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Neanderthal


John Darnton - 1996
    Now, enter the world of Neanderthal...The expedition of the century...uncovers the find of the millennium...Neanderthal.In the remote mountains of central Asia, an eminent Harvard archeologist discovers something extraordinary. He sends a cryptic message to two colleagues. But then, he disappears.Matt Mattison and Susan Arnot-- once lovers, now academic rivals-- are going where few humans have ever walked, looking for a relic band of creatures that have existed for over 40,000 years, that possess powers man can only imagine, and that are about to change the face of civilization forever.

The Compulsive Spike Milligan


Spike Milligan - 2004
    Spanning his 50-year career and incorporating a rich and varied range of material, this second anthology is as wonderfully unmissable as the first. When Spike Milligan died in 2002, he left behind one of the most diverse legacies in British entertainment history – as well as a legion of devoted fans and admirers. His themes ranged from environmental issues to the war, from nostalgia to depression, and his prolific output covers some of the most evocative events of the twentieth century, in a style both twistedly comic and harrowingly honest.The huge success of the Spike Milligan anthology, ‘The Essential Spike Milligan’, has inspired a second raid on the original brilliant source. Milligan was arguably the most one of the prolific and mould-breaking comic writers of the twentieth century and this second anthology gives another opportunity to sample his finest writing. It includes more of the best from his war memoirs and novel Puckoon, his children's stories, poetry and drawings plus a wonderful collection from his voluminous correspondence from the 1960s onwards with such varied recipients as the House of Commons, the Director-General of the BBC, Private Eye and British Telecom. A compulsive read for all Milligan fans.

There Are Ants In My Sugar


Annica Foxcroft - 2007
    She has to adapt and make a home for her baby daughter and aging husband amidst boreholes, long drops and Aga stoves.She comes to terms with her neighbours, Joshua, a practising Sangoma, and Ben, a Jewish pig farmer; is educated in the ways of the Practical by her indomitable maid May; and comes of age through her determined efforts to create things of beauty amidst the khakibos - a lawn and poetry. She even restores the family fortune by engaging in a lucrative and uniquely South African venture.

The Grade Cricketer


Dave Edwards - 2015
    Described as the most original voice in cricket, The Grade Cricketer represents the fading hopes and dreams of every ageing amateur sportsman. In this tell-all 'autobiography', The Grade Cricketer describes his cricketing career with unflinching honesty and plenty of humour, in turn providing insights into the hyper-masculine cricket 'dressing room'. This one-time junior prodigy is now experiencing the lean, increasingly existential years of adult cricket. Here, he learns quickly that one will need more than just runs and wickets to make it in the alpha-dominated grade cricket jungle, where blokes like Nuggsy, Bruiser, Deeks and Robbo reign supreme. Through it all, The Grade Cricketer lays bare his deepest insecurities - his relationship with Dad, his fleeting romances outside the cricket club - and, in turn, we witness a gentle maturation; a slow realisation that perhaps, just maybe, there is more to life than hitting 50 not out in third grade and enjoying a few celebratory beers afterwards. Or is there? * * * The Grade Cricketer book is based upon the popular Twitter account, @gradecricketer, which has received critical acclaim for its frighteningly honest portrayal of amateur cricket. Now, the time has finally come for this middling amateur sportsman to tell his story in full. 'The Grade Cricketer is the finest tribute to a sport since Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, and the best cricket book in yonks. It's belly-laughing funny but it's also a hymn to the grand and complex game delivered with a narrative pace and ability I'm afraid most Test players don't have. For anyone who ever dreamed of excelling at a sport but never quite made it but still gave it your life, this is the story. A great read!' - Tom Keneally AO.

