Hodder&Stoughton

It's Easter in Reading — a bad time for eggs — and no one can remember the last sunny day. Humpty Dumpty, well-known nursery favourite, large egg, ex-convict and former millionaire philanthropist is found shattered beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. Following the pathologist's careful reconstruction of Humpty's shell, Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his Sergeant Mary are soon grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, the illegal Bearnaise sauce market, corporate politics and the cut and thrust world of international Chiropody. As Jack and Mary stumble around the streets of Reading in Jack's Lime Green Austin Allegro, the clues pile up, but Jack has his own problems to deal with.And on top of everything else, the Jellyman is coming to town...

Virginia Keile has a secret dream. To have a second chance at loving the tall, handsome Cornish farmer she met — and foolishly lost — the heady summer she was a debutante. Life has taught Virginia a great deal in twenty-seven years — about wedding a titled bachelor picked out by her mother, about a lonely marriage that ended in her husband's accidental death, and about nearly losing her children to her husband's mother and bossy Nanny. Now she has come back to picturesque Cornwall to rent a battered seaside cottage. For herself and for the children. And to discover if this time she can fill an empty house with love.

The big bedroom was lovely: all pale, blue and white, satin and muslin, cool and airy, the windows looking out over the garden to the creek. But to fourteen-year-old Emily, beautiful though it was, it was all wrong. Her stepmother's bedroom now: everything changed since her own mother had died.And stretched out on the bed: Stephanie, very white and pained. The new baby on its way, a month early. All of a sudden, with her father away on business, Emily had to take charge, keep calm, ring for the doctor and the ambulance. The time for looking back had gone.The Blue Bedroom is just one of Rosamunde Pilcher's magical collection of stories. Stories that will enchant everyone who has read and loved The Shell Seekers.

Magnus Pym, ranking diplomat, has vanished, believed defected. The chase is on: for a missing husband, a devoted father, and a secret agent. Pym's life, it is revealed, is entirely made up of secrets. Dominated by a father who is also a confidence trickster on an epic scale, Pym has from the age of seventeen been controlled by two mentors. It is these two, racing each other and time itself, who are orchestrating the search to find the perfect spy...

Bono is one of the most influential musicians at work today. Over the past twenty-five years his band, U2, have sold a staggering 130 million albums and collected 14 Grammys. Their success has made Bono one of the most recognisable faces in the world.Here, in a series of conversations with his friend, the music journalist, Michka Assayas, Bono reflects on his transformation from extrovert singer of a small, Irish, post-punk band into an international rock star. Along the way he speaks candidly about his childhood, about his mother's death, about his Christian faith and about his difficult relationship with his father, who died recently. Bono also speaks passionately about how he has used his fame as a platform to campaign fervently on a range of global issues, and why these issues — which include the IRA ceasefire, Third World debt and, most recently, the growing AIDS crisis in Africa — are so important to each of us. Intimate, humorous, and fiercely opinionated, BONO ON BONO is Bono's story in his own words. It will fascinate and challenge fans of U2 and general readers alike.

Ayla is a courageous and indomitable young woman whose story begins when she is a five-year-old orphan adopted by the Clan, a group of Neanderthal. Ayla is cared for by the Clan’s medicine woman Iza and its wise holy man Creb. Iza teaches her how to find food and the healing skills known only to her line, but Ayla must also learn the ways of the Clan. Full of curiosity, interest and rebelliousness, she does not always obey the Clan’s rules and so she makes an implacable enemy of the group’s future leader. Broud will do all he can to destroy her, but Ayla is a survivor.

In the fertile lands of the East, the farming community has been warned the wolves are coming back. Four gunslingers, led by Roland of Gilead, are also coming their way. And the farmers of the Calla want to enlist some hard calibers. Torn between protecting the innocent community and his urgent quest, Roland faces his most deadly perils as he journey through the Mid-World towards the Dark Tower.

Set in Changi, the most notorious prisoner of war camp in Asia, King Rat is an heroic story of survival told by a master story-teller who lived through those years as a young soldier. Only one man in fifteen had the strength, the luck, and the cleverness simply to survive Changi. And then there was King.

Не is Oliver Barrett IV, a rich jock from a stuffy WASP family on his way to a Harvard degree and a career in law. She is Jenny Cavilleri, a wisecracking working-class beauty studying music at Radcliffe. Opposites in nearly every way, Oliver and Jenny immediately attract, sharing a love that defies everything yet will end too soon. Here is a love that will linger in your heart, now and forever.

Over one hundred years have passed since Dirk Struan founded Hong Kong’s oldest trading company. But now, the Noble House is in danger. As Hong Kong itself becomes the deadly playground of the CIA, the KGB and the People’s Republic of China, rival tai-pans, seeking revenge for blood feuds over a century old, gather for the kill.

