Clearly organised into four parts, this new edition allows teachers and students to quickly find help they need with all writing tasks. Each part is divided into short sections containing explanations, diagrams and practice exercises, for use in the classroom or for self-study.

Ahsan is a Superintendent of Police in war torn Peshawar of noughties. A disgruntled cop and a woe betide lover who has lost his love, Ada, eight years ago. In her absence, he falls for another woman, Serena and enters into a tumultuous relationship with her which makes him unravel her and his own trajectories of mind via Jungian and Freudian psychology. He is tormented by his past and the present is prosaic for him. In that state of mind, he is on special assignment of busting a criminal racket which he pursues fearlessly as living or dying is same for him. By a sheer stroke of luck, he finds his lost love Ada again and he thinks that he has gotten back to life. But he never knows that thence onwards he has to solve the most perilous case of his career which puts his own life at stake.

In the fifth book in the sensational Before the Coffee Gets Cold series translated from Japanese, the mysterious Tokyo café where customers arrive hoping to travel back in time welcomes four new guests: The father who could not allow his daughter to get married, A woman who couldn't give Valentine's Day chocolates to her loved one, A boy who wants to show his smile to his divorced parents, A wife holding a child with no name... They must follow the café's strict rules, however, and come back to the present before their coffee goes cold.

Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, as a vicious civil war tears through her hometown of Jaffna, her dream takes her on a different path as she sees those around her, including her four beloved brothers and their friend, get swept up in violent political ideologies and their consequences. Desperate to act, she must ask herself: is it possible for anyone to move through life without doing harm? 'An unforgettable account of a country and a family coming undone… Brotherless Night is a spectacular work of historical fiction' Guardian

There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine. Gourmets cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination, but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back. Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought? Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, "The Konkatsu Killer", Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.

Stalin's Soviet Union is an official paradise, where citizens live free from crime and fear only one thing: the all-powerful state. Defending this system is idealistic security officer Leo Demidov, a war hero who believes in the iron fist of the law. But when a murderer starts to kill at will and Leo dares to investigate, the State's obedient servant finds himself demoted and exiled. Now, with only his wife at his side, Leo must fight to uncover shocking truths about a killer-and a country where "crime" doesn't exist.-- Publisher description

Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a "baby farmer," who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby's household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves-fingersmiths-for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home. One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives-Gentleman, a somewhat elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a nai¨ve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud's vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be left to live out her days in a mental hospital. With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways ... But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and surprises. --Publisher

An open and honest personal narrative on love, amputated breasts, cancer and loss of a loved one.“I experienced with my own body that it is possible to get on with life in the worst of circumstances. Those who give up cheat themselves. Beautiful moments remain. We could not both go, for our children’s sake.” Anja Caspary. For most of us, the thought of losing a partner or getting a serious illness count amongst our greatest fears. How does one continue to live on when one is hit with both such catastrophic events in one’s life? In her autobiographic book, Anja Caspary writes on how life can continue when faced with such existential losses – and how love transcends death.

"In a classroom in Seoul, a young woman watches her Greek language teacher at the blackboard. She tries to speak but has lost her voice. Her teacher finds himself drawn to the silent woman, for day by day he is losing his sight. Soon the two discover a deeper pain binds them together. For her, in the space of just a few months, she has lost both her mother and the custody battle for her nine-year-old son. For him, it's the pain of growing up between Korea and Germany, being torn between two cultures and languages, and the fear of losing his independence. Greek Lessons tells the story of two ordinary people brought together at a moment of private anguish-the fading light of a man losing his vision meeting the silence of a woman who has lost her language. Yet these are the very things that draw them to each other. Slowly the two discover a profound sense of unity-their voices intersecting with startling beauty, as they move from darkness to light, from silence to breath and expression"--

