JG BALLARD – HIGH RISE

"This new PI has got a smart mouth on her, and plenty of wigs to help her find her own true character."--The New York Times Book Review (on The Red Chameleon) It begins with a bang: Kathleen Stone is watching her friend Dolly and his fellow drag queens from The Pink Parrot perform at the Halloween Parade when their float explodes. Suspecting foul play, The Pink Parrot's owner, Big Mamma, hires Kat to find the culprit. Meanwhile, Kat has not given up on her quest to bring gangster Salvatore Magrelli to justice and once more dons a disguise to infiltrate The Skyview, an exclusive club run by his wife, Eva. When she watches the club's poker dealer drop dead during a high-stakes game, she decides to look into his death as well. Upon discovering that he was also gay, she suspects that this murder could be a hate crime connected to the parade explosion.

To avoid fainting keep repeating, It's only a move ..only a movie ..only a movie ..only a movie If you grew up believing that Planet of the Apes told you all you needed to know about politics, that Slade in Flame was a savage exposé of the pop world, and that The Exorcist revealed the meaning of life, then you probably spent far too many of your formative years at the cinema. Just as likely, you soon realised that there was only one career open to you - you'd have to become a film critic. In It's Only a Movie, the incomparable Mark Kermode takes us into the weird world of a life lived in widescreen. Join him as he embarks on a gut-wrenching journey through the former Soviet Union on the trail of the low-budget horror flick Dark Waters, cringe as he's handbagged by Helen Mirren at the BAFTA awards ceremony, cheer as he gets thrown out of the Cannes Film Festival for heckling in very bad French, and don't forget to gasp as he's shot at while interviewing Werner Herzog in the Hollywood Hills. Written with sardonic wit and wry good humour, this compelling cinematic memoir is genuinely 'inspired by real events'.

Opar, the lost colony of Atlantis, is hidden deep in the heart of Africa, awash with incredible riches. From this ancient city comes Hadon, an impoverished but ambitious young man who sets out to win the great games of Klakor, and thus become king of the Khokarsan Empire. As his quest for the throne leads him into the wild lands beyond the empire's edge, Hadon finds himself embroiled in a bloody civil war. Featuring a brand-new introduction and afterword by Christopher Paul Carey (Gods of Opar: Tales of Lost Khokarsa)

The suddenness and depth of the recession has raised questions about the workability of capitalism not seen since the 1930s. One of the constraints on recovery is the growing belief that if the old model did not work there is no new one on offer. This book sets out to provide one, arguing that reconstructing a bust financial system is not just a technical question. It cannot be done without a wholescale revision of the wider system and values on which it is based. And fairness must be placed at the heart of the new capitalism for society's future wellbeing. Will Hutton's new book musters brilliant, convincing arguments which will lend favour on both right and left. It is set to be a book which captures the mood of the moment in the same way that THE STATE WE'RE IN did.