With The Wind At His Back

‘He had taken, these last few weeks, to sitting in the faded leather chair in the sitting room, next to the wood burner. It was only February, and he regularly pushed logs into the fire, stoking it into a continual roar….he didn’t want to die. The words of Dylan Thomas raged in his head as he stared down the garden for hours from his chair. He wanted to weep every time he saw a daffodil push through the grass, or a single bud hesitantly form on the Magnolia tree.’ The Wind on his Back is a beautifully-written collection of six short stories that explore different aspects of love. From a furious divorced man who refuses to forgive his errant wife, to the wife faced with losing her husband of 30 years to a sudden terminal illness, to the motley group of relatives who come together to celebrate Christmas Eve, each story has love – and its offspring, pain and loss – at its core. Each story can be read independently of each other, although they are united by a common theme of love. The Wind on his Back will have you feeling a range of emotions as you share in the highs and lows in the relationship in each story, and will appeal to fans of female novelists such as Barbara Pym, Donna Tartt and Kate Atkinson, all of which the author enjoys herself. The Wind on his Back is a heartfelt collection that is ideal for those who are looking to dip in and out of a love story.

New York Times bestselling author Rainbow Rowell's epic fantasy, the Simon Snow trilogy, concludes with Any Way the Wind Blows. In Carry On, Simon Snow and his friends realized that everything they thought they understood about the world might be wrong. And in Wayward Son, they wondered whether everything they understood about themselves might be wrong. Now, Simon and Baz and Penelope and Agatha must decide how to move forward. For Simon, that means choosing whether he still wants to be part of the World of Mages — and if he doesn't, what does that mean for his relationship with Baz? Meanwhile Baz is bouncing between two family crises and not finding any time to talk to anyone about his newfound vampire knowledge. Penelope would love to help, but she's smuggled an American Normal into London, and now she isn't sure what to do with him. And Agatha? Well, Agatha Wellbelove has had enough. Any Way the Wind Blows takes the gang back to England, back to Watford, and back to their families for their longest and most emotionally wrenching adventure yet. This book is a finale. It tells secrets and answers questions and lays ghosts to rest. The Simon Snow Trilogy was conceived as a book about Chosen One stories; Any Way the Wind Blows is an ending about endings—about catharsis and closure, and how we choose to move on from the traumas and triumphs that try to define us.

In this deeply personal and lyrical exploration of what it means to ride a bicycle, Paul Maunder explores how our memories have a dialogue with landscape and how cycling and creativity are connected. Taking a journey through the places that have shaped him, we ride across wild moorland, through suburbia and city streets, into quintessentially English pastoral scenes. We see too some of the darker parts of the British countryside, sites of great secrecy that intrigue the imagination. This is a book about how landscape can sustain us, and how even an hour's escape can inspire our creative sides. The bicycle allows us to explore and dream, and return in time for dinner.

The wind in his fists Jonathan hunter searches through loss and war for his sister and his faith, and is surprised by love. There was a real Jonathan. Since all except the basic story of his life has been obscured by time, this is a novel and not a biography.

The unique blend of fairy tale atmosphere and social realism in this novel laid the groundwork for modern fantasy literature. In the novel, Little Diamond, a kind and precocious boy living in poverty, is befriended by the mysterious North Wind, who takes him on her nightly adventures. Written in intensely poetic language, At the Back of the North Wind transcends the genres of children’s book or fairy tale. Appendices include essays on childhood by contemporaries such as John Ruskin and Charles Dickens, as well as contextualizing selections from Victorian fantasy and fairy tales.

After decades of attacking Royal Navy ships the world’s most ruthless pirate Alfred Mudd finally dies, bringing his reign of terror to an end, but Captain Mudd’s lifetime of success leaves a deadly legacy, and a treasure haul large enough to finance a war for control of Europe. So begins a race for the treasure between the British and French navies, a race that will see Admiral Saunders lead a squadron of ships across the Atlantic, around the dreaded Cape Horn and through the most dangerous seas on earth on the most important mission in the Royal Navy’s history.

A gentle meditation on the cycle of life, told by two trees One day, a tiny pine seedling strikes up a conversation with a nearby tree. As the seedling grows larger, the older pine shares what it has learned about the strong wind that blows through the forest. Wind stretches trees and dries them out, but it also scatters seeds, spreads messages across the forest, and helps trees grow strong as it pushes against their trunks. As time passes, the wind takes its toll on the older tree. It loses needles and starts to droop as the young tree grows fuller and stronger. When a fierce storm rolls in, the heavy winds take down the older tree, leaving the younger one all alone. Or so it thinks. Soon after, a new seedling blown in by the wind lands on the spot where the old tree fell, and the cycle begins again. This moving picture book poignantly honors intergenerational relationships and the exchange of wisdom, while also opening up conversations about loss and environmental stewardship.