This is just a small selection of what will be arriving on our shelves. To reserve any book, PHONE 0800 69 89 666 (free - UK only) or +44 (0)1422 845353, FAX +44 (0)1422 844295, or E-MAIL bookcase@btinternet.com
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FICTION
HARDBACK
Man in the Dark - Paul Auster
Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident. Plagued by insomnia, he tries to push back thoughts of things he would prefer to forget by telling himself stories about a parallel world in which America is not at war with Iraq but with itself. (£12.99 at The Book Case)
PAPERBACK
Life Class - Pat Barker
In the spring of 1914 a group of students at the Slade School of Art have gathered for a life-drawing class. Paul Tarrant withdraws from an intriguing fellow student, Elinor Brooke, in the face of competition from a well-known painter, but finally, in the first few days of war, they turn to each other. (£7.99)
Pontoon - Garrison Keillor
Welcome to Lake Wobegon and another classic humorous tale of small-time life and colourful characters. (£7.99)
The Careful Use of Compliments - Alexander McCall Smith
More from the Sunday Philosophy Club, as Isabel Dalhousie tries to get through life with a clear conscience despite baby Charlie, his father Jamie, her furious niece Cat, her son and her formidable housekeeper Grace. (£6.99)
What I Was - Meg Rosoff
Coming of age story set in the early 60s on the East Anglian coast where a fragile wooden hut owned by an enigmatic and beautiful Finn. is battered daily by the sea. (£6.99)
The Point of Rescue - Sophie Hannah
Sally is watching the news with her husband when she hears a name she ought not to recognise: Mark Bretherick. But the man on the news is someone she has never seen before. (£6.99)
Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson
Set in south-east Asia and the US, and spanning two decades, it ostensibly tells the story of Skip Sands, a CIA spy who may or may not be engaged in psychological operations against the Viet Cong - but also takes the reader on a surreal and vivid journey. (£8.99)
Exit Music - Ian Rankin
It's late autumn in Edinburgh and late autumn in the career of Detective Inspector John Rebus. As he tries to tie up some loose ends before retirement, a murder case intrudes. A dissident Russian poet has been found dead in what looks like a mugging gone wrong. (£7.99 but due to be part of our 3/2 offer)
The Draining Lake - Arnaldur Indridason
In the wake of an earthquake, the water level of an Icelandic lake drops suddenly, revealing the skeleton of a man half-buried in its sandy bed. There is a large hole in the skull and a heavy communication device is attached to it, bearing inscriptions in Russian. (£6.99)
REISSUES
Sylvias Lovers - Elizabeth Gaskell (£7.99)
The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy
'The woman is no good to me. Who'll have her?' (£5.99)
In a Glass Darkly - J Sheridan Le Fanu
The ideal reading...for the hours after midnight'. Le Fanus writings draw on the Gothic tradition, elements of Irish folklore, and even on the social and political anxieties of his Anglo-Irish contemporaries. (£7.99)
Law and the Lady, Wilkie Collins (£8.99)
Under Western Eyes - Joseph Conrad (£7.99)
The Awakening: And Other Stories - Kate Chopin
'She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before.' Kate Chopin was one of the most individual and adventurous of nineteenth-century American writers, whose fiction explored new and often startling territory. (£7.99)
The Tortoise and the Hare - Elizabeth Jenkins
Imogen, the beautiful and much younger wife of a distinguished barrister Evelyn Gresham, is facing the greatest challenge of her married life. Their neighbour Blanche Silcox, competent, middle-aged and ungainly, the very opposite of Imogen, seems to be vying for Evelyn's attention - and she may be succeeding. (£7.99)
The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
When a freak cosmic event renders most of the Earth's population blind, Bill Masen is one of the lucky few to retain his sight. (£7.99)
Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham
The classic story of the power wielded by science in our lives, asking how much trust we should place in those we appoint to be its guardian. (£7.99)
God on the Rocks - Jane Gardam
During one glorious summer between the wars, the realities of life and the sexual ritual dance of the adult world creep into the life of young Margaret Marsh. (£7.99)
The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels - Danny Fingeroth
Includes the medium's history, from sequential art in Egyptian tombs, through the superhero boom of the 1940s to the birth of the graphic novel movement and the latest online offerings. (£11.99)
NON-FICTION
BIOGRAPHY
Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and His Scandalous Duchess - Alison Weir
