Books & Media

'A lean, careening thrill … one of my favourite books of the year' Megan Nolan

‘Riveting reading' The Times

'Irresistible … A page-turning story of sex, power, and money' Vogue, Best Books of 2024 So Far
A razor-sharp novel that skewers the life of the uber-rich in the vein of The White Lotus, with shades of The Talented Mr Ripley and The Graduate

Conor is a recent graduate from a law school no one has heard of. Without any job prospects and needing to support his chronically ill mother, he takes a summer job teaching tennis at the affluent gated community of Cutters Neck, Massachusetts. One of his first students is Catherine, a magnetic divorcée keen to hire him for more than advice on her serve. What begins as a transactional arrangement soon develops into an intoxicating sexual relationship.

Things become even more complicated when Conor encounters Emily, with whom he has his first taste of real intimacy. Against his better judgment, he soon finds himself living a double life that inevitably leads to disaster.

Conor knows how hard it is to win against those with money and power. In his fight for survival, he has to put emotion aside and play with only his wits – after all, in tennis, love means nothing.

TOP OF THE LIST ON THE NEW YORK TIMES' BEST THRILLERS OF 2024 SO FAR
‘Wayne’s plot was made to gallop, and it does not disappoint’ New York Times

'Terrific' Wall Street Journal

'Well-paced, smart … A savvy take on sex, money and power … A movie-ready page turner' Washington Post

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING…

'Wow, talk about a can’t-put-down book'

'Aced it! An absolute page turner!'

'I had hard time going to sleep at night because I was so engaged and couldn’t stop reading'

'Where in the world have I been that I have never discovered this writer before??'

From New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard comes the eagerly anticipated follow-up to her beloved novel Count the Ways- a complex story of three generations of a family and its remarkable, resilient, indomitable matriarch, Eleanor. Following the death of her former husband, Cam, fifty-four-year-old Eleanor has moved back to the New Hampshire farm where they raised three children to care for their brain-injured son, Toby, now an adult. Toby’s older brother, Al, is married and living in Seattle with his wife; their sister, Ursula, lives in Vermont with her husband and two children. Although all appears stable, old resentments, anger, and bitterness simmer just beneath the surface.How the Light Gets In follows Eleanor and her family through fifteen years (2010 to 2024) as their story plays out against a uniquely American backdrop and the events that transform their world (climate change, the January 6th insurrection, school violence) and shape their lives (later-life love, parental alienation, steadfast friendship). With her trademark sensitivity and insight, Joyce Maynard paints an indelible portrait of characters both familiar and new making their way over rough, messy, and treacherous terrain to find their way to what is, for each, a place to call “home.”

Celebrate love with this daily anthology of poetry with one entry for every day of the year. From well-known classics to modern fresh takes, Poetry of Love for Every Day of the Year explores love in all its forms.
Love is such a uniquely human feeling which has made it an inexhaustible subject for writers across the ages. There are so many meanings for this one word - it can evoke friends, family, romance or a sense of home. Everyone has their own attachments and associations, which is what makes this collection so fascinating.
Among the 366 poems are Shakespeare's classic sonnets, Ocean Vuong's experiences of young queer love, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's ode to her dog, Charlotte Mew dealing with loss, and much, much more. With a wide range of voices spanning across the world through many centuries, this anthology explores how love can mean so many things and how it connects us all.
This is the newest title in Batsford's highly popular Poetry Anthology series, and is the perfect bedside companion for late night reading or morning meditation.

SHARPE IS BACK.

The brand new novel from Bernard Cornwell in the global bestselling Sharpe series.
If any man can do the impossible it's Richard Sharpe …

Spain, 1812

If any man can do the impossible it’s Richard Sharpe. And that’s exactly what he’s asked to do when he’s dispatched on an undercover mission behind enemy lines.

For a remote village is about to become the centre of a battle for the future of Europe. And only Sharpe’s small group of men – with their cunning and courage to rely on – stand in their way.

Outnumbered, outgunned, with enemies on all sides – can Major Sharpe and his men save the day?

