New Title: Catching The Sun

Title:Catching the Sun

Author: Tony Parsons

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harper (7 Jun 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007327811
• ISBN-13: 978-0007327812
• Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.6 cm

Product Description

Just how badly do you want to find paradise?

When Tom Finn is almost jailed for confronting two burglars in his own home, this taxi driver takes his young family to live on the tropical island of Phuket, Thailand.

Phuket is all the Finn family dreamed of – a tropical paradise where the children swim with elephants, the gibbons sing love songs in the jungle, the Andaman Sea is like turquoise glass and this young family is free to grow.

But both man-made disaster and the unleashed forces of nature shatter this tropical idyll for Tom Finn’s family.

CATCHING THE SUN is a gripping, moving story of a family who go in search of Paradise – and end up discovering themselves.

About the Author

Tony Parsons is the author of Man and Boy , winner of the Book of the Year prize. His subsequent novels – One For My Baby, Man and Wife, The Family Way, Stories We Could Tell, My Favourite Wife, Starting Over and Men from the Boys were all bestsellers. In summer 2011 he was Writer-in-Residence at London Heathrow, and his first book of short stories, Departures, is based on the experience. He has written a novella about pirates for Quick Reads – Beyond the Bounty.

Book Recommendation: The Impossible Dead

Title:The Impossible Dead

Author: Ian Rankin

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Orion; Mass Market Paperback edition (24 May 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1409136299
• ISBN-13: 978-1409136293
• Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 12.7 x 3.3 cm

Product Description

Malcolm Fox and his team are back, investigating whether fellow cops covered up for Detective Paul Carter. Carter has been found guilty of misconduct, but what should be a simple job is soon complicated by a brutal murder and a weapon that should not even exist.

 

A trail of revelations leads Fox back to 1985, a year of desperate unrest when letter-bombs and poisonous spores were sent to government offices, and kidnappings and murders were plotted. But while the body count rises the clock starts ticking, and a dramatic turn of events sees Fox in mortal danger.

About the Author

Ian Rankin is a regular No.1 bestseller, and has received numerous awards, including the prestigious DIAMOND DAGGER, and in 2009 he was inducted into the CWA Hall of Fame. He lives with his family in Edinburgh, and in 2003 received an OBE for his services to literature. Visit his website http://www.ianrankin.net

 

New Title: Strokes Of Genius

Title:Strokes of Genius

Author: Kitty von Klass

• Paperback: 74 pages
• Publisher: FeedARead.com (26 Jan 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1908895659
• ISBN-13: 978-1908895653
• Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15 x 0.6 cm

Product Description

Eight sizzling stories that get you up in the morning and keep you up at night. Written with men in mind, but equally appealing to women and couples. Let me seduce you and play out your wildest fantasies with me. MMF, MFF, anal, bondage, voyeurism, exhibitionism, sex club, masturbation, strap on. Including Red Mac, Watching you, My first Spit Roast, The Flicks, Make me beg, The velvet room, Back to mine, Sweet ass Candy.

New Title: Breakout Nations

Title: Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles

Author: Ruchir Sharma

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Allen Lane (3 May 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1846145562
• ISBN-13: 978-1846145568
• Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.4 x 3.2 cm

Product Description

The argument of BREAKOUT NATIONS is that the astonishingly rapid growth over the last decade of the world’s celebrated emerging markets is coming to an end. The era of easy money and easy growth is over. China, in particular, will soon slow, but its place will not necessarily be taken by Brazil, Russia or India, all of which Ruchir Sharma shows have weaknesses and difficulties often overlooked in the inflated expectations and emerging markets mania of the past decade. To identify the economic stars of the future, he says, we should abandon the habit of simply extrapolating from general global trends and look at emerging markets individually. The new ‘breakout nations’ will probably spring from the margins – even from the shadows. Sharma identifies which they are most likely to be, and why.

Sharma, head of one of the world’s leading emerging market funds, has spent two decades travelling the globe to find out what is happening on the ground in developing countries. With this first-hand knowledge, he takes his readers on a tour of two dozen of the world’s most interesting economies, introducing the critical players and describing and analysing the forces – many unique to each nation – which will make the successes and flops of the future. The book is full of surprises: why the current mania for oil echoes the dotcom mania of 2000; how an industrial revolution in Asia is redefining what manufacturing can do for a modern economy; how the coming shakeout in the big emerging markets could shift the spotlight back to the west, especially American technology and German manufacturing; why the next two trillion-dollar economies will be big Moslem democracies . It contains warnings about command economies (some work, but many fail too), shows that the EU is producing model economies as well as basket cases, and suggests what we can learn from the $24 price of cocktails in Rio. Even Vladimir Putin’s dog makes an appearance.

