The Summer of My Greek Taverna

Tom Stone

Tom Stone went to Greece on summer to write a novel – and stayed twenty-two years. On Patmos, the tiny island where St. John received the apocalyptic visions recorded in the Book of Revelations, he fell in love with Danielle, a beautiful French painter. His novel completed and sold, he decided to stay a little longer.

Seven idyllic years later, after the birth of their second child, they left Patmos for Crete, where Stone taught English to civil servants and Danielle painted icons for tourists. But Stone’s heart was still on Patmos and when a Patmian friend. Theologos, called and offered him a summer partnership in his beach taverna, The Beautiful Helen, Stone jumped at the chance – much to the dismay of his wife, who cautioned him not to forget the old adage about Greeks bearing gifts.

Back on Patmos, Stone quickly discovered that he was no longer a friend or a patron but a competitor. He learned hard lessons about the Greek’s skill at bargaining, and about how truly effective the curse of the Evil Eye can be…..”
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The Inquisitor

Catherine Jinks

An inquisitor in southern France in the early 14th century, Dominican Father Bernard Peyre's job is rooting out remnant Cathars. Shrewd and empathic, he is an effective inquisitor, but when his superior starts looking through old depositions for evidence of corruption and is brutally murdered, he has to become a detective as well. The Inquisitor starts off as a kind of "inquisition procedural", introducing us to the personnel and workings of the Holy Office and the other powers in the town, the Bishop, the Seneschal, and the Prior. But authorities can't always be trusted, approved procedures are not always followed, and the replacement chief inquisitor is more interested in demonic magic than in heresy — and has a personal grudge against Bernard. Even worse, Bernard has fallen in love, endangering his vows and clouding his judgement, and his situation rapidly becomes untenable.
The Inquisitor purports to be written by Bernard, though of course no one in the 14th century could have written something that works as a modern novel. Clever sleight of hand by Jinks stops us noticing the contrivance, however, and the result works both as a thriller and a historical novel. The background exposition necessary for a reader without knowledge of the period is unobtrusively slipped in and the language and characterisations capture something of "the spirit of the times" without making the novel indigestible. Bernard in particular is a fine psychological study: he may occasionally seem anachronistic in his sensibilities, but he is not just a modern dressed up in historical costume. -- A book review by Danny Yee © 2002 http://dannyreviews.com/
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Bunny Girl

Joan Conway

Clara Bowe’s life is not is not in the best condition: no job, no boyfriend, back living with her mother in suburban Dublin. Enter John, Clara’s ex-an-never-slept-with-him boyfriend, who’s launching his new telecommunications company. He’s very interested in helping Clara out of her predicament – and into his bed.

Her new job is not what she dreamed of. Well, dressing up as a giant rabbit to market a mobile phone is hardly the high point of a career in advertising, is it?

Clara spends her days as a bunny and her evening being wooed by John but something strange is happening… is someone trying to get her out of the way? Who are the other rabbits that John has recruited? And who exactly is the owner of the startling violet eyes, handsome face and bad line in rabbit jokes who keeps hopping into her life?

The answers are there – but dare she find them?
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Dirt Music

Tim Winton

Georgie Jutland is a mess. At forty with her career in ruins, she finds herself stranded in White Point with a fisherman she doesn't love and two kids whose dead mother she can never replace. Her days have fallen into domestic tedium and social isolation. Her nights are a blur of vodka and pointless loitering in cyberspace. Leached of all confidence, Georgie has lost her way. One morning in the boozy pre-dawn gloom, she looks up from the computer screen to see a shadow lurking on the beach below, and a dangerous new element enters her life... book cover
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Bubbles Ablaze

Sarah Strohmeyer

There's more to Bubbles Yablonsky than blond curls and bright outfits. She's becoming a hot reporter, but she still needs to add new highlights to her image. Right now, though, she's planning a romantic break with gorgeous photojournalist Steve Stiletto. He's already hours late when she's summoned to cover a press conference at an old coalmine. Bubbles arrives to find it strangely deserted,except for an injured Stiletto - and a dead body. It's Bud Price, a businessman whose plan to build a casino in small-town Pennsylvania divided the old-fashioned community. An instead of relaxing at the Passion Peak Resort, Bubbles is suddenly dodging explosions and investigating a murder.

