A nervous breakdown seems like a great idea: all that lying in bed and watching daytime TV. But who's going to have it? Will it be housewife Clodagh, who spends her days microwaving pasta for her demanding toddlers and waiting for her beautiful husband Dylan to come home? Or Lisa, reeling from the shock of a demotion from her fabulous job in London...

A historical novel on the corruption of innocence, using the famous painting by Vermeer as an inspiration. Griet, the young daughter of a tilemaker in 17th century Holland, obtains her first job as a servant in Vermeer's household. Tracy Chevalier shows us, through Griet's eyes, the complicated family, the society of the small town of Delft, and li...

Ebenezer Scrooge is a miserly old skinflint. He hates everyone, especially children. But at Christmas the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future come to visit him, scare him into mending his ways, and he finds, as he celebrates with Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and their family, that geniality brings its own reward.

When the body of Sir Charles Baskerville is found in his garden, there are no signs to explain his death. Did he die of fright? Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson have a mysterious case to solve - is the Baskerville family really haunted by a phantom beast 'with blazing eyes and dripping jaws' which roams the mist-enshrouded moors around the isolated Ba...

This GCSE text focuses on the history of Russia and the USSR from 1905-1991. It covers the decline of the Tsarist regime, the revolutions of 1917, the civil war, the influence of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, the Cold War, and the end of the Communist rule. A Cambridge University Press title.

This audio book gives a clear and balanced picture of how the UK is governed at local, regional, national and European levels. It also provides an introduction to the broader politics of how individuals can bring about change in society. A HarperCollins title.

Simple, direct and accessible information on Britain's laws, and on how the courts, police and prison services operate. This audio book also encourages students to consider what could be changed to make society more equal and more just. A HarperCollins title.

Until 1991, foreigners were only allowed along the Trans-Siberian railway. Colin Thubron searches for the `core of Siberia', Russia's wild east - and encounters Mongol shamans; the 2,500,000- year-old mummified remains of a princess; sweaty 85 degree temperatures and Akademogorodok, an abandoned city where a lone professor experiments with cosmic c...

Hat Grant is getting married. She is having a proper, big wedding. That is until something goes wrong - six weeks before the wedding, her fiance dumps her. Hat is devastated. This is her special day, she can't cancel everything - what about the flowers, her dress the photographer, the caterers, her ghastly mother? So, she doesn't - she decides to g...

Mary's grandmother is executed for witchcraft, and Mary is forced to leave her home to avoid the same fate. At first she flees to the English countryside, but when the atmosphere of superstition and suspicion becomes all-consuming she leaves on a boat for America in the hope that she can start over and forget her past. But during the journey, she r...

Five disparate voices inhabit Ali Smith's dreamlike 'Hotel World', set in the luxurious anonymity of the Global Hotel, in an unnamed northern English city. The disembodied yet interconnected characters include Sara, a 19-year-old chambermaid who has recently died at the hotel; her bereaved sister, Clare, who visits the scene of Sara's death; Penny,...

'The Rivals' is an insider's view of the potent alliance between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Behind the public face of a prime minister and chancellor united in policy and instinct, James Naughtie reveals the tensions of power in action. This is a unique account of the most enduring, complex and important relationship in recent times.

Ria Lynch and Marilyn Vine have never met. Ria lives in a big ramshackle house in Tara Road, Dublin, which is filled with family and friends, while Marilyn lives in New England, absorbed in her career. A chance phone call brings them together and they decide to exchange homes. So a magical summer begins, full of discovery, unexpected friendships an...

These stories, all written between 1929 and 1954, all share the themes that feature so strongly in Graham Greene's novels: humour and violence, pity and hatred, betrayal and pursuit. Comic, sad, shocking and tragic, they recount the tales of Mr Maling's loud stomach, destructive gangs of children, indiscretions revealed and secrets uncovered. CONTA...

Obsessed by creating life itself, Doctor Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life using electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker...

Maimed and disfigured whilst fighting in the Second World War, Francis Cassavant must hide both his face and identity when he returns home to Frenchtown, USA, for his past holds a bitter secret.

This audiobook is part of the Heinemann Secondary History Project. It looks at the economic boom in the 1920s, the causes and consequences of the Wall Street crash, and the success and failure of the New Deal. It covers topics on GCSE Modern World History syllabuses. A Heinemann Educational title.

This collection of short stories, previously published in anthologies and newspapers, consists of miniature studies of the endless absurdity of human behaviour. It includes 'Our Lives Are Only Lent To Us', discovered amongst the author's papers after her death.

As Romeo and Juliet come from opposing families, their love must be concealed until after their marriage. But having slain Juliet's cousin Tybalt, Romeo is banished and despite the well-meaning intervention of Friar Laurence, fate ensures that the marriage is never truly celebrated. Dramatisation of the New Cambridge version of the text.

A study guide to 'Romeo and Juliet'. The play's commentary focuses on themes, language, imagery and Shakespeare's most beautiful use of poetry to express the fated teenagers' love and tragic end.

Selected members of Robert's class are chosen to visit the elderly residents of Mayfield Rest Home - to interact with them and to find out about their lives. Robert's main enemy at school, Jonathan Niker, may think them all 'vegetables', but Robert's own buried personality is slowly unearthed by Edith Sorrel - a prickly and enigmatic resident who s...