Meik Wiking founded the world's first Happiness Research Institute in 2013, in Copenhagen, Denmark and is a New York Times and Sunday Times Bestselling author. Meik has been called The Indiana Jones of Smiles and probably the World's Happiest Man by The Times. He is the author of four globally bestselling books which have sold over 2 million copies worldwide: The Little Book of Hygge, The Little Book of Lykke, The Art of Making Memories and My Hygge Home.

Meik Wiking

Sue Meikle has always been obsessed with picture books, and after working as an Early Years Specialist for over 25 years, she has read stories to children from Stockport to South Africa. In schools, in early years centres, while on forest school adventures... Sue has even read stories on a travelling play bus! So, perhaps it was always in the stars for Sue to not just read books, but write them, too! When she's not reading or writing stories, Sue can be found walking her dog or chauffeuring her teenagers around the Greater Manchester area (because that’s where they live… in a home that they made from a derelict barn!)

Sue Meikle

David Meikle is a TV scriptwriter and Sunday Times bestselling author. He has written and co-written seven books, including the autobiographies of Charlie Richardson and Bobby Cummines.

David Meikle

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Pang-Mei Natasha Chang

After long afternoons spent with her great-aunt Yu-i, Pang-Mei, a first-generation Chinese-American, paints this unforgettable saga of a woman, born in Shanghai at the turn of the century to a well-to-do family, who continually defied the expectations of her class and culture. 
 
'In China, a woman is nothing,' began Yu-i over tea and dumplings. 'This is the first lesson I want to give so that you will understand.' Growing up in the perilous years between the fall of the last Emperor and the Communist Revolution, Yu-i led a life marked by a series of rebellions that changed the course of her life, including the first and most lasting: her refusal to have her feet bound. And as Yu-i confides her innermost dreams and demons to her great-niece in this dual memoir, the deeply textured portrait of a woman's life in China is blended with the very Western story of a young woman's search for identity and belonging.

Bound Feet And Western Dress

Martin Booth

Martin Booth died in February 2004, shortly after finishing the book that would be his epitaph - this wonderfully remembered, beautifully told memoir of a childhood lived to the full in a far-flung outpost of the British Empire... 
 
An inquisitive seven-year-old, Martin Booth found himself with the whole of Hong Kong at his feet when his father was posted there in the early 1950s. Unrestricted by parental control and blessed with bright blond hair that signified good luck to the Chinese, he had free access to hidden corners of the colony normally closed to a Gweilo, a 'pale fellow' like him. Befriending rickshaw coolies and local stallholders, he learnt Cantonese, sampled delicacies such as boiled water beetles and one-hundred-year-old eggs, and participated in colourful festivals. He even entered the forbidden Kowloon Walled City, wandered into the secret lair of the Triads and visited an opium den. Along the way he encountered a colourful array of people, from the plink plonk man with his dancing monkey to Nagasaki Jim, a drunken child molester, and the Queen of Kowloon, the crazed tramp who may have been a member of the Romanov family. 
 
Shadowed by the unhappiness of his warring parents, a broad-minded mother who, like her son, was keen to embrace all things Chinese, and a bigoted father who was enraged by his family's interest in 'going native', Martin Booth's compelling memoir is a journey into Chinese culture and an extinct colonial way of life that glows with infectious curiosity and humour.

Gweilo: Memories Of A Hong Kong Childhood

Benedict Anning

December 1984. SIS field asset Heidi Sperling [codename Thistle] exfiltrates from East Berlin with the sole copy of a critical intelligence leak: a naval log containing a solitary message received from a previously unidentified Soviet submarine. 
 
Incredulously – impossibly – it seems the vessel, known only as TK-15, has been sitting motionless and undetected in the waters between Scotland and Iceland for three whole years. And now this latest message reads: ACTIVE. 
 
Picked up by the Royal Navy’s submarine HMS Viking, Heidi is thrust into a 'black ops' mission: find TK15 and neutralise it at any cost. But as her only ally on board the Viking falls sick, she realises this modified vessel is far more than a Soviet experiment to gain an upper hand in the nuclear arms race. Here, in the crushing depths of the North Atlantic, it seems something darker has awoken - something that cannot be contained by any superpower. 
 
As Heidi’s own reality twists around her, an unknowable force cripples the Viking's defences and drives its crew to madness. Trapped in the deep, Heidi has no choice but to find a way to save the remaining crew and stop TK-15 for good, before it steals what’s left of her mind . . .