About the Author

Ruchir Sharma is head of emerging markets at Morgan Stanley, a position which lends him a truly global perspective and first-hand experience of the world he is describing, as well as affording him unique access to top CEOs, key finance ministers and heads of state. He is an occasional television commentator, on CNBC and in India, and a regular columnist for Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal and the Economic Times of India.

Book recommendation: All Hell Let Loose

Title: All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945

Author:Max Hastings

• Paperback: 768 pages
• Publisher: HarperPress; First Thus edition (26 April 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007450729
• ISBN-13: 978-0007450725
• Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 4.6 cm

Product Description

A magisterial history of the greatest and most terrible event in history, from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. A book which shows the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world- soldiers, sailors and airmen; housewives, farm workers and children..

Reflecting Max Hastings’s thirty-five years of research on World War II, All Hell Let Loose describes the course of events, but focuses chiefly upon human experience, which varied immensely from campaign to campaign, continent to continent.

The author emphasises the Russian front, where more than 90% of all German soldiers who perished met their fate. He argues that, while Hitler’s army often fought its battles brilliantly well, the Nazis conducted their war effort with ‘stunning incompetence’. He suggests that the Royal Navy and US Navy were their countries’ outstanding fighting services, while the industrial contribution of the United States was much more important to allied victory than that of the US Army.

The book ranges across a vast canvas, from the agony of Poland amid the September 1939 Nazi invasion, to the 1943 Bengal famine, in which at least a million people died under British rule- and British neglect. Among many vignettes, there are the RAF’s legendary raid on the Ruhr dams, the horrors of Arctic convoys, desert tank combat, jungle clashes. Some of Hastings’s insights and judgements will surprise students of the conflict, while there are vivid descriptions of the tragedies and triumphs of a host of ordinary people, in uniform and out of it.

‘The cliché is profoundly true’, he says. ‘The world between 1939 and 1945 saw some human beings plumb the depths of baseness, while others scaled the heights of courage and nobility’. This is ‘everyman’s story’, an attempt to answer the question: ‘What was the Second World War like ?’, and also an overview of the big picture. Max Hastings employs the technique which has made many of his previous books best-sellers, combining top-down analysis and bottom-up testimony to explore the meaning of this vast conflict both for its participants and for posterity.

About the Author

Max Hastings studied at Charterhouse and Oxford and became a foreign correspondent, reporting from more than sixty countries and eleven wars for BBC TV and the London Evening Standard. He has won many awards for his journalism. Among his best-selling books ‘Bomber Command’ won the Somerset Maugham Prize, and both ‘Overlord’ and ‘Battle for the Falklands’ won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize. After ten years as editor and then editor-in-chief of the Daily Telegraph, he became editor of the Evening Standard in 1996. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he was knighted in 2002. He now lives in Berkshire.

New Title: The Stone Roses – War And Peace

Title:The Stone Roses: War and Peace

Author: Simon Spence

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Viking (7 Jun 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670920991
• ISBN-13: 978-0670920990
• Product Dimensions: 24.1 x 16.1 x 3.6 cm

Product Description

Based on 400 hours of interviews with over seventy of The Stone Roses’ closest associates, including six former band members, War and Peace is the first major biography of the band that defined a generation.

 

Originally planned in collaboration with Reni, the reclusive drummer, this book had been a year in the making when the Roses, against all odds, announced their re-formation. It is a remarkable coda to an astonishing story. In 1989 their debut album and the single ‘Fools Gold’ made them the most exciting British export since the Sex Pistols. With their incendiary aura the Roses became figureheads of the ‘Madchester’ movement

 

War and Peace traces the band’s genesis, studded with violent gigs and abandoned recordings, and shaped by their infamous manager Gareth Evans. As their jeans grew wider and their songs more anthemic, the Roses’ legendary gigs culminated in the era-defining Spike Island show in 1990. From this pinnacle the unravelling was spectacular. With the band refusing to play in America, arrested for vandalizing a record company and dragged through the High Court, the epic recording of their dark second album is the stuff of legend. They disbanded in turmoil in 1996.

 

Since then the Roses myth has grown even bigger. ‘I Wanna Be Adored’, ‘She Bangs the Drums’, ‘Waterfall’, ‘This Is the One’ and ‘I Am the Resurrection’ have become national anthems, and their first album is widely recognized as one of the best ever made.

