Read the story behind the beloved film — now available in Essential Modern Classics. In Prohibition-era New York City, Fat Sam runs one of the most popular speakeasies in town — but his rival Dandy Dan is trying to shut him down. It's up to the baby-faced Bugsy Malone to save the day! Packed with thrills and spills (and more than a few custard pies and splurge guns), this is a mobster story with a twist — the stars are kids!

A brilliant memoir from the celebrated Chilean novelist on friends, family and life in California, her adopted home. Isabel Allende has sold more than 50 million copies of her books worldwide. The most beloved and successful of her books, 'The House of the Spirits', was based on her Chilean childhood, and her autobiographical works include the deeply moving 'Paula' — a family history written at the bedside of her daughter while she lay in a coma — and the fascinating 'My Invented Country', which explored the events of her native Chile where she lived until Pinochet's military coup. Now, in 'The Sum of the Days', we have Isabel describe in an exceptionally vivid, human and deeply personal way her life in California where she has lived for more than 25 years. The first page picks up from where Paula ends — her daughter never did wake up from her coma and died in 1992 — when Allende recounts spreading Paula's ashes in her favourite part of the woods by their home. It is fair to say that Isabel has never recovered from losing her daughter but has managed to survive by keeping her husband, son, grandchildren as well as close friends — kindred spirits — central to her life. 'The Sum of the Days', based on Allende's own journals and daily correspondence with her mother in Chile, reveals the author to be a dazzling, generous, warm and hysterically funny matriarch within her swirl of family and friends.

The second psychological thriller from No 1 bestselling Swedish crime sensation Camilla Lackberg. In the fishing community of Fjallbacka, life is remote, peaceful — and for some, tragically short. Foul play was always suspected in the disappearance twenty years ago of two young holidaymakers in the area. Now a young boy out playing has confirmed this grim truth. Their remains, discovered with those of a fresh victim, send the town into shock. Local detective Patrik Hedstrom, expecting a baby with his girlfriend Erica, can only imagine what it is like to lose a child. When a second young girl goes missing, Hedstrom's attention focuses on the Hults, a feuding clan of misfits, relgious fanatics and criminals. The suspect list is long but time is short — which of this family's dark secrets will provide the vital clue?

From the time she appeared in National Velvet, the film that skyrocketed her to international fame at age twelve in 1944, until her death, Elizabeth Taylor's beauty, allure, and personal strength captivated the world. In a career that spanned more than sixty years, she brought her raw talent and magnetism to bear in now classic films such as Father of the Bride, Suddenly, Last Summer, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Giant, Cleopatra, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Off screen, she lived just as passionately. That intensity brought her enormous joy and pain—and notoriety, whether it was from her vast collections of extraordinary fine jewelry and art to her battles with addiction and ill heath, from her internationally recognized humanitarian efforts on behalf of AIDS to her scandalous love affairs and seven highly scrutinized marriages. This anthology reveals the candor and honesty with which the actress led her extraordinary life. Here are Elizabeth's first-person reflections on her childhood, career, love and marriages, motherhood, beauty, aging, extravagances, charity, and sense of self. Whether witty or poignant, these words are always demonstrative of her generous, unapologetic, and fiercely determined nature, reflecting the essence of a great star and legendary modern woman.

In small, stunningly rendered self–portraits, Mexican artist Frida Kahlo painted herself cracked open, hemorrhaging during a miscarriage, anesthetized on a hospital gurney, and weeping beside her own extracted heart. Her works are so incendiary in emotion and subject matter that one art critic suggested the walls of an exhibition be covered with asbestos. In this beautiful book, art historian Hayden Herrera brings together numerous paintings and sketches by the amazing Mexican artist, documenting each with explanatory text that probes the influences in Kahlo‘s life and their meaning for her work. Included among the illustrations are more than eighty full–color paintings, as well as dozens of black–and–white pictures and line illustrations. Among the famous and little–known works included in Frida Kahlo: The Paintings are The Two Fridas, Self–Portrait as a Tehuana, Without Hope, The Dream, The Little Deer, Diego and I, Henry Ford Hospital, My Birth, and My Nurse and I. Here, too, are documentary photographs of Frida Kahlo and her world that help to illuminate the various stages of her life.

New York Times bestselling master of suspense Steve Martini returns, ensnaring defense attorney Paul Madriani in a web of terror and death being spun in the shadows of America's most sacred and secretive institution — the Supreme Court. A writer is savagely slain while on a publicity tour — a literary provocateur who craved headlines, but whose last book may have gone too far. His revelations about secret language buried in the U.S. Constitution — and hints about an explosive missing letter of Thomas Jefferson's — may be enough to cause an irreparable tear in the fabric of the nation... and perhaps drove a volatile youth to homicide. But Paul Madriani thinks a troubled young man with dark connections has been chosen as a scapegoat to cover up something far deadlier that festers in America's political heart. And in the wake of the strange disappearance of a Supreme Court judge, Madriani must survive long enough to find the devastating answers hidden in the shadow of power.

