Sat, 08 Jan 2011 23:22:53 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/empire-of-the-silver-251-114355.html The eagerly awaited 4th novel in the bestselling Conqueror series, continuing the life and adventures of the mighty Khan dynasty. Genghis Khan is dead, but his legend and his legacy live on. His son Ogedai has built a white city on a great plain and made a capital for the new nation. Now the armies have gathered to see which of Genghis' sons has the strength to be khan. The Mongol empire has been at peace for two years, but whoever survives will face the formidable might of their great enemy, China’s Song dynasty. The great leader Tsubodai sweeps into the west: through Russia, over the Carpathian mountains and into Hungary. The Templar knights have been broken and there is no king or army to stop him reaching France. But at the moment of Tsubodai's greatest triumph, as his furthest scouts reach the northern mountains of Italy, Tsubodai must make a decision that will change the course of history forever.

Author: CONN IGGULDEN  Publisher: HARPER COLLINS]]> Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/nightrunners-of-bengal-251-114292.html Let the storms of the Great Bengal Mutiny roar where they would over the land. He had fought himself, and found himself. He had fought his enemies, who were his friends, and won and lost. Captain Rodney Savage of the 13th Rifles, Bengal Native Infantry, celebrates the start of 1857 with his wife and friends in the isolated cantonment of Bhowani. Little does he realize that in spite of his empathy with the sepoys, fear and resentment are driving them to intrigue with local rulers and other conspirators against the rule of the British East India Company. In the following months, tension erupts into violence and the British begin to wonder whether even their closest servants are trustworthy. Though most of the British officers of the Bhowani garrison and their families including Savage s own wife are killed in the outbreak, Savage escapes the massacre along with his infant son and Caroline Langford, a visitor from England, to head out on an adventure that is going to change his life, and his perspective of India, forever. Combining the flare of a true storyteller with an intuitive sense of history born of his deep knowledge and love of India, John Masters recreates the horror of the Great Revolt of 1857. First published in 1951, only four years after the end of the Raj, and a prequel to Bhowani Junction, Nightrunners of Bengal remains as graphic, intense and gripping a tale as any modern novel of suspense.

Author: JOHN MASTERS  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/the-mahabharata-vol-2-251-114304.html The Mahabharata is one of the greatest stories ever told. Though the basic plot is widely known, there is much more to the epic than the dispute between Kouravas and Pandava that led to the battle in Kurukshetra. It has innumerable sub-plots that accommodate fascinating meanderings and digressions, and it has rarely been translated in full, given its formidable length of 80,000 shlokas or couplets. The magnificent 10-volume unabridged translation of the epic is based on the Critical Edition compiled at the Bhandakar Research Institue. Volume 2 consists of the last part of the Adi Parva, the complete Sabha Parva and the early part of the Vana Parva. The story covers Arjuna’s stay in the forest; his marriage to Subhadra; the burning of the Khandava forest; the Pandavas building the assembly hall and conquering the world; Yudhishthira’s crowning as emperor; Duryodhana’s envy at the Pandavas’ prosperity; the two games with the dice; Droupadi’s disrobing; Arjuna’s encounter with Shiva; and ends with the Nala and Damayanti story. Every conceivable human emotion figures in the Mahabharata, the reason why the epic continues to hold sway over our imagination. In this lucid, nuanced and confident translation, Bibek Debroy makes the Mahabharata marvellously accessible to contemporary readers. THE TRANSLATOR Bibek Debroy is an economist and is Research Professor (Centre of Policy Research) and Contributing Editor (Indian Express group). He has worked in universities, research institutes, industry and for the government. He has published books, papers and popular articles in economics. But he has also published in Indology and translated (into English) the Vedas, the Puranas, the Upanishads and the Gita (Penguin India, 2005). His book Sarama and her Children: The Dog in Indian Myth (Penguin India, 2008) splices his interest in Hinduism with his love for dogs. He is currently translating the remaining volumes of the unabridged Mahabharata.

Author: BIBEK DEBROY  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/the-onus-of-karma-251-114291.html Eighteenth-century Madras. The collection of kingdoms that will soon be India is in turmoil. The East India Company controls much of the north and has ambitions to take over the entire subcontinent. In the south, Haider Ali and his son Tipu Sultan furiously resist the advances of the British. In these desperate times, Ramaswami Aiyar, scion of the family which has for generations been the temple priests of an obscure little village near Kanchipuram, decides that the pious life is not for him and joins the police force. He soon discovers that the temple and the family he rejected protect the srichakra, the divine wheel given to man by Lord Shiva himself. The srichakra, symbol of Dharma on earth, is an instrument of tremendous power, with potential for great good or great evil, and both the British and Haider Ali want it. And even as Ramaswami finds himself cast as protector of the chakra, he understands the role of destiny in his life and the inevitability of fate. Seamlessly blending adventure, history and mythology, The Onus of Karma is a gripping, exhilarating read.

Author: RUDRA KRISHNA  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/by-the-tungabhadra -251-114017.html Bidyunmala, the princess of Kalinga, is on her way for a marriage of political convenience with Devaraya, the king of Vijaynagar, when a mysterious young man called Arjunvarma makes his appearance in her life and becomes part of her entourage. While preparing to wed the beautiful Bidyunmala, Devaraya is threatened by a treacherous brother within and enemies preparing for war without; worse still, Bidyunmala seems to be in love with Arjunvarma, a man Devaraya has come to trust.And so begins Saradindu Bandyopadhyay’s classic tale of intrigue, love and war, set on the banks of the river Tungabhadra in fourteenth-century India. A gripping narrative that blends romance, politics and intrigue played out against an authentically etched backdrop, By the River Tungabhadra, superbly translated from the Bengali original, Tungabhadrar Teere,represents the pinnacle of the writer’s oeuvre.

Author: Bandopadhyay, Saradindu  Publisher: HARPER COLLINS]]> Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/wolf-of-the-plains-251-114013.html From the co-author of The Dangerous Book for Boys, comes the first in the widely anticipated Conqueror series featuring Genghis Khan and his descendants. A remarkable story of heroism and adventure, of a boy who had to become a man too soon, of a family and a tribe who had to learn to win to survive. A man without a tribe was at great risk, so the young boy abandoned with his siblings on the harsh Mongolian plains had to struggle to avoid death. He survived both starvation and hostile attacks by learning remarkable leadership skills and gathering a group of outsiders like himself. Hunted and alone, he dreamed of uniting the tribes into one house, one nation. He became a great warrior. He would become father to his people. He would be Genghis Khan.

Author: CONN IGGULDEN  Publisher: HARPER COLLINS]]> Mon, 15 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/claudius-the-god-251-106258.html Claudius has survived the murderous intrigues of his predecessors to become, reluctantly, Emperor of Rome. This book recounts his surprisingly successful reign how he cultivates the loyalty of the army and the common people to repair the damage caused by Caligula; his relations with the Jewish King Herod Agrippa; and his invasion of Britain.

Author: Graves, Robert  Publisher: PENG MOD CLASSICS]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/ruso-the-demented-doctor-medicus-inv-251-106259.html Gaius Petreius Ruso, medicus to the Twentieth Legion, has been posted to the hostile north and thrown into a nowin situation. Thessalus, the current doctor at the Fort of Coria, has confessed to a grisly murder and his Prefect demands Ruso take charge of the patients and convince Thessalus to retract his confession.

Author: Downie, R. S.  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/scottish-nation-17002007-251-106260.html Examines the social, political, religious and economic factors that have shaped modern Scotland. Drawing on research, this work places Scotland within an international context. It talks about Scotland's history, from the high politics of the devolved parliament to the everyday effects of huge and growing levels of social inequality.

Author: Devine, T M  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/dig-the-251-106261.html Dig, The

Author: Preston, John  Publisher: VIKING]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/i-claudius-251-106262.html Despised for his weakness and regarded by his family as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman, Claudius quietly survives the intrigues, bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the imperial Roman dynasties. This book presents an account of the madness and debauchery of ancient Rome.

Author: Graves, Robert  Publisher: PENGUIN CLASSICS]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/ruso-the-disappearing-dancing-girls-251-106263.html Ruso & the Disappearing Dancing Girls

Author: Downie, R S  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/twelve-caesars-251-106264.html Twelve Caesars

Author: Suetonius  Publisher: PENGUIN CLASSICS]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/company-of-liars-251-106265.html The year is 1348 and the first plague victim has reached English shores. Panic erupts around the country and a small band of travellers comes together to outrun the deadly disease, unaware that something far more deadly is in fact travelling with them. The illassorted company a scarred trader in holy relics, a conjurer, two musicians, a healer and a deformed storyteller are all concealing secrets and lies. And at their heart is the strange, cold child Narigorm who reads the runes. But as law and order breaks down across the country and the battle for survival becomes ever more fierce, Narigorm mercilessly compels each of her fellow travellers to reveal the truth and each in turn is driven to a cruel and unnatural death.

Author: Maitland, Karen  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/company-of-liars-251-106266.html On this day of ill omen, plague makes its entrance. Within weeks, swathes of England witll be darkened by death's shadow as towns and villages burn to the ringing of church bells. While panic and suspicion flood the land, a small band of travellers comes together to outrun the breakdown in law and order. But when one of their number is found hanging from a tree, the chilling discovery confirms that something more sinister than plague is in their midst. And as the runes warn of treachery, it appears no one is quite what they seem, least of all the child rune reader, who mercilessly compels each of her companions to tell their stories. And face the consequences. Take a leap of imagination and embark on an unforgettable journey through the ravaged countryside ... with only a scarred trader in holy relics, a conjuror, two musicians, and a deformed storyteller for company.

