Random House, Inc.

Johnny Maxwell and his friends have to do something when they find Mrs Tachyon, the local bag lady, semi-conscious in an alley... as long as it's not the kiss of life. But there's more to Mrs Tachyon than a squeaky trolley and a bunch of dubious black bags. Somehow she holds the key to different times, different ears — including the Blackbury Blitz in 1941. Suddenly now isn't the safe place Johnny once thought it was as he finds himself caught up more and more with then... SMARTIES PRIZE, SILVER MEDAL WINNERSHORTLISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE MEDAL AND THE CHILDREN'S BOOK AWARD.

Jack Reacher. The ultimate loner. An elite ex-military cop who left the service years ago, he`s moved from place to...

»I am a bunny. My name is Nicholas. I live in a hollow tree.» In the spring, Nicholas likes to sniff the flowers, and in the summer, watch the frogs in the pond. In the fall, he watches the animals getting ready for winter, and in winter, watches the snow falling from the sky. This beautifully illustrated, gentle story is one of Golden's most beloved titles.

Querry, a world famous architect, is the victim of a terrible attack of indifference: he no longer finds meaning in art of pleasure in life. Arriving anonymously at a Congo leper village, he is diagnosed as the mental equivalent of a 'burnt-out case', a leper who has gone through a stage of mutilation. However, as Querry loses himself in work for the lepers his disease of mind slowly approaches a cure. Then the white community finds out who Querry is...

When a small boy turns up on Bob and Joan's doorstep unable to say much except 'I was a rat', the kindly couple adopt him. It seems strange but Bob reads about odder things every day in his newspaper. To them, the sunny little chap is Roger, and he's trying hard to adapt to human life. But when he gets lost and ends up on the run, other people, egged on by their newspapers, are quick to see him as the Monster, a rodent fiend who could terrorise the town. Only a friend in a very high place could save Roger from the authorities who are determined to exterminate him. Cleverly weaving elements of the Cinderella story into a subtle parody of modern times, master storyteller Philip Pullman has created a gallery of fascinating characters from the virtuous to the villainous, in a book which will grip every reader who picks it up.

The Gulag — a vast array of Soviet concentration camps that held millions of political and criminal prisoners — was a system of repression and punishment that terrorized the entire society, embodying the worst tendencies of Soviet communism. In this magisterial and acclaimed history, Anne Applebaum offers the first fully documented portrait of the Gulag, from its origins in the Russian Revolution, through its expansion under Stalin, to its collapse in the era of glasnost. Applebaum intimately re-creates what life was like in the camps and links them to the larger history of the Soviet Union. Immediately recognized as a landmark and long-overdue work of scholarship, Gulag is an essential book for anyone who wishes to understand the history of the twentieth century.

A hilarious collection of the many articles written by Stephen Fry for magazines, newspapers and radio. It includes selected wireless essays of Donald Trefusis, the ageing professor of philology brought to life in Fry's novel The Liar, and the best of Fry's weekly column for the Daily Telegraph.

Cassie is nothing if not organised. A successful journalist, she's ticked almost all the boxes: attentive boyfriend, own flat, good job, great friends... it's all fallen into place. In theory, at least. There's one part of Cassie's life, however, which is anything but organised, and that's her love for the Darling family. As the only child of ambitious parents, Cassie spent her childhood abandoned to the somewhat peremptory care of a series of nannies until one day, peeping over the garden wall, she met her nextdoor neighbours: Fritz and Ben, the boys who became her inseparable childhood friends, Gudrun, their father, and Phoebe Darling, the woman who took Cassie in and transformed her life. But now Phoebe is ill, and when she summons Cassie to ask of her the only favour she's ever requested, Cassie knows she can't say no. But what Phoebe asks is an impossibility: concerned about what will happen to Fritz and Ben after her death, she wants to see them safely married off. Yet entertaining as they were as children, they're terrible as adults. They're utterly charming, ridiculously sexy and completely irresistible, but they're also totally unemployable, hopelessly messy and irretrieva.

Famed throughout Europe for its wild nights and lazy days, Madrid provides a whole lot more, whether your interests lie in spectacular opera productions or chirpy folkloric zarzuela; in cutting-edge cuisine or ancient, tiled tabernas; in designer-shoe shopping or mooching around flea markets. Put together by journalists resident in the city, Time Out Madrid also covers the artistic jewels housed in the Prado, Thyssen and Reina Sofia, as well as the etiquette of watching a bullfight or joining in with a flamenco performance, as well as where to stay and how to escape the city heat.

For millennia southern Spain has been perceived as a promised land. From Phoenician traders to Moorish invaders to today's northern European occupiers of the Costa del Sol, this extraordinarily varied region has offered the lure of beaches and mountains, classic cities and cutesy villages, magnificent deserts, vast forests and fertile plains — and a balmy climate that is the envy of the rest of the continent. Time Out Andalucia presents the full picture of this country within a province, giving an insider's view of its cultural and natural riches, but not shrinking from telling it like it is when confronting the environmental and aesthetic disasters that have afflicted much of the coastline. Time Out's expertise in city guides is fully exploited in the in-depth coverage of Andalucia's incomparable cities — light-hearted Malaga, wistful Cadiz, regal Cordoba, grave Granada and joyous Sevilla. Yet the guide also includes unparalleled coverage of Andalucia's lesser-known corners, such as the provinces of Almeria, Jaen and Huelva.

