Showing results by publisher "Pan Macmillan Publishers Ltd." in All Categories

How to give the perfect interview, never lose your wallet again, how to convince anyone of anything by using your pet frog and why rewards fail. Most people would like to be more motivated. For years, gurus and ‘life coaches’ have urged people to improve their lives by changing the way they think and behave, but scientific research has revealed that many of their techniques, from visualization to self-affirmation, are ineffective.

The Olympic Games have become the single greatest festival of a universal and cosmopolitan humanity. Seventeen days of sporting competition watched and followed on every continent and in every country on the planet. Simply the greatest show on earth. Yet when the modern games were inaugurated in Athens in 1896, the founders thought them a 'display of manly virtue', an athletic celebration of the kind of amateur gentleman who would rule the world. How was such a ritual invented?

Find out why it's not easy being green in the hilarious new story from Frank Cottrell Boyce: The Astounding Broccoli Boy! Rory Rooney likes to be prepared for all eventualities. His favourite book is Don't Be Scared, Be Prepared, and he has memorized every page of it. He could even survive a hippo attack. He knows that just because something is unlikely doesn't mean it won't ever happen.... But Rory isn't prepared when he suddenly and inexplicably turns green.

Florentyna Kane is the first woman president of the United States. At 7.30 one evening, the FBI learn of a plot to kill her - the 1,572nd such threat of the year. At 8.30, five people know all the details. By 9.30, four of them are dead. FBI agent Mark Andrews alone knows the 'when'. He also knows that a senator is involved. He has six days to learn the 'where' and the 'how' - and six days to prevent the president's certain death.

It is Greenwich, Connecticut, in the early 1950s, and a set of twins is separated at birth by a desperate nurse. Nat Davenport goes home with his parents, a schoolteacher and an insurance salesman. But his twin brother is to begin his days as Fletcher Cartwright, the son of a wealthy CEO and his wife.

Ruth lives in the beautiful city of Vienna and is wildly in love with Heini Radik, a brilliant young pianist. But her world is about to change forever. When Hitler's forces invade, Ruth's family flees to London, but she is unable to get a passport. Quin, a young professor and friend of the family, visits Ruth and in an effort to bring her back to London, he offers a marriage of convenience. As Ruth throws herself into her London life, Quin begins to fall desperately in love with her.

For many people, Clive James will always be a TV presenter first and foremost, and a writer second -- this despite the fact that his adventures with the written word took place before, during and after his time on the small screen.

The fascinating characters that roam across the pages of Emma Donoghue's latest fact-inspired fictions have all gone astray: they are emigrants, runaways, drifters. They cross other borders, too: those of race, law, sex, and sanity. They travel for love or money, incognito or under duress. Donoghue describes the brutal plot hatched by a slave in conjunction with his master's wife to set them both free.

The time, 1993. The place, Washington, D.C. Of the adversaries in the Gulf War, the sole survivor is Saddam Hussein. And Saddam is planning a revenge so diabolical that the United States will be left with no choice but to retaliate.

Cornwall, 1790. Ross Poldark faces the darkest hour of his life. Accused of wrecking two ships, he is to stand trial at the Bodmin Assizes. Despite their stormy married life, Demelza has tried to rally support for her husband. But there are enemies in plenty who would be happy to see Ross convicted, not least George Warleggan, the powerful banker whose personal rivalry with Ross grows ever more intense.

The fourth book in the Stage Dive series. Don't miss a beat with the fourth and final novel in the New York Times and USA Today best-selling Stage Dive series from Kylie Scott. Positive. With two little lines on a pregnancy test, everything in Lizzy Rollins' ordinary life is about to change forever. And all because of one big mistake in Vegas with Ben Nicholson, the irresistibly sexy bass player for Stage Dive.

After Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England, and May Week Was in June comes the next instalment in the ongoing saga that is Clive James's life. His fourth volume of autobiography is every bit as eventful, entertaining, engrossing, and honest as the previous three.

Why two heads are no better than one, how never to regret a decision again, protect yourself against hidden persuaders, and tell when someone is lying to you. Most people would like to be more decisive. For years, gurus and ‘life coaches’ have urged people to improve their lives by changing the way they think and behave, but scientific research has revealed that many of their techniques, including group brainstorming, are ineffective.

Mal Ericson, drummer for the world-famous rock band Stage Dive, needs to clean up his image fast - at least for a little while. Having a good girl on his arm should do the job just fine. Mal doesn't plan on this temporary fix becoming permanent, but he didn't count on finding the one right girl. Anne Rollins never thought she would ever meet the rock god who she'd plastered on her bedroom walls as a teenager - especially not under these circumstances. Anne has money problems. Big ones.

It takes a tough mind-set to be a successful sniper, to be able to dig in for days on your own as you wait for your target, to stay calm on a battlefield when you yourself have become the target the enemy most wants to take out. Craig Harrison has what it takes, and in November 2009 in Afghanistan, under intense pressure, he saved the lives of his comrades with the longest confirmed sniper kill - 2,475 metres, the length of 25 football pitches.

Lynn gripped the sides of the armchair, trying to put aside her own inner terror. 'I can't believe I'm thinking this, Ross. I'm not a violent person, even before Caitlin's influence, I never even liked killing flies in my kitchen. Now I'm sitting here actually willing some stranger to die.' The body of a teenager dredged from the seabed off the coast of Sussex is found to be missing its vital organs. Soon two more young bodies are found.

A man calls unexpectedly on his mistress and sees another man leaving her flat. Accusing her of being unfaithful, he quarrels with her, strikes her. She dies. Leaving unseen, he tips off the police so that the other man is arrested and charged. Has he achieved "The Perfect Murder"? A tantalising opening to A Twist in the Tale, a fast-moving, entertaining set of stories.

Camp David, USA. A birthday party turns into a nightmare when a child is snatched after the celebrations. The First Lady enlists the services of Sean King and Michelle Maxwell to bring the child home safely. But she and King share a past. Years ago he saved her then-senator husband from political disaster. And this may not be all that passed between them.

Danny Cartwright and Spencer Craig were born on different sides of the track. Their lives will never be the same again. One of them is arrested for murder, while the other ends up as the prosecution's chief witness in an Old Bailey trial.

One million dollars: that's what Harvey Metcalfe, lifelong king of shady deals, has pulled off with empty promises of an oil bonanza and instant riches. Overnight, four men: the heir to an earldom, a Harley Street doctor, a Bond Street art dealer, and an Oxford don, find themselves penniless. But this time Harvey has swindled the wrong men. They band together and shadow him from the casinos of Monte Carlo to the high-stakes windows at Ascot and the hallowed lawns of Oxford.