Legal Confidential: Adventures of an Indian Lawyer


Ranjeev Dubey - 2015
    Dubey slogs his way through the corridors of Delhi’s trial courts and realizes that the legal system is anything but fair. He stumbles upon a strange world of corruption, sleaze, adultery, eloping couples and clients willing to pay for legal services ‘in kind’. He survives the ‘killing field’ of litigation for twelve long years, biding his time. When he gets an offer to join a law firm, Dubey believes he has finally arrived. But has he? The world of Indian corporate law is one of intense power-play and the merciless pursuit of revenue. In this sinister world of destructive politicking, Ranjeev becomes enemies with the big sharks who own the law firm. What follows is an explosive showdown. In this dark, racy memoir, the now-well-known corporate lawyer exposes the world of the black robes with his trademark wit and leaves you wanting more. If you had to read only one book about the world of lawyers and the Indian legal system, Legal Confidential would have to be it!

How to Stay Bitter Through the Happiest Times of Your Life


Anita Liberty - 2006
    But I wrote a lot of good poems.”So maintains Anita Liberty, the caustically funny New York City performance artist who was going along happily healing her hurt by hating and humiliating her detestable ex-boyfriend on stage and in print until the unthinkable happened: she had a good date. And one good date deserves another. And another. And another. And, all of the sudden, Anita Liberty finds herself in a predicament. Getting dumped launched Anita’s career–Will falling in love finish it? Who’s more important: her devoted audience or her newly devoted boyfriend? And on top of everything, Hollywood won’t stop calling and Anita can’t figure out if It wants a serious commitment or just a little bit of no-strings-attached fun. From digging mercilessly into the minutiae of her new relationship to dramatically torching every professional bridge she crosses in L.A., Anita refuses to let a big load of bliss get dumped right in the middle of her career path.“He said that my work was amazing and hilarious and smart and that he can’t wait to see me perform.So I had sex with him.”“My boyfriend asked me to change my look.To something other than contemptuous.”{BARGAIN} Whatever Hollywood ends up paying me for the rights to the story of my life.“It’s easier to go back to fantasizing about perfection . . .than to accept that perfection is just a fantasy.”“Boyfriend thinks I’d rather be right than happy.Boyfriend’s right.But I’m not telling him that.”Through blog entries, film scenes, poems, and to-do lists, Anita Liberty documents the perils and pitfalls of dating, sex, relationships, artistic success, and the kind of true love that sucks the creative life out of you to the point where you just end up staring at a blank computer screen and thinking gooey thoughts about your new boyfriend even though you should be writing.

Never Victorious, Never Defeated


Taylor Caldwell - 1954
    Her theme is one welling from the heart-springs of American life - the story of the Interstate, a railroad founded in the latter days of Jackson's presidency, which grew through one hundred stormy, changeful years of our history into a vast enterprise; and the story of the extraordinary family with whom its fortunes were intertwined, the deWitts. It is 1866. In the small Pennsylvania city of Portersville, headquarters of the Interstate, old Aaron deWitt watches enigmatically as his two sons struggle for control of the railroad he founded.

The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing


Rumi - 2002
    In Coleman Barks′ delightful and wise renderings, these poems will open your heart and soul to the lover inside and out.′There are lovers content with longing.I′m not one of them.′Rumi is best known for his poems expressing the ecstasies and mysteries of love of all kinds - erotic, divine, friendship -and Coleman Barks collects here the best of those poems, ranging from the ′wholeness′ one experiences with a true lover, to the grief of a lover′s loss, and all the states in between: from the madness of sudden love to the shifting of a romance to deep friendship - these poems cover all ′the magnificent regions of the heart′.

Ready or Not, Here We Come!: The Real Experts' Guide to the First Year with Twins


Elizabeth Lyons - 2003
    And the adventure has only begun! In her first humor-packed guide to raising twins, Elizabeth Lyons and her "multiples" sorority offer the wisdom of their combined experience in the form of practical shortcuts, real-world strategies, and sage advice. Topics include: - Preparing the Lair: Mandatory Gear for Babies AND Mom - Twinproofing Your Marriage - Breastfeeding Strategies (and Why It's Okay if You Don't) - Unsolicited Advice: Stories from the Trenches - Getting Twins on a Schedule--Preferably the Same One Lyons balances the day-to-day challenges of raising twins--from double feedings to sleep deprivation to getting out while pretending everything's under control--with a sanity-saving dose of camaraderie. By the end, you'll be smiling and shouting, "Thank heaven, I'm not alone!"

