Simon Simple is going on holiday and the police are looking for a spy. On the train, Simon meets a beautiful girl. He likes her and she likes him. But the spy is there too. Simon and the police can't see the spy. Can you?

Anna is making her first trip alone to visit her aunt. She is nervous and excited. Who is the strange man in her train carriage?

A classic collection of tales for young readers of about five, featuring beloved characters and lively stories by Michael Bond, Jill Barklem, Elizabeth Laird and others, chosen by children’s book expert, Julia Eccleshare. Paddington Bear tries to buy a birthday present, the animals of Brambly Hedge set off to the seaside; A greedy queen insists on having the biggest tree in the world, but will Cinderella get to go to the ball? These classic stories are wonderful to share and enjoy with your child at any time of the year, or would make the perfect birthday gift. Compiled by Julia Eccleshare

From the best-selling author of George VI, Elizabeth and Diana, the definitive biography of Queen Elizabeth II, to tie in with the Diamond Jubilee Elizabeth II has lived through the Abdication, the Blitz and World War Two, the sex and spy scandals of the swinging sixties, the Cold War and the nuclear threat and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. She has known 11 US Presidents including JFK and Ronald Reagan, and other world leaders like President Mandela and Pope John XXII. Her Prime Ministers have ranged from Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher to David Cameron, the last only ten years older than her grandson. Her own family experiences, a mixture of happiness and crisis, weddings and divorces, and, in the case of Diana, violent death, have been lived in the glare of tabloid headlines. More than 2 billion people watched the wedding of her grandson Prince William to Catherine Middleton in 2010 shortly before she made the first State Visit to Ireland by a British monarch for 100 years. Our world has changed more in her lifetime than in any of her predecessors': the Queen has remained a calm presence at the centre, earning the respect of monarchists and republicans. How has she done it?

Karen's job takes her to many places. She loves art, and in Rome she sees some beautiful pictures. But the artist can't sell them and he has no money. Can Karen sell his pictures for him? 1,733 words. British English.

Jupiter's Travels -Ted Simon's astonishing 4 year motorbike journey around the world The book that inspired Ewan McGregor's Long Way Round In the late 1970s Ted Simon set off on a Triumph and rode 63,000 miles over four years through fifty-four countries in a journey that took him around the world. Through breakdowns, prison, war, revolutions, disasters and a Californian commune, he travelled into the depths of fear and reached the heights of euphoria. He met astonishing people and was treated as a spy, a welcome stranger and even a god. For Simon the trip became a journey into his own soul, and for many others - including bikers Charley Boorman and Ewan McGrergor - it provides an inspiration they will never forget. This classic text, which has informed a whole genre of travel writing in the thirty years since it was first published, will never be bettered for sheer adventure, passion, humour and honesty. Brought up in England by a German mother and a Romanian father, Ted Simon found himself impelled by an insatiable desire to explore the world. It led him to abandon an early scientific career in favour of journalism, and he has worked for several newspapers and magazines on Fleet Street and elsewhere. Ted Simon is also the author of Riding Home and The Gypsy in Me.

Clifford and Emily Elizabeth are learning all about Mars! When Emily Elizabeth and her friends read about the Red Planet, they think it sounds exactly like the red rocks down by the beach on Birdwell Island. Emily Elizabeth and Samantha decide to race their friends Jack and Pablo -- the first group to the beach wins! But when Clifford gets stuck in the mud, will Emily Elizabeth lose the race? Featuring adorable art from the new TV show on Amazon and PBS Kids and a full page of stickers!

Finn has always been different, and in the tiny fishing village of Stromhead he sticks out like a sore thumb. Always told to keep away from the water, he's felt that something was missing until one day he dives in and finds that, swimming with the dolphins, he feels completely at home. But his new friends are in danger of being injured by the rubbish that floats out into the water - and now a supermarket is going to release thousands of balloons that could drift out to sea and cause even more damage. Desperate to help the dolphins, Finn goes to the Lighthouse Crew, a group of kids who have always left Finn out. Will they be able to set aside their differences to save the dolphins? And what will Finn discover about his past along the way? A moving adventure about the impact of plastic pollution on our seas, and the campaigning power of friendship from the award-winning Elizabeth Laird, illustrated by Peter Bailey.

In Elizabeth’s England, true faith can mean bloody murder… Oxford, 1583. A place of learning. And murderous schemes. The country is rife with plots to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and return the realm to the Catholic faith. Giordano Bruno is recruited by the queen’s spymaster and sent undercover to expose a treacherous conspiracy in Oxford – but his own secret mission must remain hidden at all costs. A spy under orders. A coveted throne under threat. When a series of hideous murders ruptures close-knit college life, Bruno is compelled to investigate. And what he finds makes it brutally clear that the Tudor throne itself is at stake…

Gabriel loves Silvia and is very disappointed when she chooses to go out with rich, handsome Marco instead of him. But that evening a terrible earthquake strikes the town and their lives are changed forever… A moving and dramatic tale of love against the odds.

