Two Roads All the Water in the World Raney Karen

A history of Piccadilly: London's bustling meeting place for over a century • There's nowhere quite like Piccadilly Circus • From the moment they emerge, blinking from the underground station, visitors to Piccadilly Circus face a sensory onslaught. Its streets and alleyways merge into an intoxicating thoroughfare, with the power to propel an individual onwards to adventure, romance, or something more sinister. Ever since its iconic Eros statue appeared in 1893, the junction has been a vibrant meeting place, attracting visitors and pleasure-seekers from all walks of life: political plans and theatrical careers were hatched at its restaurant and cafe tables, lovers met below the statue of Eros, and to this day tourists pour out of its historic Tube to experience the bright lights of London's nightlife

One day you're broke. The next, you have all the money in the world. What would you do? A gripping, timely story about cold, hard cash and little white lies for fans of Jenny Valentine, Siobhan Dowd and Lara Williamson • Fifteen-year-old Penny longs for something better. Better than a small, damp flat. Better than her bullying classmates and uninterested teachers. Better than misery and poverty day in day out • An unlikely friendship and a huge sum of money promise a whole lot of new chances for Penny, and she realises that not only can she change her life, she can change herself • But at what cost? • Perfect for readers 10+

Air warfare was a terrible novelty of the modern age, requiring a new military outlook. From the beginning, the RAF's identity set it apart from the traditional services. It was innovative, flexible and comparatively meritocratic, advancing the quasi-revolutionary idea that competence was more important than background • The Air Force went into the war with inadequate machines, training and tactics, and the early phase was littered with setbacks and debacles. Then, in the summer of 1940, in full view of the population, Fighter Command won one of the decisive battles of the struggle. Thereafter the RAF was gilded with an aura of success that never tarnished, going on to make a vital contribution to Allied victory in all theatres • Drawing from diaries, letters, memoirs, and interviews, Air Force Blue captures the nature of combat in the skies over the corrugated wastes of the Atlantic, the sands of the Western Desert and the jungles of Burma

A revelatory portrait of life in a great museum and the moving story of one guard's quest to find solace and meaning in art • Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase into New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. Patrick Bringley never thought he'd be one of them. But when his brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer he quit his journalism job, and sought peace in the most beautiful place he knew • To his surprise, this temporary refuge becomes his home away from home for a decade. Bringley enters the museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and place among the lively subculture of museum guards. As his bonds with colleagues and the art grow, he learns how fortunate he is to be walled off in this little world and how much it resembles the best aspects of the larger world to which he gradually, gratefully returns

Роберт Форчун был шотландским садовником, ботаником, охотником за растениями и промышленным шпионом. В 1848 году Ост-Индская компания поручила ему совершить тайную поездку во внутренние районы Китая — территорию, запрещенную для иностранцев, — чтобы украсть тщательно охраняемые секреты чая • На протяжении веков Китай был единственным в мире производителем чая. Великобритания закупила этот товар для своей империи, продав опиум китайцам – ядовитые отношения, ради поддержания которых Британия вела две разрушительные войны. Ост-Индская компания принесла щедрую прибыль как посредник, но она изжила свое, потеряв монополию на торговлю чаем. Спасением, по его мнению, было создание собственных плантаций в Гималаях в Британской Индии • Было всего две проблемы: в Индии не было чайных растений, которые стоило бы выращивать, а если бы они были, компания бы не знала, что с ними делать

В книге ""Раз, Два, Три, Четыре. "Битлз" в ритме времени"" Крейг Браун "искусно переплел детали из множества источников: дневниковые записи, письма фанатов, расшифровки интервью, рейтинги и чарты", создав уникальный портрет изменившей мир "великолепной четверки" к полувековому юбилею ее распада • "Это веселая книга, но и очень глубокая, заставляющая задуматься о самой природе славы". По словам Брауна, он стремился "передать возбуждение и беззаботность эпохи "Битлз" и то, с какой скоростью менялись Джон, Пол, Джордж и Ринго, причем как к лучшему, так и к худшему. Я хотел показать, какое влияние они оказывали буквально на каждого, от ее величество королевы до Чарли Мэнсона. И я решил, что лучше всего для этого подойдет россыпь коротких глав, из которых, как из призм, сложится калейдоскоп"

