Two worlds are about to collide.Evie Brunton loves her job. Twice a day, she spins along the narrow lanes of Devon on her bicycle, delivering letters from a heavy post bag. When the flamboyant London artist, Bernard Cavalier, drops like a meteor into her sleepy village, everything changes. Bernard is supposed to be painting for an important exhibition, but the countryside has its own charms, in particular his young post lady…Light and witty, and full of twists and turns, The Wrong Envelope is a charming romantic comedy. It captures the spirit of another age – when letters could change lives.

    Though things start slowly, Ivan wins her over after a strong pursuit, and the two marry, agreeing never to inflict any “irreparable wounds.” But though Ivan proves to be a fine father, he is a distant husband, and Caroline finds herself daydreaming of other men. So as the years pass, the couple finds ways to bend but not break their cardinal rule. Rough Strife, the first novel from Lynne Sharon Schwartz, was nominated for the National Book Foundation Award. In this sensational debut, Schwartz depicts a marriage that grows painfully into the modern era, despite the changes—both political and personal—that challenge it.

    Yet prejudice and ignorance about the country are widespread. The evolution of the present-day 'Rainbow Nation' has taken place under conditions of sometimes extreme pressure. Since long before the arrival of the first European settlers in the seventeenth century, the country has been home to a complex and uneasily co-existing blend of races and cultures, and successive waves of immigrants have added to the already volatile mixture. Despite the euphoria which greeted the dismantling of the apartheid system and the election as President of Nelson Mandela in April 1994, South Africa's history, racial mix and recent political upheavals suggest it will not easily free itself from the legacy of its tumultuous past. Newly revised and updated, Frank Welsh's vividly written, even-handed and authoritative history casts new light on many of South Africa's most cherished myths. Like his A History of Hong Kong, it will surely come to be regarded as definitive.

     Launched in 1918, she spent the interwar years cruising the oceans of the world, the largest vessel afloat and a proud symbol of the Royal Navy. ‘The greatest and most graceful ship of her time, perhaps of any time, she was the last of the Leviathans — those mighty ships, whose movement upon the high seas had determined policy since the last quarter of the 19th century. A generation of British seamen had been trained in her. To millions of people she had represented British sea power and imperial might. With her passed not only a ship, but a whole era swept away on the winds of the world.’ Bradford tells the fascinating story of two ships coming out — the new Prince of Wales, and the old, world-famous Hood, whose history remained in the memories of all those who sailed on her. Their silhouettes visible now against the lines of the sea and the islands: the long sweep of their foredecks, the banked ramparts of their guns, and the hunched shoulders of bridges and control towers. We shall never see their like again, but no one who has ever watched them go by will forget the shudder that they raised along the spine. The big ships were somehow as moving as the pipes heard a long way off in the hills. There was always a kind of mist about them, a mist of sentiment and of power. Unlike aircraft, rockets, or nuclear bombs, they were a visible symbol of power allied with beauty — a rare combination. The thrilling history of a ship who battled the infamous Bismarck, inspired alliances and revenge in a time of great uncertainty and went out with a bang when her one fatal flaw was exploited... Ernle Bradford (1922-1986) was an historian who wrote books on naval battles and historical figures. Among his subjects were Lord Nelson, the Mary Rose, Christopher Columbus, Julius Caesar and Hannibal. He also documented his own voyages on the Mediterranean Sea.

    For over two years, he padalled a mammoth 37,000kms through 34 countries; some of which rank as the most dangerous places on Earth. It was a feat that earned him the title Adventurer of the Year 2006 and made his resulting book, Around Africa on my Bicycle, a best-seller.In July 2009 Riaan again set another world first when he became the first person to circumnavigate the world's fourth largest island of Madagascar by kayak; another expedition achieved alone and unaided. This incredible journey, 5000km in eleven months, was considerably more demanding, both physically and mentally. Daily, Riaan had to conquer extreme loneliness while ploughing through treacherous conditions such as cyclones, pounding surf and an unrelenting sun that, combined with up to ten hours in salt water, was literally pickling his body. The perseverance, of course, brought memorable close encounters with Madagascar's marine life - humpback whales breaching metres away from his kayak, giant leatherback turtles gliding alongside him and even having his boat rammed by sharks. Riaan travelled around Madagascar during a period of the country's political turmoil, which gave him unrivalled insight into the exotic island's psyche and even earned him two nights in prison on suspicion of carrying out mercenary activities. Around Madagascar in my Kayak is packed with engaging stories and beautiful photographs and is set to become another best-seller.