 

But the true story behind their rise and fall – and resurrection – has never been told. Until now. From the Manchester backwaters to the worldwide 2012 tour, War and Peace lays bare the irresistible tale of the last of the great bands.

 

* With 40 unseen photos, including from renowned rock photographer Dennis Morris

About the Author

Simon Spence collaborated with Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham on the acclaimed memoirs Stoned and 2Stoned. He has written for the NME, i-D, Dazed & Confused and the Independent. He was at the Stone Roses’ legendary Blackpool and Alexandra Palace shows in 1989 and covered their era-defining Spike Island show for The Face.

Book recommendation: Fahrenheit 451

Title:Fahrenheit 451 (Flamingo Modern Classics)

Author: Ray Bradbury

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Harper Voyager; New Ed edition (4 Aug 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0006546064
• ISBN-13: 978-0006546061
• Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm

Product Description

The hauntingly prophetic classic novel set in a not-too-distant future where books are burned by a special task force of firemen.

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.

The classic novel of a post-literate future, ‘Fahrenheit 451’ stands alongside Orwell’s ‘1984’ and Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ as a prophetic account of Western civilization’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity.

Bradbury’s powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which over fifty years from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.

About the Author

Ray Bradbury has published some 500 short stories, novels, plays and poems since his first story appeared in Weird Tales when he was twenty years old. Among his many famous works are ‘Fahrenheit 451’, ‘The Illustrated Man’ and ‘The Martian Chronicles’.

