Three little known facts: Africa is now the world's fastest growing continent, with average GDP growth of 5.5% the past 10 years. Malaria deaths have declined by 30% and HIV infections by 74%. Nigeria produces more movies than America does. The Lion Awakes is the true story of today's Africa, one often overshadowed by the dire headlines. Traveling from his ancestral home in Uganda, East Africa, to the booming economy and (if chaotic) new democracies of West Africa, and down to the "Silicon Savannahs" of Kenya and Rwanda, Ashish J. Thakkar shows us an Africa that few Westerners are aware exists. Far from being a place in need of our pity and aid, we see a continent undergoing a remarkable transformation and economic development. We meet a new generation of ambitious, tech savvy young Africans who are developing everything from bamboo bicycles to iPhone Apps; we meet artists, film makers and architects thriving with newfound freedom and opportunity, and we are introduced to hyper-educated members of the Diaspora who have returned to Africa after years abroad to open companies and take up positions in government. They all tell the same story: 21st Century Africa offers them more opportunity than the First World. Drawing from his business experience, and his own family's history in Africa, which include his parents' expulsion from Uganda by Idi Amin in the 70s and his own survival of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Ashish shows us how much difference a decade can make.

The Lion Wakes tells the modern story of HSBC, starting in the late 1970s, when the bank first broke out of the Asia-Pacific region with its purchase of Marine Midland Bank in the US. It follows HSBC's battle to purchase Midland Bank in 1992, the subsequent move of head office from Hong Kong to London, and the string of acquisitions that brought the bank to its pre-eminent place in global finance today. Acclaimed historians Richard Roberts and David Kynaston chronicle the bank's struggles as well as its successes: the last part of the book deals with the ill-fated move into consumer finance in the US, as well as the financial crisis of 2008 and its effect on HSBC. Impeccably researched and generously illustrated from the HSBC archives, this is a valuable addition to global financial history.

At the dawn of the 14th century, a disgraced inquisitor and his young disciple find themselves at the heart of a struggle for power between medieval Europe's occult powers. From the halls of Notre Dame to the most distant abbeys, they embark on a quest for the greatest mystery of all: the Third Testament.

Bristling with intelligence and shimmering with romance, this novel tests the boundary between history and myth. Patrick Lewis arrives in Toronto in the 1920s and earns his living searching for a vanished millionaire and tunneling beneath Lake Ontario. In the course of his adventures, Patrick's life intersects with those of characters who reappear in Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning The English Patient. 256 pp.

David Icke marks his 20th year of uncovering astounding secrets and suppressed information with the publication of his most amazing book yet: Human Race Get off Your Knees : The Lion Sleeps No More. He takes the manipulation of the human race and the nature of reality to still new levels of understanding and he calls for humanity to rise from its knees and take back the world from the sinister network of families and non-human entities that covertly control us from cradle to grave. His most staggering revelation is that the Earth and the collective human mind is manipulated from the Moon, which, he says, is not a 'heavenly body, but an artificial construct - a gigantic 'spacecraft' (probably a hollowed-out 'planetoid') - which is home to the extraterrestrial group that has been manipulating humanity for aeons. Humanity is at a fork in the road and it is time to make a choice. Are we going to awaken to our true genius and potential as Infinite Consciousness? Or are we going to remain entrapped in body/mind and the manufactured illusions of the Moon Matrix? It is time to shake off the shackles, stop being Pavlov's dogs and grab reality by the balls and wake up to who we are truly meant to be.

Lenny, a Jewish boy living in London during the Blitz in World War II, must adjust to many changes and find the true meaning of courage when he is evacuated to a large mansion in the English countryside.

A great lion awakes from his slumber in a faraway tundra. He knows not where he is or even who he is, yet he knows he cannot stay there. Finding creatures along the way, join this lion on his journey to brave the snowy storm and find a home.

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series. Please note that the eBook edition does NOT include access to the audio edition and digital book. Written for learners of English as a foreign language, each title includes carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers' story comprehension and develop vocabulary. Lion, a Level 4 Reader, is A2+ in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing more complex uses of present perfect simple, passives, phrasal verbs and simple relative clauses. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear regularly. Five-year-old Saroo gets on the wrong train in India and is taken thousands of miles to the city of Kolkata. After months of living on the streets, he is adopted by a family in Australia. Many years later, Saroo decides to try and find his Indian family.

A New York Times bestseller 'A sensation ... a rollicking tale well told' - The Times At the heart of Born to Run lies a mysterious tribe of Mexican Indians, the Tarahumara, who live quietly in canyons and are reputed to be the best distance runners in the world; in 1993, one of them, aged 57, came first in a prestigious 100-mile race wearing a toga and sandals. A small group of the world's top ultra-runners (and the awe-inspiring author) make the treacherous journey into the canyons to try to learn the tribe's secrets and then take them on over a course 50 miles long. With incredible energy and smart observation, McDougall tells this story while asking what the secrets are to being an incredible runner. Travelling to labs at Harvard, Nike, and elsewhere, he comes across an incredible cast of characters, including the woman who recently broke the world record for 100 miles and for her encore ran a 2:50 marathon in a bikini, pausing to down a beer at the 20 mile mark.

Transported to a medieval realm of magic and myth, a World War II resistance fighter undertakes a perilous quest in this classic fantasy adventure. Holger Carlsen is a rational man of science. A Danish engineer working with the Resistance to defeat the Nazis, he is wounded during an engagement with the enemy and awakens in an unfamiliar parallel universe where the forces of Law are locked in eternal combat with the forces of Chaos. Against a medieval backdrop, brave knights must take up arms against magical creatures of myth and faerie, battling dragons, trolls, werewolves, and giants. Though Holger has no recollection of this world, he discovers he is already well-known throughout the lands, a hero revered as a Champion of Law. He finds weaponry and armor awaiting him—precisely fitted to his form—and a shield with three hearts and three lions emblazoned upon it. As he journeys through a realm filled with wonders in search of the key to his past, Holger will call upon the scientific knowledge of his home dimension, the destinies of both worlds hanging in the balance. Before Thomas Covenant, Roger Zelazny’s Amber, and J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the great Poul Anderson introduced readers to the Middle World and the legendary hero Ogier the Dane. Inventive and exciting, Three Hearts and Three Lions is a foray into fantasy that employs touches of science fiction from an award-winning master of the speculative.