Tolkien's acclaimed modern classic 'fairie' tale, read by Derek Jacobi. Farmer Giles of Ham is one of Tolkien's most popular stories, full of wit and humour, set in the days when giants and dragons walked the earth. He did not look like a hero. He was fat and red-bearded and enjoyed a slow, comfortable life. Then one day a rather deaf and short-sighted giant blundered on to his land. More by luck than skill, Farmer Giles managed to scare him away. The people of the village cheered: Farmer Giles was a hero. His reputation spread far and wide across the kingdom. So it was natural that when the dragon Chrysophylax visited the area it was Farmer Giles who was expected to do battle with it! Two further stories in this collections are Smith of Wooton Major which tells of the preparation of the Great Cake to mark the Feast of Good Children, and the strange events which follow, and Leaf by Niggle, which recounts the strange adventures of the painter, Niggle.
The first in the series of the classic fantasy tales - The Chronicles of Narnia. Read by the unforgettable Sir Michael Hordern. "e;Congratulate me, my dear boy,"e; said Uncle Andrew, rubbing his hands. "e;My experiment has succeeded. The little girl's gone - vanished - right out of this world."e; After Uncle Andrew's horrible trick, Digory has no choice but to travel over to the Other World in search of poor vanished Polly. Little does he realise that his uncle has unwittingly opened up the doorway to Narnia, a truly magical world, and that their adventures have only just begun...
A brilliant historical novel on the corruption of innocence, using the famous painting by Vermeer as an inspiration.When Griet becomes a maid in the household of Johannes Vermeer, she thinks she knows her role: housework, laundry and the care of his six children. But as she becomes part of his world and his work, their growing intimacy spreads tension and deception in the ordered household and, as the scandal seeps out, into the town beyond.Tracy Chevalier's extraordinary novel on the corruption of innocence and the price of genius is a contemporary classic, and has sold over two million copies worldwide.
Third volume in the Starbuck Chronicles. The battle for control of Richmond, the Confederate capital, continues through the hot summer of 1862.Available for the first time as a downloadable audio file.Captain Nate Starbuck, yankee fighting for the Southern cause, has to survive and win with his ragged Company in the bitter struggle not only against the formidable Northern army but equally in opposition to his own superiors who would like nothing better than to see Nate Starbuck dead and dishonoured.Starbuck's courage is tested to the limit in his desperate manoeuvres to retrieve his own and the Legion's honour in this the thrid narrative of Bernard Cornwell's sweeping epic of the American Civil War.
A superbly exciting novel which vividly captures the horror of the battlefield, The Bloody Ground is the fourth volume in the Starbuck Chronicles.It is late summer 1862 and the Confederacy is invading the United States of America.Nate Starbuck, a northern preacher's son fighting for the rebel South, is given command of a punishment battalion - a despised unit of shirkers and cowards. His enemies expect it to be his downfall, as Starbuck must lead this ramshackle unit into a battle that will prove to be the bloodiest of the Civil War.
'Now he found out a new thing - namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.'An idyllic snapshot of a boy's childhood along the banks of the Mississippi River, Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the author's work that comes closest to his boyhood experiences of growing up in Hannibal in the 1840s.Mischievous and full of energy, Tom enjoys childish pranks and pastimes with his friends, Huck Finn, the town outcast and Joe Harper, his best friend. However, at the town graveyard, Huck and Tom witness a murder, carried out by local vagabond Injun Joe. They vow never to tell a soul about what they have seen and so begins their journey into adulthood as Tom wrestles with his own morality, guilt and anxiety.A 'coming of age' tale, it is through Tom's adventures and relationships with others that he becomes more responsible and more aware of his own inner conflict. Through the central characters of Tom and Huck, Twain satirises the moral rigidity of society and adult hypocrisy, whilst at the same time giving a nostalgic portrayal of a young boy's journey into adulthood.
The second book in Bernard Cornwell's bestselling series on the American Civil War.Nathanial Starbuck is a Copperhead: a northerner fighting for the rebel South in America's Civil War.Expelled from the Faulconer Legion, Starbuck must travel a hard road before he can rejoin his comrades. He must join the shadowy war of betrayal and espionage, where nothing is certain and no one can be trusted. Starbuck's journey will take him through the savage prisons of Richmond, across the blood-sodden battlefields of Virginia, and into the deadly high command of the northern army.
