'Stories that start like delicate webs and finish like unbreakable wire traps' Neil Gaiman Naomi Ishiguro's fresh, magical and delightfully speculative short story collection merges the inventiveness of David Mitchell and the fairy-tale allure of Angela Carter to form its own powerful magic. Witness what happens when a space-obsessed child conjures up a vortex in his mother's airing cupboard in Shearing Season. Watch unexpected possibilities open up in The Flat Roof when a musician makes friends with a flock of birds. Get lost in the world of The Rat Catcher where, finding himself potentially out of his depth when he is summoned to a decaying royal palace, a rat catcher is plunged into a battle for the throne of a ruined kingdom. In this stunning debut collection, the characters yearn for freedom and flight, and find their worlds transformed beyond their wildest imaginings. 'Naomi Ishiguro's crystal clear prose delights and intrigues' Sharlene Teo 'Winsomely written and engagingly quirky, these are inventive tales that favour imagination over gritty realism.' The Sunday Times 'Ishiguro's imagination is a place where the fantastical lurks in the margins as a possibility, a flavour rather than a genre' The Herald

Shows how we can resist increasingly advanced methods of state control by refusing to conform to accepted behavioural norms.

'Escape Route' outlines how we can address the crises we are currently facing without being dependent on the world's power holders. 'Escape Route' establishes a codex for operating truly sustainable companies, and through them, the opportunity to accelerate the necessary transition to sustainability. It is the use of existing structures around business operations that makes it easy to get started and impossible for power holders to stop. It is a path that distributes power and opportunities for action across the world; out to you and me.

“Achingly familiar and wonderfully strange.” —Samuel R. Delany, Hugo and Nebula Award winner “Plunge into The History of Soul 2065, there’s nothing like it.” —Jeffrey Ford, World Fantasy Award winner Months before World War I breaks out, two young Jewish girls just on the edge of adolescence—one from a bustling Russian city, the other from a German estate—meet in an eerie, magical forest glade. They are immediately drawn to one another and swear an oath to meet again. Though war and an ocean will separate the two for the rest of their lives, the promise that they made to each other continues through the intertwined lives of their descendants. This epic tale of the supernatural follows their families from the turn of the 20th Century through the terrors of the Holocaust and ultimately to the wonders of a future they never could have imagined. The History of Soul 2065 encompasses accounts of sorcery, ghosts, time travel, virtual reality, alien contact, and elemental confrontations between good and evil. Understated and epic, cathartic and bittersweet, the twenty connected stories in Nebula Award finalist Barbara Krasnoff’s debut form a mosaic narrative even greater than its finely crafted parts. Jane Yolen, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master, says in her introduction: “If you, like me, love quirky and original fantasy stories, I advise you to dive right in. If you, like me, admire tough writing that’s not afraid of the grit, dive right in. If you, like me, want to hang out a while with characters rich in their own traditions, dive right in. This is storytelling at the top of the heap.”

A collection of the author's favorite twenty adventure stories from the last eleven years

Stranger In My Heart is about the search for understanding oneself, answering the question “Who am I?” by seeking to understand the currents that sweep down the generations, eddy through one’s own persona and continue on – palpable but often unrecognised. My father fought at the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941, was taken prisoner by the Japanese and then escaped in February 1942, making his way across 1200 miles of inhospitable country to reach China’s wartime capital at Chongqing. Seventy years later I retraced his steps in an effort to understand a man who had died when I was 18, leaving a lot of unanswered questions behind. My book is the quest that I undertook to explore my father’s life, in the context of the Pacific War and our relationship with China. A picture of a man of the greatest generation slowly unfolds, a leader, a 20th Century Great, but a distant father. As I delve into his story and research the unfamiliar territory of China in the Second World War, the mission to get to know the stranger I called ‘Dad’ resolves into a mission to understand how my own character was formed. As I travel across China, the traits I received from my father gradually emerge from their camouflage. The strands of the story are woven together in a flowing triple helix, with biography, travelogue and memoir punctuated with musings on context and meaning.

The Lisbon Route tells of the extraordinary World War II transformation of Portugal's tranquil port city into the great escape hatch of Nazi Europe. Royalty, celebrities, diplomats, fleeing troops, and ordinary citizens desperately slogged their way across France and Spain to reach the neutral nation. As well as offering freedom from war, Lisbon provided spies, smugglers, relief workers, military figures, and adventurers with an avenue into the conflict and its opportunities. Yet an ever-present shadow behind the gaiety was the fragile nature of Portuguese neutrality.

Reading a book can change your life. When Eleanor Lahr read "Follow the River", a novel about the true experience of Mary Draper Ingles, who was captured in 1755 by Shawnee Indians and carried 500 miles from her home, she felt inexplicably compelled to retrace Mary's escape route. With little previous experince, but with plucky courage, she planned and trained extensively, then set off on her 51st birthday. Before e-mail, cell phones, Facebook, and Twitter, occaisionally alone, usually with strangers, she hiked 43 days along the Ohio, Kanawha, and New Rivers--publisher.

Of all the resistance organizations that operated during the war, about which much has been written, one stands out for its transnational character, the diversity of the tasks its members took on, and the fact that, unlike many of the known evasion lines, it was not directed by Allied officers, but rather by group of ordinary citizens. Between 1942 and 1945, they formed a network to smuggle Dutch Jews and others targeted by the Nazis south into France, via Paris, and then to Switzerland. This network became known as the Dutch-Paris Escape Line, eventually growing to include 300 people and expanding its reach into Spain. Led by Jean Weidner, a Dutchman living in France, many lacked any experience in clandestine operations or military tactics, and yet they became one of the most effective resistance groups of the Second World War. Dutch-Paris largely improvised its operations-scrounging for food on the black market, forging documents, and raising cash. Hunted relentlessly by the Nazis, some were even captured and tortured. In addition to Jews, those it helped escape the clutches of the Nazis included resistance fighters, political foes, Allied airmen, and young men looking to get to London to enlist. As the need grew more desperate, so did the bravery of those who rose to meet it. Using recently declassified archives, The Escape Line tells the story of the Dutch-Paris and the thousands of people it saved during World War II. Author Megan Koreman, who was given exclusive access to many of the archives, is herself the daughter of Dutch parents who were part of the resistance.

A practical and inspirational guide to planning every kind of off-road cycling, from nearby “microadventures” to global itineraries, drawing on the author’s own epic journeys From wilderness treks to weekends spent following local coastal paths, adventure cycling combines cycle touring, mountain biking, and camping to open up new and exciting possibilities for adventure on two wheels. Cycling writer and photographer Joshua Cunningham spent eleven months cycling from London to Hong Kong, a journey that spanned twenty- six countries and 13,670 miles. During his journey, he captured thousands of photographs of the landscapes—many barely touched by humans— and acquired a wealth of invaluable experience, from arranging travel and selecting the best bike to what to pack for each climate and terrain, and how to choose and navigate your route. Part travelogue, part practical guide, this exhilarating account divides the stages of Cunningham’s tour into five chapters, each focusing on a geographical environment: forest, desert, mountain, tropical, and urban. Packaged in a travel-friendly format, this combination of practical text and inspiring photography will appeal to every bike adventurer.