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Bloomsbury Publishing
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Nineteen-year-old Joy Louie has run away from her home in 1950s America to start a new life in China. Idealistic and unafraid, she believes that Chairman Mao is on the side of the people, despite what her family keeps telling her. How can she trust them, when she has just learned that her parents have lied to her for her whole life, that her mother Pearl is really her aunt and that her real father is a famous artist who has been living in China all these years? Joy arrives in Green Dragon Village, where families live in crowded, windowless huts and eke out a meagre existence from the red soil. And where a handsome young comrade catches her eye... Meanwhile, Pearl returns to China to bring her daughter home — if she can. For Mao has launched his Great Leap Forward, and each passing season brings ever greater hardship to cities and rural communes alike. Joy must rely on her skill as a painter and Pearl must use her contacts from her decadent childhood in 1930s Shanghai to find a way to safety, and a chance of joy for them both. Haunting, passionate and heartbreakingly real, this is the unforgettable new novel by the internationally acclaimed Lisa See. |
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Li Jing, a high-flying financier, has just joined his father for dinner at the grand Swan Hotel in central Shanghai when, without warning, the ground begins to rumble. It shifts like a pre-historic animal, then explodes in a roar of hot, unfurling air. As Li Jing drags his unconscious father out of the collapsing building, a single shard of glass whistles through the air and neatly pierces his forehead. In an instant, Li Jing's ability to speak Chinese is obliterated. After weeks in hospital, all that emerge from his mouth are unsteady phrases of the English he spoke as a child growing up in Virginia. His wife, Zhou Meiling, whom he courted with beautiful words, finds herself on the other side of an abyss, unable to communicate with her husband and struggling to put on a brave face — for the sake of Li Jing's floundering company, and for their son, Pang Pang. A neurologist who specialises in Li Jing's condition — bilingual aphasia — arrives from the US to work with Li Jing, to coax language back onto his tongue. Rosalyn Neal is red-haired, open-hearted, recently divorced, and as lost as Li Jing in this bewitching, bewildering city. As doctor and patient sit together, sharing their loneliness along with their faltering words, feelings neither of them anticipated begin to take hold. Feelings Meiling does not need a translator to understand. A sensitive exploration of the power of words and of silence, The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai is a wonderfully evocative debut about love and language, duty and passion, in a vibrant modern city. |
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Patricia Borlenghi brings a fresh take to familiar stories, making them ideal for children under five, while Eleanor Taylor adds humour, sweetness and a lot of refreshing detail with the images in this charming book. Each tale is the perfect length for a bedtime story, or a classroom read. This treasury will take pride of place on home, school and library bookshelves up and down the country. |
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One day, out of the blue, Harriet Bean's dad says to her, 'Your aunts would like to hear about that!' Harriet is shocked — this is the first time she's heard anything about any aunts, and suddenly, she has five of them! Naturally, she's very curious to meet them, especially as her dad has told her that they each have a rather special ability (apart from Aunt Majolica who's just extremely bossy). The trouble is, the family was split up years ago and they all lost touch with one another. Will Harriet be able to reunite her dad with his sisters and enable the family portrait that was started many years ago to finally be completed? She is determined, and starts her quest for the five missing aunts with a trip to the circus. |
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A very happy bear hears the sounds of the city from his quiet home by the sea and decides to find out what city life is like. Buying the ticket and travelling on the train is all very exciting. And so is the city! But after a while the bear finds the city a little too noisy and a little too busy — and people are beginning to laugh at him. He feels very sad and alone, until four children find him and show him the way home, with much fun along the way. A perfect book for reading aloud, with just the right amount of excitement before a wonderfully calming ending — just right for reading before bedtime! |
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In Paris, there is a cafe, elegantly furnished with polished wooden tables and an awning of striped gold and green, whose walls are filled with drinks such as Green Fairy Liqueur, Mermaid Madeira and Red Devil Lemonade. And sitting on the bar is a large, silver, steam-powered espresso coffee machine. The cafe is owned by Monsieur Moutarde, and Monsieur Moutarde has made the most extraordinary discovery. With the help of his friend, Madame Pamplemousse, he has created a time-travel machine (for that is what the espresso coffee machine is). Very special, highly flavoured, intense ingredients are fed into the machine, where they are subatomically blended with quantum froth and space-time foam. The resulting liquid looks like a small black coffee — but in fact transports the drinker through time and space. But this is a dangerous invention. For who knows what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands? Before long, Monsieur Moutarde, Madame Pamplemousse, her cat, Camembert, and her friend, Madeleine, are on the run through time and space to capture a Trex's freshly caught drool and the tears of the rare sphinx — vital ingredients for a tonic that will both save them and revive the ailing spirit of Paris. It is a magical romp that will charm and delight. |
