Giant chickens, rats, and insects run amok, and children given the food stuffs experience incredible growth--and serious illnesses. Over the years, people who have eaten these specially treated foods find themselves unable to fit into a society where ignorance and hypocrisy rule. These "giants," with their extraordinary mental powers, find themselves shut away from an older, more traditional society. Intolerance and hatred increase as the line of distinction between ordinary people and giants is drawn across communities and families. One of H. G. Wells' lesser-known works, The Food of the Gods has been retold many times in many forms since it was first published in 1904. The gripping, newly relevant tale combines fast-paced entertainment with social commentary as it considers the ethics involved in genetic engineering.

    Carter doesn't believe in aliens. And he certainly doesn't defend his dad's claims that they exist, even if they aired on national television. But then, the girl he's falling for starts doing strange things, magical things, things that seem a bit out of this world.Kokab hungers to be a Perfect in a world where her emotions are her greatest flaw. But when her planet faces extinction, her sympathy makes her the perfect ambassador to persuade humans to accept her people. Failure means invasion, but success means she will never become a Perfect.Ags dreams of graduating from the Academy and becoming a guardian of Earth. Obsessed with all things human, she's eager to spend time on the unique planet. But when she uncovers an impending invasion, she's willing to lose everything, including herself, to stop it.

    He blames himself for the tragedy and is sucked into a spiral of despair. But Leo is about to discover something which will change his life forever. 1917: Moritz Daniecki is a fugitive from a Siberian POW camp. Seven thousand kilometres over the Russian Steppes separate him from his village and his sweetheart, whose memory has kept him alive through carnage and captivity. The Great War may be over, but Moritz now faces a perilous journey across a continent riven by civil war. When Moritz finally limps back into his village to claim the hand of the woman he left behind, will she still be waiting?'Special' Sunday Express'Tender' Observer'Mesmerising' Publishing News

    If she’s being honest, she’s jealous of Gobi’s fame and the international attention she has received ever since Dion found her. Okay, Gobi may have survived an ultra-marathon across the Gobi Desert, but it’s not as if Lara doesn’t earn her fresh prawns! She dreams about the day when she can go outdoors and see the world, discover new friends and be free to make her own name.But Lara’s wishful thinking gets the better of her as she takes a leap into the unknown and is forced to decide between her loyalties to her family and need to experience an adventure to rival Gobi’s. Join Lara in her eventful travels from Edinburgh to France, Beijing to Australia, where she is faced with challenges that will change her life forever.Following on from the astounding real-life story of Dion Leonard, this fictionalised tale is a must-read for animal lovers everywhere.

    P. Lovecraft have been a source of fascination for readers since they were published in the early twentieth century, and legions of fans continue to reinvent his dark and fantastical world to this day. This collection of short stories by the master of the macabre contains more than a dozen of his most popular works, including -The Call of Cthulhu,- -The Shadow Over Innsmouth,- and -The Dunwich Horror.- Each story will leave the reader feeling unsettled and uncertain, but also appreciative of the unique elements that Lovecraft introduced to the literary world.

    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

    Here, leading Stevenson scholar Barry Menikoff arranges and introduces the complete selection of Stevenson's brilliant stories, including the famed masterpiece Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as well as "The Beach of Fales�" and Stevenson's previously uncollected stories. Arthur Conan Doyle has written that "[Stevenson's] short stories are certain to retain their position in English literature. His serious rivals are few indeed."This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition includes explanatory notes, a Scots' Glossary, and a unique appendix dedicated to Stevenson's influence on the Oxford English Dictionary.

    Ships That Pass tells the story of Tara and Shaan, near strangers to each other after fourteen years of being married, and Tara's sister, Radhika, recently engaged, almost on a whim, to someone she barely knows. Even as Radhika tries to understand how a once ideal marriage has come undone, and struggles with her own feelings for an older man, tragedy strikes: Tara dies in mysterious circumstances and Shaan is arrested for murder. In the aftermath, Radhika realizes that while life may seldom turn out as expected, the only hope lies in finding the courage to take one's chances. A meditation on the nature of love and marriage, this subtle novella is vintage Shashi Deshpande. '[A] mesmerizing writer. . .you can never walk away from her stories.' About the AuthorShashi Deshpande, daughter of the renowned Kannada dramatist and Sanskrit scholar Shriranga, was born in Dharwad. She studied economics in Mumbai, then moved to Bangalore, where she gained a degree in law. Her writing career began in 1970, initially with short stories, of which several volumes have been published. She is also the author of eight novels, the best known of which are That Long Silence, which won the Sahitya Akademi award and is considered a landmark in Indian writing in English; The Dark Holds No Terror; Small Remedies; Moving On; and The Country of Deceit.

