Using the search interface in the left side-panel, you can search according to limiting criteria.

Once you have located a book you want to buy, click on the basket icon and it will be added to your shopping basket.

You will be able to review and edit the contents of your basket and then transmit your order automatically to the bookseller or booksellers by e-mail, with a confirmatory e-mail to you.

The bookseller will then contact you to confirm the sale and settle payment and delivery details.

The interface in the left side-frame allows you to search for a book or group of books with various degrees of specificity. As a general rule for criteria, less is better. “Steinbeck” will return a more comprehensive list than “John Steinbeck”. 

The words you specify must occur in the relevant database field, so that it is better to leave out any words you feel unsure about.

If your criteria result in a very long list, you can easily go back and refine your search. The results of your search will appear in this main frame while your search criteria remain visible in the left side-frame.

If you cannot find the book you are searching for in the current database, you can add or edit your own list of Wants and you will be informed by e-mail as soon as a match is entered into the database. You need to be a registered bibliophile to do this.

Author: if the author’s surname is a common one, you should specify one or more initials or a first name in addition to the surname. If you are uncertain of the spelling or the name is very long, you can use a wild card * before or after the specified part of the name.

Title: if you are uncertain of the precise title, specify only the part of which you are sure. A few words are usually sufficient. A wild card * is accepted.

Publisher: again, booksellers and publishers themselves over a period of years can be very inconsistent in the formulation of a publishing house name. Minimise your search words.

Keywords: a book will be returned as a match if the word or words in the keyword field occur anywhere in the book entry.

First Edition , Dust Jacket , Signed : a tick in the relevant box will ensure that only those books so specified will be returned. Note that many booksellers do not specify these criteria for every book so that, for example, many books with dust jackets will not be returned when dust jacket is selected. Illustrations can be viewed by clicking on the camera icon.

Binding: the default option returns all bindings including those unspecified by the bookseller.

Language: the default option returns books irrespective of the language in which they are written. If you choose a language, only books specified by the bookseller to be in that language will be returned.

It is usually therefore be worthwhile to tick the “Plus unspecified language” box in addition to selecting a language to be sure of returning all the books meeting your criteria. In the latter case, books specified to be in another language will be excluded.

The number of books you wish to display per page will depend on the speed of your internet connections. If you have a slow download rate, you should specify a smaller number of books per page.

Short and long display: if your download rate is slow or you expect a long list of books to be returned, you should choose the short display which consists of author, title and price. When you find a book of interest, a single click provides you with the long display, which gives all details provided by the bookseller.

Clear empties the search form fields in preparation for an entirely new search.

Reset removes the last made changes to the search form fields if you wish to return to your previous criteria in preparation for a second refined search.

American Bison … Making a comeback!..

Where are they now?

Students will be transported to a time when the bison roamed the Great Plains by the millions.

We will learn how they were inextricably interwoven with the lives of the Native American people.

We will take an up close look at Bison today… learn what they look like, what they eat, where they live, and how they are used.

Together we will learn a Bison song composed by Mrs. Retana and Mrs. Rhoads.

María Retana was the featured author at the event, presenting from 10:00 am until 2:00 p.m.

There were activities for kids that blended in with the stories that Mrs. Retana read. the titles offered were: The Pig that is not a pig/El cerdo que no es cerdo, Born into the pack/Nacer en la manada and The Mystic Call/La llamada mística.

On June 29, 2011 Mrs. Retana delivered a reading of and signed her books for 34 Boys and Girls Club summer program members in Bisbee, AZ.

She was happy to see some of her former students from Greenway Elementary in the audience. They behaved wonderfully for her, had great comments and shared interesting anecdotes about the javelina.

On Tuesday, June 14, 2011 author Maria Retana and her illustrator Pat Pollock Rhoads visited the Buffalo Company Ranch in Buckeye, AZ they conducted research on the Bison which symbolizes the Native American Culture.

They we were transported to the time when the bison roamed the Great Plains by the millions.

As a result of their experience, a story for children’s ages 2-6 and a workshop for preschoolers and kindergarten students will be available in the next few months.

Mrs. Retana graciously shares:

Pat Pollock Rhoads’ imagination and talent was not diminished by the 103 degrees temperature while sketching and observing the size of the bison.

They weigh up to 2,000 lbs and reach 11′ in length. The cover for our bison e-book story is going to be very colorful.

Pat says she envisioned ALL the colors she used when creating her sample illustrations, I did not see them but who dares argue with an artist!?

On May 7, 2011 the San Pedro House in Hereford, AZ sponsored a Spring Festival to celebrate International Migratory Bird Day.

María Retana was the featured author at the event, presenting from 10:00 am until 2:00 p.m.

