Orion Books

Four uproarious new stories enhanced by Miranda Richardson's inspired reading and really horrid music and sound effects, in which the Queen visits Horrid Henry's school and watches the children make wattle and daub; and Horrid Henry tries to hypnotise Moody Margaret, tricks Perfect Peter into doing his household chores, and gets his own way at bathtime.

Four hilarious unabridged stories in the book and on the tape, with really horrid music and sound effects: Horrid Henry and the Mummy's Curse Horrid Henry's Hobby Horrid Henry's Homework Horrid Henry's Swimming Lesson

Like its acclaimed predecessors, RESTORATION LONDON and DR JOHNSON'S LONDON, this book is the result of the author's passionate interest in the practical details of everyday life — and the conditions in which most people lived — so often ignored in conventional history books. The book begins with the River Thames, which — from its surly water-men to its great occasions — played such a central part in the city's life. It moves on to the streets, houses and gardens; cooking, housework and shopping; clothes, jewellery and make-up; health and medicine; sex and food; education, etiquette and hobbies; religion, law and crime.

From the wartorn steppes of Russia, from the slopes of Monte Cassino, the stunned, bloody remnants of Hitler's armies were gathered to fight the last battle of the German Reich — the battle of the Western Front. And as the Allies advanced upon Paris, the war erupted into its most ruthless, most savage and cruel phase. Across the scarred, corpse-strewn landscape of northern France, the men of the Panzer tank corps retreated — fighting a suicide action as they went...

A few years from now the President of the USA will be an android and his entire government a fraud. Everyone in the country is maladjusted. Doesn't seem possible, does it? Welcome to the world of Dr. Superb, the sole remaining psychotherapist. Philip K. Dick tells a story of desperate love, lethal body odour and an attempted fascistic takeover of the USA and shows that there is always another layer of conspiracy beneath the one we see.

Roman Londinium, Saxon Lundenwic, the medieval City of London, the great metropolis that has survived the Plague, the Fire and the Blitz — it's all here, along with the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Madam Tussaud's, the London Eye and all the famous landmarks. Richard Brassey has a gift for focussing on just the colourful details children will enjoy, and on each page the narrative breaks out into stories, anecdotes, jokes, fascinating facts and accounts of famous Londoners. With excitingly busy pages packed with lively pictures and witty captions, this is a brilliant introduction to London past and present.

The days between 27 December and New Year's Eve are dead days — days when spirits roam and magic shifts restlessly just beneath the surface of our everyday lives. There is a man, Valerian, whose time is running out, who must pay the price for the pact he made with evil so many years ago. His servant is Boy, a child with no name and no past; a child he treats with contempt, but who serves his master well and finds solace in the company of his only friend, Willow. Unknown to any of them it is Boy who holds the key to their destiny. Set in dark threatening cities and the frozen countryside in a distant time and place of the author's making, 'The Book of Dead Days' conjures a spell-binding story of sorcery and desperate magic as Valerian, Boy and Willow battle to stop time and cling to life. Beautifully evoked, dramatic and emotionally powerful, this is a real page turner.

King Canute, Lady Godiva, Guy Fawkes, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Grace Darling and other famous names from 3000 years of history live again in these 100 tragic, comic, stirring tales of adventure, folly and wickedness. These stories, many of them virtually forgotten, are Britain's heritage, told and illustrated with such verve and colour that they are the perfect way to give present-day children a sense of the excitement of history.

The wizard Alder comes from Roke to the island of Gont in search of the Archmage, Lord Sparrowhawk, once known as Ged. The man who was once the most powerful wizard in the Islands now lives with his wife Tenar and their adopted daughter Tehanu. Alder needs help: his beloved wife died and in his dreams she calls him to the land of the dead — and now the dead are haunting him, begging for release. He can no longer sleep, and the Wizards of Earthsea are worried. But there is more at stake than the unquiet rest of one minor wizard: for the dragons of Earthsea have arisen, to reclaim the lands that were once theirs. Only Tehanu, herself daughter of a dragon, can talk to them; it may be that Alder's dreams hold the key to the salvation of Earthsea and all the peoples who live there.