Through the centuries, Russia has swung between successful expansionism, catastrophic collapse and spectacular recovery. This illuminating history traces these cycles from the late Neolithic age to Ivan the Terrible and Catherine the Great, and from the height of Communism to the truncated Russian Federation of today. The narrative takes in the magnificent cities of Kiev, Moscow and St Petersburg, and stretches to Alaska in the east, to the Black Sea and the Ottoman Empire in the south, to the Baltic in the west and to the Arctic Ocean in the north, asking what the future holds for Russia and her neighbours.

Peter and Janet are the only witnesses when a car is stolen! They saw the thieves, and now the whole of the Secret Seven are involved. But when they realise they're on the trail of a dangerous gang, the Seven don't feel quite so brave. Have they taken on too much this time?

Let us turn our faces towards Asia, exhorted Lenin when the long-awaited revolution in Europe failed to materialize. The East will help us conquer the West. Peter Hopkirk's book tells for the first time the story of the Bolshevik attempt to set the East ablaze with the heady new gospel of Marxism. Lenin's dream was to liberate the whole of Asia, but his starting point was British India. A shadowy undeclared war followed. Among the players in this new Great Game were British spies, Communist revolutionaries, Muslim visionaries and Chinese warlords — as well as a White Russian baron who roasted his Bolshevik captives alive. Here is an extraordinary tale of intrigue and treachery, barbarism and civil war, whose violent repercussions continue to be felt in Central Asia today.

Through thick mist and a cold east wind, Lavinia returns to Scotland. Up at the big house Mrs Farquhar is dying. Seeing Lachlan again, Lavinia remembers her childhood holidays there: swimming in the loch, the picnics, bottle-feeding the lambs down at the farm and the evenings when they danced reels. Most of all, she remembers Mrs Farquhar's grandson Rory.In the house, as the old lady lies serene and beautiful in the bed she has slept in since coming home to Lachlan as a bride, Lavinia meets Rory once again. Flowers in the Rain is one of sixteen stories, each giving another magical glimpse into Rosamunde Pilcher's world. The world in which most prefer to live all the time.

In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist grew into a living legend to the Jews of Cracow. He was a womaniser, a heavy drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he became a saviour. This is the extraordinary story of Oskar Schindler, who risked his life to protect Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland and who was transformed by the war into a man with a mission, a compassionate angel of mercy.

This is James Clavell's tour-de-force; an epic saga of one Pilot-Major John Blackthorne, and his integration into the struggles and strife of feudal Japan. Both entertaining and incisive, «Shogun» is a stunningly dramatic re-creation of a very different world. Starting with his shipwreck on this most alien of shores, the novel charts Blackthorne's rise from the status of reviled foreigner up to the heights of trusted advisor and eventually, Samurai. All as civil war looms over the fragile country.

When Rob's girlfriend asks him to leave London and live with her in Manchester, not only will it mean moving cities, it'll also mean leaving behind his best mate in the entire world. Believing that love conquers all and convinced of his ability to make new friends, Rob takes the plunge.

An astounding novel that penetrates the 20th-century experience, from one of Europe`s most feted authors.

The perfect cocktail of Swiss Finishing School and DIY manual blended by a girl who knows how to use a screwdriver AND keep her seams straight.

Recovering in hospital from an appendix operation, Ali whiles away her time by entering magazine competitions. A few weeks later, she's delighted to discover that she's won first prize in «Complete Woman» magazine's Most Romantic Couple of the Year competition. There's just one problem — Ali has been dumped by her fiance.

Why is it that your best friend always seems to end up with men who treat her badly? Why can't any of you find someone quite right? Ruby, Martin and Lou are three old friends who are facing another summer without love. Now, they decide to approach the dating dilemma in the way they approached finding flatmates.

The girl-about-town's favourite author gives us her hilarious take on attempted marriage, attempted murder, and an abundance of mayhem.

Fifth century Britain is a country of chaos and division after the Roman withdrawal. This is the world of Merlin, the illegitimate child of a South Wales princess. Yet Merlin is aware at the earliest age that he possesses a natural gift — the Sight. He emerges into manhood, and accepts his role in the New Beginning — the coming of King Arthur.

Shanghai in 1990. An ancient city in a country that despite the massacre of Tiananmen Square is still in the tight grip of communist control. Chief Inspector Chen, a poet with a sound instinct for self-preservation, knows the city like few others. When the body of a prominent Communist Party member is found, Chen is told to keep the party authorities informed about every lead. Also, he must keep the young woman's murder out of the papers at all costs. When his investigation leads him to the decadent offspring of high-ranking officials, he finds himself instantly removed from the case and reassigned to another area. Chen has a choice: bend to the party's wishes and sacrifice his morals, or continue his investigation and risk dismissal from his job and from the party. Or worse.