Black Swan Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee Syal Meera

How Far Would You Go to Get the Life You Can't Have? • Shyama, aged forty-eight, has fallen for a younger man. They want a child together • Meanwhile, in a rural village in India, young Mala, trapped in an oppressive marriage, dreams of escape • When Shyama and Mala meet, they help each other realise their dreams. But will fate guarantee them both happiness? • Brimming with warmth, wit and indignation, Meera Syal immerses us in a devastating story of friendship, family and the lengths we will go to have a perfect life. THE HOUSE OF HIDDEN MOTHERS is her long-awaited third novel and shows Meera Syal at the height of her literary powers

The startling discovery that the weirdness of quantum mechanics provides the vital spark that ignites life • Life is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the known universe; but how does it work? Even in this age of cloning and synthetic biology, the remarkable truth remains: nobody has ever made anything living entirely out of dead material. Life remains the only way to make life. Are we missing a vital ingredient in its creation? • Like Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, which provided a new perspective on evolution, Life on the Edge alters our understanding of life's dynamics as Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe Macfadden reveal the hitherto missing ingredient to be quantum mechanics. Drawing on recent ground-breaking experiments around the world, they show how photosynthesis relies on subatomic particles existing in many places at once, while inside enzymes, those workhorses of life that make every molecule within our cells, particles vanish from one point in space and instantly materialize in another

Роман, удостоенный премии Коста. Что если мы могли бы проживать нашу жизнь снова и снова, добиваясь удовлетворительного результата? Англия, 1910-й год. Во время вьюги рождается маленькая девочка, которая умирает, не успев вздохнуть. Англия, 1901-й год. Та же самая девочка рождается снова, но на этот раз выживает. Она получила второй шанс. И третий шанс. И бесконечное множество шансов. "Жизнь после жизни" - история Урсулы Тодд, которая раз за разом переживает события двадцатого века. В своём полном остроумия и сострадания романе Кейт Аткинсон пишет с теплотой даже о самых мрачных моментах и рисует картину прошлого с несравненным мастерством. Перед вами одно из самых глубоких и изобретательных её произведений, посвящённое как лучшим, так и худшим сторонам человеческой природы

Three letters. Two mistakes. One Last chance • When Jennifer Cole is told she has three months to live she decides to write three letters sharing the desires, fears and frustrations she has always kept to herself. And at first she finds that telling the truth makes her feel free and liberated • But three months later, Jennifer's secrets are alive and out in the world . . . and so is she. As she discovers, sometimes the truth has a way of surprising you

Edward Stourton muses on the meaning of life and all things canine as he walks his dog Kudu • 'If you are accompanied by a dog you can talk to anyone, and anyone can talk to you - about anything .' And they do. Edward Stourton's walks with, Kudu, his dog, become an opportunity for wonderfully unlikely encounters, and reflecting on the world from the dog-walker's perspective proves remarkably illuminating. Ed and Kudu's small trips to the park offer up big insights into romantic attachment, honour and heroism, guilt and depression, our sense of duty, beauty and the hard facts of life's pecking order. Diary of a Dog-Walker is witty, wise and will be utterly irresistible to any man or woman with a dog

'Isn’t the life of any person made up out of the telling of two tales, after all? The whole world makes more sense if you remember that everyone has two lives, their real lives and their dreams, both stories only a tape’s breadth apart from each other, impossibly divided, indivisibly close.' • Every year, Robert's family comes together at a rambling old house to celebrate his birthday. Aunts, uncles, distant cousins - it has been a milestone in their lives for decades. But this year Robert doesn't want to be reminded of what has happened since they last met - and nor, for quite different reasons, does his granddaughter Kate. Neither of them is sure they can face the party. But for both Robert and Kate, it may become the most important gathering of all

Sue Black confronts death every day. As a Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology, she focuses on mortal remains in her lab, at burial sites, at scenes of violence, murder and criminal dismemberment, and when investigating mass fatalities due to war, accident or natural disaster • In All That Remains she reveals the many faces of death she has come to know, using key cases to explore how forensic science has developed, and examining what her life and work has taught her • Do we expect a book about death to be sad? Macabre? Sue's book is neither. There is tragedy, but there is also humour in stories as gripping as the best crime novel • Part memoir, part science, part meditation on death, her book is compassionate, surprisingly funny, and it will make you think about death in a new light

Жизни Кэт Бреннер может позавидовать любой - она красива, полна энергии, и у нее престижная работа. Ее соцсети пестрят яркими глянцевыми картинками. Однако в ее жизни есть и другая сторона, которую не обработаешь при помощи фильтров. Кэт одинока в новом городе, на аренду крошечной комнаты уходит почти вся зарплата, а соседи ее недолюбливают. Как же приблизить реальность к виртуальному идеалу? Очень скоро Кэт поймет, что счастье начинается совсем не с картинок • "Моя (не)идеальная жизнь" Софи Кинселлы - романтичная и полная юмора история • Книга на английском языке • Katie Brenner has the perfect life: a flat in London, a glamorous job, and a super-cool Instagram feed • OK, so the truth is that she rents a tiny room with no space for a wardrobe, has a hideous commute to a lowly admin job, and the life she shares on Instagram isn't really hers

From one of our most beloved and bestselling authors, a vivid, nostalgic, and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the 1950s • Born in 1951 in the middle of the United States, Des Moines, Iowa, Bill Bryson is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24 carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generation, Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero. In his case, he ran around the house wearing a jersey with a thunderbolt on it and a towel round his neck that served as his cape, leaping tall buildings in a single bound and vanquishing evildoers (in his head) as The Thunderbolt Kid • Using his childhood fantasy life as a springboard, Bill Bryson recreates the life of his family in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality

The Wild Life is John Lewis-Stempel's account of twelve months eating only food shot, caught or foraged from the fields, hedges, and brooks of his forty-acre farm. Nothing from a shop and nothing raised from agriculture. Could it even be done? • We witness the season-by-season drama as the author survives on Nature's larder, trains Edith, a reluctant gundog, and conjures new recipes. And, above all, we see him get closer to Nature. Because, after all, you're never closer to Nature than when you're trying to kill it or pick it • Lyrical, observant and mordantly funny, The Wild Life is an extraordinary celebration of our natural heritage, and a testament to the importance of getting back to one's roots - spiritually and practically

When Noel Bostock - aged ten, no family - is evacuated from London to escape the Blitz, he winds up in St Albans with Vera Sedge - thiry-six, drowning in debts. Always desperate for money, she's unscrupulous about how she gets it • The war's thrown up all manner of new opportunities but what Vee needs is a cool head and the ability to make a plan. On her own, she's a disaster. With Noel, she's a team • Together they cook up an idea. But there are plenty of other people making money out of the war and some of them are dangerous. Noel may have been moved to safety, but he isn't actually safe at all

Two lives intertwined and seemingly harmonious. One decision that changes everything • Lizzie and Frances are twins, together forming part of a unit. Or at least that's the way Lizzie sees things. Lizzie is the twin who has everything: husband, children, a flourishing career and a beautiful house. She worries about Frances, who seems to lead a solitary life in London, ricocheting from one disastrous man to the next. Lizzie just wants Frances to have a complete and satisfying life, just like hers • Then one day Frances announces she isn't coming to Lizzie's for Christmas as usual - she's going to Spain instead • Suddenly and equally unexpectedly, Lizzie's world begins to tilt. Frances's Christmas defection seems overwhelmingly threatening to their unity