In Chinese, peng you means friend. But in any language, all Anna knows for certain is that friendship is complicated. When Anna needs company, she turns to her books. Whether traveling through A Wrinkle in Time, or peering over My Side of the Mountain, books provide what real life cannot—constant companionship and insight into her changing world. Books, however, can’t tell Anna how to find a true friend. She’ll have to discover that on her own. In the tradition of classics like Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy books and Eleanor Estes’ One Hundred Dresses, this novel subtly explores what it takes to make friends and what it means to be one.

The Book of the Year is back, with yet another pro-rogues gallery of the most amazing, audacious and absolutely absurd news of 2019. Once again the fact-finding foursome behind the podcast No Such Thing As A Fish have been newspaper-trawling and website-crawling to create your ultimate guide to the past twelve months. Learn which of Donald Trump’s claims are so bizarre they can’t even be fact-checked. Find out why every single French MP received camembert in the post. And get to the bottom of all the improvements made to the Ford company’s robotic bum. All this and much, much more, including the news that: · Two tourists planning to visit the Norwegian village of Å, ended up 1,310km away, in Aa. · Five guys were arrested at a branch of Five Guys. · Hollyoaks was partly written by the British government. · The US town of Hell froze over. From Assange to Zuckerberg, taking in Cardi B, CCTV, D-Day, and eSports, The Book of the Year is the only book you need to make senseof the year, no matter how senseless it might have seemed.

In a year when much of the news was believable but fake, comes a book packed with stories that are unbelievable but true. The Book of the Year is a hilarious guide to 2017’s most extraordinary events, unearthed by the creators of the award-winning hit comedy podcast No Such Thing As A Fish. Each week, over a million people tune in to find out what bizarre and astonishing facts Dan, James, Anna and Andy have found out over the previous seven days. Now the gang have turned their attention to the news of the past twelve months. You’ll discover the curious details behind the main headlines – how Donald Trump slept on the 66th floor of a 58-storey building, what effect Brexit had on Coco Pops, and why China’s president can’t stand Winnie the Pooh – as well as hundreds of stories you may have missed entirely, like the news that: · Qatar built a refugee camp for camels. · The world’s first avocado restaurant ran out of avocados on its first day. · The victim of Britain’s first ever shark attack ended up with a cut thumb. From strange inventions to baffling elections, via a surprising amount of sausage news, The Book of the Year is an eye-opening tour of the incredible year you didn’t know you’d lived through.

Halloween, Valentine's Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year's Day - these are but a handful of modern holidays descended from the red-letter days, seasonal celebrations we have invented and reinvented over more than five millennia to meet our changing human needs. When we explore their origins, the holidays begin to reflect not only who we are but also why, through oppressed by time and thwarted by the forces of nature, we never seem to lose the will to control the future.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • From one of America’s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion that explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage—and a life, in good times and bad—that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later—the night before New Year’s Eve—the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma. This powerful book is Didion’ s attempt to make sense of the “weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness ... about marriage and children and memory ... about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself.

A story of celebration with the characters of Hazel Village.

***PRE-ORDER FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK . . . AGAIN: MORE OF YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED BY THE QI ELVES NOW*** The perfect gift for all those big and little kids in your life who ask 'why...?'. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ZOE BALLPre-order the next book in this series, 222 QI Answers to Your Quite Ingenious Questions, published in paperback on 3rd November.'QI have outdone themselves!' ALAN DAVIES 'Fabulous . . . A cracker of a book!' SUE PERKINS'The QI Elves are barnstormingly brilliant.' ZOE BALL'Genuinely useful and endlessly fascinating.' THE SPECTATOR'Hilarious.' DAILY MAILThe QI Elves are the brains behind the enduringly popular BBC TV panel show QI.Every Wednesday the Elves appear on The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show where they answer the ponderings and wonderings of BBC Radio 2's most inquisitive listeners.Dive into this splendid collection of listeners' unusual questions and some unexpected answers that are sure to make your head spin on topics ranging from goosebumps to grapefruit, pizza to pirates and everything in-between. Generously sprinkled with extra facts and questions from the Elves, Funny You Should Ask . . . is essential reading for the incurably curious. How much water would you need to put out the Sun?If spiders can walk on the ceiling, why can't they get out of the bath?Why do dads make such bad jokes?Why does red mean 'stop' and green mean 'go'?Can I dig a tunnel to the other side of the Earth?How do plant seeds know which way is up?Can you fill up a black hole?Who popularised the recorder, and where can I get hold of them?For more from the team behind QI, visit qi.com. You can also follow QI's fact-filled Twitter account @qikipedia and listen to their weekly podcast at nosuchthingasafish.comFor more mind-boggling nuggets of wisdom check out the QI FACTS SERIES

