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Catagory: Fiction

Fiction main category

Beauty Queens of Bishan

In Bishan, the busiest suburb of Singapore, thirteen small beauty parlours coexist quietly, offering haircuts, bikini waxes and facials at no-nonsense prices. All that changes when a swanky new salon opens. D’Asthetique (Beauty Is Skin Deep) is run by April Chua, the stylist to the stars.

April’s plan for Bishan includes controlling her competitors through a new society, NAILSO (Neighbourhood Alliance of Independent Lifestyle Service Operators). The only person who dares to protest is chubby Gurpreet Kaur, owner of Monty Beauty Spa (Beauty from Within, Fourth Wax Free).

Both have clients in the upcoming Grand Glam Singapore beauty contest. Will April’s shoo-in Candy Kang prove yet again why she is Singapore’s sweetheart? Or will Gurpreet’s client, Tara Chopra, prove a star on stage as well as in court?

The winner will determine who will lead NAILSO; the loser will never be able to show her facials again. Can there only be one beauty queen of Bishan?

The Cloud Chariot

It’s 100 years since Kalinga was devastated by Ashoka, and the kingdom is now re-emerging from the dust. Now, under the Mahameghavahanas, a new and able dynasty, the country has not only freed itself from foreign reign but is also experiencing a cultural and patriotic resurgence. But palace politics, internecine rivalries, the external threat of invaders as well as internal threat of traitors keep King Mahameghavahana Kharavela busy and unsettled. Unable to focus on rebuilding the kingdom to its zenith and his dream of returning to Kalinga the looted Jina idol from Magadha.

And then a stranger enters the kingdom and becomes an integral part of the court. Rudravarman is a polymath, military strategist and a brilliant warrior. But his antecedents are mysterious, and his objectives unclear. Why does he so jealously guard his past? And does he truly want to not only serve the king, but fulfil his dream of a resurgent Kalinga?

A brilliantly researched historical thriller set in the first century BCE.

The Penguin Great Ideas Collection: 12 Book Boxset (The Myth of Sisyphus, On Shortness of Life, Meditations, An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’ and More)

* 12 groundbreaking works by some of history’s most prodigious thinkers *

Each elegant volume is beautifully packaged with a unique type-driven design that highlights the bookmaker’s art.

The Myth of Sisyphus
The book that transformed philosophy with its impassioned argument for the value of life in a world without religious meaning.

On the Shortness of Life
Powerful insights into stoicism, morality and the importance of reason.

Meditations
A series of spiritual exercises filled with wisdom, practical guidance, and profound understanding of human behaviour.

Man Alone with Himself
Subjects ranging from art to arrogance, boredom to passion, science to vanity, rejecting conventional notions of morality to celebrate the individual’s ‘will to power’.

An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’
Kant investigates human progress, civilization, morality and why, to be truly enlightened.

Fear and Trembling
Kierkegaard argues that a true understanding of God can only be attained by making a personal “leap of faith.”

The Sickness Unto Death
This book explores the concept of ‘despair’ as a symptom of the human condition and describes man’s struggle to fill the spiritual void.

Of Human Freedom
A personal and practical guide to moral self-improvement and living a good life.

How to be a Stoic
Three great Stoic philosophers – Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius – offer ancient wisdom on how to face life’s adversities and live well in the world.

Being Happy
Epicurus argues that pleasure – not sensual hedonism, but the absence of pain or fear – is the highest goal of life.

What is Existentialism
Explores the absurdity of our notions of good and evil, and show instead how we make our own destiny simply by being.

The Symposium
A deft interweaving of different viewpoints and ideas about the nature of love.

Blackened

The Adhikarathil family had a distinguished history. It prospered both in terms of wealth and eminence, acquiring the status of royalty in Malabar, Kerala, until the birth of a child named Eranimos shocked everyone. Unlike his fair-skinned, Christian forebears, Eranimos was born dark-skinned, leading to controversial conjectures about his lineage.

Blackened tells the story of its protagonist’s quest to discover the truth behind his dark skin and caste identity. But weaved into this personal tale are multiple layers of Kerala’s social and political histories—its caste conflicts, its massive waves of conversion and migration, its clashing belief systems, and its rural and urban divide.

Originally published as Karikkottakkary in Malayalam, Blackened is an impactful bildungsroman that covers the arc of a conflicted life, and shows us how family histories are tied into the larger historical currents that form communities and shape destinies.

The Best Of Wodehouse: P.G. Wodehouse 6-Books Slipcase (The Code of Woosters, Uncle Fred in the Springtime, Blandings Castle, Something Fresh, Joy in the Morning, The Inimitable Jeeves)

Dive into the hilarious world of P. G. Wodehouse with a beautiful box set containing six of the most-loved novels from Britain’s greatest comedy writer.

Wodehouse’s idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in ― Evelyn Waugh

Titles in this boxset:

THE INIMITABLE JEEVES
Meddling Aunt Agatha wants to see Bertie married, and nothing will stop her from playing matchmaker. The problem? Bertie has no plans to settle down. Only one man can save the day – the inimitable Jeeves.

JOY IN THE MORNING
The story is another adventure of Bertie Wooster and his resourceful valet Jeeves. Bertie is persuaded to brave the home of his fearsome Aunt Agatha and her husband Lord Worplesdon, knowing that his former fiancée, the beautiful and formidably intellectual Lady Florence Craye will also be in attendance.

