It is Moscow, in 1939. In the recesses of the infamous Lubyanka prison, a young archivist is sent to verify the authorship of an unfinished story, confiscated from one of the many political prisoners there. The writer is Isaac Babel. The great author of Red Cavalry is spending his last days forbidden to write, his final works consigned to the archivist, Pavel Dubrov — who will ultimately be charged with destroying them. Pavel, a former schoolmaster and a lover of literature, a reluctant minion in Stalin's system, makes a reckless decision: he will save the last stories of the writer he admires, whatever the cost. Pavel's daring in the face of a vast bureaucracy of evil invigorates a life that had slowly lost its meaning, even as it guarantees his almost certain undoing. A story of suspicion, courage and unexpected grace, The Archivist's Story is ultimately a tribute to the enduring power of the written word.

Twink is looking forward to her second year Summer term, but when she gets to Peony Branch she is surprised to see a new fairy, Jax. And then unpleasant pranks start being played in the Branch — the rosepetal duvet covers are torn to shreds and homework is stolen. Could it be something to do with the new girl? Or is it something more complicated than that? Glitterwings Academy is a lovingly created series by acclaimed author Lee Weatherly, writing as Titania Woods. Readers of the series can be assured of accomplished narrative, as well as stylish and exciting illustration.

It is the beginning of the summer term, and there is a big surprise for the third years — a very special treasure hunt! But even though the rest of the third years are very excited, Twink cannot find it in her heart to enjoy it. Twink's grandmother is very ill. She is in 'the Doldrums' which is an unshakeable sadness and nobody seems able to find the right 'shock of joy' that will bring her back to good health. Will Twink be able to think of something to help her beloved grandmother? Glitterwings Academy is a lovingly created series by acclaimed author Lee Weatherly, writing as Titania Woods. Readers of the series can be assured of accomplished narrative, as well as stylish and exciting illustration.

Far away, in the ancient empire of Greater Fallowfields, things are falling apart. The imperial orchestra is presided over by a conductor who has never played a note, the clocks are changed constantly to ensure that the sun always sets at five o' clock, and the Astronomer Royal is only able to use the observatory telescope when he can find a sixpence to put in its slot. But while the kingdom drifts, awaiting the return of the young emperor, who has gone abroad and communicates only by penny post, a sinister and unfamiliar enemy is getting closer and closer... A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked In is a surreal portrait of a world that, although strange and distant, contains rather too many similarities to our own for the alien not to become brilliantly familiar and disturbingly close to home. It is comic writing at its best — and it is Magnus Mills's most ambitious, enjoyable and rewarding novel to date.

In 1962, when Walter Cousins sleeps with his British au pair, Diane Burroughs, he can have no sense of the magnitude of his error: this brief affair sets in motion a tragedy of epic proportions, upending Sophocles's immortal tale of fate, free will, and forbidden desire. At the centre is Ed King, an infant given up for adoption who becomes one of the world's most powerful men. But beneath the gripping story of Ed's seemingly inexorable rise to fame and fortune is a dark and unsettling destiny, one that approaches with ever-increasing suspense as the novel reaches its shattering conclusion.

Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister, eleven-year-old Harrison Opoku lives on the ninth floor of a block of flats on a London housing estate. The second best runner in the whole of Year 7, Harri races through his new life in his personalised trainers — the Adidas stripes drawn on with marker pen — blissfully unaware of the very real threat all around him. With equal fascination for the local gang — the Dell Farm Crew — and the pigeon who visits his balcony, Harri absorbs the many strange elements of his new life in England: watching, listening, and learning the tricks of inner-city survival. But when a boy is knifed to death on the high street and a police appeal for witnesses draws only silence, Harri decides to start a murder investigation of his own. In doing so, he unwittingly endangers the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to try and keep them safe. A story of innocence and experience, hope and harsh reality, Pigeon English is a spellbinding portrayal of a boy balancing on the edge of manhood and of the forces around him that try to shape the way he falls.

Filled with fabulous photographs, this book is a stunning fashion retrospective of the iconic and well-loved rock star. Apart from documenting five decades of Bowie's unique sense of style, it also discusses the cultural and artistic influences that have shaped him, and how he has influenced others in turn.