Atomic Coffin

Polly Evans

When she learnt that the Chinese had built enough new roads to circle the equator sixteen times, Polly Evans decided to go and witness for herself the way this vast nation was hurtling into the technological age. But on arriving in China she found the building work wasn't quite finished. 
 
Squeezed up against Buddhist monks, squawking chickens and on one happy occasion a soldier named Hero, Polly clattered along pot-holed tracks from the snow-capped mountains of Shangri-La to the bear-infested jungles of the south. She braved encounters with a sadistic masseur, a ridiculously flexible kung-fu teacher, and a terrified child who screamed at the sight of her. 
 
In quieter moments, Polly contemplated China's long and colourful history - the seven-foot-tall eunuch commander who sailed the globe in search of treasure; the empress that chopped off her rivals' hands and feet and boiled them to make soup - and pondered the bizarre traits of the modern mandarins. And, as she travelled, she attempted to solve the ultimate gastronomic conundrum: just how does one eat a soft-fried egg with chopsticks?

Fried Eggs With Chopsticks

Paola Cantatore

Toru Terada

A must-have for anyone fascinated by the darker side of Japanese folklore. 
 
Are you ready to play The Game of 100 Candles? 
 
Beneath the global fascination with manga and anime lies a shadowy realm teeming with Japan's yokai monsters, mutants, and vengeful mononoke spirits. These eerie entities have gripped imaginations with their terrifying allure since the Edo period, weaving a dark tapestry of folklore that continues to captivate and haunt to this day. 
 
In The Game of 100 Candles, 99 uncanny tales, known as 'kaidan', await to reveal the dark side of Japanese folklore. Discover a world of bizarre entities, animate objects, shapeshifters, and spectral hybrids that inspired modern art forms like kabuki theatre, Pokémon, J-Horror, and the monsters of Murakami Takashi. 
 
Step inside The Game of 100 Candles, but beware, this test of samurai courage may bring about an even greater horror.

The Game of 100 Candles

Chilling stories from Japanese folklore

Lorna Landvik

Life, they say, is a state of mind. In the small town of Tall Pine, Minnesota, that state of mind is found at the Cup O'Delight cafe. The locals gather here for what they call the Tall Pine Polka, an event in which heavenly coffee, good food, and that feeling of being alive among friends inspires both body and soul to dance. 
 
Escaping to Tall Pine from an abusive husband, Lee answered the 'What am I going to do with my life?' question by opening the cafe. Among the regulars are Miss Penk and Frau Katt, the town's only lesbian couple ('Well, we're za only ones who admit it.'); Pete, proprietor of the Shoe Shack, who spends his nights crafting beautiful shoes to present to Lee, along with his declarations of love; Mary, whose bad poetry can clear the cafe in seconds, and most important of all, Lee's best friend Fenny, a smart and sassy twenty-two-year-old going on eighty. 
 
Then Hollywood 'discovers' Tall Pine. It seems the sleepy town is the perfect location for a romantic comedy. And Fenny, pounced on like a bone in a yard full of hungry dogs is evidently that rarity in Hollywood: a 'natural'. Lee and Fenny are to find their friendship put to the test as events push their hearts in unexplored directions - where endings really can turn into new beginnings...

The Tall Pine Polka

Jack Perkowski

After a highly successful career on Wall Street, in the early 1990s Jack Perkowski needed a new challenge. Having decided that China would be the future, he set about investigating this little-known market and the business opportunities it offered. Before long, Jack set up ASIMCO, a manufacturing business specializing in car components, which now has an annual turnover of over $500 million. 
 
In Managing the Dragon Jack provides an insider's view of China, its many peculiarities and working practices. For example, we see how China's economy and government are highly decentralized and how the country tends to operate like a series of villages spread across a vast landscape; we discover how much influence 'the Party' has on the banks, and how economic incentives at local government level causes China to create overcapacity in virtually every industry. This may explain why the country has, almost single-handedly, placed the entire world in a cost / price squeeze. 
 
Managing the Dragon is a revealing and thought-provoking memoir offering a fresh perspective on a country at the dawn of a new age. Through its colourful narrative it also tells the story of one of the most influential and pioneering entrepreneurs of today.

Managing the Dragon

Building a Billion-Dollar Business in China

Jasper Kent

In 1812, at the height of Napoleon's invasion, Russia is at her darkest hour. Yet this might not be the worst danger out there . . . A new threat emerges, one which will haunt the Danilov family for generations to come.