Headshot is the story of the eight best teenage girl boxers in the United States, told over the two days of a championship tournament and structured as a series of face-offs. As the girls’ pasts and futures collide, the specific joy and violence of the sport comes to life with electric energy, and a portrait emerges of the desire, envy, perfectionism, madness and sheer physical pleasure that motivates each of these young women to fight. This is a novel about the radicalness and strangeness of being physically intimate with another human when you are measuring your own body, through competition, against theirs. What does the intimacy of a physical competition feel like? What does it mean to walk through life in the bodies we’ve been given, and what does it mean to use those bodies with abandon? Funny, propulsive, obsessive and ecstatic, Headshot is equal parts subtle and intense, as it brings us to the sidelines of the ring and above and beyond it, examining closely the eight girls’ lives, which intersect for a moment – a universe that shimmers and resonates.

The novella consists of 13 short stories with two being the author’s own translations. Written by Ibne Sa’id (better known as M.H. Askari), these literary compositions are unique in many ways. M. H. Askari started his career in the closing years of the Second World War as an officer in the public relations department of the British Indian Army. From there he got a ringside view of the War and the surrender of Japan…

Documents relating to the case of Roderick Macrae. A brutal triple murder in a remote northwestern crofting community in 1869 leads to the arrest of a young man by the name of Roderick Macrae. There's no question that Macrae is guilty, but the police and courts must uncover what drove him to murder the local village constable. And who were the other two victims? Ultimately, Macrae's fate hinges on one key question: is he insane? A story ingeniously recounted through the accused's memoir, trial transcripts and newspaper reports, His Bloody Project is a riveting literary thriller that will appeal to fans of Hannah Kent's Burial Rites.

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother's plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father's life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past--toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed

Nazia Sami is a celebrated author, but perhaps her greatest plot twist is yet to be produced. In her final days, she wields a pen one last time as she fills her diary with instructions for her sister, Naureen, and writes six letters to be delivered after her death. There is to be no funeral for Nazia. Instead, only six invitees are asked to attend a party, one of whom is a mystery guest. Over the course of an extraordinary evening, secrets are revealed, pasts reconsidered, and lives are forever changed. No Funeral for Nazia is a striking and inventive exploration of what death can mean for both the deceased and those left behind.

Six astronauts rotate in their spacecraft above the Earth. They are there to collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day. Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction. The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from Earth, they have never felt more part - or protective - of it.

PLAYGROUND follows four lives – a marine biologist, an artist, a schoolteacher, and an AI pioneer – that intersect on an island in French Polynesia when it is chosen as a base for seasteading, humanity’s next great adventure. Powers is the author of the bestselling Pulitzer Prize-winning novel THE OVERSTORY and the Booker-shortlisted BEWILDERMENT.

Shadow Reader is a radiant criss-cross of encounters, messages and Punjabi proverbs, shot through with the dark thread of an unwelcome prophecy. The poems bind this looming curse to the occupation of countries, the earth and its creatures, those who own the story and those who redirect it through art or artifice. ‘Does the warp look back at the one who is weaving and say, This is not how I remember it…?’ Imtiaz Dharker’s collection pays attention to wilful erasures, exclusions and also to places of sanctuary. This is poetry as music, as momentum, as the texture and taste of languages, joyously sensuous and rich in images. While it acknowledges the everyday and its shadows, it is also an irreverent, playful celebration of life. Imtiaz Dharker grew up a 'Muslim Calvinist' in a Lahori household in Glasgow, was adopted by India and married into Wales. She was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 2014 for her fifth collection Over the Moon and for her services to poetry. Her main themes are drawn from a life of transitions: childhood, exile, journeying, home, displacement, religious strife and terror, and latterly, grief. She is also an accomplished artist, and all her collections are illustrated with her drawings, which form an integral part of her books.

On a stifling summer's day, 11-year-old Jack and his two sisters sit in their broken-down car, waiting for their mother to come back and rescue them. Jack's in charge, she said. I won't be long. But she doesn't come back. She never comes back. And life as the children know it is changed for ever. Three years later, mum-to-be Catherine wakes to find a knife beside her bed, and a note that says: I could have killed you. Meanwhile Jack is still in charge - of his sisters, of supporting them all, of making sure nobody knows they're alone in the house, and - quite suddenly - of finding out the truth about what happened to his mother. But the truth can be a dangerous thing.

