A long time ago a wise man named Shaddai built a wonderful village for children to live in. He talked to them and sang for them and told...... more

A long time ago a wise man named Shaddai built a wonderful village for children to live in. He talked to them and sang for them and told them stories. He gave them everything they needed. And with his own hands Shaddai built a protective wall around their village, rock by rock. He did all of this for just one reason--because he loved them. One day Paladin, the village's most curious child, discovers something troubling about the wall. Something that makes him wonder about Shaddai's love. Could there be a mistake? Young Paladin is about to discover the answer. And when he does, he will come to understand just how deeply he is loved. And so will you. Everything God does for your children, He does because of love. He protects them. He listens to their prayers. He provides for their needs. He even gives warnings and sets boundaries--for no other reason than love. As an adult you already know this. Now your children can know it too through this captivating tale, which was first published in the award-winning children's bestseller Tell Me the Story. Let this timeless story of a curious boy's choice and a caring man's sacrificial response help you make the infinite love of their Heavenly Father as real to your kids as your own love. Because they need to understand about Him what you have already learned--that everything God does throughout our lives, He does for one reason only, and for the best reason of all: "Because I Love You."

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1-Love Is Strange (master) 2-Rise Sally Rise 3-I'm So Glad 4-Forever And A Day 5-Seems Like Just Yesterday 6-Se De Boom Run Dun 7-No...... more

1-Love Is Strange (master) 2-Rise Sally Rise 3-I'm So Glad 4-Forever And A Day 5-Seems Like Just Yesterday 6-Se De Boom Run Dun 7-No Good Lover 8-Peace Of Mind 9-Love Is Strange (take 4) 10-Walkin' In The Rain 11-In My Heart 12-Two Shadows On Your Window 13-Who Knows Why 14-I'm Going Home 15-There Ought Be Law 16-Dearest 17-Where Is My Honey 18-Too Much Weight 19-Let's Have A Picnic 20-A New Idea On Love 21-Say The Word 22-Love Will Make You Fail In School 23-I Gotta Be Home By Ten 24-Love Is A Treasure 25-Loving You Darling 26-I'm Working At The Five And Dime 27-Shake It Up 28-Peace Of Mind 29-Two Shadows On Your Window 30-Where Is My Honey 31-There'll Be No Backin' Out 32-Summertime 33-Rock And Stroll Room (take 1) 34-Rock And Stroll Room (take 12) 35-It's You I Love 36-True True Love 37-Bewildered (take 2) 38-Bewildered (take 9) 39-Oh Yeah! Uh Huh 40-To The Valley 41-Mommy Out De Light 42-Gonna Work Out Fine 43-What Would I Do 44-Sweeter As The Day Goes By 45-I'm Glad For Your Sake 46-I Hear You Knockin' 47-Love Lesson 48-This Is My Story 49-Baby You're So Fine (1) 50-Love Is The Only Thing 51-No Good Lover 52-Dearest 53-Baby You're So Fine (2) 54-From The Beginning Of Time 55-Gypsy 56-Yours 57-Let's Shake Some More 58-From The Beginning Of Time 59-Fallin' In Love 60-Baby You're So Fine (3) 'Love Is Strange' and much, much more! A total of 60 tracks from the most distinctive and unique act in Fifties R&B. Mickey Baker was the master guitar player and Sylvia was the sexiest singer in R&B at the time. Their interplay on record was sometimes playful, sometimes barbed, and beneath it all was some of the finest musicianship ever heard on R&B records. This set includes all their Rainbow, Groove, Vik, and RCA recordings from 1955 to 1965. Check out 'Rise Sally Rise', 'No Good Lover', 'Shake It Up', 'I'm Glad For Your Sake', and 'It's Gonna Work Out Fine'.

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Possibly one of the most talked about books of the year, Meg Rosoffs novel for young adults is the winner of the Guardian Childrens Fiction Prize 2004. Heralded...... more

Possibly one of the most talked about books of the year, Meg Rosoffs novel for young adults is the winner of the Guardian Childrens Fiction Prize 2004. Heralded by some as the next best adult crossover novel since Mark Haddons The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, who himself has given the book a thunderously good quote, this authors debut is undoubtedly stylish, readable and fascinating. Rosoffs story begins in modern day London, slightly in the future, and as its heroine has a 15-year-old Manhattanite called Daisy. Shes picked up at the airport by Edmond, her English cousin, a boy in whose life she is destined to become intricately entwined. Daisy is staying for the summer in her Aunt Penns country farmhouse with Edmond and her other cousins. They spend some idyllic weeks together--often alone with Aunt Penn away travelling in Norway. Daisys cousins seem to have an almost telepathic bond, and Daisy is mesmerised by Edmond and soon falls in love with him. But their world changes forever when an unnamed aggressor invades England and begins a years-long occupation. Daisy is parted from Edmond when soldiers take over their home, and Daisy and Piper, her younger cousin, must travel to another place to work. Their experiences of occupation are never kind and always hard. Daisys pain, living without Edmond, is tangible. Rosoffs writing style is both brilliant and frustrating. Her descriptions and ability to portray the emotions of her characters are wonderful. Her long sentences and total lack of speech marks for dialogue is, however, exhausting. Her narrative is deeply engaging and yet a bit unbelievable. The end of the book is dramatic, but too sudden. The book has a raw, unfinished feel about it, yet that somehow adds to the experience of reading it. Its flawed but unmissable. (Age 14 and over) --John McLay

