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Lady Sybil and Mr Tom Branson (Downton Abbey Shorts, Book 4)
￥11.77
This richly illustrated short, extracted from the official book The Chronicles of Downton Abbey, focuses on the characters individually, examining their motivations, their actions and the inspirations behind them. Forwarded by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes. On the face of it, the young newlyweds Sybil and Tom hope to live an unobtrusive, quiet existence in Dublin as ‘Mr and Mrs Branson’, happily waiting for the arrival of their baby. But as the gossip back at Downton Abbey shows, nothing of their way of life is normal. An earl’s daughter and a chauffeur-turned-Irish-revolutionary cannot expect an uneventful life together. ‘She doesn’t want Tom to alter,’ says Jessica Brown Findlay, who plays Sybil, ‘she loves him for his fire and passion, and his desire to change things.’ But when they come home she doesn’t want to cause unnecessary fuss – she adores her family and respects their desire to live as they wish. Unlike Tom, she sees no harm in it. Trying to keep harmony is almost more than she can bear. Purchase this ebook short and the others in the series to get closer still to the characters at Downton Abbey and to understand more about their social context – from the changing role of the aristocracy to fashion and beauty, American Anglophiles, the Suffragette movement and life below stairs in a big country house like Downton. Search for The Chronicles of Downton Abbey to purchase all shorts combined.
Mr Carson and Mrs Hughes (Downton Abbey Shorts, Book 7)
￥11.77
This richly illustrated short, extracted from the official book The Chronicles of Downton Abbey, focuses on the characters individually, examining their motivations, their actions and the inspirations behind them. Forwarded by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes. It is a strange life for the likes of Carson and Mrs Hughes, sitting between the family and the servants and never completely belonging to either group. It’s easy to understand why the two of them seek refuge in each other, even in their own rather stilted fashion. ‘Carson comes from a family of soldiers and servants,’ says Julian Fellowes. ‘His grandfather was a head groom and so he’s middle-middle class – they certainly weren’t scrabbling in the gutter for food.’ Mrs Hughes gave up the idea of marriage and a family for her career as Downton’s housekeeper. This does not mean she was without ambition: a career in service was something to be proud of; the job was steady, she had respect from her colleagues and she could look forward to a reasonably comfortable retirement provided by the Downton Abbey estate, if she served the family for many years. Purchase this ebook short and the others in the series to get closer still to the characters at Downton Abbey and to understand more about their social context – from the changing role of the aristocracy to fashion and beauty, American Anglophiles, the Suffragette movement and life below stairs in a big country house like Downton. Search for The Chronicles of Downton Abbey to purchase all shorts combined.
The Suicide Raid
￥9.71
This is Corran Purdon’s story, one of five true-life recollections from the Second World War in Tales From The Special Forces Club. The Special Forces Club is a fabled gentlemen’s club, based in the heart of London. It has a closely guarded secret: you have to be a genuine hero to be a member. Corran Purdon was a gung-ho officer in the Ulster Rifles who thirsted for action. He would volunteer for a new unit, requested by Churchill: the British Commandos. Corran was to fight in ‘The Greatest Raid of All’: the destruction of the port of St Nazaire in France. The volunteers knew it was fraught with risks. This is his story.
Rae’s Story (GI Brides Shorts, Book 4)
￥9.71
This is Rae’s story, one of four true stories from the book GI Brides. ‘Hey, baby, how about you and me get out of here?’ the GI asked Rae. But even if he had been Clark Gable, she wouldn’t have given him a second look. He was a Yank, and therefore not to be trusted. After being bombed out of her home in North London, tomboy Rae joins the ATS and is sent to work welding tanks near Nottingham. Despite her dislike of ‘Yanks’, a GI called Raymond wears down her resistance and she agrees to marry him. After the war, she reluctantly follows him to rural Pennsylvania, where she soon discovers his dark secret. Rae’s story is extracted from GI Brides, written by the bestselling authors of The Sugar Girls. It tells the true stories of four of the 70,000 British women who crossed the Atlantic for love after the Second World War.
