'He must know by now, I should think, that I can give as good as I get!' This is the story of Gigi, educated as a future courtesan in Paris, her days are filled with cigars, lobster, lace and superstitions.

Gigi's days are filled with cigars, lobster, lace and superstitions: the education of a future courtesan. Bored and unconvinced by what she's taught, Gigi surprises all with her approach to love.

Taking the reader through the lives of our monarchs, this book tells a tale of bastardy, courage, conquest, brutality, vanity, vulgarity, corruption, anarchy, absenteeism, piety, nobility, divorce, execution, civil war, madness, magnificence, profligacy, frugality, philately, abdication, dutifulness, family breakdown and family recovery.

"Gladiators".

In the remote Kingdom of Castalia, the scholars of the Twenty Third century play the Glass Bead Game. The elaborately coded game is a fusion of all human knowledge - of maths, music, philosophy, science, and art. Intrigued as a school boy, Joseph Knecht becomes consumed with mastering the game as an adult.

The children of Innertown exist in a state of suspended terror. Every year or so, a boy from their school disappears, vanishing into the wasteland of the old chemical plant. Nobody knows where these boys go. The town policeman, Morrison knows otherwise. He was involved in the cover-up of one boy's murder.

A story of four boys growing up in the Edinburgh schemes, and about the loyalties, the experiences - and the secrets - that hold them together into their thirties. What binds the four of them is the friendship formed by the scheme, their school, and their ambition to escape from both; their loyalty fused in street morality.