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Richard Morgan has always been one of our most successful SF authors with his fast-moving and brutal storylines, blistering plots and a powerful social conscience behind his work.

And now he’s back, with his first SF novel for eight years . . . and it promises to be a publication to remember.

An ex-corporate enforcer, Hakan Veil, is forced to bodyguard Madison Madekwe, part of a colonial audit team investigating a disappeared lottery winner on Mars. But when Madekwe is abducted, and Hakan nearly killed, the investigation takes him farther and deeper than he had ever expected. And soon Hakan discovers the heavy price he may have to pay to learn the truth.

Best-selling author of Angry White Pyjamas travels across the Rocky Mountains by canoe

Fifteen years before Lewis and Clark, Scotsman Alexander Mackenzie, looking to open up a trade route, set out from Lake Athabasca in central Northern Canada in search of the Pacific Ocean. Mackenzie travelled by bark canoe and had a cache of rum and a crew of Canadian voyageurs, hard-living backwoodsmen, for company. Two centuries later, Robert Twigger decides to follow in Mackenzie’s wake. He too travels the traditional way, having painstakingly built a canoe from birchbark sewn together with pine roots, and assembled a crew made up of fellow travelers, ex-tree-planters and a former sailor from the US Navy.

Several had tried before them but they were the first people to successfully complete Mackenzie’s diabolical route over the Rockies in a birchbark canoe since 1793. Their journey takes them to the remotest parts of the wilderness, through Native American reservations, over mountains, through rapids and across lakes, meeting descendants of Mackenzie and unhinged Canadian trappers, running out of food, getting lost and miraculously found again, disfigured for life (the ex-sailor loses his thumb), bears brown and black, docile and grizzly.

In THE ART OF DISCWORLD, Terry Pratchett takes us on a guided tour of the Discworld, courtesy of his favourite Discworld artist, Paul Kidby. Following on from THE LAST HERO, THE ART OF DISCWORLD is a lavish 112-page large format, sumptuously illustrated look at all things Discworldian. Terry Pratchett provides the written descriptions while Paul Kidby illustrates the world that has made Pratchett one of the best-selling authors of all time. Here you will find favourites old and new: the City Watch, including Vimes, Carrot and Angua, the three witches – Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick – and the denizens of the Unseen University Library, not forgetting the Librarian, of course: they’re all here in sumptuous colour, together with the places: Ankh-Morpork, Lancre, Uberwald and more . . .
No Discworld fan will want to be without this beautiful gift book.

A sumptuous illustrated journey through Terry Pratchett’s DISCWORLD; a companion volume to THE LAST HERO

In THE ART OF DISCWORLD, Terry Pratchett takes us on a guided tour of the Discworld, courtesy of his favourite Discworld artist, Paul Kidby. Following on from THE LAST HERO, THE ART OF DISCWORLD is a lavish 112-page large format, sumptuously illustrated look at all things Discworldian. Terry Pratchett provides the written descriptions while Paul Kidby illustrates the world that has made Pratchett one of the best-selling authors of all time. Here you will find favourites old and new: the City Watch, including Vimes, Carrot and Angua, the three witches – Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick – and the denizens of the Unseen University Library, not forgetting the Librarian, of course. They’re all here in sumptuous colour, together with the places: Ankh-Morpork, Lancre, Uberwald and more …

No Discworld fan will want to be without this beautiful gift book.

A hard-edged crime thriller set at the start of the Texas oil boom in the 1930s

When Pete Jones, the local constable, is shot dead, his widow, Sunset, finds herself in his job, investigating a series of brutal murders. Most of the townsfolk object to her wearing Pete’s gun and badge, some because this is the 1930s and they think a woman’s place is in the home, others because it was Sunset who blew off Pete’s head in the first place.

As much a modern western as a murder mystery, SUNSET & SAWDUST features a cast of outlandish characters — gun-men, hobos, sheriffs, hookers, migrants and coloured families struggling to make living under the malevolent eyes of the Ku Klux Klan.