As her loony mother and precocious teenage daughter throw themselves into the fray, Bubbles is in a race against time to beat Stiletto to the scoop, discover who wanted Price dead - and keep her own pretty little head out of the line of fire....--book cover.
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The Blithedale Romance

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Blithedale Romance is a somewhat dark, depressing tale of idealism gone awry and of friendship and love torn asunder by private ambitions. The romance of these pages is not what many modern readers may expect to find here; there is no penultimate consummation of love among these characters, nor is there much happiness indeed to be discerned from the complexity of their relations one with another. Much has been made of Hawthorne's own temporary residence at the utopian-minded Brook Farm a decade previous to the publication of this work; it is true that some of the experiences derive from his own memories, but Hawthorne went to great pains to make clear that this is a romance first and foremost and bears no direct relation to the experiences of his own life. Those who would read this novel in an attempt to get at Hawthorne's true feelings about the utopian socialism he flirted with and watched from afar during his pivotal creative years may well miss out on the thought-provoking treatment of such wonderfully literary, fascinating characters as Hollingsworth the idealistic philanthropist, Zenobia the modern feminist reformer with a fatal flaw inimical to her self-realization, and the sweet and frail Priscilla.
The first-person narrator of this story is Miles Coverdale, a man difficult to come to terms with. He joins with the pioneers behind the utopian farming community of Blithedale and truly takes heart in the possibility of this new kind of communitarian life offering mankind a chance to live lives of purpose and fulfillment, yet at times he steps outside of events and seems to view the whole experience as a study in human character and a learning experience to which his heart-strings are only loosely bound. The drama that unfolds is told in his perspective only, and one can never know how much he failed to discern or the degree to which his own conjectures are correct. His eventual castigation of Hollingsworth cannot be doubted, however. This rather unfeeling man joins the community on the hidden pretext of acquiring the means for fulfilling his overriding utopian dream of creating an edifice for the reformation of criminals. This dream takes over his life, Coverdale observes, and his once-noble philanthropic passion morphs him into an overzealous, unfeeling man who brings ruin upon those who were once his friends. It is really Zenobia, though, upon which the novel feeds. She is a fascinating woman of means who makes the Blithedale dream a reality, a bold reformer seeking a new equality for women in the world who ultimately, at Hawthorne's bidding, suffers the ignominious fate of the fragile spirit she seemed to have overcome.

This is not a novel that will immediately enthrall you in its clutches. The first half of the novel is sometimes rather slow going, but I would urge you not to cast this book aside carelessly. The final chapters sparkle with drama and human passion, and you find yourself suddenly immersed in this strange community of tragic friends-turned-foes. You care deeply what happens to such once-noble spirits, and while you may not find joy in the tragic conclusion of the ill-fated social experiment of Blithedale, you will certainly find your soul stirred by the tragedy of unfolding events. - Review from the Oxford World Classics
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Catch Me if You Can

Frank Abagnale

Frank Abagnale, alias Frank Williams, Robert Conrad, Frank Adams and Robert Monjo, was one of the most daring con men, forgers, imposters and escape artists in history. During his brief but notorious criminal career, Abagnale donned a pilot's uniform and co-piloted a Pan Am jet, masqueraded as the supervising resident of a hospital, practised law wihtout a licence, passed himself off as a college sociology professor, and cashed over $2.5 million in forged cheques - all before he was twenty-one. An hilarious, stranger-than-fiction account of his sumptuous life on the lam, international escapades and ingenious escapes, Catch Me if You Can is a captivating tale of deceit.
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Spygirl

True adventures from my life as a private eye, Amy Gray

Amy tells what it's like to work in a man's world; she describes the initiation new gumshoes are put through; the unique dynamics of her workplace (do you really want to fight over the last biscuit with someone who's packing heat?) and what happens when her professional and private lives collide.

Spygirl is a chronicle of the real-life adventures of a single girl in New York - trying to find a clean, sheap apartment, a satisfying career and a boyfriend who isn't the kind of guy she should probably be investigating.
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The City of Falling Angels

John Berendt

The author arived in February 1996 for a prolonged spell in the city that had captivated him on his first visit. His intention was simply to see it without the obscuring overlay of tourists, but he quickly realized that his arrival had coincided with an extraordinary moment.

Using the fire that destoyed the Fenice Theatre as his starting point, Berendt takes us on a unique tour of the city and its inhabitants. It is a tour that few are privileged to enjoy. For behind the exquisite facade of the world's most beautiful historic city, scandal, corruption and venality are rampant, and Berendt is a master at seeking them out.