Katherine Synford was first the mistress, and later the wife, of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster. Her charismatic lover was one of the most powerful princes of the fourteenth century and Katherine was renowned for her beauty and regarded as enigmatic, intriguing and even dangerous. (£8.99)
Selective Memory - Katharine Whitehorn
Katharine Whitehorn pioneered the first of the personal columns. She told us how it really was. She was funny - and smart. The Observer's star columnist for 40 years, she is also famous for Cooking in a Bedsitter. (£8.99)
Penguin Great Ideas Series, £4.99 each, including:
A Confession - Leo Tolstoy
Days of Reading - Marcel Proust
FOOD
Preserves: River Cottage Handbook No. 2 - Pam Corbin
Preserving is a centuries-old way to make the most out of every season, stretching the more bountiful months into the sparser ones - and what's more, it is fun, rewarding and easy to learn. (£12.99)
The Really Useful Ultimate Vegetarian Student Cookbook - Helen Aitken
Packed with recipes that are cheap, good for you and very easy to cook with limited equipment. Everything you need to know about buying and storing food, which equipment is really necessary, what to eat to keep you healthy, and useful tips about food hygiene. (£4.99)
GARDENING
The Organic Fruit and Vegetable Gardener's Year: A Seasonal Guide to Growing What You Eat - Graham Clarke
An indispensable guide for the aspiring organic gardener from the Guild of Master Craftsmen. (£14.99)
HISTORY
Roman Roads - Hugh Davies
The vast networks of roads throughout the Roman Empire were vital to the expansion of Roman culture, power and influence across the world and one of their principal uses was the transportation of the Legions to strategic bases in the most direct way possible. This book details the planning, construction and maintenance of these road networks, and discusses the different types of Roman road found in areas of Britain, and their many uses. (£6.99)
Tickets Please!: A Nostalgic Journey Through Railway Station Life - Paul Atterbury
A winning mix of railway and social history, all brought to life by wonderful photographs and illustrations, many never seen before. (£14.99)
LANGUAGE
Collins Scrabble Dictionary (£5.99)
Teach Yourself Beginner's Polish - Nigel Gotteri; Joanna Michalak-Gray (£9.99)
There are also CDs available.
LIFESTYLE
The Siblings' Busy Book - Lisa Hanson; Heather Kempskie
200 activities that kids of different ages can enjoy together. (£6.95)
Napkin Origami: 25 Creative and Fun Ideas for Napkin Folding - ed. Brian Sawyer
Why fold a napkin into an ordinary square when it can become a swan, bread holder, or pirate's ship?
NATURE
This Birding Life: The Best of the "Guardian's" Birdwatch - Stephen Moss
A birdwatching autobiography, from early cootwatching as a young boy, through teenage cycle trips toDungeness, to adult travels around the world as a TV producer. (£7.99)
A Sky Full of Starlings: A Diary of a Birding Year - Stephen Moss
Stephen Moss began on 1 January 2007, to chronicle each species of bird as he was seeing it for the first time last year, and continued to do so until 31 December. The result is both a unique chronicle of Britain's natural history and a touching and funny piece of autobiography - a year of life measured out in birds. (£12.99)
Crow Country - Mark Cocker
Rooks and jackdaws are both members of the same bird family, corvids or "crows". Prompted by the twice-daily flight-lines of rooks and jackdaws over over his house, Mark Cocker followed them and began a nationwide search, piecing together their inner lives, the British relationship with the rook and the richness hidden in that sombre voice. "Crow Country" is a prose poem in a long tradition of English pastoral writing. and a powerful restatement of the central importance of nature in human affairs. (£8.99)
Corvus: A Life with Birds - Esther Woolfson
Living with a talking magpie named Spike, Chicken the rook, and, recently, a baby crow named Ziki, Esther Woolfson has been amazed by the corvids intelligence, personality and capacity for affection, and has learnt aspects of bird behaviour which would otherwise have been impossible to know - the way they happily become part of the structure of a family, how they communicate, their astonishing empathy. (£16.99)
The Edible Mushroom Book - Anna Del Conte; Thomas Laessoe
A gourmet's guide to foraging and cooking mushrooms. From common puffballs to golden wax caps, morels to chanterelles, find out how to forage, prepare and cook delicious mushrooms that are wild, fresh and free. (£12.99)
The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth's History - David Beerling
Puts plants centre stage, revealing the crucial role they have played in driving global changes in the environment, in recording hidden facets of Earth's history, and in helping us to predict its future. Reveals how plummeting carbon dioxide levels removed a barrier to the evolution of the leaf; how plants played a starring role in pushing oxygen levels upwards, and it strengthens fascinating and contentious fossil evidence for an ancient hole in the ozone layer. (£8.99)
