Living or visiting Thailand should be a dream come true. Right? Book number one - Not Far Enough From Worries. A drug lord fathers his lesbian niece’s child, but not in the usual way! Set in Thailand late 1980s. Action, fun, romance, and tears. Breathtaking violence and tender moments add to a fast-paced read. Two young and gullible Englishmen move to Hua Hin to start a new life in the tropical heat. Along the way, they meet a dodgy Dutch ship's engineer, two lovely French girls who are more interested in dogs than romance. A tall Welsh man with a chequered history of drug abuse, but a unique skill of mixing things to make other things. This talent gets the attention of seriously evil people. A lesbian newspaper reporter rides a powerful motorbike has an important family secret. The whole story unfolds in an action-packed finale.

“There's no writer alive like de Botton” (Chicago Tribune), and now this internationally heralded author turns his attention to the insatiable human quest for status—a quest that has less to do with material comfort than love. Anyone who’s ever lost sleep over an unreturned phone call or the neighbor’s Lexus had better read Alain de Botton’s irresistibly clear-headed new book, immediately. For in its pages, a master explicator of our civilization and its discontents explores the notion that our pursuit of status is actually a pursuit of love, ranging through Western history and thought from St. Augustine to Andrew Carnegie and Machiavelli to Anthony Robbins. Whether it’s assessing the class-consciousness of Christianity or the convulsions of consumer capitalism, dueling or home-furnishing, Status Anxiety is infallibly entertaining. And when it examines the virtues of informed misanthropy, art appreciation, or walking a lobster on a leash, it is not only wise but helpful.

Worrying: A Literary and Cultural History suggests a unique approach to the inner lifeand its ordinary pains. Francis O'Gorman charts the emergence of our contemporaryidea of worry in the Victorian era and its establishment, after the First World War,as a feature of modernity. For some writers between the Wars, worry was the "diseaseof the age." Worrying examines the everyday kind of worry-the fearful, non-pathological, andusually hidden questioning about uncertain futures. It shows worry to be a naturalcompanion in a world where we try to live by reason and believe we have the right tochoose, finding in the worrier a peculiarly contemporary sufferer whose mental lifeis not only exceptionally familiar, but also deeply strange. Offering an intimately personal account of an all-too-common human experience, and of a word that slips in and out of ordinary conversation so often that it has become invisible in its familiarity,Worrying explores how the modern world has shaped our everyday anxieties.

What if everything you ever wanted isn’t what you actually want? Twenty-something, suit-clad, and upwardly mobile, Joshua Fields Millburn thought he had everything anyone could ever want. Until he didn’t anymore. Blindsided by the loss of his mother and his marriage in the same month, Millburn started questioning every aspect of the life he had built for himself. Then, he accidentally discovered a lifestyle known as minimalism…and everything started to change. That was four years ago. Since, Millburn, now 32, has embraced simplicity. In the pursuit of looking for something more substantial than compulsory consumption and the broken American Dream, he jettisoned most of his material possessions, paid off loads of crippling debt, and walked away from his six-figure career. So, when everything was gone, what was left? Not a how-to book but a why-to book, Everything That Remains is the touching, surprising story of what happened when one young man decided to let go of everything and begin living more deliberately. Heartrending, uplifting, and deeply personal, this engrossing memoir is peppered with insightful (and often hilarious) interruptions by Ryan Nicodemus, Millburn’s best friend of twenty years.

The NIV Application Commentary helps you communicate and apply biblical text effectively in today’' context. To bring the ancient messages of the Bible into today's world, each passage is treated in three sections: Original Meaning. Concise exegesis to help readers understand the original meaning of the biblical text in its historical, literary, and cultural context. Bridging Contexts. A bridge between the world of the Bible and the world of today, built by discerning what is timeless in the timely pages of the Bible. Contemporary Significance. This section identifies comparable situations to those faced in the Bible and explores relevant application of the biblical messages. The author alerts the readers of problems they may encounter when seeking to apply the passage and helps them think through the issues involved. This unique, award-winning commentary is the ideal resource for today's preachers, teachers, and serious students of the Bible, giving them the tools, ideas, and insights they need to communicate God's Word with the same powerful impact it had when it was first written.

Occasonally, a tale comes along that has been lost in the mists of time. Often the story starts out as just another mundane event in daily life until something else comes out from behind the shadows. And when it does, nobody can escape the fire storm that follows, especially when the masked one demands so much of our attention. Because in the end, the consequences of his actions eventually consume all of those in its path. William McBride was such a person in the early 14th century, when he came in contact with the Logan brothers of Lanark, who were also known to the locals as the Gemini Knights. These brothers were Templar Knights of the Scottish Order and they carried out a number dangerous exploits in their time. And as William McBride found out in later life, the times he spent with the brothers would eventually place him on a path that could have a profound impact on the City of Jerusalem at the end time. To some, this story may appear to be just another old wives tale, worthy of a good read and then placed on the book shelve to gather dust from now on. However, to others the story of the Gemini Knights has more than just a ring of truth to it in some kind of old fashioned way. Enough, to engage the mind in more than a simple observation of the material that William McBride collected over his life time.So, if you have an inquisitive mind and want to gain a glimpse into the future, the only question you have to ask yourself is. 'Do I have the courage to read the book and judge for myself?'

A heart-warming and nostalgic family saga set at the heart of London's East End, from the bestselling author of A Wartime Christmas. Perfect for fans of Sheila Newberry and Rosie Goodwin 'Surely one of the best saga writers of her time' – Rosie Clarke WILL FOLLOWING HER DREAMS COST HER EVERYTHING? London's East End, 1934. Eighteen-year-old twins Marie and Vesta Haskins work at the local shoe factory to support their family, but they've never given up on their dream of performing in the West End. So when a brand new club opens its doors, the girls are over the moon to be hired as the cabaret act. But little do they realise, the villainous Scoresby brothers are using the club as a front for a very different line of business . . . Discovering the truth behind the smoke and lights of the stage, sensible Marie vows to leave her job at the club before it is too late, but headstrong Vesta has fallen for the Scoresby's handsome right-hand man, Teddy, and unwittingly leads her whole family into their clutches. Will Marie be able to save her family from disaster? Or will Vesta's determination to become a star tear the Haskins family apart? Praise for CAROL RIVERS: 'A gripping page turner' - LEAH FLEMING 'Brings the East End to life - family loyalties, warring characters and broken dreams. Superb' - ELIZABETH GILL