Author: Maitland, Karen  Publisher: MICHAEL JOSEPH]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/death-or-glory-i-the-last-commando-251-106267.html Death or Glory I The Last Commando

Author: Asher, Michael  Publisher: MICHAEL JOSEPH]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/ruso-the-demented-doctor-251-106268.html N.B. R S Downie is published in the US as Ruth Downie and this book, Ruso and the Demented Doctor, is published in the US as Terra Incognita. Army doctor Gaius Petreius Ruso is waiting for the gods to smile on him. But, on a posting to the hostile North of Britannia, he's in for a long wait. Not least because the locals have a new hero who likes to strap antlers to his head and scare the Romans silly, while Ruso's slave girl, Tilla, is stubbornly refusing to identify the culprit in a police lineup. But when Ruso is waylaid at the Fort of Coria, where a fellow doctor has confessed to a grisly murder, it's a case of out of the cauldron and into the fire.With Tilla thrust outside the fort (and into the arms of a former lover), Ruso is landed not only with Doctor Thessalus's patients but also the tricky task of getting him to retract the confession. Something smells fishy about this murder and Coria is miles from the sea ...Ruso faces a nightmarish investigation trailed by the secret police, hunted by the Stag Man and betrayed by Tilla, is it any wonder he's seeking solace in the rathertoowatery local beer? R. S.Downie's Ruso is an antihero to delight in and murderers at the frontier of the Roman Empire will be quaking in their sandals at his return.

Author: Downie, R.S.  Publisher: MICHAEL JOSEPH]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/warrior-of-rome-i-fire-in-the-east-251-106269.html The year is AD 255 the Roman Imperium is stretched to breaking point, its authority and might challenged along every border. The greatest threat lies in Persia to the east, where the massing forces of the Sassanid Empire loom with fiery menace. There the isolated Roman citadel of Arete awaits inevitable invasion.

Author: Sidebottom, Harry  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/warrior-of-rome-ii-king-of-kings-251-106270.html AD256. The spectre of treachery hangs ominously over the Roman Empire. The battlebloodied general, Ballista, returns to imperial court from the fallen city of Arete only to find that there are those who would rather see him dead than alive. He is soon caught in a sinister web of intrigue and religious fanaticism.

Author: Sidebottom, Harry  Publisher: MICHAEL JOSEPH]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/white-rose-rebel-251-106271.html Anne Farquharson is a Highland girl tempestuous, bold, determined to be her own woman. Yet the clan Farquharson is threatened. The Highlands suffer at the domineering hand of English King George, while there are rumours that Bonnie Prince Charlie, exiled to France, is raising an army in a bid for the throne.

Author: Paisley, Janet  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/company-of-liars-251-106272.html The year is 1348 and the first plague victim has reached English shores. Panic erupts around the country and a small band of travellers comes together to outrun the deadly disease, unaware that something far more deadly is in fact travelling with them.

Author: Maitland, Karen  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/ruso-the-demented-doctor-251-106273.html N.B. R S Downie is published in the US as Ruth Downie and this book, Ruso and the Demented Doctor, is published in the US as Terra Incognita. Army doctor Gaius Petreius Ruso is waiting for the gods to smile on him. But, on a posting to the hostile North of Britannia, he's in for a long wait. Not least because the locals have a new hero who likes to strap antlers to his head and scare the Romans silly, while Ruso's slave girl, Tilla, is stubbornly refusing to identify the culprit in a police lineup. But when Ruso is waylaid at the Fort of Coria, where a fellow doctor has confessed to a grisly murder, it's a case of out of the cauldron and into the fire.With Tilla thrust outside the fort (and into the arms of a former lover), Ruso is landed not only with Doctor Thessalus's patients but also the tricky task of getting him to retract the confession. Something smells fishy about this murder and Coria is miles from the sea ...Ruso faces a nightmarish investigation trailed by the secret police, hunted by the Stag Man and betrayed by Tilla, is it any wonder he's seeking solace in the rathertoowatery local beer? R. S.Downie's Ruso is an antihero to delight in and murderers at the frontier of the Roman Empire will be quaking in their sandals at his return.

Author: Downie, R.S.  Publisher: MICHAEL JOSEPH]]> Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/revolution-highway-251-99166.html First fictionalized account in English of the Naxalite movement of the 1960s and 1970s ‘… Tell me something. Are we answerable to anyone or do we just happen to know what’s best for humanity? We kill someone in secret and leave the people to deal with the consequences. How do we know the action was acceptable to them?’ The world seems to be on the brink of change in the late 1960s—a peasant uprising in Naxalbari, West Bengal, has set off a bloody rebellion, the Vietnam War is drawing the world into a cauldron, and French workers and students have just brought their country to a standstill. Inspired by the spirit of the times, a group of friends at Delhi’s elite Mission College grapple not only with the dilemmas of their coming-of-age, but also with indignation at the injustice and poverty around them. Unaware of the implications of their actions, the friends—Mohan, Pranav, Rathin, Sin Taw and Divya—are drawn to the logic of Revolution and begin to prepare for the violent overthrow of the System. But as they travel to filthy urban bustees, far flung towns and impoverished villages across the north Indian plains mobilising the masses for Revolution, they meet people far removed from their fantasies: Hardip, the truck driver, Jehur, the enlightened worker and Lata, the prostitute. Soon, the Bangladesh war looms over the horizon. No longer sure of their mission, they are forced to confront the question, can a just society ever emerge from violence? Intensely sympathetic to the choices of its characters, Dilip Simeon’s first novel, Revolution Highway, is a passionate and intelligent account of a time so turbulent that its echoes still haunt us.

Author: DILIP SIMEONE  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Sun, 31 Oct 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/rebels-and-traitors-251-88126.html A groundbreaking historical novel set in the English Civil War. Rebels and Traitors is a groundbreaking departure for this most admired of British authors, returning to Lindsey Davis' first love in historical fiction, the English Civil War. Sweeping in scope and fraught with the same drama and passion, her epic novel does the same for this conflict as Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind did for the American Civil War. The book tells with startling realism what it was like to have fought in the front line of the battles and politics of the era. Through the story of a man and a woman, Gideon Jukes and Juliana Lovell, caught on opposite sides of the Parliamentarian/Royalist divide but fated to be brought together by adversity, loss and mutual attraction. But before this can happen, the terrible events of the seven years that King Charles waged war on his own people must be endured, culminating the day in January 1649 when the world was turned upside down and the King was executed. It is in this crucible that Gideon's and Juliana's love will be forged. "From the Hardcover edition."

Author: Davis, Lindsey  Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE]]> Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/quest-for-honour-251-88137.html At the dawn of history, an epic war is about to begin in the deadly quest for honour. nnThe city of Sumer, ruled by a brutal murderer and his vicious, power hungry sister, is poised to give birth to the mightiest empire in history. No one stands a chance as it brings a bloody war to all those who stand in its way, determined to crush and enslave those on its borders.nnThe little city state of Akkad must prepare its fledgling nation to fight for its very survival. Akkad's warriors are a loyal and courageous brotherhood, but this is not a battle of villages or of roving warrior bands; it is a battle for Empire and a fight to the death...

Author: Barone, Sam  Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE]]> Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/see-under-love-251-88138.html Momik, the only child of two survivors, is brought up in Israel by a family seeking to ignore the past. No-one will explain to him what life was like Over There or what the Nazi Beast is. His 9-year-old mind imagines a Nazi Beast hiding in the cellar, waiting to feed on Jews. Momik increasingly shields himself from all feeling and attachment. But through the stories his great-uncle tells him the same stories he told the commandant of a Nazi concentration camp Momik, too, becomes infected with humanity. nnSee Under: Love is a luminously imaginative and profoundly affecting work.

Author: David Grossman Literary Agency Ltd  Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE]]> Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/rebel-heiress-251-88204.html In a tradition which stretches from Daphne du Maurier's The King's General to Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn and Alison Weir's Innocent Traitor, this glorious historical novel is based on the life of the great 17th century entomologist, Eleanor Glanville. On the ancient marshlands of Somerset -- a place of mists and magic -- a girl grows up in the shadow of the English Civil War, knowing that one day she will inherit the rich estate which belonged to her late mother. Her father, a stern but loving Puritan, once a distinguished soldier in Cromwell's army, fears for his daughter in the poisonous aftermath of the war, and for her vulnerability as an heiress. But above all he fears and misunderstands her scientific passion for butterflies. Eleanor Glanville was in fact destined to become one of the most famous entomologists in history, bequeathing her name to the rare butterfly which she discovered, the Glanville Fritillary. But not before she had endured a life of quite extraordinary vicissitude. Two marriages and an all-consuming love, which proved her undoing, a deep friendship with one of the great scientists of the day and finally, a trial for lunacy (on the grounds that no sane person would pursue butterflies) are all played out against the violent events of the Monmouth Rebellion and the vicious controversy over whether or not to drain the Somerset marshes. Now, if you drive down the M5, you will cross Kings Sedgemoor Drain -- one of the first great ditches which reclaimed the land for farming and destroyed the precious habitat of the Glanville Fritillary.