Millionaire art collector Peggy Guggenheim, Ezra Pound's mistress Olga Rudge, Alistair and Romilly McAlpine, are some of the high profile residents (or former residents); but no less fascinating are lesser-known eccentric Venetians such as Plant Man Adriano Delon, Massimo Donadon the Rat Man of Treviso, or Mario Moro - self-styled carabiniere, fireman, soldier or airman, depending on the day of the week.

Perfectly poised to gain access to private and unapproachable people and persuade them to talk frankly, Berendt weaves an elegantly captivating narrative that is mischievous, witty and utterly compelling.
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Cedar Cove

Debbie Macomber

Two novels in one book

311 Pelican Court

Dear Reader,

One thing about Cedar Grove, people sure are interested in what other people are doing. Take me, for instance. Everybody in the town knows that my husband Zach, and I recently got a divorce. Everybody also knows that Judge Olivia Lockhart decreed a pretty unusual custody arrangement. It won't be the kids moving between my place and Zach's. We're the ones who'll be going back and forth!

But the really big gossip has to do with the dead guy - the man who died at a local B&B. Who is he and why did he show up there in the middle of the night? Roy McAfee, our local private investigator, is absolutely determined to find out. I hope he does - and then I'll let you know! See you soon... Rosie

44 Cranberry Point

Dear Reader,

I love living in Cedar Cove, but thinks haven't been the same since a man died in our B&B. Turns out his name was Max Russell, and Bob had known him briefly in Vietnam. We Still don't have any idea why he came here and most important of all who killed him. I sure hope somebody figures it out soon!

Not that we're providing the only news in Cedar Cove these days. I heard that Jon Bowman and Maryellen Sherman are getting married. And Maryellen's mum, Grace, has more than her share of interested men!

There's lots of gossip I could tell you. Come by for a cup of tea and one of my blueberry muffins and we'll talk, Peggy
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The Riders

Tim Winton

Fred Scully can't wait to see his wife and daughter. He's got a new life for them all worked out. He's sweated on this reunion. The doors at the airport hiss open. Scully's life falls apart....
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The Rapture

Catherine Jinks

Early in the 21st century, Joseph Peek turned into another person.

Now, eighty years later, journalism student Aldo Frewin discovers who that person was - and why he's now living as Jarom Woodruff, aged sixteen, in a troubled Mormon cult in remote Tasmania.

For members of this cult, the End of the World is imminent and the Rapture awaits. For Aldo and his uncle, time is also running out. They need to know - will Jarom die as Joseph died before they uncover the truth? Has a genetic experiment changed the course of history? And if it did, does anyone have the power to change the future -- book cover
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Honeymoon

Amy Jenkins

Honeymoon is about a girl who has doubts about her nice suitable man, and doubts about commitment. She still carries a torch for Alex, the Love Of Her Life, someone she spent only one night with. A perfect night. A soulmate night. Seven years on, she's ambushed by Ed, a suitable young man so nice and kind there's nothing for it but to marry him. An then they go on honeymoon.... book jacket
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Captain James Cook

Richard Hough

James Cook was the last and greatest of the romantic navigators. In his relatively short and short and adventurous life (1728-79)he voyaged to the eastern and western seaboards of North America, the North and South Pacific and the Arctic and Antarctic bringing about a new comprehension of the world's geography and its peoples. He was the linking figure between the grey speculation of the early eighteenth century and the industrial age of the first half of the nineteenth century.

Richard Hough has written an exciting and marvellously readable biography, full of new insights and interpretations of one of the world's greatest mariners. - book cover
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America in Vietnam

edited by William Appleman Williams and others.

This collection of essays and documents, written and compiled by four distinguished historians, is an essential source book for anyone seeking to understand the causes, character, and consequences of American involvement in Vietnam.

Through a wide variety of documents - including newly opened presidential papers, congressional debates, military reports, treaties, and newspaper articles - the authors trace the origins of the war back to pre-World War II attitudes and then proceed through the development of the "domino theory' and the policies of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Jonson, and Nixon to the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. -- book cover
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The Prize

Daniel Yergin

Oil has shaped the politics of the twentieth century and has changed profoundly the way we lead our daily lives. The canvas for this story of oil is enormous - from the drilling of the first well in Pennsylvania, through two great world wars to the "accident' that led to the discovery of North Sea oil, to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm. Now, in The Prize, oil has become the subject of a book which does justice to the great struggle for wealth and power that has always surround the black gold.