Come, Tell Me How You Live


Agatha Christie Mallowan - 1946
    She also gave us Come, Tell Me How You Live, a charming, fascinating, and wonderfully witty nonfiction account of her days on an archaeological dig in Syria with her husband, renowned archeologist Max Mallowan. Something completely different from arguably the best-selling author of all time, Come, Tell Me How You Live is an evocative journey to the fascinating Middle East of the 1930s that is sure to delight Dame Agatha’s millions of fans, as well as aficionados of Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody mysteries and eager armchair travelers everywhere.

Rumble Road: Untold Stories from Outside the Ring


Jon Robinson - 2010
    If you liked Are We There Yet?, then you'll love Rumble Road.

Morality Tale


Sylvia Brownrigg - 2008
    Burdened by her husband's ongoing negotiations with his angry ex-wife, the strains of looking after two stepchildren, and the lingering ghost of her own past betrayals, she finds that the life of a “second marryer” leaves much to be desired. As their friendship develops, so grows the shadow cast over her marriage, and when they make a late, illicit bay crossing on a ferryboat, the story gathers momentum under California's Mount Tamalpais. There, in the fabled Golden State, Sylvia Brownrigg shows how even a layman's Zen can lead to some important revelations about the need to look forward, not back. Bristling with honesty and wit, Morality Tale explores the triangular complications that can befall a modern marriage and the tragicomic forces that surround them.

The King in Exile


Sudha Shah - 2012
    Exhaustively researched and gracefully written, The King in Exile tells a story of compelling human interest, filled with drama, pathos and tragedy... [It] heralds the arrival of a writer of non-fiction who is both uncommonly talented and exceptionally diligent... One of the great merits of [the book] is that it is completely free of jargon and theorizing. It is in essence a family story, centred on five women whose lives were waylaid by history' Amitav Ghosh in his blog 'The captivity of Burma's last king and the fall of the Konbaung dynasty: a compelling new account'. In 1879, as the king of Burma lay dying, one of his queens schemed for his forty-first son, Thibaw, to supersede his half brothers to the throne. For seven years, King Thibaw and Queen Supayalat ruled from the resplendent, intrigue-infused Golden Palace in Mandalay, where they were treated as demi-gods. After a war against Britain in 1885, their kingdom was lost, and the family exiled to the secluded town of Ratnagiri in British-occupied India. Here they lived, closely guarded, for over thirty-one years. The king's four daughters received almost no education, and their social interaction was restricted mainly to their staff. As the princesses grew, so did their hopes and frustrations. Two of them fell in love with 'highly inappropriate' men. In 1916, the heartbroken king died. Queen Supayalat and her daughters were permitted to return to Rangoon in 1919. In Burma, the old queen regained some of her feisty spirit as visitors came by daily to pay their respects. All the princesses, however, had to make numerous adjustments in a world they had no knowledge of. The impact of the deposition and exile echoed forever in each of their lives, as it did in the lives of their children. Written after years of meticulous research, and richly supplemented with photographs and illustrations, The King in Exile is an engrossing human-interest story of this forgotten but fascinating family.

Hell to Pay


Shaun Hutson - 2003
    A couple tens of thousands of pounds in debt. And a young girl with a mysterious, terrifying illness...

The Mahdi


A.J. Quinnell - 1981
    — The greatest "miracle" in fourteen hundred years is about to take place...a miracle orchestrated by British Intelligence and the CIA, joined incredibly by the KGB. — One blinding eruption of flame--and three millions Arabs at Mecca will think they're witnessing the arrival on earth of the Mahdi, the reincarnation of Muhammad, fourteen centuries after the prophet's death. It is a plan of immense audacity and unthinkable consequences.