Daedalus Books

Following on from the huge success of the 44 Scotland Street series, Alexander McCall Smith 'moved house' to London's Pimlico and into his brand new daily novel, Corduroy Mansions. The building itself — described in a guide to the architecture of the area as 'a building of no interest whatsoever' — is believed to have been built as an asylum, or possibly a school, or maybe it was a mansion block — nobody is very sure. In fact, nothing of its history is known, although it does have some nice Arts and Craft features. At the moment it is inhabited by an assortment of characters — including amongst others a literary agent, a wine merchant, one accountant, possibly the first ever nasty Liberal Democrat MP and his long-suffering PA, and a small dog in his prime. At least one character is on a voyage of self-discovery, which has taken him to Cheltenham so far. Although Corduroy Mansions is a nickname, it is now recognized by the Post Office.

St Cedd's Church fete had been held in the grounds of Martingale manor house for generations. As if organizing stalls, as well as presiding over luncheon, the bishop and the tea tent, were not enough for Mrs Maxie on that mellow July afternoon, she also had to contend with the news of her son's sudden engagement to her new parlour maid, the sly single mother, Sally Jupp. On the following morning Martingale and the whole village are shocked by the discovery of Sally Jupp's body. Investigating the violent death at the manor house, Detective Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh is embroiled in the complicated passions beneath the calm surface of English village life.

From the authors of the bestselling The Daring Book for Girls, an all-new double-the-fun, double-the-adventure guidebook of stories, activities, facts, and games for daring girls everywhere.

What is a gallimaufry anyway? And when did you last hear someone refer to the wireless? What was the original paraphernalia? Would you wear a billycock? Language is always changing, and here Michael Quinion, author of the bestselling POSH and Other Language Myths, has gathered together some fascinating examples of words and meanings which have vanished from our language. Sometimes a word is lost when the thing it describes becomes obsolete, sometimes it survives in a figurative sense while the original meaning is lost, and sometimes it simply gives way to a more popular alternative. The story of these and many other words opens a window into the lives of past speakers of the English language.

From the glance of a Cockatrice that can turn a person to stone to a Manticore luring unsuspecting travelers to their doom, noted illustrator David West, using 3-D computer-generated art, creates a visually stunning universe of legendary beasts. Full color.

A Kidnapped Santa Claus describes the action of some uncommon events in the land of Santa. Not far from the Laughing Valley where Santa and all his magical helpers live, and beyond the Forest of Burzee, there stands a huge mountain that contains the Cave of Demons. Each demon has a specialty: Selfishness, Envy, Hatred, Malice, and Repentance. Because the promise of Santa puts all girls and boys on their best behaviour, the demons have hardly any visitors to their caves. In order to remedy their dismal foot traffic, they conspire to kidnap Santa! But oh! even when it looks as if the demons might win, one can never underestimate the power of devoted (and magical!) friends. Adapted by Alex Robinson, author of several graphic novels, the action and menace of the tale will be enhanced and lightly spoofed. It seems a most appropriate treatment of Baum's work — he was an author who often let his profound and unsettling meanings roil beneath the surface of his stories.

In her most accomplished novel, Barbara Kingsolver takes us on an epic journey from the Mexico City of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to the America of Pearl Harbor, FDR, and J. Edgar Hoover. The Lacuna is a poignant story of a man pulled between two nations as they invent their modern identities. Born in the United States, reared in a series of provisional households in Mexico — from a coastal island jungle to 1930s Mexico City — Harrison Shepherd finds precarious shelter but no sense of home on his thrilling odyssey. Life is whatever he learns from housekeepers who put him to work in the kitchen, errands he runs in the streets, and one fateful day, by mixing plaster for famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. He discovers a passion for Aztec history and meets the exotic, imperious artist Frida Kahlo, who will become his lifelong friend. When he goes to work for Lev Trotsky, an exiled political leader fighting for his life, Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution, newspaper headlines and howling gossip, and a risk of terrible violence. Meanwhile, to the north, the United States will soon be caught up in the internationalist goodwill of World War II. There in the land of his birth, Shepherd believes he might remake himself in America's hopeful image and claim a voice of his own. He finds support from an unlikely kindred soul, his stenographer, Mrs. Brown, who will be far more valuable to her employer than he could ever know. Through darkening years, political winds continue to toss him between north and south in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach — the lacuna — between truth and public presumption. With deeply compelling characters, a vivid sense of place, and a clear grasp of how history and public opinion can shape a life, Barbara Kingsolver has created an unforgettable portrait of the artist — and of art itself. The Lacuna is a rich and daring work of literature, establishing its author as one of the most provocative and important of her time.