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A long time ago a wise man named Shaddai built a wonderful village for children to live in. He talked to them and sang for them and told...... more

A long time ago a wise man named Shaddai built a wonderful village for children to live in. He talked to them and sang for them and told them stories. He gave them everything they needed. And with his own hands Shaddai built a protective wall around their village, rock by rock. He did all of this for just one reason--because he loved them. One day Paladin, the village's most curious child, discovers something troubling about the wall. Something that makes him wonder about Shaddai's love. Could there be a mistake? Young Paladin is about to discover the answer. And when he does, he will come to understand just how deeply he is loved. And so will you. Everything God does for your children, He does because of love. He protects them. He listens to their prayers. He provides for their needs. He even gives warnings and sets boundaries--for no other reason than love. As an adult you already know this. Now your children can know it too through this captivating tale, which was first published in the award-winning children's bestseller Tell Me the Story. Let this timeless story of a curious boy's choice and a caring man's sacrificial response help you make the infinite love of their Heavenly Father as real to your kids as your own love. Because they need to understand about Him what you have already learned--that everything God does throughout our lives, He does for one reason only, and for the best reason of all: "Because I Love You."

... less

Possibly one of the most talked about books of the year, Meg Rosoffs novel for young adults is the winner of the Guardian Childrens Fiction Prize 2004. Heralded...... more

Possibly one of the most talked about books of the year, Meg Rosoffs novel for young adults is the winner of the Guardian Childrens Fiction Prize 2004. Heralded by some as the next best adult crossover novel since Mark Haddons The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, who himself has given the book a thunderously good quote, this authors debut is undoubtedly stylish, readable and fascinating. Rosoffs story begins in modern day London, slightly in the future, and as its heroine has a 15-year-old Manhattanite called Daisy. Shes picked up at the airport by Edmond, her English cousin, a boy in whose life she is destined to become intricately entwined. Daisy is staying for the summer in her Aunt Penns country farmhouse with Edmond and her other cousins. They spend some idyllic weeks together--often alone with Aunt Penn away travelling in Norway. Daisys cousins seem to have an almost telepathic bond, and Daisy is mesmerised by Edmond and soon falls in love with him. But their world changes forever when an unnamed aggressor invades England and begins a years-long occupation. Daisy is parted from Edmond when soldiers take over their home, and Daisy and Piper, her younger cousin, must travel to another place to work. Their experiences of occupation are never kind and always hard. Daisys pain, living without Edmond, is tangible. Rosoffs writing style is both brilliant and frustrating. Her descriptions and ability to portray the emotions of her characters are wonderful. Her long sentences and total lack of speech marks for dialogue is, however, exhausting. Her narrative is deeply engaging and yet a bit unbelievable. The end of the book is dramatic, but too sudden. The book has a raw, unfinished feel about it, yet that somehow adds to the experience of reading it. Its flawed but unmissable. (Age 14 and over) --John McLay

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1-I Got You Babe 2-Little Man 3-Just You 4-Good Combination 5-But You're Mine 6-The Beat Goes On 7-Have I Stayed Too Long...... more

1-I Got You Babe 2-Little Man 3-Just You 4-Good Combination 5-But You're Mine 6-The Beat Goes On 7-Have I Stayed Too Long 8-A Beautiful Story 9-It's The Little Things 10-What Now My Love (2006/COLLECTABLES) 10 tracks - original Atlantic recordings

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To date, Tim O'Brien's novels have all shared common traits: his heroes hail from the Midwest, usually Minnesota; Vietnam figures prominently; and the...... more

