Showing results by publisher "Orion Publishing Group" in All Categories

People are odd. Even the most predictable of us sometimes defy expectations. Add to that the tricks that life plays on us and the world suddenly seems full of impossible things. As an award-winning actor and writer, Rebecca Front has always been fascinated by life's little quirks. Impossible Things Before Breakfast is a collection of true stories about surprising turns of events, bizarre misunderstandings and improbable life lessons.

A brilliantly engaging guide to the reproductive habits of creatures great and small. Narrated by the author, Dr. Carin Bondar. In The Nature of Sex, 'biologist with a twist' Carin Bondar presents the fascinating diversity of the reproductive habits of the animal kingdom and, through approachable explanations and humorous examples, succeeds in making an eternally popular subject into a book of international appeal.

The Loch Ness monster: a creature that should have died out with the dinosaurs or a legend built on hoaxes and wishful thinking? Sir Peter Scott, internationally renowned naturalist and president of the World Wildlife Fund, was convinced that the monster existed. So were senior scientists at London's Natural History Museum and Chicago University; they lost their jobs because they refused to renounce their belief in the creature.

A small group of commuters and tube workers witness a fiery apocalypse overtaking London. They make their escape through a service tunnel. Reaching a door they step through...and find themselves on a wild shore backed by cliffs and rolling grassland. The way back is blocked. Making their way inland, they meet a man dressed in a wolf's cloak and with wolves by his side.

Who is the real Sophie Stark? The Life and Death of Sophie Stark is the story of an enigmatic film director, told by the six people who loved her most. Brilliant, infuriating, all-seeing and unknowable, Sophie Stark makes films said to be more like life than life itself. But her genius comes at a terrible cost: to her husband, to the brother she left behind, and to an actress who knows too much.

London, January 2014. In the space of 32 hours, in a well-planned and highly organized operation, six billionaires' children are taken off the streets of London in a series of slickly well-executed kidnaps. The gang demands £25 million per hostage for "expenses" - not ransom. And when your child goes missing, you need Charles Boxer: a man with little left to lose, who'll stop at nothing to save families suffering what he has.

A fascinating, bite-sized insight into how human sexuality came to be the way it is now - Jared Diamond explains why we are different from the animal kingdom. Why are humans one of the few species to have sex in private? Why do humans have sex any day of the month or year, including when the female is pregnant, beyond her reproductive years, or between her fertile cycles? Why are human females one of the few mammals to go through menopause?

Charlie Boxer messed up his family life. First the army, then the police, then high-stakes kidnap and recovery, his ex-wife and daughter learnt to live without him as his work took him places no man can come back from unscarred. Trying to rebuild a relationship with Amy, his teenage daughter, hasn't been easy. But Charlie only realises just how wrong things have gone when he finds her empty room and a note: You will never find me.

I was 12 when the coat was made. Nathan, our tailor and dear friend, cut it for Grandfather in the first week of March 1938. It was the last week of freedom for Warsaw and for us...Even in the most difficult of lives, there is hope. And sometimes that hope comes in the form of a small boy, armed with a troupe of puppets - a prince, a girl, a fool, a crocodile with half-painted teeth....When Mika's grandfather dies in the Warsaw ghetto, he inherits not only his great coat, but its treasure trove of secrets.

Inspector Keon has finally got over the death of his wife, Alysha, in a terrorist attack five years ago. The illegal AI copy of her - Liss - that he created to help him mourn has vanished, presumed destroyed. His life is back on track. But a deadly shooting in a police-guarded room in a high-security hospital threatens to ruin everything. Who got past the defences? Why did they kill the seemingly unimportant military officer who had been in a coma for weeks? And why did the scanners pick up the deceased man the next day on the other side of the planet, seemingly alive and well?

Jane is 16 when she first becomes aware of Leonard Campbell. He is a tall, gentle man with full lips and no ring on his left hand. He is her teacher. As he begins to shower her with attention, giving her novels to read and discuss, Jane's interest grows, and slowly she falls in love. They overcome obstacles in the form of school bullies and Jane's parents, and it is only once married that Jane realises she might have settled down too early and given up too much of herself in the process.

