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Meet Geralt of Rivia - the Witcher - who holds the line against the monsters plaguing humanity in the bestselling series that inspired the Witcher video games and a major Netflix show. The Witcher's magic powers and lifelong training have made him a brilliant fighter and a merciless assassin. Yet he is no ordinary killer: he hunts the vile fiends that ravage the land and attack the innocent. <br/><br/>But not everything monstrous-looking is evil; not everything fair is good . . . and in every fairy tale there is a grain of truth. Translated by Danusia Stok and David French. Andrzej Sapkowski, winner of the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement award, started an international phenomenon with his Witcher series. <br/><br/>This boxed set contains all eight books: THE LAST WISH, SWORD OF DESTINY, BLOOD OF ELVES, TIME OF CONTEMPT, BAPTISM OF FIRE, THE TOWER OF THE SWALLOW, THE LADY OF THE LAKE, SEASON OF STORMS.

The year is 1984. Aomame sits in a taxi on the expressway in Tokyo. Her work is not the kind which can be discussed in public but she is in a hurry to carry out an assignment and, with the traffic at a stand-still, the driver proposes a solution. She agrees, but as a result of her actions starts to feel increasingly detached from the real world. She has been on a top-secret mission, and her next job will lead her to encounter the apparently superhuman founder of a religious cult. Meanwhile, Tengo is leading a nondescript life but wishes to become a writer. He inadvertently becomes involved in a strange affair surrounding a literary prize to which a mysterious seventeen-year-old girl has submitted her remarkable first novel. It seems to be based on her own experiences and moves readers in unusual ways. Can her story really be true? Aomame and Tengo's stories influence one another, at times by accident and at times intentionally, as the two come closer and closer to intertwining. As "1Q84" accelerates towards its conclusion, both are pursued by persons and forces they do not know and cannot understand. As they begin to decipher more about the strange world into which they have slipped, so they sense their destinies converging. What they cannot know is whether they will find one another before they are themselves found. "1Q84" is a magnificent and fully-imagined work of fiction - a thriller, a love-story and a mind-bending ode to George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four". It is a world from which the reader emerges stunned and altered.

This year is the fiftieth anniversary of Waterloo (the song, not the battle) &ndash; a seminal moment in pop history which saw Swedish sensation ABBA burst on to the international music scene. How is it that half a century later this seventies Eurovision act is bigger than ever &ndash; reaching listeners of all ages and spinning off into musicals, museums and holograms? Giles Smith, writer and music fan, sets out to find out why.

All golden ages are marked by periods of spectacular cultural flourishing, scientific exploration, technological achievement and economic growth; yet no two are the same. Their beliefs, societies and place in the wider world all vary. Despite this, all previous golden ages have ended, whether it be because of external pressures or internal fracturing; too much hubris or too little wariness.<br/><br/>Looking at seven of humanity's greatest civilisations - ancient Athens, the Roman Republic, Abbasid Baghdad, Song China, Renaissance Italy, the Dutch Republic and the Anglosphere - historian and commentator Johan Norberg seeks to distil their strengths and shortcomings in answering the question: how do we ensure that our current golden age doesn't end?<br/><br/>As insightful as it is riveting, <i>Peak Human </i>is at once a paean to our incredible progress and a warning that we cannot afford to be complacent.

<b>THE <i>SUNDAY TIMES</i> TOP TEN BESTSELLER</b><br/><b>WINNER OF THE 2017 PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE<br/>WINNER OF THE 2016 WAINWRIGHT PRIZE</b><br/><b>SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 ONDAATJE PRIZE</b><br/><b>SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 WELLCOME PRIZE</b><br/><br/>At the age of thirty, Amy Liptrot finds herself washed up back home on Orkney. Standing unstable on the island, she tries to come to terms with the addiction that has swallowed the last decade of her life. As she spends her mornings swimming in the bracingly cold sea, her days tracking Orkney's wildlife, and her nights searching the sky for the Merry Dancers, Amy discovers how the wild can restore life and renew hope.

A WORLD IN DARKNESS. A BURNING SPARK. A BLAZE OF STARS. Bryce Quinlan is stranded in a strange new world. She&apos;s going to need all her wits about her to get home again and return to everything she loves. But that&apos;s no easy feat when she has no idea who to trust. Meanwhile, Hunt Athalar is back in the Asteri&apos;s dungeons. Stripped of his freedom and the happiness he&apos;d fought so hard for, he&apos;s without a clue as to Bryce&apos;s fate. Hunt is desperate to help his mate, but until he can escape the Asteri&apos;s chains, his hands are quite literally tied.

Late one summer, the town of Monta Clare is shattered by the abduction of local teenager Joseph &apos;Patch&apos; Macauley. Nobody more so than Saint Brown, who is broken by her best friend&apos;s disappearance. Soon, she will eat, sleep, breathe, only to find him. But when she does: it will break her heart. Patch lies in a pitch-black room - all alone - for days or maybe weeks. Until he feels a hand in his. Her name is Grace and, though they cannot see each other, she takes him from the darkness and paints their world with her words. In this hopeless place, they fall in love. But when he escapes: there is no sign she ever even existed. To find her again, Patch charts an epic search across the country. And, to set him free, Saint will shadow his journey: on a darker path to hunt down the man who took them. Even if finding the truth means losing each other forever...