Every ardent bookworm will devour this powerful novel which celebrates the power of books and libraries to change people's lives. In the darkness of war, the light of books, the novel is about how librarians defied the Nazis. In Paris 1939, Odile Souchet has her dream job at the American Library in Paris, with its thriving community of students, writers and book lovers. It is a dream come true, but when war is declared, the Library is determined to remain open. But then the Nazis invade Paris and everything changes. In Occupied Paris, choices as black and white as the words on a page become a murky shade of grey - choices that will put many on the wrong side of history, and the consequences of which will echo for decades to come. Montana, 1983 and Lily is a lonely teenager desperate to escape small-town America. She grows close to her neighbour Odile, discovering they share the same love of language, but Lily uncovers more about Odile's mysterious past, and discovers a dark secret, closely guarded and long hidden. Based on the true WW2 story of the heroic librarians at the American Library in Paris, this is an unforgettable novel of romance, friendship, family and of heroism found in the quietest of places. Heart-breaking and heart lifting in turn, this is an utterly charming worldwide bestseller. 422pp, paperback.

Unlucky with her job choices and full of bad language, be prepared for a quick read and plenty of bitching, lying, high salary, office romances and sleezy behaviour. Life as the Personal Assistant to some of the most wealthy and powerful men in the country is a poisoned chalice. As the first line of communication between the big boss and the outside world, a PA also becomes the last frontier of secrecy, confidentiality and trust. Given the right boss, an exhilarating working life can blossom but with the wrong boss it can become a living hell. Surely we know that you get more work out of people if they feel respected and valued? Not here! Victoria Knowles's unique inside perspective as a woman fighting to thrive in a vice-filled world dominated by men is revealing, scandalous and a shocking exposé about the men who have everything and still want more. Beware she cries a lot in this sobbing memoir. The high-flying city boss lifestyle has been scrutinised many times in the press with revelations of sexist bullying, elicit affairs and pornography in the office, and here is a furious memoir about Victoria's decade working in the City of London. 296pp, paperback.

Smartly packaged in bottle green slipcase are 60 sturdy puzzle cards to quiz family and friends. The puzzles are linked to real world science, so you learn as you go through. Are there rainbows on the Moon? Can the Moon's light also produce a rainbow here on Earth? How do I make a toy boat? Does wind affect my mind? How could I tell if an egg is raw? How do you drive on ice? How do you walk on a tightrope? Should I run through the rain? How do you burst a barrel? Why do boomerangs come back? Why does a golf ball have dimples? Why do your feet feel cold on a wooden floor and of course how do you get an egg into a bottle? Bizarre, weird and wonderful puzzles from the world of science, each card has the full answer on the reverse. Perfect for organising that quiz night.

The Front Row and Loose End journalist and comedy writer has hosted quizzes for over 15 years and here is his 'quite difficult' quiz book including Christmas Specials, Pop, Literature and Comedy. It is a book full of more than 250 rounds, questions, facts and trivia, oddities and brain-prodders and most of all ideas in a practical quiz book where all the extras you will need are people, pens and paper (and drinks and snacks) to educate, illuminate and infuriate. Please name the shows/movies/books of which these claim to be prequels: First of the Summer Wine, The Magician's Nephew, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Red Dragon, The Silmarillion, The Wide Sargasso Sea, Wicked, Rock and Chips, Manhunter, The Flashman Papers. Plus picture rounds, audio, and how to be a good quiz master. 245pp, 264 rounds and a whopping 2155 questions, and thankfully answers.

Sub-titled '50 Places That Made Literary History', our literary journey begins in the British Isles and takes us to Paris, St Petersburg, New York, Saigon and Bangkok, and unearths the real-life places behind our best-loved works of fiction. Mourby explores 50 rooms where great works of literature first saw the light of day, from the Brontës' Yorkshire parsonage to the New Orleans of Truman Capote, Christopher Isherwood's Berlin to the now legendary café where J. K. Rowling plotted Harry Potter's first adventures. In Italy we see George Sand, Thomas Mann, Ernest Hemingway, John Keats, Henry James and E. M. Forster. In Northern England and North Wales William Wordsworth, Beatrix Potter, Ted Hughes and Noël Coward, in London Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde and Rudyard Kipling; in Oxford Lewis Carroll, J. R. R. Tolkien and William Morris. In East Asia Lascadio Hearn, G. B. Shaw, Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene. Virginia Woolfe famously said that, if she is to write fiction, "a woman must have money and a room of her own". Here is the Room with A View that E. M. Forster coveted in Florence, but not every great writer or every room that has witnessed great literature had a view or has made it into these 50 chapters. H. G. Wells set one of his bestselling works Mr Britling Sees It Through in his own house in Essex. Olivia Manning used her own Cairo flat in the Levant Trilogy and James Joyce wrote exclusively about Dublin while sitting in his favourite Paris restaurants. Oscar Wilde liked to write and entertain in expensive hotels, but Hemingway and Noël Coward stayed in the best hotels around the world simply because they could. They could all write well regardless of their surroundings. 50 literary pilgrimages, 245pp in well illustrated paperback.