Continuing the impressive debut fantasy series from author Peter V. Brett, The Desert Spear is book two of the Demon trilogy, pulling the reader into a world of demons, darkness and heroes. The Deliverer has returned, but who is he? Arlen Bales, formerly of the small hamlet of Tibbet's Brook, learnt harsh lessons about life as he grew up in a world where hungry demons stalk the night and humanity is trapped by its own fear. He chose a different path; chose to fight inherited apathy and the corelings, and eventually he became the Painted Man, a reluctant saviour. But the figure emerging from the desert, calling himself the Deliverer, is not Arlen. He is a friend and betrayer, and though he carries the spear from the Deliverer's tomb, he also heads a vast army intent on a holy war against the demon plague! and anyone else who stands in his way.

Seven short stories from bestselling author Tony Parsons, based on his week as Writer in Residence at Heathrow airport. Here is Heathrow as it has never been seen before — a secret city populated by the 75 million travellers who pass through every year, a place where journeys and dreams end — and begin. From the brilliant twenty-something kids who control the skies up in Air Traffic Control to the softly-spoken man who cares for the dogs, lions and smuggled rattlesnakes at Heathrow's Animal Reception Centre, from the immigration officers who have heard it all before to the firemen who hone their skills by setting the green plane on fire, from the armed police who watch for terrorist attacks to the pilots who have touched the face of god — Heathrow teems with life. In Departures, his first collection of short stories, Tony Parsons takes us deep inside the secret city.

A hilarious new animal story from Ian Whybrow about a burrow of meerkat pups and their eccentric babysitter While the grown-ups of the meerkat clan are out looking for food, young pup Jack and his siblings are left with a babysitter. Their favourite is ex media meerkat Uncle Adrian. He might be a bit of a show-off but he tells long funny stories from the time he was the star of a hit wildlife show. One day Jack talks Adrian into taking the pups on a tour of famous locations from the programme. But while Adrian gets carried away remembering his glory days, a deadly predator is stalking the group, hoping to carry one of them away for lunch! A hilarious story about ever-endearing meerkats from the creator of the Little Wolf books.

For the first time in a single combined B format, a new edition of Agatha Christie's eight stage plays, published to coincide with the 60th Anniversary Year of The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in history. THE MOUSETRAP, the longest-running play in the history of London's West End, begins its 60th Year run on 25 November 2011. This new edition of eight works show how Agatha Christie's plays are as compulsive as her novels, their colourful characters and ingenious plots providing yet more evidence of her mastery of the detective thriller. THE MOUSETRAP A homicidal maniac terrorizes a group of snowbound guests to the refrain of 'Three Blind Mice'! AND THEN THERE WERE NONE Ten guilty people, brought together on an island in mysterious circumstances, await their sentence! APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH The suffocating heat of an exotic Middle-Eastern setting provides a backdrop for murder! THE HOLLOW A set of friends convene at a country home where their convoluted relationships mean that any one of them could be a murderer! WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION A stunning courtroom drama in whicha scheming wife testifies against her husband in a shocking murder trial. TOWARDS ZERO A psychopathic murderer homes in on the unsuspecting victims in a seaside house perched high on a cliff overlooking the Devonshire River Tern. VERDICT Passion and love are the deadly ingredients in this thriller in which a murder causes an unexpected chain of events. GO BACK FOR MURDER When Carla comes of age and discovers that her late mother was imprisoned for murdering her father, she is determined to prove her innocence.

Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen demonstrates in the most revolutionary business hook in years why outstanding companies that did everything right — were in tune with the competition, listened to customers, and invested aggressively in new technologies — still lost their market leadership when confronted with disruptive changes in technology and market structure... and he tells how to avoid a similar fate as business races online into the 21st century. The Innovator's Dilemma eloquently demonstrates a shattering paradox — that the best of conventional good business practices can ultimately weaken a great firm. Over time, mainstream customers will initially reject important breakthroughs or disruptive technologies, leading firms to allow strategic innovations to languish. The solution? Create a subsidiary entirely focused on the emerging market, one that is free to be visionary while courting an unorthodox customer base and staying poised to catch the next great wave of industry growth. Sharp, cogent, and provocative, The Innovator's Dilemma is one of the most talked-about business books of our time — and something that none of today's executives will dare to be without.

The prophetic debut novel from the visionary author fo LITTLE BROTHER, now published for the first time in the UK. Jules is a young man barely a century old. He's lived long enough to see the cure for death and the end of scarcity, to learn ten languages and compose three symphonies and to realize his boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World. Disney World! The greatest artistic achievement of the long-ago twentieth century. Now overseen by a network of 'ad hocs' who keep the classic attractions running as they always have, enhanced with only the smallest high-tech touches. But the ad hocs are under attack. A new group has taken over the Hall of Presidents and is replacing its venerable audioanimatronics with new, immersive direct-to-brain interfaces that give guests the illusion of being Washington, Lincoln and all the others. For Jules, this is an attack on the artistic purity of Disney World itself. Worse: it appears that this new group has had Jules killed. This upsets him. (It's only his fourth death and revival after all.) Now it's war.

