Four fabulously funny stories that will invoke every family's worst Christmas nightmares, as Horrid Henry sabotages the school play, tries to do his Christmas shopping without spending his pocket money, ambushes Father Christmas with some serious accusations, and endures Christmas dinner with the guests from hell.

Robert Rankin's THE BRENTFORD TRILOGY — seven books and counting — catapulted him into the dizzy heights of cult success, but over the years that cult following has grown and Robert Rankin is now the second best-selling writer of comic fantasy in Britain, after Terry He Always Makes Me Laugh Pratchett. Were you aware that there are, hidden in the streets of Brighton, twelve ancient constellations, like the Hangleton Hound and the Bevendean Bat... well, there are: and on each one hangs a tale, a tale so strange that only The Lad Himself, that inveterate spinner of tales and talker of the toot, Hugo Rune, can get to the bottom of them. And he'd better do it quickly, because if he doesn't solve the dozen mysteries before the year is out, that'll be the end of the world as we know it. And everything.

In 2756 AC (2003 AD in Christian terms), magnetic railways span Roman territory from Persia to Terranova, and mechanised crucifixes are ranked along the banks of the Thames. As volume one of ROMANITAS opens, Marcus Novius Faustus Leo, heir apparent to the Imperial throne, is mourning the death of his parents following a tragic accident. However, as information about the last days of his father's life becomes known to him, Marcus realises that his father's death was no accident and that his own life is in danger. Meanwhile, an escaped slave girl called Una, who possesses the power to look inside others' minds, struggles to save her brother, Sulien, from a London prison ship. In a fortune teller's stall in a Gallic flea-market, Marcus, Una and Sulien's paths cross, and the fate of the Empire rests on their shoulders...

It's Aimee Biel, a frightened teenager who has called the one adult who had promise to help her if she ever got into trouble. Myron collects Aimee from a cold street corner but she persuades him not to take her home, but to drop her of at an unknown address in the suburbs. And with a final wave from a darkened porch, Aimee disappears into the night... Drive by guilt and the desperation of her family, Myron is determined to find Aimee — whatever the cost. But he doesn't realise just how far people will go to protect the ones they love.

Four fabulously funny stories that will invoke every family's worst Christmas nightmares, as Horrid Henry sabotages the school play, tries to do his Christmas shopping without spending his pocket money, attempts to ambush Father Christmas, and endures Christmas dinner with the guests from hell.

The Discworld: a world bursting with magic, a land of contrasts and extremes that floats through space on the backs of four elephants standing on a giant turtle. In the bustling metropolis of Ankh-Morpork, the oldest city on the Disc, you can find every luxury and perversion known to man or dwarf- and a fair few yet to be properly invented; in the ancient empire of Klatch there are fifteen words for assassination. The kingdom of Lancre may be small, but in this case size definitely isn't everything; in the dark country of Uberwald, things do go bump in the night. The inhabitants of Discworld are even more unforgettable than the places. There are witches and wizards — Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick (now a Queen, of course), and those in training (willingly or otherwise): Agnes Nitt, Tiffany Aching; Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully, the Librarian, Rincewind, the Bursar: all play their part. There are great heroes, like Cohen the Barbarian and his Silver Horde, Sam Vimes, Captain Carrot and the men of the City Watch... and there are the ordinary folk like Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, Foul Ole Ron, the Igors. And there's Death, and his increasingly extended family. The Discworld might have started out in the imagination of its Creator, Terry Pratchett, but over the past 30 or more books, it has taken on a life of its own. Here, artist Paul Kidby, steered by the author's words, takes his own voyage through the Disc, revealing, in glorious colour and intricate black and white, the cornucopia of characters that have won the hearts of millions of adoring readers the world over.

One of the most fascinating rock bands ever, Pink Floyd was formed in 1965. After a year in the London 'underground' experimenting with revolutionary techniques like lights which matched their music, they released their first single in 1966. Their breakthrough album, THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, was released in 1973 and stayed in the charts until 1982, the longest a record has ever been continuously in the charts, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time. In 1975 they released WISH YOU WERE HERE which reached iconic status, then in 1979 THE WALL went to number 1 in almost every country in the world. The movie version of THE WALL starring Bob Geldof was released in 1982, becoming a cult favorite. In the 1980s a rift developed between the band members which culminated in law suits. Only recently have there been reconciliations which have allowed founder member Nick Mason to write his personal take on the band's history.

The Russo-Turkish war is at a critical juncture, and Erast Fandorin, broken-hearted and disillusioned, has gone to the front in an attempt to forget his sorrows. But Fandorin's efforts to steer clear of trouble are thwarted when he comes to the aid of Varvara Suvorova — a 'progressive' Russian woman trying to make her way to the Russian headquarters to join her fiance. Within days, Varvara's fiance has been accused of treason, a Turkish victory looms on the horizon, and there are rumours of a Turkish spy hiding within their own camp. Our reluctant gentleman sleuth will need to resurrect all of his dormant powers of detection if he is to unmask the traitor, help the Russians to victory and smooth the path of young love.

Dexter Morgan isn't exactly the kind of man you'd bring home to your mum. At heart, he's the perfect gentleman: he has a shy girlfriend, and seems to lead a quiet, normal life bordering on the mundane. Despite the fact that he can't stand the sight of blood, he works as a blood-spatter analyst for the Miami police. But Dexter also has a secret hobby: he is an accomplished serial killer. So far, he's killed 36 people and has never been caught because he knows exactly how to hide the evidence. And while that may lead some people to assume he's not such a nice guy, he tempers his insatiable hunger for brutality by only killing the bad guys. However, Dexter's well-organised life is suddenly disrupted when a second, much more visible serial killer appears in Miami. Intrigued that the other killer favours a style similar to his own, Dexter soon realises that the mysterious new arrival is not simply invading his turf but offering him a direct invitation to “come out and play”...

