Jane is a young New York woman who can never seem to find the right man-perhaps because of her secret obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Predjudice. When a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-obsessed women, however, Jane's fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become more real than she ever could have imagined. Is this total immersion in a fake Austenland enough to make Jane kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr. Darcy of her own?

This is an introduction to the world's most important architects as well as a look at various architectural styles, movements and processes. It particularly concentrates on the ideas and contriubtions of 50 of the world's most influential architects and at 10 of the major movements in the field and their place in history. Some of the architects included are: Frank Lloyd Wright, Wren, Venturi and Saarinen and some of the topics covered include Modernism, Skyscrapers and Urban Planning. All in all, this is a compact, easily accessible, quick guide to the world's major architects.

A highly collectable hardback boxed set from the world of Harry Potter — containing handsome new editions of Quidditch Through the Ages, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (both in hardback for the first time) and The Tales of Beedle the Bard. The Hogwarts Library is an essential collection for any wizard or Muggle home. Eager seekers of wizard learning will find within a treasure trove of magical facts, additional notes from the esteemed Professor Albus Dumbledore, and illustrations from J.K. Rowling. Purchasers can be reassured that two charities important to J.K. Rowling — Comic Relief and Lumos — will benefit from the sale of each set. These editions are exclusively available in this boxed set.

«And the Mountains Echoed is a deeply moving new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another and how the choices we make resonate through history. A multi-generational family story revolving around brothers and sisters, it explores the ways in which they love, wound, betray, honour and sacrifice for each other. With profound wisdom, depth, insight and compassion — and moving from Kabul, to Paris, to San Francisco, to the Greek island of Tinos — Hosseini writes about the bonds that define us and shape our lives, the ways that we help our loved ones in need and how we are often surprised by the people closest to us. Khaled Hosseini, author of the global bestsellers «The Kite Runner» and «A Thousand Splendid Suns», has spent six years writing «And the Mountains Echoed», which Bloomsbury editor-in-chief Alexandra Pringle describes as 'a big book in every sense of the word. He has told half a century of history, of a land and a people, through so many different characters, all of whom the reader loves and cares for'.»

On a winter's evening in 1850, Isabella Robinson set out for a party in Edinburgh's New Town. The rich widow Lady Drysdale was a vivacious hostess, the centre of an energetic intellectual scene. In the high, airy drawing rooms Isabella was at once enchanted by Lady Drysdale's handsome son-in-law, Edward Lane. He was 'fascinating', she told her diary, before chastising herself for being so susceptible to a man's charms...In a compelling story of romance, fidelity, fantasy and the bounds of privacy, Kate Summerscale brings vividly to life a frustrated Victorian wife's longing for passion and learning, companionship and love, in a society clinging to rigid ideas about marriage and female sexuality.

What would you do if you found yourself in a fairytale? This stunning picture book guides you through a fantasy world where anything is possible. The reader is invited on a lyrical journey peopled by a cast of mythical characters, with a set of instructions that is both intriguing and reassuring. The advice for travelling through a fairytale landscape might just save you from being eaten by wolves or being lost for ever, but it is also a charming metaphor for living courageously and taking risks. Illustrated throughout with gorgeous art by Charles Vess.

A fantastic book of counting fun! A great introduction to 1-10, with beautiful illustrations and fantastic stickers. 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!

A fantastic book of alphabet fun! Beautiful illustrations and fantastic stickers right the way from A — Z. 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!

For half a century Audrey Death has been in a state of semi-consciousness. Severed from the world of the living after falling victim to Encephalitis lethargica, she has languished in Friern Barnet Mental Hospital. Then, in 1971, maverick psychiatrist Dr Zack Busner arrives. Audrey's experiences of a bygone Edwardian London: her socialist lover, her involvement with the Suffragists, and her work in a munitions factory during the First World War, alternate with Dr Busner's attempts to bring her back to life with a new and powerful drug. His investigations lead to revelations that are both shocking and tragic, and which will return to haunt him decades later.

