HarperCollins Publishers

A brilliantly funny novel from the author of «The Abstinence Teacher» and «Little Children», made into an acclaimed film starring Reece Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick.

The literary debut from the author of «Little Children», «Election» and «The Abstinence Teacher».

The second novel from Tom Perrotta, the author of «Little Children», «Election» and «The Abstinence Teacher».

Britains best-loved comic genius Stephen Fry turns his celebrated wit and insight to unearthing the real America as he travels across the continent in his black taxicab. Stephens account of his adventures is filled with his unique humour, insight and warmth in the fascinating book that orginally accompanied his journey for the BBC1 series. Stephen Fry is a treasure of the British Empire.

The world first publication of a previously unknown work by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the epic story of the Norse hero, Sigurd, the dragon-slayer, the revenge of his wife, Gudrun, and the Fall of the Nibelungs. Many years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien composed his own version, now published for the first time, of the great legend of Northern antiquity, in two closely related poems to which he gave the titles «The New Lay of the Volsungs» and «The New Lay of Gudrun». In the Lay of the Volsungs is told the ancestry of the great hero Sigurd, the slayer of Fafnir most celebrated of dragons, whose treasure he took for his own; of his awakening of the Valkyrie Brynhild who slept surrounded by a wall of fire, and of their betrothal; and of his coming to the court of the great princes who were named the Niflungs (or Nibelungs), with whom he entered into blood-brotherhood. In that court there sprang great love but also great hate, brought about by the power of the enchantress, mother of the Niflungs, skilled in the arts of magic, of shape-changing and potions of forgetfulness. In scenes of dramatic intensity, of confusion of identity, thwarted passion, jealousy and bitter strife, the tragedy of Sigurd and Brynhild, of Gunnar the Niflung and Gudrun his sister, mounts to its end in the murder of Sigurd at the hands of his blood-brothers, the suicide of Brynhild, and the despair of Gudrun. In the Lay of Gudrun her fate after the death of Sigurd is told, her marriage against her will to the mighty Atli, ruler of the Huns (the Attila of history), his murder of her brothers the Niflung lords, and her hideous revenge. Deriving his version primarily from his close study of the ancient poetry of Norway and Iceland known as the Poetic Edda (and where no old poetry exists, from the later prose work the Volsunga Saga), J.R.R. Tolkien employed a verse-form of short stanzas whose lines embody in English the exacting alliterative rhythms and the concentrated energy of the poems of the Edda.

Fully revised and updated, this latest edition from Collins’ bestselling Gem Dictionary range is the perfect choice for anyone needing a portable up-to-the-minute Russian dictionary. Features include: • All the latest words in both languages, such as downloadable, Wi-Fi, carbon footprint, podcast • User-friendly business language supplement • Useful tables of nouns, verbs, pronouns and numerals • New clear layout • Helpful examples and cultural notes • Special treatment of difficult words The Collins Gem Russian Dictionary has been designed to give travellers, students, business people and the general user alike all the information they need in a handy, take-anywhere format. Includes all the latest words reflecting changes in modern lifestyle, as well as all the features you would expect from a Collins dictionary: an easy-to-read layout, special treatment of difficult words such as can, that, of, some, and notes about life in Russia. Also in this dictionary is a handy business language supplement, ensuring you have all the up-to-date business vocabulary you need at your fingertips. Also available in the Collins Russian dictionary range are Collins Pocket Russian Dictionary and Collins Russian Dictionary.

Social mores come under bestselling author Philippa Gregory’s acute scrutiny in this reissue of a long-unavailable novel of betrayal, revenge and liberation… Alice Hartley can no longer arouse the interest of her pompous husband, the adulterous professor. Despite her efforts, she still leaves him cold. Just as she is compelled to face this chilling truth, she meets Michael, a young student with an excessive libido. In Michael, Alice discovers an endless supply of all she has sought: revenge, sex and a large house suitable for conversion. Soon the house is thigh-deep with women joyfully casting off the shacles of their oppression. Sadly, some narrow-minded neigbours and numerous forces of the law seem completely impervious to all those healing vibrations…

The life story of Isabel Allende – one of the world's favourite writers – is as exotic, passionate and inspiring as one of her novels.