A Treasonous Plot England, 1586. Giordano Bruno, heretic turned spy, passes on vital information to spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham. A band of Catholic Englishmen are plotting to kill Queen Elizabeth and install Mary, Queen of Scots, on the English throne. A Deadly Trap Walsingham, already aware of the plot, is allowing it to progress. He hopes that Mary will put her support in writing - and condemn herself to a traitor's death. A Queen in Danger Bruno must go undercover, join the conspirators and stop them. A queen is destined to die; Bruno must make sure it is the right one...

In 1901 the 'real' Elizabeth holidayed on the Baltic island of Rьgen with just her maid, a coachman, a carriage piled with luggage, and a woman friend. From such unpromising beginnings Elizabeth weaves a captivating farrago around her encounters. There's the snobbish bishop's wife and her personable, handsome son, a dressmaker and, astonishingly, a long-lost cousin - Charlotte - who is trying to evade the pursuit of her husband, the maddeningly genial old professor. Here, with delightfully astringent humour, Elizabeth recounts the misadventures that befall her. And, as she immortalised her Pomeranian wilderness in the famous Elizabeth and Her German Garden, she now writes enticingly of this remote and attractive island.

Mary and Elizabeth: cousins, rivals, queens. They allied and fought and plotted - but could never escape their bond... A story which inspired the Hollywood film MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. At the end of the Tudor era, two queens ruled one island. But sixteenth-century Europe was a man’s world and powerful voices believed that no woman could govern. All around Mary and Elizabeth were sycophants, spies and detractors who wanted their dominion, their favour and their bodies. Elizabeth and Mary shared the struggle to be both woman and queen. But the forces rising against the two regnants, and the conflicts of love and dynasty, drove them apart. For Mary, Elizabeth was a fellow queen with whom she dreamed of a lasting friendship. For Elizabeth, Mary was a threat. It was a schism that would end in secret assassination plots, devastating betrayal and, eventually, a terrible final act. Mary is often seen as a defeated or tragic sovereign, but Rival Queens reveals instead how she attempted to reinvent queenship and the monarchy – in one of the hardest fights in royal history.

A gorgeous anthology to dip into and savour the rich literary heritage of Yorkshire, Britain’s largest county. Yorkshire is renowned for its landscapes: the magical wilderness of the moors and the dales, its cities built on industry and mining, and its varied coastline. All these places, as well as its people, have been portrayed and dramatized in literature through the centuries; by poets from Andrew Marvell to Simon Armitage, by novelists such as Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Bram Stoker, and of course the Brontes, all of whom are represented here. Then there are novelists such as David Storey and Barry Hines, who wrote about working-class lives in the mining towns in the 1950s and 60s. And finally some favourite characters to enjoy, such as James Herriot and the Yorkshire Shepherdess. Yorkshire: A Literary Landscape is edited by David Stuart Davies.

WRITTEN IN HISTORY celebrates the great letters of world history, creative culture and personal life. Acclaimed historian Simon Sebag Montefiore selects over one hundred letters from ancient times to the twenty-first century: some are noble and inspiring, some despicable and unsettling; some are exquisite works of literature, others brutal, coarse and frankly outrageous; many are erotic, others heartbreaking. The writers vary from Elizabeth I, Rameses the Great and Leonard Cohen to Emmeline Pankhurst, Mandela, Stalin, Michelangelo, Suleiman the Magnificent and unknown people in extraordinary circumstances - from love letters to calls for liberation, declarations of war to reflections on death. In the colourful, accessible style of a master storyteller, Montefiore shows why these letters are essential reading: how they enlighten our past, enrich the way we live now - and illuminate tomorrow.

WRITTEN IN HISTORY celebrates the great letters of world history, creative culture and personal life. Acclaimed historian Simon Sebag Montefiore selects over one hundred letters from ancient times to the twenty-first century: some are noble and inspiring, some despicable and unsettling; some are exquisite works of literature, others brutal, coarse and frankly outrageous; many are erotic, others heartbreaking. The writers vary from Elizabeth I, Rameses the Great and Leonard Cohen to Emmeline Pankhurst, Mandela, Stalin, Michelangelo, Suleiman the Magnificent and unknown people in extraordinary circumstances - from love letters to calls for liberation, declarations of war to reflections on death. In the colourful, accessible style of a master storyteller, Montefiore shows why these letters are essential reading: how they enlighten our past, enrich the way we live now - and illuminate tomorrow.