Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby 08/10/2009
![]() Annie and Duncan fit together naturally, like jigsaw pieces, though Duncan's passionate obsession with Tucker Crowe, the reclusive, tortured-genius songwriter, has never left much time for anything more meaningful, like marriage or kids. In fact, Annie's starting to wonder whether she's wasted fifteen years on a bad relationship. When Tucker's record company suddenly issue a stripped-down version of his most famous album, and Annie just can't see what's good about it, Duncan finds solace in bed with somebody else - and Annie is at last liberated to throw him out. But worse is to follow for Duncan: Annie is not alone in her opinion. After she posts a review on a fan website, she gets a response from a completely unlikely source, Tucker himself. The correspondence which follows is doubly satisfying: it turns out that not only is Tucker an expert like her on years of wasted life, but she begins to realize what lies behind his long silence. Nick Horby's compelling new novel, four years after A Long Way Down, is about the nature of creativity and obsession, and how two lonely people can gradually find each other. Add Comment Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd 08/10/2009
![]() What is the devastating effect on your life when, through no fault of your own, you lose everything - home, family, friends, job, reputation, passport, money, credit cards, mobile phone - and you can never get them back? This is what happens to a young man called Adam Kindred, one May evening in Chelsea, London, when a freakish series of malign accidents and a split-second decision turns his life upside down forever. The police are searching for him. There is a reward for his capture. A hired killer is stalking him. He is alone and anonymous in the huge, pitiless modern city. Adam has nowhere to go but down - underground. He decides to join that vast army of the disappeared and the missing that throng the lowest level of London's populations as he tries to figure out what to do with his life and struggles to understand the forces that have made it unravel so spectacularly. His quest will take him all along the River Thames, from affluent Chelsea to the sink estates of the East End, and on the way he encounters all manner of London's denizens - aristocrats, prostitutes, priests and policewomen amongst them - and version after new version of himself. Truth by Peter Temple 08/10/2009
At the close of a long day, Inspector Stephen Villani stands in the bathroom of a luxury apartment high above the city. In the glass bath, a young woman lies dead, a panic button within reach. So begins the sequel to Peter Temple's bestselling masterpiece, The Broken Shore, winner of the Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel. Villani's life is his work. It is his identity, his calling, his touchstone. But now, over a few sweltering summer days, as fires burn across the state and his superiors and colleagues scheme and jostle, he finds all the certainties of his life are crumbling. Truth is a novel about a man, a family, a city. It is about violence, murder, love, corruption, honour and deceit. And it is about truth. Love and Summer by William Trevor 08/10/2009
![]() It's summer and nothing much is happening in Rathmoye. So it doesn't go unnoticed when a dark-haired stranger appears on his bicycle and begins photographing the mourners at Mrs Connulty's funeral. Florian Kilderry couldn't know that the Connultys are said to own half the town: he has only come to Rathmoye to photograph the scorched remains of its burnt-out cinema. But Mrs Connulty's daughter, liberated at last by the death of her imperious mother, resolves to keep an eye on Florian Kilderry, and it's she who comes to witness the events that follow. A few miles out in the country, Dillahan, a farmer and a decent man, continues to live with the knowledge that he was accidentally responsible for the deaths of his wife and baby. He has married again: Ellie is the young convent girl who came to work for him when he was widowed. She falls in love with Florian Kilderry and, although he is planning to leave Ireland and begin all over again after what he considers to be his failed life, a dangerously reckless attachment develops between them. ![]() This is an interactive colouring book for fashionistas of all ages. It is packed with beautiful & sophisticated illustrations specially created by the leading fashion illustrator, Nina Chakrabarti. The book encourages creativity, with illustrations to colour in & designs to finish off, as well as simple ideas for making & doing. The book covers clothing, shoes, bags, jewellery & other accessories, spanning both vintage fashions & contemporary designs. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood 08/10/2009
![]() Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners - a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, the preservation of all species, the tending of the Earth, and the cultivation of bees and organic crops on flat rooftops - has long predicted the Waterless Flood. Now it has occured, obliterating most human life. Two women have avoided it: the young trapeze-dancer, Ren, locked into the high-end sex club, Scales and Tails; and former SecretBurgers meat-slinger turned gardener, Toby, barricaded into the luxurious AnooYoo Spa, where many of the treatments are edible. Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda, or the MaddAddam eco-fighters? Ren's one-time teenage lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the CorpSeCorps, the shadowy and corrupt policing force of the ruling powers ... Meanwhile, in the natural world, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through a ruined world, singing their devotional hymns and faithful to their creed and to their Saints - Saint Francis Assisi, Saint Rachel Carson and Saint Al Gore among them - what odds for Ren and Toby, and for the human race? Wonder of a Godless World by Nadrew McGahan 08/10/2009
![]() On an unnamed island, in a Gothic hospital sitting in the shadow of a volcano, a wordless orphan girl works on the wards housing the insane and the incapable. When a silent, unmoving and unnerving new patient - a foreigner - arrives at the hospital, strange phenomena occur, bizarre murders take place, and the lives of the patients and the island's inhabitants are thrown into turmoil. What happens between them is an extraordinary exploration of consciousness, reality and madness. Wonders of a Godless World, the new novel from Miles Franklin-winner Andrew McGahan, is a huge and dramatic beast of a book. It is a thought-provoking investigation into character and consciousness, a powerful cautionary tale, and a head-stretching fable about the earth, nature and the power of the mind. It is utterly unlike anything you've read before - it will take you by the shoulders and hold you in its grip to its nerve-tingling finale. ![]() French Essence is a celebration of life in Provence, one of the most charming regions of France. Vicki Archer reveals the underpinnings of that famous French ambience and sense of style, and offers inspiration to all of us who want to understand the beauty, experience the lifestyle and emulate the interiors of this exquisite part of the world. Ten years ago, Vicki Archer bought and restored a seventeenth-century property in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, and told the story in her book My French Life. Now, in collaboration again with celebrated photographer Carla Coulson, she shares with us her love for Provence. ![]() July, 1700, Rome. Atto Melani – once a celebrated castrato soprano, now a spy in the service of King Louis XIV, the Sun King – mingles with other high-ranking guests at the villa of Cardinal Spada. Despite being there to celebrate the Cardinal’s nephew’s wedding, the main topic of conversation is the grave illness of the Pope and the approaching demise of Charles II, King of Spain. Charles has no heir and Kaiser Leopold of Austria and King Louis are each demanding the throne, with the Vatican supposedly mediating. Keen to promote his master’s cause, Melani sets in motion a grandiose conspiracy that will plunge him into a world of secret languages, religious sects, forged Royal wills and Europe into war. ![]() She is not loved by everybody. Her career has been marked by pitched battles with jealous rivals and powerful factions. To conservatives she is still 'red Julia'; to some on the Left she is still a politician too willing to compromise. She is widely perceived to be ambitious, and yet does she want to be prime minister? The Making of Julia Gillard tells Gillard's remarkable story, including her Adelaide childhood, her time as a fiery student activist, her battles to get into Parliament and her relationships with the important men in her political life: Simon Crean, Kim Beazley, Mark Latham and Kevin Rudd. In this immensely readable book, acclaimed biographer Jacqueline Kent draws on interviews with Gillard's friends and foes - and with Gillard herself - to reveal just how adversarial her environment has been and how she has thrived. | CategoriesAll ArchivesFebruary 2012 |
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