|
|
|
Hodder and Stoughton
|
The history of science is often seen as a story of advancement but nothing could be further from the truth. Science, it is true, has progressed, but rarely in the direction intended and seldom for the reasons given. This has a lot to do with the people responsible. Meet Thales, credited as 'the father of science', whose only real claim to fame is that he often fell into ditches, discover how Archimedes never said Eureka and hated baths anyway and how the most lucrative ancient Greek invention was not democracy but the slot machine. Justin Pollard also fills us in on Issac Newton who liked to disguise himself and lurk in London's less salubrious pubs, how eleven people claimed to have invented the steam engine and why the first website was twelve foot across and made of wood. |
|
The first bio-tech thriller from acclaimed Cornell professor, Paul McEuen. Pacific Ocean 1946: Liam Connor of the British Army, a global expert on germ warfare, is sent to help the US Navy foil an attempt by a Japanese submarine to unleash the world's first biological super-weapon. Code-name: Uzumaki. Translation: Spiral. The devastating decision is made to annihilate Spiral by releasing the world's fourth atomic bomb, obliterating the weapon before it can release its catastrophic payload. New York, present day: Connor, now a world-renowned Nobel prize-winner working on the cutting edge of nano-science technology, prayed that the spectre of Spiral would never return. But now it is back and the stakes are exponentially higher. Spiral would be virtually unstoppable with current technological advances and only Connor holds the key to its cure. Those who seek Spiral will stop at nothing to obtain Connor's knowledge, even if it means his death and that of everyone he holds dear. As the race begins for Spiral, will the world survive the Doomsday scenario about to unfold? |
|
A legendary ruin. An ancient mystery. Will unveiling the past transform the future? In San Francisco, Madeline Moretti is grieving the sudden death of her fiance. Nothing brings her joy; not her family, her beloved apartment, nor the job she once treasured, where she fights for the rights of workers betrayed by a callous employer. Maddie's grandmother, a fiery Italian who feels a fierce connection to her granddaughter, sends her to Tuscany to heal. Maddie finds herself immersed in the restoration of a medieval garden, and in the mystery of a ruined villa. It was destroyed centuries ago in a legendary storm on the Eve of St Agnes, and known ever since as the Casa al Vento — the house of the wind. The myth of the young woman who walked unscathed from the ruins, so strongly recalled by John Keats' poem, will haunt Maddie as she searches for a way to step into her future. |
|
You'll lose a lot of sleep... Ralph does. At first he starts waking up earlier. And earlier. Then the hallucinations start — the colours, shapes and strange auras. Not to mention the bald doctors who always turn up at the scene of a death. That's when Ralph begins to lose a lot more than sleep. When he begins to understand why his hitherto mild-mannered friend, Ed, is getting out of control — dangerously so. And why his home town is about to become the new Armageddon... |
|
One man escapes from a biological weapon facility after an accident, carrying with him the deadly virus known as Captain Tripps, a rapidly mutating flu that — in the ensuing weeks — wipes out most of the world's population. In the aftermath, survivors choose between following an elderly black woman to Boulder or the dark man, Randall Flagg, who has set up his command post in Las Vegas. The two factions prepare for a confrontation between the forces of good and evil. |
|
Welcome to Desperation. Once a thriving copper mining town in the middle of the Nevada desert, Desperation is now eerily abandoned. It's the last place that travellers like the Carver family, bound for vacation, and writer Johnny Marinville, astride his Harley, would expect to be stopped and charged. But Desperation still has a local cop — a unique regulator who patrols the wilderness highway. The secrets buried in Desperation are as terrifying as the forces summoned to encounter them. A terrifying transformation is taking place and the travellers will soon discover the true meaning of desperation... |
|
What happens when a room full of people decide to work towards the same dream? Why is it that when we come together in small groups we are so much more than the sum of our parts? From druids to bingo-clubbers, eco-warriors to flash-mobbers, historical re-enactors to bee-keepers, books groups and knitting circles, W.I.s, Young Farmers and the fan-owners of a football club, Together reveals the true story of modern Britain. The country we live in is in fact an extraordinary composition of small groups powered by shared interests and common ideals. Hemming reveals a different way of seeing society, one that recognizes the massive, untapped potential of these hundreds of thousands of small groups, how they work and what they enable us to do that we can't do alone. Witty and provocative, Together gives us an extraordinary cast of characters, a series of unlikely alliances and most importantly, a vision of what we can achieve Together. |
|