Action-packed fantasy romance with a heroine as deadly as she is beautiful, in a world where either fact could make her fortune or seal her fate. Celaena Sardothien is a daredevil assassin with unrivalled fighting skills. After a year's hard labour in the salt mines of the kingdom of Endovier, Celaena is offered her freedom on one condition — she must fight as handsome Prince Dorian's champion in a contest sponsored by the king, facing the deadliest thieves and assassins in the land in a series of set-piece battles in the country's stunning glass palace. But there is more at stake than even her life — for Celaena is destined for a remarkable future...

D-Day, 6 June 1944, the turning point of the Second World War, was a victory of arms. But it was also a triumph for a different kind of operation: one of deceit... At the heart of the deception was the Double Cross System, a team of double agents whose bravery, treachery, greed and inspiration succeeded in convincing the Nazis that Calais and Norway, not Normandy, were the targets of the 150,000-strong Allied invasion force. These were not conventional warriors, but their masterpiece of deceit saved thousands of lives. Their codenames were Bronx, Brutus, Treasure, Tricycle and Garbo. This is their story.

Bloomsbury is proud to be the global publisher of In Darkness, a stunning tour-de-force set in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake. Shorty is a Haitian boy trapped in the ruins of a hospital when the earth explodes around him. Surrounded by lifeless bodies and growing desperately weak from lack of food and water, death seems imminent. Yet as Shorty waits in darkness for a rescue that may never come, he becomes aware of another presence, one reaching out to him across two hundred years of history. It is the presence of slave and revolutionary leader Toussaint L'Ouverture, whose life was marred by violence, and whose own end came in darkness. What unites a child of the slums with the man who would shake a troubled country out of slavery? Is it the darkness they share... or is it hope? Raw, harrowing, and peopled with vibrant characters, In Darkness is an extraordinary book about the cruelties of man and nature, and the valiant, ongoing struggle for a country's very survival.

Deep in the forest, a very large and very selfish crocodile shouts, 'Stay away from my river! If you come in my river, I'll eat you all'. All the animals are thirsty and frightened — until one day... Put the jigsaw puzzles together to discover how the animals solve their snappy dilemma! This fantastic jigsaw storybook includes six puzzles with press-out pieces that neatly fit back into the book to be used again and again.

Greece in the age of Heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia. Here he is nobody, just another unwanted boy living in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. Achilles, 'best of all the Greeks', is everything Patroclus is not — strong, beautiful, the child of a goddess — and by all rights their paths should never cross. Yet one day, Achilles takes the shamed prince under his wing and soon their tentative companionship gives way to a steadfast friendship. As they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something far deeper — despite the displeasure of Achilles's mother Thetis, a cruel and deathly pale sea goddess with a hatred of mortals. Fate is never far from the heels of Achilles. When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the men of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows Achilles into war, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they have learned, everything they hold dear. And that, before he is ready, he will be forced to surrender his friend to the hands of Fate. Profoundly moving and breathtakingly original, this rendering of the epic Trojan War is a dazzling feat of the imagination, a devastating love story, and an almighty battle between gods and kings, peace and glory, immortal fame and the human heart.

When oxygen levels plunge in a treeless world, a state lottery decides which lucky few will live inside the Pod. Everyone else will slowly suffocate. Years after the Switch, life inside the Pod has moved on. A poor Auxiliary class cannot afford the oxygen tax which supplies extra air for running, dancing and sports. The rich Premiums, by contrast, are healthy and strong. Anyone who opposes the regime is labelled a terrorist and ejected from the Pod to die. Sixteen-year-old Alina is part of the secret resistance, but when a mission goes wrong she is forced to escape from the Pod. With only two days of oxygen in her tank, she too faces the terrifying prospect of death by suffocation. Her only hope is to find the mythical Grove, a small enclave of trees protected by a hardcore band of rebels. Does it even exist, and if so, what or who are they protecting the trees from? A dystopian thriller about courage and freedom, with a love story at its heart.