Sunset’s investigation leads her and her friends into a labyrinth of greed, corruption, and unspeakable malice. Nothing and no-one are quite what they seem in Texas.

John Deacon uses hypnosis to research altered states of consciousness. One of his subjects, Michael Peacocke, is unusually susceptible and in their first session together he recalls a Close Encounter which took place some years before. Deacon is sceptical of UFOs and dismisses Peacocke’s story as an adolescent sexual fantasy. But then inexplicable things happen – the tape of the session is mysteriously erased, Deacon’s dog is killed, he and Michael see a pterodactyl, Michael’s girlfriend is menaced by Men in Black – and Deacon is forced to reconsider. Could UFOs be symbols projected from the collective unconscious? Are they messages from the biomatrix? Does the mind have the ability to project tulpas, objects and people which are physically real yet somehow illusory?

In the mid-21st century, time travel is used to send political prisoners to Hawksbill Station, a prison camp in the late Cambrian Era. When the latest arrival suspiciously deflects questions about his crimes and knowledge of ‘Up Front’, the inmates decide to find out his secret.

First published in 1968

IN THE BEGINNING . . .
There was no Brooklyn, no St. Louis, no Shakespeare, no moon, no hunger, no death . . .

IN THE BEGINNING . . .
There were no real men, no real women, nothing but the dispassionately passionate ambisexuals of the lowest and highest order . . .

IN THE BEGINNING . . .
The heavens, the seas and the Earth belonged to a more intelligent species than a man called Clay could ever have dreamed possible in his own time . . . but his own time as a man had passed, and now his time as the son of man had come!

Controversial and groundbreaking account of the infamous East African campaign during the First World War
‘Superb’ Sunday Times * * * ‘Masterful’ Daily Mail * * * ‘Gripping’ Daily Telegraph


The Great War’s East Africa campaign was, and remains, of huge importance.

A ‘small war’, consisting of a few ‘local affairs’, was all that was expected in August 1914 as Britain moved to eliminate the threat to the high seas of German naval bases in Africa. But two weeks after the Armistice was signed in Europe British and German troops were still fighting in Africa after four years of what one campaign historian described as ‘a war of extermination and attrition without parallel in modern times’.

The expense of the campaign to the British Empire was immense, the Allied and German ‘butchers bills’ even greater. But the most tragic consequence of the two sides’ deadly game of ‘tip and run’ was the devastation of an area five times the size of Germany, and civilian suffering on a scale unimaginable in Europe.

Includes the real stories behind the classic Bogart/ film THE AFRICAN QUEEN, William Boyd’s Booker shortlisted novel AN ICE-CREAM WAR, Wilbur Smith’s thriller SHOUT AT THE DEVIL and two of the Young Indiana Jones films

Controversial and groundbreaking account of the infamous East African campaign during the First World War
‘Superb’ Sunday Times * * * ‘Masterful’ Daily Mail * * * ‘Gripping’ Daily Telegraph


The Great War’s East Africa campaign was, and remains, of huge importance.

A ‘small war’, consisting of a few ‘local affairs’, was all that was expected in August 1914 as Britain moved to eliminate the threat to the high seas of German naval bases in Africa. But two weeks after the Armistice was signed in Europe British and German troops were still fighting in Africa after four years of what one campaign historian described as ‘a war of extermination and attrition without parallel in modern times’.

The expense of the campaign to the British Empire was immense, the Allied and German ‘butchers bills’ even greater. But the most tragic consequence of the two sides’ deadly game of ‘tip and run’ was the devastation of an area five times the size of Germany, and civilian suffering on a scale unimaginable in Europe.

Includes the real stories behind the classic Bogart/ film THE AFRICAN QUEEN, William Boyd’s Booker shortlisted novel AN ICE-CREAM WAR, Wilbur Smith’s thriller SHOUT AT THE DEVIL and two of the Young Indiana Jones films

The diaries of the most controversial British general of the twentieth century.

