What does it take to lead a team to world-class success over a sustained period of time? Sir Alex Ferguson is one of the few leaders who truly knows. In his 38 years in management, Sir Alex won an astonishing 49 trophies and helped grow Manchester United into one of the biggest commercial brands in the world. In this inspirational and straight-talking new book, Sir Alex reveals the secrets behind his record-breaking career. LEADING is structured around the key skills that Sir Alex values most highly. It includes subjects we immediately associate with his managerial style: Discipline, Control, Teamwork and Motivation. But it also addresses subjects that are less obvious but no less important when seeking success: Delegation, Data Analysis and Dealing with Failure. Written with the investor Sir Michael Moritz, a longstanding friend of Sir Alex, LEADING is packed with insight, wisdom, humour and honesty. The individual stories inevitably concern themselves with football, and the phenomenal success that came along the way, but the lessons can be applied by anyone. Whether you run a business, teach in a classroom, or work in a small team, LEADING will help you become a better leader.

My first English lesson was grammar with the terrifying Mrs Petrie. She spent the entire time marching up and down the classroom, thwacking various items of school furniture with a ruler while she banged on about the ING part of the verb. I sat there, vibrating with fear, desperately trying to figure out what on earth she could mean. Irregular Negative Gerund? Intransitive Nominative Genitive? It was only years later, when I was teaching English to foreign students, that I realised that English grammar wasn't obscure and wilfully difficult but a fascinating subject which I was already brilliant at — and this book will prove that you are too. Forget the little you think you know about English grammar and start afresh with this highly entertaining and accessible guide. English for the Natives outlines the rules and structures of our language as they are taught to foreign students — and have never before been explained to us. Harry Ritchie also examines the grammar of dialects as well as standard English and shows how non-standard forms are just as valid. With examples from a wide variety of sources, from Ali G to John Betjeman, Margaret Thatcher to Match of the Day, this essential book reveals some surprising truths about our language and teaches you all the things you didn't know you knew about grammar.

Conner Bailey thinks his fairy-tale adventures are behind him — until he discovers a mysterious clue left by the famous Brothers Grimm. With help from his classmate Bree and the outlandish Mother Goose, Conner sets off on a mission across Europe to crack a two-hundred-year-old code. Meanwhile, Alex Bailey is training to become the next Fairy Godmother... but her attempts at granting wishes never go as planned. Will she ever be truly ready to lead the Fairy Council? When all signs point to disaster for the Land of Stories, Conner and Alex must join forces with their friends and enemies to save the day. But nothing can prepare them for the coming battle... or for the secret that will change the twins' lives forever. The third book in the bestselling Land of Stories series puts the twins to the test as they must bring two worlds together!

On her 26th birthday, Dana and her husband are moving into their apartment when she starts to feel dizzy. She falls to her knees, nauseous. Then the world falls away. She finds herself at the edge of a green wood by a vast river. A child is screaming. Wading into the water, she pulls him to safety, only to find herself face to face with a very old looking rifle, in the hands of the boy's father. She's terrified. The next thing she knows she's back in her apartment, soaking wet. It's the most terrifying experience of her life... until it happens again. The longer Dana spends in 19th century Maryland — a very dangerous place for a black woman — the more aware she is that her life might be over before it's even begun.

Greed. Desire. Death. Love. It's the nineteenth century on the Gulf Coast of Texas, a time of opportunity and lawlessness. Lucinda: intelligent, passionate, wily and courageous — a woman who braves her affliction and risks her own life to pursue her lover, a man as charismatic as he is ruthless. Nate: pure of heart, and with a strong sense of justice — a Texas policeman who belies his gentle nature to fight and seek the truth. William: a killer who has claimed the lives of men, women and children across the frontier. A man who knows what he wants and will do anything to claim it. The Outcasts. A disparate group of men who have made a living out of violence, and a woman who will stop at nothing to prove herself.

Bobby Dollar has a problem or four of epic proportions. Problem one: his best friend Sam has given him an angel's feather that also happens to be evidence of an unholy pact between Bobby's employers and those who dwell in the infernal depths. Problem two: Eligor, Grand Duke of Hell, wants to get his claws on the feather at all costs, but particularly at all cost to Bobby. Problem three: Bobby has fallen in love with Casimira, Countess of Cold Hands, who just happens to be Eligor's girlfriend. Problem four: Eligor, aware of Problem three, has whisked Casimira off to the Bottomless Pit itself, telling Bobby he will never see her again unless he hands over the feather. But Bobby, long-time veteran of the endless war between above and below, is not the type of guy who finds Hell intimidating. All he has to do is toss on a demon's body, sneak through the infernal gates, solve the mystery of the angel's feather, and rescue the girl. Saving the day should just be a matter of an eon or two of anguish, mutilation and horror. If only it were that easy.

A special Christmas edition of the Sunday Times bestseller. WINNER OF THE SPECSAVERS NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS 2013 BOOK OF THE YEAR Dive into a magical novel of memory and the adventure of childhood, from one of the brightest, most brilliant writers of our generation. It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive. There is primal horror here, and menace unleashed — within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it. His only defense is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is an ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang. THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE is a fable that reshapes modern fantasy: moving, terrifying and elegiac — as pure as a dream, as delicate as a butterfly's wing, as dangerous as a knife in the dark.

The third book in the Beautifully Broken series. BEFORE WE FALL will feature Dominic Kinkaide, Courtney Cole's baddest bad boy yet. And Jacey Vincent, the bad girl who will save him...

