Black Swan Shelf Life Franchini Livia

What do our possessions say about us? Why do we project such meaning onto them? What becomes of the things we leave behind? • Only after her mother's death does Susannah Walker discover how much of a hoarder she had become. Over the following months, Susannah has to sort through a dilapidated house filled to the brim with rubbish and treasures - filling bag after bag with possessions. But what she's really in search of is a woman she'd never really known or understood in life. This is her last chance to piece together her mother's story and make sense of their troubled relationship • What emerges from the mess of scattered papers, discarded photographs and an extraordinary amount of stuff is the history of a sad and fractured family, haunted by dead children, divorce and alcohol

Билл Брайсон родился в 1951 году в самом сердце США в городе Де-Мойн, штат Айова. В своей книге The Rise and Fall of the Thunderbolt Kid он делится с читателями воспоминаниями о своем типично американском детстве. Как и миллионы сверстников, в детстве Брайсон мечтал стать супергероем. Он бегал по дому в футболке с нарисованной на ней молнией и полотенцем вместо плаща, представляя, как прыгает с высоких зданий и уничтожает злодеев • Через свои детские фантазии он воссоздает жизнь своей семьи в 1950-х. В этот период возросла популярность телевидения, открылся Диснейленд, проводились испытания ядерных бомб, а также был богатый выбор абсолютно всего – от еды до машин • The Rise and Fall of the Thunderbolt Kid – это современная классика, мемуары одного из самых популярных авторов бестселлеров Билла Брайсона

The startling discovery that the weirdness of quantum mechanics provides the vital spark that ignites life • Life is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the known universe; but how does it work? Even in this age of cloning and synthetic biology, the remarkable truth remains: nobody has ever made anything living entirely out of dead material. Life remains the only way to make life. Are we missing a vital ingredient in its creation? • Like Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, which provided a new perspective on evolution, Life on the Edge alters our understanding of life's dynamics as Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe Macfadden reveal the hitherto missing ingredient to be quantum mechanics. Drawing on recent ground-breaking experiments around the world, they show how photosynthesis relies on subatomic particles existing in many places at once, while inside enzymes, those workhorses of life that make every molecule within our cells, particles vanish from one point in space and instantly materialize in another

Sue Black confronts death every day. As a Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology, she focuses on mortal remains in her lab, at burial sites, at scenes of violence, murder and criminal dismemberment, and when investigating mass fatalities due to war, accident or natural disaster • In All That Remains she reveals the many faces of death she has come to know, using key cases to explore how forensic science has developed, and examining what her life and work has taught her • Do we expect a book about death to be sad? Macabre? Sue's book is neither. There is tragedy, but there is also humour in stories as gripping as the best crime novel • Part memoir, part science, part meditation on death, her book is compassionate, surprisingly funny, and it will make you think about death in a new light

One encounter and life is never the same again • The Logans were an enchanting and admirable couple. Archie had snatched Liza from her own engagement party to someone else, wooed her, swept her off to his father in Scotland, and finally married her • Now bedded firmly into country life - three children, Archie the village doctor, Liza a teacher, everything comfortable, funny, affectionate - they awaited the arrival of Archie's father, the brilliant Sir Andrew Logan, a widower for over thirty years • When his city-clean Rover stopped in the drive, Sir Andrew was not alone. Beside him was a golden lady in caramel suede, a warm, witty, desirable widow whom everyone - except Archie - adored at once • Archie saw his father's mistress as the worm in the bud of his perfect life - a life that was to be wrenched apart before he and Liza could re-create their world

From her first life-changing solo trip to Australia as a young graduate, Rosita Boland was enthralled by travel. In the last thirty years she has visited some of the most remote parts of the globe carrying little more than a battered rucksack and a diary • Documenting nine journeys from nine different moments in her life, Elsewhere reveals how exploring the world – and those we meet along the way – can dramatically shape the course of a person’s life. From death-defying bus journeys through Pakistan to witnessing the majestic icescapes of Antarctica to putting herself back together in Bali, Rosita experiences moments of profound joy and endures deep personal loss • In a series of jaw-dropping, illuminating and sometimes heart-breaking essays, Elsewhere is a book that celebrates the life well-travelled in all its messy and wondrous glory

Kate Atkinson's dazzling Life After Life, one of the top selling adult books of 2014, explored the possibility of infinite chances, as Ursula Todd lived through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. In A God in Ruins, Atkinson turns her focus on Ursula's beloved younger brother Teddy - would-be poet, RAF bomber pilot, husband and father - as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century. For all Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge will be to face living in a future he never expected to have. A God in Ruins is a masterful companion to Life After Life, and will prove once again that Kate Atkinson is one of the finest novelists of our age

The Wild Life is John Lewis-Stempel's account of twelve months eating only food shot, caught or foraged from the fields, hedges, and brooks of his forty-acre farm. Nothing from a shop and nothing raised from agriculture. Could it even be done? • We witness the season-by-season drama as the author survives on Nature's larder, trains Edith, a reluctant gundog, and conjures new recipes. And, above all, we see him get closer to Nature. Because, after all, you're never closer to Nature than when you're trying to kill it or pick it • Lyrical, observant and mordantly funny, The Wild Life is an extraordinary celebration of our natural heritage, and a testament to the importance of getting back to one's roots - spiritually and practically

Here is a truth that can’t be escaped: for Mia ‘Rabbit’ Hayes, life is coming to an end • Rabbit Hayes loves her life, ordinary as it is, and the extraordinary people in it • She loves her spirited daughter, Juliet; her colourful, unruly family; the only man in her big heart, Johnny Faye • But it turns out the world has other plans for Rabbit, and she’s OK with that. Because she has plans for the world too, and only a handful of days left to make them happen • Here is a truth that won’t be forgotten: this is a story about laughing through life’s surprises and finding the joy in every moment

Would you take a chance and set something in motion that could change everything? • The Grey House is the final piece in the jigsaw of Alice Jordan's perfect life. It seems to be the ultimate achievement of her outwardly happy marriage - a loyal, if dull husband, three children, two cars and now the house. So why does she feel as if something is missing? • As Alice and her family settle themselves into village life, the something missing becomes something huge and then breaks, scandalizing the village and opening up old wounds • But because of it, Alice begins to feel that there is hope and humour and understanding and compassion in the new life she must build for herself

This was how I heard the most important story of my life, the thing that decided me, the story that determined who I was in the end • As snow begins to fall outside, two strangers meet by chance in a bar. She is trying to make sense of a life shaken by heartbreak and ruined dreams. He is on a desperate quest to find something he lost in his youth • From the blustery cliffs of Dover to the confines of a nuclear bunker; from the courtroom witness box to the West End stage, he flits from one life to another, never able to stand still • Extraordinary though his story is, the secret she is keeping is even more surprising, and will take them to a place neither of them - or you - expected • From the bestselling author of Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain comes this captivating novel about love, abandonment, and the power of stories to help us find our way in the world

Chrissie, in the twenty-three years she'd been together with Richie, had always believed that he loved her • He loved their three daughters and their house in Highgate and their happy, lively existence. But if she really was the love of his life, why had he never given her the one thing that would have made her life perfect? • Then suddenly Richie is no longer there, and without him Chrissie's carefully constructed life is in jeopardy.The one big fact she had always tried to keep from her daughters threatens to overwhelm them all. For Richie had still been married to his first wife, the one with a son that he had abandoned in Newcastle • And now, with Richie gone and the practicalities of wills and money to be sorted out, it is finally time for the two families to face each other