»One of the best-written detective series in the genre's history is ending. With The Monster in the Box, Ruth Rendell says farewell to Reginald Wexford, her popular chief inspector of Kingsmarkham, a small Sussex town south of London... I'm pleased to report that Monster brings both Rendell and Wexford back in strong form. Invariably, whenever I predicted the plot would go in a certain direction, I was wrong. For the first time in the series, we glimpse Wexford's youth, his days as a rookie cop, his eager but uncertain approach to his first cases, the comedy of his early dating, even his initial meeting with [his wife] Dora... We close the book on Inspector Wexford with the knowledge that he has had an illustrious career. And we accept this conclusion because at any time we can return to Kingsmarkham to explore the darker side of humanity with him as our reassuring and humane guide».

A true masterpiece of book design and illustration for beginning readers, this collection pairs well-known nursery tales with uniquely beautiful period illustrations that look as fresh and vital today as they did six decades ago, when the book was first published in Great Britain. Never before published in the United States, My First Nursery Book features four beloved stories: Who Killed Cock Robin?, The Gingerbread Man, Three Little Pigs, and The Three Bears. Franciszka Themerson, a Polish avant-garde artist and filmmaker who turned to childrens book illustration as a refugee in London in the 1940s, is regarded as one of the great talents in classic childrens book illustration.Finally, American children can experience and enjoy this remarkable volume, filled with stunning illustrations that will bring a new audience to Themersons genius.

Few political figures of the twentieth century have aroused as much passion, controversy, and curiosity as Leon Trotsky. Trotsky was that rare combination of the man of ideas and the man of action. His role in history — his epic rise and fall, his fiery persona, his violent end in Mexico in August 1940 — holds a fascination that transcends the history of the Russian Revolution. Based on extensive firsthand research, this groundbreaking biography examines Trotsky's remarkable life from the perspective of his last exile in Mexico. Bertrand M. Patenaude masterfully interweaves the story of Trotsky's final years in Mexico with flashbacks to pivotal episodes in his career as a young Marxist, revolutionary hero, Red Army chief, Bolshevik leader, outcast from Stalin's USSR, and ultimately heretic of the Kremlin, targeted for assassination by its secret police. He vividly recounts the contentious Dewey Commission hearings and the passionate debates among liberals and Communists in the United States and Europe over the Moscow Trials and the charges made against Trotsky. Drawing on Trotsky's private correspondence and diaries, as well as the testimonies of his American bodyguards and secretaries, Patenaude sheds new light on Trotsky's tumultuous friendship with painter Diego Rivera; his affair with Rivera's wife, Frida Kahlo; and his torment as his family and comrades became victims of the Great Terror. Patenaude also turns to KGB files to document Stalin's efforts to eliminate the man he considered his nemesis — including a failed commando raid on Trotsky's home three months before his death. Gripping and tragic, «Trotsky» brilliantly illuminates the fateful and dramatic life of one of history's most captivating and important figures.

Barry Edelstein gathers together the timeless Shakespearean wit and wisdom that's right for the big moments in life-and some of the not-so-big moments as well — and presents it in accessible and entertaining terms. Selections are grouped by occasion and presented with lively and succinct background material. For public speakers or letter writers hoping to enhance their remarks with some choice Shakespearean gem, «Shakespeare for All Occasions» provides nuts and bolts tips on pronunciation, delivery, and emphasis, and offers suggestions and examples that illustrate ways in which musings from the Bard can be woven into a simple and elegant speech, missive, or meditation. This 'how-to' material makes «Shakespeare for All Occasions» stand out from the small number of other Shakespeare quotation books on the market. Those titles list selected lines of Shakespeare and stop there. Only this one offers the reader the practical tools necessary to use the quotes it suggests.

The Battle of Brody ranks as one of the key tank battles in World War II, yet is woefully unknown. For the first time, there is a detailed, well-researched history of this key tank battle around Kiev and the Dnieper River. The fiercest battle of Operation Barbarossa — including a four-day battle between the 1st Panzer Army, and the Soviet Mechanized Corps — this included 3,000 armored vehicles in both armies, plus air support from the Luftwaffe.For a week, the two sides fought each other continuously: the Soviets with tenacity, determination, and courage, the Germans with regimented disciple and tactics that proved superior. Full battle plans are given, along with forces strengths and biographies of key commanders, so the reader can follow combat history, and the author examines the decisive German victory, yet shows how these few days proved invaluable to the Soviet Union, when the Whermacht attack stalled at the gates of Moscow in the dead of winter, foreshadowing the end for the Germans. Showing this battle from both sides, this is a book bound to appeal to any tank enthusiast and military historian.