Handy Household Tips

Handy Household Tips by Annette J Dunlea

Published In The Carrigdhoun Newspaper30th June 2012 p.11
Keep a file with all your receipts for household appliances, bills paid or due and all household purchases documents.Keep manuals and store favourite recipes here too.Housecleaning is done to make the home look better and be safer and easier to live in. Without housecleaning limescale can build up on taps, mold grows in wet areas, bacterial action make the garbage disposal and toilet smell and cobwebs accumulate.In order to have a nice clean house or life, you must always organize and prevent certain things from happening.Take off your shoes so the carpets stay clean. Use a vinyl wipe clean table cloth when eating so you have an easy clean up. Keep all cleaning supplies in a safe place from kids. Replace crayons with non-toxic, washable markers. Do not buy any fizzy drinks with artificial colorizers.The first line of defense against dirty living conditions is: have a regular cleaning routine. What does that mean? Dusting blinds, window sills, and hard surfaces, as well as sweeping, mopping, and, especially vacuuming with a high-filtration machine on a regular basis can remove a high percentage of dust and dirt.Using cleaning products that remove or kill harmful germs and sanitize areas like bathrooms, countertops, tables, hard surfaces where food is prepared or eaten can minimize the health dangers caused from dirty surfaces and germs.Clean room by room but hoover the whole house and then mop it out, finally dust the house room by room.
Begin cleaning by assembling your cleaning kit: cloths, furniture spray, window cleaner, bleach and antibacterial spray.Clean up extra mess in the room and empty the bin and ashtrays, wipe down the table.Dust the furniture, light fittings and ornaments.Clean light switches, door jambs and window sills.Clean floor and furniture, refresh flowers and light a scented candle to create a nice atmosphere.Have a daily routine and follow it. Clear out and wipe down the kitchen sink. Wipe down countertops and cooker.Wipe problem spots on the floor.Fold or hang dish towels.With the kitchen cleaned move onto the bathroom.Wipe out the sink.Clean splatters off the mirror.Wipe the toilet seat and rim. Swoosh the toilet bowl with a brush.Wipe down glass doors to remove water droplets that can cause spotting.Spray the shower and curtain liner with a shower mist.Next tackle the bedroom.Make your bed,fold or hang clothes and put away jewelry, tidy bedside locker.Then move onto the living room.Tidy the sofa,pick up crumbs with a handheld vacuum,wipe tables and spot-clean cabinets where you see fingerprints,straighten coffee table books and magazines and clear major clutter: toys, pc games etc.
Cleaning is the most time consuming job in house keeping. Worse of all, some stains are hard to clean out. It is a good idea to clean your kitchen sink drain once per month using this simple method. Pour a handful of baking soda into the drain and then add 1/2 cup of white vinegar. These ingredients will combine and form a small erupting volcano. Cover the drain for several minutes. Uncover and then rinse with cold water after 1/2 hour.Listen to music as you clean the house it will make the time go faster.Get into the habit of making your bed before you leave for the day.Keep food out of your bed and reception rooms,eat in the kitchen or dining room.Always put things back where they belong.Give the house a through clean once a week.Buy a basket for each bedroom and every time a family member uses clothes put them in their basket. Put your rubbish in a rubbish bin, everyone. Remember, lighting can make a room look even cleaner.Every night before I go to bed I do a walk through I fix the cushions n the couch.I put laundry in the washing machine, any rubbish gets binned and all ware goes into the dishwasher.Anything out of place is returned to its place.Its makes a great difference to wake up to a clean and organised house.
Repair scratches on surface of wood furniture: simply fill in with appropriate shade of colored pencil.If you have boils or blisters from cleaning soak for hour in tub with a cup of oatmeal it will draw out the infection and leave skin soft and soothed.Grime on glass baking dishes then soak in soapy water, then use the edge of a metal spoon to scrape away.When silk flowers are dull or dusty wash with washing up liquid and water or spray with hairspray. They will stay shiny and when they get dusty again, simply blow off with hair dryer.Dog chewing on couch cushions, pour a bit of lemon juice on corners. Dogs do not like citrus.Ants or other bugs around kitchen sink/bathroom: Put mixture of dish soap and water into empty spray bottle and keep handy. When you see the insects, spray with the mixture. The soap actually breaks down their exo-skeletons and they die almost immediately. Many people swear by a crumpled ball of newspaper for use with your window cleaner.Wash the dish washer brush in the dish washing machine.Do not mix cleaners! Doing this can create very dangerous chemicals. Use them one at a time and follow the safety warnings on the label.
A grungy bathroom is not only unpleasant to look at but it’s also a breeding ground for germs, mold and mildew.Use the bathroom fan, it can help remove the moisture that causes mold and mildew. Vacuum the vents regularly to remove any dust that might inhibit the fan’s effectiveness.Keep pop-up disinfectant wipes next to the sink. Train family members to wipe down the sink and its surroundings every time they turn the tap water off.Hang a squeegee in the shower. Use it to quick-clean the walls and glass doors before stepping out of the shower.Use bathroom antibacterial wipes, use for one item and bin. These are handy for cleaning around toilet rims, tanks, faucets, sinks and basins. Check the label for disposal instructions : flushable wipes disperse in water and they’re safe for plumbing and septic tanks.Bar soaps are great if they find their way back to the soap dish. Pump dispensers may be neater!Keep a bleach pen on hand,it’s a great tool for spot-cleaning mold and mildew.Get a hand-held vacuum,when you think of vacuuming.A small, hand-held vacuum makes quick pickups a breeze.Rinse the bath after each use. Doing this after each use helps keep soap film and hard-water deposits from forming.Keep shower doors and curtains open after use,this allows them to air-dry and helps prevent mildew.Use a daily shower cleaner.Regular use will help keep shower and baths surfaces free of soap scum, mildew stains and hard-water deposits. Mist surfaces right after showering while the walls are wet and warm , no rinsing, wiping or scrubbing is necessary.Keep a set of cleaning supplies in the bathroom. Cleaning is easier if you don’t have to travel far to get what you need.
Start decluttering by getting rid of the things that are needlessly filling up your home. Recycle it, store it, sell it or donate it.Before you start cleaning, make sure you have all the necessary supplies on hand.Decide whether you’ll go room by room or task by task: dusting, hoovering, mopping, ware, laundry etc and then prioritize your tasks.It’s not necessary to do everything yourself. Enlist family members, pair up with a friend, or call in a professional.Read and follow all instructions on all products prior to use.

The End

New Title: Strindberg’s Star

Title:Strindberg’s Star

Author: Jan Wallentin

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Corvus (1 Jun 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1848879873
• ISBN-13: 978-1848879874
• Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.4 x 4.4 cm

Product Description

Taklamakan desert, 1895: a new Pompeii has come to light, and with it two remarkable artefacts, found in a hidden burial chamber. A metal ankh and star – covered in strange inscriptions, feather-light and cool to the touch. Svalbard, 1897: on the skerried islands of Svalbard, a hydrogen balloon is readied for a polar voyage. Publicly, it is a patriotic attempt to put Sweden in the lead of the race to the North Pole. Privately, the three men on board have another objective. But S. A Andree, Knut Frankel and Nils Strindberg will never be seen alive again. Falun, Sweden, 2011: 260 meters under the earth, in a long-flooded mineshaft, a diver’s torchbeam plays over a mouldering corpse with a fist-sized hole in its forehead. Skeletal fingers clutch a metal amulet. It is the key to the annals of a secret history so deeply buried that the few who knew of it though it lost forever. Until now…

About the Author

JAN WALLENTIN is a journalist based in Stockholm, Sweden. Strindberg’s Star is his first novel.

