
The Dream Room
¥88.39
‘Into its 120 pages, M?ring folds a war memoir, a family psychodrama and a meditation on time and memory. It is a miracle of compression: everything is significant…one races through it, eager to discover the heart of the mystery.’ Guardian The story of a family – mother, father (ex-World War II pilot), twelve-year-old son David – who live above a toy shop in a small town on the windswept Dutch coast. On the same day that David finds himself listening to the toy shop owner complaining that he can’t sell model aeroplane kits any more because kids nowadays are too lazy to glue all the pieces together, David’s father quits his job in a fit of pique and pride. A few hours later, his mother comes home, having left her job too. So, David devises a plan – and before the day is over the whole family is at home, putting model aeroplanes together. A wonderful, perfect summer ensues, suddenly interrupted by the arrival of an unexpected visitor, his father’s old friend from the war. His arrival revives old feelings of loyalty, love and hatred – and ensures that nothing will ever return to a perfect state again. Accessible, warm, funny and wise, this novel was a massive bestseller in M?ring’s native Holland. A gem of a story, it has the fable-like appeal of a “Miss Garnet’s Angel” (but without the middle-Englandness) or of Bernard Schlink’s “The Reader” (but without the heavy moral overtone).The book is most reminiscent of J.L. Carr’s “A Month in the Country”, the Booker Prize-winning English novel set just after World War I, heavy with nostalgia, evocative, melancholy.

Mega Sleepover 5 (The Sleepover Club)
¥88.39
Join the Sleepover Club: Frankie, Kenny, Felicity, Rosie and Lyndsey, five girls who want to have fun – but who always end up in mischief! In Sleepover on Friday 13th, Kenny plans some spooky surprises – but suddenly, everything starts getting out of control… In Sleepover Girls Go Camping, it’s the Sleepover Club versus the M&Ms on a massive assault course at summer camp. And in Sleepover Girls Go Detective, Lyndz’s cat disappears. Could it be anything to do with a very suspicious-looking neighbour? Three fantastic Sleepover Club stories in one!

The Real Witches’ Handbook: The Definitive Handbook of Advanced Magical Techniqu
¥88.39
Kate West is the author of The Real Witches' Handbook and The Real Witches' Kitchen. She is Media Officer for The Children of Artemis and High Priestess of the Hearth of Hecate, which runs a popular email support and enquiry service for Witches around the world. A practising Wiccan for over 30 years, she has excellent international contacts.

Gilchrist on Blake: The Life of William Blake by Alexander Gilchrist
¥88.39
LIVES THAT NEVER GROW OLD Part of a radical new series – edited by Richard Holmes – that recovers the great classical tradition of English biography. Gilchrist’s ‘The Life of William Blake’ is a biographical masterpiece, still thrilling to read and vividly alive. This was the first biography of William Blake ever written, at a time when the great visionary poet and painter was generally forgotten, ridiculed or dismissed as insane. Wonderfully vivid and outspoken (one chapter is entitled ‘Mad or Not Mad’), it was based on revealing interviews with many of Blake’s surviving friends. Blake conversed with spirits, saw angels in trees, and sunbathed naked with his wife ‘like Adam and Eve’. Gilchrist adds detailed de*ions of Blake’s beliefs and working methods, an account of his trial for high treason and fascinating evocations of the places in London, Kent and Sussex where he lived. The book ultimately transformed and enhanced Blake’s reputation.

Falling out of Heaven
¥88.39
Hauntingly told and emotionally charged, this is an immense story of consuming addiction and the betrayal of trust. Gabriel O'Rourke seemingly has everything: a loving wife, an adoring young son, a worthwhile job. He is rooted in a community, is part of a family, has a home. Yet, gradually, his world slowly pulls apart, until Gabriel finds himself homeless and destitute, living out of rubbish skips on the street. In a psychotic haze he is admitted into a secure unit, his body addled by alcohol, his mind broken. Here, by confronting the blighting reality of his own alcoholism, Gabriel is forced finally to unearth the muddled spectre of the past: the black betrayals by those around him, his traumatic relationship with his father, and the true darkness of some obsessions. Learning to navigate a landscape pockmarked with trauma to undergo a journey of painstaking absolution and halting reconstruction, Gabriel understands that only by untangling the mistakes of the past can he hope to reclaim his future.