There’s a commonly held view that Douglas Haig was a bone-headed, callous butcher, who through his incompetence as commander of the British Army in WWI, killed a generation of young men on the Somme and Passchendaele. On the other hand there are those who view Haig as a man who successfully struggled with appalling difficulties to produce an army which took the lead in defeating Germany in 1918.

Haig’s Diaries, hitherto only previously available in bowdlerised form, give the C-in-C’s view of Asquith and his successor Lloyd George, of whom he was highly critical. The diaries show him intriguing with the King vs. Lloyd George. Additional are his day by day accounts of the key battles of the war, not least the Somme campaign of 1916.

THE FIRST BOOK IN THE MULTI-MILLION COPY, INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING ERAST FANDORIN MYSTERIES SERIES

‘A sparkling romp of a story’ TLS
‘In Russia Boris Akunin is roughly the counterpart of John Grisham’ TIME
‘Think Tolstoy writing James Bond with the logical rigour of Sherlock Holmes’ GUARDIAN

Moscow 1876.

A young law student commits suicide in broad daylight in Moscow’s Alexander Gardens. But this is no ordinary death, for the young man was the son of an influential industrialist and has left a considerable fortune.

Erast Fandorin, a hotheaded new recruit to the Criminal Investigation Department, is assigned to the case.

Brilliant, young, and sophisticated, Fandorin embarks on an investigation that will take him from the palatial mansions of Moscow to the seedy backstreets of London in his hunt for the conspirators behind this mysterious death.

What readers are saying about the Erast Fandorin Mysteries:

‘I loved it… I just couldn’t put it down!‘ My book Obsession

‘A delightful mystery/adventure! There’s a dark twist at the end that has me anxious to continue in this series‘ Neil on Goodreads (five stars)

‘Ultimately, the overall success of The Winter Queen is due to the vibrancy of its setting, the cleanness of its prose and the magnetism of its protagonist… Odds seem good that Akunin will be the next detective to capture readers’ fancy en masse‘ Sarah Weinman, January Magazine

‘These books are a fun, riotous read that you don’t want to put down until you’ve completed each and every one of them’ Jill on Goodreads (five stars)

‘The conclusion is shocking and this reader can’t wait to delve into the next in the series‘ A Writer’s Jumble

‘Nail-biter all the way through!‘ Corin on Goodreads (five stars)

A page-turning delight perfect for fans of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and the Russian literary greats.

Mary Gentle is one of Britain’s most outstanding writers of imaginative fiction, able to move seamlessly from science fiction to fantasy within the same story.

Following on from the success of ASH, 1610: A SUNDIAL IN A GRAVE and the omnibus volumes WHITE CROW and ORTHE, comes CARTOMANCY, the definitive collection of Mary Gentle’s short fiction. CARTOMANCY includes the stories from SOLDIERS AND SCHOLARS as well as a number of tales previously unpublished in book form, all with new afterwords and topped and tailed with a specially revised version of her split story ‘Cartomancy’.

‘His book is timely and a triumph. Roberts manages to convey all the reader needs to know about two men to whom battalions of biographies have been devoted’ EVENING STANDARD

Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill were two totally opposite leaders – both in what they stood for and in the way in which they seemed to lead. Award-winning historian Andrew Roberts examines their different styles of leadership and draws parallels with rulers from other eras. He also looks at the way Hitler and Churchill estimated each other as leaders, and how it affected the outcome of the war.

In a world that is as dependent on leadership as any earlier age, HITLER AND CHURCHILL asks searching questions about our need to be led. In doing so, Andrew Roberts forces us to re-examine the way that we look at those who take decisions for us.

‘His book is timely and a triumph. Roberts manages to convey all the reader needs to know about two men to whom battalions of biographies have been devoted’ EVENING STANDARD

Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill were two totally opposite leaders – both in what they stood for and in the way in which they seemed to lead. Award-winning historian Andrew Roberts examines their different styles of leadership and draws parallels with rulers from other eras. He also looks at the way Hitler and Churchill estimated each other as leaders, and how it affected the outcome of the war.