To date, Tim O'Brien's novels have all shared common traits: his heroes hail from the Midwest, usually Minnesota; Vietnam figures prominently; and the stories he tells, though invested with mordant wit, are usually pretty grim. So an O'Brien fan coming to Tomcat in Love on the heels of his earlier novels can be forgiven for occasionally checking the name on the cover (and the photo on the dust jacket) just to be sure this is, indeed, the same Tim O'Brien who wrote Going After Cacciato, The Things They Carried, If I Die in a Combat Zone, and In the Lake of the Woods. In Tomcat in Love O'Brien introduces us to a very different hero: "In summary, then, my circumstances were these. Something over forty-nine years of age. Recently divorced. Pursued. Prone to late-night weeping. Betrayed not once but threefold: by the girl of my dreams, by her Pilate of a brother, and by a Tampa real-estate tycoon whose name I have vowed never again to utter." Thomas H. Chippering, professor of linguistics, war hero, and sex magnet--in his own mind, at least--has recently lost his childhood sweetheart and wife of 20 years to another man, the Tampa magnate, and Lorna Sue's desertion has clearly unhinged him. He has taken to flying down to Tampa from Minnesota on weekends to spy on his ex-wife and plot revenge against her, the tycoon, and Lorna Sue's brother, Herbie, whom he blames for destroying his marriage. Thomas, Lorna Sue, and Herbie go back a long way together, bound equally by ties of love, guilt and suspicion. Dating from the afternoon young Herbie nailed an even younger Lorna Sue's hand to a makeshift cross, Thomas has occupied a kind of emotional no man's land between the two: "In my bleakest moods, when black gets blackest, I think of it as a high perversion: Herbie coveted his own sister. Which is a fact. The stone truth. He was in love with her. More generously, I will sometimes concede that it was not sexual love, or not entirely, and that Herbie was driven by the obsessions of a penitent, a torturer turned saviour. Partly, too, I am quite certain that Herbie secretly associated me with his own guilt. I was present at the beginning. My backyard, my plywood, my green paint." Chippering takes his revenge to hilarious lengths, starting with a purple leather bra and panties stuffed beneath the seat of the tycoon's car and escalating from there. But even as he attempts to wreak havoc in his ex-wife's life, he succeeds in laying ruin to his own. His self- proclaimed irresistibility to women gets him in hot water with both his female students and his administration; his obsession with Lorna Sue threatens his budding romance with Mrs. Robert Kooshof, a woman who loves him as his wife never did--and, oh yes, there's that little matter of the squad of Green Berets he crossed many years before in Vietnam who may or may not be hunting him down. Once you get over the shock of this new, funny Tim O'Brien, traces of the writer you thought you knew begin to surface. Chippering might be a pompous, overbearing windbag, but you can't trust him any more than you did any of O'Brien's other earthier, equally unreliable narrators. In one breath, he tells us, "I must in good conscience point out that women find me attractive beyond words. And who on earth could blame them?" In the next he describes himself as resembling "a clean-shaven version of our sixteenth president." Half the fun of reading Tomcat in Love is trying to sort out just how much of what Thomas H. Chippering tells us is true. Stellar writing, a brilliant cast of characters, and a sly, surprising story that breaks your heart one minute and tickles your funny bone the next all make Tim O'Brien's first foray into the comic novel a resounding success. --Alix Wilber, Amazon.comEND

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It was Henry James who first claimed the imagination of disaster, but in Amy Bloom's stunning second collection, she appears to have inherited the...... more

It was Henry James who first claimed the imagination of disaster, but in Amy Bloom's stunning second collection, she appears to have inherited the mantle. Most of the characters in A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You are pursued by at least one of the biological furies: cancer, miscarriage, Parkinson's disease. Even those with their health intact tend to be sick at heart, having run the gauntlet of family life and suffered what the military men like to call friendly fire. Yet the effect of these brilliant stories is anything but dreary. Instead they produce an odd sense of elation--Bloom somehow persuades us that her characters will continue under their own steam long after we've closed the book, and she alternates hope and hopelessness in exactly the right, recognisable proportions.Take the title story, in which a middle-aged mother is determined to see her daughter through the rigors of a sex-change operation. Jane puts up a good front, almost but not quite earning the title of Transsexual Mom of the Year, and supports her "handsome boy-girl" every step of the way. Yet the strain shows. And when she meets a supernaturally nice man, she can't quite credit her good fortune--even his appearance at her door with an armload of flowers touches off a fresh round of ambivalence:And standing on the little porch of the condo, barely enough room for two medium-size people and forty-eight roses, Jane sees that she has taken her place in the long and honorable line of fools for love: Don Quixote and Hermia and Oscar Wilde and Joe E. Brown, crowing with delight, clutching his straw boater and Jack Lemmon as the speedboat carries them off into a cockeyed and irresistible future."Stars at Elbow and Foot" and "Rowing to Eden" are no less effective in their mingling of tragedy and sublime trivia. In two other stories, Bloom revives the Sampson clan, which she first introduced in "Come to Me", and beautifully extends her mini-epic of mixed-race life without a grain of namby-pamby PC hesitation. And last but not least, there's "The Story", a tricky number in which Bloom seems to shoot to hell her own reputation for Chekhovian decency. Here we have a narrator who lies and dissembles, destroys her rival and lives to tell the (metafictional) tale: Even now I regard her destruction as a very good thing, and that undermines the necessary fictive texture of deep ambiguity, the roiling ambivalence that might give tension to the narrator's affection.In the end, though, Bloom is simply too gifted a writer to banish all seven types of ambiguity from her work. She understands that we are hopelessly divided creatures and cuts us the necessary, unsentimental slack; or to put it another way, she forgives all--but forgets nothing. --James Marcus

