Shirakawa-gō, Japan, 1783.Fourteen-year-old Chiyo has spent her life beneath the steep thatched roofs of an isolated mountain village, where survival depends upon family, duty and the ancient bonds between neighbours. Winters are merciless, food is precious, and every household understands that no one survives alone.Then Chiyo begins to notice the ladybirds.The villagers call them tentōmushi - insects of Heaven's path. With their brilliant red shells and seven black...

Some people buy immortality. Some people have to die for it.Detective Mark Mathews has a problem: people are disappearing.There are no bodies. No ransom demands. No obvious connection between the missing. Just a growing stack of cases that refuse to make sense.Then the trail leads to Elysian Systems.Behind its immaculate public image, Elysian is developing something extraordinary: the Continuity Engine, a technology promising the wealthy and dying what human...

What does the world look like when you experience it four paws first?Dog doesn't know he is a blond cockapoo. He doesn't understand why Humans give everything names, why chocolate is forbidden despite smelling magnificent, or why a perfectly good piece of cheese sometimes contains a disgusting chalky pill.He does know the important things.Mum is warm. Cheese is ten out of ten. Squirrels cheat. Cats are suspicious. Hedgehogs require careful consideration. Outdoor ins...

Sixteen years after the world ended, survival is no longer something Alicen is learning. It is something she has become very good at.The infected still roam the ruins. Stranger things have emerged from the changed world. Food is scarce, clean water can mean the difference between life and death, and other survivors can be more dangerous than anything recorded in the Field Guide.Now older and alone, Alicen has made a life for herself at Land's End. She fishes, sets traps, sc...

A mother will do anything for her son. Jan Vale just happens to be rather good at asking questions.When Jan Vale receives an urgent call from her son Daniel, she leaves Penraven behind and travels with Moss to the Kent coast. Daniel has discovered the body of a woman he has been seeing-and the police have questions.The woman Daniel knew as Sophie was not who she claimed to be.As suspicion begins to settle around her son, Jan does what she has always done best: watch...

In Penraven, everybody knows everybody.Jan Vale knows what they borrow.At sixty-two, widowed librarian Jan Vale has settled into the familiar rhythms of life in Penraven, a picturesque Cornish town by the sea.She knows the regulars, the holidaymakers and the children who would rather be anywhere than staring at another screen. She knows which borrowers mistreat their books, which parents treat the children's library as free childcare, and which locals can turn a fiv...

UK Ticket Office and Gateline: Operations, Systems and Passenger Service is a comprehensive practical guide to one of the most visible-and often most complex-areas of railway station operation.Written by Robert Porter as part of The Practical Safety Series, the book takes the reader beyond the simple act of selling or checking a ticket. It explores the interconnected commercial, operational, technical, safety and passenger-service responsibilities that sit behind the ticket-office ...

Move beyond local improvement and learn to lead complex, cross-functional change with evidence, governance and discipline.Lean Six Sigma Black Belt: Leading Complex, Data-Driven Projects is a practical guide for experienced improvement practitioners, operational leaders and managers who are ready to tackle problems that cross departmental, organisational and system boundaries.Building on the earlier books in The Lean Six Sigma Belt Series, Robert Porter takes the reader bey...

Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt: Governing Programmes and Developing Practitioners takes Lean Six Sigma beyond individual improvement projects and into the leadership, governance and capability required to make improvement work across an organisation.Written for experienced practitioners, operational leaders and those progressing towards Master Black Belt-level responsibility, Robert Porter connects analytical discipline with the realities of leading complex, cross-functional chan...

Elemental Habits is a captivating guide that unveils the remarkable power of small, intentional actions to create significant change in your life. Packed with inspiring stories, practical strategies, and expert insights, this book will empower you to craft habits that align with your values, ignite your potential, and propel you towards a life of fulfillment and success. Discover the secrets to sustaining long-term progress, overcoming obstacles, and embracing a journey of continuous growt...

The politics of everyday life is to be found, time and again, in meandering movements, in making connections across and between things in the rough and tumble of the seemingly banal, fragmentary and quotidian experiences that make up our day-to-day existence. The key point of the book, ideally as well as practically, is to realize that there may be something potentially significant, and politically significant, in the very act of making such connections, of understanding the supposedly tri...

Occupying a space in-between conventional scholarship and imaginative storytelling, The University in Crumbs: A Register of Things Seen and Heard is an experimental work that dramatizes the everyday life of the academy. Consisting primarily of a series of five first-person reports, Robert Porter, Kerry-Ann Porter and Iain Mackenzie provide the reader with a number of stories that attempt to capture some of their everyday experiences of academic life in the UK, roughly between 2017 and 2022...