In the great traditions of epic storytelliing, the international bestseller The Prize tells how and why oil has become the largest industry in the world, a game of huge risks and monumental rewards. --- book cover
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Commitment

Julie Ellis

Born into the family of a wealthy Jewish businessman, Carol Simon's priveleged world falls apart when her father shoots himself as the stock market plummets. Little more than a child, she is forced to take a menial job, but already she nurtures a secret ambition: to become an architect.

But these are the days of the Depression, when a young girl's aspirations are quashed by the struggle to survive. An offer of marriage seems to be a dream come true - but it is the beginning of a nightmare. How Carol endures her tragedy, comes through the Second World War and the McCarthy witch-hunts to realize her ambition without betraying her heritage,is a moving and tender story of one woman's courage and commitment. --- book cover
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Chasers

Lorenzo Carcaterra

It's 1985 - and the city that never sleeps is about to wish it had stayed in bed. The heinous machine-gun murder of innocent bystanders in a Manhattan restaurant shocks all five boroughs. The surviving members of the Apaches - controversial, take-no-crap, outside-the-law ex-cops - swear to hunt down those responsible.

Along for the harrowing ride with Boomer, Dead-Eye and Reverend Jim are three new Apaches: Ash, a wounded female Hispanic cop who specializes in arson investigations: Quincy, an HIV-positive recruit an forensics expert: and a retired police dog named Buttercup. Now this dedicated team will become Chasers, working cultiple cases that will converge into one explosive, all-out New York City street war. --- book cover
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Justice Deferred

Len Williams

Criminal: Billy Ray Billings grew up with few rules - and managed to break the ones he had. A small-time thief with three felony convictions, he finds himself behind bars for life when overzealous cops ufairly book him for a fourth. In Alabama, three strikes and you're out.

Convict: at first Billy Ray is paralyzed by his fate. But then he slowly becomes a model prisoner, taking classes and finding God. All the while, he's planning an improbable escape....

Con Man: What follows next is sweet freedom. a new identity. And a daring strategy to seek vengeance on the corrupt system that almost stole his life...

Based on the bizarre events surrounding the disappearance of the author's own son,this unforgettale page-turner will take you on a wild ride you won't soon forget... book cover
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Wings of the Storm

J.H. Fletcher

Cal Jessop returns to his home on the South Australian coast still blaming himself for what happened one fateful evening in Paris. Once he was regarded as one of Australia's most promising young artists. Now, the future is bleak; his work, like his life, devastated by guilt.

Kathryn Fanning's future seems secure. Everyone, Kathryn included, expects her to marry Charles Chivers, the local doctor.

Unexpectedly, Wagner intervenes. When Cal and Kathryn meet at a performance of Rheingold, their futures are changed irrevocably.

Kathryn brings renewed hope and purpose into Cal's life. He journeys into the summer heat of the outback seeking emptiness and light for a new series of paintings.

Uncertain of their feelings for each other, the desert will test them both in very different ways.
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Billy

Pamela Stephenson

If anyone knows Billy connolly better than himself, it's his wife, Pamela Stephenson. In this extraordinary book, she combines the very personal with a frank objectivity that makes for a compellingly moving - yet hugely entertaining - biography. This is the real Billy Connolly. - book cover
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Chocolate for a Woman's Soul

Kay Allen Baugh

Treat yourself to 77 true stories that celebrate life and capture the essence of what it means to be a woman. Like chocolate, these stories soothe, satisfy, and delight - better yet, they're good for you! Written by and for women, here are heartfielt insights on commitment, compassion, work, marriage, friendship, motherhood, love, courage, spirituality, passion, and dozens of other topics. Contributors share their most personal experiences - funny, poignant, powerful, and uplifting - as they inspire you to jump-start your own life, discover your talents and vocations, overcome old fears, find love, and let your dreams take flight. Like a box of chocolates, this book can be enjoyed in one sitting, or you can pick out treats at random and savor them one at a time. Whether you want a good laugh or need a good cry, the perfect "chocolate story" is right here, waiting for you. - book cover.
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The Liver Cleansing Diet

Sandra Cabot

This outlines an 8-week plan to get you and your liver into shape. It includes a generous selection of tasty recipes to help you get on to a healthy eating plan.
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Funny, Funny, Funny

Denys parsons

A superb collection of amusing, amazing, confusing and convulsing misprints, howlers and oddities. On the left-hand pages are the FUNNY HA HA items and on the right-hand pages the FUNNY PECULIAR pieces. Together they provide hours of hilarity and mirth. - book cover.
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Unlonely Planet

Billy Curry

Twenty-eight-year-old Billy Curry has had enough of the Melbourne rat race. Aproaching the critical stages of his professional career, his inner curiosity of travel begins to take over. He has not seen much of the world and decides to change his four-week annual leave holiday to an around-the-world adventure. He starts with kayaking and trekking through the Himalayas then later gains a unexpected role in a Bollywood film in Bombay.