Notorious: The Maddest and Baddest Sportsmen on the Planet
¥88.39
Straddling humour, trivia and sport, ‘Notorious’ brings together for the first time one hundred of the most potty sportsmen in history. From boxing to cycling, soccer to baseball, and most sports in between, here are the hard-men and the criminals, the psychos and the loonies, that make up the sporting madness hall of shame. Among the prime candidates for sporting lunacy in this book: Prinya Charoenpal, one of the most talented kick-boxers in the sport’s history, who wore make-up and pink nail polish, broke down when asked to strip for the weigh-in, pummelled the opponent who made the mistake of mocking her with a camp embrace, and who fought solely to get the money for a sex-change operation. Jack ‘Hacksaw’ Reynolds, the San Francisco 49-ers linebacker during the 80s, who once got plastered after losing a college game, went out to the car park with a hacksaw, and cut someone’s car in half. The Brazilian football star Edmundo, infamous on the pitch for beating up fans, referees and journalists, and making his name off it by crashing his truck and killing three people, and being arrested for force-feeding beer to a chimpanzee at his son’s birthday party. And there’s more. The rugby league hard-man with a predilection for sticking a rigid digit finger up opponents’ rears on the field of play; the baseball Hall of Famer who wielded his bat to beat up unsuspecting victims; the golfer hospitalised three times for alcohol poisoning, who came through two suicide attempts, three divorces, plus countless hotel room trashings and suspensions; the Irish jockey involved in an air rage incident who copped 110 hours of community service… And closer to home, the likes of Roy Keane, Alex Higgins, Vinnie Jones and Paul Gascoigne are also featured in this wildly captivating, and often shocking, collection of crazed sports celebrities.

Told in Silence
¥88.39
New novel from exciting young author Rebecca Connell From the outside, Violet seems to lead an ordinary and uneventful existence - single, working in a shop, and living with her parents in rural Kent - but her life has already been touched by tragedy. At 21, Violet is a young widow, and the couple she lives with, Harvey and Laura Blackwood, are not her own parents but those of her late husband, Jonathan. Rocked by grief, Violet has shut herself away from the world, but she soon finds that she cannot escape reality. When Max Croft, an old friend of Jonathan's, enters her life, she is faced not only with the possibility of a new attraction, but with the knowledge that there are secrets behind her husband’s death that she has not yet uncovered, and which threaten to shake her faith in everything she knows about their past life together. Told in Silence is a spellbinding and unforgettable novel of desire, deception and the lengths that we will go to for love.

The Pike: Gabriele d’Annunzio, Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War
¥88.39
WINNER OF THE 2013 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION WINNER OF THE 2013 DUFF COOPER PRIZE WINNER OF THE POLITICAL BOOK AWARDS POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR 2014 WINNER OF THE 2013 COSTA BOOK AWARDS BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR The story of Gabriele D’Annunzio, poet, daredevil – and Fascist. In September 1919 Gabriele D’Annunzio, successful poet and occasional politician, declared himself Commandante of the city of Fiume in modern day Croatia. His intention – to establish a utopia based on his fascist and artistic ideals. It was the dramatic pinnacle to an outrageous career. Lucy Hughes-Hallett charts the controversial life of D’Annunzio, the debauched artist who became a national hero. His evolution from idealist Romantic to radical right-wing revolutionary is a political parable. Through his ideological journey, culminating in the failure of the Fiume endeavour, we witness the political turbulence of early 20th century Europe and the emergence of fascism. In ‘The Pike’, Hughes-Hallett addresses the cult of nationalism and the origins of political extremism – and at the centre of the book stands the charismatic D’Annunzio: a figure as deplorable as he is fascinating.