Last year J. Randy Taraborrelli wrote a bestselling book entitled The Secret Life of Marilyn. His is the most recent of dozens written since Marilyn's death in August of 1962 and yet the appetite for information about Marilyn is insatiable. No matter whether sensational or flawed, as most of these biographies have been, the fans always come out, in best-selling numbers. This time, with Lois Banner's Revelations, Marilyn's fans won't be disappointed. This is no re-tread of recycled material. As one of the founders of the field of women's history, Lois Banner reveals Marilyn Monroe in the way that only a top-notch historian and biographer could. Banner appreciates the complexities of Monroe's personal life in the context of her achievements as an actor, singer, dancer, comedian, model and courtesan. And the new information she unearths is revelatory. Banner's credentials opened doors and she has access to material no one else has seen, from the so called Rosetta stones of Monroe research (two large file cabinets filled with a trove of personal papers), to an interview with a member of the Kennedy secret service detail who shared what he witnessed for the first time, to facts and anecdotes about her childhood and her death and every stage of her life in between that were either missed or ignored or misinterpreted. Like her art, Marilyn's self was rooted in paradox: she was a powerful star and a child-like waif, a joyful, irreverent party girl with a deeply spiritual side; a superb friend and a narcisist; a dumb blonde and an intellectual. No biographer before has attempted to analyze — much less realized — most of these aspects of her personality. Lois Banner has.

The British Empire was the creation of a tremendous outpouring of energy and opportunism, when the British were at their most self-confident, and the wealth they gathered was prodigious. At its heart lay a sense of the rectitude of the British way of life, meted out to vast swathes of the rest of the world without let or hindrance. Yet, as this book shows, the empire was not formed by coherent policy, and its decline reflected this: its later years were characterised by a series of accidental oversights, decisions taken without due consideration for the consequences, and uncertain pragmatism. Many of the world's trouble spots are those left behind by the chaotic retreat of empire, and its ghosts continue to haunt today's international scene. The problems the empire encountered have still not been resolved and in Iraq, Kashmir, Burma, Sudan, Nigeria and Hong Kong new difficulties have arisen which continue to baffle politicians and diplomats. This powerful new book addresses the realities of the British Empire from its inception to its demise, questioning the nature of its glory and cataloguing both the inadequacies of its ideals and the short-termism of its actions.

The ultimate Christmas activity book! Packed full of festive activities and stickers for hours of holiday fun. Bloomsbury Activity Books is an exciting new Bloomsbury brand designed to provide hours of colouring, doodling, stickering and activity fun for boys and girls alike. Every book includes enchanting, bright and beautiful illustrations which children and parents will find very hard to resist. Perfect for providing entertainment at home or on the move!

Through a highly original and detailed analysis of the memoirs, interviews and other life writings of Poiret, Dior and Schiaparelli, this book explores changing notions of femininity in the early decades of the 20th century, when the democratization of fashion began. Examining the idea of modernity, eternity and the ephemeral in the writings of these haute couturiers, the book reflects on fashion's ambivalent approach to women, which both celebrated and vilified them, presenting them as both ultra modern style leaders and irrational creatures stuck in the past. This fascinating text is key reading for scholars and students of fashion, gender studies, cultural studies and history.

This brilliant little book of Christmas is packed full of activities and stickers for hours of festive fun. From mazes and puzzles through to colouring and picture sudoku, this is the ultimate Christmas activity book! Bloomsbury Activity Books is an exciting new Bloomsbury brand designed to provide hours of colouring, doodling, stickering and activity fun for boys and girls alike. Every book includes enchanting, bright and beautiful illustrations which children and parents will find very hard to resist. Perfect for providing entertainment at home or on the move!

Amy Chua's daughters, Sophia and Louisa (Lulu) were polite, interesting and helpful, they had perfect school marks and exceptional musical abilities. The Chinese-parenting model certainly seemed to produce results. But what happens when you do not tolerate disobedience and are confronted by a screaming child who would sooner freeze outside in the cold than be forced to play the piano? Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs. It was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how you can be humbled by a thirteen-year-old. Witty, entertaining and provocative, this is a unique and important book that will transform your perspective of parenting forever.

Since fossils first revealed a prehistoric world filled with Terrible Lizards, humans have been fascinated by dinosaurs. This fantastic volume packs in every intriguing dinosaur fact from their evolution to extinction — with pictures — for a riveting and funny experience. What could possibly be larger than a Giganotosaurus? Discover the biggest, deadliest, fastest and stupidest dinosaurs (although they were all fairly stupid). Learn what Earth would have looked like, how fossils have revealed the past, and which dinosaur descendants have survived to the present day.