The much-anticipated European summer finally arrives and Billy is a guest on a royal prince's super yacht, runs with the bulls in Spain, and narrowly escapes the Mob in Italy. Next stop to Sweden to experience the beauty of Scandinavia, the States to sample the fraternity lifestyle, and somehow gets stabbed with a pizza cutter wielded by a Brazilian prostitute in Rio. The nine-month experience is filled with many mishaps, adventures, tragedies, romances and fun-filled episodes.
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The Private Patient

P.D.James

When the notorious investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn booked into Mr. Chandler-Powell's private clinic in Dorset for the removal of a disfiguring and long-standing facial scar, she had every prospect of a successful operation by a distinguished surgeon, a week's peaceful convalescence in one of Dorset's most beautiful manor houses and the beginning of a new life. she was never to leave Cheverell Manor alive. Dalgliesh and his team, called in to investigate the mrder, and later a second death, are confronted with problems even more complicated than the question of innocence or guilt. -- book jacket
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A Death in Tuscany

Michele Giuttari

In the picturesque Tuscan hill town of Scandicci, the body of a girl is discovered. Scantily dressed with no purse or other possessions, she is lying by the edge of the woods. The local police investigate the case - but after a week they still haven't even identified her, let alone got to the bottom of how she died.

Frustrated by the lack of progress, Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara, head of Florence's elite Squadra Mobile, decides to step in. Because toxins were discovered in the girl's body many assumed that she dued if a self-inflicted drugs overdose. But Ferrara quickly realises the truth is darker than that: he believes the girl was murdered.

And when he delves deeper, there are many aspects to the case that convince Ferrara that the girl's death is part of a sinister conspiracy - a conspiracy that has its roots in the very foundations of Tuscan society.

A cleverly plotted, atmospheric mystery, A Death in Tuscany has been a bestseller in Italy and has been translated into nine languages. Written by a former Florence police chief Michele Giuttari, it gives a unique insight into life and police work in Tuscany. -- book jacket.
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The Girl of His Dreams

Donna Leon

One rainy morning Commissario Brunetti and Ispettore Vianello respond to a 911 call reporting a body floating near some steps on the Grand Canal. Reaching down to pull it out, Brunetti's wrist is caught by the silkiness of golden hair, and he sees a small foot - together he and Vianello lift a dead girl from the water.

But, inconceivably, no one has reported a missing child, nor the theft of the gold jewellery that she carries. So Brunetti is drawn into a search not only for the cause of her death but also for her identity, her family, and for the secrets that people will keep in order to protect their children - be they innocent or guilty.

The investigation takes Brunetti from the canals and palazzos of Venice to a Gypsy encampment on the mainland, through quicksands of connections and relationships both known and concealed, as he struggles with institutional prejudice and entrenched criminality to try to unravel the fate of the dead child. - book cover
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The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte

Laura Joh Rowland

"Upon learning that she has been falsely accused of breaching her contract, the normally mild-mannered Charlotte Bronte, the author of Jane Eyre, sets off for London to clear her name. But when she unintentionally witnesses a murder, Charlotte finds herself embroiled in a dangerous chain of events. With the clandestine aid of the other Bronte sisters, Emily and Anne, and of the suspiciously well-informed but irrestibly attractive brother of the victim, Charlotte works to unravel a deadly web of intrigue that threatens not only her own safety but the very fabric of the British Empire. Will Charlotte be able to stop a devious villain whose schemes endanger her life, her family, and her country?"
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Playing with Cobras

Craig Thomas

It was to be a small and simple task, a matter of two or three days – something Patrick Hyde could do by stopping over in Delhi on his way back to Australia. All he had to do was to make certain that Philip Cass, to whom he owed his life, really had murdered the film-star wife of an Indian Cabinet Minister. Once the truth was established, Cass could be conveniently forgotten by British Intelligence and the government.

