'COUNT MAGNUS AND OTHER GHOST STORIES by M.R.JAMES
Reviewed by mw
The master of the English ghost story's finest tales are collected here in one enlighteningly annotated edition. James' beautifully-constructed stories of blinkered academics stumbling into the path of the supernatural, retain their chilling power, including his masterpiece 'Oh, Whistle, And I'll Come To You, My Lad'. Ideal tales for Halloween

THE EARTHSEA QUARTET by URSULA LE GUIN
Reviewed by Douglas
Le Guin's 'Earthsea Quartet is an excellent post-Harry Potter book for readers both young and old. Great fantasy sequences and characterisation but some tough questions too.

BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA by KATHERINE PEARSON
Reviewed by Erin
Yes, it's also a movie, but the book's much better! This is a fabulously written and moving story of friendship, imagination and learning who you really are inside. This Newbery Medal winning book deserves to be a classic.

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW by MIKE CAREY
Reviewed by Paul
Set in today's London with plenty of landmarks and recognisable places written in. The only difference is that ghosts and demons are commonplace, many even fighting for equal rights. This why people call Felix Castor, freelance exorcist, although most of them end up wishing they hadn't.

ROSEANNA by MAJ SJOWALL AND PER WAHLOO
Reviewed by mark w
Like Simenon's Maigret series, the excellent Martin Beck police-procedurals (of which this is the first) don't trade on lazy cliches of maverick supercops and evil genius killers, but portray believably flawed and complex people in gripping stories where the 'why?' of the crimes are as important as the 'whodunnit?'

THE MOVING TOYSHOP by EDMUND CRISPIN
Reviewed by mark w
Gervase Fenn, that most literary of literary detectives, wanders amiably into his greatest and most deadly case. With only enough time to drop in the occasional epigram, can he discover why a toyshop moved across Oxford one night, simply to accomodate a corpse. More importantly, can he save a young

NEMESIS by MAX HASTINGS
Reviewed by Douglas
Journalist Max Hastings presents a compelling account of the climax to the Pacific war. A wealth of detail and research make this exhaustive book a pleasure to read and revisit.

THE GILDED SEAL by JAMES TWINING
Reviewed by Paul
An enjoyably tense story with a pair of engaging lead characters make this art heist thriller into a great page-turner just begging to be made into a film. Read it before Hollywood wrecks it!