Sleeper

Rainaldi was a violin-maker and when he was discovered slumped over his workbench, murdered with one of his own chisels, both the police and his friends are at a loss to discover a motive. Then it comes to light that Rainaldi had believed he was on the track of an infamous Stradivari - twin to the one housed in the Asmolean Museum and subject to two hundred years of myth and rumour. With nothing else to go on his two close friends pick up the search from where he left off, and plunge headlong into a world where great musical instruments change hands for millions, where forgery is an art form and where murder is often a dealer's chosen method of negotiation.

Literature & Fiction

Adam, Paul

Contemporary

Little Brown Hardbacks (a & C)

Max Skinner is a man at the heart of London's financial universe until his employers embark on a little asset-stripping of their own. Himself. Amid the grey London drizzle, there is one potential ray of sunshine: Max's Uncle Harry has left him his estate in his will - an eighteenth-century chateau and vineyard an hour's drive from Avignon. Out of a job, and encouraged by his friend Charlie about the money in modern wine, he heads for France. What Max discovers is a beautiful house, wonderful weather and a bustling village. The downside is the quality of the wine in his vineyard, but when Max suggests calling in an expert, Roussel, a former employee of his uncle, is resistant. Help is at hand, however, when a beautiful blonde Californian arrives unexpectedly at the chateau. Peter Mayle's delightful novel will enchant the audiences who bought A YEAR IN PROVENCE and TOUJOURS PROVENCE in their millions.

A Good Year

PETER MAYLE

Jimmy Greaves is one of the most well-known footballers to grace the English game, a goalscorer of legendary prowess. His characteristically humorous autobiography journeys from Jimmy's childhood in the East End, through his early career in the Chelsea youth team to being one of the great stars of 1960s football at Spurs, AC Milan and as an outstanding England forward. Jimmy's record as a striker is extraordinary - he was the leading goalscorer in the First Division - now Premiership - for six seasons and during his playing career was never out of the top five. There are darker aspects too - the bitter disappointment of failing to make the World Cup-winning team of 1966, and the battle against the alcoholism that followed his retirement from the game. This book is both Jimmy's story and the story of football in the golden era of the 1950s and 60s, before money changed the game. It is populated by the great players who Jimmy played with and against, and animated by anecdotes about the game. It is an account of how football was then and how it has changed.

Greavsie

GREAVES, Jimmy

In August 1930, on a boat trip from Bombay to England, the young Indian scientist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar calculated that certain stars could end their lives by collapsing indefinitely to a point -- to nowhere. This idea brought Chandra into conflict with Sir Arthur Eddington, the grand old man of British astrophysics, who publicly ridiculed the idea. EMPIRE OF THE STARS will tease out the major implications of this infamous event, setting it against the backdrop of the turbulent growth of astrophysics and providing a unique window on our unfolding view of the cosmos. In its clash of personalities, epochs and cultures, the story reveals the deep-seated psychological and philosophical prejudices at work in the acceptance and rejection of new scientific ideas. Beautifully written, artfully constructed, EMPIRE OF THE STARS is a serious book but one which also deals with classic themes -- a lone man struggling against the establishment, intellectual rivalry and the highs and lows of great individuals set against the broader sweep of history.

Empire of the Stars : Friendship, Obsession and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes

Science & Math

ARTHUR I. MILLER

Astronomy & Space Science

Imagine your worst fear. A fear that eats away at you - fear of death, of illness, of needles, of fire. Even of feelings. The people who live in Roxton know what it's like to live like that. But they have no choice. Emma Tate had lived with her fear of losing everything for more than two years. Her job is in jeopardy, her parents have been killed in a car crash, her life is collapsing around her. She, her husband and two friends attempt to seek peace in a luxury house in the countryside close to Roxton for two weeks. But the village of Roxton LIKES fear - it has a force within it which needs fear to sustain it and help it grow. And Emma and her companions cannot avoid becoming fearful...For Emma and the others there will be no waking from THIS nightmare...

Twisted Souls

SHAUN HUTSON

The Parisian Affair

JUDITH GOULD

During the Second World War aeronautical technology gathered rapid pace. By 1945, bombers had not only greatly increased in engine power and range, but the bombs which they carried rose from 250lbs to 10 tons; the navigator's pencil and rubber of 1939 had been supplemented by infinitely more sophisticated electronic aids. Yet the success or failure of each and every bomber still depended entirely on the efficiency of every member of the crew at his individual position, the interaction and co-operation of all crew members as a body. One member of 617 squadron graphically explained that 'every time we went out, it was seven men against the Reich'. Drawing on letters, journals and diaries, John Sweetman examines the lives the bomber crews lived, from the highs and lows of their missions to the complexities of their friendships and the impact their place in the war had on the families and loved ones they left behind. Part collective biography, part military history, part social history: this will remain the definitive account of the bomber crews of the Second World War for years to come.

Bomber Crew : Taking on the Reich

History

John Sweetman

Military

DEGAS BY HIMSELF is a milestone in published approaches to the work of this remarkable figure. No other book has illustrated so many of Degas' works in colour, including his best-known paintings and sketches, as well as many works that will be unfamiliar to most people. The book draws on a range of sources - the artist's own notebooks and letters, as well as anecdotes and memoirs from his intimate circle - to trace a vivid portrait of Degas and reveal intimate aspects of his life and personality. His notebooks and letters show him as a forceful and expressive writer; there are letters to friends and customers, urgent messages to exhibitors at the Impressionist exhibition and, finally, a number of short and sad letters from his last years. Degas was also known as a wit and conversationalist, provoking a number of his friends to write down his words for posterity. For the first time, reminiscences and reported remarks have been brought together, conjuring up an unexpected picture of the artist as a man of wisdom and good humour.

Degas by Himself Handbook

Kendall, Richard

Arts & Photography

THE OLIVE FARM and THE OLIVE SEASON are television actress Carol Drinkwater's lyrical accounts of a new life in France; about her house Appassionata and the trials and tribulations of acquiring an olive farm, restoring it, farming the olives, overcoming the heartaches of taking on a 'new' French family and understanding slowly the workings and lifestyle of a vivacious Provencal community. THE OLIVE FARM and THE OLIVE SEASON open the door on a bustling Mediterranean world using Carol Drinkwater's old abandoned villa as the gateway to it. The books explore the local landscape, the various al fresco jazz festivals, the colourful carnival in Nice, the local cuisine, meals around an oval wooden table, the cycle of olive farming and pressing, local wines, Carol's bizarre friendship with a toothless Arab gardener, hours whiled away in magnificent hammock lugged all the way from northern Brazil because its colours were an exact match for the slatted wooden shutters, and Picasso's museum at Antibes.

A Celebration of Olives

Drinkwater C

Jeremy Marsh, a science journalist and debunker from New York, has set his sights on finding the real reasons behind the mysterious lights that appear in an ancient southern cemetery, and he heads to the tiny town of Boone Creek, North Carolina, in search of the truth. Sceptical by nature, he comes face to face with Lexie Darnell, the town's librarian, and as he slowly finds the answers he's looking for, he gradually begins to understand that science can only go so far when it comes to unravelling the mysteries of the human heart. Part love story, part ghost story, TRUE BELIEVER makes us believe in the impossible, trust in fate, and the undeniable power of love...

True Believer

SPARKS, NICHOLAS

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