SHARPE’S COMMAND is the brand new novel in the bestselling historical series that has sold over 20 million copies worldwide.

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READERS LOVE SHARPE'S COMMAND:

‘Bernard is a great storyteller and historian’ – reader review

‘Once again this is a page turner. Loved it!’ – reader review

‘What a fantastic book … another great adventure for Richard Sharpe’ – reader review

‘Sharpe alongside Patrick, Teresa and Hogan up to their necks in French men and Spanish treachery’ – reader review

‘Sharpe is back, bashing Napoleon’s lot in the mountains of Spain … classic Sharpe!’ – reader review

The third title in this breakout new detective series, from the author of the spine-tingling Scarlet and Ivy series.
When a large diamond goes missing from Silvershell Manor, who better to get to the bottom of the mystery than detective Violet Veil and her dog Bones.

But nothing is quite as it seems when it comes to the missing heirloom and when a trail of origami birds leads them to the mysterious Crane, a young casino owner and debt collector, Violet realises that it’s all just turned into a game of high stakes …

The gripping and emotional novel from the million-copy bestselling author of PS, I Love You
She knows your secrets. Now discover hers…

You’ve never met anyone like Alice. She sees the best in people. And the worst. She always seems to know exactly what everyone around her is feeling: a thousand different emotions. Every. Single. Day.

In amongst all that noise, she’s lost herself.

But there’s one person she can’t read. And that’s the person who could change her life.

Is she ready to let him in?

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Everyone loves In a Thousand Different Ways…

‘Ahern makes Alice’s plight touchingly convincing … [her] pain is raw on the page’ The Times

‘An extraordinary and truly original story – a must read this month’ Prima

‘Stunning’ Irish Independent

‘Beautiful, moving and unexpected, In a Thousand Different ways is an unforgettable story. This is Cecelia Ahern at her very best’ Louise O’Neill

‘Utterly wonderful … Cecelia Ahern is a master storyteller at the absolute peak of her powers. Her heroine, Alice Kelly, is completely unique – beguiling, complicated, extraordinary – and she’ll change the way you see the world’ Clare Pooley

‘A novel that’s so wise and profound, there’s gold on every page’ Donal Ryan

‘A thoughtful, engrossing novel that’s a joy to read’ Sunday Express

‘So moving’ Heat

‘Ahern’s original talent for sensitive storytelling shines through in this novel’ Woman’s Weekly

Cecelia Ahern's book In a Thousand Different Ways was a Sunday Times bestseller w/c 17-04-2023

Featuring of all kinds of wild animals around the world.
This vibrant book takes children from the tropical jungle to the deep sea via deserts, forests and mountains, revealing wild animals big and small along the way. With plenty of stickers to add to every page, children will love exploring the diverse habitats and creating colourful animal scenes.

The epic story of legendary band Yothu Yindi and 'Treaty', the song that gave voice to a movement WITH INTRODUCTIONS BY YALMAY YUNUPINGU & WITIYANA MARIKA

Sometimes a musical revolution can erupt from the most unlikely of places. Long before they were ARIA Hall of Fame inductees, Yothu Yindi were a band of Yolngu (Aboriginal people of north-east Arnhem Land) and balanda (non-Indigenous) mates rocking out in the remote Top End. Soon they were creating some of the coolest new music in the country, splicing traditional sounds with electric, and spreading a message of unity.Then, after singer Mandawuy Yunupiu penned the hit song 'Treaty' with Paul Kelly and Peter Garrett, and a remix dropped in 1991, Yothu Yindi shot out of Arnhem Land and into the hearts of music lovers across Australia and the world. Writing in the Sand, by Yothu Yindi's authorised biographer, Matt Garrick, is the epic story of one of Australia's most original bands and how 'Treaty' gave voice to Indigenous Australia's hard-fought struggle for recognition. Featuring photos from the band's archives never previously published, the book is based on extensive interviews with current and former band members, including mainstays Witiyana Marika, Stu Kellaway and Jodie Cockatoo, as well as family members such as Yalmay Yunupiu, Mandawuy's widow, and collaborators and fellow artists like Garrett, Kelly, Neil Finn, Joy McKean, Bart Willoughby and Andrew Farriss.

