Welsh Fiction

Terry Pratchett has earned a place in the hearts of listeners the world over with his best-selling Discworld series - but in recent years he has become equally well-known and respected as an outspoken campaigner for causes including Alzheimer's research and animal rights. A Slip of the Keyboard brings together for the first time the finest examples of Pratchett's nonfiction writing, both serious and surreal: from musings on mushrooms to what it means to be a writer (and why banana daiquiris are so important).

Make Shakespeare a part of your daily routine with Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year, a yearlong collection of passages from Shakespeare's greatest works. Drawing from the full spectrum of plays and sonnets to mark each day of the year, whether it's a scene from Hamlet to celebrate Christmas or a Sonnet in June to help you enjoy a summer's day. There are also passages to mark important days in the Shakespeare calendar, both from his own life and from his plays.

Sophisticated wit and intense emotion, religious fervor and erotic sensuality, delight in life’s pleasures and fascination with death, are all to be found in the paradoxical poetry of John Donne. One of the foremost metaphysical poets, Donne’s ingenious metaphors and inspired use of language has earned him affection and reverence in near equal measure to Shakespeare.

Lady Isabel Carlyle leaves her husband and children for the aristocratic Francis Levison, who, as it turns out, has no intention of marrying her. Having been disfigured in a train accident, the unrecognizable Isabel then takes up the position of governess to her own children in the Carlyle household, with tragic consequences.

Written when women---and workers generally---had few rights in England, Agnes Grey exposes the brutal inequities of the rigid class system in mid-19th-century Britain. Agnes comes from a respectable middle-class family, but their financial reverses have forced her to seek work as a governess.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in collaboration with his friend, William Wordsworth, revolutionized English poetry. In 1798 they produced their Lyrical Ballads, poems of imagination and reflection using "the language of men" - pointing the way forward for a generation of Romantic poets.

Bereft of his beloved wife, Glencora, and his role as prime minister, Plantagenet Palliser enters the realm of family politics as he struggles to guide and connect with his three wayward children. Lord Silverbridge, the Duke's first born and natural inheritor, expelled from Oxford, a gambler at the racetrack and an elected Conservative, further troubles his father when he becomes engaged to Isabel Boncassen. Lady Mary, his daughter, falls in love with a penniless young gentleman named Frank Tregear, while his second son, Gerald, displays similar behavior to his brother.

When two children happen across an ancient shrine, they unintentionally summon an impish sprite named Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow. To their wonderment, the fairy conjures up the past, taking them on ten magical adventures: They visit Roman Britain and the legion guarding Hadrian's Wall, the thirteenth-century court of King John, and Old England from the time of William the Conqueror.

When Lucy Brennan, a Miami Beach personal-fitness trainer, disarms an apparently crazed gunman chasing two frightened homeless men along a deserted causeway at night, the police and the breaking-news cameras are not far behind. Within hours, Lucy becomes a hero. Her celebrity is short-lived, though: the "crazed gunman", turns out to be a victim of child sexual abuse and the two men are serial pedophiles.

For every moment in your life there is a poem. In Dancing by the Light of the Moon, we have a remarkable collection of over 250 best-loved poems in the English-speaking world. Allow Gyles Brandreth to be your guide to not only the wonders of poetry - and there are many - but also its practical uses in everyday life.

Through the sands of the scalding deserts of India, two loafing vagabonds follow a half-scribbled map, heading for a land they hope to conquer.

Susan has everything she ever wanted. A loving husband, an angelic daughter and the cottage of her dreams in County Cork. Her picture-perfect life seems too good to be true. And it is. At a housewarming party with their new neighbours, her daughter Amelia goes missing. As friends become suspects, Susan’s life spirals out of control. And when Amelia’s yellow cardigan is dredged from the lake, every parent’s worst nightmare suddenly seems horribly real. In the aftermath of Amelia’s disappearance Susan and her husband Paul are not themselves. Someone is hiding something.

Mark Renton has it all: He's good-looking, young, with a pretty girlfriend and a place at university. But there's no room for him in the 1980s.Thatcher's government is destroying working-class communities across Britain, and the post-war certainties of full employment, educational opportunity and a welfare state are gone. When his family starts to fracture, Mark's life swings out of control and he succumbs to the defeatism which has taken hold in Edinburgh's grimmer areas.

When Drasko, a nine-year-old thief from the slums, is presented with a once-in-a-lifetime offer, life takes him to a far-away land on the hunt for diamonds. Twenty years later, Drasko Mawr, now the wealthiest diamond miner in the world, comes back to London. And he must play a dangerous game—a deal he has signed with blood.

Just as Mr. Darcy finally decides to propose to the enticing Miss Elizabeth Bennet, she is summoned to Falmouth, to meet a relation she never knew she had. Thus, the ill-starred Hunsford proposal is avoided - but before he could even begin to understand his luck, adverse circumstances hasten to conspire against him, and Fitzwilliam Darcy is compelled to follow the woman he loves to the far reaches of Cornwall, into a world of deceit and peril, where few - if any - are what they seem to be...

A hilarious new middle grade novel from beloved and best-selling author Gordon Korman about what happens when the worst class of kids in school is paired with the worst teacher. The Unteachables never thought they’d find a teacher who had a worse attitude than they did. And Mr. Kermit never thought he would actually care about teaching again. Over the course of a school year, though, room 117 will experience mayhem, destruction - and maybe even a shot at redemption.

Characters from Jane Austen's novels are thrown together by fate, and all manner of unwise decisions are taken at this vulnerable time. But then their past creeps up upon them - and what is there to do but face it, and hope that their convoluted paths will finally lead them to their proper place? Friends, rivals, foes, wrong choices, and a duel - Fitzwilliam Darcy's life is never dull! The Subsequent Proposal - a story that is primarily about him - follows Mr. Darcy in his struggles to decipher the troubling enigma of Elizabeth Bennet's feelings - and to correct the worst misjudgment of his life....

Morton Hall, with its beautiful, ruined grounds and its reclusive mistress, Emilia Morton, is full of mysteries. For freelance editor Anne Marie, the wild garden has become a serene and secret refuge from her loveless marriage. The only other regular visitor is Cape, the hall's part-time gardener, who is forbidden to tend to anything except the magnificent maze or to meet his enigmatic employer. When Emilia dies, Cape and Anne Marie are astonished to find themselves among an unlikely group of villagers named in her strange will.

When her father remarries, the honest, innocent Molly Gibson suddenly finds herself with a new stepsister, Cynthia, who is beautiful, worldly and impetuous. This would be more than enough to deal with, but the new wife is the deeply snobbish (and darkly secretive) Hyacinth. Thwarted love, scheming ambition and small-town gossip underlie the warmth, irony and brilliant social observation which link the relationships and the inevitable conflicts as profound change comes to rural England.

When the naive David Balfour sets out on his quest for a long-lost relative, a terrifying chain of events is set in motion. He is plunged into a world of infamy and violence from which there seems no escape - until, that is, he meets the enigmatic and valiant Highlander, Alan Breck....