Best Selling Books by Iain Banks

"Fielding expects his cousin to help convince the rest of the Wopulds not to sell their shares, but Alban knows that his first obligation at Garbadale, the family''s Scottish Highlands estate, is to confront two painful events from his past: his ill-fated love affair with his beautiful cousin Sophie and his mother''s suicide. An unexpected revelation by Grandma Win, however, will forever alter Alban''s perspective."--BOOK JACKET.

Dark family secrets, a long-lost love affair and a multi-million pound gaming business lie at the heart of Iain Banks'' fabulous new novel. The Wopuld family built their fortune on a board game called Empire! - now a wildly successful computer game. So successful the American Spraint Corp wants to buy the Wopulds out. Young renegade Alban, who has been evading the family tentacles for the last few years, thinks Spraint should be treated with suspicion - but he also has other things on his mind. What drove his mother to take her own life? And is he yet over Sophie, his bewitching cousin and teenage love, who''ll be present at the forthcoming family gathering - part birthday party, part Extraordinary General Meeting - at Garbadale, their highland castle?

Eighteen-year-old Kit is weird: big, strange, odd, socially disabled, on a spectrum that stretches from "highly gifted" at one end, to "nutter" at the other. At least Kit knows who his father is; he and Guy live together in a decaying country house on the unstable brink of a vast quarry. His mother''s identity is another matter. Now, though, his father''s dying, and old friends are gathering for one last time. "Uncle" Paul''s a media lawyer now; Rob and Ali are upwardly mobile corporate bunnies; pretty, hopeful Pris is a single mother; Haze is still living up to his drug-inspired name twenty years on; and fierce, protective Hol is a gifted if acerbic critic. As young film students they lived at Willoughtree House with Guy, and they''ve all come back because they want something. Kit, too, has his own ulterior motives. Before his father dies he wants to know who his mother is, and what''s on the mysterious tape they''re all looking for. But most of all he wants to stop time and keep his father alive. Fast-paced, gripping and savagely funny, "The Quarry" is a virtuoso performance whose soaring riffs on the inexhaustible marvel of human perception and rage against the dying of the light will stand among Iain Banks'' greatest work.

Diplomat Byr Genar-Hofoen has been selected by the Culture to undertake a delicate and dangerous mission. He is to investigate a 2,500-year-old mystery: the sudden disappearance of a star fifty times older than the universe itself. There is only one way to solve the problem. He has to steal the soul of the long-dead starship captain who first encountered the star, and convince her to be reborn. What he discovers could lead the universe into an age of peace, or to the brink of annihilation.

Sur l''orbitale Masaq'' s''est réfugié Ziller, un compositeur chelgrien dont le peuple a été récemment vaincu par la Culture, cette société galactique tolérante, anarchiste, cynique et par-dessus tout hédoniste. Ziller, le plus fameux musicien de son temps, a fui les mondes chelgriens pour des raisons politiques : il ne supportait plus le système de castes de sa patrie, raison même du conflit entre Chelgria et la Culture. Il compose, à la demande de Masaq'', un opéra symphonique en souvenir d''une guerre ancienne entre la Culture et les Idirans durant laquelle ces derniers ont fait exploser des étoiles huit cents ans auparavant. La symphonie de Ziller doit être jouée au moment précis où la lumière fulgurante de ces nova atteindra Masaq''. Un émissaire chelgrien, Quilan, est envoyé sur l''orbitale pour tenter de convaincre Ziller de revenir dans sa patrie. C''est la partie officielle de sa mission. L''autre est plus ténébreuse. Comme toujours avec Iain M. Banks, le plus brillant des auteurs anglais de sa génération, les choses ne sont pas ce qu''elles semblent et il convient de prendre le sens du vent. Un nouveau volet du cycle de la Culture, qui a renouvelé la science-fiction.

Who Do "You" Work For? The Business, a nearly omnipotent enterprise, is so infinitely discreet that even its top executives are vague about its actual business. It predates the Christian church and counts among its vast riches dozens of Michelangelo''s pornographic paintings and several sets of Crown jewels. The only thing it lacks is political clout, a problem the Business plans to solve by buying a nation and joining the United Nations. Kate Telman, the Business''s foremost expert on emerging technologies, is chosen to lead the effort. As this beautiful, ambitious American woman pursues the ultimate prize for her highly secretive transglobal employer, Iain Banks -- whom "The Times" of London calls "the most imaginative British novelist of his generation" -- offers a portrait of today''s ubiquitous multinational corporations. Already a bestseller in England, "The Business" paints a picture that is at once wickedly satirical and frighteningly familiar.

"Classic Galmour Photography" takes you behind the scenes of a fascinatingorld to reveal the secrets of the world''s top professional glamourhotographers. Glamour photography is one of the most popular genres todaynd many professionals have made their reputation in this field. The purposef this book is to examine the work and creative processes of the classiclamour photographers and then to explain what equipment, approach, settingsnd techniques are required to follow in their footsteps.