The powerful new bestseller from the nation’s favourite storyteller Harry always knew he would go back one day… Eighteen years ago he made a decision that drove him from the place he knew and loved. In those early years he carved out a life for himself, and somehow, he had found a semblance of peace. Every waking moment during those long aching years he was haunted by what happened when he was a boy. He had never forgotten that warm, carefree girl with the laughing eyes. For Judy Saunders, the pain of her past has left her deeply scarred. Cut off from her family and stuck in a stormy marriage to a man she doesn't love, the distant memories of her first love are her only source of comfort. Now for the first time in all those years, Harry is heading back and he needs to know the outcome of what happened all those years ago. And most importantly, he needs to find forgiveness.

A hugely significant political novel for the late twentieth-century from one of the outstanding writers of the modern era and Winner of the Nobel Prize for Fiction 2007. In a London squat a band of bourgeois revolutionaries are united by a loathing of the waste and cruelty they see around them. These maladjusted malcontents try desperately to become involved in terrorist activities far beyond their level of competence. Only Alice seems capable of organising anything. Motherly, practical and determined, she is also easily exploited by the group and ideal fodder for a more dangerous and potent cause. Eventually their naïve radical fantasies turn into a chaos of real destruction, but the aftermath is not as exciting as they had hoped. Nonetheless, while they may not have changed the world, their lives will never be the same again…

The true and remarkable story of the English double agent who ended up playing for Spartak Moscow. Like many working class children growing up in the war, the young Jim Riordan would fantasise his way out of his devastated surroundings with dreams of Wembley and FA Cup glory for his local team, Portsmouth FC. Spartak Moscow, the team he would end up playing for, wasn't even on his radar. Taught Russian and trained as a spy in the same institution that nurtured the likes of Alan Bennett and Michael Frayn, he was posted to Berlin as part of his National Service to listen in on Soviet military communiqués. But, unbeknownst to his seniors, he began mixing with Russian servicemen, mostly through informal kick-abouts, and the passion of these idealistic young men would cultivate his interest in Russian culture, and especially communism, until it blossomed into a full-grown love affair. From the shambolic outfit that was the British Communist Party in the 1950s, to Cold War Moscow at its coldest, to his friendship with the Cambridge Five and meetings with Brezhnev and Gregarin, and his eventual debut in front of 50,000 Spartak fans at the Lenin Stadium, ‘Comrade Jim’ is the remarkable true story of the only Englishman to have played – and survived – Russian league football, told with grace, humour and lashings of vodka. An incredible journey of an ordinary man living through extraordinary times.

By the author of the hugely successful ‘The Thorn Birds’ It is a truth universally acknowledged that anyone who loved PRIDE AND PREJUDICE will want to know what happened to the Bennet sisters… Twenty years on, Jane has a happy marriage and large family; Lizzy and Mr Darcy now have a formidable social reputation; Lydia has a reputation of quite another kind; Kitty is much in demand in London’s parlours and ballrooms; but what of Mary? Mary is quietly celebrating her independence, having nursed her ailing mother for many years. She decides to write a book to bring the plight of the poor to everyone’s attention. But with more resolve than experience, as she sets out to travel around the country, it’s not only her family who are concerned about her. Marriage may be far from her mind, but what if she were to meet the one man whose own fiery articles infuriate the politicians and industrialists? And what if when she starts to ask similar questions, she unwittingly places herself in great danger?

An elegant, powerful novel, set in Victorian England, a time not so different from our own… perfect for fans of «The Interpretation Of Murder» and «The Shadow Of The Wind». Ambitious young journalist Thomas Kitson arrives at the battlefields of the Crimea as the London Courier’s man on the ground. It is a dangerous place, full of the worst horrors of war but Kitson is determined to make his mark. Under the tutelage of his hard-bitten Irish boss Cracknell, and assisted by artist Robert Styles, he sets about exposing the incompetence of the army generals. Two years later, as Sebastopol burns, Thomas returns to England under mysterious circumstances. Desperate to forget the atrocities of the Crimea, he takes a job as a ‘street philosopher’, a society writer reporting on the gossip of the day. But on the eve of the great Art Treasures Exhibition, as Manchester prepares to welcome Queen Victoria, Thomas’s past returns to haunt him in the most horrifying way…

Scale: 1:17,500 (3.62 inches to 1 mile). A London map to cover all eventualities. It is clear and easy to read but with a lot of detail. It has a large area of coverage but is presented in a handy compact format. MAIN FEATURES This attractive map has an extensive area of coverage and displays a wealth of detail all for only £2.99 a copy. It is fully indexed and has the London underground map conveniently located on the back cover. INCLUDES • Fully classified roads. • Colour-coded buildings. • Postal districts and boundaries clearly depicted. • Full indexes to street names, place names and places of interest. WHO THE MAP IS OF INTEREST TO This is a general purpose map, ideal for tourists and residents. AREA OF COVERAGE Extends from Hampstead in the north to Clapham in the south and from Hammersmith in the west to Greenwich in the east.