Kate Forman has an enviable life: a loving family and a perfect husband, Paul. But one night she finds Paul drunk and covered in blood, mumbling about having killed something — or someone. When a young and attractive woman who works for Paul is found murdered, Kate's suspicions about what he has really done send her on an increasingly desperate search for the truth that threatens to smash her carefully constructed life. Doing the right thing should seem obvious, but as the lies multiply, the truth is not as straightforward as it seems; how well do you know the person you're married to? |
|
A shared quest and a mysterious cabal, four centuries apart... When Henry Cavendish attends the funeral of an old friend, the last thing he expects is to be given a business proposition. A handsome sum to retrieve a document that was in his friend's possession when he died — a letter from Sir Walter Ralegh. Henry accepts the challenge, despite severe misgivings about his sinister new employer. Four centuries earlier, in Elizabethan England, another quest is playing out. Thomas Harriot, once a member of the mysterious School of Night, a group whose members included the toast of Elizabethan society, has shut himself off from the world. Working day and night, he devotes himself secretly to his experiments. As both searches deepen, the two men realise that there are forces at work against them. Harriot's work is threatened by discovery and Henry's search becomes a deadly one, when someone close to him dies in mysterious circumstances. The School of Night is the story of a quest that spans centuries, of alliances forged in unexpected circumstances and of men who will stop at nothing to get what they want. |
|
Every marriage has two hearts, one light and one dark. Lisey knew it when she first fell for Scott. And now he's dead, she knows it for sure. Lisey was the light to Scott Landon's dark for twenty-five years. As his wife, only she saw the truth behind the public face of the famous author — that he was a haunted man whose bestselling novels were based on a terrifying reality. Now Scott has gone, Lisey wants to lock herself away with her memories. But the fans have other ideas. And when the sinister threats begin, Lisey realises that, just as Scott depended on her strength — her light — to live, so she will have to draw on his darkness to survive. |
|
Forced from her father's humble Norfolk vicarage, Ellen Gowan finds herself in an unforgiving London. At fifteen she falls for Raoul de Valentin, the dangerous descendant of French aristocrats. Raoul marries Ellen for her brilliance as a designer but abandons his wife when she becomes pregnant. Determined that she and her daughter will survive, Ellen begins her long climb to success. Toiling first in an east-end factory, she finally opens her own salon in Berkeley Square. One single dress, a ball gown created for the enigmatic Countess of Hawksmoor, transforms Ellen's fortunes, and as the years pass, her business thrives. She tells the world — and her daughter — she's a widow. But then Raoul de Valentin returns and threatens to destroy all that Ellen has achieved. |
|
On 14th April 1912 the Titanic struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sank. Fifteen hundred passengers and crew lost their lives. As the order to abandon ship was given, the orchestra took their instruments on deck and continued to play. They were still playing when the ship went down. The violinist, 21 year-old Jock Hume, knew that his fiancee, Mary, was expecting their first child, the author's mother. One hundred years later, Christopher Ward reveals a dramatic story of love, loss and betrayal, and the catastrophic impact of Jock's death on two very different Scottish families. He paints a vivid portrait of an age in which class determined the way you lived — and died. An outstanding piece of historical detective work, AND THE BAND PLAYED ON is also a moving account of how the author's quest to learn more about his grandfather revealed the shocking truth about a family he thought he knew, a truth that had been hidden for nearly a hundred years. |
|
Mary Gilmour feels as though her life is going down a plug hole clogged with cornflakes and Play-Doh. Her job is part time but housework is full time, and she has no time at all for her two young sons. Mary is convinced that there is only one thing standing between her and organised contentment: his name is Joel and she's married to him. Since star charts have worked on improving the behaviour of their children, she designs an equivalent for her husband: a spreadsheet detailing every balled-up tissue, every sock on the floor, every wet towel on the bed. Although he has no idea of it, Joel has six months to prove that his credits outweigh his debits. Or else... |
|
At first handsome, freewheeling Clive Cavendish does not appear to be an ideal catch for Julie. But when a whirlwind seduction leads to love and marriage and Clive's ambitious schemes begin to pay off Julie is more than happy to be the wife of an up-and-coming painter and the mother of his children. Anna's suitor, Howard Buskin, is rich, moody and reclusive. He prefers painting Dartmoor's brooding landscapes to courting the beautiful young woman his mother has chosen to be his bride and from the first their uneasy, loveless marriage totters on the brink of crisis. Only when American art collector Teddy Norris enters their lives with a proposal that Howard cannot ignore, and an easy-going charm that sweeps Anna into a tempestous affair, do the sisters begin to question their loyalty to their husbands and to each other. A loyalty that will be tested to the limit on the first, and last, Atlantic crossing of the White Star's new super-liner, the unsinkable Titanic — a voyage not all of them will survive. |