The next moment he was upon him, his eyes blazing, his mouth open to reveal his fangs. 
Osokin began to pray, not that he would live but that he would truly die . . . 
 
Turkmenistan 1881: the fortress city of Geok Tepe has fallen to the Russians. Beneath its citadel sits a prisoner. He hasn’t moved from his chair for two years. Neither has he felt the sun on his face for more than fifty . . . although for that he is grateful. 
 
Into this subterranean gaol marches a Russian officer. He has come for the captive. Not to release him, but to return him to St Petersburg – to deliver him into the hands of an old, old enemy who would visit damnation upon the ruling family of Russia: the great vampire Zmyeevich. But there is another who has escaped Geok Tepe and followed the prisoner. He is not concerned with the fate of the tsar, or Zmyeevich or the officer. All he desires is revenge. 
 
And other forces have a part to play. A group of revolutionaries has vowed to bring the dictatorship of Tsar Aleksandr to an end, and with it the entire Romanov dynasty. They call themselves The People’s Will . . .

The People's Will

(The Danilov Quintet 4)

Mo Hayder

Fans of Stephen King, Stuart MacBride and Karin Slaughter will devour this warped and brutally bloodthirstly thriller from bestselling and prize-winning author Mo Hayder. Deeply haunting, this will stay with you well after the final page is turned... 
 
'Haunting, lyrical, disturbing, important, suspenseful and wonderfully written' -- HARLAN COBEN 
'Left me stunned and haunted. This is writing of breathtaking power and poetry' -- 
TESS GERRITSEN 
'Couldn't put it down' -- ***** Reader review 
'One of the best books I have read in a long time' -- ***** Reader review 
'Weird, creepy, vile......brilliant!!!!!' -- ***** Reader review 
'An absolutely brilliant book. Read it NOW!' -- ***** Reader review 
 
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1990: Tokyo 
 
Grey Hutchins is in pursuit of an obsession. She is searching for a piece of film taken during the infamous Nanking massacre of 1937. Some say it never existed. Grey is certain that it does, and that it lies hidden - somewhere in Tokyo. 
 
Alone in an alien city, Grey becomes a hostess in an exclusive club catering for Japanese businessmen - and gangsters. One gangster dominates - an old man in a wheelchair surrounded by a terrifying entourage - who is rumoured to rely on a powerful elixir for his continued health. It is an elixir that others want - at any price ... 
 
Previously published as Tokyo, The Devil of Nanking is a literary thriller of the highest order. With its heady atmosphere of overt violence, lurking fear and sexual tension, this is a novel that takes hold of the reader and does not let go until its explosive final pages.

The Devil of Nanking

Elizabeth Kim

I don't know how old I was when I watched my mother's murder, nor do I know how old I am today.' 
 
The illegitimate daughter of a peasant and an American GI, Elizabeth Kim spent her early years as a social outcast in her village in the Korean countryside. Ostracized by their family and neighbours, she and her mother were regularly pelted with stones on their way home from the rice fields. Yet there was a tranquil happiness in the intense bond between mother and daughter. Until the day that Elizabeth's grandfather and uncle came to punish her mother from the dishonour she had brought on the family, and executed her in front of her daughter. 
 
Elizabeth was dumped in an orphanage in Seoul. After some time, she was lucky enough to be adopted by an American couple. But when she arrived in America she found herself once again surrounded by fanaticism and prejudice. 
 
Elizabeth's mother had always told her that life was made up of ten thousand joys as well as ten thousand sorrows, and, supported by her loving daughter, and by a return to her Buddhist faith, she finally found a way to savour those joys, as well as the courage to exorcise the demons of her past.

Ten Thousand Sorrows

Andrew Bannister

In the vast, artificial galaxy called The Spin, a rebellion has been crushed. 
 
Viklun Haas, industrialist and leader of the victorious Hegemony, is eliminating all remnants of the opposition. Starting with his daughter. 
 
But Fleare Haas has had time to plan her next move: a break for freedom that will take her across The Spin to the cluster of fallen planets known as the Catastrophe Curve – from exile to the very frontiers of a new war. 
 
Because word has reached the brutal, despotic empire of The Fortunate of a most unusual piece of plunder from its latest invasion. 
 
For hundreds of millions of years, the planets and stars of The Spin have been the only testament to the god-like engineers that created them. Now, beneath the surface of a ruined planet, one of their machines has been found . . .