SOMETHING FRESH
Welcome to the world of the delightfully dotty Lord Emsworth, his bone-headed younger son and his long-suffering secretary. This story is a comic caricature of English aristocratic life and the American aristocracy of wealth.

BLANDINGS CASTLE AND ELSEWHERE
A collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse.

UNCLE FRED IN THE SPRINGTIME
Uncle Fred is one of the hottest earls who ever donned a coronet. Or as he crisply puts it, ‘There are no limits, literally none, to what I can achieve in the springtime.’

THE CODE OF THE WOOSTERS
In a plot that swiftly becomes rife with mishaps, it is Jeeves who must extract his master from trouble. Again. Also a sequel to Right Ho, Jeeves.

The Boyfriend: The Riveting New Psychological Thriller from BESTSELLING author of THE HOUSEMAID

A new, twisting thriller from the multi-million selling sensation and #1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of The Teacher and The Housemaid Series

She’s looking for the perfect man. He’s looking for the perfect victim.

Sydney Shaw, like every single woman in New York, has terrible luck with dating. She’s seen it all: men who lie in their dating profile, men who stick her with the dinner bill, and worst of all, men who can’t shut up about their mothers. But finally, she hits the jackpot.

Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He’s charming, handsome, and works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet.

Then the brutal murder of a young woman―the latest in a string of deaths across the coast―confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them.

Sydney should feel safe. After all, she is dating the guy of her dreams. But she can’t shake her own suspicions that the perfect man may not be as perfect as he seems. Because someone is watching her every move, and if she doesn’t get to the truth, she’ll be the killer’s next victim…

A dark story about obsession and the things we’ll do for love, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden proves that crimes of passion are often the bloodiest…

The Outsiders

For some people, home is nowhere. They feel out of place—they are adrift, the stranger in the crowd. It’s as if they are forever walking around in shoes that don’t fit.

Can they find a home, imperfect as it may be? Sometimes, all it takes is a place at the other end of the world—or a person. Nita, a teacher in Kerala, is desperate for a better-paying job and accepts one in Dubai. It is the 1990s, and Dubai is just becoming a boom town. Everything is changing. But Nita struggles to adjust to the city as an immigrant. Her job as a live-in tutor for a young girl puts her in an unfamiliar, servile role with a wealthy family. Nita starts telling the child’s mother a story from ancient India, where Darius, a sailor, arrives at an Indian port seeking his fortune. As she tells this tale, making it up as she goes, she finds that she’s no longer alone.

This is a two-headed story—the narrators Nita and Darius are nested inside each other like Russian dolls. They are both outsiders in unfamiliar places. They make dangerous choices that take them to the breaking point. And as Nita feels her safety unravel, it does for Darius as well.

Chautha Saptak/चौथा सप्तक

सच्चिदानंद हीरानंद वात्स्यायन ’अज्ञेय’ द्वारा 1943 ई० में नई कविता के प्रणयन हेतु सात कवियों का एक मंडल बनाकर तार सप्तक का संकलन एवं संपादन किया गया। चौथा सप्तक अज्ञेय द्वारा संपादित हिंदी के 7 कवियों की कविताओं का संग्रह है। इस काव्य संग्रह का प्रथम प्रकाशन 1979 ईस्वी में हुआ था। नाम के आधार पर यह पुस्तक अज्ञेय द्वारा संपादित तीन सप्तकों—तार सप्तक, दूसरा सप्तक तथा तीसरा सप्तक की सात कवियों की कविताओं के संग्रह के क्रम से जुड़ती है। इसमें अवधेश कुमार, राजकुमार कुम्भज, स्वदेश भारती, नन्दकिशोर आचार्य, सुमन राजे, श्रीराम वर्मा, राजेन्द्र किशोर की रचनाएँ संकलित हैं। 

Intermezzo

From the author of the multimillion-copy bestseller Normal People, an exquisitely moving story about grief, love and family.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties – successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women – his enduring first love Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude – a period of desire, despair and possibility – a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.

Ladybird Read It Yourself Tuck Box Level 3: 8 Books Box Set (The Elves and the Shoemaker, Hansel and Gretel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, Aladdin, Puss in Boots, The Jungle Book, Thumbelina)

*A Classic Fairytale Series*

Read It Yourself with Ladybird is one of Ladybird’s best-selling series. This is a series of character stories and traditional tales, written in a simple way for children who are learning to read. For over thirty-five years it has helped young children who are learning to read develop and improve their reading skills.

Each Read It Yourself book is very carefully written to include many key, high-frequency words that are vital for learning to read, as well as a limited number of story words that are introduced and practised throughout. Simple sentences and frequently repeated words help to build the confidence of beginner readers and the different levels of books support children all the way from very first reading practice through to independent, fluent reading.

Each book has been carefully checked by educational consultants and can be read independently at home or used in a guided reading session at school. Further content includes comprehension puzzles, helpful notes for parents, carers and teachers, and book band information for use in schools.

Please note that the following individual books as per original ISBN and cover image in this listing shall be dispatched collectively.
This box contains 8 graded storybooks from Level 3. It is perfect for children who can read short, simple sentences with help.

This Tuck-Box includes below titles:

1. The Elves and the Shoemaker
2. Jack and the Beanstalk
3. Hansel and Gretel
4. Rapunzel
5. Puss in Boots
6. Thumbelina
7. The Jungle Book
8. Aladdin

Level 3 Read It Yourself Tuck-Box is suitable for children who are developing reading confidence and stamina, and are eager to start reading longer stories with a wider vocabulary.

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