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It was Henry James who first claimed the imagination of disaster, but in Amy Bloom's stunning second collection, she appears to have inherited the...... more

It was Henry James who first claimed the imagination of disaster, but in Amy Bloom's stunning second collection, she appears to have inherited the mantle. Most of the characters in A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You are pursued by at least one of the biological furies: cancer, miscarriage, Parkinson's disease. Even those with their health intact tend to be sick at heart, having run the gauntlet of family life and suffered what the military men like to call friendly fire. Yet the effect of these brilliant stories is anything but dreary. Instead they produce an odd sense of elation--Bloom somehow persuades us that her characters will continue under their own steam long after we've closed the book, and she alternates hope and hopelessness in exactly the right, recognisable proportions.Take the title story, in which a middle-aged mother is determined to see her daughter through the rigors of a sex-change operation. Jane puts up a good front, almost but not quite earning the title of Transsexual Mom of the Year, and supports her "handsome boy-girl" every step of the way. Yet the strain shows. And when she meets a supernaturally nice man, she can't quite credit her good fortune--even his appearance at her door with an armload of flowers touches off a fresh round of ambivalence:And standing on the little porch of the condo, barely enough room for two medium-size people and forty-eight roses, Jane sees that she has taken her place in the long and honorable line of fools for love: Don Quixote and Hermia and Oscar Wilde and Joe E. Brown, crowing with delight, clutching his straw boater and Jack Lemmon as the speedboat carries them off into a cockeyed and irresistible future."Stars at Elbow and Foot" and "Rowing to Eden" are no less effective in their mingling of tragedy and sublime trivia. In two other stories, Bloom revives the Sampson clan, which she first introduced in "Come to Me", and beautifully extends her mini-epic of mixed-race life without a grain of namby-pamby PC hesitation. And last but not least, there's "The Story", a tricky number in which Bloom seems to shoot to hell her own reputation for Chekhovian decency. Here we have a narrator who lies and dissembles, destroys her rival and lives to tell the (metafictional) tale: Even now I regard her destruction as a very good thing, and that undermines the necessary fictive texture of deep ambiguity, the roiling ambivalence that might give tension to the narrator's affection.In the end, though, Bloom is simply too gifted a writer to banish all seven types of ambiguity from her work. She understands that we are hopelessly divided creatures and cuts us the necessary, unsentimental slack; or to put it another way, she forgives all--but forgets nothing. --James Marcus

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Take one grandiose, petulant God, add (his?) Abram and Sarai from Genesis, put the iconoclastic Sarai centre-stage, and you have the makings of Jenny...... more

Take one grandiose, petulant God, add (his?) Abram and Sarai from Genesis, put the iconoclastic Sarai centre-stage, and you have the makings of Jenny Diski's eighth novel, Only Human: A Comedy. Readers have come to count on Diski's work for its uncomfortable challenges and witty subversions. Here she tackles the biblical account of origins, but her version is filled with sly volte-faces and lovely twists: Who creates who? Who can claim ownership of the grand narrative? Why believe?Sarai's story is one of innocence tempered by longings that harden into a refusal to suffer fools gladly--and that includes Abram for his obedient faith in his God, as well as this quixotic God himself. In alternating voices this aggrieved, easily dumbfounded God speaks to us in the first person, admitting to being astounded by the inventiveness of humans, and foxed by their desire to become us, when what he has shown them is his eternal I am. Abram's and Sarai's trials and tribulations are many and great: shame and exile, desert wanderings, and, most terrible of all, Sarai's barrenness, which she accepts as "the way of the world", but Abram is consumed by the loss of his begetting. God, meantime, stamps and stomps, and peppers his watchfulness with what he learns from his humans until "I had my fill of mankind and its seething, fleshy, unreliable ways" and so decides that he will become "ahead of the game". What he hadn't bargained for was love--and the consequent desolations of loss. Becoming all too human, he wants to be loved by Abram, and is consumed by jealousy and revenge towards Sarai. He plots against Sarai but her machinations are a match for his. She organises the birth of Ishmael by Hagar; he orchestrates the birth of Isaac, and incidentally renames them Abraham and Sarah and then he tops it with: "The story's mine, not hers, never was. The interruption is the narrative, the interrupter is the narrator". But one wonders how it is that Sarah knew the story all along, passed down through generations of women.Audaciously inventive and humanely rich in its observation of emotional tumult, although just occasionally this slips over into "emotional literacy" speech rather than nuance, Jenny Diski has done her story proud. --Ruth Petrie