In a world that is as dependent on leadership as any earlier age, HITLER AND CHURCHILL asks searching questions about our need to be led. In doing so, Andrew Roberts forces us to re-examine the way that we look at those who take decisions for us.

From the author of SOPHIE’S WORLD, ‘A masterful mixture of fantasy and reality…a simply wonderful read’ SHE.

Panina Manina, a trapeze artist, falls and breaks her neck. As the ringmaster bends over her, he notices an amulet of amber around her neck, the same trinket he had given his own lost child, who was swept away in a torrent some sixteen years earlier.

This tale is narrated by Petter, a precocious child and fantasist, and perhaps Jostein Gaarder’s most intriguing character since Sophie. As an adult, Petter makes his living selling stories and ideas to professionals suffering from writer’s block. But as Petter sits spinning his tales, he finds himself in a trap of his own making.

The true story of the most famous SAS operation in history.

‘Bravo Two Zero’ was the code-name of the famous SAS operation: a classic story of bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. BRAVO TWO ZERO by patrol commander ‘Andy McNab’ became an international bestseller, as did the book by ‘Chris Ryan’ (THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY). Both men became millionaires. Three members of the patrol were killed. One, veteran sergeant Vince Phillips, was blamed in both books for a succession of mistakes.

As Michael Asher reveals, the stories in BRAVO TWO ZERO and THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY grew considerably in the telling. Their heroic tales of taking out tanks with their rocket launchers, mowing down hundreds of Iraqi soldiers, the silent stabbing of the occasional sentry, were never mentioned at their post-war debriefings… In an investigation literally in the footsteps of the patrol, Michael Asher tells the true story.

The extraordinary drama of Malta’s WWII victory against impossible odds told through the eyes of the people who were there.

In March and April 1942, more explosives were dropped on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta – smaller than the Isle of Wight – than on the whole of Britain during the first year of the Blitz. Malta had become one of the most strategically important places in the world. From there, the Allies could attack Axis supply lines to North Africa; without it, Rommel would be able to march unchecked into Egypt, Suez and the Middle East. For the Allies this would have been catastrophic. As Churchill said, Malta had to be held ‘at all costs’.

FORTRESS MALTA follows the story through the eyes of those who were there: young men such as twenty-year-old fighter pilot Raoul Daddo-Langlois, anti-aircraft gunner Ken Griffiths, American Art Roscoe and submariner Tubby Crawford – who served on the most successful Allied submarine of the Second World War; cabaret dancer-turned RAF plotter Christina Ratcliffe, and her lover, the brilliant and irrepressible reconnaissance pilot, Adrian Warburton. Their stories and others provide extraordinary first-hand accounts of heroism, resilience, love, and loss, highlighting one of the most remarkable stories of World War II.

A portrait of a civilisation which flourished within living memory and left an indelible mark on history

In the 13th century Yiddish language and culture began to spread from the Rhineland and Bavaria slowly east into Austria, Bohemia and Moravia, then to Poland and Lithuania and finally to western Russia and the Ukraine, becoming steadily less German and more Slav in the process. In its late-medieval heyday the culturally vibrant, economically successful, intellectually adventurous and largely self-ruling Yiddish society stretched from Riga on the Baltic down to Odessa on the Black Sea.

In the 1650s the Chmielnicki Massacres in the Ukraine by the Cossacks killed 100,000 Jews, forcing those that were left to spread out into the small towns (shtetls) and villages. The break-up of Poland-Lithuania – a safe haven for Jews in previous centuries – in the late 18th century further disrupted Yiddish society, as did the Russian anti-Jewish pogroms from the 1880s onwards, at the very time when Yiddish was producing a rich stream of plays, poems and novels.

Paul Kriwaczek describes the development, over the centuries, of Yiddish language, religion, occupations and social life, art, music and literature. The book ends by describing how the Yiddish way of life became one of the foundation stones of modern American, and therefore of world, culture.