Murder 101 (Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus Crime Thriller)
￥65.16
The gripping new crime novel in the Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus series from New York Times bestselling author Faye Kellerman. Detective Peter Decker and his wife Rina Lazarus have moved from the chaos of L.A. to upstate New York, to a quiet town that is home to elite colleges and pensioners. Semi-retired and faced with mundane call-outs at the Greenbury Police Department, Decker is becoming bored of life. So when he is called about a potential break-in at the local cemetery, he jumps at the opportunity to investigate. The Bergman crypt contains four intricately designed stained glass windows, one for each season, two of which are confirmed as definitely fake. Along with young Harvard graduate, Tyler McAdams, Decker must solve the mystery of the forgeries. His search leads him to Manhattan, although perhaps he should look closer to home: when a co-ed is brutally murdered at a local colleges, Decker must put his search for the art thief on hold. But not for long…
Shoeless Joe
￥34.14
The book that inspired the movie Field of Dreams. The voice of a baseball announcer tells the Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella: "If you build it, he will come." "He" is Shoeless Joe Jackson, Ray's hero. "It" is a baseball stadium which Ray carves out of his cornfield. Like the movie Field Of Dreams that was made from this novel, Shoeless Joe is about baseball. But it's also about love and the power of dreams to make people come alive. . .
Chicago
￥81.03
Sex, money and politics are the driving forces of society in this new novel from bestselling author Alaa al Aswany. A medley of Egyptian and American lives collides on the campus of the University of Illinois Medical Center in a post-9/11 Chicago, and crises of identity abound. Among the players are an atheistic anti-establishment American professor of the sixties generation, whose relationship with a younger African-American woman becomes a moving target for intolerance; a veiled PhD candidate whose conviction in the code of her traditional upbringing is shaken by her exposure to American society; an emigre who has fervently embraced his new American identity, but who cannot escape his Egyptian roots when faced with the issue of his daughter's 'honour'; an Egyptian State Security informant who spouts religious doctrines while hankering after money and power; and a dissident student poet who comes to America with the sole aim of financing his literary aspirations, but whose experience in Chicago turns out to be more than he bargained for. This tightly plotted page-turner is set far from the downtown Cairo of al Aswany's ‘The Yacoubian Building’, but is no less unflinching an examination of contemporary Egyptian lives.
Dean Spanley: The Novel
￥66.22
The classic humorous novel about an alcohol-loving clergyman who thinks he is the reincarnation of a dog. Complete with the award-winning film screenplay that expands upon the tale. Dean Spanley is affable, conventional and prudent – the very archetype of a bland churchman. Only his keen interest in the transmigration of souls and his obsession with dogs betray any shadow of eccentricity. But then, richly primed with a few glasses of Imperial Tokay, he begins to speak vividly of the joys of rabbiting, of rolling in fresh dung and of baying at the moon. Are these canine memories a drunken fancy? Or can it be that Dean Spanley must once have been a dog? This special edition includes Lord Dunsany’s witty and inventive novel, My Talks With Dean Spanley, together with Alan Sharp’s award-winning screenplay for the film starring Peter O’Toole and Sam Neill, which faithfully adapts and expands upon the events in the story.
Never Say Die
￥54.25
On a Saturday morning in May 1980, Melanie Bowen, a pretty fifteen year old, ran down the stairs of her parents’ home in Port Talbot, grabbed her leather jacket and crash helmet, yelled a goodbye, and then walked out of the front door into the sunshine for what was to be the last time in her life. Never Say Die is the true story of what followed… Since the motorcycle crash that left her paralysed from the chest down, Melanie's life has been one of extremes. On the down side, she has endured 5 horrific months of despair and indignity in rehabilitation, undergone a colostomy at 23, been in another serious car crash, suffered syringomyelia and the terrifying prospect of full quadriplegia, been diagnosed with breast cancer and broken several bones. On the plus side, however, she's won medals in athletics for Wales, been humbled and inspired by Falklands veterans at RAF Chessington, raised thousands for charity, become a major disability poster girl in America, dabbled with the film world and been screen tested for a movie, met the Queen, and set up her own rehabilitation charity, whose patrons include the acclaimed actor Michael Sheen, Dame Tanni Grey Thompson and former Welsh Rugby captain, Gwyn Jones. She has also, against all the odds, found lasting happiness, having fallen in love with and married the surgeon who 25 years earlier told her she would never walk again.
