With the Gatherers no longer needed by the City and suffering from a mysterious illness, Cruge, their new chieftain, leads his people in a hazardous march through Sorg and the unknown lands beyond, in search of a cure at New Edina. Along the way they are joined by Miss Millicent and Chas, the resourceful Mister Pont and the tiny but lethal Femurs. Together the group must face ferocious renegade attacks — and unwelcome love-struck suitors — as they fight for their place in this dangerous la...

On his way back from the crusades, one of England's most famous and romantic medieval kings was ship-wrecked and stranded near Venice. Trying to make his way home in disguise, he was arrested and imprisoned and effectively disappeared. He didn't return home for another fifteen months, and at enormous cost - a quarter of the entire wealth of England was paid to win his release.The extraordinary events surrounding Richard the Lionheart's disappearance provides the background to some ...

After the final battle for the City, the great warrior Hector, former Chieftain of the Gatherers, along with Pont the Merchant, embarks on a voyage of adventure to the far south of the Great Sea. And to record their escapades in his grubby, food and wine stained journal, here again is the repellent Urgus. Little escapes his caustic eye; whether in desperate fights with outlandish renegades or a disturbing encounter with a lost tribe, whose exquisite manners conceal an unsavoury inclination...

How did that cat get so helpful - and so human?The princess left outside one snowy night who feels she can't ever come inside again...The gipsy boy waiting to hear his fate as the will of his guardian is read to his unpleasant relatives...The author explains that he believes in fairies, and says a little bit about why in a final essay. These authentic but contemporary folk tales don’t quite prove it – they go beyond that question to show what a little magic does to ...

The word 'tickbox' emerged recently as a cynical angle on official or corporate incompetence. They had 'ticked the box' - people said - but failed to act. It is increasingly used to describe this gap between official spin and reality.Yet, says David Boyle in this powerful expose of tickbox culture, that is just the tip of a vast tickbox iceberg. The only people who remain blind to this gap are those rich or powerful enough to run the world, and behind Tickbox lies an insidious phil...

It is the summer of 1990. The first Gulf War looms, the satanic abuse panic rages, and one strange market town, unchanged for decades, suddenly and disastrously runs out of money. The crisis brings together the mayor and the man he wronged four decades before. This is a haunting tale of passing time, and a Pied Piper story for our own era, of the Blitz, the explosion of money, of clone towns, the Wright Brothers and growing up – and local currencies. And above it all, stands the ancient la...

Sometimes it takes an outsider to recognize what is worth saving.A city is in decay, and peril. In desperation its aristocratic leader and his troubled daughter turn to the Gatherers, the tax collectors, to defend them. Despised by the citizens they serve, the tough Gatherers, under Hector, their brooding, semi-civilized chieftain, fight heroically to save a culture in which they have little part. And midst it all there is Urgus the Scribe, recording the violence and gallantry abou...

Abandoned in the Dark is a collection of unnerving stories which are grounded in reality, journeys that promise to keep you awake at night and get your heart pound- ing. "Abandoned in the Dark" and "Close Call," among other similar stories collected here, delve into our universal feeling of dread and will ruthlessly steal your breath away. "Behind the Curtain," a uniquely unsettling sexual tale ridden with disturbing undertones and unforgettable imagery, is certain to haunt parents in part...

GET SH!T DONE was written for the leader who ends every week exhausted but somehow still feels behind. The one who's involved in everything, deciding everything, fixing everything - and watching the business move slower because of it, not faster. That's not a talent problem. That's a leadership problem.David Boyle has spent decades in business, automotive, management, and leadership, and what he's seen over and over is the same pattern: as companies grow, leaders get buried. The wo...

Economics sometimes seems to be stacked against social, environmental and individual well-being. But it doesn't have to be like this. A new approach to economics - deriving as much from Ruskin and Schumacher as from Keynes or Smith - has begun to emerge. Skeptical about money as a measure of success, this new economics turns our assumptions about wealth and poverty upside down. It shows us that real wealth can be measured by increased well-being and environmental sustainability rather than...

A Brexit thriller where Adrian Matison, junior Treasury mandarin, follows the clues left by his friend, murdered on the Pilgrim's Way and discovers a forgotten government agency, founded in Henry VIII's time, is behind the efforts to leave Europe.

The background to the strange collapse of rail services in Southern England and what it means for other services.