Author: Mountain, Fiona  Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE]]> Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/empire-of-the-moghul-:-brothers-at-war-251-54288.html Raiders from the North was the first novel in the Empire of the Moghul series; Brothers at War is its breathtaking successor. Praise for Raiders from the North: A totally absorbing narrative filled with authentic historical characters and sweeping action set in an age of horrifying but magnificent savagery. The writing is as compelling as the events described and kept me eagerly leaping from one page to the next' - Wilbur Smith ‘Rutherford adds the necessary ingredients to the royal epic, canny advisers, lion-hearted generals, a supportive mother and a supportive friend he can confide in to turn it into a blockbuster novel.’ – Dilip Bobb, India Today ‘An excellent opening shot … Alex Rutherford has set the bar higher for his next four novels - and this reviewer, for one, looks forward to the rest of the quintet’ – Nilanjana Roy, Business Standard ‘A rollicking novel’ – Indrajit Hazra, Hindustan Times A rip-roaring adventure story’ – Sunday Midday ‘A praise worthy contribution’ – Telegraph ‘Raiders from the North gives Babur a place in the public imagination that NCERT textbooks didn’t allow.’ – TimeOut ‘Rutherford's glorious, broad-sweeping adventure in the wild lands of the Moghul sees the start of a wonderful series. In Babur, he has found a real-life hero, with all the flaws, mistakes and misadventures that spark true heroism... Breathtaking stuff’ - Manda Scott, author of Boudica ‘Alex Rutherford has set the bar high for his sequels’ - Daily Mail About the Book The second enthralling installment in Alex Rutherford's Empire of the Moghul series. 1530, Agra, Northern India. Humayun, the newly-crowned second Moghul Emperor, is a fortunate man. His father, Babur, has bequeathed him wealth, glory and an empire which stretches a thousand miles south from the Khyber pass; he must now build on his legacy, and make the Moghuls worthy of their forebear, Tamburlaine. But, unbeknown to him, Humayun is already in grave danger. His half-brothers are plotting against him; they doubt that he has the strength, the will, the brutality needed to command the Moghul armies and lead them to still-greater glories. Perhaps they are right. Soon Humayun will be locked in a terrible battle: not only for his crown, not only for his life, but for the existence of the very empire itself.

Author: ALEX RUTHERFORD  Publisher: HACHETTE]]> Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/matterhorn-251-97620.html A terrific, towering novel. Marine Lieutenant Marlantes does for the Vietnam War what Lieutenant Sassoon did for the war in Flanders; what Sergeant Mailer did for the war in the Pacific; what Tenente Hemingway did for the war in Italy. He takes you there, shakes you, and never lets you go... Matterhorn will surely take its place on every armchair-warrior's bookshelf, shoulder to shoulder with Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, The Naked and the Dead, and A Farewell to Arms.' Jon Stallworthy, editor, The Oxford Book of War Poetry Fire Support Base Matterhorn: a fortress carved out of the grey-green mountain jungle. Cold monsoon clouds wreath its mile-high summit, concealing a battery of 105-mm howitzers surrounded by deep bunkers, carefully constructed fields of fire and the 180 marines of Bravo Company. Just three kilometers from Laos and two from North Vietnam, there is no more isolated outpost of America’s increasingly desperate war in Vietnam. Second Lieutenant Waino Mellas, 19 years old and just a few days into his 13-month tour, has barely arrived at Matterhorn before Bravo Company is ordered to abandon their mountain and sent deep in-country in pursuit of a North Vietnamese Army unit of unknown size. Beyond the relative safety of the perimeter wire, Mellas will face disease, starvation, leeches, tigers and an almost invisible enemy. Beneath the endless jungle canopy, Bravo Company will confront competing ambitions, duplicitous officers and simmering racial tensions. Behind them, always, Matterhorn. The impregnable mountain fortress they built and then abandoned, without a shot, to the North Vietnamese Army…

Author: KARL MARLANTES  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/goddess-named-gold-251-99244.html A modern fable of rural India narrated against the backdrop of freedom struggle. It is a masterly satire on those who live by the lure of gold. The plot centres around a touchstore given to Meera by her grandfather. It is believed that the amulet would enable Meera to turn copper into gold, provided she acts kindly as a natural and spontaneous expression of herself. It is hugely entertaing tale. 'It is hardly possible to over praise the novel.' - Chicago Tribune, USA Bhabani Bhattacharya was born in Bihar and received his Doctorate from London University. In 1967 he was honoured with the Sahitya Akademi Award.

Author: BHABANI BHATTACHARYA  Publisher: ORIENT PAPERBACKS]]> Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/crimson-throne-the-hb--251-94275.html Three decades into Emperor Shah Jahan’s reign, while the monarch indulges in the pleasures of the flesh to divert himself from the travails of his ageing body, the country is bracing itself for the brutal—and inevitable—war of succession to the Peacock Throne. At this time of tumult, European travellers Niccolao Manucci and Francois Bernier arrive in India, and find their way into the innermost circles of the royals. While Manucci revels in his new-found fame as miracle healer to princesses and concubines, and Bernier records his cerebral interactions with the Omrah in the imperial court, they conjure up an enthralling panorama of an empire in crisis. Little escapes their discerning eye—fabled cities now spinning into decay; harems rife with gossip, lust and venereal afflictions; wily courtiers whose hearts breed malice even as they enjoy the luxuries of privilege; the tenuous ties that bind Hindu subjects to their Muslim rulers. And, most of all, the chief contenders to the throne of Hindustan: Dara Shikoh, the charismatic heir apparent with a predilection for diverse spiritual beliefs, and his younger brother, the austere Aurangzeb, self-proclaimed defender of the true Faith. Set amid the grandeur and intrigue of seventeenth-century India, The Crimson Throne masterfully probes the continuities of imperial expansion and a splintered Islam. Eloquent, richly imagined, riveting, it reaffirms Sudhir Kakar’s acclaimed craftsmanship.

Author: Kakar, Sudhir  Publisher: PENGUIN INDIA]]> Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/for-pepper-christ-251-96561.html In his first novel noted poet and short story writer Keki N. Daruwalla brings alive a world of tumultuous voyaging during the time of Vasco da Gama—an era when the quest for exotic spices triggered a passionate desire for exploration. Legends of a magnificent Christian dominion, nestled in the heart of the East and ruled by the fabled Prester John, also generated an intense curiosity about the lands bordering the Indian Ocean. Traversing the ocean from the African coastline to Calicut on the Malabar Coast, and zig-zagging through the streets of Cairo, For Pepper and Christ takes the reader on a voyage of discovery with a singular cast of characters—Brother Figueiro, the fervent missionary, constantly in a tussle between felt reality and envisioned ideal; Taufiq the eternal voyager, quick to board ship and even quicker to fall in love in a strange land; Ehtesham the artist who cannot stop painting even when his life is in danger; and the Muhtasib, the Zamorin and the Abbott, three men of power, but with vastly different ways of using that power. The flight of silver doves over a church spire causes riots in Egypt; the discord between Islam and Christendom intensifies; and the individual destinies of the characters collide and coalesce in this atlas of shifting geography and looming history to form an intriguing web of power and ambition, humility and sacrifice, greed and betrayal, love and redemption. Blending historical fact with richly imagined fiction, For Pepper and Christ is imbued with the creative brilliance of one of India’s finest poets.

Author: Daruwalla, Keki  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/perineum-251-96562.html ‘If the story of colonial India were written as a sequence of feverish fictions, lit by Kafka and stage-managed by Manto, this would be that book. An original and brilliant debut’ —Mukul Kesavan In Perineum Ambarish Satwik blends surrealistic metaphor and surgical precision to concoct a Borgesian fictional labyrinth that thrusts the reader deep into the private parts of the Empire and its subjects, liege or otherwise. This irreverent collection of stories quite literally takes the pants off the venerable organs of the British Empire and lays bare a murky underbelly of oozing flesh, putrid excretions and raw brutality. From Baker’s scrotum to Bobby Clive’s circumcision, from Madan Lal Dhingra’s haemorrhoid to Jinnah’s last ejaculation, nothing escapes the author’s deliberately prurient eye and darkly satirical wit. Deftly orchestrating a medley of quasi-authentic colonial voices Satwik creates a quirky, cunningly layered narrative that is both very funny and very disturbing.

Author: Satwik, Ambarish  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/twentieth-wife-251-96563.html The Twentieth Wife tells the story of Mehrunnisa-the Sun of Women one of India's most legendary and controversial empresses, a woman whose brilliance and determination trumped myriad obstacles, and whose love shaped the course of the Mughal empire. The daughter of refugees from Persia, growing up on the fringes of Emperor Akbar's opulent palace grounds, Mehrunnisa first encounters Prince Salim on his wedding day. All of eight years old, she decides she too will one day become Salim's wife-wholly unaware of the great price she and her family will pay for this dream.......

Author: Sundaresan, Indu  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/feast-of-roses-251-96564.html The love story of Emperor Jahangir and Mehrunnisa, begun in The Twentieth Wife, continues in this novel. Lush and romantic, this is a tale of power and love.

