"A moving and fascinating book about sound and what it means to be human" from the Somerset Maugham Award–winning author of The Lighthouse Stevensons ( Financial Times).In this surprising and moving book, award-winning writer Bella Bathurst shares the extraordinary true story of how she lost her hearing and eventually regained it and what she learned from her twelve years of deafness. Diving into a wide-ranging exploration of silence and noise, she...

An "entertaining" historical investigation into the scavengers who have profited off the spoils of maritime disasters ( The Washington Post).Even today, Britain's coastline remains a dangerous place. It is an island soaked by four separate seas, with shifting sand banks to the east, veiled reefs to the west, powerful currents above, and the world's busiest shipping channel below. The country's offshore waters are strewn with shipwrecks—and for villagers sc...

The "flamboyant and elegantly written saga" of the legendary author's family and their lifesaving nautical advances across eighteenth century Scotland ( Publishers Weekly ).For centuries the seas around Scotland were notorious for shipwrecks. Mariners had nothing to aid their navigation but a single coal-fire light on the east coast, which was usually extinguished by rain. In 1786 the Northern Lighthouse Trust was establis...

A group of schoolgirls go off with two teachers on a field trip to the English countryside. They soon discover that the nearby town offers alcohol, drugs, and sex, at once tempting and terrifying. In this illicit, raw new world, isolated from the larger society and its familiar rules and repressions, some become more vulnerable, others more vicious. There are the almost casual daily cruelties the girls inflict on one another, the dangerous fault lines of their friendships, their insecuriti...

Bella Bathurst’s epic story of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ancestors and the building of the Scottish coastal lighthouses against impossible odds.‘Whenever I smell salt water, I know that I am not far from one of the works of my ancestors,’ wrote Robert Louis Stevenson in 1880. ‘When the lights come out at sundown along the shores of Scotland, I am proud to think they burn more brightly for the genius of my father!’Robert Louis Stevenson was the most famous of the Stevensons, ...

From Alan Bennett's Baffled at a Bookcase, to Lucy Mangan's Library Rules, famous writers tell us all about how libraries are used and why they're important. Tom Holland writes about libraries in the ancient world, while Seth Godin describes what a library will look like in the future. Lionel Shriver thinks books are the best investment, Hardeep Singh Kohli makes a confession and Julie Myerson remembers how her career began beside the shelves. Using memoir, history, polemic and some short ...

Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote the George and Molly Palmer-Jones series following remarkable mysteries in a birdwatching community—now in print for the first time in the US.In England’s birdwatching paradise, a new breed has been sighted—a murderer . . .Young Tom French is found dead, lying in a marsh on the Norfolk coast, with his head bashed in and his binoculars still around his neck. One of the best birders in England, Tom had put ...

Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote the Inspector Ramsay series featuring a talented, brilliant detective—now in print for the first time in the US.No one in Heppleburn has a bad word to say about Alice Parry . . . but here she is, murdered in her own backyard on a bitter St. David’s Eve.When detective Stephen Ramsay starts asking questions in the village, a more ambiguous picture begins to emerge. Yes, old Mrs. Parry was loved by everyone, but some...

Published under a pseudonym, J. K. Rowling's brilliant debut mystery introduces Detective Cormoran Strike as he investigates a supermodel's suicide in "one of the best books of the year" (USA Today), the first novel in the brilliant series that inspired the acclaimed HBO Max series C.B. Strike.After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, creditors...

Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote the Inspector Ramsay series featuring a talented, brilliant detective—now in print for the first time in the US.Who hung the headmaster in the playground on the night of the school Halloween Party?Almost everyone in Heppleburn either hated or feared the viper-tongued Harold Medburn. Inspector Ramsay is convinced it was the headmaster’s enigmatic wife but Jack Robson, school governor and caretaker, is determined to...

“Everything Ann Cleeves writes is incredible.”—Richard OsmanFrom Ann Cleeves—New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows—comes The Seagull.**"I loved The Seagull — quite simply it reminds me why Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers! -**Louise PennyA visit to her local prison brings DI Vera Stanhope face to...

More than six million copies sold worldwide!A larger-than-life old man with a fondness for vodka goes on an unexpected adventure in this whimsical internationally bestselling novel—perfect for fans of Forrest Gump and A Man Called Ove**.**After a long and eventful life, Allan Karlsson ends up in a nursing home, believing it to be his last stop. The only problem is that he'...