Acclaimed biographer of James Joyce Edna O Brien has written an intimate biography that suits her fiery and charismatic subject. She follows Byron from the dissipations of Regency London to the wilds of Albania and the Socratic pleasures of Greece and Turkey, culminating in his meteoric rise to fame at the age of twenty-four on the publication of Childe Harold. With her prismatic eye and novelistic style, O Brien eerily captures the spirit of the man and creates an indelible portrait of Byron that explodes the Romantic myth. From his escapades with John Edleston, the fourteen-year-old Cambridge choir boy, to those with a galaxy of women that included his half-sister, his wife of one year, and the Italian countess who forsook her satyr-like husband for the peer of England and its greatest poet, Byron scandalized the world and inspires Byronmania to this day. Byron, as brilliantly rendered by O Brien, is the poet as rebel, imaginative and lawless, and defiantly immortal.

Crazy about cars? Get in gear — and get ready for action — as Robert Crowther's info-packed, interactive pop-up book showcases some very cool wheels. Hop in and take a drive in the smartest, fastest automobiles — from the earliest carriages to the cars of tomorrow. With the pull of a tab or the lift of a flap, fans can ride in the first automobile, find out how engines work, see their car slide off the production line, and plenty more. And the grand finale? Feel the thrill of the racetrack by taking pole position with stock car and Formula 1 stars!

The world of Flanimals, madcap creation of comedian and actor Ricky Gervais, is perfectly realized in this lavish pop-up book. From Flanimal evolution and behaviour to Flanimals of the air and of the deep, all aspects of Flanimal life are open to exploration through huge pop-ups and intricate flaps. Perfect for all ages, «Flanimals Pop-Up» is the ideal introduction to the Flanimal kingdom and the perfect gift for Flanimal lovers everywhere.

The first full and authorized biography of the 1982 Nobel Laureate in Literature — the most popular international novelist of the last fifty years. While telling the story of the young man who rose from obscure provincial journalist to progenitor of a new literature, Gerald Martin also considers the tensions in Garcia Marquez's life between celebrity and the quest for literary quality, between politics and writing, and between the seductions of power, solitude, and love. He explores the contrast in the writer's homeland, Colombia, between the exuberance of his Caribbean background and the authoritarianism of highland Bogota; and his turning away from the magical realism of One Hundred Years of Solitude toward the greater simplicity that would mark his work beginning with Love in the Time of Cholera. Over the course of fifteen years, Gerald Martin interviewed not only Gabo himself, but also more than 300 others: including Fidel Castro, Spain's former prime minister Felipe Gonzalez, and several former presidents of Colombia; Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa, among other writers; Garcia Marquez's family, his literary agent, translators, and his closest friends as well as his consistent detractors. The result is a revelation of a life as gripping as any of the writer's journalism and as enthralling as any of his fiction.

A haunting, magical fairy-tale collection, in which Oscar Wilde beautifully evokes (among others) The Happy Prince who was not so happy after all, The Selfish Giant who learned to love little children and The Star Child who did not love his parents as much as he should. Each of the stories shines with poetry and magic and will be enjoyed by children of every age. This is a perfect collection for children young and old, introduced by Markus Zusak, bestselling author of «The Book Thief».

In the 60s, Elizabeth Taylor's affair with the married Richard Burton knocked John Glenn's orbit of the moon off front pages nationwide. Yet, despite all the gossip, the larger-than-life personality and influence of this very human woman has never been captured. William Mann, praised by Gore Vidal, Patricia Bosworth, and Gerald Clarke for Kate, uses untapped sources and conversations to show how she ignited the sexual revolution with her on- and off-screen passions, helped kick down the studio system by taking control of her own career, and practically invented the big business of celebrity star-making. With unputdownable storytelling he tells the full truth without losing Taylor's magic, daring, or wit. Readers will feel they are sitting next to Taylor as she rises at MGM, survives a marriage engineered for publicity, feuds with Hedda Hopper and Mr. Mayer, wins Oscars, endures tragedy, juggles Eddie Fisher, Richard Burton and her country's conservative values. But it is the private Elizabeth that will surprise — a woman of heart and loyalty, who defends underdogs, a savvy professional whose anger at the studio's treatment of her led to a lifelong battle against that very system. All the Elizabeth's are here, finally reconciled and seen against the exciting years of her greatest spirit, beauty, and influence. Swathed in mink, staring us down with her lavender eyes, disposing of husbands but keeping the diamonds, here is Elizabeth Taylor as she was meant to be, leading her epic life on her own terms, playing the game of supreme stardom at which she remains, to this day, unmatched.