Weaving together a rich array of flash fiction and poetry, the compilation evokes the flavors of life in Karachi. Each piece uses the spirit of imagination to reveal the power of storytelling in an ever-evolving metropolis. The first volume of Tales from Karachi seeks to take the search for unique stories beyond the digital realm.

In his considered view, “Tahir employs the sonnet to represent a variety of religious and secular experiences, thoughts and feelings. His poetic skill, of a high order, moulds the form according to the needs of a specific experience. As such within the structure of the sonnet he not only creates new rhyme schemes but he divides the mandatory fourteen lines to create new stanza structures. Tahir uses the traditional structure of the sonnet but his poetic needs compel him to exercise creativity.

"Buried deep in rural France, little remains of the isolated hamlet of the Three Lone Girls, save a few houses and a curiously assembled quartet: Patrice Bergogne, inheritor of his family's farm; his wife, Marion; their daughter, Ida; and their neighbor, Christine, an artist. While Patrice plans a surprise for his wife's fortieth birthday, inexplicable events start to disrupt the hamlet's quiet existence: anonymous, menacing letters, an unfamiliar car rolling up the driveway. And as night falls, strangers stalk the houses, unleashing a nightmarish chain of events. Told in rhythmic, propulsive prose that weaves seamlessly from one consciousness to the next over the course of a day, Laurent Mauvignier's The Birthday Party is a deft unraveling of the stories we hide from others and from ourselves, a gripping tale of the violent irruptions of the past into the present, written by a major contemporary French writer"--

"A vast, intricate novel that weaves six narratives and spans from 1984 to the 2030s about a secret war between a cult of soul-decanters and a small group of vigilantes called the Night Shift who try to take them down. An up-all-night story that fluently mixes the super-natural, sci-fi, horror, social satire, and hearbreaking realism"--

The darkly compelling confession of an improbable murderer, shortlisted for the 1989 Booker Prize.

Soon to be published is Irshad Abdul kadir’s riveting dramatic novel, The Lady of Sohanbela. Things are not always what they seem to be in the novel’s fictionalised rural Pakistani village setting, as the novel expertly probes the glamorous surface of a wealthy family to reveal a darker, hidden underbelly of traumas, family secrets and silenced histories.

Altaf Fatima was born in pre-partition India. Her work has been adapted for broadcast on television." "For rash, awkward Gaythi, there is always something amiss. Daughter of an extensive, wealthy, Muslim upper-class family in pre-partition India, she is expected to be demure, to have poise and to grow willingly into the roles of mother and wife. Gaythi does not know what she wants, but she is not keen to settle. A series of tragic and unexpected events suddenly threaten to split her home as well as her country. Exile follows, and Gaythi is forced to assume responsibility for her arrogant and powerful mother. Touchingly and with carefully observed detail, Altaf Fatima describes the impact of change on the lives of an entire people.

Set during the catastrophic defeats of the war's first months, it tracks a Red Army regiment that wins a minor victory in eastern Belorussia but fails to exploit this success. A battalion is then entrusted with the task of slowing the German advance, and eventually encircled, before ultimately breaking out and joining with the rest of the Soviet forces. Grossman's descriptions of the natural world - and his characters' relationship to it - are both vivid and unexpected, as are his memorable character sketches: eleven-year-old Lionya is determined to hang on to his toy revolver as he walks a long distance behind German lines; his defiant grandmother slaps a German officer in the face and is shot; Kotenko, a fiercely anti-Soviet peasant who initially welcomes the Germans, hangs himself in despair when they treat him with contempt; and Semion Ignatiev, a womanizer and gifted story-teller, turns out to be the boldest and most resourceful of the rank-and file soldiers. Grossman spent most of the war years close to the front line. But The People Immortal is far from being mere morale-boosting propaganda. On the contrary, as letters included in this volume make clear, it was read as a textbook, and as a work of military education. This edition includes not only the unredacted novel itself, translated here for the first time since 1946, but also a wealth of background material. A heavily redacted English translation of The People Immortal was published in 1946. This current edition is the first that reflects Grossman's original text.

