Get the Life You Really Want
Page 5
One Good Turn Chris Ryan
The Perfect Holiday Cathy Kelly
The Perfect Murder Peter James
Quantum of Tweed: Conn Iggulden
The Man with the Nissan Micra
RaW Voices: True Stories of Hardship Vanessa Feltz
Reading My Arse! Ricky Tomlinson
Star Sullivan Maeve Binchy
Strangers on the 16:02 Priya Basil
The Sun Book of Short Stories
Survive the Worst and Aim for the Best Kerry Katona
The 10 Keys to Success John Bird
Tackling Life Charlie Oatway
Traitors of the Tower Alison Weir
Trouble on the Heath Terry Jones
Twenty Tales of the War Zone John Simpson
We Won the Lottery Danny Buckland
Quick Reads
Fall in love with reading
Quick Reads are brilliantly written short new books by bestselling authors and celebrities. Whether you’re an avid reader who wants a quick fix or haven’t picked up a book since school, sit back, relax and let Quick Reads inspire you.
We would like to thank all our funders:
We would also like to thank all our partners in the Quick Reads project for their help and support:
NIACE • unionlearn • National Book Tokens
The Reading Agency • National Literacy Trust
Welsh Books Council • Welsh Government
The Big Plus Scotland • DELNI • NALA
We want to get the country reading
Quick Reads, World Book Day and World Book Night are initiatives designed to encourage everyone in the UK and Ireland – whatever your age – to read more and discover the joy of books.
Quick Reads launches on 14 February 2012
Find out how you can get involved at www.quickreads.org.uk
World Book Day is on 1 March 2012
Find out how you can get involved at www.worldbookday.com
World Book Night is on 23 April 2012
Find out how you can get involved at www.worldbooknight.org
Quick Reads
Fall in love with reading
Doctor Who Magic of the Angels
Jacqueline Rayner
BBC Books
‘No one from this time will ever see that girl again …’
On a sight-seeing tour of London the Doctor wonders why so many young girls are going missing. When he sees Sammy Star’s amazing magic act, he thinks he knows the answer. The Doctor and his friends team up with residents of an old people’s home to discover the truth. And together they find themselves face to face with a deadly Weeping Angel.
Whatever you do – don’t blink!
A thrilling all-new adventure featuring the Doctor, Amy and Rory, as played by Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill in the hit series from BBC Television.
Quick Reads
Fall in love with reading
The Little One
Lynda La Plante
Simon & Schuster
Are you scared of the dark?
Barbara needs a story. A struggling journalist, she tricks her way into the home of former soap star Margaret Reynolds. Desperate for a scoop, she finds instead a terrified woman living alone in a creepy manor house. A piano plays in the night, footsteps run overhead, doors slam. The nights are full of strange noises. Barbara thinks there may be a child living upstairs, unseen. Little by little, actress Margaret’s haunting story is revealed, and Barbara is left with a chilling discovery.
This spooky tale from bestselling author Lynda La Plante will make you want to sleep with the light on.
Quick Reads
Fall in love with reading
Full House
Maeve Binchy
Orion
Sometimes the people you love most are the hardest to live with.
Dee loves her three children very much, but now they are all grown up, isn’t it time they left home?
But they are very happy at home. It doesn’t cost them anything and surely their parents like having a full house? Then there is a crisis, and Dee decides things have to change for the whole family … whether they like it or not.
Quick Reads
Fall in love with reading
Beyond the Bounty
Tony Parsons
Harper
Mutiny and murder in paradise …
The Mutiny on the Bounty is the most famous uprising in naval history. Led by Fletcher Christian, a desperate crew cast sadistic Captain Bligh adrift. They swap cruelty and the lash for easy living in the island heaven of Tahiti. However, paradise turns out to have a darker side …
Mr Christian dies in terrible agony. The Bounty burns. Cursed by murder and treachery, the rebels’ dreams turn to nightmares, and all hope of seeing England again is lost forever …
Quick Reads
Fall in love with reading
The Cleverness of Ladies
Alexander McCall Smith
Abacus
There are times when ladies must use all their wisdom to tackle life’s mysteries.
