Head of Zeus

The remarkable behind-the-scenes story of one of the most iconic clashes in sports and world history.
In 1936, against a backdrop of swastikas flying and storm troopers goose-stepping, an African-American athlete won a staggering four Olympic gold medals. Jesse Owens, the son of sharecroppers, had single-handedly crushed Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy. The story of Jesse Owens at the 1936 games is that of a high-profile athlete giving a performance that transcends sports. But it is also the intimate and complex tale of the courage of one remarkable man.
This is the incredible true story of one of the moment a black athlete beat Hitler at his own games.

Every writer knows what it's like to be plagued by a bad case of writer's block. But what happens when writer's block shows up in person and starts terrorizing a best-selling author? Zachary Gold, struggling to write his second novel after becoming an instant success with his first, is suddenly confronted by a mysterious man claiming that Zach plagiarized his writing. In his efforts to escape the crazed imposter, Zach flees into a nearby library and hides out amidst the children's bookshelves in the basement. Surrounded by fairy tales and fearing for his safety, the author attempts to put words on paper while grappling with the question of whether he should write a sequel to his smash hit or start anew with an original story. A DEATH SENTENCE STORY: original shorts about deadly books from the world's best crime writers.

In the fifteenth century, the Spanish Inquisition spreads terror throughout the land, with Prior Tomás de Torquemada serving as the ultimate judge of who will live and who will be consigned to the purifying flames. Never has Torquemada questioned his own faith or his sacred duty to rid the world of heretics, blasphemers, and nonbelievers. Now, however, an extraordinary volume has come into his possession — an ancient book that radiates pure evil. The prior realizes this abomination must be destroyed along with anyone who has come into contact with it, for it is surely the devil's work, corrupting and possessing all those who touch it. But whom can Torquemada trust to help him achieve his mission now that The Compendium of Srem has passed through numerous hands… including his own? A DEATH SENTENCE STORY: original shorts about deadly books from the world's best crime writers.

November, 1145. The bitter rift between King Stephen and Empress Maud at last has a chance of reconciliation. Brother Cadfael is faced with a shocking revelation: one of the hostages is his illegitimate son.

Sandra Harris – wife, astronomer (known for discovering the planet Athena), television phenomenon, and 'professional searcher after truth' – has had an epiphany. She leaves her boring attorney husband and runs off with Mad Jack Stubbs, her trumpet-playing lover, and his groupie entourage, for a tour of Southern France. Pursued by her husband, Mad Jack's wife, and the paparazzi, Sandra lives entirely for the moment – and great sex. In between, she ponders her past (institutionalized mother, Nazi war criminal father) while trying to ignore the deafening tick of her biological clock…
Now in her ninth decade, Fay Weldon is one of the foremost chroniclers of our time, a novelist who spoke to an entire generation of women by daring to say the things that no one else would. Her work ranges over novels, short stories, children's books, nonfiction, journalism, television, radio, and the stage. She was awarded a CBE in 2001.

In the hot, dry August of 1141, England is still torn by civic strife. Amidst the carnage the Abbey of Hyde Meade is totally destroyed; its resident brothers dispersed, finding refuge in the Abbey of Shrewsbury. But Brother Cadfael realizes that two of these refugees are not all that they appear to be.

TWO COUNTRIES IN THE GRIP OF WINTER.
On the coldest day of the year, Sweden’s Minister for Justice steps out of Parliament House and into a blizzard – and disappears. That same night, across the Baltic Sea, a Danish celebrity finds a stranger lurking in her snow-bound home.
TWO KILLERS STALK THE STREETS.
One is a surgeon who carefully dissects his victims. The other is a brutal predator who targets women. Police in Stockholm and Copenhagen are closing in on their suspects. But as winter darkens and more people die, their investigations begin to unravel.
SOMETIMES MURDER IS JUST THE BEGINNING…

In the Spring of 1140, a young man, pursued by a lynching mob, claims sanctuary just in time to save his life. Brother Cadfael believes the boy is innocent and sets out to prove it.

