The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs.

Chronicles the amazing social, cultural and natural history of the panda, illustrated with photographic evidence, drawings and scientific diagrams and case-studies.

Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophesy. The aging Nakata, tracker of lost cats, who never recovered from a bizarre childhood affliction, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down. This book follows the fortunes of two remarkable characters.

In 1914, a room full of German schoolboys, fresh-faced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the 'glorious war'. With the fire and patriotism of youth, they sign up. What follows is the story of a young 'unknown soldier' experiencing the horror and disillusionment of life in the trenches.

Leads us through the history of the Venice city, from the first refugees arriving in the mists of the lagoon in the fourth century to the rise of a great mercantile state and a trading empire, the wars against Napoleon and the tourist invasions of today.

At 57, George Hall is settling down to a retirement. Then Katie, his daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, to Ray. Her brother Jamie observes that Ray has 'strangler's hands'. This book features a portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely. It also talks about the people who fall apart and come together as a family.

Brutality, greed, honour, chivalry, the clink of chain mail, the clatter of hooves, and the call of the muezzin. Such are the ingredients of the Crusades. This book explores the conflict of ideas, beliefs and cultures and shows both the contradictions and the diversity of holy war and friendships and alliances between Christians and Muslims.

A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends a black man charged with attacking a white girl. This book explores the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South. It creates one of the heroes of literature, whose lone struggle for justice pricks the conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy.

A book about one of the great undertakings of the twenty-first century - the mathematical modelling of humanity. It navigates us through a world that otherwise might seem remote or disconnected, but one which is absolutely relevant to our everyday lives.

Presents the story of detective Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard as he stalks a gang of murderers through the heart of Belle Epoque Paris. This title features characters that are mostly animals, though there is an underclass of humans, often referred to as 'dough faces'.

Tells the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright, beautiful, and talented couple whose empty suburban life is held together by the dream that greatness is only just round the corner. The author shows how Frank and April mortgage their hopes and ideals, betraying in the end not only each other, but their own best selves.

A novel that tells of a tragic love, between Ada from the poor Jewish quarter and Harry, son of a rich financier.

Perowne makes his way to his weekly squash game through London streets filled with hundreds of thousands of anti-war protestors. A minor car accident brings him into a confrontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive, young man, on the edge of violence. To Perowne's professional eye, there appears to be something profoundly wrong with him.

This work abandons the conventional distinctions between history and science. Diamond focuses on what ancient people were endowed with in the way of land, animals and plants, and on the confrontations between less and more advanced people to see how this led to today's inequalities.

Includes practical, easy-to-follow recipes and an advice about planning and cooking ahead. This title also includes various recipes from Christmas cakes and puddings, to quick and easy homemade presents, and edible tree-decorations, recipes for feeding friends and family over the holiday season with minimum stress.

Toru Okada's cat has disappeared and this has unsettled his wife, who is herself growing more distant every day. Then, there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has started receiving. As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, are turned inside out.

Storm petrels fly from a midnight sea in June to their nesting holes in a two-thousand-year-old stone tower; a million starlings gather to roost from all points across a freezing winter sky; and migrant redstarts, only weeks out of their nest, set off over alien seas on their way to Africa. This book records a lifetime of looking at birds.

Olive Wellwood is a famous writer. For each of them she writes a separate private book, bound in different colours and placed on a shelf. In their house near Romney Marsh they play in a story-book world - but their lives, and those of their cousins, children of a city stockbroker, are already inscribed with mystery.

Based on real events in Epping Forest on the edge of London around 1840, this book centres on the first incarceration of the great nature poet John Clare.

It is January, 1914 and Jonathan Crane returns home from his travels with a new American bride, former Coney Island showgirl Beatrice. In the remote Lancashire village Beatrice is the focus of attention, the men captivated by her beauty, the women initially charmed by tales of her upbringing in Normal, Illinois.