The orphan Cole wanders the world, seeking the fabled Underground City which he has promised his love Sigrid he will find. Somewhere else entirely, Niven sits in a palace garden taking lessons in astronomy and architecture, dreaming up ways to escape being married off to one of her father’s friends. Cole’s story is pieced together from folk songs and fragments as he travels ever onwards towards his destiny: a new life even stranger than the one before. Niven too will learn what it means to leave the garden of childhood. Their world is one of witchcraft and wishing, wisdom and regret, as they slowly learn how much it is possible to love, and suffer for the sake of love. Comic, grotesque, lyrical, and immensely readable, Tony Williams’s fantasy picaresque is a reader’s delight. A sweeping yarn through the darkest of ages, filled with rogues, lovers, murderers, swindlers, and saints.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the great age of railway building, Charles Dickens could not but be aware of their transformative impact on society. So he wrote about it - to a remarkable extent. He wrote a classic ghost story, 'The Signalman'; in Dombey and Son about what is now the West Coast Main Line being carved through north London in great ravines. He wrote satirical pieces about railway catering - even back then; about the wonder of express train travel to the Channel ports; travel pieces about exploring America by train - and about being personally involved in the notorious Staplehurst train crash in Kent. Now, in the year of Dickens' 150th anniversary, Tony Williams, a distinguished Dickens scholar, collects all these railway writings into a handsome little volume ideal for a long train journey...

An efficient and cost-effective HR function is essential to the successful running of any organization. And yet for many businesses it is impossible or costly to have HR staff in every office. This is particularly true for companies who have many branches, such as banks and building societies. So what are they to do? Increasingly they are turning to shared services by creating a unit within the organization that typically undertakes personnel administration and basic operational support. This may be delivered to managers and employees through some combination of call centre, personal contact or intranet. Creating a shared services centre enables the HR function to redefine its relationship with its stakeholders. It can become more of a strategic player and make a more business-focused contribution. This book explains what shared services are and what they look like for the HR function. It describes why organizations opt for shared services and what activities are included. It sets out the relationship between shared services and the other HR activities, and between HR and line management. How To Get Best Value From HR outlines the process of introducing shared services, from identifying customer needs through designing the structure to implementation and monitoring. It also outlines the likely pitfalls and, importantly, offers possible solutions. In particular the book highlights the big design issues, including whether to outsource services, where a shared services centre should be located, how services should be delivered and organized, including through the option of e-HR. Crucially it features an extended case study of the Royal Bank of Scotland's experience of introducing HR shared services, providing a unique insight into the reality of this new way of working.

Read Regional 2019 - 'Discover brilliant Northern writers' Aidan Wilson's misfortune is to be hard as nails In this darkly hilarious and seriously horrifying book Williams tells the story of Aidan, a vigilante and young offender from one of Sheffield's roughest estates. At breakneck speed, we see Aidan's world unravel as he goes from hero to outlaw, fighting against all-comers and the circumstances he can't escape. But is he a victim or architect of his own demise? A brutal and breathtaking account of living with violence in the English city. There are lots of crime novels, but Nutcase is something different: a novel about crime which isn't interested in the conventions of crime fiction. The novel is based on a specific Icelandic saga: the Saga of Grettir the Strong. Nutcase explores the lives of people who live with violence on a day-to-day basis - how it shapes and distorts their lives, and ultimately becomes part of the normality that they live with.

Gardens, grotesqueries, historical landscapes, destruction and darkness, all collide in Tony Williams' explosive new collection Tony Williams is roaming the earth. The poems in Hawthorn City record the tales we tell ourselves to make a home in the lives we find ourselves living. They are songs to family, to stone and outlawry and refusal, and to the fevered memory which reaches back beyond birth, past early modern witches and shepherds' songs, past medieval chronicles and Icelandic sagas, to the ancient city-states, homely and hellish, which part of the modern imagination still inhabits. Travelling darker and deeper towards the state which is both origin and grave, this grotesque comedy of a book intensifies into a bizarre, baroque vision of the world and our place in it.

The HR function is having to adjust itself to the implications of the globalisation of business activity. This has meant adjusting its philosophy, policies and practices to fit new organisational imperatives, as well as creating its own refashioned service delivery model. Peter Reilly and Tony Williams's Global HR explores the key issues of building an international brand, culture and talent pool, whilst contributing to business and functional transformation, drawing on examples from multinationals in telecoms, fast-moving consumer goods, manufacturing, software, services and commodities. In doing so, they offer insights into managing people and businesses that no organization can ignore.

Now in its fifth edition, Rugby Skills, Tactics and Rules has earned a reputation as the best book for learning the fundamental skills of rugby union. It provides an attractive, easy-to-read and straightforward discussion of the key components of the game, from player positions and tactics to different kinds of set plays, passes and moves. This great-looking book cuts through the jargon and tells coaches and players what they really need to know. Key features include: - Colour photos of top players from around the world - Sections on the tactics and strategies needed to win the game, including the basic skills of running, passing and tackling - Specially created diagrams to explain critical aspects of moves and tactics - Drill variations - A user-friendly glossary This is essential reading for anyone looking to get the most from their game.

HR has sought to reposition itself as a strategic contributor to organizations. To facilitate this, it has restructured, bringing in shared services, business partners and centres of expertise, simplifying, automating and rationalising processes, and devolving some activities to managers, whilst outsourcing others. HR has yet to give sufficient attention to the capability of the function to deliver against the added value promise. This book looks at the developments that have brought HR to its present position. It sets out a vision of where HR might be headed, including a definition of its role and activities. It identifies a number of challenges that HR will have to face if it is to be effective. These include not just skills, but problems with structures and relationships with stakeholders, be they line managers or employees. The authors also highlight ways of monitoring HR performance and of demonstrating its value. It all adds up to an authoritative reference guide for all HR directors seeking to define their role and future aims, for those new to the function on the challenges they will face, and for senior executives on what they should expect the added value to be from their HR function.

An efficient and cost-effective HR function is essential to the successful running of any organization. And yet for many businesses it is impossible or costly to have HR staff in every office. This is particularly true for companies who have many branches, such as banks and building societies. So what are they to do? Increasingly they are turning to shared services by creating a unit within the organization that typically undertakes personnel administration and basic operational support. This may be delivered to managers and employees through some combination of call centre, personal contact or intranet. Creating a shared services centre enables the HR function to redefine its relationship with its stakeholders. It can become more of a strategic player and make a more business-focused contribution. This book explains what shared services are and what they look like for the HR function. It describes why organizations opt for shared services and what activities are included. It sets out the relationship between shared services and the other HR activities, and between HR and line management. How To Get Best Value From HR outlines the process of introducing shared services, from identifying customer needs through designing the structure to implementation and monitoring. It also outlines the likely pitfalls and, importantly, offers possible solutions. In particular the book highlights the big design issues, including whether to outsource services, where a shared services centre should be located, how services should be delivered and organized, including through the option of e-HR. Crucially it features an extended case study of the Royal Bank of Scotland's experience of introducing HR shared services, providing a unique insight into the reality of this new way of working.

This is a hard-edged fusion quartet with guitarist Allan Holdsworth. ~ Michael G. Nastos

Williams's delight in word play and tomfoolery belies a darker, stranger undertow between rhyme and reasoning. Strange forces are at work in the heartlands, where we find ourselves travellers in perpetual motion, stopping only to gather our disappointment at the OK Cafe on the A1.