The scene opens in a smouldering orchard in Flanders, where the French soldier Ferdinand, shell-shocked, badly wounded and surrounded on all sides by mud, corpses and destruction, tries to find his way to safety and make sense of what has happened to him since he lost consciousness. His hallucinatory wanderings eventually take him to the military hospital of Peurdu-sur-la-Lys. There, after narrowly cheating death, he strikes up a friendship with a Parisian pimp and continues to be confronted with the moral chaos and side effects of war in all their vicious and repulsive senselessness and brutality. Written around 1934, only a couple of years after Journey to the End of the Night, War shares its protagonist, its setting and many of its themes with Céline’s most celebrated novel. Its manuscript, considered lost after being looted during the Liberation of Paris, re-emerged in France in 2020, sparking a frenzy of interest and being hailed as a major rediscovery. Translated now for the first time into English, War is a powerfully vivid, unflinching, darkly comical exploration of the physical and mental trauma of the Western Front, which provides a fascinating missing link in the writing career of one of the greatest – and most controversial – authors of the twentieth century.

We don't have to look to works of fiction to find tales of true love. The pages of history are crammed with stories about love that are, quite literally, true. And many of them are among the greatest love stories ever told. Ancient Love Stories brings together some of the most remarkable romances in history - from tales of fearless queens and besotted emperors to men who died fighting for the men they loved. These accounts of passion, jealousy, hope and longing show that perhaps little has changed over the last three thousand years - love, above all, has endured. Written by award-winning classicist Emily Hauser and with beautiful artwork by illustrator Sander Berg.

Mademoiselle Charlotte, the new teacher, is not like the others: she wears a large hat and a crumpled dress that make her look like a scarecrow, and she talks to a rock. The children think she is crazy at first, but soon realize she makes school more fun than ever, getting them to measure the room with cooked spaghetti in maths class, telling fascinating stories about a gorilla and even taking the pupils on at football. The first book in Dominique Demers's popular series, The New Teacher, brilliantly illustrated by Tony Ross, is an entertaining, imaginative and inspiring book that will make you wish you had a teacher just like Mademoiselle Charlotte.

When the ambitious but inept clerk Frans Laarmans is offered a job managing an Edam distribution company in Antwerp, he jumps at the chance, despite his professed dislike for cheese in all its forms. He soon finds himself submerged in a bureaucratic nightmare as his complete incompetence becomes apparent. Meanwhile, his offices fill up with a seemingly infinite supply of the distinctive red-skinned cheeses, which he has no idea how to sell. Skewering the pomposity of big business while revealing how an entrepreneurial spirit can often be a mask for buffoonery, Willem Elsschot's Cheese combines comedy and pathos in its depiction of a man trying to progress beyond his limited skill set. As poignant as it is funny, Cheese will appeal to anyone who has suffered the endless indignities of office life.

Miss Charlotte - the new coach of a children's football team - has some odd methods to prepare them for the big match.

She decides to teach them to lose! And to have fun. Incredibly, it seems to work, as the kid who was always useless on the pitch suddenly scores a screamer in practice.

But will their hopes of victory be dashed when the ambitious star player decides to join the other team?The latest instalment in Dominique Demers's popular Adventures of Miss Charlotte series, The New Football Coach, brilliantly illustrated by Tony Ross, is a marvellous tale about believing in yourself and beating the odds.

When the mysterious and eccentric Miss Charlotte arrives in the village of Saint-Anatole to take over the tiny library, the locals are surprised to find out that she does things differently. Wearing a long blue dress and a giant hat, she takes her books out for a walk in a wheelbarrow and shows the children that reading can be fun and useful. Sometimes she is so caught up in the magic of the stories she shares with her audience that she forgets all sense of reality - so much so that one day she loses consciousness and the children must find a way to bring her back. The second in Dominique Demers's popular The Adventures of Miss Charlotte series, The Mysterious Librarian, brilliantly illustrated by Tony Ross, is a wonderful story about the magical and inspiring power of books.

Zazie has just received a beautiful new notebook, and decides to keep a diary. Brimming with imagination, she writes down her impressions of her cat Roudoudou, her awful cousin Lucas and her new teacher, Mr Labat - who, with his pale skin and blood-red lips, must surely be a vampire! In order to save her life and those of her classmates, Zazie must find a way to get rid of Mr Labat - and what better way than by following the advice found in Bram Stoker's Dracula... Sparkling, funny and a bit wacky, How to Get Rid of a Vampire (Using Ketchup, Garlic Cloves and a Bit of Imagination) is as entertaining and original as its brave and loveable heroine.

What happens to a vampire when he dies? How does somebody become a werewolf? How can you protect yourself from witches? All of these questions and more are answered in this book, which will finally give you all the information you ever wanted to know about ghosts, zombies, monsters and all kinds of creepy-crawly creatures that give us the heebie-jeebies. Full of tips, anecdotes and trivia - and delightfully illustrated by Axel Scheffler - Paul van Loon's Horror Handbook is a fun and fascinating reference book for all fans of scary stories and things that go bump in the night.