Creation Machine

(The Spin Trilogy 1)

It is not unreasonable to believe that potentially the greatest threat to world civil order...comes from Chinese international criminal syndicates and gangs otherwise collectively referred to as the Triads' FBI briefing report 
Triad societies are today the most widespread and ruthless criminal group in the history of the world, posing the most important criminal threat to world stability that has ever existed. Just as the Mafia are organised as 'families', so the Triads are organised as 'brotherhoods', often along clan lines. They are in essence over 2,000 years old. The father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen, was a Triad society member, creating and financing the great Republic of China through the degenerate trade of opium, which has now become the multi-million dollar heroin industry. Martin Booth's remarkable study encompasses not only the more 'traditional' localised crime - prostitution, theft, racketeering - but also their more repercussive activities on a global scale: the drugs trade, money laundering, stock market manipulation and insider dealing, computer hacking, international prostitution, infiltration of media assets, art smuggling, and much more. 
Today the Triads are poised to achieve what no organised crime gang has ever dared dream of - a complete, international criminal network, exclusively Chinese, almost impossible to infiltrate and with its fingers on the world's pulse through its own banking networks, legal affairs and political protection. Today, it would appear the Triads are ready to make the next century a Chinese century...seemingly, nothing can stop them. 
The Dragon Syndicates tells the full, incredible story of the Triads - their evolution over two millennia, their rituals and mythologies, their role in shaping this century, and the criminal history and lives of the main players. Sources within the UN claim the Triads pose the greatest criminal threat the world has ever known - after reading Martin Booth's authoritative, dynamic, superbly written and riveting new study, you'll understand why...

The Dragon Syndicates

Sara Davies

INCLUDES CHRISTMAS CRAFT IDEAS! 
 
'Treat yourself with the crafting bible, Craft Your Year with Sara Davies.' Michael Ball, BBC Radio 2 
 
Step-by-step seasonal crafting guide with over 70 projects to make throughout the year, including Christmas baubles and wreaths and great gift ideas. 
 
This easy-to-follow crafting guide from the queen of crafting Sara Davies will help you and your family craft throughout the year, with projects for beginner, intermediate and advanced crafters. 
 
Packed full of ideas, tips and tricks to help you grow in confidence and creativity, as well as useful lists of tools, must-have items and a glossary explaining the key crafting terms and phrases you'll hear time and again as you craft. 
 
This practical book includes photographs and simple step-by-step instructions to help you make everything need throughout the year, from a Mother's Day card in spring to a macrame flower hanger in summer, from Halloween treat bags in autumn to a Christmas wreath in winter and everything in-between.

Craft Your Year with Sara Davies

Crafting Queen, Dragons’ Den and Strictly Star

Ian Denys Peek

In February 1942, Singapore fell to the Japanese. Denys Peek and his brother were just two of tens of thousands of British and Commonwealth soldiers and citizens taken prisoner. 
Eight months later, he and his comrades were packed into steel goods wagons and transported by rail to Siam. They were to become part of the slave labour force destined for the massive construction project that would later become infamous as the Burma Thailand Railway. He would spend the next three years in over fifteen different work and 'hospital' camps on the railway, stubbornly refusing to give in and die in a place where over 20,000 prisoners of war and uncounted slave labourers met their deaths. 
Narrated in the present tense and written with clarity, passion and a remarkable eye for detail, Denys Peek has vividly recreated not just the hardships and horrors of the railway and the daily struggle for survival but also the comradeship, spirit and humour of the men who worked on it. It stands as a haunting, evocative and deeply moving testimony to the suffering of those who lived and died there - a salutary reminder of man's potential for inhumanity to his fellow man.

One Fourteenth Of An Elephant

Jackie Ellis

This journey through the changing seasons at Rowfoot Farm - tupping time in the autumn, winters as wet, bleak and cold here in Cumbria as elsewhere, lambing and the glories of spring, a bucolic, bee-filled Eden Valley summer with its many shows and fairs - will reveal much that you need to know about the countryside, its quirky customs and ways, and most likely a great deal that you don't. They no longer burn witches (not because they're lily-livered, it's just that getting the necessary timber from sustainable forests is a real chore). You'll find nothing here about welly-wanging either. Jackie doesn't wang her wellies, she just gets them muddy. You won't need to, of course, as this book will ensure you experience rural life vicariously and very cleanly. 
 
Along the way, Jackie bumps into friends old and new, peeps back over her shoulder every now and then to recall times past, oh and it wouldn't be her if she didn't have the occasional impassioned rant or take the odd pop at the establishment, but rest assured she's quite gentle with them. 
So join Jackie (and Katie the Lurcher, Blossom the Cob and Rowfoot's many other residents, four- and two-legged) as she recounts the occasional pitfall and many pleasures of running a small farm in one of the most beautiful parts of England.