But Cass protests his innocence, and claims he was framed. The dead woman’s husband is a drug-smuggler. Hyde’s problem is that he believes Cass… and nothing is simple any longer. When the drug-smuggler becomes Prime Minister and Cass conveniently disappears, Hyde finds himself involved – unofficially – in the most dangerous game of his long career. He must play with men as deadly as cobras for the highest stakes – the future of India itself. – book cover.
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Mightier than the Sword

Tom Holt

Who’s afraid of Beowulf? – Well, not Hrolf Earthstar, for a start. The last Norse king of Caithness, Hrolf and his twelve champions are woken from a centuries-long sleep when archaeologist Hildy Frederiksen finds their grave mound. And despite the time-delay, Hrolf decides to carry on his ancient war against the Sorcerer-King….My Hero –Writing novels? Piece of cake, Jane thinks. Until hers starts writing back. At which point, she really should stop. And she certainly shouldn’t go into the book herself. After all, that’s what heroes are for. Unfortunately, the world of fiction is a far more complicated place than Jane ever imagined. And she’s about to land her hero right in it. – book cover.
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For Two Nights Only

Tom Holt

Overtime – One moment Guy is flying a bullet-riddled plane over Caen in 1943, the next he’s somewhere in the Middle Ages in the company of one John De Nesle. Unsurprisingly, Guy’s first thought is to get off home sharpish. But then he sees John’s sister Isoud, and finds himself agreeing to help John in his knightly quest to find Richard Coeur de Lion… ; Trailblazers – Fifteen hundred years have passed and the Holy Grail is still missing. The knights have all dumped the Quest for the easier job of pizza delivery, so someone must be found to take up the search and thwart the sinister plans of the lost kingdom of Atlantis” financial services industry. That someone is Boamund of Northgales (or snotty to his friends). – book cover.
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Books Wanted

As there has been a run on the Recycling Depot over the past couple of weeks the stock is now somewhat depleted.

I have updated the blog so that all the items currently available are listed here and you can see how low our stocks are so please have a look around your collections at home to see if you can locate and bring us in some new titles to share around.

The House of the Spirits

Isabel Allende

"Spanning four generations, Isabel Allende's magnificent family saga is populated by a memorable, often eccentric cast of characters. Together, men and woemn, spirits, the forces of nature, and of history converge in an unforgettable, wholly absorbing and brilliantly realised novel which is as richly entertaining as it is a masterpiece of modern literature." -- book cover.
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The Chancellor Manuscript

Robert Ludlum

"A terrific thriller, Ludlum in top form. This is back in the days when his intricate plots made sense and fit like a glove. He also kept the page count down in this one, never padding the book, and never veering into unnecessary sidetracks (like ICARUS AGENDA's 100+ page prologue!)
I can't see a thriller fan not loving this book, nor failing to appreciate the brilliant device Ludlum uses to get the action going. If you've never read Ludlum, this is a great place to start." - review from "A Customer" on Amazon.com
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Wickedness

Mary Midgley

In this book Mary Midgley looks into the darkness of the human soul. "She sets out to delineate, not so much the nature of wickedness as its actual sources. Midgley's analysis proves that the capacity for real wickedness in an inevitable part of human nature. This is not, however, a blanket acceptance of evil. She provides us with a framework that accepts its existence yet offers humankind the possibility of rejecting this part of our nature. Out of this dark journey she returns with an offering to us: an understanding of human nature that enhances our very humanity. To read Wickedness is to understand Mary Midgley's reputation as one of the world's greatest moral philosphers." -- book cover
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Roots of Evil

Sarah Rayne

"Laura Trent is used to having the legend of her glamourous, disreputable grandmamma disinterred from time to time - the infamous Lucretia von Wolff, whose lovers were legion, whose scandals were numerous, whose life ended abruptly in a bizarre double murder and suicide at the Ashwood Film Studios in 1952. Lucy rather enjoys Lucretia's legend - although most of the family would prefer it to be quietly forgotten.

But when a body is found in the now-derelict studios, brutalised in a macabre echo of the 50-year-old case, disturbing facts about the past begin to emerge... Facts which point to the eerie legend of the child known simply as Alraune. The child named after Lucretia's most famous film. The child who may nvere have existed at all.

In the ensuing murder investigations, Lucy is to discover the truth about her family's dark and often poignant history - a history which spans the glittering concert halls of 1920's Vienna to the bleak environs of wartime Auschwitz.

And at the heart of it all lies the shocking truth about the mysterious child called Allraune." - - book cover.
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A Foreign affair

Valerie Barnes

"Trapped in the austerity of post-war London, 20-year-old Valerie Barnes yearned for the good times promised by the wartime songs. Then two chance meetings catapulted her into a high-flying career at the newly-formed United Nations in Geneva and the arms of a glamorous Frenchman...