Book Recommendation: The Magic Of Reality

Title:The Magic of Reality: How we know what’s really true

Author: Richard Dawkins

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Black Swan (21 Jun 2012)
• ISBN-10: 0552778052
• ISBN-13: 978-0552778053
• Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 2 cm

Product Description

Magic takes many forms. The ancient Egyptians explained the night by suggesting that the goddess Nut swallowed the sun. The Vikings believed a rainbow was the gods’ bridge to earth. These are magical, extraordinary tales. But there is another kind of magic, and it lies in the exhilaration of discovering the real answers to these questions. It is the magic of reality – science.

 

Packed with inspiring explanations of space, time and evolution, laced with humour and clever thought experiments, The Magic of Reality explores a stunningly wide range of natural phenomena. What is stuff made of? How old is the universe? What causes tsunamis? Who was the first man, or woman? This is a page-turning, inspirational detective story that not only mines all the sciences for its clues but primes the reader to think like a scientist too.

 

Richard Dawkins elucidates the wonders of the natural world to all ages with his inimitable clarity and exuberance in a text that will enlighten and inform for generations to come.

About the Author

Richard Dawkins has written a string of bestselling books, including the phenomenal The God Delusion. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature, and has won numerous awards. He was a professor at Oxford University until 2008 and he remains a fellow of New College.

 

Great New Title: The Whipping Club

Title: The Whipping Club

Author: Deborah Henry

Paperback: 312 pages
Publisher: T.S. Poetry Press (2 Feb 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0984553177
ISBN-13: 978-0984553174
Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14 x 2.4 cm

Product Description
The Whipping Club explores the sacrificial secrets we keep to protect our loved ones and the impact that uncovered secrets have on marriage, family and society. Both a wrenching family drama and a harrowing suspense story, it chronicles an interfaith couple’s attempt in 1960′s Ireland to save their son from corrupt institutions. “A powerful saga of love and survival.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Reviews:

The Whipping Club was selected for the O – Oprah Magazine July Summer Reading Club.

“Set in 1960′s Ireland, Henry’s riveting debut novel explores the far-reaching effects of a single decision.”
–Publisher’s Weekly

“Deborah Henry’s eloquent, magnificently designed novel . . . A story that will draw out every straw of emotion in your soul. This is the best novel I have read in three years.”
–Herald de Paris

“The Whipping Club is an intimate, assured first novel, the story of Marian McKeever and her child hidden by cruelty and custom. It rings with the authenticity of shame and courage. You can put it down but you will not forget it.”
—Jacquelyn Mitchard, best-selling author of The Deep End of the Ocean

“Deborah Henry is a natural storyteller and she is far more. Her novel The Whipping Club is a compelling read, but it also seriously explores the terrible ways the world –as a society, as individuals — often fails its children. And most importantly, her book offers a searingly lovely vision of how wrongs can be made right. Deborah Henry is a splendid young novelist who deserves a wide audience.”
—Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler

“The Whipping Club at once evokes a hauntingly beautiful literary landscape, engaging me immediately. Henry writes with great passion, deep vulnerability and sharpest prose about perils and plights, joy and triumph. Commanding a winsome literary voice, Henry would go far to tell many a tale. And she should.”
—Da Chen, best-selling author of Colors of the Mountain and Sounds of the River

“Exquisitely written, unflinching and spare, The Whipping Club is the haunting portrait of a family that challenges a system whose chilling atrocities toward children are at once beyond comprehension and altogether real. Deborah Henry is a gifted storyteller. The steely realism of her prose, her fiercely drawn characters and startling plot twists make The Whipping Club one of those rare novels that linger in the mind long after the last page is turned.”
—Dawn Tripp, best-selling author of Game of Secrets

“Harrowing, haunting, and brilliantly written, Henry’s stunner of a novel is about secrets, so-called sins, and the way even the deepest scars can begin to heal. So breathtakingly good it seems burned into your heart.”
—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You

“A story of survival, redemption, and the courage that is born of love. One of my favorite reads of the decade!”
—Susan Henderson, author of Up From The Blue
About the Author
DEBORAH HENRY’S first short story was published by ‘The Copperfield Review,’ was a historical fiction finalist for ‘Solander Magazine’ of The Historical Novel Society and was longlisted in the 2009/10 Fish Short Story Prize. ‘The Whipping Club’ is her first novel. She lives in Fairfield, Connecticut with her husband and their three children. She is currently at work on her next book. Visit her at http://www.deborahhenryauthor.com

