Peter Ritchie is just an ordinary solicitor, with an ordinary (if slightly shambolic) life, until the day his client, a male prostitute called Bobby Black dies suddenly when a kinky trick goes wrong. Bobby has been brutally murdered, and someone had tried to cover it up. But who, and why?Peter cannot rest until he knows the truth. And so begins a rollercoaster ride for him and his on-off girlfriend Naomi, that will see him pitted against some powerful enemies, and everyone he ever ...

The muse is not ordinary and neither is the poetry. Placing the everyday Scottish urban life in a cinematic context and where they meet is a sweet spot indeed.Ian has come back to his hometown, he has changed and so has the town. These intersections inform the narrative, supported by gorgeous images and backstories that still leave plenty for the reader's imagination.You don't have to know the Vale of Leven to appreciate these works, since the themes are universal and the s...

In the addictive sequel to The Judge: Part 1, the deadly game of cat and mouse continues for the protagonist, Peter Ritchie before drawing to a revealing and haunting close. We are again transported to London in the nineties, where Peter Ritchie’s list of suspects for the murder of prostitute Bobby Black is getting shorter and shorter. Due to his involvement with the case, Ritchie now finds himself so entrenched in a dark world of blackmail, police corruption, and cover-ups, he’s forced to...

Little magazines have often showcased the best new writing in America. Historically, these idiosyncratic, small-circulation outlets have served the dual functions of representing the avant-garde of literary expression while also helping many emerging writers become established authors. Although changing technology and the increasingly harsh financial realities of publishing over the past three decades would seem to have pushed little magazines to the brink of extinction, their story is far...

Why does the West rule? In this magnum opus, eminent Stanford polymath Ian Morris answers this provocative question, drawing on 50,000 years of history, archeology, and the methods of social science, to make sense of when, how, and why the paths of development differed in the East and West — and what this portends for the 21st century.There are two broad schools of thought on why the West rules. Proponents of "Long-Term Lock-In" theories such as Jared Diamond suggest that from time...

In the last thirty years, there have been fierce debates over how civilizations develop and why the West became so powerful. The Measure of Civilization presents a brand-new way of investigating these questions and provides new tools for assessing the long-term growth of societies. Using a groundbreaking numerical index of social development that compares societies in different times and places, award-winning author Ian Morris sets forth a sweeping examination of Eastern and Weste...

Red Sky in the Morning, Poet's Warning is the fourth collection of mysterious, humorous, philosophical and charming poetry for young people by Alex Wharton, Children's Laureate Wales. From Poems that describe 'Wild Boys' who live alone in the woods to poems about 'Time' and meeting an astronaut, there is something for everyone! These poems reflect on nature's happenings, through observation and experience, but not forgetting to transport the reader to many magical, musical and imaginative ...

"This fascinating book will have budding bookworms bursting at the seams with newly discovered words." – WRD Magazine"A wonderful book which satisfies me as mum as well as child. I’m learning a lot too!" – Reader reviewFrom everyone's favourite wordsmith and I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! star, Tom Read Wilson, comes another breath-taking adventure through the English language. Discover the fascinatin...

In the wake of Brexit, Ian Morris chronicles the ten-thousand-year history of Britain's relationship to Europe as it has changed in the context of a globalizing world.When Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016, the 48 percent who wanted to stay and the 52 percent who wanted to go each accused the other of stupidity, fraud, and treason. In reality, the Brexit debate merely reran a script written ten thousand years earlier, when the rising seas physically ...

TV personality, actor, and now I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! star, Tom Read Wilson, is here to take us on a rip-roaring tour through some of the most astonishing and amusing words in the English language with Every Word Tells a Story.See how the English language evolved in this extraordinary exploration of the origins of everyday words. Full of funny stories and fascinating facts, Tom Read W...

The best-selling author of Why the West Rules—for Now examines the evolution and future of human valuesMost people in the world today think democracy and gender equality are good, and that violence and wealth inequality are bad. But most people who lived during the 10,000 years before the nineteenth century thought just the opposite. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, biology, and history, Ian Morris explains why. Fundamental long-term changes in values...

The world's first known empires took shape in Mesopotamia between the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf, beginning around 2350 BCE. The next 2,500 years witnessed sustained imperial growth, bringing a growing share of humanity under the control of ever-fewer states. Two thousand years ago, just four major powers--the Roman, Parthian, Kushan, and Han empires--ruled perhaps two-thirds of the earth's entire population. Yet despite empires' prominence in the early hi...