Sheepwrecked

Ian C Esslemont

The tumult of great powers colliding has passed and the city of Darujhistan and its citizens can at last get on with what matters: trading, bickering, politicking and enjoying all the good things in life. However, not all are ready to leave the past behind. A treasure hunter, digging amongst the burial grounds that surround the city, is about to uncover a hidden crypt. He will open the last of a series of sealed vaults - the one that no other dared touch - and, in so doing, set free something so terrifying that the knowledge of its internment may have been systematically wiped from all history. 
 
Fortune hunters are also at work far to the south. When a fragment of Moon's Spawn, once the home of Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness, crashed into the Rivan Sea it created a chain of small islands. Legends and rumours already surround them. The most potent of these is that here is hidden the Throne of Night, claimed by some to be the seat of Mother Dark herself. Either way, all who seek this ancient artefact - renegade mages, hardened mercenaries, even a Malazan army deserter - believe it will bestow unlimited power upon the eventual possessor. The stakes are high, greed is rife, betrayal inevitable, and murder and chaos lie in wait...

Orb Sceptre Throne

(Malazan Empire: 4): a concoction of greed, betrayal, murder and deception underscore this fantasy epic

Kobie Kruger

When Kobie Krüger, her game-ranger husband and their three young daughters moved to one of the most isolated corners of the world - a remote ranger station in the Mahlangeni region of South Africa's vast Kruger National Park - she might have worried that she would become engulfed with loneliness and boredom. Yet, for Kobie and her family, the seventeen years spent in this spectacularly beautiful park proved to be the most magical - and occasionally the most hair-raising - of their lives. 
 
Kobie recounts their enchanting adventures and extraordinary experiences in this vast reserve - a place where, bathed in golden sunlight, hippos basked in the glittering waters of the Letaba River, storks and herons perched along the shoreline, and fruit bats hung in the sausage trees. 
 
But as the Krugers settled in, they discovered that not all was peace and harmony. They soon became accustomed to living with the unexpected: the sneaky hyenas who stole blankets and cooking pots, the sinister-looking pythons that slithered into the house, and the usually placid elephants who grew foul-tempered in the violent heat of the summer. And one terrible day, a lion attacked Kobus in the bush and nearly killed him. 
 
Yet nothing prepared the Krugers for their greatest adventure of all, the raising of an orphaned prince, a lion cub who, when they found him, was only a few days old and on the verge of death. Reared on a cocktail of love and bottles of fat-enriched milk, Leo soon became an affectionate, rambunctious and adored member of the fmaily. It is the rearing of this young king, and the hilarious endeavours to teach him to become a 'real' lion who could survive with his own kind in the wild, that lie at the heart of this endearing memoir. It is a memoir of a magical place and time that can never be recaptured.

The Wilderness Family

James Redfield

In the remote snow-covered mountains near Tibet lies a community long thought to be a mere myth called Shambhala, or Shangri-La. Here, in this place, is knowledge that has been kept hidden for centuries, and an insight that can have a profound impact on the way each of us lives our lives. Your search for Shambhala begins with the words of a child and the vision of an old friend. Those slender clues and a powerful synchronicity will lead to Kathmandu, Nepal, and then to Lhasa, Tibet. 
 
Amid blowing snows and perilous mountains, you will meet the members of the secret Tibetan sect that guards mysterious legends - the verbal instructions handed down for centuries that describe the inner changes one must undergo before entering Shambhala. 
 
Finally, with Chinese Agents in pursuit, you will pass through regions where anger and compassion struggle for ascendancy, and arrive at a place where the stunning reality about human prayer-energy - our underdeveloped ability to increase the synchronicity in our lives and influence what will happen to us in the future - is revealed. 
 
Like James Redfield's other books, The Secret of Shambhala has a parable effect. Open yourself to this amazing adventure and the experience will stretch your world view. It will also leave you determined to channel your thoughts and wishes into a dynamic force that can help you to liberate your life, enhance the lives of others and actively change the world.