    Novels Tarzan of the Apes The Return of Tarzan The Beasts of Tarzan The Son of Tarzan Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar Tarzan the Terrible Collections Jungle Tales of Tarzan Tarzan the Untamed

    But I am more thankful for the hours of absorbing interest spent in the study of his portraiture as given in the Gospels. I know of nothing that makes so pleasant a respite from the pressure of life's fret and strain, as to bathe mind and spirit in the translucent waters of Scripture biography. As the clasp between the Old Testament and the New - the close of the one and the beginning of the other; as among the greatest of those born of women; as the porter who opened the door to the True Shepherd; as the fearless rebuker of royal and shameless sin - the Baptist must ever compel the homage and admiration of mankind. In many respects, such a life cannot be repeated. But the spirit of humility and courage; of devotion to God, and uncompromising loyalty to truth, which was so conspicuous in him, may animate us. We, also, may be filled with the spirit and power of Elijah, as he was; and may point, with lip and life, to the Saviour of the world, crying, "Behold the Lamb of God."

    An Indian boy by adoption, J. W. Schultz has told his paleface brothers many good Indian tales. "Apauk, Caller of Buffalo", was a lad in the land and the days of the great buffalo herds. Apauk. a Blackfoot boy. was taught when young the art of calling buffalo. A new type of the wooly, wild west Indian story appears in "Apauk, Caller of Buffalo." More thrilling than Action, the life story of the greatest of the Blackfeet medicine men, not only possesses an enthralling interest but gives the reader an authoritative historical picture of the life of the American Indian on the great western plains before the invasion of the white man. The biographer, James Wlllard Schultz, is an adopted member of the Blackfeet tribe and has lived the life of an Indian for forty years. Schultz writes: "ALTHOUGH I had known Apauk A—Flint Knife—for some time, it was not until the winter of 1879—80 that I became intimately acquainted with him. He was at that time the oldest member of the Piegan tribe of the Blackfeet Confederacy, and certainly looked it, for his once tall and powerful figure was shrunken and bent, and his skin had the appearance of wrinkled brown parchment. "In the fall of 1879, the late Joseph Kipp built a trading-post at the junction of the Judith River and Warm Spring Creek, near where the town of Lewistown, Montana, now stands, and as usual I passed the winter there with him. We had with us all the bands of the Piegans, and some of the bands of the Blood tribe, from Canada. The country was swarming with game, buffalo, elk, antelope, and deer, and the people hunted and were care-free and happy, as they had ever been up to that time. Camped beside our trading-post was old Hugh Monroe, or Rising Wolf, who had joined the Piegans in 1816, and it was through him that I came to know Apauk well enough to get the story of his remarkably adventurous and romantic youth. The two old men were great chums. Old as they were —Monroe was born in 1798, and Apauk was several years his senior—on pleasant days they mounted their horses and went hunting, and seldom failed to bring in game of some kind. And what a picturesque pair they were ! Both wore capotes ——hooded coats made from three-point Hudson Bay Company blankets—and leggins to match, and each carried an ancient Hudson Bay fuke, or flint-lock gun. They would have nothing to do with cap rifles, or the rim-fire cartridge, repeating weapons of modern make. Hundreds—yes, thousands of head of various game, many a savage grizzly, and a score or two of the enemy—— Sioux, Cree, Crow, Cheyenne, and Assiniboine, had they killed with the sputtering pieces, and they were their most cherished possessions. "Oh, that I could live over again those buffalo days! Those Winter evenings in Monroe’s or Apauk’s lodge, listening to their tales of the long ago! Nor was I the only interested listener: always there was a complete circle of guests around the cheerful fire; old men, to whom the tales brought memories of their own eventful days, and young men, who heard with intense interest of the adventures of their grandfathers, and of the “ calling of the buffalo,” which strange and wonderful method of obtaining at one swoop a whole tribe’s store of Winter food, they were never to witness. For the luring of whole herds of buffalo to their death had been Apauk’s sacred, honored, and danger-fraught avocation.