As a divorced Mehar returns to the Old City of Lahore after being away from the place for seven years, a series of events start to unravel. Feroze finds inexplicable relief in his father's death and tries to make up for lost time. Bina is haunted by the ghosts of the past as an estranged relationship comes back after a decade. Aariz comes back to Pakistan after having left the place for good reason and is unsure about what awaits him. As the stories of these people unfurl, influencing and affecting each other's, the strings of history and belonging swaddle around them. Deeply embedded in the local context, the lives of the characters embroil in a battle with the unseen. The old monuments of Lahore become a bitter reference point for Mehar. Aariz's mind plays him to unveil the secret of existence, drawing parallels from as far as the creation of man. The burden of a feudal legacy becomes brawny for Feroze, while Bina's unattainable love is connected to the history of the birth of her country. Friendships start to tumble , relationships are challenged by judgement. The stories of four characters become a kaleidoscope of the region. The dispute of Kashmir, Babri Masjid riots, discourse on minority rights, Sufi ideals, the shadows of colonialism religious beliefs and folk legends, all conspire to design the journeys, the "pilgrimages", of the characters.

The Soviet Union 1956: after Stalin's death, a violent regime is beginning to fracture. Stalin's successor Khrushchev pledges reform. But there are forces at work that are unable to forgive or forget the past. Leo Demidov, former MGB officer, is facing his own turmoil. His adopted daughters have yet to forgive him for his part in the brutal murder of their parents. They are not alone. Leo, his wife, and their family are in grave danger from someone with a grudge. Someone transformed beyond recognition into the perfect model of vengeance. Leo's desperate mission to save his family will take him from the harsh Siberian Gulags, to the depths of the criminal underworld, to the centre of the Hungarian uprising - and into a hell where redemption is as brittle as glass.

The Book Sheila From Pakistan Is a collection of short stories. The subject matter is diverse and fascinating, djinns , menacing bats the various discriminations and prejudices in society honesty ... and otherwise , floods in swat. riots in Karachi, superstitions, the issue associated with migration , and much more.Most of the stories are set in Pakistan but a few have different backgrounds that make this book even more worth reading.

Sixty-five short interconnected chapters portray humanity and all its suffering and resiliency.

Professional scythes control death. The Thunderhead controls everything else. It's a perfect system. Until it isn't. It's been a year since Rowan had gone off grid. Hunted by the Scythedom, he has become an urban legend, a vigilante snuffing out corrupt scythes in a trial by fire. Citra, meanwhile, is forging her path as Scythe Anastasia, gleaning with compassion and openly challenging the ideals of the 'new order'. But it is clear that not everyone is open to the change. Conflict amongst the scythes is growing, and when Citra's life is threatened, it becomes clear that there is a truly terrifying plot afoot. The Thunderhead observes everything, and it does not like what it sees. Will it intervene? Or will it simply watch as this perfect world begins to unravel?

This is the story of Sam and Sadie. It's not a romance, but it is about love. When Sam catches sight of Sadie at a crowded train station one morning he is catapulted straight back to childhood, and the hours they spent immersed in playing games. Their spark is instantly reignited and sets off a creative collaboration that will make them superstars. It is the 90s, and anything is possible. What comes next is a decades-long tale of friendship and rivalry, fame and art, betrayal and tragedy, perfect worlds and imperfect ones. And, above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.

Whale, set in a remote village in South Korea, follows the lives of three linked characters: Geumbok, an extremely ambitious woman who has been chasing an indescribable thrill ever since she first saw a whale crest in the ocean; her mute daughter, Chunhui, who communicates with elephants; and a one-eyed woman who controls honeybees with a whistle. Brimming with surprises and wicked humor, Whale is an adventure-satire of epic proportions by one of the most original voices in South Korea.