New Title: The Light Of Amsterdam

Title: The Light of Amsterdam

Author:  David Park

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (29 Mar 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1408821362
• ISBN-13: 978-1408821367
• Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14.4 x 3.4 cm

Product Description

It is December in Belfast, Christmas is approaching and three sets of people are about to make their way to Amsterdam. Alan, a university art teacher stands watching the grey sky blacken waiting for George Best’s funeral cortege to pass. He will go to Amsterdam to see Bob Dylan in concert but also in the aftermath of his divorce, in the hope that the city which once welcomed him as a young man and seemed to promise a better future, will reignite those sustaining memories. He doesn’t yet know that his troubled teenage son Jack will accompany his pilgrimage. Karen is a single mother struggling to make ends meet by working in a care home and cleaning city centre offices. She is determined to give her daughter the best wedding that she can. But as she boards the plane with her daughter’s hen party she will soon be shocked into questioning where her life of sacrifices has brought her. Meanwhile middle-aged couple, Marion and Richard are taking a break from running their garden centre to celebrate Marion’s birthday. In Amsterdam, Marion’s anxieties and insecurities about age, desire and motherhood come to the surface and lead her to make a decision that threatens to change the course of her marriage. As these people brush against each other in the squares, museums and parks of Amsterdam, their lives are transfigured as they encounter the complexities of love in a city that challenges what has gone before. Tender and humane, and elevating the ordinary to something timeless and important, The Light of Amsterdam is a novel of compassion and rare dignity.

About the Author

David Park has written seven books, most recently the hugely acclaimed The Truth Commissioner. He was the winner of the Authors’ Club First Novel Award, the Bass Ireland Arts Award for Literature and three-times winner of the University of Ulster’s McCrea Literary Award. He has twice been shortlisted for the Irish Novel of the Year Award. He lives in County Down, Northern Ireland with his wife and two children.

Book Recommendation: Management In 10 Words

Title: Management in 10 Words

Author: Terry Leahy

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Random House Business (7 Jun 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847940897
• ISBN-13: 978-1847940896
• Product Dimensions: 23.8 x 15.8 x 3.2 cm

Book Description

The former CEO of Tesco shows how to succeed in business

Product Description

In his fourteen years as CEO of Tesco, Sir Terry Leahy not only turned the company into the largest supermarket chain in the UK but also transformed it into a global enterprise. As a result, Sir Terry is now one of the world’s most admired business leaders, widely acclaimed for his drive, flair and no-nonsense approach.

 

In Management in 10 Words he draws on his experience and expertise to pinpoint the ten vital attributes that make successful managers and underlie great organisations. He tackles the challenges that every manager faces, in a series of insights that are personal, provocative, and down to earth. And he explains:

 

- Why initial failure often leads to ultimate success.

- Why profits stem from a company’s values, not its day-to-day business.

- Why competition should always be welcomed.

- Why simplicity leads to innovation.

- Why trust is the bedrock of effective leadership.

 

The result is an inspiring, thoughtful and supremely practical guide that will prove invaluable to all managers in all types of organisation.

About the Author

SIR TERRY LEAHY was educated at St Edward’s College, Liverpool, and then went on to the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, where he gained his BSc (Hons) in management sciences. He joined Tesco when he was 23, became the company’s first marketing director and was responsible for the introduction of the highly successful Tesco Clubcard. As CEO he oversaw Tesco’s expansion into everything from electrical goods to insurance, built a £1 billion clothing business and was one of the first to see the potential of the internet for selling groceries. He was knighted in 2002 for his services to food retailing and has received many industry honours and awards, including Sunday Times Business Person of the Year in 2010 and a Lifetime Achievement award from Retail Week in 2011.

 

Since Sir Terry stepped down as CEO of Tesco in February 2011 he has been in constant demand as a public speaker. He is also a senior advisor to Clayton, Dublier & Rice, the US private equity firm. In addition, he invests in entrepreneurial businesses and is involved with various charities.

