English books

Harriet and Wyn are the perfect couple - they go together like bread and butter, gin and tonic, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Every year, they take a holiday from their lives to drink far too much wine with their favourite people in the world. Except this year, they are lying through their teeth, because Harriet and Wyn broke up six months ago. And they still haven't told anyone. But the cottage is for sale so this is the last time they'll all be here together. They can't ...

'A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane and Lord Jim. Science fiction, detective story and post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami's international following. Tracking one man's descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo, Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy.'

The biggest science story of our time, Massive spans four decades, weaving together the personal narratives and international rivalries behind the search for the “God” particle, or Higgs boson. A story of grand ambition, intense competition, clashing egos, and occasionally spectacular failures,

In the Flesh is an evocative and unique fantasy romance from the international No.1 bestselling author of Bared to You and Reflected in You, Sylvia Day An infamous beauty. A daring warrior. Two hearts are about to collide . . . For five years, Sapphire has been the King of Sari's most treasured concubine. Independent at last, she refuses to put herself in anyone's control again. But now another's scheming has led her into the path of proud, arrogant Wulfric, Crown Prince of the rival kingdom of D'Ashier, a man who is dangerous to her in every way. The daughter of Wulfric's fiercest opponent, Sapphire is a prized warrior in her own right and highly skilled in the sensual arts - Wulfric's perfect match. A lasting union is unthinkable, but the bargain they strike - to spend one night together, and then part - proves impossible in the face of a desire powerful enough to bring two countries to the brink of war, and two hearts to the point of surrender. . .

"Kelly Christmas made Frank feel like getting out of bed in the morning. She was like a replacement hip. His half an Aspirin a day. She was his stair lift and his Zimmer frame, Kelly was his grab rail and his large button telephone. She was his bath hoist. She was his easy to grip scissors, his one touch battery operated jar opener and his long handled shoehorn. Kelly was all the vitamin supplements he needed." Frank Derrick is eighty-one. And he's just been run over by a milk float. It was tough enough to fill the hours of the day when he was active. But now he's broken his arm and fractured his foot, it looks set to be a very long few weeks ahead. Frank lives with his cat Bill (which made more sense before Ben died) in the typically British town of Fullwind-on-Sea. The Villages in Bloom competition is the topic of conversation amongst his neighbours but Frank has no interest in that. He watches DVDs, spends his money frivolously at the local charity shop and desperately tries to avoid the cold callers continuously knocking on his door. Emailing his daughter in America on the library computer and visiting his friend Smelly John used to be the highlights of his week. Now he can't even do that. Then a breath of fresh air comes into his life in the form of Kelly Christmas, home help. With her little blue car and appalling parking, her cheerful resilience and ability to laugh at his jokes, Kelly changes Frank's life. She reminds him that there is a big wide-world beyond the four walls of his flat and that adventures, however small, come to people of all ages. Frank and Kelly's story is sad and funny, moving, familiar, uplifting. It is a small and perfect look at a life neither remarkable nor disastrous, but completely extraordinary nonetheless.

Set largely in locations near the French Riviera, these eleven short stories depict the harsh realities of life for the less-privileged inhabitants of this very privileged region. Distinguished French writer J. M. G. Le Clézio lends his voice to the dispossessed and explores his familiar themes of alienation, immigration, poverty, violence, indifference, the loss of beauty, and the betrayal of innocence. In one story an adolescent girl encounters the violence of a gang of masked bikers in a hostile and desolate housing project. In others a man stands by helplessly as a place of great beauty and deep childhood memory is slowly consumed and destroyed by a quickly developing city, an illegal immigrant desperate for work finds himself the prisoner of a ring trafficking in human beings, and two girls risk everything by running away from home and their dead-end factory jobs in search of a more meaningful life. At once tragic and evocative, these engrossing and beautifully crafted stories touch upon the loss of human values in a rapidly changing world

Homeland Security Secretary Catherine Blaine receives a frightening communication from a hacker identified only by the pseudonym Janus. The message is the latest in a series correctly predicting natural disasters around the world—disasters that, Janus claims, were manufactured, not natural at all. And, according to the email, unless the United States does as Janus instructs, another disaster is coming—a Category 5 hurricane that will hit the Eastern Seaboard and destroy the lives of tens of millions of people. Unaware of the crisis in Washington, investigative journalist Jon Mallory stumbles on a list of seven prominent scientists who have been murdered over the past dozen years. When the person who gave him the list disappears herself, Jon realizes he has unwittingly become part of a deadly chain of events and contacts his brother, private intelligence contractor Charles, for help. Meanwhile, Catherine Blaine has also come to Charles for help tracking down the hacker Janus and uncovering the frightening new weather technology that threatens the world.

Trouble stirs beneath the ice... A breathtaking action adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of Map Of Bones and The Doomsday Key. Buried deep in the polar ice cap, Ice Station Grendel has been abandoned for more than seventy years. The twisted brainchild of the finest minds of the former Soviet Union, it was designed to be inaccessible and virtually invisible. But an American research vessel has inadvertently pulled too close - and something has been sighted moving inside the allegedly deserted facility, something whose survival defies every natural law... And now, as scientists, soldiers, intelligence operatives and unsuspecting civilians are drawn into Grendel's lethal vortex, the most extreme measures possible will be undertaken to protect its dark mysteries - because the terrible truths submerged under the ice could end human life on Earth.