RESULTS

In a remote cottage in Wales two urban couples are spending their holiday with the idealistic owner and his protege. The beginning is idyllic but catastrophe lurks behind every tree.

The four men who accompanied Captain Scott on his doomed expedition each tell their own story in this fictional reconstruction of the attempt to reach the South Pole.

If Liverpool in 1944 was grim for Rita and her aunts Nellie and Margo, Rita knew that life in America was gay and rich - she'd seen it in the movies. So when a GI came to call, she was sure that love and escape would follow. But Nellie knew different - the boy would have to go.

With an outstanding introductory essay, one of the greatest living English novelists has assembled her writings, essays and reviews about the theatre to provide a highly individual view of contemporary theatre and actors. The incredible range of Beryl Bainbridge's talents is known to her most fervent admirers. As well as being one of Britain's most acclaimed and biggest selling novelists, she is also an artist, a former actor and, in recent years, an accomplished theatre critic. As well as starting her life in the arts as an actor, appearing in rep and early episodes of Coronation Street, she wrote for years a column for the Standard, often touching on theatrical matters, and most recently writes for The Oldie as their theatre critic. The book contains fascinating insight into the work of people like Alan Bennett, Alan Rickman and Ronald Harwood. There are delightful little sketches of the actors and actresses Bainbridge worked with in the early years, including Judith Chalmers. Here is a book to enchant Beryl Bainbridge's countless fans and, through the lengthy autobiographical introduction, to give new insight into the imagination of a creative genius.

This first short story collection, by the award-winning British writer contains 12 faultlessly crafted and indisputably original tales. In the title story, Mum is widowed Rosemary Mumford, whose visits with Mr. Armitage delight the regulars at a resort hotel. The two friends play complicated pranks wildly appreciated by all except elderly Miss Emmet, who "expected to be left out of things. And she was." The lady endures the wild antics until Mum and Mr. A. pick her as the patsy in a hair-raising joke for which they pay a high price ultimately. People for Lunch discloses the secret that compels a faithless husband and wife of another man to think over problems caused by adultery. Embracing savage irony, supernatural adventures, gothica, misunderstandings, every story in this collection is a gem.