Bestselling author Simon Winchester writes a magnificent history of the pioneering engineers who developed precision machinery to allow us to see as far as the moon and as close as the Higgs boson. Precision is the key to everything. It is an integral, unchallenged and essential component of our modern social, mercantile, scientific, mechanical and intellectual landscapes. The items we value in our daily lives – a camera, phone, computer, bicycle, car, a dishwasher perhaps – all sport components that fit together with precision and operate with near perfection. We also assume that the more precise a device the better it is. And yet whilst we live lives peppered and larded with precision, we are not, when we come to think about it, entirely sure what precision is, or what it means. How and when did it begin to build the modern world? Simon Winchester seeks to answer these questions through stories of precision's pioneers. Exactly takes us back to the origins of the Industrial Age,...

AMELIA B. EDWARDS is acknowledged as one of the best of Victorian ghost story writers. She was one of the select band of authors who was invited by Charles Dickens to contribute ghost stories to the Christmas numbers of his magazine ALL THE YEAR ROUND, and some of her tales—such as 'The Four-fifteen Express', 'Number Three', 'My Brother's Ghost Story', and the highly influential 'The Phantom Coach'—have become staples of ghost story anthologies. There was much more to Amelia Edwards than ghost stories, however, as Richard Dalby makes clear in his introduction. She was an indefatigable traveller, and she incorporated much of what she observed into her ghost stories, many of which are set in northern and central Europe. She was also an archaeologist of work renown, who was instrumental in ensuring that the treasures and antiquities of ancient Egypt were properly excavated and preserved. THE PHANTOM COACH is the first time that all of Amelia B. Edwards's supernatural fiction has been collected in one volume. In addition to all her known ghost stories, the volume also contains three additional items, including a delightful piece by Edwards herself about 'My Home Life': a fascinating look at one of the Victorian era's most fascinating women.

Keri Cleary is worried about her brother, Alistair. Everyone is worried about Alistair. As the one witness to a shooting, he has been shocked into silence. But everyone needs to know three things: Who shot Kyle Dwyer? Where is Charlie Dwyer? What does this all have to do with the disappearance of Fiona Loomis?Perhaps the answers lie in stories. As Alistair makes strange confessions to his sister, Keri becomes inspired. She tells stories, tales that may reveal hidden truths, fiction that may cause real things to happen. In the concluding volume of the Riverman Trilogy, readers are asked to consider the source of inspiration, the borders of reality and the power of storytelling. They are asked to forgive monsters, to imagine alternate dimensions, and to believe in a phosphorescent wombat who assures us that gone for now is not necessarily gone for good.

When former journalist Adeline Loh could no longer endure the brain-deadening routine of work, she did what any sensible person would do: flee Malaysia with a paranoid vegetarian named Chan and go ambling in the lion-infested wilderness of southern Africa. However, upon arriving in Zambia, the bush virgins realised nothing from the Animal Planet documentaries had prepared them for survival in the savannah. With baboons, hippopotamuses and buffaloes conspiring to tear them into pieces, our addled heroines rattled along crater-pocked tracks, canoed through the crocodile-infested Zambezi River, flew over Victoria Falls on a little tricycle with wings, stalked incestuous rhinoceroses and peed amidst thorny shrubbery. And in more life-preserving moments, they pondered antimalarial druggies, sleazy hunters and muscle-bound native women while hoping to achieve their main goalnot to get eaten alive!In Peeing in the Bush, Loh recounts in candid prose her fun and engaging misadventures...

Hood, a renegade American diplomat, envisions a new urban order through the opium fog of his room. His sometimes bedmate, Mayo, has stolen a Flemish painting and is negotiating for publicity with The Times. Meanwhile, Murf the bomb-maker leaves his mark in red whilst his girlfriend Brodie bombs Euston . . .Set in the grimy decay of south-east London, The Family Arsenal is a chilling novel of violence in the tradition of Brighton Rock.

Overwhelmed with her fast-paced, competitive lifestyle, Amy Ragsdale moved with her husband, writer Peter Stark, and their two teenage children from the US to a small town in northeastern Brazil, where she hoped they would learn the value of a slower life. In this culturally rich and economically poor region, Amy and her family learn to fundamentally connect with their neighbors across language and customs. In the year they spend there, Amy grows close to her new neighbors, from the men who cut sugar cane to the clinical university students, as they became the family's guides to Brazilian life.Elegantly written and vibrant in detail, Crossing the River tells a global story through a personal memoir, examining life without the trappings of modern American culture, and revealing surprising truths about identity, family, and love.

From friends with benefits...To parents!Paramedic dream team Maggie and Joe aren't just crewmates in the Aratika Rescue Service, they're also best friends. Until a particularly perilous, adrenaline-fueled rescue leads to one hot night in the shower! But Maggie discovers their unexpected and intensely passionate encounter had life-changing consequences. Now with a baby on the way, she can't help but wonder, can she and Joe ever be more than just good friends...?"This proved to be a heartwarming tale...I loved that Alison Roberts included our main characters' full range of emotions, doubts, and hopes for the future to make this a well-rounded story."— Harlequin Junkie on Twins on Her Doorstep"This had a little bit of everything, dipping its toes into fairytale waters and bringing a Cinderella-like feel.... And Alison Roberts balances everything pretty-much perfectly, bringing an uplifting romance between two endearing characters which...

