Peony is the cherished only child of the first wife of a wealthy Chinese nobleman. Yet she is betrothed to a man she has never met and as her sixteenth birthday approaches, she has spoken to no man other than her father and never ventured outside the cloistered women's quarters of the Chen Family Villa. Though raised to be obedient, Peony has dreams of her own. But when, from behind a screen, Peony catches sight of an elegant, handsome man with hair as black as a cave and is immediately bewitched by him. So begins Peony's journey of love, desire and sorrow as Lisa See's haunting new novel takes readers back to seventeenth-century China and into the heart and soul of an unforgettable heroine.

In this vivid and humorous journey, Richardson takes us past the cliches of paella and gazpacho to tell the real story of Spain's mouth-watering food, from the typical coastal cuisine to the shepherd cooking of the interior and the chic 'urban' food of Madrid and Barcelona. Along the way he gets caught up in a fish auction and the annual pig slaughter, spends a day at El Bulli restaurant and makes a never-ending stream of new friends.

From the Big Bang, to the present day, via Ancient China, The Roman Empire, Attila the Hun, The Dark Ages, Enlightenment, Revolution! etc. The entire history of the world has been packed into one hilarious, irreverent comic strip. From Goths and Visigoths, to Newton and Copernicus, all the significant facts and titillating trivias of the world's most important periods, starting with the Big Bang, have been condensed for your entertainment and of course, education. Written by Tracey Turner (101 Things) and illustrated by celebrated cartoonist Sally Kindberg, this is the ultimate book for absolutely everyone. (Why let kids have all the fun).

Funny, moving and sharply observed, these stories are confirmation of Boyd's status as one of English fiction's finest writers. Here are twenty-four gripping tales told in bold, distinct voices from Brazil to Africa and from Nice to Hollywood. This eclectic collection by the acclaimed author of Restless and Brazzaville Beach is a must-read for any lover of the short story.

The famed writer Stephen Crane is travelling to a German clinic in search of a cure for the tuberculosis that threatens his life. Knowing it may be his last chance, he dictates the story of The Painted Boy, inspired by a real-life encounter. But as the story delves into the seedy underworld of turn-of-the-century Manhattan, Crane's health deteriorates and the outcome of the story becomes as critical as the author's life itself.

Against a backdrop of rural Portuguese poverty, a handful of magical characters are living out their destiny: Jose, a shepherd, who is visited by a devil whispering violent words in his ear; Moises and Elias, Siamese twins joined at the tip of their little fingers; Gabriel, a wise man, who is over one hundred years old; and an unnamed character who sits writing alone in a windowless room. The characters are universal, and they are all at the mercy of fate — their lives are pulled in different directions and sometimes even suffocated and snuffed out.

The thinking process behind drawing, characters, composition and movement, narrative and adaptation are all fully examined in the latest title Drawing for Animation. The author introduces the fundamental elements involved in producing drawn animation.

Is there anyone who doesn't wonder now and again about how differently their life could have turned out? About a more interesting, more adventurous, more dangerous past they could have had? Ben Dibbuk is married to the beautiful Mona, has a lovely daughter and a well-paid job in NYC — but he's been locked in this dream for more years than he can say. But nothing can prepare Ben for his chance meeting with Star, a mysterious woman at a launch for the hip magazine Diablerie — because Star claims to share a gruesome secret that Ben just can't remember. Has Star spun a diabolical web of lies, or could it be that something terrible really did happen back in June 1979? Ben's grip on the truth begins to falter, and the line between what really happened and what might have done becomes harder and harder to negotiate Walter Mosley, creator of sometime-fixer Easy Rawlins who appeared in classic thrillers such as Devil in a Blue Dress, and recently, the shocking deliciously scandalous Killing Johnny Fry, is one of former US president Bill Clinton's favourite authors.

When Cordell Carmel catches his long-term girlfriend with another man — the thick-necked chauvinist Johnny Fry — something profound happens to him. Overnight Cordell's calm life dissolves. Finding himself prey both to thoughts of murder and an insatiable libido, he begins a dark sexual odyssey in search of retribution and gratification, leading him deep into the erotic heart of New York City.

Fifteen-year-old Ben Warner has a mundane summer job working in the local fish-and-chip shop. Then Lila arrives. She invites him to visit her in the World of Ideas, where she hopes to help Socrates win a bet with his arch-rival Wittgenstein: he and Lila must prove to Ben that philosophy can change his life for the better. So begins a mind-bending guided tour of the big and small questions in life, but will Socrates and Lila be able to convince Ben that the unexamined life is not worth living?

When a brother and sister find a missing pouch containing some princely treasure, their lives take an unexpected change of direction. The pouch belongs to the king and, as its finders, Pia and Enzo find themselves thrown into the life of the court. At first Pia and Enzo are in awe of this wonderful place, but they soon find that life there, with everyone's dreams and ambitions not always in tune with what others expect of them, is not so different to the lives the siblings are used to down in a small hut in the village. In this wonderful 'fairy tale' of a story, lives collide, mysteries unfold and people come to realise their dreams.