Capricornia
￥91.43
A saga of life in the Northern Territories and the clash of white and Aborigine cultures – one of Australia’s all-time best-selling novels and an inspiration for Baz Luhrmann’s lavish film ‘AUSTRALIA’. Capricornia has been described as one of Australia's 'great novels', a sharply observed chronicle about life in the Northern Territory of Australia and the inhumane treatment suffered by Aborigines at the hands of white men. The story is immense and rambling, laced with humour that is often as bitter and as harsh as the terrain in which it is set, and follows with irony the fortunes (and otherwise) of a range of Outback characters over a span of generations. Through their story is reflected the story of Australia, the clash of personalities and cultures that provide the substance on which today's society is founded. Above all, however, this is a novel of protest and of compassion - for the Aborigines and half-bloods of Australia's 'last frontier'. Sprawling, explosive, thronged with characters, plots and sub-plots, Capricornia is without doubt one of the best known and widely read Australian novels of the last 70 years. When it was first published it was acclaimed as 'a turning point', an 'outstanding work of social protest'. Its message is as penetrating today as it was in the 1930s when Herbert himself was official 'Protector of Aborigines' at Darwin.
Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong
￥81.03
A fly-on-the-wall account of the greatest drama in modern sporting history by the New York Times cycling correspondent. As Lance Armstrong’s precipitous fall from grace continues, New York Times sports reporter Juliet Macur takes the reader behind the scenes to bring to life the astonishing twists and turns of the scandal that has rocked the world of cycling. With unprecedented access to the key players in the drama – from Armstrong’s fellow cyclists and top cycling officials to doctors, trainers and wives – Cycle of Lies reveals how Armstrong built a fortress of people around him to protect his image and upend the lives of anybody who stood in his way. As America’s fallen idol faces potential perjury charges, Cycle of Lies widens the focus to expose corruption at all levels of the sport in a thrilling, page-turning work of contemporary narrative history.
The Stepmothers’ Support Group
￥51.50
You can’t choose your family – but you can choose your friends… A heartfelt, warm and truthful novel about female friendship. Eve has never imagined herself as a stepmother. But when she falls in love with Ian, he comes with a ready-made family of three children. And, to make matters worse, he's a widower. The ghost of his glamorous and well known wife haunts them. Clare, a teacher and single mother, is Eve's best friend. She is the only person Eve can talk to about how on earth a journalist in her thirties can win round three wary children. But despite Clare's years of practice with her own teenage daughter, it's Lily, her younger sister, who provides the truly sympathetic ear. Mel is sent along to Eve's so-called 'support group' by a colleague. With a fledgling relationship and a new business to get off the ground, she has a very different set of pressures to the other women. And Mandy is the stay-at-home mum, whose relationship comes with stepchildren, and who wants more than anything to stitch together a happy family life for herself, her kids and her new step-kids. As a cup of coffee turns to a bottle of wine and the get-togethers become a regular fixture, conversations about new families evolve into ones about relationships, life and each woman’s deepest hopes and dreams. But the friendship is tested and feelings about lovers, husbands and step-children challenged when the five women are forced to confront new futures as well as unwelcome figures from the past…
Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney
￥80.25
The living embodiment of The Beatles and a musical juggernaut without parallel, Paul McCartney is undoubtedly the patriarch of pop. In this authoritative biography, acclaimed author and journalist Howard Sounes creates the most accurate and extensive profile of McCartney ever built, leaving no stone unturned, and no shadow unexplored. He is the torch-bearer of the Beatles – the greatest band in pop – and one of the most closely studied stars in show business. But surprises and secrets still linger in the life of Sir Paul McCartney. In FAB, his full story is told for the first time. Acclaimed author Howard Sounes spent more than two years investigating every aspect of Sir Paul’s life and work, including interviewing over 200 people. The result is the richest and more comprehensive biography of McCartney ever written. Uniquely, FAB pays equal attention to the story of Paul McCartney both in the Beatles and post-Beatles, creating a unique narrative spanning the arc of the artist’s life. FAB culminates in the sensational human story of Sir Paul’s calamitous marriage to Heather Mills, which is fully revealed for the first time. Sounes proves a judicious critic of the music of an iconic star while also delivering a superb psychological portrait of the man.