Irish Bestsellers 24th June 2012

Books:

Charm BraceletThis is How it EndsFifty Shades of GreyThe Hunger GamesCatching Fire ClassicMockingjay ClassicFifty Shades DarkerFifty Shades FreedMe and My SistersRun Fat Bitch Run

eBooks:

1. The Charm Bracelet
2. This Is How It Ends
3. Fifty Shades of Grey
4. Fifty Shades Darker
5. Run Fat Bitch Run
6. Fifty Shades Freed
7. Deadlocked
8. The Lifeboat
9. Three Women
10. The Lucky One

New Title: Gone Girl

Title: Gone Girl

Author: Gillian Flynn

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: W&N; Hardback edition (24 May 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0297859382
• ISBN-13: 978-0297859383
• Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.4 x 3.8 cm

Product Description

‘What are you thinking, Amy? The question I’ve asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?’ Just how well can you ever know the person you love? This is the question that Nick Dunne must ask himself on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, when his wife Amy suddenly disappears. The police immediately suspect Nick. Amy’s friends reveal that she was afraid of him, that she kept secrets from him. He swears it isn’t true. A police examination of his computer shows strange searches. He says they aren’t his. And then there are the persistent calls on his mobile phone. So what did really did happen to Nick’s beautiful wife? And what was left in that half-wrapped box left so casually on their marital bed? In this novel, marriage truly is the art of war…

About the Author

Gillian Flynn’s first novel SHARP OBJECTS was the winner of two CWA DAGGERS, and was shortlisted for the GOLD DAGGER, and also for an EDGAR. She lives in Chicago with her husband.

Book Recommendation: Thinking, Fast and Slow

Title;Thinking, Fast and Slow

Author: Daniel Kahneman

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (10 May 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141033576
• ISBN-13: 978-0141033570
• Product Dimensions: 18.8 x 12.8 x 2.6 cm

Product Description

The New York Times Bestseller, acclaimed by author such as Freakonomics co-author Steven D. Levitt, Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Nudge co-author Richard Thaler, Thinking Fast and Slow offers a whole new look at the way our minds work, and how we make decisions.

 

Why is there more chance we’ll believe something if it’s in a bold type face?

Why are judges more likely to deny parole before lunch?

Why do we assume a good-looking person will be more competent?

 

The answer lies in the two ways we make choices: fast, intuitive thinking, and slow, rational thinking. This book reveals how our minds are tripped up by error and prejudice (even when we think we are being logical), and gives you practical techniques for slower, smarter thinking. It will enable to you make better decisions at work, at home, and in everything you do.

About the Author

Daniel Kahneman is a Senior Scholar at Princeton University, and Emeritus Professor of Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002.

See   Also:

• 

  The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do, and How to …

  Charles Duhigg

  4.7 out of 5 stars (12)

  Paperback

  £7.99
• 

  Poor Economics: Barefoot Hedge-fund Managers, …

  Abhijit Banerjee

  4.9 out of 5 stars (15)

  Paperback

  £6.49
• 

  Good Strategy / Bad Strategy: The difference …

  Richard Rumelt

  4.6 out of 5 stars (22)

  Paperback

  £5.99
• 

  How Will You Measure Your Life?

  Clayton Christensen

  4.8 out of 5 stars (4)

  Hardcover

  £6.49
• 

  Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and …

  Richard H Thaler

  3.6 out of 5 stars (45)

  Paperback

  £6.57

New Title: Gold

Title: Gold

Author: Chris Cleave

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Sceptre; First Edition edition (7 Jun 2012)
• Language: Unknown
• ISBN-10: 0340963433
• ISBN-13: 978-0340963432
• Product Dimensions: 15.9 x 3.5 x 20.5 cm

Product Description

Usually, this is where we’d tell you what this book is about.

But with Chris Cleave, it’s a bit different.

Because if you’ve read THE OTHER HAND or INCENDIARY, you’ll know that what his books are about is only part of the story – what really matters is how they make you feel.

GOLD is about the limits of human endurance, both physical and emotional.

It will make you cry.

GOLD is about what drives us to succeed – and what we choose to sacrifice for success.

It will make you feel glad to be alive.

GOLD is about the struggles we all face every day; the conflict between winning on others’ terms, and triumphing on your own.

It will make you count your blessings.

GOLD is a story told as only Chris Cleave could tell it. And once you begin, it will be a heart-pounding race to the finish.
(20080822)

About the Author

Chris Cleave’s debut novel INCENDIARY won the Somerset Maugham Award, among others. His second, the Costa-shortlisted THE OTHER HAND, was a global bestseller and sat in the New York Times Top Ten for over a year (under the US title, Little Bee). Both books were shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes. He lives in Kingston-upon-Thames with his wife and three children, and welcomes readers at facebook.com/ChrisCleaveBooks, http://www.chriscleave.com and twitter.com/chriscleave.