Funny, poetic, heartfelt and steeped in the sights, smells and unique rhythms of north-east Arnhem Land, Writing in the Sand is a must-read for anyone who cares about Australian music, and Aboriginal culture and recognition, all of which were brilliantly woven together by one of the most exciting bands of our time.</p>

Now a major ABC TV series, starring Brendan Cowell, Asher Keddie and Jemaine Clement, is the roaring, raucous, funny and deeply moving story of a deeply inarticulate man who has to find his own voice in order to save his life - and keep his family.

Peter 'The Plum' Lum is a 49-year-old ex-star NRL player, living with his son and girlfriend in Cronulla. He's living a pretty cruisey life until one day he suffers an epileptic fit and discovers that he has a brain disorder as a result of the thousand-odd head knocks he took on the footy field in his twenty-year-career. According to his neurologist, Plum has to make some changes - right now - or it's dementia, or even death. Reluctantly, Plum embarks on a journey of self-care and self-discovery, which is not so easy when all you've ever known is to go full tilt at everything. On top of this, he's being haunted by dead poets, and, unable to stop crying, discovers he has a special gift for the spoken word. With spectral visits from Bukowski and Plath, the friendship of local misfits, and the prospect of new love, Plum might just save his own life.

From award-winning writer, director and actor, Brendan Cowell, Plum is a powerfully moving, authentic, big-hearted, angry and joyous novel of men, their inarticulate pain and what it takes for them to save themselves - from themselves. It's got a roaring energy, a raucous humour, a heart of gold and a poetic soul.</p><p>'Exploring masculinity and the healing power of language with great humour, grace and whimsy, Plum is a bighearted, raw and joyous take on what it means to be a man in modern Australia.

Ozzie Goes to School is a book that will resonate with and reassure many young children going to school for the first time.

Ozzie lives with his dad in a shipping container by the sea in the Top End of Australia. Ozzie isn't afraid of much. Not the cool dark of the container when the door is closed at night. Not snakes. Not even of the crocodiles that he and his dad watch out for on the beach during the day. But Ozzie is afraid of something. He's afraid of school! In this delightful story about a boy starting school, Ozzie faces up to his fears of being without his dad in a strange place with new people - and comes up trumps!

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

‘A lasting work of social history’ THE TIMES

‘A genuinely new history of our nation’ DAN JONES

‘This celebration of women is a triumph of popular history’ SPECTATOR
FROM THE MULTI-MILLION BESTSELLING HISTORICAL NOVELIST COMES THE CULMINATION OF HER LIFE’S WORK

• Did you know that there are more penises than women in the Bayeux Tapestry?
• That the Peasant’s Revolt was started and propelled by women, protesting a tax on women?
• Or that celebrated naturalist Charles Darwin believed not just that women were naturally inferior to men but that they’d evolve to become ever more inferior?
These are just a few of the startling findings you will learn from reading Philippa Gregory’s Normal Women. In this ambitious and ground-breaking book, she tells the story of our nation over 900 years, but for the very first time women – some fifty per cent of the population – are no longer invisible in this history of England, but are at its beating heart.

Using research skills honed in her work as one of our foremost historical novelists, Gregory trawled through court records to find highway women, beggars and shepherdesses, through newspapers and diaries to find murderers and brides, housewives and pirates, female husbands and hermits. The ‘normal women’ you will meet in her pages went to war, ploughed the fields, campaigned, wrote, and loved. They rode in jousts, flew Spitfires, issued their own currency and built ships, corn mills and houses as part of their everyday lives They committed crimes, or treason, worshipped many gods, cooked and nursed, invented things and rioted. A lot. They built our society to be as diverse and varied as the women themselves. They are there in the archives – if you look – and they made our history.

