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Bloomsbury Publishing
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From the capture of Sidney Reilly, the 'Ace of Spies', by Lenin's Bolsheviks in 1925, to the deportation from the USA of Anna Chapman, the 'Redhead under the Bed', in 2010, Kremlin and Western spymasters have battled for supremacy for nearly a century. In Deception Edward Lucas uncovers the real story of Chapman and her colleagues in Britain and America, unveiling their clandestine missions and the spy-hunt that led to their downfall. It reveals unknown triumphs and disasters of Western intelligence in the Cold War, providing the background to the new world of industrial and political espionage. To tell the story of post-Soviet espionage, Lucas draws on exclusive interviews with Russia's top NATO spy, Herman Simm, and unveils the horrific treatment of a Moscow lawyer who dared to challenge the ruling criminal syndicate there. Once the threat from Moscow was international communism; now it comes from the siloviki, Russia's ruthless 'men of power'. |
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Bloomsbury is proud to be the global publisher of In Darkness, a stunning tour-de-force set in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake. Shorty is a Haitian boy trapped in the ruins of a hospital when the earth explodes around him. Surrounded by lifeless bodies and growing desperately weak from lack of food and water, death seems imminent. Yet as Shorty waits in darkness for a rescue that may never come, he becomes aware of another presence, one reaching out to him across two hundred years of history. It is the presence of slave and revolutionary leader Toussaint L'Ouverture, whose life was marred by violence, and whose own end came in darkness. What unites a child of the slums with the man who would shake a troubled country out of slavery? Is it the darkness they share... or is it hope? Raw, harrowing, and peopled with vibrant characters, In Darkness is an extraordinary book about the cruelties of man and nature, and the valiant, ongoing struggle for a country's very survival. |
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When a man who claims to be from outer space is brought into the Manhattan Institute, the mental ward seems to be just the place for him. However this patient is unlike anyone psychiatrist Dr. Gene Brewer has had under his care before. Calling himself 'prot', he has no traceable background but says that he is an inhabitant of the planet K-PAX, a perfect world without wars, government or religion, and where every being coexists in harmony. Setting a departure date — August 17th at 3.31am — on which he plans to return home on a beam of light, 'prot' keeps us guessing right up until the end. |
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Marvin is not a happy sheep. All the other sheep are bigger than him, and can run faster and jump higher than he can. So Marvin decides to do something about it. He eats. And eats, and eats, until he is so big that there is nothing left for him to eat in the world — at which point Marvin eats the world itself! But that is a step too far, and what went in is going to have to come out. This is a rumbustious story that shows how it is possible to take some self-improvement just a little bit too far. |
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A Wonder Woman and bride-to-be finds herself worse for wear at the end of a hen night; a funeral director's love of Manchester United proves unhelpful when talking to the bereaved; two overly-vigilant mothers wrestle with their paranoia in the queue for Santa's Grotto; a widow recounts her disastrous return to the world of dating and a father realises that his son is growing away from him as he helps him tie his football boots. In these snippets of overheard conversations from across the length and breadth of the country, Craig Taylor captures the state we're in with humour and pathos and perfect timing. Laugh-out-loud funny, and sometimes heartbreakingly moving, these tiny plays in which every one of us could have a starring role are little windows into other people's lives that reveal the triumphs, disasters, prejudices, horrors and joys of twenty-first-century life. Hugely entertaining and utterly addictive, this is book that can be dipped into or feasted upon in one sitting. It will change the way you listen to the world around you, and train journeys will never be the same again. |
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What better way to learn colours than on a fun animal safari? From white-and-black zebras to grey elephants and green crocodiles, this book is packed with a whole host of animal friends. Learning has never been so much fun! |
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Deep in the forest, a very large and very selfish crocodile shouts, 'Stay away from my river! If you come in my river, I'll eat you all'. All the animals are thirsty and frightened — until one day... Put the jigsaw puzzles together to discover how the animals solve their snappy dilemma! This fantastic jigsaw storybook includes six puzzles with press-out pieces that neatly fit back into the book to be used again and again. |
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Greece in the age of Heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia. Here he is nobody, just another unwanted boy living in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. Achilles, 'best of all the Greeks', is everything Patroclus is not — strong, beautiful, the child of a goddess — and by all rights their paths should never cross. Yet one day, Achilles takes the shamed prince under his wing and soon their tentative companionship gives way to a steadfast friendship. As they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something far deeper — despite the displeasure of Achilles's mother Thetis, a cruel and deathly pale sea goddess with a hatred of mortals. Fate is never far from the heels of Achilles. When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the men of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows Achilles into war, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they have learned, everything they hold dear. And that, before he is ready, he will be forced to surrender his friend to the hands of Fate. Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart. |