The Words In My Hand is the re-imagined true story of Helena Jans, a Dutch maid in 17th-century Amsterdam, who works for Mr Sergeant the English bookseller. When a mysterious and reclusive lodger arrives - the Monsieur - Mr Sergeant insists everything must be just so. It transpires that the Monsieur is Rene Descartes • But this is Helena's story: the woman in front of Descartes, a young woman who yearns for knowledge, who wants to write so badly she makes ink from beetroot and writes in secret on her skin - only to be held back by her position in society • Weaving together the story of Descartes' quest for reason with Helena's struggle for literacy, their worlds overlap as their feelings deepen; yet remain sharply divided. For all Descartes' learning, it is Helena he seeks out as she reveals the surprise in the everyday world that surrounds him

The funny, frank and full autobiography of the nation's favourite comedian • 'It's the first time I've done this. Other people have written about me - or for me - but this time it's just my own life in my own words' • In his first full-length autobiography, comedy legend and national treasure Billy Connolly reveals the truth behind his windswept and interesting life • Born in a tenement flat in Glasgow in 1942, orphaned by the age of 4, and a survivor of appalling abuse at the hands of his own family, Billy's life is a remarkable story of success against all the odds • Billy found his escape first as an apprentice welder in the shipyards of the River Clyde. Later he became a folk musician - a 'rambling man' - with a genuine talent for playing the banjo

Scotland, 1950s • Walter MacMillan is bewitched by the clever, glamorous Jean Thompson and can't believe his luck when she agrees to marry him. Neither can she, for Walter represents a steady and loving man who can perhaps quiet the demons inside her. Yet their home on remote Loch Doon soon becomes a prison for Jean and neither a young family, nor Walter's care, can seem to save her • Many years later, Walter is with his adult children and adored grandchildren on the shores of Loch Doon where the family has been holidaying for two generations. But the shadows of the past stretch over them and will turn all their lives upside down on one fateful weekend • The House by the Loch is the story of a family in all its loving complexity, and the way it can, and must, remake itself endlessly in order to make peace with the past

Masha's life has stopped. Once a spirited, independent woman with a rebellious streak, her life has been forever changed by a tragic event twelve years ago. Unable to let go of her grief, she finds solace in the silent company of the souls of her local Victorian cemetery and at the town's lido, where she seeks refuge underwater - safe from the noise and the pain • But a chance encounter with two extraordinary women - the fabulous and wise Kitty Muriel, a convent girl-turned-magician's wife-turned-seventy-something-roller-disco-fanatic, and the mysterious Sally Red Shoes, a bag lady with a prodigious voice - opens up a new world of possibilities, and the chance to start living again. But just as Masha dares to imagine the future, the past comes roaring back

Elizabeth Pringle lived all her long life on the Scottish island of Arran. But did anyone really know her? In her will she leaves her beloved house, Holmlea, to a stranger - a young mother she'd seen pushing a pram down the road over thirty years ago. It now falls to Martha, once the baby in that pram, to answer the question: why? Martha is coping with her mother's dementia and the possibility of a new life on Arran could be a new start • A captivating story for fans of Rosamund Pilcher, Maeve Binchy and Rachel Joyce of the richness behind the so-called ordinary lives of women and the secrets and threads that hold them together • And Kirsty Wark's second novel, The House by the Loch, a story of unlikely love and long-hidden family secrets set in the beautiful Scottish countryside, is out now

Ephram Jennings has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. Young Ruby Bell, "the kind of pretty it hurt to look at," has suffered beyond imagining, so as soon as she can, she flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York. Ruby quickly winds her way into the ripe center of the city-the darkened piano bars and hidden alleyways of the Village-all the while hoping for a glimpse of the red hair and green eyes of her mother. When a telegram from her cousin forces her to return home, thirty-year-old Ruby finds herself reliving the devastating violence of her girlhood. With the terrifying realization that she might not be strong enough to fight her way back out again, Ruby struggles to survive her memories of the town's dark past