HarperCollins Publishers

The Collins COBUILD Key Words for IELTS series is a brand-new range of three graded books which contain the essential vocabulary students need to succeed in the IELTS exam. These books have been specially created for foreign learners of English who plan to take the IELTS exam to demonstrate that they have the required ability to communicate effectively in English, either at work or at university. Collins COBUILD Key Words for IELTS: Book 2 Improver is the second book in the series, and builds on the vocabulary from Book 1: Starter, taking students to the next level in their preparations for the IELTS exam. It contains the more difficult vocabulary that may appear in the exam, and that students may need to master to achieve the scores required by most universities and employers. These vocabulary books are unique in that the vocabulary items are organized alphabetically, in a dictionary style, and words are clearly labelled according to topic. Hundreds of vocabulary-building features, synonyms, phrases and collocations help students to enrich their vocabulary and increase their accuracy and fluency. Key terms from the Academic Word List are also covered. To help students consolidate what they have learnt, the title also includes a thematic word list section, organized according to topics that frequently appear in the IELTS exams. Vocabulary items are explained using simple language and are presented in a clear and easy-to-use format, which makes the Collins COBUILD Key Words for IELTS: Book 2 Improver ideal for students who are preparing for IELTS. Students can feel confident that the Collins COBUILD Key Words for IELTS series will fully prepare them for the exam and help them achieve the score they are aiming for.

A wonderful mini hardback edition of a classic Christmas story about everyone's favourite family cat, complete with a beautiful foiled cover for extra Christmas sparkle! The house is full of strange bustling noises and peculiar smells. Everyone is busy hanging holly and blowing up balloons, and where is that tree going? Disconcerted by all the unusual activities, Mog escapes to the roof, and there she stays!until, unexpectedly, she returns with a bump! «Happy Christmas, Mog!»!

Top Ten bestselling author Tess Gerritsen expands the scope of her landscape of terror in a thoroughly menacing new thriller. A brilliantly compulsive page-turner from the author of The Surgeon. Dr Emma Watson, a brilliant research physician, has been training for the mission of a lifetime: to study living organisms in space. Jack McCallum, Emma's estranged husband, has shared her dream of space travel, but a medical condition has grounded him. Now he must watch from the sidelines! The mission aboard the space station turns into a nightmare when a culture of single-celled organisms begins to regenerate out of control — and infects the crew with agonising and deadly results. Emma struggles to contain the deadly virus, while back home Jack and NASA work against the clock to bring her home. But there will be no rescue, as the astronauts are left stranded in orbit where they are dying one by one!

If your writing is preventing you from getting the score you need in IELTS, Collins Writing for IELTS can help. Don't let one skill hold you back. Collins Writing for IELTS has been specially created for learners of English who plan to take the Academic IELTS exam to demonstrate that they have the required ability to communicate effectively in English at university. It is ideal for learners with band score 5 — 5.5 who are aiming for band score 6 or higher on the IELTS test (CEF level B1 and above). What is IELTS? The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is sat by over 1.4 million candidates around the world every year. It is the most common test used by universities for foreign students to prove their language level. IELTS is also increasingly used for immigration purposes, with Australia, New Zealand and Canada all requiring visa applicants whose first language is not English to submit an IELTS grade. The system tests candidates' Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking in four separate papers. Usually, students must gain a good mark in all four skills in order to gain entry to the course, job, or country of their choice. For this reason, candidates will often sit the exam numerous times to secure the score that they need. There are two IELTS Writing papers: General and Academic. Collins Writing for IELTS concentrates on the Academic paper. Powered by COBUILD The 4-billion-word Collins corpus is the world's largest database of the English language. It is updated every month and has been at the heart of Collins COBUILD for over 20 years.

Write clearer business documents more efficiently This brand new self-study book is the ideal way for business people to refine and perfect their written English. It is aimed particularly at executives who communicate in written English frequently or work in foreign or multinational companies. Collins English for Business is a new series of self-study skills books which focus on the language you really need to do business in English — wherever you are in the world. Each title includes tips on how to communicate effectively and how to communicate inter-culturally. Other titles in the series: Speaking and Listening. * Powered by COBUILD — using the real language of business English * Contents: Twenty 4-page units featuring key areas, such as Getting the Right Tone, Linking Ideas, Writing Quickly and Simply, Dealing with Difficult Issues and Editing the Language. * Each unit contains: — Exercises focused on written texts, vocabulary or key structures — Grammar tips — Key phrases * Reference section with key phrases for written documents is included at the end of the book.