Author: Sundaresan, Indu  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/rani-251-96565.html Rani

Author: Misra, Jaishree  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/taj-:-a-story-of-mughal-india-251-96566.html When his queen Arjumand Banu-Mumtaz-i-Mahal-the Chosen One of the Palace-died, Shah Jahan wanted to build a monument that was the image of his perfect love for her. For twenty-two years, twenty thousand men laboured day and night to fulfill the emperor's obsession. The result was the Taj Mahal, a marble mausoleum lined with gold, silver and precious jewels. This powerful novel narrates the story of the Taj on two parallel levels. The first one tells the passionate love story of Shah Jahan and Arjumand. The second recounts the later years of Shah Jahan's reign, the building of the Taj Mahal and the bloody pursuit of the fabulous Peacock throne by his sons. Intertwined in the building is the story of Murthi, the Hindu master craftsman sent as a gift to the emperor to carve the famous marble jail around Arjumand's sarcophagus. Murari has skilfully recreated the period against which the story is set, the sensual opulence of the palace, the grinding poverty of seventeenth century India, the vicissitudes of Shah Jahan's reign and the historical background of the conflict between men of different faiths.

Author: Murari, Timeri N.  Publisher: PENGUIN]]> Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/time-travelling-cat-and-the-great-victorian-stink-251-88200.html Topher’s amazing cat, Ka, has time-travelled again; she has left him the clue:\nCAppeLLis\nFollowing her, Topher finds himself in Victorian London where disease is rife and the Thames is clogged with stinking sewage! Topher discovers a plot to kill Joseph Bazalgette, the man who is trying to save the city. Determined to foil it, Topher must first escape from an arch-criminal and his den of thieves.\nThis is the sixth adventure of the Time-Travelling Cat

Author: Jarman, Julia  Publisher: Andersen]]> Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/road-to-rome-the-251-88212.html Having survived the perils of a journey across half the world, Romulus and Tarquinius are press-ganged into the legions, which are under imminent threat of annihilation by the Egyptians. Meanwhile in Rome, Romulus's twin sister Fabiola lives in fear for her life, loved by Brutus, but wooed by Marcus Antonius, his deadly enemy. Soon after, Romulus fights at Zela, the vicious battle where Caesar famously said, 'Veni, vidi, vici'. Tarquinius, separated from Romulus in the chaos of war, hides in Alexandria, searching for guidance. But mortal danger awaits them both. From the battlefields of Asia Minor and North Africa, to the lawless streets of Rome and the gladiator arena, they face death daily, until on the Ides of March, the twins are reunited and must decide either to back or to betray Caesar on his day of destiny.

Author: Kane, Ben  Publisher: Preface Publishing]]> Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/hand-of-fatima-the-251-88213.html nsuccessfully tried to rise up against their Christian oppressors and have painted the town in victims' blood. Our hero Hernando, an Arab with a Christian father, is despised by the townsfolk and by his step-father for his ‘tainted’ heritage and banished to live in the stables. Hernando has an affinity with horses and becomes an expert muleteer. News of his special touch reaches the king of the Moors and he is appointed to fight the Christian troops sent by the Spanish king Philip II. He meets Fatima, a young girl with black eyes who will become the love of his life. But his step-father marries her instead and forces Hernando into slavery where he befriends many Christians. He hatches a grand plan to reconcile the two warring faiths - and the two halves of his identity.

Author: Falcones, Ildefonso  Publisher: Doubleday]]> Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/the-guardians-of-the-covenant-251-95346.html When a quirky archaeologist finds ancient Viking parchments containing runes and riddles, his mundane life is changed for good. As he embarks on a dangerous quest to discover their origin, he finds himself plunged into the heart of an ancient religious conspiracy, fighting for his life. From Egyptian tombs and antiquarian bookshops in modern day Egypt to the year 1013--when Viking warriors raided a tomb and unknowingly stole the greatest secret of the Old Testament--he is led on a mystifying trail of clues through past and present alike. With powerful forces fighting against him, will he be able to succeed in unveiling a religious cover-up when the consequences of failing are fatal?

Author: Egeland, Tom  Publisher: HODDER & STOUGHTON]]> Sun, 08 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/hart-of-empire-251-95347.html Back in England following his heroics in the Zulu Wars, George Hart is summoned to a new adventure when Prime Minister Disraeli asks him to go on a secret mission to Afghanistan, where the British fear Muslim extremists are poised to overthrow the local ruler and threaten the jewel in the Imperial crown, India. Hart has severe misgivings. Always an outsider in British society, he doesn't like Whitehall's arrogant way of meddling in other people's religious and political affairs, but desperate for money, he takes the job and descends the Khyber Pass into a strange and violent land. When his warnings are ignored by the pompous British Resident in Kabul, a terrible massacre occurs and soon Hart is on the run with a beautiful Afghan princess, in a race to prevent an uprising and head off a catastrophic British invasion.

Author: David, Saul  Publisher: HODDER & STOUGHTON]]> Sun, 08 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/the-diary-of-henry-viii-251-95348.html The Diary of Henry VIII

Author: Coren, Giles  Publisher: HODDER & STOUGHTON]]> Sun, 08 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/killer-of-men-251-95349.html Arimnestos is a farm boy when war breaks out between the citizens of his native Plataea and and their overbearing neighbours, Thebes. Standing in the battle line - the wall of bronze - for the first time, alongside his father and brother, he shares in a famous and unlikely victory. But after being knocked unconscious in the melee, he awakes not a hero, but a slave. Betrayed by his jealous and cowardly cousin, the freedom he fought for has now vanished, and he becomes the property of a rich citizen of Ephesus. So begins an epic journey from slavery that takes the young Arimnestos through a world poised on the brink of an epic confrontation, as the emerging civilization of the Greeks starts to flex its muscles against the established empire of the Persians. As he tries to make his fortune and revenge himself on the man who disinherited him, Arimnestos discovers that he has a talent that pays well in this new, violent world, for like his hero, Achilles, he is 'a killer of men'.

Author: Cameron, Christian  Publisher: ORION]]> Sun, 08 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/killer-of-men-251-95350.html Arimnestos is a farm boy when war breaks out between the citizens of his native Plataea and and their overbearing neighbours, Thebes. Standing in the battle line - the wall of bronze - for the first time, alongside his father and brother, he shares in a famous and unlikely victory. But after being knocked unconscious in the melee, he awakes not a hero, but a slave. Betrayed by his jealous and cowardly cousin, the freedom he fought for has now vanished, and he becomes the property of a rich citizen of Ephesus. So begins an epic journey from slavery that takes the young Arimnestos through a world poised on the brink of an epic confrontation, as the emerging civilization of the Greeks starts to flex its muscles against the established empire of the Persians. As he tries to make his fortune and revenge himself on the man who disinherited him, Arimnestos discovers that he has a talent that pays well in this new, violent world, for like his hero, Achilles, he is 'a killer of men'.

Author: Cameron, Christian  Publisher: ORION]]> Sun, 08 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/holy-warrior-251-94980.html Arrows will fly. Swords will swing. Heroes will fall. Legends will survive. And the Holy Land will never be the same. 1190 AD: Richard the Lionheart has launched his epic crusade to seize Jerusalem from the cruel Saracens. Marching with the vast royal army is Britain's most famous, most feared, most ferocious warrior: the Outlaw of Nottingham, the Earl of Locksley -- Robin Hood himself. With his band of loyal men at his side, Robin cuts a bloody swathe on the brutal journey east. Daring and dangerous, he can outwit and outlast any foe -- but the crimson battlefields of the Holy Land are the ultimate proving ground. And within Robin's camp lurks a traitor -- a stealthy enemy determined to slay Christendom's greatest outlaw before the trumpets fade. Blazingly paced and richly imagined, featuring a cast of unforgettable characters and packed with fast, furious action, Holy Warrior is adventure at its thrilling, white-knuckle best.

Author: Donald, Angus  Publisher: Little Brown]]> Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/his-last-duchess-251-94981.html When 16-year-old Lucrezia de Medici marries the fifth Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso d'Este, she imagines married life with her handsome husband will be idyllic. But little does she know that he is a very complicated man. The marriage is fraught with difficulties from the start and eventually Lucrezia decides to seek solace elsewhere. For Alfonso, the pressure mounts, for the Vatican is threatening to reclaim his title, should he and Lucrezia remain unable to produce an heir. He grows to resent his duchess and begins to plot an unthinkable way to escape his problems. Originally inspired by a Robert Browning poem, Gabrielle Kimm has meticulously researched real events. Lucrezia and Alfonso were married in 1559. Three years later, she disappeared from the records ...What really happened to her is still a mystery. This shimmering debut gorgeously brings to life the passions and people of 16th century Tuscany and Ferrara. It is a story you are unlikely to forget for a long time.

Author: Kimm, Gabrielle  Publisher: Little Brown]]> Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/mozart-s-blood-251-94982.html As a young soprano in the eighteenth century, Octavia Voss was bitten by a vampire patroness during a sexual tryst with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and was imbued with the essence of his astonishing musical gifts.

Author: Marley, Louise  Publisher: Kensington Books]]> Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/london-251-88127.html London has perhaps the most remarkable history of any city in the world. Now its story has a unique voice. In this epic novel Edward Rutherfurd takes the reader on a magnificent journey across sixteen centuries from the days of the Romans to the Victorian engineers of Tower Bridge and the era dockland development of today. Through the lives and adventures of his colourful cast of characters he brings all the richness of London's past unforgettably to life.