THE BOURNE IDENTITY: He has no past. And he may have no future. His memory is blank. He only knows that he was fished out of the Mediterranean Sea, his body riddled with bullets. There are a few clues: evidence that plastic surgery has altered his face, a Swiss bank account containing four million dollars, and a name: Jason Bourne. But he is marked for death, racing for survival through the layers of his buried past into a world of murderous conspirators — led by the world's most dangerous assassin, Carlos. And no one can help Bourne but the woman who once wanted to escape him. THE BOURNE SUPREMACY: In a Kowloon Cabaret, scrawled in a pool of blood, is a name the world wanted to forget: Jason Bourne. The Chinese vice-premier has been slain by a legendary assassin. World leaders ask the same fearful questions: Why has Jason Bourne come back? Who is the next to die? But US officials know the truth: there is no Jason Bourne. The name was created as cover for David Webb on his search for the notorious killer Carlos. Someone else has taken the Bourne identity and unless he is stopped, the world will pay a devastating price. So Jason Bourne must live again. THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM: The world's two deadliest spies in the ultimate showdown.Two men, each mysteriously summoned by telegram, witness a bizarre killing. The telegrams are signed Jason Bourne. Only they know Bourne's true identity and understand the telegram is really a message from Bourne's mortal enemy, Carlos, the world's deadliest and most elusive terrorist. And they also know that he wants a final confrontation with Bourne. Now David Webb must do what he hoped he would never have to do again — assume the terrible identity of Jason Bourne.

Years have gone by since the events surrounding the death of Anne Boleyn. But her missing hand and all that it represents to the dark world of 16th-century Europe still draws the powerful to seek it out. Jean Rombaud — the French executioner of the first novel — has grown old, both in age and spirit. Wearied by the betrayal of a son and the scorn of a wife, he fights in the seemingly never-ending siege of Siena. Meanwhile, Gianni Rombaud has forsaken everything his ageing father stands for and now kills heathen for the Inquisition in Rome. Then he is summoned by Cardinal Carafa himself. His masters no longer merely want his dagger in the hearts of Jews, they want the hand of the dead queen... But only three people know where it is buried, and one of them is Gianni's father...

In THE ROAD TO STALINGRAD Professor Erickson takes us in detail from the inept command structures and strategic delusions of the pre-invasion Soviet Union, through the humiliations as her armies fell back on all fronts before the Barbarossa onslaught, until the tide turned at last at Stalingrad. Unsparingly he assesses the generals and political leaders, and analyses the confusions and wranglings within both Allied and Axis commands. The climax, the grinding battle for Stalingrad, leaves the Red Army poised for its majestic counter-offensive, Operation 'Uranus', discovering it had 'caught a tiger by the tail'.

The Ukraine is one of the most neglected countries in the world. It has a population of 52 million — larger than Britain's — and a land mass the size of France; it also has Chernobyl, and after Russia is the largest nuclear power. The word 'Ukraine' means 'borderland' and for most of its history the lands that make up present-day Ukraine have been a collection of other countries' border regions. Prior to Stalinism and Nazism, Ukraine was ethnically extremely diverse, including Russians, Poles, Jews, Greeks and Armenians. Their ghosts linger in language, literature, and architecture, quite distinct from Russia's.

Michael Palin's epic voyages have seen him circumnavigate the globe, travel from the North to the South Pole and circle the countries of the Pacific Ocean, but this was perhaps the greatest challenge yet: to cross the vast and merciless Sahara desert. As the journey unfolds, the Sahara reveals not the emptiness of endless sand dunes, but a huge and diverse range of cultures and landscapes and a long history of commerce and conquest stretching from the time of the ancient Egyptians to the oil-rich Islamic republics of today. On his way, he encounters dangers such as camel stew, being run over by the Paris-Dakar rally and Dakar nightlife, as well as returning to the original spot where THE LIFE OF BRIAN was filmed.

The operating principle was random selection: positions of public power were decided by a sophisticated lottery. Everyone had a chance, everyone could live in hope that they would be chosen to be the boss, the Quizmaster. But with the power came the game — the assassination game — which everyone could watch on TV. Would the new man be good enough to avoid his chosen killer? Which made for fascinating and exciting viewing, compelling enough to distract the public's attention while the Big Five industrial complexes run the world, the solar system and the people, unnoticed and completely unopposed. Then, in 2203, with the choice of a member of a maverick cult as Quizmaster, the system developed a little hitch...