Annie can hardly wait until Surprise, Jill's one-month-old foal, is big enough to ride. But when Annie falls off Splash during a rising lesson, the rattled Pony Scout has to decide whether or not to get back in the saddle.

Meg has pony books, pony toys, and pony clothes. And on her first day at a new school, Meg meets two girls who are as pony crazy as she is!

When Marley's family visits Uncle Bob's farm, Cassie turns out to be an excellent farmhand but Marley just seems to get in the way. Surely there's something Marley can do to help!

When Mommy decides to surprise Cassie with a newly painted bedroom, Marley wants to help. But by the time he's done, the messy dog is in need of a little help himself!

Everyone knows that David Beckham crosses the ball better than anyone, and that Tiger Woods never chokes. But what are the hidden factors which allow the most successful sports stars to rise above their competitors — and are they shared by virtuosos in other fields? What are the real secrets of sporting success, and what lessons do they offer about life in general? Matthew Syed explains why Tiger Woods doesn't choke, why the best figure skaters are those that have fallen over the most and why one small street in Reading — his own — has produced more top table tennis players than the rest of the country put together. As a three-time Commonwealth table-tennis champion and two-time Olympian, Matthew is perfectly placed to show just what it takes to get to the top in any discipline. And as an award-winning writer for the sports and comment pages of The Times — and holder of a prize-winning degree from Oxford University — he knows the facts, the science and the personalities better than anyone. Bounce is not simply the 'Freakonomics' of sport though — it looks at big questions such as the nature of talent, what kind of practice actually works, how to achieve motivation, drugs in sport (and life) and whether black people really are faster runners. Fresh, ground-breaking and tackling subjects with wide appeal, this is sure to be one of the most talked-about books of the year.

A collection of Richard Scarry's best loved stories, all together in the perfect bedtime storybook. Join Huck and Lowly on their adventures around Busytown then drift off to sleep for adventures of your own! This fun book contains a collection of some of Richard Scarry's best loved stories, perfect for bedtime reading and is packed with Richard Scarry's wonderful, original artwork.

This remarkable novel, winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, tells the story of three women, each of them far from where they came, all of whom are still searching for somewhere that can be called home. Maysa returns to the house that was her grandparents' when she was a child, in a village high on the slopes of Mount Lebanon. Aida, who has long since left the country of her birth, returns in search of the Palestinian refugee who was a second father to her when she was a child. And Salwa, now an old woman, recalls her life from her hospital bed, surrounded by her family but still, in some sense, far from home.

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul — the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbour who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter — environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, family man — she was doing her small part to build a better world. But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz — outre rocker and Walter's old college friend and rival — still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to poor Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become a very different kind of neighbour, an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes? In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of too much liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom's intensely realized characters, as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.

The final episode in the trilogy that began with the million-copy bestseller MAN AND BOY Ten years on from MAN AND BOY, it is crunch time for Harry! Life is good for Harry Silver. He has a beautiful wife, three wonderful children and a great job as producer of the cult radio show, A Clip Round the Ear. But Harry is about to turn forty and his ex-wife is back in town. Soon it could be time to kiss the good life goodbye! When Harry's fifteen-year-old son Pat moves out to live with his mother, the hard times have only just begun. With his son gone, his job at risk and his wife unsettled by the reappearance of her own ex, their dream seems to be falling apart. Into the chaos of Harry Silver's life stroll two old soldiers who fought alongside Harry's late father in The Battle of Monte Cassino in the spring of 1944. Will these two grumpy old men help Harry reclaim his son, his family and his life? And can they show Harry Silver what it really means to be a man? Funny, moving and unforgettable, MEN FROM THE BOYS is a story of how we live now.

