Anglais

Grab your javelin and your discus - it's time to race in the ancient Greek Olympics!As a young boy in the city-state of Athens, the time has come to prove yourself in ancient Greek society. Following several years in school, your father pushes you to participate in the most famous athletic competition to exist - the Olympics. The training is treacherous, the equipment is excruciating, and the rivalries are rotten. Discover the awe-inspiring origins of the Olympics, what vigorous rules had to be followed, and just how you might go about surviving - or even winning - these ancient games. The You Wouldn't Want to Be series transports readers to the grisliest times and places in history, perfect for reluctant readers. The first-person narrative approach puts children in the shoes of the some of the unluckiest people ever to have lived.

Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in a hyper-masculine world. They are caught between two of Glasgow’s housing estates where young working-class men divide themselves along sectarian lines, and fight territorial battles for the sake of reputation. They should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all, and yet they become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the doocot that James has built for his prize racing pigeons. As they begin to fall in love, they dream of escaping the grey city, and Mungo must work hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his elder brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold.

But the threat of discovery is constant and the punishment unspeakable. When Mungo’s mother sends him on a fishing trip to a loch in Western Scotland, with two strange men behind whose drunken banter lie murky pasts, he needs to summon all his inner strength and courage to get back to a place of safety, a place where he and James might still have a future.

Imbuing the everyday world of its characters with rich lyricism, Douglas Stuart’s Young Mungo is a gripping and revealing story about the meaning of masculinity, the push and pull of family, the violence faced by so many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much.

The fan-favourite story from celebrated author and former British Children's Laureate Michael Rosen - now in graphic novel form with full-colour illustrations by Cole Henley. Uh-oh... Frank isn't doing well at school, and he has just been told off by his head teacher again... He has one last chance to prove himself: all he has to do is follow the rules on his class trip to Chiltern House, complete his worksheet and stay out of trouble. But when a girl steps out of a painting and steals Frank's worksheet, staying out of trouble is easier said than done. Together, they embark on a perilous adventure to discover the girl's lost identity, uniting with new friends along the way who show Frank all is not as it seems in this stately home. How did the owners of Chiltern House come to own its priceless treasures? Can the secrets of the past ever really stay hidden? Will Frank's head teacher stop him and his new friends before they find out the truth?Frank's class trip is more than he bargained for, but it may just hold the greatest lesson he'll ever learn.

The cult classic from one of France's most stylish writers'Don't give a damn,' says Zazie, 'what I wanted was to go in the metro'Impish, foul-mouthed Zazie arrives in Paris from the country to stay with her uncle Gabriel. All she really wants to do is ride the metro, but finding it shut because of a strike, Zazie looks for other means of amusement and is soon caught up in a comic adventure that becomes wilder and more manic by the minute. In 1960 Queneau's cult classic was made into a hugely successful film by Louis Malle. Packed full of word play and phonetic games, Zazie in the Metro remains as stylish and witty as ever.

What happens when you're on holiday and the sun explodes?'Five Stars, Would Recommend' GRADY HENDRIX'Lord of the Flies crashes headfirst into The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' BENJAMIN STEVENSON> Passport> Suncream> Apocalypse??? Professional underachiever Dan Foster is finally taking a break. Sure, his life has been average at best and, yes, he has never has quite lived up to his potential. But after a few Bud Lights in paradise with his girlfriend Mara, things are starting to look up. Then the sun explodes. With the island suddenly plunged into darkness, the ultra-rich guests hijack the remaining supplies and declare themselves the new ruling class. Led by a fitness influencer turned ruthless dictator, martial law is declared and the hoi polloi are press-ganged into service. And it's just Dan's luck that he could land an even worse job while on holiday. As temperatures drop and class tensions rise, Dan might have found a way for himself and Mara to escape the island. But sneaking away would also mean abandoning the burgeoning revolution that he might-have-kind-of-sort-of single-handedly started.

In book two of the Margarito and the Snowman trilogy, the eponymous Snowman wakes up on a desert film set in B movie director Boone Weller’s sprawling new epic, Zol. Told in a mix of melodrama, slapstick, documentary and cinema verité, and packed with drug cartels, coyotes, revolutionaries, fire-breathing dragons, human sacrifice and magic, this blockbuster unfolds in a Dalían landscape along a chimerical pan-American highway deep in the heart of Mexico as the Snowman continues his quest for a mythical place called Zol and an enigmatic friend named Margarito.

'Beautiful, thoughtful … sharp and scintillatingly sensual' Independent'With this haunting, poetic work McCann has surely earned his place among the country’s greats' Metro__________________The life of Zoli Novotna begins on the leafy backroads of Slovakia, when she and her grandfather come upon a quiet lake where their family has been drowned by Fascist guards. Zoli and her grandfather flee to join up with another clan of travelling harpists. So begins an epic tale of song, intimacy and betrayal. Based loosely on the true story of the Gypsy poet Papusza, and set against the backdrop of the Second World War, Zoli is a love story, a tale of loss, and a parable of modern-day Europe.

This moving fable sees a young Greek writer set out to Crete to claim a small inheritance. But when he arrives, he meets Alexis Zorba, a middle-aged Greek man with a zest for life. Zorba has had a family and many lovers, has fought in the Balkan wars, has lived and loved - he is a simple but deep man who lives every moment fully and without shame.

As their friendship develops, he is gradually won over, transformed and inspired along with the reader. Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis' most popular and enduring novel, has its origins in the author's own experiences in the Peleponnesus in the 1920s. His swashbuckling hero has legions of fans across the world and his adventures are as exhilarating now as they were on first publication in the 1950s.

'There can never be any doubt that Kazantzakis was the possessor of genius.' Sunday Telegraph