    Artist Riana Evans falls in love with a dilapidated mansion in Wales, despite its rumoured ghosts, and is delighted when its elderly, eccentric owner sells it to her for a pittance. The ‘ghosts’ prove good for business – inspiring her paintings in an almost supernatural way and providing welcome atmosphere at a series of profitable ghost-spotting weekends. But it soon becomes clear that there’s someone – or something – who’ll do anything to make sure Riana never discovers the secrets the house hides . . .

    For nearly fifty years Walter Eschenburg lived and worked as a pioneering wildlife vet in the South African bushveld with its many animals and a host of weird and wonderful people. After a childhood spent in a German castle during the Second World War, a harrowing escape from the Russian army and a sequence of bold moves and fortunate circumstances, it is here, against the backdrop of the harsh but beautiful landscapes of the Waterberg, that Walter comes into his own and develops into a seasoned vet. He encounters charging rhinos, tame buffalo, irate cows and angry giraffes; he deals with snakes and warthogs, amorous elephants, cats, dogs and donkeys. He treats his patients with compassion and kindness, and his clients with large doses of humour. Healing Rhinos and Other Souls is a story of love and life; of nature and adventures; of humour, passion and understanding. It is a story about a man who was simply himself all his life, the story of a life well lived.

    Ranulph followed his father's path into the Royal Scots Greys. After that came the SAS, from which he was dismissed for blowing up an American film set at the idyllic Cotswold village of Castle Combs, then two vicious years as a volunteer fighting communist insurgents in Oman. Then began the series of expeditions for which Fiennes is best known and which caused The Guinness Book of Records to hail him in 1984 as 'the world's greatest living explorer.' Up the White Nile in a hovercraft, parachuting onto Europe's highest glacier, forcing his way up 4,000 miles of terrifying rivers in northern Canada and Alaska, overland to the North Pole and to the ends of the earth, across the world's axis-the Transglobe Expedition-which took ten years from conception to completion. He writes here too about his attempt to reach the North Pole without dogs or motorised equipment, beating the world record by 300 miles, his determination to find the lost city of Urbar in the Arabian desert and, finally, his extraordinary journey across the Antarctic Continent via the South Pole. Living Dangerously is a remarkable testament from a remarkable man.

    It begins with a row about a young man. My story begins, too, where the first woman's story began-in a garden. It was the back garden of our red-roofed villa in that suburban street, Laburnum Grove, Putney, S.W.

    In 1908 he took a long safari holiday in East Africa with his son Kermit. His account of this adventure is as remarkably fresh today as it was when these adventures on the veldt were first published. Roosevelt describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met (including such famous hunters as Cunninghame and Selous), and flora and fauna he collected in the name of science. Long out of print, this classic is one of the preeminent examples of Africana, and belongs on every collector's shelf.African Game Trails includes stories about President Theodore Roosevelt advertures throughout East Africa, Belgian Congo, Mombassa, Khartoum, etc. Travelling the world to hunt and kill dozens of animals including Lions, Rhinos, Giraffes, Leopards, Buffalo, Hippos and Elephants. This fascinating story about Teddy Roosevelt's hunting adventures are not for the squeamish or the politcally correct as it includes heart-pounding stories.

    Hitler has just conquered Poland, but life in London continues much as it did in peacetime, albeit a little more restricted since the introduction of petrol rationing. No bombs have been dropped on the city as yet, but the population go about their daily business under the constant threat of German air raids, and a blackout remains in force at night. For Scotland Yard and the criminal fraternity, however, it is business as usual. When a pawnbroker’s assistant is wounded by a gunman wearing a gasmask, it appears to be a straightforward case of a bungled armed robbery, but as Hawker proceeds with his investigation, the more facts he uncovers the more confusing the affair becomes. A red-headed soldier, a missing gun, a dead cat, an empty violin case and a damaged violin are only a few of the threads that have to be unravelled before he can wrap up the case – with a little help from Sherlock Holmes.

    Annie is training to be an Anglican priest but as her mind wanders during theological discussions and doubts emerge about her choice of career, she plots and writes a highly sexed novel about a minister and his flighty girlfriend...