The first ever B-format edition of Tolkien’s complete Father Christmas letters, including a new introduction and rare archive materials. Every December an envelope bearing a stamp from the North Pole would arrive for J.R.R.Tolkien’s children. Inside would be a letter in strange spidery handwriting and a beautiful coloured drawing or some sketches. The letters were from Father Christmas. They told wonderful tales of life at the North Pole: how all the reindeer got loose and scattered presents all over the place; how the accident-prone Polar Bear climbed the North Pole and fell through the roof of Father Christmas’s house into the dining-room; how he broke the Moon into four pieces and made the Man in it fall into the back garden; how there were wars with the troublesome horde of goblins who lived in the caves beneath the house! Sometimes the Polar Bear would scrawl a note, and sometimes Ilbereth the Elf would write in his elegant flowing script, adding yet more life and humour to the stories. No reader, young or old, can fail to be charmed by the inventiveness and ‘authenticity’ of Tolkien’s Letters from Father Christmas. To mark ten years since the publication of the complete edition of Tolkien’s Letters from Father Christmas in 1999, this new edition is the first time the letters have been available in B format.

From former top trainer Charlie Brooks comes a thriller of horseracing, dirty dealing, big business and a test of loyalty under extreme pressure… General Shalakov, brutal Russian oligarch, has business interests across many continents. Yet he craves prestige in the West. His ambition is to corner the thoroughbred stallion market in Europe. Massively rich, he is prepared to bribe, torture and murder to achieve his goal. Tipper O’Reilly, apprentice jockey, learns the hard way that survival is as much about what happens off the track as in the saddle. And he’s about to be drawn into a whole different world. Coerced into working at Shalakov’s state-of-the-art training complex miles from Moscow, Tipper has no concept of what's really going on behind the efficient facade. There'll be only one survivor of the final race.

An astonishing first book, ‘Apache’ is a story of courage, comradeship, technology and tragedy, during the ongoing war in Afghanistan. ‘Apache’ is the first book to come from the cockpit of the most sophisticated fighting helicopter the world has ever known. Designed in the mid 1980s to take on the Soviets, these machines have proven themselves as the perfect tool for combat in Afghanistan. Ed Macy's account of the incredibly hard Apache selection process, tougher than that of the SAS, combined with his description of the sheer difficulty of flying one of these helicopters, provides a fascinating insight into the relationship between man and machine fighting in the toughest conditions imaginable. The climactic build-up to the rescue mission at Jugroom Fort is both dramatic and deeply moving. The rescue of Lance Corporal Mathew Ford has been hailed as one of the most remarkable and daring rescues of modern wartime and Ed's bravery on the ground at Jugroom Fort led to him being awarded the Military Cross – one of the first in the Army Air Corps' history. Taking the reader right to the heart of the war in Afghanistan, ‘Apache’ offers an unprecedented degree of proximity to the action and horror that troops in the region are faced with on a daily basis. Gripping from the first page to the last, it is utterly compelling and impossible to put down.

Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2009! In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political power England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king's freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

In this heartfelt memoir, Isabel Allende reconstructs her own life in the wake of tragic loss—the death of her daughter, Paula. Recalling the past thirteen years from the daily correspondence she shared with her mother in Chile, Allende bares her soul in a book that is as exuberant as its author. She recounts the stories of the wildly eccentric and eclectic tribe she gathers around her that becomes a new kind of family. Throughout, Allende shares her thoughts on love, motherhood, spirituality, infidelity, addiction, and memory. Here, too, are the amazing stories behind Allende's books, the superstitions that guide her writing process, and her adventurous travels. Ultimately, «The Sum of Our Days» offers a unique tour of this gifted writer's inner world and the relationships that have become essential to her life and her work. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, «The Sum of Our Days» is a portrait of a contemporary family, tied together by the love, fierce loyalty, and stubborn determination of a beloved, indomitable matriarch.

