Monday, May 25, 2009

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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Monday, May 18, 2009

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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Monday, May 11, 2009

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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Tuesday, May 5, 2009

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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