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Inventor. Visionary. Genius. Dropout. Adopted. Steve Jobs was the founder of Apple and he was all of these things. Steve Jobs has been described as a showman, artist, tyrant, genius, jerk. Through his life he was loved, hated, admired and dismissed, yet he was a living legend; the genius who founded Apple in his parent's garage when he was just 20 years old, revolutionising the music world. He single-handedly introduced the first computer that could sit on your desk and founded and nurtured a company called Pixar bringing to life Oscar wining animations Toy Story and Finding Nemo. So how did the man, who was neither engineer nor computer geek change the world we live in, making us want every product he touched? On graduation day in 2005, a fifty-year-old Steve Jobs said: 'Today I want to tell you three stories from my life, That's it. Just three stories'. The first story is about connecting the dots. My second story is about love and loss. My third story is about death. This is his story...Critically acclaimed author Karen Blumenthal takes us to the core of this complicated and legendary man, from his adoption and early years through to the pinnacles of his career, his dismissal from his duties at Apple (for being too disruptive and difficult) to the graduation where he gave the commencement speech just 6 years before his death, giving life to what were soon to become some of most famous quotes of his career, ending with the message: Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. |
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Peony is the cherished only child of the first wife of a wealthy Chinese nobleman. Yet she is betrothed to a man she has never met and as her sixteenth birthday approaches, she has spoken to no man other than her father and never ventured outside the cloistered women's quarters of the Chen Family Villa. Though raised to be obedient, Peony has dreams of her own. But when, from behind a screen, Peony catches sight of an elegant, handsome man with hair as black as a cave and is immediately bewitched by him. So begins Peony's journey of love, desire and sorrow as Lisa See's haunting new novel takes readers back to seventeenth-century China and into the heart and soul of an unforgettable heroine. |
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From inside a surreal bubble of pure Americana known as the Green Zone, the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority attempted to rule Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Drawing on interviews and internal documents, Rajiv Chandrasekaran tells the memorable story of this ill-prepared attempt to build American democracy in a war-torn Middle Eastern country, detailing not only the risky disbanding of the Iraqi army and the ludicrous attempt to train the new police force, but absurdities such as the aide who based Baghdad's new traffic laws on those of the state of Maryland, downloaded from the net, and the twenty-four-year-old who had never worked in finance put in charge of revitalising Baghdad's stock exchange. Imperial Life in the Emerald City is American reportage at its best. |
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One stifling night in a bar in Soho, Kate meets Richard — powerful, sensual Richard. Going home with him that night is reckless and exhilarating, their connection electric. Now, eighteen months later, Kate is fleeing London for an old coastguard's cottage on the Isle of Wight, determined to forget Richard for ever. In winter, however, the island is locked down, wary of outsiders, and there is little to distract her from her memories. Within days, a local woman, Alice Frewin, goes missing from her boat, and though no body is found there are whispers of suicide. Kate is quickly drawn into Alice's world but all the time Richard — powerful, unstable Richard — looms larger and larger over her own... A tense and atmospheric tale of jealousy, obsession and betrayal, The Bed I Made establishes Lucie Whitehouse as a master of her genre. |
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Andi lives in New York and is dealing with the emotional turmoil of her younger brother's accidental death. Alex lives in Paris and is a maid to the royal family as the French Revolution rages. They're both struggling with their responsibilities and their places in the world. When Andi is sent to Paris to get her out of the trouble she's so easily enveloped by in New York, their two stories collide, and Andi finds a way to reconcile herself not only to her past but also to her future. This is a wonderful and evocative portrait of lives torn apart by grief and mended by love. |
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A prelude to fame, Just Kids recounts the friendship of two young artists — Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe — whose passion fueled their lifelong pursuit of art. In 1967, a chance meeting between two young people led to a romance and a lifelong friendship that would carry each to international success never dreamed of. The backdrop is Brooklyn, Chelsea Hotel, Max's Kansas City, Scribner's Bookstore, Coney Island, Warhol's Factory and the whole city resplendent. Among their friends, literary lights, musicians and artists such as Harry Smith, Bobby Neuwirth, Allen Ginsberg, Sandy Daley, Sam Shepherd, William Burroughs, etc. It was a heightened time politically and culturally; the art and music worlds exploding and colliding. In the midst of all this two kids made a pact to always care for one another. Scrappy, romantic, committed to making art, they prodded and provided each other with faith and confidence during the hungry years — the days of cous-cous and lettuce soup. Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. Beautifully written, this is a profound portrait of two young artists, often hungry, sated only by art and experience. And an unforgettable portrait of New York, her rich and poor, hustlers and hellions, those who made it and those whose memory lingers near. |
