Alma Books A Funny Sort of Minister Demers Dominique

Meet Miss Charlotte… a modern Mary Poppins who wears a large hat and a crumpled dress that maker her look like a scarecrow, and she talks to a rock! • Miss Charlotte – the new coach of a children’s football team – has some odd methods to prepare them for the big match, including talking to the ball and drinking a special potion, smalalamiam. Also, she teaches them how to lose! And to have fun. Incredibly, it seems to work – but will their hopes of victory be dashed when their star player decides to join the other team? • The latest instalment in Dominique Demers’s popular Adventures of Miss Charlotte series, The New Football Coach, brilliantly illustrated by Tony Ross, is a marvellous tale about believing in yourself and beating the odds

Inspired by Boileau's Lutrin and illustrating the debate within European intellectual circles between the "Ancients", who argued that all essential knowledge was to be found in classical texts, and the "Moderns", who claimed that contemporary learning superseded the old sources, The Battle of the Books shows Swift at his wittiest and most trenchant. In this early satire, various books in St James's Library take on a life of their own and come into conflict with one another, in a pastiche of the heroic epic genre • As well as providing humorous reflections on the nature of scholarship and education, Swift seizes the opportunity to take swipes at several authors and critics. The result is a timeless and entertaining parody by one of the most enduringly popular writers in the English language

"Holmes!" I cried. "Is it really you? Can it indeed be that you are alive? Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that awful abyss?" • London's criminal underworld has risen once again, and a dangerous individual with an air gun is prowling the streets. The capital is in greater need of its protector, Sherlock Holmes, than ever • Three years have passed since Holmes and the evil mastermind Professor Moriarty fell, locked in combat, into the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, and when Doctor Watson collides with an odd-looking old book collector in the street, little does he know that the world's greatest detective is about to return… • Contains: The Adventure of the Empty House, The Adventure of the Norwood Builder, The Adventure of the Dancing Men, The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist, The Adventure of the Priory School, The Adventure of Black Peter, The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, The Adventure of the Three Students, The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez, The Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter, The Adventure of the Abbey Grange, The Adventure of the Second Stain

Coming back to the “nest” of his family home in Russia after years of fruitless endeavours away from his roots, Lavretsky decides to turn his back on the vacuous salons of Paris and his frivolous and unfaithful wife Varvara Pavlovna. On his return he meets Liza, the daughter of one of his cousins, whom he had known when they were children and who rekindles in him long-smothered feelings of love. News of Varvara's death arrive from France, offering Lavretsky the prospect of a new life, but a cruel twist threatens to shatter his dreams and forces him to re-evaluate his plans • Hailed as a masterpiece of Russian literature, A Nest of the Gentry – Turgenev's most successful and widely read novel, here presented in a new translation by Michael Pursglove – deals with the personal struggles of the individual in a period of turbulent social change

Written in the form of a diary, The House of the Dead recounts the story of Alexander Goryanchikov, a gentleman who is condemned to ten years hard labour for killing his wife in a fi t of rage. Initially the target of the other inmates malice, he gradually settles in and becomes an avid observer of the new world around him - watching his fellow prisoners being brutally and cruelly punished by the guards, listening to their past stories of blood and murder and learning that even convicts are capable of acts of pure generosity, as when they sacrifice their own meal to feed a stray dog that wanders around the camp. Based on Dostoevsky's own autobiographical experiences during a four year internment in a prison colony in Siberia, this genre-defying novel is not only an unflinching expose of the conditions of Russian prisoners during the Tsarist period, but also a call to see the human side in criminals and rediscover the values of forgiveness and brotherly love

Against the backdrop of growing discontent in Paris, Doctor Manette is released from the Bastille after eighteen years of unjust imprisonment and begins a new life in England with his devoted daughter Lucie. There, the gifted but dissolute lawyer Sydney Carton and the exiled French nobleman Charles Darnay find their lives increasingly intertwined with those of the Manettes. Yet soon both men are drawn ineluctably from the peaceful English capital to the horror and bloodshed of the Paris Terror and the looming threat of the guillotine • Representing a departure from the social satire of most of his other novels and deemed by Dickens himself to be “the best story I have written”, A Tale of Two Cities is a powerful historical novel about the repercussions of epochal events on the personal lives of people on both sides of the Channel