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Since the days of Alexander the Great, Afghanistan's strategically significant lands have been fought over by foreign invaders. Today, as yet another generation risks life and limb in this inhospitable territory, an ever-rising death toll puts back under the spotlight almost daily the way the modern war in Afghanistan is being run, and demands answers. Drawing on over a hundred interviews with Afghan politicians, businessmen and ordinary people, British, American and European diplomats and soldiers, Sandy Gall shines fresh light on the failure to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora and, equally disastrous, American and British gullibility in the face of Pakistan's continued tolerance of the Taliban. He asks why the reconstruction of Afghanistan has withered on the vine; and how we have allowed a Presidential style of government to concentrate power in one man's hands, under whom, amid cronyism and corruption, the Taliban insurgency only grows ever stronger. But is it too late? Examining the emotive issue of equipment shortages, exposing the extent to which the drug trade has corrupted the country, and assessing the accusation of endemic, systemic failure within the MOD, Sandy Gall addresses the challenges, political, religious, and military, that face those now fighting on the most dangerous frontier in the world. |
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When oxygen levels plunge in a treeless world, a state lottery decides which lucky few will live inside the Pod. Everyone else will slowly suffocate. Years after the Switch, life inside the Pod has moved on. A poor Auxiliary class cannot afford the oxygen tax which supplies extra air for running, dancing and sports. The rich Premiums, by contrast, are healthy and strong. Anyone who opposes the regime is labelled a terrorist and ejected from the Pod to die. Sixteen-year-old Alina is part of the secret resistance, but when a mission goes wrong she is forced to escape from the Pod. With only two days of oxygen in her tank, she too faces the terrifying prospect of death by suffocation. Her only hope is to find the mythical Grove, a small enclave of trees protected by a hardcore band of rebels. Does it even exist, and if so, what or who are they protecting the trees from? A dystopian thriller about courage and freedom, with a love story at its heart. |
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Vienna, 1913. It is a fine day in August when Lysander Rief, a young English actor, walks through the city to his first appointment with the eminent psychiatrist Dr Bensimon. Sitting in the waiting room he is anxiously pondering the particularly intimate nature of his neurosis when a young woman enters. She is clearly in distress, but Lysander is immediately drawn to her strange, hazel eyes and her unusual, intense beauty. Her name is Hettie Bull. They begin a passionate love affair and life in Vienna becomes tinged with a powerful frisson of excitement for Lysander. He meets Sigmund Freud in a cafe, begins to write a journal, enjoys secret trysts with Hettie and appears — miraculously — to have been cured. Back in London, 1914. War is imminent, and events in Vienna have caught up with Lysander in the most damaging way. Unable to live an ordinary life, he is plunged into the dangerous theatre of wartime intelligence — a world of sex, scandal and spies, where lines of truth and deception blur with every waking day. Lysander must now discover the key to a secret code which is threatening Britain's safety, and use all his skills to keep the murky world of suspicion and betrayal from invading every corner of his life. Moving from Vienna to London's West End, from the battlefields of France to hotel rooms in Geneva, Waiting for Sunrise is a feverish and mesmerising journey into the human psyche, a beautifully observed portrait of wartime Europe, a plot-twisting thriller and a literary tour de force from the bestselling author of Any Human Heart, Restless and Ordinary Thunderstorms. |
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Uncle Montague lives alone in a big house and his regular visits from his nephew give him the opportunity to relive some of the most frightening stories he knows. But as the stories unfold, a newer and more surprising narrative emerges, one that is perhaps the most frightening of all. Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror, it transpires, are not so much works of imagination as dreadful lurking memories. Memories of an earlier time in which Uncle Montague lived a very different life to his present solitary existence. |
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Last year J. Randy Taraborrelli wrote a bestselling book entitled The Secret Life of Marilyn. His is the most recent of dozens written since Marilyn's death in August of 1962 and yet the appetite for information about Marilyn is insatiable. No matter whether sensational or flawed, as most of these biographies have been, the fans always come out, in best-selling numbers. This time, with Lois Banner's Revelations, Marilyn's fans won't be disappointed. This is no re-tread of recycled material. As one of the founders of the field of women's history, Lois Banner reveals Marilyn Monroe in the way that only a top-notch historian and biographer could. Banner appreciates the complexities of Monroe's personal life in the context of her achievements as an actor, singer, dancer, comedian, model and courtesan. And the new information she unearths is revelatory. Banner's credentials opened doors and she has access to material no one else has seen, from the so called Rosetta stones of Monroe research (two large file cabinets filled with a trove of personal papers), to an interview with a member of the Kennedy secret service detail who shared what he witnessed for the first time, to facts and anecdotes about her childhood and her death and every stage of her life in between that were either missed or ignored or misinterpreted. Like her art, Marilyn's self was rooted in paradox: she was a powerful star and a child-like waif, a joyful, irreverent party girl with a deeply spiritual side; a superb friend and a narcisist; a dumb blonde and an intellectual. No biographer before has attempted to analyze — much less realized — most of these aspects of her personality. Lois Banner has. |
