account of the early years of MI6... less info

The British security and intelligence services have for decades been respected as the best in the world. The Quest for C is the story of the origins of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the... more info

In A Traitor to Memory, Elizabeth George proves that she belongs firmly in the upper echelons of crime writers. Her 10 previous novels of psychological suspense have carefully consolidated the character of her aristocratic detective Thomas Lynley, and with this book she creates for him a narrative more tangled and (seemingly) impenetrable than ever before. Gideon Davies is a classical violinist who has lost his ability to play. In the middle of a Beethoven trio, his mind has been wiped clear ... less info

In A Traitor to Memory, Elizabeth George proves that she belongs firmly in the upper echelons of crime writers. Her 10 previous novels of psychological suspense have carefully consolidated the char... more info

Whether he's writing about the Louisiana Bayou Country (in his Dave Robicheaux books) or the Texas hill towns around Austin (in his series about former Texas ranger Billy Bob Holland), James Lee Burke has deep roots in the American soil that link him to some of the great adventure writers of the past such as Jack London and Mark Twain. Like them, Burke writes novels illustrating how failure shapes man much more than success does. Central to Burke's second Billy Bob novel (Cimarron Rose was h... less info

Whether he's writing about the Louisiana Bayou Country (in his Dave Robicheaux books) or the Texas hill towns around Austin (in his series about former Texas ranger Billy Bob Holland), James Lee Bu... more info

In A Traitor to Memory, Elizabeth George proves that she belongs firmly in the upper echelons of crime writers. Her 10 previous novels of psychological suspense have carefully consolidated the character of her aristocratic detective Thomas Lynley, and with this book she creates for him a narrative more tangled and (seemingly) impenetrable than ever before. Gideon Davies is a classical violinist who has lost his ability to play. In the middle of a Beethoven trio, his mind has been wiped clear ... less info

In A Traitor to Memory, Elizabeth George proves that she belongs firmly in the upper echelons of crime writers. Her 10 previous novels of psychological suspense have carefully consolidated the char... more info

Stone Cold, winner of the 1994 Carnegie Medal, serves as a sinister warning to any young runaway and not just because there is a killer on the loose. Narrated by 17-year-old Link, homeless and jobless in London after being driven out of home by a drunken, abusive stepfather, he vividly recounts the day-to-day experiences of a homeless person. Because he tells it like it is, his descriptions of sleeping rough shatter any romantic notions: "So you pick your spot. Wherever it is ... it's go... less info

Stone Cold, winner of the 1994 Carnegie Medal, serves as a sinister warning to any young runaway and not just because there is a killer on the loose. Narrated by 17-year-old Link, homeless and jobl... more info

Zoe, a pretty blonde schoolteacher. Jenny, a former hand model turned model wife and mother. Nadia, an irrepressible free spirit who entertains at children's parties. Three women living in different parts of London, grappling with different problems, sheltering different dreams--their lives and narratives linked only by the singular madness of a sadistic stalker. As they move slowly through the sweltering heat of summer, someone is sending these women letters that let each know she is being w... less info

Zoe, a pretty blonde schoolteacher. Jenny, a former hand model turned model wife and mother. Nadia, an irrepressible free spirit who entertains at children's parties. Three women living in differen... more info

Pages: 64, Edition: 2nd Revised edition, Paperback, Usborne Publishing Ltd less info

Pages: 64, Edition: 2nd Revised edition, Paperback, Usborne Publishing Ltd

Stone Cold, winner of the 1994 Carnegie Medal, serves as a sinister warning to any young runaway and not just because there is a killer on the loose. Narrated by 17-year-old Link, homeless and jobless in London after being driven out of home by a drunken, abusive stepfather, he vividly recounts the day-to-day experiences of a homeless person. Because he tells it like it is, his descriptions of sleeping rough shatter any romantic notions: "So you pick your spot. Wherever it is ... it's go... less info

Stone Cold, winner of the 1994 Carnegie Medal, serves as a sinister warning to any young runaway and not just because there is a killer on the loose. Narrated by 17-year-old Link, homeless and jobl... more info

With his Illuminated Haggadah, British educationalist Rabbi Dr Michael Shire hit upon the successful formula of marrying illustrations from medieval Hebrew manuscripts to modern interpretations of the age-old text. In L'Chaim! he has extended the idea to a slim but exquisitely produced volume of prayers and blessings for the home, aimed at enhancing the spiritual quality of Jewish life.Almost every page is decorated with illuminations from Hebraica treasures in Oxford's Bodleian Library or th... less info

With his Illuminated Haggadah, British educationalist Rabbi Dr Michael Shire hit upon the successful formula of marrying illustrations from medieval Hebrew manuscripts to modern interpretations of ... more info

At first glance, the thrillers of Rupert Thomson seem to have nothing in common except the expansiveness of his imagination and the lucid radiance of his writing. Air & Fire is about a group of French people sent to California at the end of the 19th century to build a church. The Insult is about a man blinded by a robber in a supermarket parking lot who discovers one night that--because of a bizarre experiment--he can see again. Thomson's latest finds three very different characters--an a... less info

At first glance, the thrillers of Rupert Thomson seem to have nothing in common except the expansiveness of his imagination and the lucid radiance of his writing. Air & Fire is about a group of... more info