The tranquil atmosphere of the cathedral town of Barchester is shattered when a scandal breaks concerning the financial affairs of a Church-run almshouse for elderly men. In the ensuing furore, Septimus Harding, the almshouse's well-meaning warden, finds himself pitted against his daughter's suitor Dr John Bold, a zealous local reformer. Matters are not improved when Harding's abrasive son-in law, Archdeacon Grantly, leaps into the fray to defend him against a campaign Bold begins in the national press. An affectionate and wittily satirical view of the workings of the Church of England, The Warden is also a subtle exploration of the rights and wrongs of moral crusades and, in its account of Harding's intensely felt personal drama, a moving depiction of the private impact of public affairs.

A moving memoir about growing up with a gay father in the 1980s, and a tribute to the power of truth, humour, acceptance and familial love.Alison Wearing led a largely carefree childhood until she learned, at the age of 12, that her family was a little more complex than she had realized. Sure her father had always been unusual compared to the other dads in the neighbourhood: he loved to bake croissants, wear silk pyjamas around the house, and skip down the street singing songs from Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. But when he came out of the closet in the 1970s, when homosexuality was still a cardinal taboo, it was a shock to everyone in the quiet community of Peterborough, Ontario--especially to his wife and three children.Alison's father was a professor of political science and amateur choral conductor, her mother was an accomplished pianist and marathon runner, and together they had fed the family a steady diet of arts, adventures, mishaps, normal frustrations...

Magio-Earth, #3To love and protect...across worlds.On planet Magio war rages between Peacio's protectors and Dralion's warriors. Friendships and soul-bonds are forbidden, yet deadly secrets lurk within a high-ranking inner circle.Eighteen-year-old Peacian Silvie Carver's worst problem is completing finals until her best friend receives forewarning that Silvie is the key to keeping her enemy king from making a decision that will escalate the war. Silvie must save her loved one's soul-bonds from being torn apart, and all without revealing her emerging and rare fire skill during the mission.Dralion warrior and enchanter, Guy Moyer, has been fighting his soul's demand to find his mated one...who also happens to be his enemy. Except Silvie shows up on Dralion's off-world Australian Outback station and though they renounce their bond, his soul demands he aid and protect her.When Silvie finds herself impersonating a warrior, she's pulled to the fiery edge of her control...

A powerful and sweeping historical novel of love, loss, and hope, set against Australia's vast sugarcane fields in the turbulent days after World War II. 1948: Change has come to every corner of the globe—and Rosie Stanton, returning home to northern Queensland after serving the war effort in Brisbane, plans to rescue her family's foundering sugarcane farm with her unstoppable can-do spirit. Coming up against her father's old-world views, a farm worker undermining her success, and constant reminders of Rosie's brothers lost in the war, Rosie realizes she wants more from life and love—but at what cost? Italian immigrant Tomas Conti arrives at a neighboring farm, and sparks fly as Rosie draws close to this enigmatic newcomer. When an enemy appears with evidence of Tomas's shocking past, long-held wartime hatreds rekindle . . . and an astounding family secret sets Rosie's world ablaze. At the dawn of a new era, Rosie must make her own destiny amid...

Bear Grylls is a man who has always sought the ultimate in adventure. Growing up on the Isle of Wight, he was taught by his father to sail and climb at an early age. Inevitably, it wasn’t long before Bear was leading out-of-bounds night-climbing missions at school. As a teenager, he found identity and purpose through both mountaineering and martial arts, which led the young adventurer to the foothills of the mighty Himalaya and a grandmaster’s karate training camp in Japan. On returning home, he embarked upon the notoriously gruelling selection course for the British Special Forces to join 21 SAS – a journey that was to push him to the very limits of physical and mental endurance.Then, in a horrific free-fall parachuting accident in Africa, Bear broke his back in three places. It was touch and go whether he would ever walk again. However, only eighteen months later and defying doctors’ expectations, Bear became one of the youngest ever climbers to scale Everest, aged only twenty-three. But this was just the beginning of his many extraordinary adventures . . .Known and admired by millions – whether from his global adventure TV series, as a bestselling author, or as Chief Scout to the Scouting Association – Bear Grylls has survived where few would dare to go. Now, for the first time, Bear tells the story of his action-packed life. Gripping, moving and wildly exhilarating, Mud, Sweat and Tears is a must-read for adrenalin junkies and armchair adventurers alike.

They say Black Dow’s killed more men than winter, and clawed his way to the throne of the North up a hill of skulls. The King of the Union, ever a jealous neighbour, is not about to stand smiling by while he claws his way any higher. The orders have been given and the armies are toiling through the northern mud. Thousands of men are converging on a forgotten ring of stones, on a worthless hill, in an unimportant valley, and they’ve brought a lot of sharpened metal with them. Bremer dan Gorst, disgraced master swordsman, has sworn to reclaim his stolen honour on the battlefield. Obsessed with redemption and addicted to violence, he’s far past caring how much blood gets spilled in the attempt. Even if it’s his own. Prince Calder isn’t interested in honour, and still less in getting himself killed. All he wants is power, and he’ll tell any lie, use any trick, and betray any friend to get it. Just as long as he doesn’t have to fight for it himself. Curnden Craw, the last honest man in the North, has gained nothing from a life of warfare but swollen knees and frayed nerves. He hardly even cares who wins any more, he just wants to do the right thing. But can he even tell what that is with the world burning down around him? Over three bloody days of battle, the fate of the North will be decided. But with both sides riddled by intrigues, follies, feuds and petty jealousies, it is unlikely to be the noblest hearts, or even the strongest arms that prevail… Three men. One battle. No Heroes.