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Jack Holmes is suffering from unrequited love. It doesn't look as if there will ever be anyone else he falls for: the other men he takes to bed never stay for long. Jack's friend Will Wright comes from old stock, has aspirations to be a writer and, like Jack, works on the Northern Review. Jack will introduce Will to the beautiful, brittle young woman he will marry, but is discreet about his own adventures in love — for this is sixties New York, literary and intense, before gay liberation; a concoction of old society, bohemians rich and poor, sleek European immigrants and transplanted Midwesterners. Against this charged backdrop, the different lives of Jack and Will intertwine, and as their loves come and go, they will always be, at the very least, friends. |
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Leaving has always come naturally to Eva Elliott. The daughter of a pilot, she spent her childhood leaving schools and cities. Now an adult, she enjoys the thrill of saying goodbye much more than the butterflies of a first smile or kiss. There's just so much more potential in walking away, and Eva has always had a dangerously vivid imagination. During a rainy summer in Soho, when a golden eagle escapes London Zoo to prowl the city and a burst water pipe causes her boyfriend to move in with her uninvited, it become clear to Eva that endings just aren't as easy as they used to be. While she becomes increasingly obsessed with the unearthly goings-on in a lap-dancing club opposite her office, a beguiling new friend appears around Soho armed with a conspiratorial smile and an unsettling secret. |
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Having left her job and boyfriend, thirty-year-old Sandra decides to stay in a village on the Costa Brava in order to take stock of her life and find a new direction. She befriends Karin and Fredrik, an elderly Norwegian couple, who provide her with stimulating company and take the place of the grandparents she never had. However, when she meets Julian, a former concentration-camp inmate who has just returned to Europe from Argentina, she discovers that all is not what it seems and finds herself involved in a perilous quest for the truth. |
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Ada Howard, the wife of the preacher at Nashville's Full Love Baptist Tabernacle, has a whole lot of people to take care of. There's her husband, of course, and the flock that comes with him, plus the kids at the day care centre where she works, two grown daughters, and two ailing, wayward parents. It's no wonder she can't find time to take care of herself. And her husband's been so busy lately she's suspicious some other woman may be taking care of him... Then it comes: the announcement of her twenty-five-year college reunion in twelve months' time, signed with a wink by her old campus flame. It sets Ada thinking about the thrills of young love lost, and the hundred or so pounds gained since her college days, and she decides it's high time to change her body, and her life. So she starts laying down some rules. The first rule is: Don't Keep Doing What You've Always Been Doing. And so begins her unforgettable journey on the way to less weight and more love... For anyone who has ever found themselves at a crossroads, with one hand in their pocket and the other in the cookie jar, Ada's Rules is a warm, funny and soulfully wise novel about falling back in love with the life you have. |
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Returning home from work, Rinko is shocked to find that her flat is totally empty. Gone are her TV set, fridge and furniture, gone are all her kitchen tools, including the old Meiji mortar she has inherited from her grandmother and the Le Creuset casserole she has bought with her first salary. Gone, above all, is her Indian boyfriend, the maitre d' of the restaurant next door to the one she works in. She has no choice but to go back to her native village and her mother, on which she turned her back ten years ago as a fifteen-year-old girl. There she decides to open a very special restaurant, one that serves food for only one couple every day, according to their personal tastes and wishes. A concubine rediscovers her love for life, a girl is able to conquer the heart of her lover, a surly man is transformed into a loveable gentleman — all this happens at the Katatsumuri, the magic restaurant whose delicate food can heal any heartache and help its customers find love again. |
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This book is a pocket history of film, covering technical developments, famous directors, actors, and films as well as genres such as Westerns, film noir etc. The book starts with the Lumiere brothers and works up to the present particularly focussing on famous directors such as Cecil B. DeMille, Eisenstein, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, John Cassavetes, Ingamar Bergman, Roberto Rossellini and Martin Scorsese, and specific trends in films such as women in film, the studio system, genres and the star system. There are also little side panels highlighting famous actors and movies. All in all, this is an excellent pocket introduction to the history and world of film. |
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This is a comprehensive introduction not only to the world most important graphic designers but also a look at various styles, movmements and processes. It particularly concentrates on the ideas and contributions of 50 of the world's most influential graphic desigenrs, and at 10 of the major movements in the field and their place in history. The book includes pieces on Eric Gill, Adrian Frutiger and Alphonse Muchta and on topics such as Politics and Propaganda in poster art, Futurism, New Wave and the Digital Age. All in all, this is a compact, easily accessible, quick guide to the field of graphic design. |
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