When Simon Legris, a physician from Paris, returns from an expedition to Africa, he brings home a monkey that understands human speech and names him Jacques LeSinge. Utterly devoted to him, Jacques becomes his servant. While in the service of an ailing marquis, Legris receives some shattering hews -Jacques has been accused of molesting the aristocrat's wife and has been dismissed in disgrace. After an audacious French Revolutionary plot goes wrong, Jacques stands in the dock in Hartlepool accused of espionage. Warrens, a lowly 'one-guinea brief' barrister, stands to defend him. In the greatest challenge of his career, he mounts a defence that asks: what makes a man? A demonically witty digest of all things eighteenth-century, this is an eccentric and hugely entertaining début.

1814, off the Durham coast, near the village of Hartlepool, a war-ship in the Napoleonic fleet founders during a storm and sinks. At day-break, fishermen discover a survivor: a monkey dressed in full military regalia, the mascot. The good people of Hartlepool despise all Frenchmen, though they have never seen one in the flesh. Nor have they ever see a monkey. But this brutish, bestial castaway tallies with the impression they have of the enemy, and the ape is court-martialled. Inspired by this famous legend, this is a tragi-comic fable of war and jingoism.

A comic like no other you've seen, this series is chock-full of atmospheric art and bizarre mystery as a chimpanzee named Jennifer becomes mixed up in a plot by the evil Dr. Tunick to harvest people's brain energy.

Sunderland! Thirteen hundred years ago it was the greatest center of learning in the whole of Christendom and the very cradle of English consciousness. In the time of Lewis Carroll it was the greatest shipbuilding port in the world. To this city that gave the world the electric light bulb, the stars and stripes, the millennium, the Liberty Ships and the greatest British dragon legend came Carroll in the years preceding his most famous book, Alice in Wonderland, and here are buried the roots of his surreal masterpiece. Enter the famous Edwardian palace of varieties, The Sunderland Empire, for a unique experience: an entertaining and epic meditation on myth, history and storytelling and decide for yourself — does Sunderland really exist?

This fascinating selection of photographs traces some of the many ways in which Hartlepool has changed and developed over the last century.

"A dream of a book. August Moon hums with menace and wonder, like the coolest childhood you never had. Diana Thung's work is beautiful in all the right ways, for all the right reasons." -- Junot DÍaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and This Is How You Lose Her "August Moon did the thing I always hope a book will do: It took me someplace I hadn't been before."-- Hope Larson, author of Mercury and A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel The townspeople of Calico believe in family. In fact, some say that the souls of dead ancestors watch over this town, and on a clear night, you can see their "Soul Fires"dancing through the sky. But when young Fiona Gan comes to town with her father, she finds that the Soul Fires are just the beginning of Calico's mysteries. Strange graffiti appears all over town, a huge rabbit-like creature is found in an alley, and a peculiar street boy named Jaden claims to come from the moon. Now time may be running out, because Fi and her dad are not the only newcomers to Calico. As the Soul Fire festival approaches and a creepy corporation starts to bulldoze the nearby forests, she finds herself drawn into Jaden's battle for the soul of a community. Diana Thung's debut Top Shelf graphic novel is a true adventure, rooted in the diverse local traditions of Asia and the films of Hayao Miyazaki, with a modern sensibility and a hint of magic.

This is the astonishing true story of Zeraffa, a giraffe who was sent as a gift from Egypt to France in 1826. A young boy, Atir, takes care of Zeraffa on her epic journey and the sailors sing songs as she gazes down at them. In France, Atir leads her through the countryside, and thousands of people marvel at Zeraffa. Paris falls in love with Zeraffa. The King builds her a special house in the Jardin des Plantes. On warm nights, the young princess visits, while Atir whispers stories to Zeraffa of a hot land far away. The amazing story by an award-winning author of a giraffe's extraordinary voyage from Africa to Paris.