Animals of all kinds, from a lovesick hippopotamus to a valuable pair of Chelsea dogs make an appearance in Hugh Hood's delightful new collection of short stories You'll Catch Your Death. But mostly one is aware of the birds. As the narrator in Hood's opening story observes, `what I saw was birds and birds and again birds'. Mosaic renderings of peacocks and cranes, a cage of cruelly imprisoned pigeons, a lorikeet named Ronnie Reagan, a couple of stolen cockatoos and a bestselling book entitled `Caring Parenting While Birding' each play a role in these stories, along with a cast of eccentric bird lovers. Amusing, thoughtful, and by turns poignant, the thirteen never-before-published stories in You'll Catch Your Death are Hugh Hood at his eclectic best. `More Birds' and `You'll Catch Your Death' explore mankind's tenuous relationship with the animal world. `Disappearing Creatures of Various Kinds' reveals some of the mysterious ways in which humans reach out and communicate with other living creatures. On the other hand `Deanna and the Ayatollah' invents a fateful encounter between Khomeini and film star Deanna Durbin, while `Getting Funding' is a hilarious send-up of Canadian arts funding and the CBC.

Ruby Redfort: Undercover agent, code-cracker and thirteen-year-old genius – there’s nothing average about her. Only this time it’s an adventure in the wild, and it’ll take all Ruby’s got just to survive...

The Avengers was a unique, genre-defying television series which blurred the traditional boundaries between 'light entertainment' and disturbing drama. It was a product of the constantly-evolving 1960s yet retains a timeless charm. The monochrome filmed Emma Peel season had established a cult following for a series which became an intrinsic part of the 'Swinging Sixties'. Backed by US dollars, the show was now filmed 'in color' and Avengerland becomes stranger and more playful than ever: Steed is shrunk to the size of a desk pad, forced to evade a machine-gun-toting nanny; Emma Peel is tortured in a medieval ducking stool and turned into a living cybernaut. Mrs. Peel, We're Needed draws on the knowledge of a broad range of experts and fans of The Avengers as it explores the wonderfully mad Technicolor world of Emma Peel.

Imagine if Dan Brown, Steig Larsson and Michael Crichton sat down together to write a fast-paced medical conspiracy thriller set in the English countryside, featuring evil scientists, stone-cold killers, a deadly virus and a beautiful but vulnerable Harvard professor. Twenty years ago, Kate Maddox was a volunteer at a research unit where scientists experimented to find a cure for the common cold. That summer, Kate fell in love with a handsome young doctor, Stephen. But her stay at the unit ended in Stephen's tragic death and Kate fled a new life in the US... Now, Kate is back in England and on the run again with her young son - this time, from her cruel husband. But a chance encounter with Stephen's twin brother, Paul, sets her on a terrifying path of discovery. What really happened at the Cold Research Unit two decades ago? Pursued by both her estranged husband and a psychopathic killer who has an unhealthy obsession with his quarry, Kate must fight to solve the puzzles of the past - uncovering a sickening betrayal and a truth more terrifying that she could ever have imagined.

In all of the obituaries and writing about Richard Brautigan that appeared after his suicide, none revealed to Ianthe Brautigan the father she knew. Through it took all of her courage, she delved into her memories, good and bad, to retrieve him, and began to write. You Can't Catch Death is a frank, courageous, heartbreaking reflection on both a remarkable man and the child he left behind.

There’s more to most things than meets the eye—or nose—as code-cracking, wisecracking girl detective Ruby Redfort discovers in her third adventure. Wild animals roaming around Twinford? Ruby Redfort has heard the rumors, but she doesn’t quite believe them. She’s got enough on her mind doing wilderness survival training with the secret agency Spectrum, and her bad eyesight isn’t helping. But as high society buzzes with news of a very exclusive perfume formula coming to town, and some priceless jewelry goes missing, Ruby begins to sense a sinister plot in the works. Can our favorite action hero sniff out the clues in time to keep Twinford safe from evil scents? Well, let’s say this is one of those times when you gotta forget the rules and follow your nose to survive.

This play is a study of life, love, and death in a New England town at the turn of the 20th century.