Jeffrey Archer returns with his eagerly-awaited collection of short stories Tell Tale, giving readers a fascinating, exciting and sometimes poignant insight into the people he has met, the stories he has come across and the countries he has visited. Find out what happens to the hapless young detective from Naples who travels to an Italian hillside town to find out Who Killed the Mayor? and the pretentious schoolboy in A Road to Damascus, whose discovery of the origins of his father’s wealth changes his life in the most profound way. Revel in the stories of the 1930’s woman who dares to challenge the men at her Ivy League University in A Gentleman and A Scholar while another young woman who thumbs a lift gets more than she bargained for in A Wasted Hour. These wonderfully engaging and always refreshingly original tales prove why Archer has been described by The Times as probably the greatest storyteller of our age.

How do calendars and clocks influence considerations of school effectiveness? From the creation of compulsory education to the future of virtual schooling, Weiss and Brown trace two centuries of school practices, policies and research linking the concept of time with ‘opportunity to learn’. School calendars and clocks are shaped by both the physical and social worlds, and the ‘clock of schooling’ is shown to be one of the ‘great clocks of society’ that helps to frame school effectiveness. School time does not operate in a vacuum, but within curriculum, teaching and learning situations. The phrase ‘chrono-curriculum’ was devised by the authors as a metaphor for exploring issues of school effectiveness within the time dimension. Using American and Canadian sources, stories are created to illustrate four themes about time and school effectiveness. The first three stories utilize access, attendance and testing as criteria associated with these eras of schooling. How will the story read in the fourth era, the digital age, which forces us to a reconsideration of time and its influence on education? Quoting David Berliner in his Foreword: “ this is an opportune time for these authors to bring us insights into the reasons we in North America created our public school systems, and how the chrono-curriculum influences those systems. The authors’ presentation of our educational past provides educators a chance to think anew about how we might do schooling in our own times.”

Enrich your family life, connect with your children, and celebrate your ancestors by learning to tell family stories, folktales, and nursery rhymes. Telling Tales: Storytelling in the Family is a fascinating guide to the art of gathering and telling stories. Written by three renowned storytellers, Telling Tales includes personal stories, how-to tips and extensive resource lists, and builds upon the success of the acclaimed first edition.

Bedtime is story time for children big and small. So read a story at Bedtime, and read it well for all.

In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", the narrator tries to prove his sanity after murdering an elderly man because of his "vulture eye". His growing guilt leads him to hear the old man's heart beating under the floorboards, which drives him to confess the crime to the police.