A gritty and captivating story of courage and strength against terrible odds, this is the story of Midge, abandoned with her eccentric uncle during the holidays, and her adventures with the Various, a band of earthily realistic fairies. The existence of the Various, who are strange, wild and sometimes even deadly, has been kept secret since the beginning of time, but when their world begins to clash with that of human beings, their livelihood is threatened with extinction. This is a wonderfully imaginative story of love and loyalty, and is the first in a powerful trilogy.

Fifteen-year-old Christopher has a photographic memory. He understands maths and science, but not other human beings. When he finds the neighbour's dog dead on the lawn, he decides to find the killer and write a murder mystery about it.

Little does the town of Charles Valley, Georgia, know that beneath the irreproachable facades of its three most famous doyennes lies an explosive decades-old secret that is about to be revealed.

Diary takes the form of a 'coma diary' kept by one Misty Tracy Wilmot as her husband lies senseless in hospital after a suicide attempt. Once she was an art student dreaming of creativity and freedom; now, after marrying Peter at art school and being brought back to once quaint, now tourist-overrun Waytansea Island, she's been reduced to the condition of a resort hotel maid. Peter, it turns out, has been hiding rooms in houses he's refurbished and scrawling vile messages all over the walls. Angry homeowners are suing, and Misty's dreams of artistic greatness are in ashes. But then, as if possessed by the spirit of Maura Kinkaid, a fabled Waytansea artist of the nineteenth century, Misty begins painting again, compulsively. The canvases are taken away by her mother-in-law and her doctor, who seem to have a plan for Misty — and for all those annoying tourists...

Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through the clever mix of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs, everyone is a happy consumer. Bernard Marx seems alone in his discontent.

Objective, unbiased and hyperrational, the Vulcan 3 should have been the perfect ruler. The omnipotent computer dictates policy that is in the best interests of all citizens — or at least, that is the idea. But when the machine, whose rule evolved out of chaos and war, begins to lose control of the «Healer» movement of religious fanatics and the mysterious force behing their rebellion, all Hell breaks loose. Written in 1960, Philip K. Dick' s paranoid novel imagines a totalitarian state in which hammer-headed robots terrorize citizens and freedom is an absurd joke. William Barrios, the morally conflicted hero, may be the only person who can prevent the battle for control from destroying the world — if, that is, he can decide which side he' s on. Winner of both the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere science fiction writer of his day, and the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges and Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utilizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly and hilariously familiar in our society and ourselves.

The dilettantes who frequent Lady Tantamount's society parties are determined to push forward the moral frontiers of the age. Marjorie has left her family to live with Walter; Walter is in love with the luscious but cold-hearted Lucy who devours every man in sight; the repulsive Spandrell deflowers young girls for the sake of entertainment and all the while everyone is engaged in dazzling and witty conversation. Often described as a Vanity Fair for the Twenties, Point Counter Point contains wickedly accurate portraits of D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Ottoline Morrell and Huxley himself.

In these early Hemingway stories, which are partly autobiographical, men and women of passion live, fight, love and die in scenes of dramatic intensity. They range from haunting tragedy on the snow-capped peak of Kilimanjaro, to brutal America with its deceptive calm, and war-ravaged Europe.

All aboard! This Seussian, train-shaped board book with big, bold flaps lets babies and toddlers engage in a rollicking game of Lift the Flap. Sturdy board pages and an accordion binding lets the fun unfold and makes the perfect nursery room decoration.

Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey — with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake — through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.

Imagine you could go anywhere, with anyone and do anything. Where would you live? Where would you sleep? Who would be your friends? What games would you play? Go on... You choose! With the help of Nick Sharratt's wonderfully detailed illustrations, Pippa Goodhart looks at a whole range of scenarios where choosing is made fun!

Somewhere in a place so far up there is no down, a ship is waiting to take the nomes home. And one nome, Masklin, knows that they've got to try and contact this ship. It means going to Florida (wherever that is), then getting to the launch of a communications satellite (whatever that is). A ridiculous plan. Impossible. But Masklin doesn't know this, so he tries to do it anyway. And the first step is to hitch a ride on a new kind of truck, a truck with wings — Concorde. The final title in the nome trilogy.

The acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the first month of World War I is now in mass market paperback. Fascinating... One of the finest works of history written.

Among the Russians is a marvellous account of a solitary journey by car from St. Petersburg and the Baltic States south to Georgia and Armenia. A gifted writer and intrepid traveller, Thubron grapples with the complexities of Russian identity and relays his extraordinary journey in characteristically lyrical style. This is an enthralling and revealing account of the habits and idiosyncrasies of a fascinating nation along with a sharp and insightful social commentary of Russian life.