Michael Chabon, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay' and 'The Yiddish Policemen's Union', offers his first major work of non-fiction, an autobiographical narrative as inventive, beautiful and powerful as his novels. A shy manifesto; an impractical handbook; the true story of a fabulist; an entire life in parts and pieces: 'Manhood for Amateurs' is the first sustained work of personal writing from Michael Chabon. In these insightful, provocative, slyly interlinked essays, one of our most brilliant and humane writers presents his autobiography and vision of life in the way so many of us experience our own: as a series of reflections, regrets and re-examinations, each sparked by an encounter, in the present, that holds some legacy of the past. What does it mean to be a man today? Chabon invokes and interprets and struggles to reinvent for us, with characteristic warmth and lyric wit, the personal and family history that haunts him even as it goes on being written every day. As a son, a husband, and above all as a father of four young children, Chabon's memories of childhood, of his parents' marriage and divorce, of moments of painful adolescent comedy and giddy encounters with the popular art and literature of his own youth, are like a theme played — on different instruments, with a fresh tempo and in a new key — by the mad quartet of which he now finds himself co-conductor. At once dazzling, hilarious and moving, 'Manhood for Amateurs' is destined to become a classic.

The new Logan McRae novel set in gritty Aberdeen from the bestselling author of Cold Granite and Blind Eye. Richard Knox has served his time, so why shouldn't he be allowed to live wherever he wants? Yes, in the past he was a violent rapist, but he's seen the error of his ways. Found God. Wants to leave his dark past in Newcastle behind him and make a new start. Or so he says. Detective Sergeant Logan McRae isn't exactly thrilled to be part of the team helping Knox settle into his new Aberdeen home. He's even less thrilled to be stuck with DSI Danby from Northumbria Police — the man who put Knox behind bars for ten years — supposedly here to 'keep an eye on things'. Only things are about to go very, very wrong. Edinburgh gangster Malk the Knife wants a slice of the development boom Donald Trump's golf course is bringing to the Granite City, whether local crime lord Wee Hamish Mowat likes it or not. Three heavies from Newcastle want a 'quiet word' with DSI Danby about a missing mob accountant. And Richard Knox's dark past isn't done with him yet!

The irresistible bear from Darkest Peru, who was found on Paddington Station, returns for a day of London sightseeing in this hilarious picture book! Paddington is very excited. He is going on a day trip around the city with his friend, Mr Gruber. With his suitcase full of marmalade sandwiches and Mrs Bird's umbrella in case it rains, the bear from darkest Peru is ready for anything. Or almost! How could Paddington know that the other tourists would think he was their tour guide? And how could he guess that they would follow him everywhere? Chaos and humour are hand-in-hand in this new story about the bear who always gets it right in the end.

SOMEONE NEW IS PLAYING GOD The Frankenstein story updated to the 21st century by the great American storyteller Dean Koontz. In a powerful reworking of one of the classic stories of all time, Dr Frankenstein lives on, seemingly indestructible, more malignant than ever. Frankenstein's first monster, Deucalion, has spent two hundred years trying to put an end to his creator. Now he learns that a new Frankenstein clone, Victor Helios, is out there again, somewhere. Terrifyingly, with each incarnation the sinister doctor draws closer to the possibility of succeeding in his ambition to create a new human race — which he will control. He has found an enigmatic backer and is working in a secret location. Together with the two ex-cops who helped him destroy the previous Victor, Deucalion is drawn to the small Montana town where Victor's grotesque new creations are taking shape. Victor's New Race is spectacularly different, a product of cutting-edge technology and stem-cell circuits, and when things go wrong, they go wrong in very unexpected ways. Frankenstein is unleashing a new menace on the world, whether or not he can control it. It may be too late, even if Deucalion can bring him down.

This latest volume of the Society of Illustrators annual is a gorgeous collection of the year's best illustrations derived from books, advertising, comics, and uncommissioned illustrations. Designed by D.J. Stout of the prestigious Pentagram Design firm, this massive volume presents not only the year's finest illustrative work, but also delves into the ideas behind the art as stated by the artists themselves. Each artist discusses the how to and why of their art, marking this annual as both a visually stunning art book, and a riveting read into the creative process of today's top working illustrators.

Teenage humour and high profile author. The first book by Louise Rennison on our list and a global acquistion with HCUS. Funky teenage protagonist gets taken to live in the USA much against her wishes. What happens there is a wise-cracking, gob-smacking, screamingly funny account to rival any of Louise Rennison's previous 'Georgia' books, and more!