Silent Fields: The Long Decline of a Nation's Wildlife - Roger Lovegrove
Since time immemorial mankind has taken it upon himself to wage war against nature -- against those species of birds and mammals which he believes conflict with his livelihood. This remarkable book is about that war of attrition against the native mammals and birds of England and Wales from the middle ages to the present day. (£12.99)
PHILOSOPHY
Penguin Great Ideas Series, £4.99 each, including: Man Alone with Himself - Friedrich Nietzsche
PLAYS & FILM
Antigone, Oedipus the King and Electra - Sophocles
Love and loyalty, hatred and revenge, fear, deprivation, and political ambition: these are the motives which thrust the characters portrayed in these three Sophoclean masterpieces on to their collision course with catastrophe. (£5.99)
Reel to Real: Race, Sex and Class at the Movies - Bell Hooks
Movies matter - that is the message of this classic collection of essays on film. They matter on a personal level, providing us with unforgettable moments, even life-changing experiences and they can confront us, too, with the most profound social issues of race, sex and class. (£11.99)
POLITICS & CURRENT AFFAIRS
I Wouldn't Start from Here: Travels in Twenty-first Century Terror, Torture and Torpor - Andrew Mueller
A journey through 21st-century warzones and hotspots in the company of Mueller who asks awkward questions of perpetrators, vicitms and optimists alike (£8.99)
Citizenship: A Very Short Introduction - Richard Bellamy
Interest in citizenship has never been higher. But what does it mean to be a citizen of a modern, complex community? Why is citizenship important? Can we create citizenship, and can we test for it? (£7.99)
Penguin Great Ideas Series, £4.99 each, including:
Useful Work v. Useless Toil - William Morris
An Appeal to the Toiling, Oppressed and Exhausted Peoples of Europe - Leon Trotsky
Concerning Violence - Frantz Fanon
REFERENCE
Pears Cyclopaedia 2008-2009, ed. Chris Cook (£20)
Official DSA Theory Test For Car Drivers & Highway Code - new edition
TRAVEL
Great British Journeys - Nicholas Crane
Eight traveller-chroniclers - Gerald of Wales, HV Morton, Celia Fiennes, John Leland, Daniel Defoe, William Cobbett, Thomas Pennant, and William Gilpin, who travelled through the north of England by boat in 1770. (£8.99)
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush - Eric Newby
When Eric Newby, improbably earning his living in the London haute-couture trade, sent his fateful cable - 'Can You Travel Nuristan June?' - it was the first step on a legendary journey from Mayfair to Afghanistan and the mountains of the Hindu Kush, north-east of Kabul. 50th anniversary ed. (£8.99)
Flightless: Incredible Journeys without Leaving the Ground
Inspires readers to visit new destinations, and to find new way to get there other than by flying. The stories remind us that reducing one's carbon emissions also brings with it the joy of travel. (£7.99)
The Kindness of Strangers - ed. Don George
A collection of original stories by acclaimed writers, including Jan Morris, Tim Cahill, Simon Winchester, Dave Eggers, and Anthony Sattin, exploring the theme of finding good fortune on the road. With a preface by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. (£7.99)
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Ages 0-5yrs
Little Mouses Big Book of Fears - Emily Gravett
The paperback edition of the novelty picture book, with elements including flaps, die-cuts and a fold-out map. Young children will identify with the little mouse who uses the pages of this book to document his fears - from loud noises and the dark to being sucked down the plughole. Ages: 0-3 yrs. (£6.99)
Ages 5-9yrs
My Dad's a Birdman- David Almond
Lizzie and Dad live in a rainy town in the north of England. It's just the two of them, and Auntie Doreen, who pops round to check Lizzie's spellings and tell Dad he's daft - and make them nice hot dumplings. But today there's something unusual going on: why is Dad building himself a pair of wings and studying the birds to see how they fly? . Ages: 8+ yrs (£6.99)
Ages 9-11yrs
Firestorm: Dragon Orb - Mark Robson
Dragons in Areth each have a single predestined rider and a single life mission, given to them by the Oracle. But this once-powerful being is now fatally damaged. Only the dragons and their riders can save it! Ages: 10+ yrs (£6.99)
Teenage Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox - Eoin Colfer
The eagerly anticipated 6th book in the multi-award winning series and teenage criminal mastermind, Artemis Fowl has a new mission - and this time, it's personal. His mother is dangerously ill, and the only way to find a cure is for Artemis - with Holly Short by his side - to go back in time to battle his younger and more evil self. Ages 10+ (£12.99)