In the famous Teach Yourself yellow learning series, here is the ultimate guide to becoming an English as a Foreign Language teacher with what to teach in English and how. Now fully revised to include insights from teachers working around the world, up-to-date information on technology as an aid to learning, comprehensive guidance on the increasingly popular task-based learning, invaluable advice on making the transition from learning to teaching, clear guidance on ongoing professional development and useful examples of teaching in different international contexts. Packed with info on teaching techniques, classroom management, practical lesson planning, successful job hunting and career development. With fantastic topics like fluency versus accuracy, lesson aims, unexpected problems, teaching one to one, grammar and conditional sentences, language terminology and useful glossary and much more. 270 page paperback with clear headers and layout.

'Absorbing, terrifying, beautiful and appalling. I loved it... Unforgettable.' - Ruth Rendell. 15 years after their divorce, Susan Morrow receives a strange gift from her ex-husband - a manuscript that tells the story of a terrible crime, of an ambush on the highway, of a secluded cabin in the woods. It is a chilling tale of death and corruption, written by the man she once loved. Why after so long has he sent her a disturbing and personal message? This book is a lost masterpiece of American literature, a dazzling and multi-layered novel of marriage, literature, fear and revenge written by the New York novelist and academic who died in 2003 at the age of 80. A very classy reprint with unusual cut-out jacket, 374pp in paperback.

The blockbuster from 1983 which has become the UK's second longest ever running stage play by the undoubted mistress of the modern ghost story. Arthur Kipps, a junior solicitor, is summoned to attend the funeral of Mrs Alice Drablow, the sole inhabitant of Eel Marsh House. He travels to the remote village to put the affairs of his client in order and as he works alone in her isolated house, he begins to uncover disturbing secrets. His unease grows when he glimpses a mysterious woman dressed in black. The locals are strangely unwilling to talk about the unsettling occurrence, and Kipps is forced to uncover the true identity of the Woman in Black on his own, leading to a desperate race against time when he discovers her true identity, and her terrible purpose. 200 page paperback.

By the bestselling author of the popular Railway Detective series, this is one of his thrilling mysteries for the Bow Street Rivals. 1817. Having received an anonymous message informing her that her estranged father is dead and buried, Clemency van Emden arrives from Holland desperate to visit his final resting place. A chance encounter on a busy London street leads her to twin detectives Peter and Paul Skillen who agree to help her unravel the mystery of her father's last days. When the body of her father is discovered to be missing from its casket, the Bow Street Rivals will embark on a chase of grave robbers, funerary agents and Good Samaritans to unearth the truth. London is awash with beggars, haunting the riverside, lurking in doorways and descending on St Paul's Cathedral like a swarm of locusts. 350pp in paperback.

From the Pen & Sword Military Books (Your Towns and Cities in World War Two) series the book does in fact cover the Tower of London which not technically in the City but within Tower Hamlets, and we take a brief look inside its walls and read about the story of the last person to be executed there. The book looks at different areas of the City such as Guildhall, St Paul's Cathedral, St Bartholomew's Hospital, the Blitz and the devastating effect of that eight month period of time between 7th September 1940 and 21st May 1941. The worst raid took place on 29th December 1941 when the German Luftwaffe dropped hundreds of incendiary devices on the historic buildings and homes of the nation's capital. The book also looks at the London Underground and why initially the government refused to allow these train stations to be used as air raid shelters, and the devastating effect a direct hit had on one of them. The City of London was always going to be an obvious target for German bombers and a way to spread fear and panic among the British people. Although not vastly populated, there would still be enough people working there during the day for attacks on it to take their toll. The City's ancient and iconic buildings also bore the brunt of the German bombs including churches designed by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire in 1666. Read about the bravery of the staff at St Barts which was one of the medical facilities that remained open during the course of the war, and the sterling work carried out by the City's civilian population and the different voluntary roles including the Home Guard, and the Fire Watchers who spent their nights on the city's rooftops looking out for incendiary devices dropped by the German Luftwaffe. The book covers the regiments of the City of London, memorials and the London Clearing Banks. 170 large page paperback, well illus.