Showing results by publisher "Quercus" in All Categories

In 1965, when Frances Adams was seventeen, a fortune teller told her that one day she'd be murdered. Thus began a lifetime of trying to prevent the crime that would be her eventual demise. No one took Frances seriously for sixty years - until, of course, she was murdered. But for Frances, being the village busybody was a form of insurance. She'd spent a lifetime compiling dirt on every person she met, just in case they might turn out to be her killer.

How can we live a more ethical life? This question has plagued people for thousands of years, but it's never been tougher to answer than it is now. Plus, being anything close to an 'ethical person' requires daily thought and introspection and hard work. To make it a little less overwhelming, this fascinating, accessible and funny book by one of our generation's best writers and adept minds in television comedy, Michael Schur, boils down the whole confusing morass with real life dilemmas

Daphne believes the universe has a plan for her. Every time she meets a new man, she receives a slip of paper with his name and a number on it - the exact amount of time they will be together. The papers told her she'd spend three days with Martin in Paris; five weeks with Noah in San Francisco; and three months with Hugo, her ex-boyfriend turned best friend. Daphne has been receiving the numbered papers for over twenty years, always wondering when there might be one without an expiration. Finally, the night of a blind date at her favourite Los Angeles restaurant, there's only a name: Jake.

They say a tiger that devours too many humans can take the form of a man and walk amongst us.... In 1930s colonial Malaya, a dissolute British doctor receives a surprise gift of an 11-year-old Chinese houseboy. Sent as a bequest from an old friend, young Ren has a mission: to find his dead master's severed finger and reunite it with his body. Ren has 49 days, or else his master's soul will roam the earth forever.

The Chaos Machine is the story of how the world was driven mad by social media. The election of populists like Trump and Bolsonaro; strife and genocide in countries like Myanmar, the rampant spread of COVID-19 conspiracy theories as deadly as the pandemic itself, all of these are products of a breakdown in our social and political lives, a breakdown driven by the apps, companies and algorithms that compete constantly for our attention.

Written to take advantage of the brief window between the end of lockdown and Jimmy getting cancelled for saying something unforgivable to Lorraine Kelly, this book is as timely as it is unnecessary. Because you might be interested in Jimmy's life but he's damn sure you're a lot more interested in your own, Before & Laughter is about both of you. But mainly him. 

The last thing Ada Hart needs is a man to take care of her. Not anymore. After failing out of her interior design program and the disaster that was her short-lived marriage, Ada clawed her way up from her rock bottom. Now, the only person she trusts is herself, and that has gotten her further than ever before. She has her own business, and one of the largest ranches in Wyoming just hired her for the most important project of her career. When Ada arrives in Meadowlark, she finds herself in a dive bar where she can't seem to shake the eyes of a handsome cowboy.

Learn to make every moment a once-in-a-lifetime experience with this definitive guide to the Japanese art of ichigo ichie, from the best-selling authors of Ikigai. Every moment in our life happens only once, and if we let it slip away, we lose it forever - an idea captured by the Japanese phrase ichigo ichie. Often spoken in Japan when greeting someone or saying goodbye, to convey that the encounter is unique and special, it is a tenet of Zen Buddhism and is attributed to a 16th-century master of the Japanese tea ceremony. 

Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they're crazy, but it's the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy's at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time. But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven't met yet, they're about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rule book out the window.

Resonant, raw, and vibrant, Home is a lyrical map to navigating heartbreak. Tracing the stages of healing - from the despair that comes with the end of a relationship to the eventual light and liberation that comes with time - the poems in Home provide comfort and solace, while revitalizing your soul - and helping you make peace with your bees.

Mikael Blomkvist is contacted by renowned scientist Professor Balder. Fearing for his life, but more concerned for his son's well-being, Balder wants Millennium to publish his story. More interesting to Blomkvist than Balder's advances in Artificial Intelligence, is his connection with a certain female superhacker. It seems that Lisbeth Salander, like Balder, is a target of ruthless cyber gangsters that will soon bring terror to the streets of Stockholm, the Millennium team....

When Hazel Sharp, daughter of Mirror Lake's longtime local detective, unexpectedly inherits her childhood home, she's warily drawn back to the town - and people - she left behind almost a decade earlier. But Hazel's not the only relic of the past to return: a drought has descended on the region, and as the water level in the lake drops, long-hidden secrets begin to emerge, including evidence that may help finally explain the mystery of her mother's disappearance . . .

In this collection of all new poems, Whitney Hanson explores the progression of a life through the lens of music. We each begin with a simple note, but as life progresses, we're led to the next note, and the next - all of which combine to form the melody of a song and the cadence of a life. As life becomes more complicated and complex, we find that loss, grief, and heartache can muffle our music, making the world go silent. But as Whitney's poems show, all of these rests and pauses in the music are part of the magnificent composition of life.

In this eye-opening and extraordinary audiobook, Yates explores the true stories of life-changing events in which the application - or misapplication - of mathematics has played a critical role: patients crippled by faulty genes and entrepreneurs bankrupted by faulty algorithms; innocent victims of miscarriages of justice and the unwitting victims of software glitches. We follow stories of investors who have lost fortunes and parents who have lost children, all because of mathematical misunderstandings.

Before Gods and mortals, there were The Fates - three sisters born out of Nyx's darkness, destined to weave the lives, and deaths, of humankind for eternity. But immortality is a heavy burden, and Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos are captivated by the gloriously human lives of the mortals below, especially those of the great warrior Atalanta and her ill-fated lover, Meleager. However, being a Goddess of Fate doesn't make you a master of it. Will these three sisters find a way to free the couple, and themselves, from their destinies? Or will they be bound by Fate forever?

Manchuria, 1908: A young woman is found frozen in the snow. Her death is clouded by rumours of foxes, believed to lure people into peril by transforming into beautiful women and men. Bao, a detective with a reputation for sniffing out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman's identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they've remained tantalizingly out of reach. Until, perhaps, now.

Eva Mercy is a single mother and best-selling erotica writer who is feeling pressed from all sides. Shane Hall is a reclusive, enigmatic, award-winning novelist, who, to everyone's surprise, shows up unexpectedly in New York. When Shane and Eva meet at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their buried traumas, but also the eyebrows of the Black literati. What no one knows is that 15 years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love.

For the first time in her life, Clementine "Emmy" Ryder has no idea what she's doing. She's done everything on her to-do list. She left her small hometown, went to college, and made a name for herself doing her favorite thing: riding horses. But when an injury results in an obstacle she can't overcome, Emmy leaves behind a career, an apartment, and a boyfriend for the hometown she spent her whole life trying to escape.

When overachiever Leena Cotton is ordered to take a two-month sabbatical after blowing a big presentation at work, she escapes to her grandmother Eileen's house for some overdue rest. Eileen is newly single and about to turn 80. She'd like a second chance at love, but her tiny Yorkshire village doesn't offer many eligible gentlemen. Once Leena learns of Eileen's romantic predicament, she proposes a solution: a two-month swap. Eileen can live in London and look for love. Meanwhile Leena will look after everything in rural Yorkshire....

A practical and transformative 5-step strategy to ensure the emotional well-being of yourself and your child. The mental well-being of children and adults is shockingly poor. Marc Brackett, author of Permission to Feel, knows why and what we can do. Brackett is a professor in Yale University's Child Study Center, and in his 25 years as an emotion scientist, he has developed a remarkably effective plan to improve the lives of children and adults - a blueprint for understanding our emotions and using them wisely so that they help, rather than hinder, our success and well-being.