The first complete narrative of the pursuit and capture of Adolf Eichmann, based on groundbreaking new information and interviews and featuring rare, neverpublished Mossad surveillance photographs When the Allies stormed Berlin in the last days of the Third Reich, the operational manager of the mass murder of Europe's Jews shed his SS uniform and vanished. Bringing Adolf Eichmann to justice would require a harrowing fifteen-year chase stretching from war-ravaged Europe to the shores of Argentina. Alternating from a criminal on the run to his pursuers closing in on his trail, Hunting Eichmann follows the Nazi as he escapes two American POWcamps, hides in the mountains, slips out of Europe on the ratlines, and builds an anonymous life in Buenos Aires.Meanwhile, a persistent search for Eichmann gradually evolves into an international manhunt that includes a bulldogWest German prosecutor, a blind Argentinean Jew and his beautiful daughter, and a budding, ragtag spy agency called the Mossad, whose operatives have their own scores to settle. Presented in a pulse-pounding, hour-by-hour account, the capture of Eichmann and the efforts by Israeli agents to secret him out of Argentina and fly him to Israel to stand trial bring the narrative to a stunning conclusion. Hunting Eichmann is a fully documented, finely nuanced history that offers the intrigue of a detective story and the thrill of great spy fiction.

At the age of seventeen, Eustace Conway ditched the comforts of his suburban existence to escape to the wild. Away from the crushing disapproval of his father, he lived alone in a teepee in the mountains. Everything he needed he built, grew or killed. He made his clothes from deer he killed and skinned before using their sinew as sewing thread. But he didn't stop there. In the years that followed, he stopped at nothing in pursuit of bigger, bolder challenges. He travelled the Mississippi in a handmade wooden canoe; he walked the two-thousand-mile Appalachian Trail; he hiked across the German Alps in trainers; he scaled cliffs in New Zealand. One Christmas, he finished dinner with his family and promptly upped and left — to ride his horse across America. From South Carolina to the Pacific, with his little brother in tow, they dodged cars on the highways, ate road kill and slept on the hard ground. Now, more than twenty years on, Eustace is still in the mountains, residing in a thousand-acre forest where he teaches survival skills and attempts to instil in people a deeper appreciation of nature. But over time he has had to reconcile his ambitious dreams with the sobering realities of modernity. Told with Elizabeth Gilbert's trademark wit and spirit, this is a fascinating, intimate portrait of an endlessly complicated man: a visionary, a narcissist, a brilliant but flawed modern hero. The Last American Man is an unforgettable adventure story of an irrepressible life lived to the extreme. The Last American Man is a New York Times Notable Book and National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist.

Simple language, bold illustrations with sturdy pull-tabs and pop-ups in the whimsical tradition of Disney's 'Cars', encourage car-loving toddlers to read. As Little Red Car reaches the crossroads, the old willow tree comes crashing down on him! It's off to the garage for repairs. When he's all fixed there is still something that doesn't feel quite right. A gentle surprise awaits Little Red Car!

Simple language, bold illustrations with sturdy pull-tabs and pop-ups in the whimsical tradition of Disney's 'Cars', encourage car-loving toddlers to read. A heavy snowfall causes problems for Little Red Car, but snow can be fun when your friends come to help!

Simple language, bold illustrations with sturdy pull-tabs and pop-ups in the whimsical tradition of Disney's 'Cars', encourage car-loving toddlers to read. When Alfred the old taxi is out for repairs, Little Red Car is eager to take his place. He finds that being a taxi is very hard work!

A chilling and vividly rendered ghost story set in postwar Britain, by the bestselling and award-winning author of The Night Watch and Fingersmith. Sarah Watersas trilogy of Victorian novels Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, and Fingersmith earned her legions of fans around the world, a number of awards, and a reputation as one of todayas most gifted historical novelists. With her most recent book, The Night Watch, Waters turned to the 1940s and delivered a tender and intricate novel of relationships that brought her the greatest success she has achieved so far. With The Little Stranger, Waters revisits the fertile setting of Britain in the 1940saand gives us a sinister tale of a haunted house, brimming with the rich atmosphere and psychological complexity that have become hallmarks of Watersas work. The Little Stranger follows the strange adventures of Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. One dusty postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, he is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for more than two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in declineaits masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his. Abundantly atmospheric and elegantly told, The Little Stranger is Sarah Watersas most thrilling and ambitious novel yet.