The tractor story

The true story of how three teenagers plotted an act of revenge against a nasty neighbour. The book follows the life of the author through often funny, sometimes sad situations and adventures. Culminating to building a hoax bomb that was so realistic, the Essex country village of Cock Clarks residents had to be evacuated. It fooled the police and a bomb disposal expert for some time.

This highly acclaimed work reflects on the nature that we, and our religions, sprang from. The biblical story of Jacob has been interpreted in a multitude of ways, but never more persuasively than by Trevor Herriot in Jacob's Wound. The central idea is that Jacob, representing the farmer and civilized man, suffers a deep wound when he swindles the birthright of Esau, representing the hunter and primitive man. Herriot queries whether we, as Jacob did with Esau, can eventually reconcile with the wilderness that we have conquered and have been estranged from for so long.Jacob's Wound takes readers on an untrodden path through history, nature, science, and theology, sharing stories and personal experiences that beautifully illuminate what we once were and what we have become.

Contains 'The Rains of War' by Roy C. Booth and William Tucker - Top Ten Finisher in P & E Readers Poll 2016 (best short story). Rain... can be benevolent and life giving, can be torrential and damaging, even lethal. Thirteen authors came up with a wide variety of stories featuring rain, put up the umbrella and get reading. Oh and be careful of the next downpour you walk in...

Video stores are dying. But most of you don’t care. You’ve got your Netflix and your DVR, so why deal with VHS tapes or scratched DVDs? Why deal with the grumpy guy at the worn-down independent video store? That grumpy guy is Waring Wax, and he’s usually too drunk to worry about his declining business at Star Video, let alone his quickly evolving extinction in popular culture. But everything changes in his small college town when a bright and shiny Blockbuster Video opens nearby: Clearly, this means war. So, Waring enlists the help of his two reluctant employees, charismatic but conflicted Alaura and desperate virgin Jeff, to hatch a series of wild schemes to save their little store. Together, these three misfits try to save Star Video while confronting, among other things, Waring’s self-destructive tendencies, a life training cult, corporate bicycle gangs, and a Hollywood director who constantly sees the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock. The Last Days of Video is a hilarious elegy for a bygone era, a quirky and charming story of redemption for a group of loveable cinema freaks, and a love letter to the art of the movies.

As the civil war in Sri Lanka drew to its bloody end in 2009 the government of this island nation removed its protection from UN officials and employees, who, along with other international observers, were forced to leave the conflict zone. President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his inner circle wanted, it seemed, a war without witness. The end result was the deliberate slaughter of an estimated 70,000 innocent civilians. However, many survivors, and some who died, were able to capture on camera the horrifying conclusion to the war and the cruel deprivations of the internment camps that followed. Today, through their images and testimony, Rajapaksa stands accused of war crimes. In Sri Lanka’s Secrets experienced journalist Trevor Grant presents the shocking story of the final days of this war, alongside the photographs and eye-witness accounts of many Tamils, including Maravan, a social worker who fled to Australia by boat after being tortured by soldiers seeking his folio of photographs. Grant also details the continuing torture and abuse of Tamils in Sri Lanka, and some national governments’ ongoing support for a regime that has abandoned any pretense of democracy. Foremost among these enthusiastic supporters has been the Government of Australia, cynically preoccupied with ‘stopping the boats’ fleeing Sri Lankan state terror. At any cost.