Harry is waiting in Privet Drive. The Order of the Phoenix is coming to escort him safely away without Voldemort and his supporters knowing — if they can. But what will Harry do then? How can he fulfil the momentous and seemingly impossible task that Professor Dumbledore has left him?

In this final, seventh instalment of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to the many questions that have been so eagerly awaited. The spellbinding, richly woven narrative, which plunges, twists and turns at a breathtaking pace, confirms the author as a mistress of storytelling, whose books will be read, re-read and read again.

Ethan and his five co-workers are marooned in JPod, a no-escape architectural limbo on the fringes of a massive game-design company. There, they wage battle against the demands of boneheaded marketing staff who torture them with idiotic changes to already idiotic games. Meanwhile, Ethan's personal life is being invaded by marijuana gro-ops, people-smuggling, ballroom dancing, global piracy and the rise of China. Everybody in both worlds seems to inhabit a moral grey zone, and nobody is exempt, not even his seemingly strait-laced parents or Coupland himself.

Where magnificence and squalor co-exist, there will always be envy, rage, cruelty, paranoia and violence. This title is set in St Petersburg, 1914: imposing and shabby, monumental and squalid, and — under its surface of frosty glamour — seething with plots and secret allegiances. On a blustery April day, O.V. Gulko, a respected newspaper editor, is murdered in front of a shocked crowd. Five days later, Dr. Otto Spethmann, famous psychoanalyst, receives a visit from the police. There has been another murder in the city — and somehow he is implicated. He is mystified — and deeply worried, as much for his young, spirited daughter as for himself. He is preoccupied, too, by two new patients: Anna Petrovna, the society beauty plagued with nightmares with whom he is steadily and inappropriately falling in love, and troubled genius Rozental, the brilliant but mentally fragile chess master, due to play the most important competition of his life — the spectacular St. Petersburg chess tournament — but on the verge of a complete breakdown. With the city rife with speculation and alarm, Spethmann broods over his own chessboard, its pieces frozen mid-battle, and contemplates the many forces — political, historical, sexual — that are holding him in their grasp.

«Faerie is never as far away as you think. Sometimes you find you have crossed an invisible line and must cope, as best you can, with petulant princesses, vengeful owls, ladies who pass their time embroidering terrible fates or with endless paths in deep, dark woods and houses that never appear the same way twice. The heroines and heroes bedevilled by such problems in these fairy tales include a conceited Regency clergyman, an eighteenth-century Jewish doctor and Mary, Queen of Scots, as well as two characters from «Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell»: Strange himself and the Raven King.»

It's 3 a.m. and Elizabeth Gilbert is sobbing on the bathroom floor. She's in her thirties, she has a husband, a house, they're trying for a baby — and she doesn't want any of it. A bitter divorce and a turbulent love affair later, she emerges battered and bewildered and realises it is time to pursue her own journey in search of three things she has been missing: pleasure, devotion and balance. So, she travels to Rome, where she learns Italian from handsome, brown-eyed identical twins and gains twenty-five pounds, an ashram in India, where she finds that enlightenment entails getting up in the middle of the night to scrub the temple floor, and Bali where a toothless medicine man of indeterminate age offers her a new path to peace: simply sit still and smile. And slowly happiness begins to creep up on her.

When Lucy hears noises from behind the wall she tries to warn her parents that there are wolves banging about. But her parents don't listen. When the wolves finally take over the house and Lucy and her family are evicted to live in the garden, her parents realise perhaps they should have listened. But Lucy is no shrinking violet and pretty soon she has the wolves out and the family back in the house. So what was that noise Lucy heard coming from behind the wall? This is a brilliant, witty and inventive picture book with cutting-edge art, which is sure to be a hit with existing fans of Neil Gaiman as well as young readers.

Just as Blart is settling down to enjoy his teenage years on a fabulous pig farm with the proceeds from saving the world, Capablanca returns — with bad news. A terrible oversight in his original world-saving research has led to accusations of no less than collusion with evil Zoltab himself. And now he is a wanted man — and so, by assocation, is Blart. To prove their innocence or else be hounded to the four corners of the earth by a bloodthirsty army, they must locate their comrades from the original quest. Together they may stand a chance of proving that Capablanca's was an innocent mistake, by finding the answer to a great mystery — what exactly did they do with Zoltab? And how could they be so careless as to forget... And so begins another hilarious and unforgettable adventure (with pigs) and a brilliant cast of characters including newcomers Uther Slywort the merchant and sociopathic Baron Killbride.

Cursed! David was only trying to be cool when he helped some other boys steal an old lady's cane. But when the plan backfires, he is the one whom she 'curses'. Now David can't seem to do anything right. The cool kids taunt him and his only friends are weirdos. He even walks into Spanish class with his fly unzipped! And when he finally gets his nerve up to ask out a cute girl, his trousers fall down midway! But is this the curse at work or is David turning into a total loser? This work is an another witty and very clever tale by the master storyteller Louis Sachar. Other titles in this series are There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom and Dogs Don't Tell Jokes.