    Inside you will find writing from the greatest of classic and contemporary authors; stories that will brighten and inspire, move and delight, soothe and restore in equal measure.This is an anthology to devour or to savour at your leisure, each story a perfectly imagined whole to be read and reread, and each a journey to transport the reader away from the everyday. Immersed in the pages you will follow lovers to midnight trysts, accompany old friends on new adventures, be thrilled by ghostly delights, overcome heartbreak, loss and longing, and be warmed by tales of redemption, and of hope and happiness.Whether as a cure for insomnia, to while away the hours on a midnight journey, or as a brief moment of escapism before you turn in, the stories contained in this remarkable collection provide the perfect antidote to the frenetic pace of modern life - a rich and calming selection guaranteed to see you through the night.Featuring stories by:Katherine Mansfield, Alice Munro, Anton Chekhov, Oscar Wilde, Haruki Murakami, Wilkie Collins, Kate Chopin, Elizabeth Gaskell, The Brothers Grimm, John Cheever, Arthur Conan Doyle, Virginia Woolf, Rudyard Kipling, Helen Simpson, Richard Yates, James Lasdun, Martin Amis, Angela Carter, Somerset Maugham and Julian Barnes

    The depth and diversity of perceptual awareness-so steadfast and radiant in American Primitive-continue in Dream Work. Additionally, she has turned her attention in these poems to the solitary and difficult labors of the spirit-to accepting the truth about one's personal world, and to valuing the triumphs while transcending the failures of human relationships. Whether by way of inheritance-as in her poem about the Holocaust-or through a painful glimpse into the present-as in "Acid," a poem about an injured boy begging in the streets of Indonesia-the events and tendencies of history take on a new importance also. More deeply than in her previous volumes, the sensibility behind these poems has merged with the world. Mary Oliver's willingness to be joyful continues, deepened by self-awareness, by experience, and by choice.

    Without the help of her mysterious benefactor cowboy, she would have never opened her doors. Will she ever find her cowboy?Jack Jones is moving to Dallas, but when he meets Becca, his back-door neighbor, he has a change of heart. She has a garden that needs tending and he needs her. Will he convince her that he’s the man she’s been searching for, or will she continue to push him away?

    The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina’s relationship with her obsessive best friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention…Boy Parts is the incendiary debut novel from Eliza Clark, a pitch-black comedy both shocking and hilarious, fearlessly exploring the taboo regions of sexuality and gender roles in the twenty-first century.

    It started as a simple case of arson, but Thomas Daniels soon learns that the ruins of his office concealed the key to a conspiracy that would destroy financial empires and take countless lives!

    William Boyd's novel Any Human Heart is his disjointed autobiography, a massive tome chronicling "my personal rollercoaster"--or rather, "not so much a rollercoaster", but a yo-yo, "a jerking spinning toy in the hands of a maladroit child." From his early childhood in Montevideo, son of an English corned beef executive and his Uraguayan secretary, through his years at a Norfolk public school and Oxford, Mountstuart traces his haphazard development as a writer. Early and easy success is succeeded by a long half-century of mediocrity, disappointments and setbacks, both personal and professional, leading him to multiple failed marriages, internment, alcoholism, and abject poverty.Mountstuart's sorry tale is also the story of a British way of life in inexorable decline, as his journey takes in the Bloomsbury set, the General Strike, the Spanish Civil War, 1930s Americans in Paris, wartime espionage, New York avant garde art, even the Baader-Meinhof gang--all with a stellar supporting cast. The most sustained and best moment comes mid-book, as Mountstuart gets caught up in one of Britain's murkier wartime secrets, in the company of the here truly despicable Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Elsewhere Boyd occasionally misplaces his tongue too obviously in his cheek--the Wall Street Crash is trailed with truly crashing inelegance--but overall Any Human Heart is a witty, inventive and ultimately moving novel. Boyd succeeds in conjuring not only a compelling 20th century but also, in the hapless Logan Mountstuart, an anti-hero who achieves something approaching passive greatness. --Alan Stewart, Amazon.co.uk

    But now for the first time - suddenly, shockingly, horribly - the balance of power had shifted and the rats began to prey on the human population.