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Andrew Vachss, the master of hard-boiled fiction, returns with a deeply revealing new novel about an assassin whose love forced him to kill his...... more

Andrew Vachss, the master of hard-boiled fiction, returns with a deeply revealing new novel about an assassin whose love forced him to kill his own conscience. Esau Till's race is almost run. After pleading guilty to a series of homicides, he sits on death row, awaiting lethal injection. And writing his life story. But his memoir is no case study in tragedy--it's his one last chance to protect his brother, Tory, after he's gone. And, as too many have learned, when it comes to protecting his baby brother, Esau Till is a man without boundaries. Esau's father was a widely feared beast who, it was commonly believed, killed his wife and used his own daughter as a substitute. In Esau's own words, when your sister is your mother, too, you know you're not going to come out right. Not you, not your life, not nothing. When the genetic cards were dealt, Esau drew a genius IQ but a horribly crippled body. His brother Tory drew a "slow" mind but almost superhuman strength. Very early on, Esau learned that the only way to guarantee his baby brother's safety was to make himself indispensable to certain people. A self-taught explosives expert, he became the top assassin for two rival local mobs. When a third mob attempted to recruit his brother, Esau took them all out, unaware that one of them was an under-cover FBI agent. Execution looms, but no prison can hold Esau's mind. Or his love. As the State prepares to take his life, Esau plots going all-in on the last and most deadly hand he will ever play.

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The career of the Oklahoma-born Shepard, who recorded these two albums in 1956 and 1962, has been largely, and unfairly, overlooked; at her best, she merits...... more

The career of the Oklahoma-born Shepard, who recorded these two albums in 1956 and 1962, has been largely, and unfairly, overlooked; at her best, she merits comparison with more popularly regarded country divas like Dolly Parton or Patsy Cline (Shepard's first husband, the singer Hawkshaw Hawkins, died in the same plane crash that claimed Cline). Shepard has a fine, edgy voice which, matched with the right material, still rings true. As the titles suggest, Shepard's preferred metier was the somebody-done-somebody wrong song. Songs Of A Love Affair is pretty much a concept album, the story of a girl, as the original sleevenotes have it, "too eager to give her love." Though the lyrics are cringeworthy in their corniness, it remains an interesting sociological insight into the morals of small-town America in the 1950s. Heartaches And Tears is much better, including superb performances of the Ira Louvin/Helen Cater tearjerker "I Lost You After All" and Johnny Mullins' "Would You Be Satisfied?". --Andrew Mueller

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Love Will Find Its Way represents the first time that all of Robert Owens recordings have been gathered up into a cohesive project, and...... more

Love Will Find Its Way represents the first time that all of Robert Owens recordings have been gathered up into a cohesive project, and covers pretty much all of his major releases from the last fifteen years. Legend is a lofty accolade to bestow on an artist, but where Robert Owens is concerned, it's a must. As part of that elite crew of Chicago pioneers who invented house, his distinctive, velvety vocals have graced the grooves of many records over the years. Since the project has been overseen by Owens himself, it's constructed not as an obvious chronology but more like an emotive and organic narrative, a life story arranged by themes rather than dates. The 25 tracks remind us of exactly how much good work Owens has done in his 15-year career, illustrating not only his vocal versatility but the emotional/spiritual aspect of everything he does. All of Owens' early work with fellow Chicago legend Larry Heard (as Fingers Inc) is here including "Never No More Lonely", "Can You Feel It" and "Bring Down The Walls". His seminal work with the New York Def Mix team (Frankie Knuckles, David Morales, Satoshie Tomiie) is featured too, such as truly immortal records like the euphoric "Tears" and the soaring "I'll Be Your Friend". Lesser known but often equally poignant are his solo efforts over the last decade or so (fans may remember the cult hit "Ordinary People"), and his recent collaborative work with producers such as Photek and Mr C. There are a few hot moments missing (such as his hook ups with London Elektricity and Block 16) but most of the singer's input into the world of dance music is here, and as it's as definitive as we're likely to get, this is a must-have collection from one of the scene's real life heroes.--Paul Sullivan

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1-Love Is Strange (master) 2-Rise Sally Rise 3-I'm So Glad 4-Forever And A Day 5-Seems Like Just Yesterday 6-Se De Boom Run Dun 7-No...... more