‘You’ll lose count of the number of things you learn about women and their skewed place in history as you read Philippa Gregory’s stunning Normal Women … the book reframes the past … an essential read’ INDEPENDENT, FIVE-STAR REVIEW

There are dozens of different trucks to discover in this fun and lively book. Children will enjoy using the stickers to fill the pictures with lots of busy trucks. Scenes include a busy building site, a bustling town, a motorway and snowy mountains. Includes over 100 colourful stickers.

Relax on a cruise ship, catch a flight at the airport or travel on a canalboat in this sticker book full of bustling travel scenes. There are over 150 stickers to bring each scene to life, from cars, buses, planes and trains to tourists, passengers and much more. A perfect activity for a journey or holiday.

A superhero sticker book with exciting scenes to complete using the stickers provided.
Whizz! Pow! Zap! Join the superheroes as they complete all kinds of exciting missions with this super sticker book. Children can have hours of fun adding over 200 stickers to complete the lively, detailed scenes, from a city battle, a volcano lair and an underwater base to Mission Control and Superhero School.

A beautifully illustrated sticker book exploring our amazing planet.
Discover the many wonders Planet Earth has to offer in this inviting sticker book. Travel to dusty deserts, the icy Arctic and lush tropical rainforests to find out about the incredible plants and animals that live there. Add over 150 stickers to bring the scenes to life.

A charming sticker book about all the fun things little friends can do together.
There are all sorts of early years activities shown in this delightfully illustrated sticker book, including going to a birthday party, visiting a farm and playing in the playground. There's plenty of descriptive vocabulary for children to learn along the way, along with concepts such as being polite, sharing and taking turns.

Join a cast of animal characters for lots of school holiday sticker fun.
Set off on holiday with this cast of friendly animal characters. Join them as they spend a day at the beach, hit the ski slopes and camp beneath the stars. Children will love adding over 100 stickers to the various holiday scenes.

There are dozens of different diggers to discover in this fun and lively book. Children will enjoy using the stickers to fill in the scenes, including making a road, under the ground and at the demolition site. Includes over 100 colourful stickers.

Discover huge hunters and gentle leaf-eaters as you meet all kinds of dinosaurs.
Journey back to prehistoric times and meet lots of amazing dinosaurs, from the toothy T-Rex to the powerful Diplodocus, with this bright and inviting sticker book. Learn how the Maiasaura protected her eggs, which gigantic prehistoric animals lived underwater and more whilst decorating the scenes using the 200+ stickers provided.

Children can create their own busy building site scenes in this lively book packed full of trucks, diggers, dump trucks and cranes. There are over 130 stickers to add to help the construction workers build a house, a new playground and a skyscraper – and to pull buildings down with a CRASH too!

WHEN PARADISE TURNS TO CHAOS, WHO WILL SURVIVE?
An incredible true story of murder, romance and a fateful search for utopia in the Galápagos from the New York Times bestselling author of The Ghosts of Eden Park

At the height of the Great Depression, Los Angeles oil mogul George Allan Hancock and his crew of Smithsonian scientists, who had spent four years travelling the South Seas collecting rare specimens for scientific research, came upon a gruesome scene on reaching the Galápagos: two bodies, mummified by the searing heat, on the shore of the remote island. Hancock was surprised to discover an equally exotic group of humans: European exiles who had fled political and economic unrest, hoping to create a utopian paradise.

As Hancock and his fellow American explorers would witness, paradise had turned into chaos. The three sets of exiles – a Berlin doctor and his lover, a traumatised World War I veteran and his young family, and an Austrian baroness with two adoring paramours – were riven by conflict. Petty slights led to angry confrontations. The baroness, wielding a riding crop and a pearl-handled revolver, staged fights between her two lovers and brazenly seduced American tourists. The conclusion was deadly: two exiles missing, two others dead, and the survivors hurling accusations of murder.

Using previously unpublished archives, Abbott Kahler weaves a chilling, stranger-than-fiction tale worthy of Agatha Christie, a mystery as alluring and curious as the Galápagos themselves. Eden Undone explores our universal desire to seek utopia, while laying bare the human fallibility that, inevitably, renders such a quest doomed.