Showing results by author "Alan Garner" in All Categories

The Edge is a land of two worlds: above and below. It took me my childhood to learn about above; when I was 19, I went to learn the wonders of below: a world of darkness and silence, so dark that you can see the lights of brain cells discharging; so silent that blood in the veins can be heard.

Conversationally Speaking has become the most popular book in the world teaching conversation skills. Millions of people have used it to learn the secrets of effective communication. This revised edition provides more ways to improve your conversation skills by giving you strategies that work for starting conversations, asking questions that promote interaction, interesting people in what you have to say, listening so that others will be encouraged to talk, avoiding rejection-producing behavior, handling criticism constructively, and more.

From the author of the New York Times best seller Adult Children of Alcoholics - a wonderful book that affirms and encourages ACoAs by developing your skills for living. Imagine how good you would feel if: you could stand up for yourself without losing your temper; you could make a decision without second guessing yourself; and you didn't have that sense of worthlessness every time someone criticized you. In Lifeskills for Adult Children you can learn how to do these things and more.

An introspective young boy, Joseph Coppock is trying to make sense of the world. Living alone in an old house, he spends his time reading comic books, collecting birds’ eggs, and playing with marbles. When one day a rag-and-bone man called Treacle Walker appears on a horse and cart, offering a cure-all medicine, a mysterious friendship develops and the young boy is introduced to a world beyond his wildest imagination.

After hearing scratches in the attic, Alison discovers a dinner service covered in an intriguing floral owl pattern, and a series of events are set in motion that will change her life forever. Alison, her step-brother Roger and Welsh boy Gwyn are forced into a cyclical replay of the tragic Welsh legend of Blodeuwedd, in which a woman is turned into an owl as a punishment for betraying her husband.

Alan Garner's exciting and atmospheric tale of magic and evil, which began with The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, continues with The Moon of Gomrath.

Colin and Susan are not safe from the evil Morrigan and once more find themselves back in Fundindelve with the wizard Cadellin.

Joe Coppock squints at the world with his lazy eye. He reads his comics, collects birds' eggs and treasures his marbles, particularly his prized dobbers. When Treacle Walker appears off the Cheshire moor one day - a wanderer, a healer - an unlikely friendship is forged and the young boy is introduced to a world he could never have imagined.

Boneland is Alan Garner’s continuation of the story thread which began in his first and enduringly popular fantasy children’s novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, published in 1960, it has never been out of print. The Moon of Gomrath followed in 1963 taking the story further with the same two children, Colin and Susan. But Boneland is particularly fascinating because it takes the story into adulthood, with Colin again the main proponent.

"Towers - like flame. A candle in darkness. A black wind." Roland Watson wasn't expecting to see things like that when he kicked a football into a condemned church. But once inside, he is taken from the slums of Manchester to the ruins of a magical kingdom. And only he can bring back the light to Elidor.

In Where Shall We Run To?, Alan Garner remembers his early childhood in the Cheshire village of Alderley Edge: life at the village school as ‘a sissy and a mardy-arse'; pushing his friend Harold into a clump of nettles to test the truth of dock leaves; his father joining the army to guard the family against Hitler; the coming of the Yanks, with their comics and sweets and chewing gum. From one of our greatest living writers, it is a remarkable and evocative memoir of a vanished England.