The Drought
￥22.76
With a new introduction by M. John Harrison and a striking new cover design from the artist Stanley Donwood, this acclaimed cult novel sees human existence threatened by devastating climate change. Water. Man’s most precious commodity is a luxury of the past. Radioactive waste from years of industrial dumping has caused the sea to form a protective skin strong enough to devastate the Earth it once sustained. And while the remorseless sun beats down on the dying land, civilization itself begins to crack. Violence erupts and insanity reigns as the remnants of mankind struggle for survival in a worldwide desert of despair. Remarkable for its prescience and the originality of its vision, The Drought is a work of major importance from the early career of one of Britain’s most acclaimed novelists. This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard’s works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Ned Beauman, Ali Smith, Neil Gaiman and Martin Amis) and brand-new cover designs.
Vitals
￥45.42
Scientist Hal Cousins is close to discovering the key to immortality but someone has already found it and will kill him to keep it secret. Vitals is a tense technothriller in the best Michael Crichton tradition. A mile and a half below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, scientist Hal Cousins, frightened of the dark and no friend of God, is looking for the fountain of youth. The Nobel Prize doesn't interest him. Hal is in longevity research for the long haul, the really long haul. 'Angels' (rich businessmen keen to live a thousand years) fund him. Hal finds what he is searching for: xenos, the single-celled tramps of the sea floor, each one as big as a clenched fist. But then the pilot of his sub goes berserk. Hal barely survives; the xenos don't. The pilot kills himself. Five other scientists in related fields die violently in the space of a week. Hal discovers a trail of death stretching back over decades, from Stalin's Russia to present-day Manhattan. Another epidemic of murder by superbly trained killers has been triggered by what Hal nearly discovered… From the bottom of Russia’s Lake Baikal to a billionaire’s bionic house built into the cliffs of the Californian seashore, from the darkest days of the reign of Joseph Stalin in Russia to the capitalist free-for-all of modern America, the edge of immortality is the most dangerous place to be.
The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age
￥95.75
From a cutting-edge cultural commentator, a bold and brilliant challenge to cherished notions of the internet as the great leveler of our age. The internet has been hailed as an unprecedented democratising force, a place where everyone can participate. ? So why are minorities and marginalized groups under-represented on user-generated websites, with less than 15% of Wikipedia written by women? ? Why does keyword-jammed and star-studded churnalism proliferate, at the expense of in-depth, investigative journalism? ? And how have a handful of giant corporations like Facebook, Google and Apple seized control of our creativity, galvanizing individuals to produce content for free? ‘The People’s Platform’ argues that for all our ‘sharing’, the internet reflects real-world inequalities as much as it reduces them, as attention and income frequently accrue to those who already have plenty of both. The online world does offer a unique opportunity for greater freedom, but a community that supports the diverse and lasting will not spring up from technology alone. If we want the internet to be a people’s platform, we will have to make it so.
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún
￥58.47
The world first publication of a previously unknown work by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the epic story of the Norse hero, Sigurd, the dragon-slayer, the revenge of his wife, Gudrún, and the Fall of the Nibelungs. “Many years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien composed his own version, now published for the first time, of the great legend of Northern antiquity, in two closely related poems to which he gave the titles The New Lay of the V?lsungs and The New Lay of Gudrún. “In the Lay of the V?lsungs is told the ancestry of the great hero Sigurd, the slayer of Fáfnir most celebrated of dragons, whose treasure he took for his own; of his awakening of the Valkyrie Brynhild who slept surrounded by a wall of fire, and of their betrothal; and of his coming to the court of the great princes who were named the Niflungs (or Nibelungs), with whom he entered into blood-brotherhood. In that court there sprang great love but also great hate, brought about by the power of the enchantress, mother of the Niflungs, skilled in the arts of magic, of shape-changing and potions of forgetfulness. “In scenes of dramatic intensity, of confusion of identity, thwarted passion, jealousy and bitter strife, the tragedy of Sigurd and Brynhild, of Gunnar the Niflung and Gudrún his sister, mounts to its end in the murder of Sigurd at the hands of his blood-brothers, the suicide of Brynhild, and the despair of Gudrún. In the Lay of Gudrún her fate after the death of Sigurd is told, her marriage against her will to the mighty Atli, ruler of the Huns (the Attila of history), his murder of her brothers the Niflung lords, and her hideous revenge. “Deriving his version primarily from his close study of the ancient poetry of Norway and Iceland known as the Poetic Edda (and where no old poetry exists, from the later prose work the V?lsunga Saga), J.R.R. Tolkien employed a verse-form of short stanzas whose lines embody in English the exacting alliterative rhythms and the concentrated energy of the poems of the Edda.” — Christopher Tolkien
The Long Exile
￥72.30
A chilling true story of deception and survival set amidst the Inuit communities of the Canadian Arctic. In 1922 the Irish-American explorer Robert Flaherty made a film called ‘Nanook of the North’ which captured the world's imagination. Soon afterwards, he quit the Arctic for good, leaving behind his bastard son, Joseph, to grow up Eskimo. Thirty years later a young, inexperienced policeman, Ross Gibson, was asked by the Canadian government to draw up a list of Inuit who were to be resettled in the uninhabited polar Arctic and left to fend as best they could. Joseph Flaherty and his family were on that list. They were told they were going to an Arctic Eden of spring flowers and polar bears. But it didn't turn out that way, and this, Joseph Flaherty's story, tells how it did.