Fingersmith is the third slice of engrossing lesbian Victoriana from Sarah Waters. Although lighter and more melodramatic in tone than its predecessor Affinity, this hypnotic suspense novel is awash with all manner of gloomy Dickensian leitmotifs: pickpockets; orphans; grim prisons; lunatic asylums; "laughing villains" and, of course, "stolen fortunes and girls made out to be mad". Oliver Twist (which is mentioned on the opening page), The Woman in White and The Prince and... less info

Fingersmith is the third slice of engrossing lesbian Victoriana from Sarah Waters. Although lighter and more melodramatic in tone than its predecessor Affinity, this hypnotic suspense novel is awas... more info

Pages: 144, Paperback, The Grimsay Press less info

Pages: 144, Paperback, The Grimsay Press

At first glance, the thrillers of Rupert Thomson seem to have nothing in common except the expansiveness of his imagination and the lucid radiance of his writing. Air & Fire is about a group of French people sent to California at the end of the 19th century to build a church. The Insult is about a man blinded by a robber in a supermarket parking lot who discovers one night that--because of a bizarre experiment--he can see again. Thomson's latest finds three very different characters--an a... less info

At first glance, the thrillers of Rupert Thomson seem to have nothing in common except the expansiveness of his imagination and the lucid radiance of his writing. Air & Fire is about a group of... more info

The Hours is both a homage to Virginia Woolf and very much its own creature. Even as Michael Cunningham brings his literary idol back to life, he intertwines her story with those of two more contemporary women. One grey suburban London morning in 1923, Woolf awakens from a dream that will soon lead to Mrs.Dalloway. In the present, on a beautiful June day in Greenwich Village, 52-year-old Clarissa Vaughan is planning a party for her oldest love, a poet dying of an AIDS-related illness. And in ... less info

The Hours is both a homage to Virginia Woolf and very much its own creature. Even as Michael Cunningham brings his literary idol back to life, he intertwines her story with those of two more contem... more info

Steps Along Hope Street relates the life of David Sheppard, famous for being the keen sportsman who gave up a career in international cricket to become a vicar. He went on to pioneer the Church of England's social work in the inner city and wound up as the Bishop of Liverpool. Sheppard's book also reflects on the enormous changes within the Church of England in the last 50 years. Sheppard recounts his middle-class childhood and his privileged education at Sherborne and Cambridge. At Sherborn... less info

Steps Along Hope Street relates the life of David Sheppard, famous for being the keen sportsman who gave up a career in international cricket to become a vicar. He went on to pioneer the Church of ... more info

Jake Arnott's He Kills Coppers opens in August 1966 when the feel-good factor is running high as England enjoys World Cup victory and a seemingly endless summer. But the sunshine brings some nasty creatures out, and the brutal slaying of three policemen in a west London street sends shockwaves right to the heart of the nation. For three men, the killing is more than a front-page outrage. For Billy Porter, a war-time hero turned petty thief, it's a plan that went fatally wrong. For Frank Taylo... less info

Jake Arnott's He Kills Coppers opens in August 1966 when the feel-good factor is running high as England enjoys World Cup victory and a seemingly endless summer. But the sunshine brings some nasty ... more info

Maverick septuagenarian artist Yayoi Kusama has spent the last 20 years in a mental hospital in Tokyo, where she has immersed herself in art therapy to help her with her obsessive neurosis. Feeling ostracised by Japan, she went to America in 1958, where for the next 15 years she developed her distinctive imagery of dots, dried macaroni and protuberances, the latter of which, the antithesis of the dots, are phalluses or tumorous root vegetables depending on your delectation. The dots of the so... less info

Maverick septuagenarian artist Yayoi Kusama has spent the last 20 years in a mental hospital in Tokyo, where she has immersed herself in art therapy to help her with her obsessive neurosis. Feeling... more info

Zoe, a pretty blonde schoolteacher. Jenny, a former hand model turned model wife and mother. Nadia, an irrepressible free spirit who entertains at children's parties. Three women living in different parts of London, grappling with different problems, sheltering different dreams--their lives and narratives linked only by the singular madness of a sadistic stalker. As they move slowly through the sweltering heat of summer, someone is sending these women letters that let each know she is being w... less info

Zoe, a pretty blonde schoolteacher. Jenny, a former hand model turned model wife and mother. Nadia, an irrepressible free spirit who entertains at children's parties. Three women living in differen... more info

When the eminent novelist and biographer Peter Ackroyd finished writing London: The Biography, he almost immediately had a heart attack, such was the effort of his 800-page work about the "human body" that is this most fascinating of cities. And not just any human body either, but "envisaged in the form of a young man with his arms outstretched in a gesture of liberation... it embodies the energy and exaltation of a city continually beating in great waves of progress and of con... less info

When the eminent novelist and biographer Peter Ackroyd finished writing London: The Biography, he almost immediately had a heart attack, such was the effort of his 800-page work about the "hum... more info

What is real and what is not?": David Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten: A Novel in Nine Parts, plays with this question throughout its "parts". (That there are 10 sections is just part of the mystery of this book's schema.) Told through a range of voices, scattered across the globe--Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Petersburg, London--Ghostwritten has been described as a "firework display, shooting off in a dozen different narrative directions" (Adam Lively).Certainly,... less info

What is real and what is not?": David Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten: A Novel in Nine Parts, plays with this question throughout its "parts". (That there are 10 sections is jus... more info