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Raymond Blanc shares the secrets he's learned over a lifetime of cooking with legendary good humour and style. With a range of achievable and inspirational recipes for cooks of all abilities, Kitchen Secrets is all about bringing Gallic passion and precision into the home kitchen. Raymond has done all the hard work, refining recipes over months and even years until they are quite perfect. Every recipe includes explanations and hints to ensure that your results are consistently brilliant. Dishes that once seemed plain, or impossibly complex, suddenly become simple and elegant; the book's sixteen chapters include classics like watercress soup, chicory and Roquefort salad, cep ravioli, greengage cassoulet, chicken liver parfait, confit salmon, moules marniere, grilled dover sole, home cured ham, pot au feu, lambs liver persillade, roast wild duck, lamb cutlets, galette des Rois, cherry clafoutis and Maman Blanc's own chocolate mousse. With more than 100 recipes from both series of Kitchen Secrets , this is guaranteed to be a must-have for anybody with a love of French cuisine and finesse. |
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It is Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As Voldemort's sinister forces amass and a spirit of gloom and fear sweeps the land, it becomes more and more clear to Harry that he will soon have to confront his destiny. But is he up to the challenges ahead of him? In this dark and breathtaking adventure, J.K. Rowling skillfully begins to unravel the complex web she has woven, as we discover more of the truth about Harry, Dumbledore, Snape and, of course, He Who Must Not Be Named. |
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The French Connection is a heart-stopping account of an extraordinary narcotics case told as it actually happened. The story is spread over many suspense-filled months and involves plush Manhattan night clubs, dark tenements in Brooklyn and the Bronx, tree-lined suburbs on the upper East Side, Paris, Marseilles and Palermo. The case involves both American and French criminals, including Jean Jehan, director of the world's largest heroin network, and Jacques Angelvin, a famous French television star. |
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In this vivid and humorous journey, Richardson takes us past the cliches of paella and gazpacho to tell the real story of Spain's mouth-watering food, from the typical coastal cuisine to the shepherd cooking of the interior and the chic 'urban' food of Madrid and Barcelona. Along the way he gets caught up in a fish auction and the annual pig slaughter, spends a day at El Bulli restaurant and makes a never-ending stream of new friends. |
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Berlin, 1946. During one of the coldest winters on record, Pavel Richter, a decommissioned GI, finds himself at odds with a rogue British Army colonel and a Soviet General when a friend deposits the frozen body of a dead Russian spy in his apartment. So begins the race to take possession of the spy's secret, a race which threatens Pavel's friendship with a street orphan named Anders and his budding love for Sonia, his enigmatic upstairs neighbour. As the action hurtles towards catastrophe, the hunt merges with one for the truth about the novel's protagonist: who exactly is Pavel Richter? |
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I always think that if you walk around thinking you can have anything you want, you usually can.For confident nineteen-year-old Anna, finding men is easy, holding on to them unnecessary. Moving to Paris brings her a new job, a new life and a new friend in the form of a woman twenty years her senior, Beth. As they fall in love with the city, Anna is irresistibly drawn to Beth's warmth and charm. When Beth falls in love with an attractive Frenchman, Christian, Anna struggles to overcome her increasing jealousy. But who is her real rival: Christian or Beth? A sultry tale of betrayal and regret, Harm's Way traces Anna's story as she learns one of life's hardest lessons: that if you believe you can have anything you want, you may end up with nothing but regret. |
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Dinah and her sister Lisa are growing up in 1950's South Africa, where racial laws are tightening.They are two little girls from a dissenting liberal family. Big sister Lisa is strong and sensible, while Dinah is weedy and arty.At school, the sadistic Mrs Vaughan-Jones is providing instruction in mental arithmetic and racial prejudice. And then there's the puzzle of lunch break. 'Would you rather have a native girl or a koelie to make your sandwiches?' a first-year classmate asks. But Dinah doesn't know the answer, because it's her dad who makes her sandwiches. As the apparatus of repression rolls on, Dinah finds her own way, escaping into rewarding friendships. Then there's the minefield of boys and university and finally, there's marriage and voluntary exile in London. As we follow Dinah's journey through childhood and adolescence, we enter into one of the darker passages of twentieth-century history. Balancing darkness and light with marvellous dexterity, this is Barbara Trapido at the top of her form — vibrant, profound and, as always, irresistible. |
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The sea is the first wonder of the world. Source of all life, key to our survival and home to innumerable and astonishing life forms, the sea has fascinated humanity from its very beginnings. At once remote yet all around us, beautiful and strange, wild and peaceful, it is a host of paradoxes and has provided the inspiration for great poetry, literature, art, music — and photography. This spectacular book showcases some of the most stunning images of our oceans: the drama of waves crashing into the land, breathtaking views from the air, glacial images of the Antarctic, the vast wilderness of mid ocean, the weird and wonderful wildlife found beneath it, beautiful yachts and working boats that power across its surface and the heavenly island paradises surrounded by tranquil waters. With evocative text and page after page of glorious photography, this beautiful book will be a valued and much-loved source of wonder and inspiration. |
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