 

Book Recommendation: Living Life The Essex Way

Title:Living Life the Essex Way

Author: Sam Faiers

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd (10 May 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1849839786
• ISBN-13: 978-1849839785
• Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 13.6 x 2.6 cm

Product Description

Welcome to the glam and fab world of Sam Faiers – star of the hit TV programme The Only Way is Essex. Read on to find out what it takes to be a REAL Essex Girl. The Oxford Dictionary definition of an ‘Essex Girl’: A brash, materialistic young woman of a type supposedly found in Essex or surrounding areas in the south-east of England. The Sam Faiers definition of an ‘Essex Girl’: A stylish, hard-working, big-hearted and family-minded young woman found in Brentwood or nearby areas (and Marbs). At the start of 2010 Sam Faiers was a normal 19-year-old girl from Brentwood: she was working in a local bank, plotting a glamour modelling career and planning what outfit to wear to Sugar Hut. Then the first episode of TOWIE aired, and suddenly Sam was catapulted into a world of champagne cocktails, TV studios, nightclubs and paparazzi. In Living Life the Essex Way, Sam lifts the lid on her childhood, her rise to fame and her beauty regime, as well as her dating rules, dealing with instant fame, the men in her life and what really goes on behind the scenes on the hit ITV2 show.

New Title: Angels And Harvesters

Title:Angels and Harvesters

Author: James Harpur

• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: Anvil Press Poetry (19 May 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0856464473
• ISBN-13: 978-0856464478
• Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 13.4 x 1.6 cm

Product Description

Poetry Book Society Recommendation James Harpur’s fifth collection journeys into realms seen and unseen, ranging from the landscapes of Ireland to the visionary realms of the mystics. Through the finely textured music of his poems, he explores emotional and spiritual intimacies while keeping a sharp observant eye on the everyday world. “Angels and Harvesters” displays both human tenderness and an otherworldly wonder, as Harpur continues his quest to reconcile the complexities of the human condition with a deep-seated spiritual longing.

About the Author

James Harpur has published four previous books of poetry and a translation of Boethius’s poems entitled ‘Fortune’s Prisoner’. He is poetry editor of the Temenos Academy Review and has won a number of prizes and awards, including the 2009 Michael Hartnett Award and the 1995 British National Poetry Competition. He has held residencies at the Princess Grace Irish Library, Monaco, the Munster Literature Centre, Cork, and Exeter Cathedral. He lives in Co. Cork.

Book Recommendation: National Service From Aldershot To Aden

Title:National Service: From Aldershot to Aden: tales from the conscripts, 1946-62

Author: Colin Shindler

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Sphere (10 May 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847444849
• ISBN-13: 978-1847444844
• Product Dimensions: 16.1 x 3.2 x 24 cm

Product Description

Permission to speak, Sah! In the aftermath of the Second World War, over two million men were conscripted to serve in Britain’s armed services. Some were sent abroad and watched their friends die in combat. Others remained in barracks and painted coal white. But despite delivering such varied experiences, National Service helped to shape the outlook of an entire generation of young British males. To mark the 50th anniversary of the end of National Service, Historian Dr Colin Shindler has interviewed a wide range of ex-conscripts, from all backgrounds, across all ranks, and spanning the entire fourteen years that peacetime conscription lasted, and captured their memories in this engrossing book. From them, we experience the tension of a postwar Berlin surrounded by Russians, the exotic heat and colour of Tripoli in 1948, the brief but intense flashpoint of the Suez Crisis, and the fear of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. But we also hear about the other end of the scale, the conscripts who didn’t make it outside the confines of their barracks, or in one case, beyond his home town. Through these conversations we learn as much about the changing attitudes of servicemen as war became more of a distant memory as we do about the varied nature of their experiences. We see, too, the changing face of British society across these pivotal years, which span everything from the coronation of Elizabeth II, to the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, to the beginning of the end of the Empire. The stories within these pages are fascinating. And they deserve to be told before they are lost forever.

About the Author

Colin Shindler is an author, broadcaster and Affiliated Lecturer in History at Cambridge University. For twenty years he was a Bafta award winning television writer and producer being responsible for the series Lovejoy and the motion picture Buster starring Phil Collins and Julie Walters for which he wrote the screenplay. In recent years he has written a series of books on British and American social history and written and presented documentaries for BBC Television and written plays for BBC Radio Four. He lectures in British and American cultural history with an emphasis on the impact of both sport and film on twentieth century society.