The GL Diet Made Easy: How to Eat, Cheat and Still Lose Weight
¥88.39
Dieting is so much easier thanks to Nigel Denby's fantastically simple GL diet. There's no calorie or point counting, no hunger, no guilt and no faddy food rules. Even better, you can drop a size in 10 days – and keep it off. All you need to do is stick to a few simple eating guidelines and enjoy his delicious recipes and flexible meal plans. GL, or Glycaemic Load, gets better results than GI (Glycaemic Index) because it helps you manage the quality AND the quantity of the food you eat. For example, on a GI diet chocolate is off the menu because a single bar of chocolate and a truckload of chocolate have the same bad rating. It's a different story on GL: you can cheat a little and still enjoy your chocolate fix. This diet is so easy and so indulgent that you'll hardly notice you are on it until your unwanted pounds disappear. ? Simple eating guidelines – no rigid rules ? Safe, permanent weight loss ? 10-day flexible planner – drop a size and get on track ? Mouth-watering choice of 10-minute recipes

Love Bites: Marital Skirmishes in the Kitchen
¥88.39
A witty culinary exploration of both the unusual and the familiar, written by former Independent columnist, Chris Hirst. On his perilous culinary mission into the kitchen, Hirst proudly seeks to reclaim some of the greatest dishes in modern-day cuisine that we have become bizarrely indifferent to as a nation. Peppered throughout with the piquant comments and trenchant opinions of Mrs H, acting as a vocal - though not always enthusiastic - participant, Hirst’s lively instruction includes such dining delights as the quintessentially English treat of the pork pie, the history of the humble rhubarb stick and forays into the kitchen to make sticky Seville orange marmalade and grown-up biscuits including dubious amounts of absinthe. Tackling important questions such as the correct pronunciation of a certain cheesy snack (clearly Welsh rabbit not rarebit), and probing what it was exactly that fascinated our ancestors so much about blancmange (was it the inclusion of meat?), Hirst might not promise perfect results, but guarantees intriguing historical discussion about age-old culinary classics.

The Bird Woman
¥88.39
The much anticipated second novel from prize-winning Irish poet and novelist, Kerry Hardie. 'The Bird Woman' is a moving account of two marriages, a gift that feels like a curse, and the freedom that lies on the far side of family or group identity. Ellen McKinnon, red-haired, clairvoyant, fiercely independent, finds her marriage, her health, her sanity threatened when she 'sees' the death of a man in a bomb attack before it has really occurred. Terrified by what's happening to her, she leaves her home, her tribe, her husband, to live with a man she barely knows in Southern Ireland. There she strives to live a normal life in a different culture, to be accepted by her husband's family and friends, to learn a new way of living. Though determined to suppress her 'gift' at any cost, with the birth of her children the clairvoyance changes and broadens into a power to heal. Slowly the rumours spread and the sick seek her out, yet she turns them away from her door. Her husband and her closest friend demand that she question her right to suppress her remarkable powers. Reluctantly she accepts her fate, and begins her work as a healer. But the personal cost is high, and this work begins to damage her most intimate relationships. When news of the final illness of her long-estranged mother forces her return to her native city, everything falls apart for her and she finds there's no safe ground beneath her feet.

A Small Dog Saved My Life
¥88.39
A story of survival, transformation and love. In a beautiful and powerful memoir which mixes honest, personal revelation with literature, history, and inspirational self-help, Bel Mooney tells the story of her rescue dog, Bonnie, who in turn rescued Bel when her world fell apart with the all-too public break-up of her 35-year marriage. SMALL DOGS CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE really is a story of survival, and also one of love. This is an account of six years in Bel's life, from when she first acquired Bonnie from a rescue home, through Bel’s years of personal heartbreak and disappointment, and on to the happiness which she has now found in a new marriage and a new life, with the Maltese at her side all the way. This is a book about transformation and change, about picking yourself up and attacking life in the way that a small dog will go for the postman's trousers - and about celebrating life, much as your canine companion will always celebrate your return, even from the shortest trip. Beautifully engaging, entertaining, full of personal anecdotes and deeply moving, SMALL DOGS CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE will take the reader on an inspirational walk with one very small but very remarkable dog - a dog who became a symbol for all that is best about dogs, and about we humans too. Bel Mooney is a journalist with almost forty years' experience. Well-loved by millions for her advice columns, first for the Times and now in the Daily Mail, as well as countless programmes for radio and television, Bel takes the reader on a journey of discovery, in which she finds herself transformed into a dog-lover by one small and lively bundle of white fur, as well as telling her own gripping story.

