Even the most predictable of us sometimes defy expectations. Other times life plays tricks on us. We find ourselves characters in a farce. As an award-winning actor and comic writer, Rebecca Front has always been fascinated by life's little quirks. Impossible Things Before Breakfast is a collection of true stories about surprising turns of events, bizarre misunderstandings and improbable life lessons. We learn, among other things, how to prepare for a role as a villainous 'she-mountain' when you're five-foot-four, why beach holidays require military-precision planning, and the joys of wearing a cape. Combining elegant writing, wry humour and genuine insight, this brilliant new collection is about lifting the lid on ordinary life and feasting on the impossible.

    Having walked the beat in the early eighties in some of London’s most fractious communities, he worked on a variety of specialist teams dealing with murder, fraud, witness protection and surveillance before becoming a Detective Inspector responsible for investigating the most serious cases of police corruption.

    Or to inspire people to flock to the dancefloor as a DJ.Frank soon discovers that the tempting sins of the flesh have consequences; when Frank becomes a real father, he realises he is going to need a miracle to feed the five thousand...

    Ranging from tiny sketches and prose poems to longer, more conventional narratives, the stories included here are:A Country Doctor - In the Gods - An Old Folio - Before the Law - Jackals and Arabs - A Visit to the Mine - The Next Village - An Imperial Message - A Paterfamilias Perplexed - Eleven Sons - A Fratricide - A Dream - Bucket Rider - Of Metaphors - The Silence of the Sirens - Gracchus the Hunter - The Knock on the Courtyard Door - Advocates - The Vulture - At Night - A Little Fable.This e-book has a total length of around 16,000 words.

    The right way, the wrong way and the Top Gear way. Although, on reflection, that's usually just the wrong way, but faster and with more shouting. Anyway, the good news is that this third way of doing things can be applied to almost anything, and that includes motoring in general. All you need is the right guidance, which is where the brand new Top Gear Alternative Highway Code comes in. Top Gear's Altnernative Highway Code will show you how to bring the ambitious but rubbish philosophies of the world's most popular TV programme to your driving, containing advice on general motoring, as well as specific tips on how to deal with common eventualities like a rapidly sinking amphibious camper van, a caravan airship that's just crashed into a small bush, or a stupid home-made limousine that's snapped in half while transporting a top celebrity to an awards ceremony.Road users should not leave home without it.

    By day he works for a familiar sounding, power hungry, media controlling, mega rich American businessman who represents everything wrong with society today. Whilst investigating this politically loaded story arc Kurt accidentally acquires a super power like no other. The ability to teleport! Before he can think about saving the day, Wiseman must endure a journey of self-reflection by earning the trust of his friends and overcoming his greatest weakness, booze. Even if the path is filled with comic book cliché, inappropriate one liners and genre busting fourth wall action. Not all heroes in this world are the same and with great power comes the possibility to go viral! This is a story that will unite humanity… Kurt Wiseman is the Teleporter!

    In this raffish, hilarious, scathing yet often surprisingly humane collection, Gill applies his unmatched wit to the largest and smallest issues of our time. Whether you're struggling to satisfy your other half, having a crisis over your baldness, don't like your daughter's boyfriend, or need the definitive rules on shorts, leather jackets and man-bags, AA Gill has all the answers - but you'd better brace yourself first.

    

    The collection takes us from England to Asia with stops in Australia and the United States and it proves the point that disgusting old people are to be found just about everywhere. We enter the troubled minds of murderers, bank robbers, practical jokers, serial killers, perverts and just regular old liars all of whom are old enough to know better. You'll doubtless recognize people you know and be forced to admit to a few wiles of your own.

    The bookshop is about to close, abandoned buildings line the canal and Potherthwaite’s residents seem stuck in a disheartened rut. Something has to be done, but what? And who will do it?When an unexpected tragedy shatters Sally’s life, she bravely takes on the task herself. Supported by a group of locals, including thrice-married Marigold Boyce-Willoughby, who is forever looking for love, and married couple Jill and Arnold Buss, who might both be falling for their new neighbours, Sally embarks on her ambition to bring the town back to life. But can one woman rally a whole community to save itself?David Nobbs’ much-anticipated new novel is a hilarious, heartwarming tale about what keeps our community spirits alive.

    But when two faces from his old gang turn up, he finds himself getting involved in a new scam, and soon he is embroiled in a world he wants to escape and is forced to confront a man who is dangerously unhinged.

    Now, thirty years later, the one card missing from his collection is the legendary card 19 from the 1967 Mission Impossible television series, of which only one exists.One day a mysterious grey-haired man drops a playing card in a deserted alley. Riley picks it up. Is it a secret sign? Before long, he is finding all kinds of bubble gum and cigarette cards on the street, each one apparently containing a further hidden clue to a coded message. Will Riley rise to the challenge and discover the secret of the cards? And will he ever find illusive card 19?Exquisitely written, extremely funny, and visually stunning, The Card is the utterly unforgettable story of a man who views the world - and everything in it - just a little bit differently from the rest of us.

    Of course, no plan survives contact with the enemy, and Alan soon discovers he has far more enemies than he was expecting – aside from vicious pets, difficult owners, surly farmers, and children from hell, he finds himself working with an unhinged and jealous surgeon who makes it his personal mission ruin Alan's life. Battling long hours, life and death decisions, tragic cases, a complaint from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and an unexpected love triangle, Alan’s hopes of saving the world are quickly replaced with a simple question: Can he even last a year in practice? Once Bitten… is the story of a young vet’s first few months in practice, and how they changed his life forever.

    A homicidal barber. A hungry leopard and about a hundred frogs on the loose. Boys with a talent for pranks and jokes. Ruskin Bond???s fresh new school stories are a non-stop laugh riot. Mr Oliver, a history teacher, arrives in Simla with a train-load of hungry boys to start a new term at the Prep School. As he records the antics of the amazing characters there, and all that they get up to, we quickly realize that there is never a dull moment. A fire, a missing Headmaster, runaway students make sure not a day goes by when Mr Oliver has nothing to report in his diary. He writes about the eccentric teachers, the girls??? school next door and the lovely Anjali Ramola, whom he secretly admires. Laugh-out-loud funny, with a core of old-world charm that is trademark Bond, Mr Oliver???s Diary has stories and characters that have never appeared anywhere before. With his runaway wig, pet shrew and endearing dry wit, Mr Oliver is sure to become as well-loved as those other vintage Ruskin Bond characters, Uncle Ken and Rusty About The Author: Ruskin Bond???s first novel, The Room on the Roof, written when he was seventeen, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Since then he has written several novellas (including Vagrants in the Valley, A Flight of Pigeons and Delhi Is Not Far), essays, poems and children???s books, many of which have been published by Penguin India. He has also written over 500 short stories and articles that have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993 and the Padma Shri in 1999