The Secret Of Shambhala: In Search Of The Eleventh Insight

Alison Goodman

Under the harsh regime of an ambitious master, candidate Eon is training to become a Dragoneye - a powerful Lord able to master wind and water to protect the land. But Eon also harbours a desperate secret... 
Eon is, in fact, Eona, a young woman who has endured years of disguise as a boy for the chance to practice the Dragoneye's Art. In a world where women are only hidden wives or servants, Eona's dangerous deception is punishable by death. 
Still in disguise, Eona's unprecedented talent thrusts her into the centre of a lethal struggle for the Imperial throne. Summoned by the Emperor to the opulent and treacherous Court, Eona must learn to trust her power and find the strength to face a vicious enemy who would seize her magic . . . and her life. 
Inspired by ancient Chinese lore and sharing the wonders of films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, this thrilling novel is set in a brilliantly envisioned world where both appearances and loyalties can prove so very deceptive...

The Two Pearls of Wisdom

Following on from Sara's bestselling introduction to crafting for crafters of every level in Craft Your Year, this new crafting guide includes over 70 projects for intermediate to advanced crafters. It focusses on crafting ideas for the important occasions in everyone's life: from birthdays and parents' days to weddings and new babies, from new job and new home to graduation and retirement, and everything in between. 
 
Crafting a card or gift for those you love to mark these special occasions shows them just how much care, while also being a pleasurable and relaxing pastime enabling your creativity to flourish. 
 
Sara teaches you how to make the most memorable cards and gifts for every occasion with easy-to-follow instructions and how-to photos guiding you every step of the way.

Crafting for All Occasions with Sara Davies

With over 70 papercraft and gift projects

John Man

China's Great Wall north of Beijing is one of the world's most famous sights. Millions every year climb the line of stone snaking over mountains. We all feel we know the Wall. But we are wrong. It is too big, too varied, too complex to be captured by a few images or a day-trip. 
 
Myths surround it. Many believe that the stone barrier marches across all China, that it has been in existence for over 2,000 years, and that it is the only man-made structure visible from the Moon. In fact, most of it is made of earth, and much of it is not there at all. It cannot even be seen from earth orbit, let alone the Moon. Estimates of its length vary from 1,500 to 5,000 miles. Even its name is deceptive - it is not an it, a single entity, but many walls (hence the uncertain length), built at different times. 
 
Yet behind the confusion are great simplicities. The many walls are united by two ideas - self-protection and unity - which go back to the First Emperor, who founded the nation in 221 BC. For 2,000 years, the Wall marked the border between China and nomadic peoples to the north and west. Mutual hostility inspired centuries of attacks, counter-attacks and Wall-building, until the northward spread of China in the 20th century made the Wall redundant. 
 
For this riveting account, John Man travelled the Wall from the far western deserts to the Pacific, exploring the grandest sections and many 'wild' ones. He is the first writer to describe two unknown walls in Mongolia. He covers two millennia of history, from the country's first unification to the present day, when the Great Wall, built and rebuilt over centuries of war, has become a symbol of tranquillity.

The Great Wall

Catherine Cheremeteff Jones

Foreigners who spend time in Russia soon discover two distinct worlds: the public Russia, often perceived as cold and shadowed, cautious and traditional; and the private Russia, where warmth and hospitality flourish over tea at a friend's kitchen table or sautéed mushrooms in a village dacha.A Year of Russian Feasts invites you on an enchanting journey through Russia's vibrant traditions—from the lively springtime bliny festival and Easter feast to the serene beauty of a small village's natural bounty, a mystical quest for autumn mushrooms, and the festive spirit of Red Square during Christmas and New Year's celebrations. Along the way, experience the camaraderie of a vegetarian dinner in a communal apartment, the joy of a birthday party, the solemnity of a baptism, the charm of a tea party, and the celebration of a Russian wedding. Jones unveils how forty exquisite dishes have been lovingly preserved and passed down through the feast days of the Russian Orthodox Church, the gentle rhythm of country life, and a vast nation of undiscovered beauty.This captivating glimpse into Russia is not merely about the country, but also the people at its heart, offering a chance to reconnect with a rich and colourful cultural heritage.

A Year Of Russian Feasts

The name 'Samurai' is synonymous with the ultimate warrior. With their elaborate armour, fierce swordsmanship and code of honour, the samurai have become iconic figures whose influence can still be felt today . From Kurosawa's epic Seven Samurai to the figure of Darth Vader in Star Wars, to Manga comics and video games, the figure of the fighting samurai still inspires us today. In John Man's new book we discover the truth behind the legend. 
 