GUILT. ATONEMENT. REVENGE.
On a remote Swedish island, a little girl, Klara, grows up without a father. Now, twenty years later, she discovers a secret: a secret that powerful men will kill to keep hidden.
On the other side of the world, an old spy hides from his past. He used to be the best agent in the field. These days the only thing he lives for is swimming in the local pool.
Then, on Christmas eve, Klara is thrown into a terrifying chase across Europe. Only the Swimmer can save her. But time is running out…

THE CHRONICLE OF SWORD & SAND: Baghdad, AD 790. Caliph Harun al-Rashid presides over the greatest metropolis on Earth, ruler of an empire that stretches from China to Byzantium. His exploits will be recorded in Alf Layla or, as we know it, The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. However, The Thousand and One Nights are silent on the deeds and adventures that befell two of the Caliph's subjects: the renowned scholar Dabir ibn Kahlil, and his shield and right hand, Asim el Abbas. For their story, we must turn to the Chronicle of Sand and Sword…
THE BONES OF THE OLD ONES: Amid the worst winter in living memory, a Persian noblewoman seeks sanctuary at the home of the scholar Dabir and his friend the swordsman Asim. She flees from a cabal of magi that ensorcelled her in their quest to track down ancient artifacts of tremendous power – the Bones of the Old Ones. Caught between the magi and a vengeful spirit intent on sheathing the world in ice, Dabir and Asim will have no choice but to ally with a deadly enemy…

The turbulent Tudor age never fails to capture the imagination. But what was it actually like to be a woman during this period? This was a time when death in infancy or during childbirth was rife; when marriage was usually a legal contract, not a matter for love, and the education of women was minimal at best. Yet the Tudor century was also dominated by powerful and characterful women in a way that no era had been before.
Elizabeth Norton explores the seven ages of the Tudor woman, from childhood to old age, through the diverging examples of women such as Elizabeth Tudor, Henry VIII's sister who died in infancy; Cecily Burbage, Elizabeth's wet nurse; Mary Howard, widowed but influential at court; Elizabeth Boleyn, mother of a controversial queen; and Elizabeth Barton, a peasant girl who would be lauded as a prophetess. Their stories are interwoven with studies of topics ranging from Tudor toys to contraception to witchcraft, painting a portrait of the lives of queens and serving maids, nuns and harlots, widows and chaperones.

England, late 1547. Henry VIII is dead. His 14-year-old daughter Elizabeth is living with the old king's widow Catherine Parr and her new husband Thomas Seymour. Ambitious, charming and dangerous, Seymour begins an overt flirtation with Elizabeth that ends in her being sent away by Catherine.
When Catherine dies in autumn 1548 and Seymour is arrested for treason soon after, the scandal explodes into the open. Alone and in dreadful danger, Elizabeth is closely questioned by the king's regency council: Was she still a virgin? Was there a child? Had she promised to marry Seymour? In her replies, she shows the shrewdness and spirit she would later be famous for. She survives the scandal. Thomas Seymour is not so lucky.
The Seymour Scandal led to the creation of the Virgin Queen. On hearing of Seymour's beheading, Elizabeth observed 'This day died a man of much wit, and very little judgement'. His fate remained with her. She would never allow her heart to rule her head again.

Just because football is a game, it doesn't mean you have to play fair.
Football manager Scott Manson needs a new job, but finding one in the star-studded world of international football isn't easy. A new position in Shanghai turns out to be part of an elaborate sting operation – and in Barcelona, he's not hired as a football manager, but as a detective. Barca's star player is missing, and Scott has a month to track him down.
As Scott follows the trail from Paris to Antigua, he encounters corrupt men, wicked women, and the rotten heart of the beautiful game…

The beautiful game just got deadly.
London City is playing in Athens, and football manager Scott Manson is keeping his team on a tight leash. He needs them home in one piece for a crucial match at Silvertown Docks.
But Scott didn't plan for death on the pitch. As the Greek authorities are mounting a murder investigation, Scott must find the truth – and fast – to get his boys home in time.