The griffin, the sunbird, manticores, unicorns — all manner of glorious creatures never captured in zoos, museums or photographs are packed vividly into this collection of stories. Neil Gaiman has included some of his own childhood favourites alongside stories classic and modern to spark the imagination of readers young and old. All contributors have given their work free to benefit Dave Eggers' literacy charity, 826DC. Also includes a new Neil Gaiman Story.

Novelist Guy Ableman is in thrall to his vivacious wife Vanessa, a strikingly beautiful red-head, contrary, highly strung and blazingly angry. The trouble is, he is no less in thrall to her alluring mother, Poppy. More like sisters than mother and daughter, they come as a pair, a blistering presence that destroys Guy's peace of mind, suggesting the wildest stories but making it impossible for him to concentrate long enough to write any of them. Not that anyone reads Guy, anyway. Not that anyone is reading anything. Reading, Guy fears, is finished. His publisher, fearing the same, has committed suicide. His agent, like all agents, is in hiding. Vanessa, in the meantime, is writing a novel of her own. Guy doesn't expect her to finish it, or even start it, but he dreads the consequences if she does. In flight from personal disappointment and universal despair, Guy wonders if it's time to take his love for Poppy to another level. Fiction might be dead, but desire isn't. And out of that desire he imagines squeezing one more great book. By turns angry, elegiac and rude, Zoo Time is a novel about love — love of women, love of literature, love of laughter. It shows our funniest writer at his brilliant best.

Marilyn Monroe died on 5th August, 1962. Since then, the appetite for information about Monroe has proved insatiable. Lois Banner's new biography is revelatory. Banner had access to material no one else has seen, from a trove of personal papers to facts and anecdotes about her childhood and her death. Banner traces the eleven foster homes Marilyn went to, uncovering the sexual abuse she suffered and her bisexuality. She is also the first biographer to read Monroe's psychiatric records, revealing a woman deeply rooted in paradox. No biographer before has attempted to analyse — much less realise — most of these aspects of her personality. Lois Banner has.

It's chaos at the Royal Palace — the Royal Baby just won't go to sleep. Waaaaah! Waaaaah! Waaaaah! The Royal Family has tried everything to pacify the little bundle of joy — from proferring the golden royal dummy to death-defying parachute jumps with the Queen. But, just when the little one seems to be settling, another disturbance is just around the corner. From yip-yapping corgis to marching guards and noisy party planning, the palace is awash with noise. Will it ever be peaceful enough to lull the baby off to sleep? A laugh-out-loud celebration of the new addition to the Royal Family, guaranteed to raise a few giggles.

Photographer Alfred Adams was born 1 June 1896 and became an observer in WW1, taking pictures over enemy lines. He was shot down by the famous 'Red Baron' Manfred von Richthofen over France along with his pilot Donald Stewart on 5 April 1917. They landed across enemy lines and both survived as prisoners of war. The tale tells how Alfred ended up spending his 21st birthday in a German prisoner of war camp, where he was visited by the Red Baron himself. The master historical storyteller gives readers aged 7+ a fascinating look at the First World War in the air, from both sides.

A veteran soldier and a young recruit are 'celebrating' Christmas in the trenches of Flanders in 1914. They hear the enemy sing carols and watch them place Christmas Trees in the trenches opposite. They begin to shout greetings across no-man's land and end up playing an international football match. The match is hard-fought but with moments of generosity and sportsmanship on both sides. They see the 'enemy' as vulnerable humans and the officers are furious. Further unofficial truces are banned and the war goes on with bullets instead of footballs. But it's a memory that stays with young Albert long after the war. A moving and fascinating look at a very human moment of the Great War, by the master historical storyteller. Perfect for 7+.

You know what it's like when your mum goes away on a business trip and Dad's in charge. She leaves a really, really long list of what he's got to do. And the most important thing is DON'T FORGET TO GET THE MILK. Unfortunately, Dad forgets. So the next morning, before breakfast, he has to go to the corner shop, and this is the story of why it takes him a very, very long time to get back. Featuring: Professor Steg (a time-travelling dinosaur), some green globby things, the Queen of the Pirates, the famed jewel that is the Eye of Splod, some wumpires, and a perfectly normal but very important carton of milk.