Sharpe, having just received his commission, faces his toughest battle yet in this return to India, the terrain of the bestselling Sharpe's Tiger.Sir Arthur Wellesley's army is closing on the retreating Mahrattas in western India. Marching with the British is Ensign Richard Sharpe, newly made an officer, wishing he had stayed a sergeant.An act of treachery by Sharpe's old enemy, Sergeant Hakeswill puts him in terrible danger, and leads him to the horror of the impregnable Gawilghur's ravine. To regain his confidence and his authority, Sharpe will fight as he has never fought before.Soldier, hero, rogue - Sharpe is the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles whose green jacket he proudly wears.
The fourteenth novel in the classic Aubrey-Maturin series finds Aubrey and Maturin shipwrecked, harassed by pirates and then in the brutal penal colonies of New South Wales.Patrick O'Brian is regarded by many as the greatest living historical novelist writing in English. In The Nutmeg of Consolation, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin begin stranded on an uninhabited island in the Dutch East Indies, attacked by ferocious Malay pirates. They contrive their escape, but after a stay in Batavia and a change of ship, they are caught up in a night chase in the fiercely tidal waters and then embroiled in the much more insidious conflicts of the terrifying penal settlements of New South Wales. It is one of O'Brian's most accomplished and gripping books.
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely hailed as the greatest series of historical novels ever written. This naval adventure finds Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin in the Dutch East Indies and there's trouble brewing.Captain Jack Aubrey, RN, arrives in the Dutch East Indies to find himself appointed to the command of the fastest and best-armed frigate in the Navy. He and his friend Stephen Maturin take passage for England in a despatch vessel. But the war of 1812 breaks out while they are en route. Bloody actions precipitate them both into new and unexpected scenes where Stephen's past activities as a secret agent return on him with a vengeance.
Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin set sail on a hazardous mission to the Greek Islands, as ever fighting against the odds.Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, veterans of many battles, return in this novel to the seas where they first sailed as shipmates. But Jack is now a senior Captain commanding a line-of-battle ship sent out to reinforce the squadron blockading Toulon, and this is a longer, harder, colder war than the dashing frigate action of his early days.A sudden turn of events takes him and Stephen off on a hazardous mission to the Greek islands. All his old skills of seamanship, and his proverbial luck when fighting against odds, come triumphantly into their own. The book ends with as fierce and thrilling an action as any in this magnificent series of novels.
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely hailed as the greatest series of historical novels ever written.Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are ordered home by despatch vessel to bring the news of their latest victory to the government. But Maturin is a marked man for the havoc he has wrought in the French intelligence network in the New World, and the attentions of two privateers soon become menacing.The chase that follows through the fogs and shallows of the Grand Banks is as thrilling, as tense and as unexpected in its culmination as anything Patrick O'Brian has written. Then, among other things, follows a shipwreck and a particularly sinister internment in the notorious Temple Prison in Paris. Once again, the tigerish and fascinating Diana Villiers redresses the balance in this man's world of seamanship and war.
There's treachery afoot in this, the ninth of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels.Uniquely among authors of naval fiction, Patrick O'Brian allows his characters to develop with experience. The Jack Aubrey of Treason's Harbour has a record of successes equal to that of the most brilliant of Nelson's band of brothers, and he is no less formidable or decisive in action or strategy. But he is wiser, kinder, gentler too.Much of the plot of Treason's Harbour depends on intelligence and counter-intelligence, a field in which Aubrey's friend Stephen Maturin excels. Through him we get a clearer insight into the life and habits of the sea officers of Nelson's time than we would ever obtain seeing things through their own eyes. There is plenty of action and excitement in this novel, but it is the atmosphere of a Malta crowded with senior officers waiting for news of what the French are up to, and wondering whether the war will end before their turn comes for prize money and for fame, that is here so freshly and vividly conveyed.
Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely hailed as the greatest series of historical novels ever written.It is still the War of 1812. Patrick O'Brian takes his hero Jack Aubrey and his tetchy, sardonic friend Stephen Maturin on a voyage as fascinating as anything he has ever written. They set course across the South Atlantic to intercept a powerful American frigate outward bound to play havoc with the British whaling trade.If they do not come up with her before she rounds the Horn, they must follow her into the Great South Sea and as far across the Pacific as she may lead them. It is a commission after Jack's own heart. Maturin has fish of his own to fry in the world of secret intelligence.Aubrey has to cope with a succession of disasters - men overboard, castaways, encounters with savages, storms, typhoons, groundings, shipwrecks, to say nothing of murder and criminal insanity. That the enemy is in fact faithfully dealt with, no one who has the honour of Captain Aubrey's acquaintance can take leave to doubt.