There were activities for kids that blended in with the stories that Mrs. Retana read. the titles offered were: The Pig that is not a pig/El cerdo que no es cerdo, Born into the pack/Nacer en la manada and The Mystic Call/La llamada mística.

This is a story about a little boy and his desperate attempt to find the family’s beloved pet. He cannot understand what happened to his gato. When he visits his grandparents’ house, as usual, he looks for his cat.

He checks the T.V. room, outside in the garden, and in the kitchen but cannot find him. Jazz has crossed the Rainbow Bridge but this is hard for such a young child to understand. Then the inevitable happens. The little boy asks his grandpa, “Where is Jazz”? and grandpa answers simply; “Jazz went bye, bye.”

While vacationing with her husband in Puerto Rico in the Summer of 2010, María Retana took a large number of photos of Fort San Felipe del Morro. This old sea fort is also known as Morro Castle or Castillo San Felipe del Morro in Spanish.

Through these pictures, the author creates a maze and invites the little boy to search for his beloved pet. In a dream the little boy finds himself at Fort San Felipe accompanied by his friend Mr. Owl. Together they enter the maze with only one thought in mind; find Jazz and see him one more time.

The illustrator, Diane Fahrner is primarily a sugar artist who uses various graphic programs to create designs to apply to cakes with an airbrush. To create the illustrations for the story, Diane used a combination of several graphic programs to cut and paste images from various family photos into the photos from Puerto Rico.

The author and illustrator hope that this story can help comfort a child who has lost a beloved pet. At the end of the story, the poem “Rainbow Bridge” from an unknown author, has been added in hopes that it will also help with the acceptance process.

“A scrupulously researched account of Mackintosh’s short life … good use has been made of the battalion’s war diary.”
Sunday Herald
“…an engaging biography…admits the humanity of the enemy while simultaneously seething with anger.”

Scotland on Sunday
“… the authors prove that Mackintosh had greatness in him … in the moments (where) his poetry takes on strength and significance …”
The Herald
“A developing poet who could have become a major one.”

Sheffield Star

Alan Mackintosh was only one of millions of young men who met a premature and bloody death in the trenches of World War I.

He had family connections on his father’s side with Inverness-shire and Ross-shire;  he was brought up in Brighton, attended St Paul’s school in London and when war broke out he was a student at Oxford.

Rosalind Green and Colin Campbell have researched the short life of this little known war poet.

They illustrate the attitudes prevalent to authority and empire and their book demonstrates, through Mackintosh’s own letters and creative work, the feelings and instincts of a young soldier faced with the imminence of the ultimate sacrifice.

Odium – Peter Burnett

“… a splendidly gripping tale, immensely witty, painfully honest … I loved its daring, the sheer bravado of the prose … this great gargoyle of a book.”
The Scotsman

” … a sophisticated, stimulating and refreshingly unparochial piece of Scottish writing.”
The Herald

” … this is breathtaking stuff.”
Scotland on Sunday

” … a gloriously misanthropic and bilious treatise on the decadent, immoral and inane nature of western European life.”
Independent on Sunday

A man asleep, Rubio flees Paris for the Egyptian desert.  He escapes his back-biting colleagues, the proximity of his ex-wife, and the depressions that he diagnoses daily in the medical surgery. 

And Paris hates Rubio too. The city is like a TV show that wants only to humiliate him, to grab the old fellow’s neck and force him to shop.

The city is after him, and Rubio is running for his life, running down a slope while memory rides behind, ever so gently applying the brakes. Existentialist and full of sharp observation of Western values, Odium is a novel for our time.

Whit Lassyz Ur Inty – Alison Flett

“Her poems, transcribed in a no-holds-barred Edinburgh vernacular, keep their sharpest punches for the end. This is poetry with a purpose.”
Scotland on Sunday

The long-awaited first collection from Orkney-based Alison Flett (formerly Kermack).

Funny, tender and uncompromising, the exuberant confidence of Alison Flett’s poetry is a welcome reminder of the depth and strength of the Scottish women’s literary heritage. It is made possible by her perceptive and sensitive response to women poets who have gone before her.

Her wilful adoption of previously male-dominated urban poetic language bridges both male and female traditions. Her work links the ever-growing consciousness of Scottish women, the notable achievements of poets like Ian Hamilton Finlay and Tom Leonard and the social and political struggles of the people.

Readers of magazines and poetry anthologies will be familiar with Flett’s work. Described as a latter-day beat poet with a warm and immediate style, it is time she reached a much wider readership.

Alison Flett was born and bred in Edinburgh but now lives in Orkney. She has performed her work on television and radio and at readings throughout the country.

She recently won the Belmont prize for children’s poetry and has been shortlisted for the 2004 Scotsman/Orange short story award. She is currently working on a book of short stories about island life.