Harpercollins The Embarrassment of Riches. An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age Шама Саймон

In May 1941 Lena Mukhina was an ordinary teenage girl, • living in Leningrad, worrying about her homework and whether Vova - the boy she • liked - liked her. Like a good Soviet schoolgirl, she was also diligently • learning German, the language of Russia's Nazi ally. And she was keeping a • diary, in which she recorded her hopes and dreams. Then, on 22 June 1941, • Hitler broke his pact with Stalin and declared war on the Soviet Union.All too soon, Leningrad was besieged and life became a • living hell. Lena and her family fought to stay alive; their city was starving • and its citizens were dying in their hundreds of thousands. From day to • dreadful day, Lena records her experiences: the desperate hunt for food, the • bitter cold of the Russian winter and the cruel deaths of those she loved

In the frontier town of Springfield in 1651, peculiar things begin to happen. Precious food spoils, livestock ails and property vanishes. People suffer fits and are plagued by strange visions and dreams. Children sicken and die. As tensions rise, rumours spread of witches and heretics, and the community becomes tangled in a web of spite, distrust and denunciation. The finger of suspicion falls on a young couple struggling to make a home and feed their children: Hugh Parsons the irascible brickmaker and his troubled wife, Mary. It will be their downfall • The Ruin of All Witches tells the dark, real-life folktale of witch-hunting in a remote Massachusetts plantation. These were the turbulent beginnings of colonial America, when English settlers' dreams of love and liberty, of founding a 'city on a hill', gave way to paranoia and terror, enmity and rage

In the frontier town of Springfield in 1651, peculiar things begin to happen. Precious food spoils, livestock ails and property vanishes. People suffer fits and are plagued by strange visions and dreams. Children sicken and die. As tensions rise, rumours spread of witches and heretics, and the community becomes tangled in a web of spite, distrust and denunciation. The finger of suspicion falls on a young couple struggling to make a home and feed their children: Hugh Parsons the irascible brickmaker and his troubled wife, Mary. It will be their downfall • The Ruin of All Witches tells the dark, real-life folktale of witch-hunting in a remote Massachusetts plantation. These were the turbulent beginnings of colonial America, when English settlers' dreams of love and liberty, of founding a 'city on a hill', gave way to paranoia and terror, enmity and rage

Shortlisted for the British Psychological Society Book Award for Popular Science • Much of value has been written about sleep, but rest is different; it is how we unwind, calm our minds and recharge our bodies. The Art of Rest draws on ground-breaking research Claudia Hammond collaborated on: ‘The Rest Test’, the largest global survey into rest ever undertaken, completed by 18,000 people across 135 different countries. The survey revealed how people get rest and how it is directly linked to your sense of wellbeing • Counting down through the top ten activities which people find most restful, Hammond explains why rest matters, examines the science behind the results to establish what really works and offers a roadmap for a new, more restful and balanced life

"Тайная жизнь слонов. Рождение, смерть и семья в мире гигантов" • Слоны так же уникальны, как и люди. Они могут быть умными и любопытными или упрямыми и импульсивными, застенчивыми или общительными. Узнайте о них как об отдельных особях, так и о виде в этом впечатляющем отчете о годах, проведенных за изучением поведения слонов в дикой природе • Наблюдая за семьей, вышедшей поплавать в жаркий день, доктор Ханна Мамби отмечает, что бабушки, матери, сестры и дети обмениваются шумными приветствиями, постоянный поток возгласов с близкого расстояния, периодические прикосновения, совместное выгуливание младенцев и частые остановки, чтобы перекусить. Дружная и взаимосвязанная семья. Но в этой семье взрослые весят по нескольку тонн каждый, а малыши игриво машут друг другу хоботками

Arriving in 1970s' London as a fresh-faced Canadian, Bruce Fogle assumed that because he knew the language, he would understand the English. As a graduate of the world's best veterinary school, he also thought his profession would come naturally to him. He quickly learned not to make assumptions… • Bruce began his career at the prestigious Woodrow & Singleton surgery in the heart of the Knightsbridge. Frequented by Britain's most distinguished pet owners, from Duchesses and Sultans to Paul McCartney and Elizabeth Taylor, it also cared for the exotic inhabitants of the Harrods' 'Zoo Department.' • Over the next few years, an arc of clients would cross Bruce's table, from cats and dogs to alligators, pumas and even a capuchin monkey. Each adventure taught Bruce far more than any textbook ever could, while skilful veterinary nurses provided the greatest lessons of all

In one corner, a godless young warrior, Voltaire’s heralded ‘philosopher-king’, the It Boy of the Enlightenment. In the other, a devout if bad-tempered old composer of ‘outdated’ music, a scorned genius in his last years. The sparks from their brief conflict illuminate a turbulent age • Behind the pomp and flash, Prussia's Frederick the Great was a tormented man, son of an abusive king who forced him to watch as his best friend (probably his lover) was beheaded. In what may have been one of history's crueler practical jokes, Frederick challenged ‘old Bach’ to a musical duel, asking him to improvise a six-part fugue based on an impossibly intricate theme (possibly devised for him by Bach's own son) • Bach left the court fuming, but in a fever of composition, he used the coded, alchemical language of counterpoint to write ‘A Musical Offering’ in response

The most accomplished mountain runner of all time contemplates his record-breaking climb of Mount Everest in this profound and free-flowing memoir—an intellectual and spiritual journey that moves from the earth’s highest peak to the soul’s deepest reaches • What drives a person to the edge of one of the most difficult and revered mountains in the world? How much is one willing to sacrifice and suffer to pursue an authentic and bold life? The most accomplished mountain runner of all time, Kilian Jornet ponders these questions as he contemplates his record-breaking climb of Mount Everest, exploring the mountain’s changing nature over four seasons and his own existence • As he recounts a life spent studying, tending, and ascending the greatest peaks on earth, Jornet ruminates on what he has found in nature—simplicity, freedom, and spiritual joy—and offers a poetic yet clearheaded assessment of his relationship to the mountain

Four narrators, a student from a cafe, a private detective hired by an aggrieved husband, the heroine herself and one of her lovers, construct a portrait of Jacqueline Delanque, otherwise known as Louki • The daughter of a single mother who works in the Moulin Rouge, Louki grows up in poverty in Montmartre. Her one attempt to escape her background fails when she is rejected from the Lycee Jules-Ferry. She meanders on through life, into a cocaine habit, and to frequenting the Cafe Conde, whose regulars begin calling her "Louki". She drifts into marriage with a real estate agency director, but finds no satisfaction with him or his friends and so makes the simple decision not to return to him one evening. She turns instead to a young man almost as aimless and adrift as she, but who perhaps loves her all the same

At seven years old, Nainoa falls into the sea and a shark takes him in its jaws – only to return him, unharmed, to his parents. For the next thirty years Noa and his siblings struggle with life in the shadow of this miracle • Sharks in the Time of Saviours is a brilliantly original and inventive novel, the sweeping story of a family living in poverty among the remnants of Hawai‘i’s mythic past and the wreckage of the American dream

Behind every great king stands a queen. And behind every queen, the whole court watches on • Over the years of his reign, six different women took their place beside King Henry VIII of England as his wife and queen • But the real stories of the six Tudor queens belong to those who lived among them. Played out in glittering palaces and whispering courts, these are tales of the people who loved and served these women, and those who lied and betrayed them • Collected together for the first time, In the Shadow of Queens reveals thirteen startling stories from the Tudor court, told by those at the very heart of that world