When Buck is smuggled from his beloved home in the Santa Clara Valley and forced to work as a sled-dog in the frozen wilderness of the Yukon, he must forget the long, lazy Californian days and face a life of constant toil and danger under the whip of cruel or inept masters, where survival itself must be fought for. But with his primal instincts stirred, how long can Buck resist the call of the wild? • Set at the time of the Klondike Gold Rush, "The Call of the Wild" is one of the greatest evocations of the natural world, and perhaps the best example of London's famously urgent and vivid style. This edition also includes "Brown Wolf", "That Spot" and "To Build a Fire" - three Yukon tales that demonstrate London's mastery of the short-story genre

Pipi isn’t like his four brothers or the other young monkeys living in the forest of Hullabaloo: he has bright-pink fur, a mischievous character and a rebellious streak that lands him into all sorts of scrapes. In this story, an expanded version of Collodi’s original tale, we see him lose his tail to an ancient crocodile, end up as a valet to a young master, fall into the hands of flying bandits and become emperor of a tribe of apes • Collodi wrote this story immediately after Pinocchio, and the little monkey’s adventures present clear similarities, both in terms of themes and characters, with his more celebrated masterpiece. This rediscovered gem of Italian literature, beautifully illustrated by Axel Scheffler and preserving all of Collodi’s trademark wit and linguistic crispness, will delight and enthral a new generation of children

The story of a naughty wooden puppet who has a penchant for lying and dreams of becoming a real boy, The Adventures of Pinocchio has entered our collective imagination and fascinated generations of young and adult readers since its first publication in 1883. Part fable, part coming-of-age novel, part cautionary tale, Pinocchio’s rollicking exploits through an unforgiving and often incomprehensible world – populated by unforgettable characters such as the Talking Cricket, Candlewick, Mangiafuoco and the Fairy with Turquoise Hair – have had a profound impact on our culture and attained universal significance as a mirror of the human condition • Here presented in a brand-new and lively translation by Stephen Parkin and illustrated beautifully by Peter Bailey, this edition of The Adventures of Pinocchio brings extra sparkle to one of the greatest and most celebrated works of children’s literature

Over the last fifteen years of his life, Tolstoy collected and published the maxims of some of the world's greatest masters of philosophy, religion and literature, adding his own contributions to various questions that preoccupied him in old age, such as faith and existence, as well as matters of everyday life • Banned in Russia under Communism, A Calendar of Wisdom was Tolstoy's last major work, and one of his most popular both during and after his lifetime. This new translation by Roger Cockrell will offer today's generation of readers the chance to discover, day by day, these edifying and carefully selected pearls of wisdom

As a group of Western tourists travel down the Nile on the steamer Korosko towards the historical sites near Egypt's southern border, they are kidnapped by a marauding band of dervishes who demand their conversion to Islam. Cut off from the world, deprived of the comforts of civilized society and shaken in their beliefs, they will have to overcome the most arduous obstacles to regain their freedom and safety • Written towards the end of the Victorian era and permeated with a sense of fear and uncertainty, The Tragedy of the Korosko calls into question the moral authority of Europe's presence in the Arab peninsula and the cultural supremacy of British colonialism, all the while demonstrating Conan Doyle's unparalleled ability as a storyteller

Dual-Language Edition • After years of fierce battle, the Emperor Charlemagne's army is finally on the brink of victory over the Saracens in Spain. Having proposed his stepfather Ganelon for the perilous task of serving as Charlemagne's envoy in the negotiations over the surrender of the Saracen king Marsile, Count Roland gets a taste of his own medicine when, with peace secured, Ganelon suggests that Roland should lead the rearguard of the army on the difficult return journey over the mountain passes to France. Yet Marsile's forces are massing, and Roland is unaware of just how deep Ganelon's treachery runs • Probably written around three centuries after the events it describes, The Song of Roland is the earliest and finest example of the French chansons de geste - verse epics that celebrated heroic deeds and were sung or recited by wandering minstrels