The Military Wives: Wherever You Are – Claire’s Story
￥12.95
This is Claire’s story, one of four individual journeys taken from Wherever You Are by The Military Wives. Claire Balneaves never thought she’d end up as a military wife. But when she met a young medical assistant, Dave Balneaves, at a naval hospital, everything changed. Before long Claire and Dave had tied the knot and moved into married quarters – and Claire began to settle into the unique life of a military wife. Moving from house to house, from country to country, often solitary – in many ways Claire lived as a single mother. When family and medical difficulties cast a cloud over her personal life, Claire had no one to turn to. But from the moment she joined a nascent choir of military wives, that changed: wives with similar stories came together to sing, and there they found solace and strength. They found each other. Mere months later, the Military Wives choir would have met Gareth Malone, performed for the Queen, recorded a bestselling album and achieved a Christmas number 1. This is one woman’s true story of heartbreak and hope, and of how the choir changed the course of her life. Sales of this book will benefit the Military Wives Choirs Foundation, a network of choirs that reaches across the military community to provide support, guidance and funding for individual choirs, but first and foremost to bring women closer together through singing. The Foundation is a registered subsidiary charity of SSAFA Forces Help.
Who Killed Change?
￥66.22
By the bestselling author of The One Minute Manager, a business parable that teaches organizations to cope successfully with change. Every day organizations around the world launch change initiatives – often big, expensive ones - designed to improve the status quo. Yet 50 to 70 percent of these change efforts fail. A few perish suddenly, but many die painful, protracted deaths that drain the organization's resources, energy and morale. So, Who or what is killing change? That's what you'll find out in this delightful whodunit. The story features a Columbo-style detective named Agent who's investigating the murder of yet another Change. One by one, Agent interviews thirteen prime suspects, including a myopic leader named Vision; a chronically tardy manager named Urgency; an executive named Communication whose laryngitis makes communication all but impossible; and several other dubious characters. The suspects are sure to sound familiar, and you're bound to relate them to your own workplace. In the end, Agent solves the case in a way that will inspire you to become an effective Change Agent in your own organization.
Fragment
￥47.77
Jurassic Park meets Lost in this electrifying new adventure thriller. When the cast and crew of reality TV show ‘SeaLife’ land on picturesque, unexplored Henders Island it’s a ratings bonanza. But they’re blissfully unaware that the decisions they make there will shape the fate of mankind … if they can only survive. For they quickly discover that the island is seething with danger. Having evolved in total isolation from the rest of the planet for millennia, Henders is home to host of vicious and exotic predators, terrifying creatures who live in a lightning fast blur of kill or be killed. A team of crack scientists is sent in to assess the situation and they are astounded by what they find. It soon becomes clear that if even the smallest bug ever made it off Henders island, life on earth as we know it would change very quickly indeed. The President is faced with the toughest decision of his career: take the risk of letting one of these creatures escape so that further research can be done, or nuke the island to protect the rest of planet Earth? Just when it seems the stakes couldn't get any higher, the scientists make a surprise discovery that changes everything…