Author: Rutherfurd, Edward  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/hero-of-rome-251-88199.html "The Roman grip on Britain is weakening. Emperor Nero has turned his face away from this far-flung outpost. The Druids are on the rise, spreading seeds of rebellion among the British tribes. Roman cruelty and exploitation has angered their British subjects. The warrior queen Boudicca will lead the tribes to war. Standing against the rising tide of Boudicca’s rebellion is Roman Tribune, Gaius Valerius Verrens, Commander of the veteran legions at Colonia. Valerius leads the veterans in a last stand against the unstoppable horde of Boudicca’s rebel army. Step by step, the bloodied survivors are forced back into the Temple of Claudius. It is here that Valerius wins lifelong fame and the accolade Hero of Rome."

Author: Jackson, Douglas  Publisher: Bantam Press]]> Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/oscar-wilde-and-the-dead-man-s-smile-251-76517.html The latest in Gyles Brandreth’s acclaimed series of Victorian murder mysteries featuring Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle. Paris, 1883. Oscar Wilde, aged twenty-seven, has come to the city of decadence to discover its charms, to rekindle his friendship with the divine Sarah Bernhardt and to collaborate with France’s most celebrated actor-manager, Edmond La Grange. Oscar discovers dark secrets lying at the heart of the La Grange company, and is confronted by murders both foul and bizarre. To solve the crimes, to unravel the mystery, Oscar risks his life – and his reputation – embarking on a dangerous adventure that takes him from bohemian night clubs to an asylum for the insane, from a duel in the Buttes de Chaumont to the gates of Reading Gaol.

Author: Brandreth, Gyles  Publisher: Hachette Book Group USA]]> Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/eaters-of-the-dead-251-42582.html In A. D. 922 Ibn Fadlan, the representative of the ruler of Bagdad, City of Peace, crosses the Caspian sea and journeys up the valley of the Volga on a mission to the king of Saqaliba. Before he arrives, he meets with Buliwyf, a powerful Viking chieftain who is summoned by his besieged relatives to the North. Buliwyf must return to Scandinavia and save his countrymen and family from the monsters of the mist. Join them on their stunning adventure to the mysterious land where the day's length does not equal the night's. . . where after sunset the sky burns in streaks of colour. . . . . where Buliwyf and his band of brothers must lock in mortal combat with the dark, hairy brutes who threaten to empty the land. . . . . CRICHTON EXCELS AT STORYTELLING - NEWSDAY

Author: Crichton, Michael  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/troy:-lord-of-the-silver-bow-251-42586.html Three lives will change the destiny of nations. Helikaon, the young prince of Dardania, haunted by a scarred and traumatic childhood. The priestess Andromache, whose fiery spirit and fierce independence threatens the might of kings. And the legendary warrior Argurios, cloaked in loneliness and driven only by thoughts of revenge. In Troy they find a city torn apart by destructive rivalries - a maelstrom of jealousy, deceit and murderous treachery. And beyond its fabled walls blood-hungry enemies eye its riches and plot its downfall. It is a time of bravery and betrayal; a time of bloodshed and fear. A time for heroes.

Author: Gemmell, David  Publisher: Corgi]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/pompeii-251-42588.html A sweltering week in late August. Where better to enjoy the last days of summer than on the beautiful Bay of Naples? But even as Rome's richest citizens relax in their villas around Pompeii and Herculaneum, there are ominous warnings that something is going wrong. Wells and springs are failing, a man has disappeared, and now the greatest aqueduct in the world - the mighty Aqua Augusta - has suddenly ceased to flow. Through the eyes of four characters - a young engineer, an adolescent girl, a corrupt millionaire and an elderly scientist - Robert Harris brilliantly recreates a luxurious world on the brink of destruction.

Author: Harris, Robert  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/atonement-251-88087.html On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.

Author: McEwan, Ian  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/ireland:-awakening-251-49888.html Following the critically acclaimed success of Dublin, this riveting sequel takes the story of Ireland from the seventeenth century onwards, picking up at the Reformation, and with it, the devastating arrival of Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell heralds the inauguration of two hundred years of Protestant dominance, throughout which many of the Irish people were impoverished and dispossessed. Dublin is made a Protestant capital, and Catholics become an underclass. Set against the dramatic backdrop of Irish political history, this powerful saga is brought to its conclusion. Journeying through the centuries right the way up to the twentieth century’s Easter Rising and Independence, passing through turbulent milestones such as The Year of the French, the Famine and The Home Rule Movement of Parnell along the way.

Author: Rutherfurd, Edward  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/lord-john-and-the-hand-of-devils-251-88110.html A keepsake collection of Lord John Grey’s shorter adventures and a spectacular addition to any Gabaldon fan’s library, Lord John and the Hand of the Devils brings these three unique novellas together for the first time. Lord John and the Hellfire Club marks the first appearance of Lord John outside the Outlander novels (and chronologically precedes the novel Lord John and the Private Matter). A young diplomat is killed in the street as he begs Lord John for help. Witnessing the murder, Grey vows to avenge the young man, as the trail leads to the notorious Hellfire Club and the dark caves beneath Medmenham Abbey In Lord John and the Succubus, Grey’s assignment as liaison to a Hanoverian regiment in Germany finds him caught between two threats: the advancing French and Austrian army, and the menace of a mysterious 'night-hag,' who spreads fear and death among the troops. Acknowledging that he is unlikely to fall victim to a succubus, Lord John is obliged to contend with the marauding night-hag before the enemy arrives. This tale with a touch of the supernatural bridges the action between Gabaldon’s two full-length Lord John tales. Finally, in Lord John and the Haunted Soldier, Lord John is called to the Arsenal at Woolwich to answer a Royal Commission of Enquiry’s questions regarding a cannon that exploded during the battle of Krefeld (a central action in Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade). Accusations ensue, and Lord John finds himself knee-deep in a morass of gunpowder, treason, and plot -- haunted by a dead lieutenant, and followed by a man with no face.

Author: Gabaldon, Diana  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/convenient-marriage-the-251-42796.html When the eligible Earl of Rule offers for the hand of the Beauty of the Winwood Family, he has no notion of the distress he causes his intended. For Miss Lizzie Winwood is promised to the excellent, but impoverished Mr Edward Heron. Disaster can only be averted by the delightful impetuosity of her youngest sister, Horatia, who conceives her own, distinctly original plans ...

Author: Heyer, Georgette  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/troy:-shield-of-thunder-251-42800.html The war of Troy is looming, and all the kings of the Great Green are gathering, friends and enemies, each with their own dark plans of conquest and plunder. Into this maelstrom of treachery and deceit come three travellers; Piria, a runaway priestess nursing a terrible secret, Kalliades, a warrior with a legendary sword, and Banokles who will carve his own legend in the battles to come. Shield of Thunder takes the reader back into the glories and tragedies of Bronze Age Greece, reuniting the characters from Lord of the Silver Bow; the dread Helikaon and his great love, the fiery Andromache, the mighty Hektor and the fabled storyteller, Odysseus.

Author: Gemmell, David  Publisher: Corgi]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/beauvallet-251-42801.html Mad Nicholas' to his friends, 'Scourge of Spain' to the enemy, Sir Nicholas Beauvallet has never been known to resist a challenge.When a captured galleon yields the lovely Do

Author: Heyer, Georgette  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/last-concubine-the-251-88161.html Japan, 1865, the women’s palace in the great city of Edo. Bristling with intrigue and erotic rivalries, the palace is home to three thousand women and only one man - the young shogun. Sachi, a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl, is chosen to be his concubine. But Japan is changing, and as civil war erupts, Sachi flees for her life. Rescued by a rebel warrior, she finds unknown feelings stirring within her; but this is a world in which private passions have no place and there is not even a word for ‘love’. Before she dare dream of a life with him, Sachi must uncover the secret of her own origins – a secret that encompasses a wrong so terrible that it threatens to destroy her ....

Author: Downer, Lesley  Publisher: Corgi]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/dawn-of-empire-251-42802.html Three thousand years before the birth of Christ. An epic conflict is about to begin. The price of victory? Civilization. The price of defeat, a return to the dark ages. The hopes of civilization rest on one man’s shoulders: Eskkar, once a barbarian, nowa warrior in charge of defending a small town which lies in the path of a vastbarbarian war party. The last time the invaders came to Orak, they spared no one and the tiny candle of trade and agriculture that had begun there, the first in all of human history, was extinguished. But Eskkar and Trella, the beautiful slave girl he has been given by the grateful townsfolk, and the raggle-taggle army he has inherited are not going to flee. They will fight against the overwhelming odds with foolhardy bravery, subtle ingenuity and the last drop of their blood. On this tiny band the lathe of history will turn: victory or darkness?

Author: Barone, Sam  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/empire-rising-251-88166.html 3157 B.C. At the eastern edge of the great southern desert in Mesopotamia, men are at war. Roaming bandits desperate for food, water, women, and slaves ravage vulnerable town. Yet one thing eludes them: gold. A rogue named Ariamus has joined forces with Korthac, a fierce bandit who saved his life, and together they set their sights on the impenetrable walled city of of Akkad, ruled by the former barbarian Eskkar and his enchanting wife Trella. Korthac devises a brilliant plan to conquer the city from within. Slipping into Akkad in disguise, he will gradually win the trust of Trella. While Eskkar is away, bringing other towns into his burgeoning empire, Korthac and Ariamus will strike, wreaking havoc on the city in a way it never expects. Told with rich historical detail and full of violence, sex, passion, and battles reminiscent of the best of Bernard Cornwell, The Road to Empire is a marvelous trip into the past.