'She's a Queen of Words' CAITLIN MORAN.
'One of the great lionesses of modern English literature' HARPER'S BAZAAR.
'Readable, articulate and fascinating' THE SCOTSMAN.
'Outrageously funny' DAILY EXPRESS.
'Sharp, witty, incisive' THE TIMES.
'Wise, knowing, forthright' INDEPENDENT.
Reviewers have been describing Fay Weldon's inimitable voice for years. Now, here is Fay Weldon in her own words. Choosing and and introducing twenty-one of her favourite short stories written throughout her fifty year career as one of Britain's foremost novelists. Included as a bonus is a new novella, The Ted Dreams, a ghost story for the age of cyber culture, big pharma, and surveillance.

'An ancient brooding castle… a dispossessed child… a lifelong passion for one errant man… wars, crises and feuds… ' WASHINGTON POST.
Reay Tannahill's great bestseller is the story of an extraordinary woman's determination to win back her birthright – the remote and beautiful West Highland castle of Kinveil – sold by her father to a Glasgow merchant when she was seven years old. It is also the intricate picture of a family in the heyday of the British Empire, an epic story spanning almost a hundred years and stretching from Edinburgh to the Crimea, from an expanding America to the India of the Raj.

Three women, one man, and a tangle of lies.
When the world famous music conductor Leo Bruck dies suddenly, the three women who loved him meet for the first time at his graveside.
Victoria, his partner of twenty years and mother of two of his children; Maddy, mother of Leo's daughter Phoebe; and twenty-four year old Cat. Can these three very different women, whose lives become inextricably bound, break free from the masterful control Leo exerts – even from the grave – once and for all?
THE DARLING GIRLS is a moving story of love, loss, and the prevailing power of female friendship.

The year is 1905 and King Edward VII has invited himself and his mistress to a shooting weekend with the Dilbernes. Now Isobel, the Countess, must turn a run-down mansion into a palace fit for a king. Just as well the family fortunes have been restored, but money can't solve everything… not even a kidnapping.
The servants refuse to condone the King's morals; Isobel's daughter, Lady Rosina – now widowed and wealthy – insists on publishing a scandalous book, and the mis-spent pasts of Viscount Arthur and his Irish-American wife Minnie rear up to blacken the family name. When fate deals a hand in the middle of the shooting party, Isobel must consider not only her leading position in Society, but her entire future.
Fay Weldon brings an aristocratic Edwardian household to fabulous, vibrant life in this gorgeously witty tale of manners and morals, commoners and countesses, from one of Britain's best loved authors.

Meet Bror Telemann. 42 years old. Husband to Nina Telemann. Father to Heidi, Berthold and Sabine. Currently: stage director at the Norwegian National Theatre. Soon to be: world-famous playwright and general talking head.
Now he's on holiday with his family at the foot of the Alps, south of Munich. That's in Germany. Nina loves Germany. Telemann does not. Telemann loves Nigella Lawson.
Ahem… he loves the theatre.That's better.
So, whilst his wife and children frolic in the dusky sunshine with lederhosen-sporting, schnitzel-scoffing locals, Telemann prefers to spend his time thinking about theatre… except when his mind wanders… again.
Subversive and original, this is the 2009 Norwegian bestseller from the deliciously dark mind of Erlend Loe.

December 1901: With London Society in a frenzy of anticipation for the coronation of the new king, Edward VII, the Earl and Countess of Dilberne are caught up in lavish preparations. Yet Lady Isobel still has ample time to fret, and no wonder with a new heir on the way, an elopement, family tragedy, a runaway niece, and a gaggle of fraudulent spiritualists to contend with…
With her trademark joie de vivre, Fay Weldon once again draws her readers into the lives and loves of the aristocratic Dilberne family, as they embrace not only a new century, but a new generation – a generation with somewhat radical views…