Following a drunken misunderstanding, Simon Dawson gave up his job in the city, moved to the wilds of Exmoor and became an accidental self-sufficient smallholder with an array of animals. But that was years ago now. Following up on his first book, Pigs in Clover, this is the story of what happens when he suddenly realises that his life is changing all over again. He's not quite the spring chicken that he used to be: he is, horror of horrors, getting older.

Puglia, 1921. Leandro Cardetta, born into poverty, emigrated to America to make his fortune and has returned home to southern Italy a rich man, accompanied by his glamorous wife, Marcie, an ex-showgirl fighting middle age. Now Leandro has money enough to hire renowned English architect, Boyd Kinsgley, to renovate a crumbling palazzo into an Art Deco statement of wealth, and host Boyd's teenage son and his diffident young second wife, Clare, for one extraordinary summer.

'I'm good at secrets,' Libby says. Yes, thinks Jessica, I bet you are... Jessica should have everything to make her happy: a loving husband, a growing reputation as a jewellery designer, hope for a family of her own in the future. Then she meets Libby - flattering, attentive - and believes she has found the friendship she missed out on as a child. Until Jessica catches her husband and Libby alone, heads together in whispered collusion. With her life unravelling, Jessica flees home to the seaside town where she grew up.

With characteristic verve and integrity, Ann Widdecombe recalls her life and highlights the people and events that most influenced her along the way. From her early family life in Singapore and her convent school days to her student ambitions at Birmingham and Oxford, and her long-serving years as an MP, this is the life story of one of our most outspoken and celebrated politicians. Offering unique insight into her time as a Minister in three Departments and the Shadow Cabinet in the 1990s, Ann also explains the roots of her conversion to Catholicism in 1993 and her deeply held views on abortion and gay marriage.

5 August 2005. While conducting a secret mission thirty miles off the remote cost of Kamchatka, the Russian Navy submarine AS-28 became snared in the thick cables anchored to 60-tonne concrete blocks. Without power the stricken boat sunk to the seafloor. Trapped too deep to escape her crew now had just seventy two hours before the air onboard ran out. Twenty-four hours later - still haunted by the loss of the Kursk - the Russian Navy requested assistance.

When a freshly mummified body is discovered at the Brighton Museum of Natural History, Detective Francis Sullivan is at a loss to identify the desiccated woman. But as Egyptian burial jars of body parts with cryptic messages attached start appearing, he realises he has a serial killer on his hands. Revenge, obsession and an ancient religion form a potent mix, unleashing a wave of terror throughout the city. Caught in a race against time while battling his own demons, Francis must fight to uncover the true identity of the Embalmer before it's too late.

This modern classic of nature writing by the author of The Once and Future King was an inspiration for and featured in Helen Macdonald's prize-winning H Is for Hawk. "No hawk can be a pet. There is no sentimentality. In a way, it is the psychiatrist's art. One is matching one's mind against another mind with deadly reason and interest. One desires no transference of affection, demands no ignoble homage or gratitude. It is a tonic for the less forthright savagery of the human heart."

In New York, if you have a problem no one else can solve, you call Leonid McGill. Ex-boxer, hard drinker, in a business that trades in cash and favours, McGill's an old-school PI working a city that's got fancy all around him. When McGill is approached by a small-time office manager, he declines the case. He has better things to do than track down the man's long-lost cousin, who is about to inherit millions. But then McGill's office is broken into, and his potential client is found dead.

When her beloved father dies, Vivien Epstein - a 22 year old hairdresser from Manchester - leaves her hometown for London in the hope of finding Jack Fox - a man she had a brief, but intense, love affair with some months ago. All Vivien has to go is one letter Jack sent to her father, the address of a boarding house scribbled hastily on the back, and very soon her hopes of finding him are dashed.