The Colliers are a pretty normal family: mum, dad, two kids, two dogs and two cats ... Oh, and a few wallabies, two lemurs, several owls, Ringo the bad-tempered crane and two cheeky, hand-reared meerkats named Wren and Rascal.THE MEERKATS OF SUMMER FARM is the remarkable story of a year at Axe Valley Bird and Animal Park, following the birth of the adorable young kits. In her charming and often hilarious memoir, Jayne Collier describes how these two playful and ever-curious creature...

An old loner and his misfit dog spend a year on the road in this acclaimed Irish novel of "singing prose [and] two unlikely Beckettian wanderers" ( The Guardian, UK).It is springtime, and an isolated man shunned by his village has forged a connection with the one-eyed dog he's taken into his tightly shuttered life. But as their friendship grows, their small seaside community becomes suspicious. And when an accident is misconstrued as menace, this pair of o...

Voted the UK’s Favourite Nature BookThe memoir that inspired Chris Packham's BBC documentary, Asperger’s and MeEvery minute was magical, every single thing it did was fascinating and everything it didn't do was equally wondrous, and to be sat there, with a Kestrel, a real live Kestrel, my own real live Kestrel on my wrist! I felt like I'd climbed through a hole in heaven's fence.An introverted, unu...

**From the Booker Prize-winning and Women's Prize-shortlisted author of The Silence of the GirlsThe final novel in Pat Barker's acclaimed 'Life Class' trilogy - an unforgettable story of art and war, from one of our greatest writers on war and the human heart'Bold, hard-hitting, unforgettable, with luminous and unsparing insight' Independent on Sunday'Barker's command of detail and gift for metaphor are as sharp as ever... Noonday is in the first r...

Edith Stoker’s father is building a wall in their backyard. A very, very high wall—a brick bulwark in his obsessive war against their hated neighbour Edward Black.It is 1969, and far away, preparations are being made for man to walk upon the moon. Meanwhile, in the Stokers’ shabby home in the East Midlands, Edith remains a virtual prisoner, with occasional visits from her grotesque and demanding Aunt Vivian serving as the only break in the routine.But when shy, sheltered Ed...

"Vastra and Strax and Jenny? Oh no, we don't need to bother them. Trust me."Marlowe Hapworth is found dead in his locked study, killed by an unknown assailant. This is a case for the Great Detective, Madame Vastra.Rick Bellamy, bare-knuckle boxer, has the life drawn out of him by a figure dressed as an undertaker. This angers Strax the Sontaran.The Carnival of Curiosities, a collection of bizarre and fascinating sideshows and performers. This is where Jenny...

Well-regarded British author never-before-published in USSales figures for previous three books (3500, 5000, 7500 respectively) are combined UK/Canadian salesStories with striking universal settings—all seem to exist in primitive no-man's-land (i.e. not defined by country)Author has also worked in prisons and drug rehab facilitiesWork has attractive sensibility: combines the whimsy and visual sensuousness of someone like Mar...

Something different! Short stories that surprise, pique and intrigue.This companion volume to Me-Time Tales: tea breaks for mature women and curious men-- now allows the men to have their say...only not completely without interruption from mature women.A collection of unusual short stories that delve into the minds of a variety of curious men: hooked on meteorites, tractor parts, foreign parts, own parts— stories that may be sober, sad, bizarre or cunningly funny. ...

A thought-provoking collection of contemporary short stories from the winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award 2013. Chris Beckett's thought-provoking and wide-ranging collection of contemporary short stories is a joy to read, rich in detail and texture. From stories about first love, to a man who discovers a labyrinth beneath his house, to an angel left alone at the end of the universe, Beckett displays both incredible range and extraordinary subtlety as a writer. Every story is a world unto ...

A woman finds her everyday life engulfed by vivid fantasies, a businessman explores new ways to deal with his rage, a young woman is stuck on a boat with a bunch of delinquents, a diary is discovered, a commune goes wrong …In this captivating collection of short fiction, award-winning novelist Amanda Lohrey explores the dilemmas of modern life. Her characters find themselves caught between body and spirit, memory and desire, ambition and mortality – and they must transform themselv...

Take three strangers who all want something more. The Polish shift worker struggling to get a foothold in the new country; a fisherman who needs to make good on a promise to his best friend; and the middle man, determined to make up for lost time and take a little of what he deserves. When a chance comes along, each man must weigh the risk - and then keep his nerve as events take on their own unstoppable momentum. Tightly plotted and sharply observed, this is a gripping story of desperatio...

'Reading it on the train I had to fight not to sob in public . . . Langdale is a wonderful writer' (Daily Mail on Away from You) Perfect for readers of Adele Parks and Maggie O'Farrell.Minnie and her sister Clara, spinsters both, live in a dilapidated country house in the middle of a housing estate, built when their father sold off the family's land. Now in their seventies, their days follow a well-established routine: long gone a...