From his birth in the shadow of the great volcano Sakurajima, to his glorious death by ritual suicide and disembowelment, Saigo Takamori was the ultimate Samurai leader. His fall brought about the end of hundreds of years of Samurai tradition and in many ways marks the birth of modern Japan. Saigo was a man trapped by paradox: a faithful servant to the emperor, and yet a leader of rebel troops; a mighty Samurai warrior, and also a master of Chinese poetry. His life, and ultimately his death, offer a window into the hundreds of years of culture and tradition that defined the samurai.

Samurai

When Polly Evans read a survey claiming that the last bastion of masculinity, the real Kiwi bloke, was about to breathe his last, she was seized by a sense of foreboding. Abandoning the London winter she took off on a motorbike for the windswept beaches and golden plains of New Zealand, hoping to root out some examples of this endangered species for posterity. But her challenges didn't stop at the men. 
 
Just weeks after passing her test, Polly rode from Auckland's glitzy Viaduct Basin to the vineyards of Hawkes Bay and on to the Southern Alps. She found wild kiwis in the dead of night, kayaked among dolphins at dawn, and spent an evening on a remote hillside with a sheep-shearing gang. As she travelled, Polly reflected on the Maori warriors who carved their enemies' bones into cutlery, the pioneer family who lived in a tree, and the flamboyant gold miners who lit their pipes with five-pound notes, and wondered how their descendents have become pathologically obsessed with helpfulness and Coronation Street. 
 
The author of the highly acclaimed It's Not About the Tapas reaches some unexpected conclusions about the new New Zealand man - and finds that evolution has taken some unlikely twists.

Kiwis Might Fly

Around New Zealand On Two Big Wheels

Peter Moore

No Shitting In The Toilet is named after a sign Peter Moore saw on the door of the lavatory at Jack's Café in Dali, Yunnan Province, in China. It's a sign that encapsulated his travel philosophy: that things never quite turn out as you expect. You end up in situations that defy logic, rational thought and, quite often, general well-being - and yet you have a brilliant time, not in spite of these situations, but because of them. 
And this is the philosophy behind this book and the reason why&nbsp;it isn't really a normal travel guide. OK, it might look like one in its structure and choice of topics, but in fact it's quite the opposite. Instead of practical hints, it gives you impractical ones (How to avoid jet lag - avoid jets ...) and rather than tell you the best places to stay, it tells you the worst. Instead of celebrating transcendental travel experiences, it revels in the most demeaning ones (On checking the hygiene in restaurants: there are 2 things you don't really want to see in life. The first is your parents having sex. The second is the state of the kitchen in restaurants catering for backpackers.). But in that sense NSITT is more in touch with the way things really are. The world of NSITT is one where you're more likely to find a cockroach on your pillow than a complimentary mint, a world where you take your life in your own hands every time you get on a bus, a world where everything goes wrong, and you still end up loving every minute of it. 
Based on the author's award-winning travel website, NSITT is not only hugely entertaining but also eminently practical, with advice on everything from Backpacking and Souvenirs, to Sex and Romance and Health and Eating (and some words of advice for vegetarians: hope you like rice...).

No Shitting In The Toilet

The Terracotta Army is one of the greatest, and most famous, archaeological discoveries of all time. 6,000 life-size figures of warriors and horses were interred in the Mausoleum of the First Emperor of China - each is individually carved, and they are thought to represent real members of the emperor's army. This is the remarkable story of their creation, the man who ordered them made, their rediscovery and their continuing legacy as a pre-eminent symbol of Chinese greatness. 
 
The First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, was king of the Chinese state of Qin and the first man to unite China into a single empire. He built the first Great Wall and brought a single written script to the whole country. He was an inspired and ruthless ruler, but one also beset by paranoia and a desire for immortality. He is still considered the founding father of the modern state of China. On his death in 210 BC he was buried in a giant mausoleum near modern-day Xi'an. Legends of the treasures contained therein still tantalize the imagination today. 
 
In 1974 local farmers digging a well for water broke through into the burial mound and found the first of the Terracotta warriors. Further excavations have revealed the full splendour of the buried army. But the majority of the mausoleum is yet to be opened, including the burial chamber itself - myth tells us that amongst the treasures yet to be uncovered is a vast map of the First Emperor's kingdom with rivers marked with channels of flowing mercury. The story of the First Emperor and the Terracotta Army is a fascinating one, not least for the discoveries yet to be made.

The Terracotta Army

Olivia St Claire

Olivia St Claire returns to refine the art of driving him wild with the hottest techniques ever. In her inimitable straight-forward and no-holds-barred style, the author helps her readers aim for nothing less than a joie de vivre between the sheets. 
 