Edith Piaf was one of the most greatly loved singers of the twentieth century. From the start of her exceptional career in the 1930s, her waif-like form and heart-wrenching voice endeared her first to the French, then to audiences around the globe. As she moved from her youth singing in the streets to the glamour of the Paris music-halls, Piaf formed lasting friendships with such figures as Maurice Chevalier, Jean Cocteau and Marlene Dietrich; she wrote many of her own songs, aided the Resistance in the Second World War, and mentored younger singers like Yves Montand and Charles Aznavour. Yet her path to stardom was full of tragedies — the death of her daughter in infancy; the death of Marcel Cerdan, her greatest love, in a plane crash; her many illnesses, affairs and addictions, all of which nourished her passionate performances and strengthened her enduring bond with audiences. In this mesmerising, definitive new biography Carolyn Burke gives us Piaf in her own time and place, illuminating through sympathetic readings of sources hitherto unavailable both the charm and the pathos of the ‘Little Sparrow' who enchanted generations and still enthralls us today.

A Brief Life of the Queen is a succinct, personal and beautifully illustrated biography of Elizabeth II, who has managed to remain an enigma, despite being the most recognised woman in the world. For more than thirty years Robert Lacey has been gathering material from the members of the Queen's inner circle — her friends, relatives, private secretaries and prime ministers — and the results are distilled in this elegant hardback which marks the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Tracing her life through its major stages, and uncovering her greatest personal loves and trials, A Brief Life of the Queen offers the freshness of the first-hand insights and compelling storytelling for which Robert Lacey's best-selling biographies are renowned.

Months after the Waterless Flood pandemic has wiped out most of humanity, Toby and Ren have rescued their friend Amanda from the vicious Painballers. They return to the MaddAddamite cob house, which is being fortified against man and giant Pigoon alike. Accompanying them are the Crakers, the gentle, quasi-human species engineered by the brilliant but deceased Crake. While their reluctant prophet, Jimmy — Crake's one-time friend — recovers from a debilitating fever, it's left to Toby to narrate the Craker theology, with Crake as Creator. She must also deal with cultural misunderstandings, terrible coffee and her jealousy over her lover, Zeb. Meanwhile, Zeb searches for Adam One, founder of the God's Gardeners, the pacifist green religion from which Zeb broke years ago to lead the MaddAddamites in active resistance against the destructive CorpSeCorps. Now, under threat of an imminent Painballer attack, the MaddAddamites must fight back with the aid of their newfound allies, some of whom have four trotters. At the centre is the extraordinary story of Zeb's past, which involves a lost brother, a hidden murder, a bear and a bizarre act of revenge. Combining adventure, humour, romance, superb storytelling and an imagination that is at once dazzlingly inventive and grounded in a recognisable world, MaddAddam is vintage Margaret Atwood, and a moving and dramatic conclusion to the internationally celebrated dystopian trilogy that began with Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood.

Created in 1987, the annual Epica Awards recognizes outstanding creativity in all main communication disciplines, including: TV and radio, poster design, direct marketing, branded content, PR, design, packaging, interactive and integrated campaigns. Having originally focused on Europe only, the awards became worldwide in 2012. The best work is brought together in the stunning Epica Book. Epica Book 26: Best Ads Worldwide is a lasting record of the 2012 Epica Awards and a unique source of information and inspiration for all those interested in contemporary worldwide advertising trends. Conveniently arranged by product category, Epica Book 26 includes work from creative agencies such as Y&R Dubai (Retail services), McCann Manchester (Retail services), Leo Burnett London (Food), Publicis Conseil (Drinks), BAR Lisbon (Drinks), MK Norway (Drinks), and Midttrafik Kommunikation (Transport and tourism). The 2012 Epica Awards were judged by journalists representing 41 specialist titles and websites from 34 countries, including 6 new titles from Canada, India, Singapore, China, Australia and the Philippines.