Picador A Sport and a Pastime Salter James

All That Is explores a life unfolding in a world on the brink of change. The life is that of Philip Bowman and we see his formative experiences as a young naval officer in battles off Okinawa, his post-war career as a book editor in New York, his trips to the great European cities - for publishing parties in London, romantic holidays in Paris • But despite his success, what eludes him is love. His first marriage goes bad, another fails to happen, finally he meets a woman who enthrals him before setting him on a course he could never imagine for himself • James Salter's dazzling, seductive and haunting novel offers a fiercely intimate account of the great shocks and grand pleasures of being alive

Last Night is a spellbinding collection of stories about passion - by turns fiery and subdued, destructive and redemptive, alluring and devastating. A lover of poetry is asked by his wife to give up what may be his most treasured friendship. A book dealer is forced to face the truth when a figure from his past pays an unexpected visit. In the title story, a husband has promised to assist his wife's suicide • Drawn in by a lingering swirl of tone, revelation and insight, the reader of these ten powerful stories will be transfixed as, seemingly without effort, Salter finds the charged moments that will come to shape a fate and detonates them before our very eyes

Clive James was one of our finest critics and best-loved cultural voices. He was also a prize-winning poet. Since he was first enthralled by the mysterious power of poetry, he has been a dedicated student. In fact, for him, poetry was nothing less than the occupation of a lifetime, and in this book Poetry Notebook, he presents a distillation of everything he learned about the art form that matters to him most • With his customary wit, delightfully lucid prose style and wide-ranging knowledge, James explains the difference between the innocuous stuff that often passes for poetry and a real poem: the latter being a work of unity that insists on being heard entire and threatens never to leave the memory. A committed formalist and an astute commentator, he offers close and careful readings of individual poems and poets (from Shakespeare to Larkin, Keats to Pound), and in some case second readings or re-readings late in life - just to be sure he wasn't wrong the first time! Whether discussing technical details of metaphorical creativity or simply praising his five favourite collections of all time, he is never less than captivating

In this vital re-examination of a shared history, historian and broadcaster David Olusoga tells the rich and revealing story of the long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa and the Caribbean • This edition, fully revised and updated, features a new chapter encompassing the Windrush scandal and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, events which put black British history at the centre of urgent national debate. Black and British is vivid confirmation that black history can no longer be kept separate and marginalised. It is woven into the cultural and economic histories of the nation and it belongs to us all • Drawing on new genealogical research, original records, and expert testimony, Black and British reaches back to Roman Britain, the medieval imagination, Elizabethan ‘blackamoors’ and the global slave-trading empire

In Alligator and Other Stories, Dima Alzayat captures luminously how it feels to be 'other': as a Syrian, as an Arab, as an immigrant, as a woman. Each one of the nine stories collected here is a snapshot of those moments when unusual circumstances suddenly distinguish us from our neighbours, when our difference is thrown into relief • Here are 'dangerous' women transgressing, missing children in 1970s New York, a family who were once Syrian but have now lost their name, and a young woman about to discover the hollowness of the American dream. At its centre lies 'Alligator': a remarkable compilation of real and invented sources, which rescues from history the story of a Syrian American couple who were murdered at the hands of the state • Alzayat explores experiences that are startling and real, delivering an emotional punch that lingers long after reading

What do bees and wasps eat? What type of nests do they make? How do bees make honey? Find out the answers and lots more in this intriguing introduction to the fascinating world of bees and wasps. Easy-to-read text is accompanied by full-colour photographs and step-by-step visual explanations. Includes internet links to exciting websites to find out more about bees and wasps

Captain Cleve Connell arrives in Korea with a single goal: to become an ace, one of that elite fraternity of jet pilots who have downed five MIGs. But as his fellow airmen rack up kill after kill - sometimes under dubious circumstances - Cleve’s luck runs bad. Other pilots question his guts. Cleve comes to question himself. And then in one icy instant 40,000 feet above the Yalu River, his luck changes forever. Filled with courage and despair, eerie beauty and corrosive rivalry, James Salter’s luminous first novel is a landmark masterpiece in the literature of war

Nedra and Viri are a married couple whose favoured life is centred around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunning on the beach. But fine cracks are beginning to spread through the shimmering surface of their life - flaws that will eventually mar the lovely picture beyond repair. Seductive, witty, tender and resonant, Light Years is an exquisite novel of lost lives and the elusiveness of happiness

Rand lives free; lean, pure and defiant, the world has little influence on him. His passion is climbing – the mountains, the huge vertical faces. There, where storms, snow, or rockfall can kill, he finds his happiness, sometimes climbing with others, sometimes alone. This is a novel of obsession and where it leads. Rand, not intending it, becomes suddenly famous for a daring rescue in the Alps. What happens when passion is spent and what becomes of heroes is revealed in this terse and powerfully written novel

Welcome friends with an aperitif, before serving up a home-cooked feast, without spending precious socialising time in the kitchen • Chef James Ramsden first honed his skill for creating exciting, tasty food without fuss at his popular supper club, The Secret Larder. He now runs two critically acclaimed restaurants, including Observer Food Monthly Awards Best Restaurant 2017 Pidgin and its younger sister, Magpie; and hosts the hit podcast series The Kitchen is on Fire • Here, he shares the secret to preparing meals for guests. The key is simple: make it in advance. With 150 creative and stress-free recipes for easy entertaining, there are a range of fresh, modern ideas from pre-dinner nibbles to mouth-watering mains and cocktails to toast the lot

A social history of 1980s Britain, told through the sport of the time • Travel back to the 1980s - to Botham's Ashes and the Brixton riots; the Moscow Olympics and the miners' strike; the Crucible Theatre and the Falklands - to explore how we got to where we are now. Discover how sport became fully entwined in our national story; how sporting heroes were made, and destroyed; how 'wars' were fought on the pitch; and how sport responded to - and drove cultural change in - our society • From Sebastian Coe to Margaret Thatcher, John Barnes to the ZX Spectrum, Martina Navratilova to Section 28, Everybody Wants to Rule the World speaks to our treasured memories of eighties sports while also throwing light on where things went deeply wrong. In so doing it tells nothing less than the story of how British sport came into the modern era

‘For 30 years I was the voice of sport at The Times – but that’s enough about me. What matters is sport.’ • This is an autobiography from which the author, award-winning writer Simon Barnes, has been surgically removed. He has reported on six World Cups, seven Olympic Games, cricket on five continents and more than 20 Wimbledons, watching Diego Maradona, Usain Bolt, Sachin Tendulkar and Roger Federer at their peak. Along the way he had soul-revealing conversations with Ayrton Senna and sat on Desert Orchid • His journalist’s experience gives him perspective, until the addictive madness of sport takes over. Epic is a stunning mosaic of some of the greatest sporting moments in recent years, which build up to provide the reader with a better idea of what sport is for, what differentiates winners from losers, and reveals how sport teaches us how better to enjoy life