These proven methods are designed not only to perfect the reader's craft, but to refine her erotic state of mind, the starting point for turning on any man. Olivia St Claire helps you identify your Passion Triggers, safely guides you to the edge of your sexual boundaries, and lets you in on everything you ever wanted to know about the forbidden caverns, tidal waves and uncharted waters of passion. 
 
For the first time, here is straightforward advice that covers everything from the art of the blindfold to the ecstasies of oriental lovemaking; from 21st century toys to ancient love rituals. 302 stunning secrets, potent tips and devastating techniques that are accessible, easy-to-follow, and erotic to read. 
 
Any woman - whether romantic, shy, innovative or adept - can use this dazzling selection of sex techniques to ignite her deepest passions and bring any man to his knees.

302 Advanced Techniques for Driving a Man Wild in Bed

David Anthony Durham

Ruling from the island of Acacia, the emperor of the Known World has inherited an apparent peace and prosperity won by his ancestors generations ago. He's an intelligent man, a widower who dotes on his four children and it is this devotion that obliges him to hide a terrible secret from them: that their prosperity rests on the dark realities of trafficking in drugs and human lives. A man of integrity, he hopes that he might bring an end to this vile trade, but powerful forces stand in his way. And then an assassin strikes, a lone killer sent by the Mein, an ancient foe long ago exiled to the frozen north. Now the Mein have returned to take revenge on their old enemy and begin a series of brutal surprise assaults on Acacia. Mortally wounded, the emperor puts into play a plan that will allow his children to escape, to fulfil their destinies. And so begins a quest to avenge a father's death and restore an empire - this time on the basis of universal freedom...

Acacia

Michael Calvin

1966, with London declared ‘a swinging city’ and John Lennon proclaiming the Beatles ‘more popular than Jesus’, the year’s football World Cup convenes an international community standing at an inflection point, emerging from the long shadow of the Second World War and hurtling towards the future. 
 
Propelled by social change, civil rights movements and technological advancement serve as beacons of hope and possibility. Yet, Cold War tensions, the escalation of the Vietnam War, and the space race between America and the Soviet Union project a different image. As China’s Cultural Revolution begins, and talks are initiated to reunify Germany, football has the potential to inflame ideological rivalries, unite old enemies, and allow nations to demonstrate their prowess on a global stage. 
 
Through the prism of the extraordinary tournament and the eight teams that reached the quarter finals – England, West Germany, Uruguay, Argentina, Portugal, Soviet Union, North Korea and Hungary – Michael Calvin provides a vivid portrait of a critical moment in world history. Examining the sporting, social and cultural significance of the competition and its backdrop, this hugely entertaining book brings to life a world and a sport caught in a tide of change, and shows how this critical year would change both forever.

A Year in Time

Layli Miller Bashir

Fauziya Kassindja

Like the bestsellers Princess and Not Without My Daughter, Do They Hear You When You Cry? tells the dramatic, compulsively readable story of a woman fighting to free herself from the injustices of her culture. Fauziya Kassindja's harrowing story begins in Togo, Africa, where she enjoyed a sheltered childhood, shielded by her progressive father from the tribal practice of polygamy and genital mutilation. But when her father died in 1993, Fauziya's life changed dramatically. At the age of seventeen, she was forced to marry a man she barely knew who already had three wives, and prepare for the tribal ritual practice of genital mutilation - a practice that is performed without painkillers or antibiotics. But hours before the ritual was to take place, Fauziya's sister helped her escape to Germany, and from there she travelled to the United States seeking asylum - and freedom. Instead she was stripped, shackled and imprisoned for sixteen months by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. 
Enter Layli Miller Bashir, a twenty-three-year-old law student who took on Fauziya's case. When the two women met, Layli found a broken, emaciated girl with whom she forged an extraordinary friendship. Putting her heart into Fauziya's case, Layli enlisted help from the American University International Human Rights Clinic. The clinic's acting director Karen Musalo, an expert in refugee law, assembled a team to fight on Fauziya's behalf. Ultimately, in a landmark decision that has given hope to many seeking asylum on the grounds of gender-based persecution, Fauziya was granted asylum on 13 June 1996. 
Here, for the first time, is Fauziya's dramatic personal story, told in her own words, vividly detailing her life as a young woman in Togo and her nightmarish day-to-day existence in American prisons. It is a story of faith and freedom, courage and inspiration - one that you will not easily forget.

Do They Hear You When You Cry

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