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Named Most Anticipated of 2021 by Newsweek, Good Housekeeping, Hello! magazine, Oprah.com, Bustle, Popsugar, Betches, Sweet July, and GoodReads! March 2021 Indie Next Pick and #1 LibraryReads Pick “A bold, edgy, accomplished debut!” —Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network A forgotten history. A secret network of women. A legacy of poison and revenge. Welcome to The Lost Apothecary… Hidden in the depths of eighteenth-century London, a secret apothecary shop caters to an unusual kind of clientele. Women across the city whisper of a mysterious figure named Nella who sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives. But the apothecary’s fate is jeopardized when her newest patron, a precocious twelve-year-old, makes a fatal mistake, sparking a string of consequences that echo through the centuries. Meanwhile in present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, running from her own demons. When she stumbles upon a clue to the unsolved apothecary murders that haunted London two hundred years ago, her life collides with the apothecary’s in a stunning twist of fate—and not everyone will survive. With crackling suspense, unforgettable characters and searing insight, The Lost Apothecary is a subversive and intoxicating debut novel of secrets, vengeance and the remarkable ways women can save each other despite the barrier of time. Don’t miss THE LONDON SÉANCE SOCIETY! Sarah’s next spellbinding book about truth, illusion and the grave risks women will take to avenge the ones they love.

“A poet celebrates the wonders of nature in a collection of essays that could almost serve as a coming-of-age memoir.” —Kirkus Reviews As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted—no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape—she was able to turn to our world’s fierce and funny creatures for guidance. “What the peacock can do,” she tells us, “is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life.” The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world’s gifts. Warm, lyrical, and gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, World of Wonders is a book of sustenance and joy. Praise for World of Wonders Barnes & Noble 2020 Book of the Year An NPR Best Book of 2020 An Esquire Best Book of 2020 A Publishers Weekly “Big Indie Book of Fall 2020” A BuzzFeed Best Book of Fall 2020 “Hands-down one of the most beautiful books of the year.” —NPR “A timely story about love, identity and belonging.” —New York Times Book Review “A truly wonderous essay collection.” —Roxane Gay, The Audacity

Can two people brought together by desperate circumstances help one another heal, and maybe even begin a new life? New York Times bestselling author Charles Martin’s Send Down the Rain answers the questions of what it means—and what level of sacrifice it takes—to truly love someone. Allie is still recovering from the loss of her family’s beloved waterfront restaurant on Florida’s Gulf Coast when she loses her second husband to a terrifying highway accident. Devastated and losing hope, she shudders to contemplate the future—until a cherished person from her past returns. Joseph has been adrift for many years, wounded in both body and spirit and unable to come to terms with the trauma of his Vietnam War experiences. Just as he resolves to abandon his search for peace and live alone in a remote cabin in the Carolina mountains, he discovers a mother and her two small children lost in the forest. A man of character and strength, he instinctively steps in to help them get back to their home in Florida. There he will return to his own hometown—and witness the accident that launches a bittersweet reunion with his childhood sweetheart, Allie. When Joseph offers to help Allie rebuild her restaurant, it seems the flame may reignite—until a forty-five-year-old secret begins to emerge, threatening to destroy all hope for their second chance at love. Send Down the Rain will take you on a journey that spans the sweltering migrant worker routes of south Florida, muddy battlefields of Vietnam, thickets of northwest North Carolina, and the idyllic shores of America’s most beautiful beach (Cape San Blas). At the story’s center lies the question: What does it mean—and what level of sacrifice does it take—to truly love someone? Praise for Send Down the Rain: “Charles Martin understands the power of story and he uses it to alter the souls and lives of both his characters and his readers.”—Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author Full-length, stand-alone novel Includes discussion questions for book clubs Also by bestselling author Charles Martin: The Mountain Between Us, Chasing Fireflies, When Crickets Cry, and The Letter Keeper