1-Love Is Strange (master) 2-Rise Sally Rise 3-I'm So Glad 4-Forever And A Day 5-Seems Like Just Yesterday 6-Se De Boom Run Dun 7-No Good Lover 8-Peace Of Mind 9-Love Is Strange (take 4) 10-Walkin' In The Rain 11-In My Heart 12-Two Shadows On Your Window 13-Who Knows Why 14-I'm Going Home 15-There Ought Be Law 16-Dearest 17-Where Is My Honey 18-Too Much Weight 19-Let's Have A Picnic 20-A New Idea On Love 21-Say The Word 22-Love Will Make You Fail In School 23-I Gotta Be Home By Ten 24-Love Is A Treasure 25-Loving You Darling 26-I'm Working At The Five And Dime 27-Shake It Up 28-Peace Of Mind 29-Two Shadows On Your Window 30-Where Is My Honey 31-There'll Be No Backin' Out 32-Summertime 33-Rock And Stroll Room (take 1) 34-Rock And Stroll Room (take 12) 35-It's You I Love 36-True True Love 37-Bewildered (take 2) 38-Bewildered (take 9) 39-Oh Yeah! Uh Huh 40-To The Valley 41-Mommy Out De Light 42-Gonna Work Out Fine 43-What Would I Do 44-Sweeter As The Day Goes By 45-I'm Glad For Your Sake 46-I Hear You Knockin' 47-Love Lesson 48-This Is My Story 49-Baby You're So Fine (1) 50-Love Is The Only Thing 51-No Good Lover 52-Dearest 53-Baby You're So Fine (2) 54-From The Beginning Of Time 55-Gypsy 56-Yours 57-Let's Shake Some More 58-From The Beginning Of Time 59-Fallin' In Love 60-Baby You're So Fine (3) 'Love Is Strange' and much, much more! A total of 60 tracks from the most distinctive and unique act in Fifties R&B. Mickey Baker was the master guitar player and Sylvia was the sexiest singer in R&B at the time. Their interplay on record was sometimes playful, sometimes barbed, and beneath it all was some of the finest musicianship ever heard on R&B records. This set includes all their Rainbow, Groove, Vik, and RCA recordings from 1955 to 1965. Check out 'Rise Sally Rise', 'No Good Lover', 'Shake It Up', 'I'm Glad For Your Sake', and 'It's Gonna Work Out Fine'.

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The lowly third position of musical pursuits in the familiar cry of "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" suggests what Simon Napier-Bell's book Black Vinyl White...... more

The lowly third position of musical pursuits in the familiar cry of "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" suggests what Simon Napier-Bell's book Black Vinyl White Powder makes all too clear: from it's mid-1950s beginnings: pop music has always been intrinsically linked not only with sex, but with all manner of illegal substances. Indeed, it is an often-repeated fact that success in the music business will frequently be accompanied by more than mere musical activity. "Drugs are sometimes as important as talent," explains Napier-Bell in this entertaining and often compelling read, and it is from this angle that he presents his gripping 50-year history of pop. The author's previous memoir, the often-hilarious You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, detailed his career in the pop industry from his esteemed position as joint-roller for the Johnny Dankworth Orchestra to his later role as manager of huge acts such as Japan and Wham! With such a career behind him, his range of contacts and experiences result in an often breathtaking sprint through the history of pop, incorporating major icons such as Elvis and the Beatles to leading figures from numerous late 90s dance movements. In Black Vinyl he diligently notes the particular pharmaceuticals used in order to satisfy the creative and, more often, hedonistic needs of the artists in question. Fascinating anecdotes abound, from the amusing, (such as the report of keyboard player Graham Bond's frequently heard airport custom's cry, "If you want the drugs I've got them up my arse"), to the tragic, (as figures from Syd Barrett to Kurt Cobain fall by the wayside, their drug habits supported, if not actively encouraged by an industry where such behaviour is the norm). If a fault can be aimed at this mostly enjoyable read, it is that Napier-Bell's insistence on maintaining the link between drug-taking and the music it frequently accompanies often results in a sensationalist tabloid feel which steers him away from the more revealing anecdotal style that proved so enjoyable in his earlier book. However, his droll approach is always entertaining and Black Vinyl White Powder is recommended to anyone interested in an industry where, according to one interviewee, half of those involved are left with "scrambled eggs for brains". --Steve Price

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Possibly one of the most talked about books of the year, Meg Rosoffs novel for young adults is the winner of the Guardian Childrens Fiction Prize 2004. Heralded...... more