What does the future look like? A brilliantly entertaining and original novel about the end of the economy from the visionary author of Little Brother. Perry and Lester invent things. All sorts of things. Seashell robots that make toast, Boogie Woogie Elmo dolls that drive cars. They also invent an entirely new economic system. 'New Work' is a New Deal for the technological era. Soon barefoot bankers are criss-crossing the nation, microinvesting in high-tech communal start-ups like Perry and Lester's. Together they transform a country, and journalist Suzanne Church is there to document it. But a new economic system requires a whole new belief system — and there are plenty of non-believers out there. The New Work bust puts the dot.com-bomb to shame and soon Perry and Lester are out of funds and out of business. Down but not out, they go back to what they do best — making stuff. But when a rogue Disney executive grows jealous of their once more soaring popularity and convinces the police that their amazing 3-D printers are being used to run off AK-47s, things get very dark very quickly! This brilliantly entertaining and original novel from the visionary author of Little Brother fizzes with bold ideas about the future and how our lives will look as part of it. But at its heart are three characters, Perry, Lester and Suzanne, on an unforgettable journey that will bring them together only to break them apart as they each try to discover how to live meaningfully in an ever-changing world filled with both beauty and horror — where some things really are immutable!

For the first time in English, the third psychological thriller from No 1 bestselling Swedish crime sensation Camilla Lackberg. The remote resort of Fjallbacka has seen its share of tragedy, though perhaps none worse than that of the little girl found in a fisherman's net. But the post-mortem reveals that this is no case of accidental drowning! Local detective Patrik Hedstrom has just become a father. It is his grim task to discover who could be behind the methodical murder of a child both he and his partner, Erica, knew well. He knows the real question — and answer — lies with why. What he does not know is how this case will reach into the dark heart of Fjallbacka and the town's past, and tear aside its idyllic facade, perhaps forever.

From the premier Norwegian thriller writer comes a brilliant and epic novel shocking in its scope and design — and America's introduction to the infamous detective Harry Hole.

The mice of Brambly Hedge made their first appearance in 1980 when the four seasonal stories were published. Ever since, readers have loved exploring the miniature world of the hedgerow and meeting the families that live there. In this collection the mice have many adventures, but they always have time for fun and relaxation too. Whatever the season, and whether they are by the sea, in the High Hills, or simply at home by the fire, there is always someone ready to lend a helping hand.

A 75th Anniversary boxed set of Tolkien's four books, telling the complete story of Bilbo Baggins and the Hobbits' epic encounters with Gandalf, Gollum, and the quest to destroy the One Ring. Since they were first published, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have been two books people have treasured. Steeped in unrivalled magic and otherworldliness, these works of sweeping fantasy have touched the hearts of young and old alike. Between them, more than 150 million copies have been sold around the world. This new boxed set, published to mark the 75th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit, offers readers a new opportunity to discover Tolkien's remarkable world of Middle-earth and to follow the complete story of Bilbo Baggins and the Hobbits' part in the epic quest for the Ring — beginning with Bilbo's fateful visit from Gandalf and culminating in the dramatic climax between Frodo and Gollum atop Mount Doom and Bilbo's departure to the Grey Havens.

Already a movie in production by Dreamworks and an Autum 2010 Indie Next List pick, I AM NUMBER FOUR is the first book in an immensely gripping, actionpacked series about six alien teenagers hiding on Earth, on the run from an evil force bent on eliminating them. The events in this book are real. Names and places have been changed to protect the Lorien Six, who remain in hiding. Take this as your first warning. Other civilizations do exist. Some of them seek to destroy you. John Smith seems like an ordinary teenager, living an ordinary life with his guardian Henri in Paradise, Ohio. But for John, keeping a low profile is essential, for as soon as he gets any attention, John and Henri are on the road again, looking for a new town to settle in. Because John is NOT an ordinary teenager. Hes an alien from the planet Lorien, and hes on the run. A group of evil aliens from the planet Mogadore who destroyed Lorien are on the hunt for anyone who escaped their wrath the first time around. There were nine teenagers hiding on Earth — and the first three are dead. John knows hes next...

The final episode in the trilogy that began with the million-copy bestseller MAN AND BOY Ten years on from MAN AND BOY, it is crunch time for Harry! Life is good for Harry Silver. He has a beautiful wife, three wonderful children and a great job as producer of the cult radio show, A Clip Round the Ear. But Harry is about to turn forty and his ex-wife is back in town. Soon it could be time to kiss the good life goodbye! When Harry's fifteen-year-old son Pat moves out to live with his mother, the hard times have only just begun. With his son gone, his job at risk and his wife unsettled by the reappearance of her own ex, their dream seems to be falling apart. Into the chaos of Harry Silver's life stroll two old soldiers who fought alongside Harry's late father in The Battle of Monte Cassino in the spring of 1944. Will these two grumpy old men help Harry reclaim his son, his family and his life? And can they show Harry Silver what it really means to be a man? Funny, moving and unforgettable, MEN FROM THE BOYS is a story of how we live now.