|
Thessaloniki, 1917. As Dimitri Komninos is born, a fire sweeps through the thriving multicultural city, where Christians, Jews and Moslems live side by side. It is the first of many catastrophic events that will change for ever this city, as war, fear and persecution begin to divide its people. Five years later, young Katerina escapes to Greece when her home in Asia Minor is destroyed by the Turkish army. Losing her mother in the chaos, she finds herself on a boat to an unknown destination. From that day the lives of Dimitri and Katerina become entwined, with each other and with the story of the city itself. Thessaloniki, 2007. A young Anglo-Greek hears the life story of his grandparents for the first time and realises he has a decision to make. For many decades, they have looked after the memories and treasures of people who have been forcibly driven from their beloved city. Should he become their new custodian? Should he stay or should he go? The Thread is the enthralling new novel from Victoria Hislop. |
|
From the very first day that they move to the Oddlode Valley, it's inevitable that young teacher Mo Stillitoe, recently separated socialite Diana Lampeter and cool, retired dressage diva Anke Brakespear will find their lives entangled. Despite their differing generations and backgrounds, the women are on a relocation collision course. As inept removal men deliver furniture — and even horses — to the wrong houses, other moves are being made... Mo's bad boy lover takes Diana's eye, Anke's flirtatious husband immediately suggests Mo hop into bed with him — and Diana's local heart-throb brother comes joyfully face to face with the Danish ice-maiden he posted on his wall as a teenager. As a long, hot Indian summer burns its embers into winter, the newcomers settle into their beautiful frost-hugged surroundings, generating enough heat to melt every heart in Oddlode. New passions ignite and old flames are fanned amid the honeyed villages, enchanted gardens, haunted parkland and raucous country social life. The heat is on, and sparks fly — but is this just a flash in the pan or is somebody fuelling the fire? |
|
The canyons and sage plains of Utah have a dangerous beauty. Skilled riders must go out every day and night to protect the herds and the homesteads from cattle rustlers. Stories of a masked man and a lone gunman looking for vengeance have spread across Utah. There has long been a feud between Gentiles and Mormons. A feud that Jane Withersteen, daughter of the man who founded the Mormon settlement of Cottonwood, chooses to ignore. When Mormon Elder Tull discovers that the woman he means to make one of his wives has offered hospitality to an outsider he vows vengeance but he underestimates her courage and the determination of the riders of the plains. |
|
In the spring of 1895 the life of Constance Wilde changed irrevocably. Up until the conviction of her husband, Oscar, for homosexual crimes, she had held a privileged position in society. Part of a gilded couple, she was a popular children's author, a fashion icon, and a leading campaigner for women's rights. A founding member of the magical society the Golden Dawn, her pioneering and questioning spirit encouraged her to sample some of the more controversial aspects of her time. Mrs Oscar Wilde was a phenomenon in her own right. But that spring Constance's entire life was eclipsed by scandal. Forced to flee to the Continent with her two sons, her glittering literary and political career ended abruptly. Having changed her name, she lived in exile until her death. Franny Moyle now tells Constance's story with a fresh eye and remarkable new material. Drawing on numerous unpublished letters, she brings to life the story of a woman at the heart of fin-de-siecle London and the Aesthetic movement. In a compelling and moving tale of an unlikely couple caught up in a world unsure of its moral footing, she uncovers key revelations about a woman who was the victim of one of the greatest betrayals of all time. |
|
France's best selling diet book ever which has sold over 1 million copies since it was published in 2003. Devised by Dr Pierre Dukan, a qualified medical doctor who has spent his career helping people to lose weight permanently, it is an easy to follow protein-rich diet which delivers fantastic results in the short term and then shows you how to maintain your ideal weight for life. The Dukan Diet has grown into a huge phenomenon in France and has been in the French Amazon Top 100 for almost three years. With 4 distinct phases from the Attack which lasts from 2-7 days and helps motivate with rapid weight loss, through to the Stabilisation phase which allows you to maintain your ideal natural weight for life, the Dukan Diet offers clear and simple guidelines for success. |
|
The Dukan Diet is based on a unique four-step programme. Two steps to lose weight and two steps to keep it off for good. The Dukan Diet Recipe Book will help you to stick to the diet by offering over 350 recipes suitable for the all-important weight loss stages. With meal ideas for the protein-only Attack stage and then lots more recipes to keep you on track during the Cruising stage when you can add vegetables to your diet, the The Dukan Diet Recipe Book offers an amazingly wide selection of dishes to help you stave off boredom. Packed with ways to liven up your meals whilst sticking to the Dukan Diet and reaching your goal, the recipes even include a range of dressings, sauces and desserts. |
|