Author: Barone, Sam  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/winnie-and-wolf-251-42980.html Winnie and Wolf is the story of the extraordinary relationship between Winifred Wagner and Adolf Hitler that took place during the years 1923–40, as seen through the eyes of the secretary at the Wagner house in Bayreuth. Winifred, an English girl, brought up in an orphanage in East Grinstead, married at the age of eighteen to the son of Germany’s most controversial genius, is a passionate Germanophile, a Wagnerian dreamer, a Teutonic patriot. In the debacle of the post-Versailles world, the Wagner family hope for the coming, not of a warrior, a fearless Siegfried, but of a Parsifal, a mystic idealist, a redeemer-figure. In 1923, they meet their Parsifal – a wild-eyed Viennese opera-fanatic in a trilby hat, a mac and a badly fitting suit. Hitler has already made a name for himself in some sections of German society through rabble-rousing and street corner speeches. It is Winifred, though, who believes she can really see his poetry. Almost at once they drop formalities and call one another ‘Du’ rather than ‘Sie’. She is Winnie and he is Wolf. Like Winnie, Hitler was an outsider. Like her, he was haunted by the impossibility of reconciling the pursuit of love and the pursuit of power; the ultimate inevitability, if you pursued power, of destruction. Both had known the humiliations of poverty. Both felt angry and excluded by society. Both found each other in an unusual kinship that expressed itself through a love of opera.

Author: Wilson, A.N.  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/master-of-petersburg-251-43035.html In The Master of Petersburg J. M. Coetzee dares to imagine the life of Dostoevsky. Set in 1869, when Dostoevsky was summoned from Germany to St Petersburg by the sudden death of his stepson, this novel is at once a compelling mystery steeped in the atmosphere of pre-revolutionary Russia and a brilliant and courageous meditation on authority and rebellion, art and imagination. Dostoevsky is seen obsessively following his stepson's ghost, trying to ascertain whether he was a suicide or a murder victim and whether he loved or despised his stepfather.

Author: Coetzee, J M  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/bluest-eye-the-251-43036.html THE BLUEST EYE chronicles the tragic, torn lives of a poor black family in 1940s Ohio: Pauline, Cholly, Sam and Pecola. Pecola, unlovely and unloved, prays each night for blue eyes like those of her privileged blond white schoolfellows. She becomes the focus of the mingled love and hatred engendered by her family's frailty and the world's cruelty as the novel moves toward a savage but poignant resolution.

Author: Morrison, Toni  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/jazz-251-43037.html It is winter, barely three days into 1926, seven years after Armistice; we are in the scintillating City, around Lenox Avenue, "when all the wars are over and there will never be another one.At last, at last, everything's ahead.Here comes the new. Look out. There goes the sad stuff. The bad stuff. The things nobody-could-help stuff." But amid the euphoric decisiveness, a tragedy ensues among people who had train-danced into the City, from points south and west, in search of a promise.Joe Trace, door -to-door salesman, erstwhile devoted husband, shoots to death his lover of three months, the impetuous, eighteen year old Dorcas. At the funeral his determined, hard-working wife Violet tries to disfigure the corpse with a knife.In a dazzling act of jazz-like improvisation, moving seamlessly in and out of past, present and future, a mysterious voice weaves this brilliant fiction, at the same time showing how its blues are informed by the brutal exigencies of slavery. Richly combining history, legend and reminiscence, this voice captures as never before the ineffable mood, the complex humanity of black urban life at a moment in our century we assumed we understood.Jazz is an unprecedented and astonishing invention, a landmark on the American literary landscape - a novel unforgettable and for all time.

Author: Morrison, Toni  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/redemption-falls-251-49852.html ot seen in four years, one of the hundred thousand children drawn into the war. His fate has been mysterious and will prove extraordinary. It’s a walk that will have consequences for many seemingly unconnected survivors: a love-struck cartographer, a haunted Latina poetess, rebel guerrilla Cole McLaurenson, runaway slave Elizabeth Longstreet and the mercurial revolutionary James Con O’Keeffe, who commanded a brigade of Irish immigrants in the Union Army and is now Governor of a western wilderness where nothing is as it seems. Redemption Falls is a tale of war and forgiveness, of strangers in a strange land, of love put to the ultimate test. Packed with music, balladry, poetry and storytelling, this is a riveting historical novel of urgent contemporary resonance, from the author of the internationally bestselling Star of the Sea.

Author: O'Connor, Joseph  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/american-pastoral-251-43191.html Seymour 'Swede' Levov - a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, the prosperous inheritor of his father's Newark glove factory - comes of age in thriving, triumphant post-war America. But everything he loves is lost when the country begins to run amok in the turbulent 1960s. American Pastoral is the story of a fortunate American's rise and fall - of a strong, confident master of social equilibrium overwhelmed by the forces of social disorder.

Author: Roth, Philip  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/enchantress-of-florence-the-251-88089.html A tall, yellow-haired young European traveller calling himself 'Mogor dell’Amore', the Mughal of Love, arrives at the court of the real Grand Mughal, the Emperor Akbar, with a tale to tell that begins to obsess the whole imperial capital. The stranger claims to be the child of a lost Mughal princess, the youngest sister of Akbar’s grandfather Babar: Qara K

Author: Rushdie, Salman  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/island-of-the-day-before-251-43192.html The year is 1643. Roberto, a young nobleman, survives war, the Bastille, exile and shipwreck as he voyages to a Pacific island straddling the date meridian. There he waits now, alone on the mysteriously deserted Daphne, separated by treacherous reefs from the island beyond: the island of the day before. If he could reach it, time - and his misfortunes - might be reversed. But first he must learn to swim...

Author: Eco, Umberto  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/mercy-a-251-88088.html In the 1680s the slave trade was still in its infancy. In the Americas, virulent religious and class division, prejudice and oppression were rife, providing the fertile soil in which slavery and race hatred were carefully planted and took root. Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a smallholding in the harsh North. Despite his distaste for dealing in ‘flesh’, he takes a small slave girl, in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, ‘with the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady’, who can read and write and might be useful on his farm. Florens is hungry for love, at first from the older servant woman at her new master’s house; but later, when she’s sixteen, from the handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes riding into their lives… And all of them have stories: Lina, the native American servant, whose tribe was decimated by smallpox; their mistress Rebekka, herself a victim of religious fervour back in England; young Sorrow, daughter of a sea captain who’s spent too many years at sea to be quite… normal; and, finally, there’s Florens’s own mother back home in Maryland. This is their plight – men and women inventing themselves in the wilderness. A Mercy reveals what lies under the surface of slavery, and the opening chapter of the story of sugar, that great maw which was to eat up millions of lives. But at its heart, like Beloved, this is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother and a daughter in a violent ad-hoc world – a world where acts of mercy, like everything else, have unforeseen consequences.

Author: Morrison, Toni  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/mysterious-flame-of-queen-loana-the-251-43193.html Yambo, a sixty-ish rare book dealer who lives in Milan has suffered a loss of memory; not the kind of memory neurologists call 'semantic' (Yambo remembers all about Julius Caesar and can recite every poem he has ever read), but rather his 'autobiographical' memory: he no longer knows his own name, doesn't recognize his wife or his daughters, doesn't remember anything about his parents or his childhood. His wife, who is at his side as he slowly begins to recover, convinces him to return to his family home in the hills somewhere between Milan and Turin. Yambo promptly retreats to the sprawling attic, cluttered with boxes of newspapers, comics, records, photo albums and adolescent diaries. There, he relives the story of his generation: Mussolini, Catholic education and guilt, Josephine Baker, Flash Gordon, Cyrano de Bergerac. As he recovers his memory, two voids remain shrouded in fog: a terrible event he experienced during the resistance, and the vague image of a girl whom he loved at sixteen, then lost. But a relapse occurs. Now in a coma, his memories run wild, and life racing before his eyes takes the form of a graphic novel. Yambo struggles through the frames to find at last the face of the girl he loves: she descends the stairs of their high school and morphs into a Dante-esque promise (or threat) of the afterlife, as he struggles harder to capture her simple, innocent, real-life image - the schoolgirl he never forgot. Copiously illustrated throughout with images from comics, book jackets, record sleeves and other printed ephemera, The Mysterious Flame is a fascinating and hugely entertaining new novel from the incomparable Umberto Eco.

Author: Eco, Umberto  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/birds-without-wings-251-43194.html Set against the backdrop of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, the Gallipoli campaign and the subsequent bitter struggle between Greeks and Turks, Birds Without Wings traces the fortunes of one small community in south-west Anatolia - a town in which Christian and Muslim lives and traditions have co-existed peacefully for centuries. When war is declared and the outside world intrudes, the twin scourges of religion and nationalism lead to forced marches and massacres, and the peaceful fabric of life is destroyed. Philothei, a Christian girl of legendary beauty, and Ibrahim the Goatherd who has courted her since infancy are but two of the many casualties. With the end of a community that once transcended religious differences, their great love seems destined to end in tragedy and madness...

Author: de Bernieres, Louis  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/dog-years-251-50599.html THE BOOK: First published in 1963, Dog Years is the concluding part of Grass's famous Danzig Trilogy. In a fusion of mythology and realiy, magic and romance, it charts forty years of German history commencing from 1917, with the objective of exposing the madness of a society that bred and nurtered the horrors of the Third Reich, then anaesthetised itself with the chaos of disintegration.