Third bone-breaking, belly-busting adventure in the series that puts the “funny” back in… um… funny series. That didn’t really work, did it? If you’ve read the previous Skulduggery books then you know what the Faceless Ones are – and if you know what the Faceless Ones are, then you can probably take a wild guess that things in this book are going to get AWFULLY sticky for our skeletal hero and his young sidekick. If you haven’t read the previous Skulduggery books then what are you doing reading this? Go and read them right now, so that you know what all that stuff in the previous paragraph was about. Done? Good. So now you’re on tenterhooks too, desperately awaiting the answers to all your questions, and instead you’re going to have to wait to read the book. Sorry about that.

The spellbinding sequel to Sidney Sheldon’s «Master of the Game», one of the most glamorous and suspenseful tales ever told… It began with Jamie MacGregor, stealing diamonds in Africa. It continued with his daughter, the powerful Kate Blackwell, who grew her father’s company into a world wide conglomerate. Now the story passes to the next generation. Spanning the decades and picking up exactly where Sidney Sheldon’s bestselling Master of the Game finished, Mistress of the Game follows the Blackwell family as they love, lose, scheme and murder through the 80s up until the present day. Heart–stopping and glamorous, tense and provocative, Mistress of the Game is the sequel that Sheldon fans have been waiting for…

The Winner Stands Alone is the enthralling new novel by the incomparable Paulo Coelho. The story is set during the Cannes International Film Festival and the entire action plays out over 24 hours. Igor is a wealthy Russian businessman. His wife Ewa left him two years ago and Igor has never really come to terms with their break up, especially as Ewa is now remarried to a famous fashion designer, Hamid Hussein. Igor is insanely jealous and when Ewa left him he told her that he would destroy 'whole worlds' in order to get her back, and he intends to keep his promise! Igor has followed Ewa and her new husband to Cannes and his plan is to cause as much violence and destruction as possible until Ewa realises how much he loves her and comes back to him. Ewa loved Igor but she was absolutely terrified of him. She knows that Igor has killed people in the past when he was a soldier, but she also knows a dark secret — that he once cold bloodedly murdered a beggar who was bothering them in a restaurant. Igor is clearly unhinged and he will stop at nothing to regain her love and so he goes on a ruthless killing spree until he tracks down Ewa... The star-studded film festival acts as a backdrop to Igor's maniacal murdering spree and we are ntroduced to various characters along the way, all of whom are desperately trying to get their big break in the shallow world of show business; Gabriela a young and naive actress who is being exploited by her agent and Jasmine a troubled young Rwandan refugee working as a model. The Winner Stands Alone is a gripping, fast-paced thriller, and Coelho cleverly weaves in elements of social satire, poking fun at our celebrity and money obsessed culture.

Scale: 1:20,000 (3.17 inches to 1 mile) Central London at 1:12,500 (5.1 inches to 1 mile). Compact and slim pocket sized atlas with exceptionally clear street maps showing a wealth of detail. MAIN FEATURES This neat, handy little pocket-sized atlas is an ideal purchase for resident and visitor alike. It has an extensive area of coverage and shows the centre of London at an extra large scale. The maps are exceptionally clear and easy to use with colour coding for both the roads as well as locations such as shops, hospitals, hotels, schools etc. INCLUDES • Colour classified roads and buildings. • Postal district boundaries. • Car parks, hospitals and police stations. • Tourist information centres. • Underground map on rear cover. • Full index to street names. AREA OF COVERAGE Extends from Chiswick in the west to Barking in the east and Hackney in the north to Dulwich in the south.

For anyone who has ever dreamed of finding true love only to discover that happy endings are just the beginning comes this brilliantly comic novel about marriage, ex-girlfriends, ‘performance anxiety’, and what it takes to make happily ever last beyond the honeymoon. William is a happy man. He has just married Isabel, the girl of his dreams, and is confidently sailing along on a sea of wedded bliss. He’s got a hot wife, a snazzy new job and things couldn’t be much better. Sure, there are a few bumps in the road, but life on the whole is good. That is until Isabel’s ‘best friend’ Alex starts to intrude on their wedded bliss. And when William’s ex-girlfriend Saskia – aka the ‘Destroyer of Relationships’ – appears on the scene, things go from bad to worse. For marriage, William quickly discovers, has its own set of rules. And while falling in love is easy, staying in love can be a whole lot trickier… Witty, irreverent and laugh-out-loud funny, “William Walker’s First Year of Marriage: A Horror Story” is the perfect novel for anyone who has ever wanted to know what the person they’re facing at the altar is REALLY thinking – and been rightly afraid to ask.