Mega Sleepover 2 (The Sleepover Club)
¥88.39
Join the Sleepover Club: Frankie, Kenny, Felicity, Rosie and Lyndsey, five girls who want to have fun – but who always end up in mischief! In The Sleepover Club at Frankie’s, the gang decides to set up Brown Owl with Dishy Dave the school caretaker. But playing Cupid isn’t as easy as they think… It’s Lyndz’s birthday in The Sleepover Club at Lyndsey’s, and the gang plan a spooky video night. Only the spooks suddenly seem for real… And in The Sleepover Club at Felicity’s, Fliss goes diet-crazy. But sleepovers and food go hand in hand, and the girls must find emergency supplies!

Wicca: A comprehensive guide to the Old Religion in the modern world
¥88.39
Vivianne Crowley, Ph.D., is an international teacher of Wicca and the Western magickal tradition. She is a psychologist and was formerly Lecturer in Psychology of Religion at King’s College, University of London. She is now a professor in the Faculty of Pastoral Counselling, Cherry Hill Seminary, South Carolina. She is the author of many books including Wicca, A Woman’s Guide to the Earth Traditions, A Woman’s Kabbalah and Jung: Principles of Jungian Spirituality.

Polgara the Sorceress
¥88.39
The last and most amazing volume in the legendary Belgariad series: the story of the queen of truth, love, rage and destiny, Polgara the Sorceress. The queen of truth, love, rage and destiny reveals all. Polgara the Sorceress is the crowning achievement of the great fantasy epic which began with The Belgariad and continued with The Malloreon. Once again David and Leigh Eddings display the epic imagination, humour, and storytelling power which have made this series the most popular fantasy of modern times. In the story of Polgara, a beautiful woman whose constancy and inner power have been the foundation of all the luck and love that have saved the world, the full truth of The Belgariad is revealed.

Forty Words for Sorrow
¥88.39
Dark, atmospheric and terrifying psychological serial killer thriller set in a freezing Ontario winter, guaranteed to chill readers to the bone: ‘Forty Words for Sorrow is brilliant’ Jonathan Kellerman When four teenagers go missing in the small northern town of Algonquin Bay, the extensive police investigation comes up empty. Everyone is ready to give up, except Detective John Cardinal, an all-too-human loner whose persistence only serves to get him removed from homicide. Then the mutilated body of thirteen-year-old Katie Pine is pulled out of an abandoned mineshaft. And only Cardinal is willing to consider the horrible truth: that this quiet town is home to the most vicious of killers. With the media, the provincial police and his own department questioning his every move, Cardinal follows increasingly tenuous threads towards the unthinkable. But time isn’t only running out for him: there’s also another young victim tied up in a basement wondering how and when he will die.