Possibly one of the most talked about books of the year, Meg Rosoffs novel for young adults is the winner of the Guardian Childrens Fiction Prize 2004. Heralded by some as the next best adult crossover novel since Mark Haddons The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, who himself has given the book a thunderously good quote, this authors debut is undoubtedly stylish, readable and fascinating. Rosoffs story begins in modern day London, slightly in the future, and as its heroine has a 15-year-old Manhattanite called Daisy. Shes picked up at the airport by Edmond, her English cousin, a boy in whose life she is destined to become intricately entwined. Daisy is staying for the summer in her Aunt Penns country farmhouse with Edmond and her other cousins. They spend some idyllic weeks together--often alone with Aunt Penn away travelling in Norway. Daisys cousins seem to have an almost telepathic bond, and Daisy is mesmerised by Edmond and soon falls in love with him. But their world changes forever when an unnamed aggressor invades England and begins a years-long occupation. Daisy is parted from Edmond when soldiers take over their home, and Daisy and Piper, her younger cousin, must travel to another place to work. Their experiences of occupation are never kind and always hard. Daisys pain, living without Edmond, is tangible. Rosoffs writing style is both brilliant and frustrating. Her descriptions and ability to portray the emotions of her characters are wonderful. Her long sentences and total lack of speech marks for dialogue is, however, exhausting. Her narrative is deeply engaging and yet a bit unbelievable. The end of the book is dramatic, but too sudden. The book has a raw, unfinished feel about it, yet that somehow adds to the experience of reading it. Its flawed but unmissable. (Age 14 and over) --John McLay

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Possibly one of the most talked about books of the year, Meg Rosoffs novel for young adults is the winner of the Guardian Childrens Fiction Prize 2004. Heralded...... more

Possibly one of the most talked about books of the year, Meg Rosoffs novel for young adults is the winner of the Guardian Childrens Fiction Prize 2004. Heralded by some as the next best adult crossover novel since Mark Haddons The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, who himself has given the book a thunderously good quote, this authors debut is undoubtedly stylish, readable and fascinating. Rosoffs story begins in modern day London, slightly in the future, and as its heroine has a 15-year-old Manhattanite called Daisy. Shes picked up at the airport by Edmond, her English cousin, a boy in whose life she is destined to become intricately entwined. Daisy is staying for the summer in her Aunt Penns country farmhouse with Edmond and her other cousins. They spend some idyllic weeks together--often alone with Aunt Penn away travelling in Norway. Daisys cousins seem to have an almost telepathic bond, and Daisy is mesmerised by Edmond and soon falls in love with him. But their world changes forever when an unnamed aggressor invades England and begins a years-long occupation. Daisy is parted from Edmond when soldiers take over their home, and Daisy and Piper, her younger cousin, must travel to another place to work. Their experiences of occupation are never kind and always hard. Daisys pain, living without Edmond, is tangible. Rosoffs writing style is both brilliant and frustrating. Her descriptions and ability to portray the emotions of her characters are wonderful. Her long sentences and total lack of speech marks for dialogue is, however, exhausting. Her narrative is deeply engaging and yet a bit unbelievable. The end of the book is dramatic, but too sudden. The book has a raw, unfinished feel about it, yet that somehow adds to the experience of reading it. Its flawed but unmissable. (Age 14 and over) --John McLay

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Possibly one of the most talked about books of the year, Meg Rosoffs novel for young adults is the winner of the Guardian Childrens Fiction Prize 2004. Heralded...... more

Possibly one of the most talked about books of the year, Meg Rosoffs novel for young adults is the winner of the Guardian Childrens Fiction Prize 2004. Heralded by some as the next best adult crossover novel since Mark Haddons The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, who himself has given the book a thunderously good quote, this authors debut is undoubtedly stylish, readable and fascinating. Rosoffs story begins in modern day London, slightly in the future, and as its heroine has a 15-year-old Manhattanite called Daisy. Shes picked up at the airport by Edmond, her English cousin, a boy in whose life she is destined to become intricately entwined. Daisy is staying for the summer in her Aunt Penns country farmhouse with Edmond and her other cousins. They spend some idyllic weeks together--often alone with Aunt Penn away travelling in Norway. Daisys cousins seem to have an almost telepathic bond, and Daisy is mesmerised by Edmond and soon falls in love with him. But their world changes forever when an unnamed aggressor invades England and begins a years-long occupation. Daisy is parted from Edmond when soldiers take over their home, and Daisy and Piper, her younger cousin, must travel to another place to work. Their experiences of occupation are never kind and always hard. Daisys pain, living without Edmond, is tangible. Rosoffs writing style is both brilliant and frustrating. Her descriptions and ability to portray the emotions of her characters are wonderful. Her long sentences and total lack of speech marks for dialogue is, however, exhausting. Her narrative is deeply engaging and yet a bit unbelievable. The end of the book is dramatic, but too sudden. The book has a raw, unfinished feel about it, yet that somehow adds to the experience of reading it. Its flawed but unmissable. (Age 14 and over) --John McLay