A portrait of a civilisation which flourished within living memory and left an indelible mark on history

In the 13th century Yiddish language and culture began to spread from the Rhineland and Bavaria slowly east into Austria, Bohemia and Moravia, then to Poland and Lithuania and finally to western Russia and the Ukraine, becoming steadily less German and more Slav in the process. In its late-medieval heyday the culturally vibrant, economically successful, intellectually adventurous and largely self-ruling Yiddish society stretched from Riga on the Baltic down to Odessa on the Black Sea.

In the 1650s the Chmielnicki Massacres in the Ukraine by the Cossacks killed 100,000 Jews, forcing those that were left to spread out into the small towns (shtetls) and villages. The break-up of Poland-Lithuania – a safe haven for Jews in previous centuries – in the late 18th century further disrupted Yiddish society, as did the Russian anti-Jewish pogroms from the 1880s onwards, at the very time when Yiddish was producing a rich stream of plays, poems and novels.

Paul Kriwaczek describes the development, over the centuries, of Yiddish language, religion, occupations and social life, art, music and literature. The book ends by describing how the Yiddish way of life became one of the foundation stones of modern American, and therefore of world, culture.

The follow-up to THE MEANING OF THINGS which continues A.C. Grayling’s philosophical journey through life

The most important question we can ask ourselves is: what kind of life is the best? This is the same as asking: How does one give meaning to one’s life? How can one justify one’s existence and make it worthwhile?
How does one make experience valuable, and keep growing and learning in the process – and through this learning acquire a degree of understanding of oneself and the world?

A civilised society is one which never ceases debating with itself about what human life should best be. Some would, with justice, say that if we want ours to be such a society we must all contribute to that discussion.
This book is, with appropriate diffidence, such a contribution. It consists of a collection of Grayling’s regular ‘Last Word’ columns in the Guardian. This time topics include Suicide, Deceit, Luxury, Profit, Marriage, Meat-eating, Liberty, Slavery, Protest, Guns and War.

The follow-up to THE MEANING OF THINGS which continues A.C. Grayling’s philosophical journey through life

The most important question we can ask ourselves is: what kind of life is the best? This is the same as asking: How does one give meaning to one’s life? How can one justify one’s existence and make it worthwhile?
How does one make experience valuable, and keep growing and learning in the process – and through this learning acquire a degree of understanding of oneself and the world?

A civilised society is one which never ceases debating with itself about what human life should best be. Some would, with justice, say that if we want ours to be such a society we must all contribute to that discussion.
This book is, with appropriate diffidence, such a contribution. It consists of a collection of Grayling’s regular ‘Last Word’ columns in the Guardian. This time topics include Suicide, Deceit, Luxury, Profit, Marriage, Meat-eating, Liberty, Slavery, Protest, Guns and War.

How the simple commodity of coffee came to rewrite the experience of metropolitan life

When the first coffee-house opened in London in 1652, customers were bewildered by this strange new drink from Turkey. But those who tried coffee were soon won over. More coffee-houses were opened across London and, in the following decades, in America and Europe.

For a hundred years the coffee-house occupied the centre of urban life. Merchants held auctions of goods, writers and poets conducted discussions, scientists demonstrated experiments and gave lectures, philanthropists deliberated reforms. Coffee-houses thus played a key role in the explosion of political, financial, scientific and literary change in the 18th century.

In the 19th century the coffee-house declined, but the 1950s witnessed a dramatic revival in the popularity of coffee with the appearance of espresso machines and the `coffee bar’, and the 1990s saw the arrival of retail chains like Starbucks.

A stylish thriller featuring unlikely spy hero David Audley. From the award-winning author of OTHER PATHS TO GLORY.

When David Audley, that most subtle of Intelligence chiefs, sends his insubordinate protégé Paul Mitchell off to investigate a KGB operation by researching a long-forgotten naval engagement off France in 1812, it doesn’t look to Mitchell as if it will lead anywhere. But the fate of the crew of the Vengeful has more than a few surprises in store for Mitchell and suddenly the past throws a dazzling and very dangerous light on the present.