Spanning almost a hundred years, this rich and evocative true story recounts the lives of three generations of remarkable Chinese women. Their extraordinary journey takes us from the brutal poverty of village life in mainland China, to newly prosperous 1930s Hong Kong and finally to the UK. Their lives were as dramatic as the times they lived through. A love of food and a talent for cooking pulled each generation through the most devastating of upheavals. Helen Tse's grandmother, Lily Kwok, was forced to work as an amah after the violent murder of her father. Crossing the ocean from Hong Kong in the 1950s, Lily honed her famous chicken curry recipe. Eventually she opened one of Manchester's earliest Chinese restaurants where her daughter, Mabel, worked from the tender age of nine. But gambling and the Triads were pervasive in the Chinese immigrant community, and they tragically lost the restaurant. It was up to Helen and her sisters, the third generation of these exceptional women, to re-establish their grandmother's dream. "Sweet Mandarin" shows how the most important inheritance is wisdom, and how recipes - passed down the female line - can be the most valuable heirloom.

Sweet Mandarin

Tse, Helen

Random House Hardbacks

In a remote outpost of Now Zad, in Helmand Province, Pen Farthing and his troup of young Royal Marines survive frequent engagements with the Taliban and forge links with the local community. Pen's tour of duty will change his life forever, but for entirely unexpected reasons ...Appalled by the horrors of a local dog fight, he intervenes to free the victims. One of these dogs finds his way into the Marine compound - and into Pen's heart. Soon other strays are being drawn to the santuary provided by Pen's makeshift pound, including one young mum who crawls under the compound fence carrying her newborn pups to safety. But as his tour of duty draws to an end, Pen cannot leave the dogs of Now Zad to their own fates. he begins hatching plans to help them escape to a better life. This is Pen's gripping account of his time in Now Zad, the friends he made there and the remarkable journey they - and he - undertook. Above all, it is the story of one man's courage and humanity and his fight to make a difference in the most hostile and dangerous environment - one dog at a time.

One Dog at a Time

Biographies & Memoirs

Pen Farthing

Leaders & Notable People

The Stars in the Bright Sky

WARNER, Alan.

The year is 1970, and the youth of Europe are in the chaotic, ecstatic throes of the sexual revolution. Though blindly dedicated to the cause, its nubile foot soldiers have yet to realize this disturbing truth: that between the death of one social order and the birth of another, there exists a state of terrifying purgatory—or, as Alexander Herzen put it, a pregnant widow.Keith Nearing is stuck in an exquisite limbo. Twenty years old and on vacation from college, Keith and an assortment of his peers are spending the long, hot summer in a castle in Italy. The tragicomedy of manners that ensues will have an indelible effect on all its participants, and we witness, too, how it shapes Keith’s subsequent love life for decades to come. Bitingly funny, full of wit and pathos, The Pregnant Widow is a trenchant portrait of young lives being carried away on a sea of change.

The Pregnant Widow

Literature & Fiction

MARTIN AMIS

Literary

A real-time five-hour story set in an airport cocktail lounge during a global disaster. Five disparate people are trapped inside: Karen, a single mother waiting for her online date; Rick, the down-on-his-luck airport lounge bartender; Luke, a pastor on the run; Rachel, a cool Hitchcock blonde incapable of true human contact; and finally a mysterious voice known as Player One. Slowly, each reveals the truth about themselves while the world as they know it comes to an end. In the tradition of Kurt Vonnegut and J. G. Ballard, Coupland explores the modern crises of time, human identity, society, religion and the afterlife. The book asks as many questions as it answers and readers will leave the story with no doubt that we are in a new phase of existence as a species - and that there is no turning back.

Player One: What Is to Become of Us: A Novel in Five Hours

DOUGLAS COUPLAND

It is the Roman Holiday of Saturnalia. Marcus Didius Falco and Helena have returned from Greece, only to find that Helena's brother Justinus' marital problems have exploded.. Justinus' first love Veleda, a tribal leader and prophetess from Germania, has been brought to Rome and put under under house arrest pending a ritual sacrifice at her capturor's Triumph. Justinus is love struck once more and his wife, the tempramental Claudia, is enraged. Then Veleda escapes leaving behind a corpse, Justinus disappears too and it is up to Falco and the Chief Spy Anacrites to try to find the missing couple all against the backdrop of the orgiastic holiday period when literally anything goes...

Saturnalia

Davis,Lindsey

Genre Fiction

The Chamber

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

john-grisham

Thrillers & Suspense

In April 2009, a modest middle-aged woman from a village in Scotland was catapulted to global fame when the YouTube video of her audition for Britain’s Got Talent touched the hearts of millions all over the world. From singing karaoke in local pubs to a live performance with an eighty-piece orchestra in Japan’s legendary Budokan Arena and a record-breaking debut album, Susan Boyle has become an international superstar. This astonishing transformation has not always been easy for her, faced with all the trappings of celebrity, but in the whirlwind of attention and expectation, she has always found calm and clarity in music. Susan was born to sing. Now, for the first time, she tells the story of her life and the challenges she has struggled to overcome with faith, fortitude, and an unfailing sense of humor.

The Woman I Was Born To Be

Susan Boyle

Ripley's Believe it or Not 2010

Health, Fitness & Dieting

UNKNOWN

Psychology & Counseling

Packed full of fascinating facts and strange tales about utterly unbelievable but totally true stories, this new book celebrates the incredible and the bizarre in our world today. "Ripley's Incredibly Strange" is a 384-page extravaganza, with a wealth of extraordinary images and interviews with many of the amazing individuals featured in the book. Be shocked and amazed at the extraordinary feats and incredible tales. Marvel at the wedding dress made from cream cakes, the artist who's a horse, the man who traded a paperclip for a house, and even a knitted Ferrari! Illustrated throughout with full-colour photographs, this book is a must-have for anyone intrigued by the weirder aspects of our planet and its inhabitants.

Ripley's Incredibly Strange!

Ripley, Robert

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