Get ready for a turbo-charged short read from two of the world's biggest thriller writers! Jack Reacher and Will Trent: Twice the action, twice the drama, double the trouble. Will Trent is undercover at Fort Knox. His assignment: to investigate a twenty-two-year-old murder. His suspect's name: Jack Reacher. Jack Reacher is in Fort Knox on his own mission: to bring down a dangerous criminal ring operating at the heart of America's military. Except now Will Trent is on the scene. But there's a bigger conspiracy at play - one that neither the special agent nor the ex-military cop could have anticipated. And the only option is for Jack Reacher and Will Trent to team up and play nicely. If they can...
Underestimated for too long as just a shrub for cottage gardens, the hydrangea is experiencing a renaissance in floral design. Lavish and luscious, the often-giant blooms are the epitome of chic. The next title in Pavilion's series of beautiful floral gardening guides celebrates the ornamental charm and butterfly-like petals of the hydrangea.
Level: KS2 Subject: Maths Learn the easy way with this problem solving & reasoning workbook! Fully in line with the national curriculum, this Maths book provides reassurance whilst supporting your child's learning at home.
Personal Trainer and Broadcaster Tally Rye is on a mission to change the way we think about exercise, encouraging you to approach it with a mindset of self-care rather than the traditional self-punishment narrative.
Shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Award 2020A crumbling stone soldier sits on a bench in the park. Only Owen understands how important he is.At home, Owen and his mum are struggling and there's nobody he can talk to. Hidden away in the park, Owen feels free to be himself. When the war-weary soldier is listening, his worries slip away.But nobody else cares about the soldier, and the town council want to tear him down. Owen's the only one who can save him but can he find the courage to speak up before it's too late?A touching story of loss and remembrance from Lisa Thompson, the award-winning author of The Goldfish Boy.
'Terrifyingly fun! Max Brallier's The Last Kids on Earth delivers big thrills and even bigger laughs.' Jeff Kinney, author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid.SOON TO BE A MAJOR NETFLIX SERIES!'Forty-two days ago I was an ordinary kid, living an uneventful life. But now it's TOTAL MONSTER ZOMBIE CHAOS and I'm battling beasts on a daily basis. Crazy, right? But I know exactly how to make it through the zombie apocalypse.'Meet Jack Sullivan, self-described as a late-blooming, slow-developing 13-year-old who has so far survived the zombie apocalypse by hiding out in his treehouse. Overnight Jack's life has become like the plot of a video game and he has come up with his own ULTIMATE FEATS OF APOCALYPTIC SUCCESS: Locate Quint Baker, best friend and inventor Find and rescue June Del Toro, his secret love interest Defeat Blarg, the biggest, baddest monster in town Become a zombie-fighting, monster-bashing tornado of cool! The Simpsons meets The Walking Dead in the first book of a hilarious new monster adventure series. Fans of Wimpy Kid, Tom Gates, Barry Loser and Dogman will love accompanying Jack on his mission to become the post-apocalyptic action hero. With hilarious, action-filled illustrations from Douglas Holgate bringing the story to life on every page, The Last Kids on Earth will captivate even the most reluctant readers. Perfect for zombie-hunters of 8 years and upwards.The Last Kids on Earth series: The Last Kids on EarthThe Last Kids on Earth and the Zombie ParadeThe Last Kids on Earth and the Nightmare KingThe Last Kids on Earth and the Cosmic Beyond
This is a brilliant, funny and fresh take on the potty training book from the amazing picture book illustrator, Sam LloydWith lift the flaps and clever paper engineering, plus great illustrations and laugh-out-loud humour, Sam's book will be the perfect potty-training tool for all toddlers and their parents.
Challenge yourself at home with word and number puzzles Specially compiled to provide the most deadly Su Doku challenge, this is the only volume for Su Doku enthusiasts who need a puzzle that really tests their mettle.
A beautifully presented gift for anyone with an intrigue for geographical curiosities. This beautifully designed book presents unusual borders, enclaves and exclaves, divided or non-existent cities and islands.
'If you enjoyed The Tattooist of Auschwitz, read The Huntress by Kate Quinn' The Washington Post'Fascinating, brilliantly written, enthralling - just phenomenal' Jill Mansell*From the bestselling author of The Alice Network*
This fun, photo-filled, fact-packed night sky guide will encourage kids to stop and look up to spot stars and planets right from their own gardens.
Welcome to the Mr. Men Pocket Library - the perfect first introduction for young children to these fun and zany characters! The slipcase, which is packaged in shrink-wrap, features six board book stories about Mr Happy, Mr Messy, Mr Silly, Mr Bump, Mr Strong and Mr Tickle.
A highly diverting celebration of television's favourite naturalist, packed with games, trivia and Attenborough-inspired activities.
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