Author: Grass, Gunter  Publisher: Vintage Classics]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/fall-of-troy-the-251-49556.html 'I cannot wait to bring you to the plain of Troy. To show you the place where Hector and Achilles fought. To show you the palace of Priam. And the walls where the Trojan women watched their warriors in battle with the invader. It will stir your blood, Sophia.' Sophia Chrysanthis is only 16 when the German archaeologist Herr Obermann comes wooing: he wants a Greek bride who knows her Homer. Sophia passes his test, and soon she is tieing canvas sacking to her legs so that she can kneel on the hard ground in the trench, removing the earth methodically, identifying salient points, lifting out amphorae and bronze vessels without damaging them. 'Archaeology is not a science,' Obermann says. 'It is an art.' Obermann is very good at the art of archaeology - perhaps too good at it. The amosphere at Troy is tense and mysterious. Sophia finds herself increasingly baffled by the past ... not only the remote past that Obermann is so keen to share with her in the form of his beloved epics of the Trojan wars, but also his own, recent past - a past that he has chosen to hide from her. But she, too, is very good at the art of archaeology ...

Author: Ackroyd, Peter  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/set-in-stone-251-49669.html When Samuel Godwin, a young and naive art tutor, accepts a job with the Farrow family at Fourwinds, their majestic home, little does he expect to come across such a web of secrets and lies. His two tutees are as different as chalk and cheese - the beautiful younger sister Marianne, full of flightiness and nervous imagination, and Juliana, controlled and sad. With their governess, Charlotte Agnew, Samuel begins to uncover slowly the horrifying truth behind Juliana's sadness and Marianne's emotional fragility. Their discoveries change their perception of life at Fourwinds for ever and none of their lives will ever be the same again. With her usual brilliance and ease, Linda Newbery has written a haunting and faultlessly plotted novel with characters that leap of the page and stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.

Author: Newbery, Linda  Publisher: Definitions]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/castile-for-isabella-251-49793.html With fifteen-century Spain rent with intrigue and threatened by civil war, Isabella became the pawn of her ambitious, half-crazed mother and a virtual prisoner at the licentious court of her half-brother, Henry IV. Was she, at sixteen, fated to be the victim of the Queen's revenge, the Archbishop's ambition and the lust of Don Pedro Giron, one of the most notorious lechers in Castile? Numbed with grief and fear, Isabella yet remained steadfast in her determination to marry Ferdinand, the handsome young Prince of Aragon, her only true betrothed ...

Author: Plaidy, Jean  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/daughters-of-spain-251-49794.html With Spain now united, Ferdinand looked to his daughters to further his ambitions. All too often, Isabella found herself torn between his brilliant plans and her love for her children. During the last years of Isabella's reign it seemed there was a curse on the royal house which struck at the children of the sovereigns. Tragedy followed tragedy - the Infanta Isabella, a broken-hearted widow; Juana, driven to madness by her husband's philandering; and the sorrow of parting with young Catalina, destined to become Katharine of Aragon, wife to Henry VIII and Queen of England ...

Author: Plaidy, Jean  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/spain-for-the-sovereigns-251-49795.html Married to Ferdinand after continual fears and disappointments, Isabella triumphed over every dangers, convinced of her true destiny. With the might of Portugal humbled, the Court of the Sovereigns saw the rise of Torquemada, the establishment of the dreaded Inquisition, and th ecoming of Columbus, who left the woman he loved to make a dream reality. Ambitious and unfaithful, Ferdinand longed to lead his troops against the Moorish strongholds. Isabella knew a united Spain and a glorious future could be theirs, but they must only share it together...

Author: Plaidy, Jean  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/star-called-henry-a-251-49913.html Born in the Dublin slums of 1901, his father a one-legged whorehouse bouncer and settler of scores, Henry Smart has to grow up fast. By the time he can walk he's out robbing and begging, often cold and always hungry, but a prince of the streets. By Easter Monday, 1916, he's fourteen years old and already six-foot-two, a soldier in the Irish Citizen Army. A year later he's ready to die for Ireland again, a rebel, a Fenian and a killer. With his father's wooden leg as his weapon, Henry becomes a Republican legend - one of Michael Collins' boys, a cop killer, an assassin on a stolen bike.

Author: Doyle, Roddy  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/alexandria-251-88103.html For Marcus Didius Falco, agent to the Emperor Vespasian, Alexandria holds fascination and a hint of fear. Beautiful, historic and famously unruly, the great cosmopolitan city wears Roman rule lightly. While his wife, Helena Justina, wants to see the Lighthouse and the Pyramids, Falco has a mission at the Great Library that soon turns out to involve much more than stock-taking its innumerable scrolls. A mysterious death in the world-famous library bring him into immediate conflict with the darker side of academic life. With forensic science in its infancy, even an illegal autopsy fails to find real answers. To solve the crime for the Roman Prefect – if indeed it is a crime - Falco will have to draw on his own doggedness and intuition, at first supported only by Helena's commonsense and the loyal backup of her brother Aulus, who goes under cover as a student among the in-fighting academics. The philosophers lust after fame and fortune so ruthlessly there is soon another terrifying death, this time at the royal zoo. At the same time, his original innocent mission is overshadowed by the machinations of his Uncle Fulvius, who is living in Alexandria with his partner Cassius for obscure reasons. Their involvement in local affairs already seems shady when they are joined by their crony, Falco's father, Geminus, a man well known for disreputable business practices. If the irrepressible Pa has had any hand in what has gone wrong at the Library, Falco knows he stands no chance...

Author: Davis, Lindsey  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/religion-the-251-49960.html In 1994 Tim Willocks burst onto the scene with an unforgettable novel called Green River Rising. Hailed as 'the best thriller since The Silence of the Lambs' (Daily Telegraph), it was particularly praised for the quality of Tim Willocks' prose and for his extraordinarily dark imagination. Both these qualities are very much in evidence in his new novel, The Religion. Malta. May 1565. From the shores of the Golden Horn, Suleiman the Magnificent, Emperor of the Ottomans, has sent the greatest armada since antiquity to wipe out Islam’s most implacable foe, the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, in their stronghold on the island of Malta. To the Turks the knights are known as ‘The Hounds of Hell’. The knights call themselves ‘The Religion’. Meanwhile, in Sicily, a disgraced and exiled Maltese noblewoman, Carla La Penautier, has been trying to return to the doomed island in an attempt to find the bastard son who was taken from her at his birth. The Religion have refused her every plea and a tormented Roman Inquisitor, Ludovico Ludovici, seeks to imprison her. But Carla recruits a notorious adventurer and arms merchant – Mattias Tannhauser – to help her evade the Inquisition and to escape on the last galley to run the Turkish blockade. As the ensuing apocalyptic conflict between Islam and Christianity becomes the most brutal and harrowing siege in military history, Tannhauser and Carla must survive the bloody inferno and track down a twelve-year-old boy whose face they have never seen and whose name they do not know. And neither of them reckon on the return of the avenging Inquisitor, Ludovico Ludovici… The Religion is an epic and exuberant tale of love and war, of intrigue and obsession, of politics and faith and high adventure. Against a rich and meticulously detailed historical backcloth, it tells of a small band of intrepid men and women who defy the madness of Holy War to realize their own vision of God and Eternity.

Author: Willocks, Tim  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/see-delphi-and-die-251-88111.html With safe seas, good roads, a common currency, and lots of interesting conquered territory, the Romans naturally invented tourism. They believed in a life of leisure - fine for those who could afford it - and some would set off on their travels for maybe five years at a time. As these ancient culture vultures descended on the sights, the tour guide was born to cater to their needs ... 'Marcus, you must help me!' Stunned by a dramatic appeal from his otherwise cool mother-in-law, Falco cannot resist. His brother-in-law, Aulus, has been diverted from his route to Athens university by a man whose newly married daughter disappeared, with her husband, while visiting the Olympic Games as part of an extended wedding trip. Suspecting a classic cover-up, Aulus enrols Falco's help in solving the case. And of course his mother-in-law hopes to hurry her son along to university by passing the case over to Falco. Joining the rest of the married couple's tour group on the remains of their Grand Tour, Falco and Helena seize the opportunity to interview the owner/manager of 'Seven Sights Travel', as well as the other guests. Seemingly not getting very far, they can at least make the most of the splendid sights; but finally, on reaching Delphi, Falco and Helena unravel the mystery of the bride and groom ...

Author: Davis, Lindsey  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/imperium-251-49977.html When Tiro, the confidential secretary of a Roman senator, opens the door to a terrified stranger on a cold November morning, he sets in motion a chain of events which will eventually propel his master into one of the most famous courtroom dramas in history. The stranger is a Sicilian, a victim of the island’s corrupt Roman governor, Verres. The senator is Cicero, a brilliant young lawyer and spellbinding orator, determined to attain imperium – supreme power in the state. This is the starting-point of Robert Harris’s most accomplished novel to date. Compellingly written in Tiro’s voice, it takes us inside the violent, treacherous world of Roman politics, to describe how one man – clever, compassionate, devious, vulnerable – fought to reach the top.