Joining an elite breed of independent women who travelled the world in the 1950s and 1960s, Valerie lived a jet-setting life as an intepreter, working in exotic locales and rubbing shoulders with prime ministers and presidents. At the same time she was juggling a Swiss chalet home, three children and a love-rat of a husbnd back in Geneva. But whatever Valerie did, she threw herself into it with zest. From dancing Flamenco to being kidnapped in Cairo, being wooed by an African president or falling for a passionate Pole, Valerie's gift for storytelling makes A Foreign Affair a lively, funny, utterly delightful memoir." - book cover
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It don't mean a thing [audiorecording]

X-collective

X-collective is a group of between 13 and 15 musicians that incorporates classical music, jazz and humour with a unique flair for the slightly crazy, slightly and enormously fun.

For their first CD they drew upon their jazz repertoire - with a few surprises. The perform mainly a full "Cabaret" style show.

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The vows of silence

Susan Hill

Gunmen are terrorising young women in the cathedral town of Lafferton.. What – if – anything – links the apparently random murders? Is the marksman with a rifle the same person as the killer with a handgun?

Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Serrailler falls back on well-tried police methods such as questioning neighbours and house-to-house searches. Simon has been promoted and is now with the Serious Incident flying Taskforce, but he is still at heart a loner and these chilly murders are on his home territory. He tries to stay one step ahead of the killer, to prevent each new outrage. And he tries to think himself into the gunman’s head…

Meanwhile, his sister, Cat, had returned with her husband and children from Australia, and Simon is once again sucked into family life at her welcoming farmhouse. But tragedy strikes, and the warmth and security of home are cruelly tested. - - book cover
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Stones from the river

Ursula Hegi

Trudi Montag is a Zwerg – a dwarf – short, undesirable, different, the voice of anyone who has ever tried to fit in. Eventually she learns that being different is a secret that all humans share – from her mother who flees into madness, to her friend Georg whose parents pretend he’s a girl, to the Jews Trudi harbors in her cellar.

Ursual Hegi brings us a timeless and unforgettable story in Trudi and a small town, weaving together a profound tapestry of emotional power, humanity, and truth. – book cover
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Pompeii

Robert Harris

All along the coast, the Roman Empire’s richest citizens are relaxing their luxurious villas. The world’s largest navy lies peacefully at anchor in Misenum. The tourists are spending their money in the seaside resorts of Baiae, Herculaneum and Pompeii.

Only one man is worried. The engineer Marius Attilius Primus has just taken charge of the Aqua Augusta, the enormous aqueduct which brings fresh water to a quarter of a million people in nine towns around the Bay. Springs are failing for the first time in generations. His predecessor has disappeared. And now there is a crisis on the Augusta’s sixty-mile main line – somewhere to the north of Pompeii, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius.

Attilius – decent, practical, incorruptible – promises Pliny, the famous scholar who commands the navy, that he can repair the aqueduct before the reservoir runs dry. But as he heads out towards Vesuvius he is about to discover there are forces which even the worls; only superpower cannot control. – book cover
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Maverick in Madagascar

Mark Eveleigh

Intrigued by tales of the Vazimba people – a mysterious tribe of white pygmies according to some accounts; an invisible telepathic people according to others – Mark Eveleigh travels to the ancient ‘Isle of the Moon”. He treks along Madagascar’s north-west coast, accompanied first by his pack bull Jobi and then by an intrepid Malagasy guide, Eloi, who prudently dons a bullet-prooof vest for the trip. Before he comes to the end of his quest, and hears the story of the last of the Vazimba at the feet of an old village headman, he explores the difference between myth and reality in a land that has spawned sacred crocodiles, schizophrenic tyrant queens, blood-guzzling spirit animals and people-eating plants. Mark Eveligh exuberantly captures the spirit of Madagascar in this modern-day adventure. - book cover
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Justice Hall

Laurie R. King

Only hours after Holmes and Russell return from solving one murky riddle on the moor, another knocks on their front door … literally. It’s a mystery that begins during the Great War, when Gabriel Hughenfort died amidst scandalous rumors that have haunted the family ever since. But it’s not until Holmes and Russell arrive at Justice Hall, a home of unearthly perfection set in a garden modelled on Paradise, that they fully understand the riony echoed in the family motto, Justicia fortudo mea est: “Righteousness is my strength” -- book cover
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Death of a baritone