The Lost Babes: Manchester United and the Forgotten Victims of Munich
¥88.39
Manchester United and the Forgotten Victims of Munich A moving story of how a legendary football team was lost to tragedy - and how this disaster irrevocably altered the lives of the survivors and the bereaved families, and ultimately brought shame on the biggest football club in the world. The Manchester United team Matt Busby had built in the fifties from the club's successful youth policy seemed destined to dominate football for many years. Such was the power of the 'Busby Babes' that they seemed invincible. The average age of the side which won the Championship in 1955-56 was just 22, the youngest ever to achieve such a feat. A year later, when they were Champions again, nothing, it seemed, would prevent this gifted young team from reigning for the next decade. But then came 6 February 1958, the day that eight Manchester United players died on a German airfield in the 'Munich Air Disaster' - a date to be forever etched in the annals of sporting tragedy. Duncan Edwards, Eddie Colman, Tommy Taylor, Roger Byrne...the names were already enshrined in legend before the air crash, but Munich in many ways earned them immortality. They have never grown old. Jeff Connor traces the rise of the greatest Manchester United side of all time, alongside a vibrant portrait of England in the 1950s, but he also paints a dark picture of a club that enriched itself on the myth of Munich while neglecting the families of the dead and the surviving players. The repercussions and the toll the disaster took on so many linger to the present day. Drawing on extensive interviews with the Munich victims and players of that era, The Lost Babes is the definitive account of British football's golden age, a poignant story of the protracted effects of loss and a remorseless dissection of the how the richest football club in the world turned its back on its own players and their families.

Under One Roof
¥88.39
The heart-warming true story of the bond between a feisty octogenarian and the man in charge of building a shopping mall on top of her home – which inspired the opening scene of the Pixar movie Up! Edith Macefield achieved folk hero status in 2006 when she turned down $1 million to sell her home to make way for a commercial development in a small neighborhood of Seattle. It didn’t matter that her tiny house was surrounded by rubble and graffiti. It was home. Barry Martin respected that, and when he took the job as construction supervisor for the shopping mall that was being erected around Edith’s little house, he determined to make things as easy as he could for Edith. He gave her his phone number and told her to call if she needed anything. And she did. The day Edith asked Barry to drive her to a hair appointment, an unlikely friendship was sparked, one that changed them both forever. As Barry helps Edith through the last days of her life, she helps him deal with the effects of the Alzheimer’s that is diminishing his beloved father. She learns to laugh and let go. He learns about compassion and grace. Full of heart and warmth, ‘Under One Roof’ is an true story that reminds us the most important things in life can’t be bought.

The Hellenistic World
¥88.39
F. W. Walbank was Rathbone Professor of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at the University of Liverpool and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Scott on Zélide: Portrait of Zélide by Geoffrey Scott
¥88.39
‘Lives that Never Grow Old’ is a wonderful series– edited by Richard Holmes – that recovers the great classical tradition of English biography. Every book is a biographical masterpiece, still thrilling to read and vividly alive. Zélide lived in her father’s moated castle in Holland, like a fairytale princess in a tower. She was the clever, sexy, mercurial young Dutch blue-stocking with whom Boswell fell disastrously in love in 1764. The rest of Zélide’s story was unknown until the brilliant young Boswell scholar Geoffrey Scott pieced it together from her intimate letters and essays. Subsequent affairs with a cynical cavalry officer, a celebrated but vacillating writer (aptly named Benjamin Constant), and a thoroughly reliable music master, took her eventually to another fairytale mansion in Switzerland. This tender, funny, faintly salacious portrait of a ‘belle-esprit’ is one of the most exquisite biographical miniatures ever written.

Boyfriend in a Dress
¥88.39
A novel about cross-dressing, social apathy, and seeing the best in people, a little too late. It started when I came home and found my bloody pointless stupid bastard boyfriend, Charlie, on my sofa, in my blue Lycra dress. He was having some sort of breakdown. It transpired that Charlie had been having an epiphany of sorts. The previous night, standing on his balcony, he had witnessed an attack – on a woman he'd just kicked out of his bed. Ahsen and shaken, on his way to work the next day, he had found a dead body in the train toilets and now here he was, in a dress, sobbing uncontrollably. I had been ready to dump Charlie once and for all – he was an unfaithful bastard (so was I, but not to the same extent). But he convinced me to run off with him to Devon for a week to sort his head out and I decided I owed him that much. Sizzling in the unlikely heatwave that week, everything changed between us, as we sucked on ice-creams naked on deckchairs, and hi-jacked an old people's bowling green. But despite the fact that our relationship had never been so strong and never meant so much to either of us, could we handle what was waiting for us back in London?