Mma Ramotswe, owner of the No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, keeps her wits about her as she looks into why the country’s star goalkeeper isn’t saving goals. Georgina turns her rudeness into a virtue when she opens a successful hotel. Fabrizia shows her bravery when her husband betrays her. And gentle La proves that music really can make a difference.
With his trademark gift for storytelling, international bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith brings us five tales of love, heartbreak, hope and the cleverness of ladies.
Quick Reads
Fall in love with reading
Quantum of Tweed:
The Man with the Nissan Micra
Conn Iggulden
Harper
Albert Rossi has many talents. He can spot cheap polyester at a hundred paces. He knows the value of a good pair of brogues. He is in fact the person you would have on speed-dial for any tailoring crisis. These skills are essential to a Gentleman’s Outfitter from Eastcote. They are less useful for an international assassin.
When Albert accidentally runs over a pedestrian, he is launched into the murky world of murder-for-hire. Instead of a knock on the door from the police, he receives a mysterious phone call.
His life is about to get a whole lot more interesting …
Quick Reads
Fall in love with reading
Amy’s Diary
Maureen Lee
Orion
A young woman finds her way in a world at war.
On 3rd September 1939 Amy Browning started to write a diary. It was a momentous day: Amy’s 18th birthday and the day her sister gave birth to a baby boy. It was also the day Great Britain went to war with Germany.
To begin with life for Amy and her family in Opal Street, Liverpool, went on much the same. Then the bombs began to fall, and Amy’s fears grew. Her brother was fighting in France, her boyfriend had joined the RAF and they all now lived in a very dangerous world …
Other resources
Enjoy this book? Find out about all the others from www.quickreads.org.uk
Free courses are available for anyone who wants to develop their skills. You can attend the courses in your local area. If you’d like to find out more, phone 0800 66 0800.
For more information on developing your skills in Scotland visit www.thebigplus.com
Join the Reading Agency’s Six Book Challenge at www.sixbookchallenge.org.uk
Publishers Barrington Stoke and New Island also provide books for new readers.
www.barringtonstoke.co.uk • www.newisland.ie
The BBC runs an adult basic skills campaign.
See www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise
GET THE JOB YOU REALLY WANT
‘It is possible to have the job of your dreams. Together we are going to set about getting you there.
Before I joined the BBC’s Dragons’ Den, I spent thirty years setting up and running recruitment companies, placing hu
ndreds of thousands of candidates in the jobs they really wanted.
I will take you through the process step by step. How to stay positive in a difficult economic climate and find the right opportunities. How to package yourself to make sure you secure an interview. The vital importance of preparation, so that you are relaxed and give a great performance at interview. How to show your passion, and ask the perfect questions. And finally, how to use your power by closing the best deal on a job offer.
At every stage I will help you rethink the traditional, formulaic approach to job hunting. It’s the detail that makes the difference.
This book is not about hoping you get lucky. It is about creating your own luck.’
James Caan
‘Really great, useful advice. I’m a fan’ Sahar Hashemi, founder of Coffee Republic and author of Anyone Can Do It
‘Simply brilliant. This practical, no-nonsense book will help you land the job of your dreams’ Bev James, Chief Executive, Entrepreneurs Business Academy
www.penguin.com
START YOUR BUSINESS IN 7 DAYS
‘Everybody wants to be an entrepreneur. Every single day of my life I am bombarded by people with pitches. But 90% of new businesses fail, because their founders failed to ask themselves the simplest of questions.
I can save you years of wasted time and thousands of pounds of wasted money by giving you the ammunition to ask the right questions, and helping you make the decision that is right for you.
I will show you how to spend a maximum of seven days deciding if your idea is workable and bankable. How to say “I’m in”, but equally importantly, to have the courage to say “I’m out”. How to become your own Dragon.
Each piece of advice in this book is based on my thirty years of starting businesses. You will find all the fundamental ingredients for any new company, whatever sector you want to be in, whatever size of business you have in mind, along with the tools to make it work.
Answer all the tough questions I am going to get you to ask yourself and you will have a business that genuinely has a chance of success. You can be one of the 10% of businesses that do make it.’
James Caan
www.penguin.com
PORTFOLIO PENGUIN
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
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(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
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Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
First published 2012
Copyright © James Caan, 2012
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-24-195879-7