END OF WATCH is a compelling and chilling suspense novel which sees retired detective Bill Hodges back on the trail of his nemesis Brady Hartsfield, the criminal the press called The Mercedes Killer. Foiled in his attempt to commit a second mass murder, Hartsfield is confined to a hospital brain injury unit in a seemingly unresponsive state. But all is not what it seems: Brady is able to influence both his physician and the hospital librarian to commit crimes in the outside world. Now, the technological genius has created a hypnotic electronic fishing game which compels users to commit suicide, and he is determined to target the three people who put him in hospital — Hodges and his sidekicks Holly and Jerome. Then he plans to initiate a suicide epidemic. For Hodges — and the city — the clock is ticking in unexpected ways... Both a stand-alone novel and the final episode in the Hodges trilogy, END OF WATCH is a tense read which takes the series into a powerful new dimension.

The View from the Cheap Seats draws together myriad non-fiction writing by international phenomenon and Sunday Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman. From Make Good Art, the speech that went viral, to pieces on artists and legends including Terry Pratchett and Lou Reed, the collection offers a glimpse into the head and heart of one of the most acclaimed writers of our time. 'Literature does not occur in a vacuum. It cannot be a monologue. It has to be a conversation' Welcome to the conversation. Neil Gaiman fled the land of journalism to find truths through storytelling and sanctuary in not needing to get all the facts right. Of course, the real world continued to make up its own stories around him, and he has responded over the years with a wealth of ideas and introductions, dreams and speeches. Here 'we can meet the writer full on' (Stephen Fry) as he opens our minds to the people he admires and the things he believes might just mean something — and makes room for us to join the conversation too.

«Tourists and Londoners alike will love this superb new quiz book. Full of fascinating facts about people, places and events from London past and present, «So You Think You Know London» will challenge even the most cocky London cab driver. Jam-packed with over 1000 questions on everything from royalty to fashion and sport to celebrities, this quiz book is the ultimate test in finding out whether you are a real Londoner.»

Businesses involved in preparing a business plan need guidance on what to present, and how to present it. This book is primarily aimed at new businesses and the self-employed, but it will also be useful to any business that has to raise a financial case during the course of their trading. Straightforward advice is given about what to consider and include in the plan, and how to present it.

During his year of exploration, Patrick meets a rich cast of characters. Among them is a young local wine-maker called Virgile, who offers to initiate Patrick into the mysteries of each season's work in the fields and in the cellar. Virgile is passionately committed to perfection, though he operates on a shoestring. At the other extreme is Manu, Patrick's dipsomaniac neighbour, a die-hard traditionalist producing a private wine lake of unspeakable rouge. With Manu as his self-appointed guide, Patrick embarks on a tour of the region's wine makers, a succession of lively encounters with growers as varied as the wines themselves. Interwoven are digressions into the history of the region and its wine-making, right back to the earliest plantings by the Greeks and Romans. Meanwhile, the author struggles to deal with his dilapidated inheritance – an unfamiliar and unpredictable world where the brambles have grown as tall as the olive trees, the water supply has just dried up and there is a ferocious animal under the roof tiles.

The usually happy Jenny has started to have lots of worries until they grow into a huge bag of worries that follow her everywhere. They are there when she goes swimming, when she is watching TV, and even when she is in the lavatory. Jenny decides they will have to go. But who can help her?

It's 1985 and Brian Jackson has arrived at university with a burning ambition — to make it onto TV's foremost general knowledge quiz. But no sooner has he embarked on 'The Challenge' than he finds himself falling hopelessly in love with his teammate, the beautiful and charismatic would-be actress, Alice Harbinson. When Alice fails to fall for his slightly over-eager charms, Brian comes up with a foolproof plan to capture her heart once and for all. He's going to win the game, at any cost, because — after all — everyone knows that what a woman really wants from a man is a comprehensive grasp of general knowledge... Starter for Ten is a comedy about love, class, growing-up and the all-important difference between knowledge and wisdom. Are you up to the challenge of the funniest novel in years?

A terrorist doesn't let strangers in her flat because they might be undercover police or intelligence agents, but her children bring their mates home and they run all over the place. The terrorist doesn't know that a kid has bugged every room in her house, cloned the hard drive on her PC, and copied all the numbers in her phone book. The kid works for CHERUB. CHERUB is not James Bond. There are no master criminals or high-tech gadgets. CHERUB kids live in the real world. They slip under adult radar and get information that sends criminals and terrorists to jail. For official purposes, these children do not exist.

This is dark humour at its best — a collection of hilarious and outrageous cartoons which will appeal to anyone in touch with their evil side.

Absolute Friends is a superbly paced novel spanning fifty-six years, a theatrical masterstroke of tragicomic writing, and a savage fable of our times, almost of our hours. The friends of the title are Ted Mundy, British soldier's son born 1947 in a shining new independent Pakistan, and Sasha, refugee son of an East German Lutheran pastor and his wife who have sought sanctuary in the West. The two men meet first as students in riot-torn West Berlin of the late Sixties, again in the grimy looking-glass of Cold War espionage and, most terribly, in today's unipolar world of terror, counter-terror and the war of lies. Deriving its scale from A Perfect Spy and its passion from The Constant Gardener, Le Carre's new novel presents us with magical writing, characters to delight, and a spellbinding story that enchants even as it challenges.