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'Alphabets and names make games and everybody has a name and all the same they have in a way to have a birthday', muses...... more

'Alphabets and names make games and everybody has a name and all the same they have in a way to have a birthday', muses Gertrude Stein in "To Do: A Book of Alphabets and Birthdays". Written in 1940 and intended as a follow-up to her children's book "The World Is Round", published the previous year, "To Do" is a fanciful journey through the alphabet. Each letter is represented by four names (including Gertrude for 'G') and features a short story told in verse. 'This is a birthday book I would have liked as a child', said Stein of "To Do". Publishers rejected the manuscript as too complex for children, and it remained unpublished during Stein's lifetime. A text-only version issued from Yale University Press in 1957. Now, more than seventy years after Stein penned the story, "To Do" is appearing with illustrations, realizing the author's original concept for the book. Giselle Potter's witty and stylish illustrations provide a perfect complement to Stein's uniquely whimsical world of words, creating a truly delightful, often hilarious, book that adults and children alike can appreciate and love.

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To date, Tim O'Brien's novels have all shared common traits: his heroes hail from the Midwest, usually Minnesota; Vietnam figures prominently; and the...... more

To date, Tim O'Brien's novels have all shared common traits: his heroes hail from the Midwest, usually Minnesota; Vietnam figures prominently; and the stories he tells, though invested with mordant wit, are usually pretty grim. So an O'Brien fan coming to Tomcat in Love on the heels of his earlier novels can be forgiven for occasionally checking the name on the cover (and the photo on the dust jacket) just to be sure this is, indeed, the same Tim O'Brien who wrote Going After Cacciato, The Things They Carried, If I Die in a Combat Zone, and In the Lake of the Woods. In Tomcat in Love O'Brien introduces us to a very different hero: "In summary, then, my circumstances were these. Something over forty-nine years of age. Recently divorced. Pursued. Prone to late-night weeping. Betrayed not once but threefold: by the girl of my dreams, by her Pilate of a brother, and by a Tampa real-estate tycoon whose name I have vowed never again to utter." Thomas H. Chippering, professor of linguistics, war hero, and sex magnet--in his own mind, at least--has recently lost his childhood sweetheart and wife of 20 years to another man, the Tampa magnate, and Lorna Sue's desertion has clearly unhinged him. He has taken to flying down to Tampa from Minnesota on weekends to spy on his ex-wife and plot revenge against her, the tycoon, and Lorna Sue's brother, Herbie, whom he blames for destroying his marriage. Thomas, Lorna Sue, and Herbie go back a long way together, bound equally by ties of love, guilt and suspicion. Dating from the afternoon young Herbie nailed an even younger Lorna Sue's hand to a makeshift cross, Thomas has occupied a kind of emotional no man's land between the two: "In my bleakest moods, when black gets blackest, I think of it as a high perversion: Herbie coveted his own sister. Which is a fact. The stone truth. He was in love with her. More generously, I will sometimes concede that it was not sexual love, or not entirely, and that Herbie was driven by the obsessions of a penitent, a torturer turned saviour. Partly, too, I am quite certain that Herbie secretly associated me with his own guilt. I was present at the beginning. My backyard, my plywood, my green paint." Chippering takes his revenge to hilarious lengths, starting with a purple leather bra and panties stuffed beneath the seat of the tycoon's car and escalating from there. But even as he attempts to wreak havoc in his ex-wife's life, he succeeds in laying ruin to his own. His self- proclaimed irresistibility to women gets him in hot water with both his female students and his administration; his obsession with Lorna Sue threatens his budding romance with Mrs. Robert Kooshof, a woman who loves him as his wife never did--and, oh yes, there's that little matter of the squad of Green Berets he crossed many years before in Vietnam who may or may not be hunting him down. Once you get over the shock of this new, funny Tim O'Brien, traces of the writer you thought you knew begin to surface. Chippering might be a pompous, overbearing windbag, but you can't trust him any more than you did any of O'Brien's other earthier, equally unreliable narrators. In one breath, he tells us, "I must in good conscience point out that women find me attractive beyond words. And who on earth could blame them?" In the next he describes himself as resembling "a clean-shaven version of our sixteenth president." Half the fun of reading Tomcat in Love is trying to sort out just how much of what Thomas H. Chippering tells us is true. Stellar writing, a brilliant cast of characters, and a sly, surprising story that breaks your heart one minute and tickles your funny bone the next all make Tim O'Brien's first foray into the comic novel a resounding success. --Alix Wilber, Amazon.comEND

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