Author: Harris, Robert  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/lilah-251-50062.html I can’t be with those who throw stones at women and children.It’s beyond me.Beyond my love for Ezra.Beyond my respect for God. In 397 BC, in Susa, the opulent capital of the Persian empire, where the Jews are living in exile, young Lilah is destined for a happy life: she is due to marry Antinoes, a great Persian warrior well known at the king’s court.But her beloved brother Ezra, with whom she has been close since childhood, is opposed to this marriage with a foreigner.If Lilah insists, she will have to renounce Ezra, and that is something she cannot do, for she senses that he has been chosen by God to lead the exiled Jews to Jerusalem and, after centuries of displacement, revive the laws of Moses: laws which promote justice and give human life a meaning. Abandoning the promise of a golden future, Lilah urges her brother to leave for Jerusalem and gives him new hope that a return to the Promised Land is possible. But Ezra, blinded by faith, orders the rejection of all foreign wives. At the risk of losing the one person she still has left in her life, Lilah opposes her brother’s fanaticism, thereby ensuring the survival of the women and children condemned to leave the city. But her opposition comes at great personal cost . . . Lilah concludes Marek Halter’s trilogy about Biblical heroines. Sarah, Abraham’s barren wife, brought her personal destiny to bear in the creation of a new religion. Zipporah, Moses wife, fought against racism and exclusion. By speaking out against religious extremism, of which women are the first victims, Lilah proves herself a champion of freedom.

Author: Halter, Marek  Publisher: Bantam]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/frozen-billy-251-88180.html I hate Frozen Billy - his painted, staring wooden eyes, the way his eyelids click when Uncle Len pulls a string, his long thin legs and his bright red wooden mouth...' Clarrie and Will live with their Uncle Len - a brilliant ventriloquist in the nearby music hall. But though Len loves his act almost as much as he loves his beer, Top Billing is out of his grasp until Will thinks up a way to double the drama with a new act and some extraordinary new patter that he and Frozen Billy can share on stage. It's a grand idea, hatched in hope and excitement. But, to Clarrie's horror, soon it begins to turn terribly sour... Anne Fine's novel combines her trademark humour, engaging characters and flawless prose to produce a spooky adventure set in the late-Victorian world of the music hall.

Author: Fine, Anne  Publisher: Yearling]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/devil-who-tamed-her-the-251-50092.html Ophelia Reid is an incomparable beauty with an incorrigible nature.Having purposefully wrecked her carefully arranged marriage to an utterly suitable marquis, she flees to London, determined to choose her own wealthy husband.On the journey there, she meets Raphael Locke, the most desired young lord in England. Raphael is determined to prove to his friends that Ophelia is more than just a vacuous beauty and whisks her off to his country estate.But as the days pass, and Ophelia’s true nature emerges, Raphael finds himself growing more and more attracted to her.And when the marriage proposals begin to flood in, from all sorts of eligible suitors, Raphael is forced to face the fact that he may well have fallen in love with Ophelia himself …

Author: Lindsey, Johanna  Publisher: Corgi]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/afghan-campaign-the-251-50126.html Alexander the Great’s campaign in the Afghan kingdoms began in the summer of 330BC. It lasted for three brutal years and proved the most bloody and ruthless he and his army ever fought... Among the ranks of Macedonian infantry is Matthias. The youngest of three brothers, he is eager to prove himself, but as he joins the frontline, he comes to realise that warfare has changed. The Macedonians face a new kind of enemy, and must learn to fight a new kind of war. Experiencing fear, euphoria, horror and shame, Matthias and his comrades undergo a rite of passage as they, soldiers of a Western force whose code is secular and humanist, confront a proud Eastern warrior people who possess a fervent willingness to die for their cause. Just to survive, Alexander’s men must shake off the trappings of ‘civilization’ and adopt the same unorthodox and barbaric tactics as their foe – but at what cost? Set against the harsh, unrelenting Afghan landscape, this thrilling novel reveals a profound understanding of the hopes and fears of men in battle and has important things to say about the nature of wars past…and present.

Author: Pressfield, Steven  Publisher: Bantam]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/makioka-sisters-the-251-50297.html Tanizaki's masterpiece is the story of four sisters, and the declining fortunes of a traditional Japanese family. It is a loving and nostalgic recreation of the sumptuous, intricate upper-class life of Osaka immediately before World War Two. With surgical precision, Tanizaki lays bare the sinews of pride, and brings a vanished era to vibrant life.

Author: Tanizaki, Junichiro  Publisher: Vintage Classics]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/temple-of-dawn-251-50657.html The story of one mans obsessive pursuit of a beautiful woman and his equally passionate search for enlightenment, THE TEMPLE OF DAWN powerfully dramatises the Japanese experience form the eve of World War II through the postwar era. Honda, a brilliant lawyer and man of reason, is called to Bangkok on legal business, where he is granted an audience with a young Thai princess - an encounter that radically alters the course of his life. In spite of all reason, he is convinced she is a reincarnated spirit, and undertakes a long, arduous pilgrimage to the holy places of India, where, in the climatic scene, he encounters her once more, only to have his newfound beliefs shattered and his life bereft of all meaning.

Author: Mishima, Yukio  Publisher: Vintage Classics]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/doctor-zhivago-251-50665.html On they went singing 'Eternal Memory', and whenever they stopped, the sound of their feet, the horses and the gusts of wind seemed to carry on their singing-Doctor Zhivago is the epic novel of Russia in the throes of revolution and one of the greatest love stories ever told. Yuri Zhivago, physician and poet, wrestles with the new order and confronts the changes cruel experience has made in him and the anguish of being torn between the love of two women.

Author: Pasternak, Boris  Publisher: Vintage Classics]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/mason-dixon-251-50674.html Charles Mason (1728 -1786) and Jeremiah Dixon (1733-1779) were the British Surveyors best remembered for running the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland that we know today as the Mason-Dixon Line. Here is their story as re-imagined by Thomas Pynchon, in an updated eighteenth-century novel featuring Native Americans and frontier folk, ripped bodices, naval warfare, conspiracies erotic and political, major caffeine abuse. We follow the mismatch'd pair - one rollicking, the other depressive; one Gothic, the other pre-Romantic - from their first journey together to the Cape of Good Hope, to pre-Revoluntionary America and back, through the stange yet redemptive turns of fortune in their later lives, on a grand tour of the Enlightenment's dark hemisphere, as they observe and participate in the many opportunities for insanity presented them by the Age of Reason.

Author: Pynchon, Thomas  Publisher: Vintage Classics]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/one-day-in-the-life-of-ivan-denisovich-251-50686.html The Gulag, the Stalinist labour camps to which millions of Russians were condemned for political deviation, has become a household word in the West. This is due to the accounts of many witnesses, but most of all to the publication, in 1962, of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the novel that first brought Aleksandr Sozhenitsyn to public attention. His story of one typical day in a labour camp as experienced by prisoner Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is sufficient to describe the entire world of the Soviet camps.

Author: Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr  Publisher: Vintage Classics]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/mother-night-251-50699.html 0

Author: Vonnegut, Kurt  Publisher: Vintage Classics]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/captain-corelli-s-mandolin-251-88158.html It is 1941 and Captain Antonio Corelli, a young Italian officer, is posted to the Greek island of Cephallonia as part of the occupying forces. At first he is ostracised by the locals, but as a conscientious but far from fanatical soldier, whose main aim is to have a peaceful war, he proves in time to be civilised, humorous – and a consummate musician. When the local doctor’s daughter’s letters to her fianc

Author: de Bernieres, Louis  Publisher: Vintage Classics]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/fly-away-peter-251-53334.html For three very different people brought together by their love for birds, life on the Queensland coast in 1914 is the timeless and idyllic world of sandpipers, ibises and kingfishers. In another hemisphere civilization rushes headlong into a brutal conflict. Life there is lived from moment to moment. Inevitably, the two young men -sanctuary owner and employee - are drawn to the war, and into the mud and horror of the trenches of Armentieres. Alone on the beach, their friend Imogen, the middle-aged wildlife photographer, must acknowledge for all three of them that the past cannot be held.

Author: Malouf, David  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/angels-and-insects-251-88083.html Morpho Eugenia and The Conjugial Angel are two fascinating novellas and like A. S. Byatt's Booker Prize-winning novel, POSSESSION, they are set in the mid-nineteenth century, weaving fact and fiction, reality and romance.

Author: Byatt, Antonia S  Publisher: Vintage]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/johnny-swanson-251-88084.html SPECIAL OFFER - THE SECRET OF INSTANT DELIGHT! Be the first to read Johnny Swanson! The book that's got the nation talking - yours by return of post. All is revealed: The truth about the Stambleton murder The facts behind the TB scare The real identity of Ada Ardour And one boy's fight to save his mother's life! All this, and the answer to the burning question of 1929: What on earth is a CLONG? (To find out, send a P.O. for 2/6 to Box 90)

Author: Updale, Eleanor  Publisher: David Fickling Books]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100 http://www.bookvook.com/book/details/siege-of-heaven-251-88085.html August, 1098. After countless battles and sieges, the surviving soldiers of the first crusade are at last within reach of their ultimate goal: Jerusalem. But rivalries fester and new enemies are massing against them in the Holy Land. Demetrios Askiates, the Emperor's spy, has had enough of the crusade's violence and hypocrisy. He longs to return home. But when a routine diplomatic mission leads to a deadly ambush, he realises he has been snared in the vast power struggles which underlie the crusade. The only way out now leads through the Holy City. From the plague-bound city of Antioch to the heart of Muslim Egypt, Demetrios must accompany the army of warlords and fanatics to the very gates of Jerusalem where the crusade climaxes in an apocalypse of pillage, bloodshed and slaughter.

Author: Harper, Tom  Publisher: Arrow]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:30:00 +0100