The Interceptor

When Dave Roberts relocates to the USA, his wife informs him that they can only take what is 'absolutely essential'. Packing his collection of football programmes (1,134 of them - football fans are sticklers for statistics), Dave is aghast to be informed that the programmes do not fall into that category. He must whittle down his treasured archive to only what will fit inside a Tupperware container the size of a Dan Brown hardback.

32 Programmes tells the story of how Dave made the selection of his most important programmes, and how the process brought back a flood of nostalgia for simpler times. As the sights, sounds and smells of those 1,134 football matches return, the choices Dave makes reflect the twists and turns that life takes. Finally, with just hours to go before the flight, the container is full to the brim. One more programme will be added to the collection - one that Dave never thought he would see and which means more to him than any other.

32 Programmes is the story of youthful football obsession, crushes on disinterested girls, rubbish jobs and trying to impress skinheads. But most of all, it is the story of a man's life and loves, of family, friends and football.

In mid-1994 a National Parks & Wildlife ranger abseiling in the Wollemi Wilderness outside Sydney, came upon an extraordinary sight: a canyon filled with massive pines. These trees towered above the surrounding foliage, with fern-like leaves and peculiar lumpy bark.

What he accidentally discovered that day has become one of the century’s most important botanical finds. The ancient pines were thought to have become extinct millions of years ago. The Director of Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens described the discovery as ‘the equivalent of finding a small dinosaur still alive on Earth’.

Hershey. The name means chocolate to America and the world, but as Michael D'Antonio reveals, it also stands for an inspiring man and a uniquely successful experiment in community and capitalism that produced a business empire devoted to a higher purpose.

One of the twentieth century's most eccentric and idealistic titans of industry, Milton S. Hershey brought affordable milk chocolate to America, creating and then satisfying the chocoholic urges of millions. He pioneered techniques of branding, mass production, and marketing, and gained widespread fame as the Chocolate King.

But as he developed massive factories, Cuban sugar plantations, and a vacation wonderland called Hershey Park, M.S. never lost sight of a grander goal. Determined that his wealth produce a lasting legacy, he tried to create perfect places where his workers could live, perfect schools for their children, and a perfect charity to salvage the lives of needy children in perpetuity. Along the way, he overcame his personal childhood traumas, as well as the death, after a short and intensely romantic marriage, of the one woman he ever loved.

In childhood, Milton was torn by the constant conflicts between his stern mother and starry-eyed father. He watched his father go bust in the oil fields and his sister die of scarlet fever. As a young man he failed with businesses in Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago. Milton finally succeeded in Lancaster, thanks to a caramel recipe copied from another confectioner and a lucky break provided by a British importer. Then, at the history-shaping Columbian Exhibition, Milton found the chocolate-making technology that would allow him to bring a new taste to America. When they heard about his plan to build a chocolate empire complete with its own little city in rural Pennsylvania, his friends said he needed a legal guardian.

Ten years later, Milton controlled the U.S. chocolate market, and his town, Hershey, Pennsylvania, was the ideal American village. Factory workers lived in graceful homes. Their children attended the best schools. Local parks, libraries, and theaters rivaled the best in big cities. Trains brought thousands of tourists every day, who flocked to see the miracle town, the Hershey zoo, and an enormous amusement park.

Not content with these accomplishments, a childless M.S. Hershey founded an orphanage for boys at his family homestead. After his wife Catherine's death, the press revealed that he had secretly willed his entire estate to the Hershey Industrial School, as it was called. This was only the beginning of his giving. Through the Great Depression, Milton Hershey used his fortune to fund a massive building program that kept all his workers employed and spared the community the real hardships of the era. Before he died, he even gave away his mansion, keeping just two rooms for himself.

Remarkable as Hershey was, his legacy is even more powerful. It includes the $8 billion Hershey Trust (the single largest private fund for children in the world), an idyllic company town in central Pennsylvania, and a corporation that proves that the ideals of community and commerce can lead to profit.

Are you baffled by cryptic crosswords? Do you want to increase your word power and exercise your brain, but can’t make any sense of the clues? There is no secret formula to cracking the cryptic crossword. Anyone can do it. This book is packed with all the know-how, hints and tricks you will ever need to help you find the right answers every time. From clever to cunning to downright devious, all the different types of clue are here, with tips on how to recognise them, interpret them and, of course, solve them! Cryptic crosswords appear regularly in newspapers and magazines, many of them offering the chance of a prize – usually either cash, books or a posh pen. Find out what makes these puzzles so intriguing, yet so infuriating. With around one hundred and fifty clues analysed and explained in full, you will soon be on your way to the satisfaction of completing your first crossword grid, impressing your family, friends and fellow commuters, and maybe even winning a prize!

As far as Colin Berry's family were concerned, he'd gone to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban to market low-cost housing. But in fact, Berry, a former soldier, had been recruited by British intelligence to secretly buy back weapons systems that had been delivered to the Mujahideen during their struggle against the Soviets.

It was a gruelling and dangerous mission during which he saw first-hand the ravaging effects of decades of warfare on a country and its people. It ended in a hotel-room shoot-out that left two Afghans dead and Berry himself seriously wounded.

In The Deniable Agent, Colin Berry gives a riveting insight into the covert world of intelligence. He also finally reveals the truth about what happened in the Intercontinental Hotel that night and how he spent nearly a year in a stinking Afghan jail.