British-born Teresa Simons returns to England after the death of her husband, an FBI agent, who was killed by an out-of-control gunman while on assignment in Texas. A shocking coincidence has drawn her to the run-down south coast town of Bulverton, where a gunman's massacre has haunting similarities to the murders in Texas. Desperate to unravel the mystery, Teresa turns to the virtual reality world of Extreme Experience, ExEx, now commercially available since she trained on it in the US. The best and worst of human experience can be found in ExEx, and in the extremes of violence Teresa finds that past and present combine...

«Cameraman Richard Grey's memory has blanked out the few weeks before he was injured in a car bomb explosion. When he is visited by a girl who seems to have been his lover, his attempts to recall the forgotten period produce an odyssey through France and conflicting accounts of what happened. When Susan Kewley speaks to him of that time, he finds himself glimpsing a terrible twilight world — the world of «the glamour».»

Having risen to the challenge of seas, poles, dhows and deserts, the highest mountains in the world were a natural target for Michael Palin. In a journey rarely, if ever, attempted before, in 6 months of hard travelling Palin takes on the full length of the Himalaya including the Khyber Pass, the hidden valleys of the Hindu Kush, ancient cities like Peshawar and Lahore, the mighty peaks of K2, Annapurna and Everest, the gorges of the Yangtze, the tribal lands of the Indo-Burmese border and the vast Brahmaputra delta in Bangladesh. Facing altitudes as high as 17,500 feet as well as some of the world's deepest gorges, Palin also passed through political flashpoints like Pakistan's remote north-west frontier, terrorist-torn Kashmir and the mountains of Nagaland, only recently open to visitors.

Mary Anne Reynolds is a young and vulnerable woman, determined to make her own way in the world. But Pacific Park, California, in the 1950s is not really the place for Mary. Her relationship with a black singer offends against the small town's views on sexual mores and exposes its bigoted views on race. This is a powerful portrayal of the claustrophobia of small-town California, and Mary Anne Reynolds is one of the most memorable characters Dick ever created.

Tess Leonard thought matrimony was for life, but her husband has decided that their marriage is the relationship equivalent of a starter home: cramped, claustrophobic and something he's definitely outgrown. Now, at thirty-five, Tess is in the biggest mess of her life. Known to all her friends as 'Tip Top Tess' because of her dogged pursuit of the perfect home, the perfect marriage and the perfect career, she's now a candidate for How Clean Is Your House? And it's all because Barney has walked out. But there's a life raft on the horizon: The Divorce Survival Class. It may be uncomfortable, overcrowded and nearly sinking under the weight of excess baggage, but it's a boot-camp for the broken-hearted. Over eight weeks, Tess and her battle-weary classmates will lay bare the darkest secrets of their failed marriages — from the thrills of a threesome to the monotony of monogamy. And course leader William, an alchemist for the unloved and rejected, will turn their lives around in truly spectacular style…

World War III is raging — or so the millions of people crammed in their underground tanks believe. For fiteen years, subterranean humanity has been fed on daily broadcasts of a never-ending nuclear destruction, sustained by a belief in the all powerful Protector. Now someone has gone to the surface and found no destruction, no war. The authorities have been telling a massive lie. Now the search begins to find out why.

The structure of the book is chronological, with digressions. From Roman and then Norman London, we move on to Chaucer's London — the city of the Peasants Revolt, Dick Whittington and the great Livery Companies. In Tudor and Stuart London many believed the city was being wrecked by over-population, over-building and the greed of speculators. Eighteenth-century London witnessed the South Sea Bubble, gin, highwaymen and the Gordon riots; but also banking, hospitals, and the elegant design of everyday things. In the nineteenth century, expanding vigorously, the city resisted any overall make-over. With Queen Victoria came the Railway Age, which made and unmade the city. Chartism, anti-semitism, overcrowding and cholera. But engineering triumphs too. If the First World War was a nightmare happening elsewhere, the amazing six years of 1939-45 were the city's finest hour. Post-1945, property developers took over, with disastrous results. The author celebrates the cosmopolitan city that mobility and immigration have created, while deploring the moronization' of the city, exemplified by the Millennium.

Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'cemetery of lost books', a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, a man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves and pulls out 'La Sombra del Viento' by Julian Carax. But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find. Then, one night, as he is wandering the old streets once more, Daniel is approached by a figure who reminds him of a character from La Sombra del Viento, a character who turns out to be the devil. This man is tracking down every last copy of Carax's work in order to burn them. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind. A page-turning exploration of obsession in literature and love, and the places that obsession can lead.

A remote shelf in the Arctic circle. A small TV crew is braving the harsh conditions to film the breaking off of a major ice shelf — yet another nail in the planet's eco-coffin. Then someone calls out, pointing at something up in the sky overhead. The camera pans up and they look up to see a blazing symbol clear, burning high over the bleak, deserted terrain. Thus begins a series of strange events worldwide as the mysterious sign appears over the sites of conflict, natural disasters and terrorist atrocities. What can it portend? The world is wracked with both fear and hope. Suddenly, all this is focused onto one man. An obscure monk who recognises the symbol from the past and understands what it means for the future of humanity. But as he becomes the most sought-after man on the planet, the questions have to be asked: could this be the real deal? Or the most elaborate fake in world history? And — either way — what happens to the world now?