Karen Sturges

At the exclusive Long Island opera colony of singing legend Anna Varovna, residents are rehearsing their summer production of Cosi fan tutte. But Phoebe quickly sees that relations offstage are less than cozy, and Mozaart’s honeyed melodies soon give way to high-decibel melodrama. Then handsome baritone Frank Palermo is found dead of an allergy to the penicillin pill covertly planted among his vitamins – and Anna urges Phoebe to make some discreet inquiries. Could Frank’s recent joint of the Children of Truth cult have somehow earned him an early grave? And why did Frank, clutching his opera score as he died, scratch an X on the name “Amadeus”? Before Phoebe can make sense of it all, a fatal cacophony of love, lust, genius, and guilt reveals itself – and the tempo accelerates as death strikes again. – book cover.
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Winer Solstice

by Rosamunde Pilcher

When she leaves London for the pretty Hampshire village that she describes as "my geriatric bolt-hole"' Elfrida Phipps quickly feels at home. She has a tiny cottage, her faithful dog Horace and the friendship of the neighbouring Blundells - particularly Oscar - to ensure that her days include companionship as well as independence.

But unforeseen tragedy upsets Elfida's tranquillity. she takes refuge in a rambling house in Scotland, which becomes a magnet for various waifs and strays. It sounds a recipe for disaster. But somehow the group becomes greater that the sum of its ill-assorted parts and Elfida finds herself at the centre of a very magical Christmas. - book cover.
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The Fencing Master

by Arturo Perez-Reverte.

On the eve of Spain's september Revolution of 1868, while the regal Isabella consorts with her household cavalry and rumours and plots abound, Jaime Astarloa, master of the ancient art of fencing, conducts his life above such vulgarities. He prefers to concentrate on his modest but dignified and orderly existence as fencing teacher to the noblemen of Madrid and their sons. However Don Jaime finds his attnetion diverted by young Adela de Otero, who persuades him to take her on a a pupil. After one bout that leaves no question of her talent and skill, the master falls in love with his pupil. Erotic passion and political intrigue threaten to distract him from his quest for the perfect sword thrust, a survivor of a more gallant age, he does not fully comprehend. But if Don Jaime proves naive, her is no less resolute. It takes time for him to understand, but when he does, will he have the strength left for a duel which can only be to the death? - book cover.
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The secret history

Donna Tartt

"A scholarship student at an exclusive New England college, Richard unexpectedly finds kindred spirits in the the charismatic students of his ancient Greek class, children of privilege immersed in beauty and culture. But his new friends have a horrific secret.

When blackmail and violence threaten to blow their magic circle apart, Richard is drawn into a heart of darkness from which he may never return." -- book cover.
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Stories for Summer

This collection of short stories contains 14 great stories from the pens of F. Scott Fitzgerald, D.H. Lawrenec, Henry James, Sir Aruthor Conan Doyle, Katherine Mansfield and Oscar Wilde.

It includes such great stories as The Diamond as big as the Ritz (Fitzgerald), The garden path (Mansfield) and The model millionaire (Wilde)
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Larkin about Ireland

John Larkin

John Larkin travels to Ireland in search of his spiritual home, the one his father had left behind in the fifties. Instead he finds a nation undergoing tremendous change: from poor to rich, religious to secular, leprechauns to boy bands. Ireland is on the move, cutting deals, talking bollocks on mobile phones.

It's a hilarious and often poignant journey up Croagh Patrick, the holiest of holy mountains, around The Ring of Kerry, to Knock, home to the tackiest sourvenir shops in the world (and an apparition of The Blessed Virgin), and into pubs where the locals still end their days in a lively fall off a bar stool. -- book cover.

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Nice Girls Finish Last

Sparkle Hayter

At 37, with one failed marriage and several lousy dates behind her, Robin Hudson is still working on a new attitude - a positive mental attitude! Sure she's still toiling away in the tabloidesque special reports unit at All News Network for her loathsome bodd, Jerry Spurdle, but amidst the trumours of cutbacks she thinks a good attitude might improve her karma. Besides, she's added a new weapon to her personal defence system - a hot-glue gun with two settings, steam and spray - wo what could go wrong?

Then her gynaecologist is murdered and Jerry sends Robin to investigate a link with the S&M sex-club underworld. In the meantime, someone is taking potshots at ANN's male talent. Are the shootings connected to the murder of the doctor? To Robin? Her PMA hanging by a thread, Robin must solve the mystery - or she may never have another date. -- book cover.

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