A clear, chronological narrative exploring many of the ethical dilemmas posed for real people during and after the Second World War. Literature on the Second World War is voluminous. In 'Moral Combat', however, Michael Burleigh achieves what few historians can claim to have done; by exploring the moral sentiment of entire societies and their leaders, and how this changed under the impact of total war, he presents readers with an entirely fresh perspective of this conflict. Opening with the 'predators' — Mussolini, Hitler, Prince Hirohito of Japan — and moving onto appeasement (a popular policy or a 'wrong' policy?), the rape of Poland, Barbarossa, the role of Churchill, and the Holocaust, Burleigh analyses the moral dimension of the Second World War's most important moments. More than merely a history of 'great men', however, Burleigh also examines the moral reasoning of individuals who had to make choices under circumstances difficult to imagine. Stressing the maxim that the past is used to make sense of the present world we live in, he takes us right up to today's war on terror — a war of competing ideas. What, in the end, will constitute its victory? Burleigh's fascinating and deeply engaging exploration refuses to draw lessons from the past for the future, remaining instead firmly focused on the on-the-spot decisions that came to define the conflict. Original, perceptive and remarkable in scope, this is an unforgettable and hugely important Second World War history.

A tale of high adventure and derring-do set in the same Victorian-style world as the acclaimed The Court of the Air and The Rise of the Iron Moon. A secret grave enough to kill for! The isolated island of Jago is the only home Hannah Conquest has ever known. But her carefree existence comes to an abrupt halt when her guardian, Archbishop Alice Grey, is brutally murdered. Someone desperately wants to suppress a secret kept by the archbishop, and if the attempts on Hannah's own life are any indication, the killer believes that Alice passed the knowledge of it onto her ward before her head was separated from her neck. Meanwhile, a deadly power struggle is brewing on Jago. And as Hannah digs deeper into the mystery Alice left behind, assisted by two rather different detectives, she must race to unravel a chain of ancient riddles in order to save not just her own life, but her island home itself!

Based on a true story, mystery and intrigue in pre-Civil War New York The sensational murder of Dr. Harvey Burdell in his lower Manhattan home made front-page news across the United States in 1857. Who killed Dr. Burdell? Was a question that gripped the nation. 31 Bond Street, a debut novel by Ellen Horan, interweaves fiction with actual events in a clever historical narrative that blends romance, politics, greed and sexual intrigue in a suspenseful drama. The story opens when an errand boy discovers Burdell's body in the bedroom of his lavish Bond Street home. The novel's central characters are Dr. Harvey Burdell, a dentist and unscrupulous businessman; his lover, the ambitious, Brooklyn-born Emma Cunningham; the District Attorney, Abraham Oakey Hall (later to become mayor of New York); and Henry Clinton, a prominent defense lawyer. The enigmatic relationship between Emma and Dr. Burdell makes her the prime suspect, and her trial is nothing less than sensational. Will she hang? Were her teenaged daughters involved? What did the servants know? Who was the last person to see Burdell alive? During the trial, the two lawyers fight for truth, justice and their careers. This novel is set against the background of bustling, corrupt New York City, just four years before the Civil War. The author intertwines two main narratives: the trial through the perspective of the defense attorney Henry Clinton, and the story of the lovely young widow Emma Cunningham whose search for a husband brings her into the arms and home of Dr. Burdell.

The evil that men do lives after them. The stunning new thriller from the bestselling author of Velocity and Breathless. Billy Lucas confesses to a shocking crime. He's only fourteen years old but he's a sadistic killer and proud of it. He's in the secure wing of the state hospital but! He seems too wise for his age, not crazy, too knowing. About the nature of evil, and whether it lives on beyond death. Too knowing about other crimes that took place before he was born! Other murders from twenty years ago surface in the mind of Detective John Calvino as he interviews young Billy Lucas. Calvino carries away a signed confession and a sense of great danger. That night he feels that somehow Billy has come home with him, to his family. Over the next weeks, this haunted feeling does not go away. It only gets worse. Then another killing spree happens, just as and when John Calvino dreaded it would. Billy is safely locked away, but not the ghost, if the ghost exists, that links these murders with past crimes, and with John Calvino. Anything could happen, and surely will again.