In the overcrowded world and cramped space colonies of the late 21st century, tedium can be endured through the use of the drug Can-D, which enables the user to inhabit a shared illusory world. When industrialist Palmer Eldritch returns from an interstellar trip, he brings with him a new drug, Chew-Z, which is far more potent than Can-D, but threatens to plunge the world into a permanent state of drugged illusion controlled by the mysterious Eldritch. «The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch» is, by universal consent, one of his three key novels, and the book in which he first took his perennial interest in the fragile nature of reality to a new level of imaginative intensity.

The life of Henry VIII is a wonderful subject for Richard Brassey to interpret through his comic, colourful pictures and funny captions. All the essential information is there, concisely and wittily put. With its small paperback format, its 24 pages packed with pictures, it is lots of fun to read and look at and makes the perfect introduction to one of the most famous characters in British history.

Ragle Gumm is an ordinary man leading an ordinary life, except that he makes his living by entering a newspaper contest every day — and winning, every day. But he gradually begins to suspect that his life — indeed his whole world — is an illusion, constructed around him for the express purpose of keeping him docile and happy. But if that is the case, what is his real world like, and what is he actually doing every day when he thinks he is guessing 'Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?'

Elvis Cole has got a problem to solve — and this time it's personal.His girlfriend, Lucy, is out of town, and has left her young son, Ben, in Elvis's care. Elvis and Lucy have had a few problems lately — not least over his job as a private investigator. But at last things seem to be getting better. Until Ben disappears. One minute he's playing his computer game in Elvis's house; the next he has vanished. Elvis looks everywhere, but he just can't find Ben; and neither can Lucy, when she arrives. Then Elvis receives a phone call about Ben — and realises that something from his own past has come back to haunt him...

Henry Pierce has a whole new life — new apartment, new telephone, new telephone number. But the first time he checks his messages, he discovers that someone had the number before him. The messages on his line are for a woman named Lilly, and she is in some kind of serious trouble. Pierce is inexorably drawn into Lilly's world, and it's unlike any world he's ever known. It is a night-time world of escort services, websites, sex, and secret identities. Pierce tumbles through a hole, abandoning his orderly life in a frantic race to save the life of a woman he has never met. Pierce traces Lilly's last days, but every step into her past takes him deeper into a web of inescapable intricacy — and a decision that could cost him everything he owns and holds dear ...

In consequence of a number of stunning catastrophes, Arthur Dent is surprised to find himself living in a hideously miserable cave on prehistoric Earth. And just when he thinks things cannot possibly get any worse, they do. He discovers that not only is the Galaxy mind-bogglingly big and bewildering, but also that most of the things that happen in it are staggeringly unfair...The final part of the original Hitch Hiker's Guide trilogy confirms Douglas Adams as one of the most original and funniest of Britain's comic writers.

The Mass-Observation organisation was set up in 1937 with the aim of recording everyday life in Britain. Dorothy Sheridan has plundered its astonishingly rich archives to put together this anthology of women's experience in the Second World War. What was this experience? How far did it go to liberate women? Was it the opportunity that so many expected or was it simply six years of deprivation, hard work and pain? WARTIME WOMEN allows us to explore these questions through the writings of women living through the war years. The range of contributors is enormous, from a fish and chip shop worker in Birmingham to Irish immigrant munitions, factory workers, young women welders in Yorkshire and a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl in Essex. 'My horror of all this war business is qualified by an eagerness to be a unit of it. I feel as if I have been waiting for this all my life and I have just realised it' — A young woman writing in her diary in September, 1939.

A stinkbomb becomes a deadly weapon in Horrid Henry's longrunning war with Moody Margaret; he uses all his guile to win the school reading competition, only to find the longed-for prize is not what he expected; he goes for a sleepover and retreats in horror when he finds that other people's houses aren't always as nice as his own; and he has the joy of seeing Miss Battle-Axe ticked off by the Head when he knows it was all his fault. In short, another vintage Horrid Henry title!

The slaves are revolting... they've stolen Julius Casar's own galley. Seeking shelter in the little Gaulish village, they find it in crisis. Obelix has suffered diree effects from drinking the druid's magic potions on the sly. Can his friends get him cured by Absolutlifabulos, high priest of Atlantis? Enjoy all the thrills and spills of sea battles against the Roman navy!