Claire Thomas

From the internationally acclaimed, prize-winning author of The Performance and Fugitive Blue comes a remarkable work of literary fiction A woman arrives in Geneva, the first stop in a train journey through the country of her father's birth. She yearns to be outside time - untethered and alone - but she soon becomes immersed in the stories resonating all around her. She visits a museum and stares into the oversized, disco-ball eyes of an insect, unsettled by the intimacy, 'like looking into the facial pores of a lover'. Later, she will tiptoe through the snow to find a portrait of James Baldwin on the window shutter of a chalet, his features rendered in rows of silver staples shot into timber. She will find traces of Mary Shelley and Fleur Jaeggy; android pioneers in eighteenth-century Neuchâtel; Charlie Chaplin, Patricia Highsmith, and striking workers drilling through the earth to create the vast Gotthard Tunnel; Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary as they summit Everest; Lenin and the Dada artists in early twentieth-century Zurich. On Not Climbing Mountains is a tender and compelling novel from the internationally acclaimed author of The Performance. Beautifully conceived and deftly crafted, it is an exhilarating feat of storytelling, concerned with the fragilities of the natural world, the pains of grief and memory, and the endless reverberations of art. 'Not climbing, waiting, connecting. Thomas has written a novel that is truly novel - she plays with form and artfully constructs a journey through the mountains of Switzerland, braiding stories of artists, writers, and thinkers into a literary rope, a pulley system for the mind. Vivian Gornick meets Ali Smith, but unmistakably Claire Thomas' MADELEINE GRAY, AUTHOR OF GREEN DOT Praise for The Performance 'Flawless' WASHINGTON POST 'Compassionate' NEW YORK TIMES 'Quietly transformational' THE TIMES 'Intimate, poignant, and darkly funny' SUNDAY TIMES 'The way Thomas plays with the reader is a sort of genius' THE GUARDIAN 'A near-perfect wind-up music box of a novel . . . Inventive and rule-breaking' ARTSHUB Praise for Fugitive Blue 'Beautifully done with great imagination' SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 'Immediately enticing' CANBERRA TIMES 'Polished and poignant, expressed with incisiveness and resonance, Fugitive Blue doesn't miss a beat' WESTERLY MAGAZINE

'Quietly transformational'The Times 'A tour de force... I can't recommend this too highly'Patrick Gale'Innovative... an original, at-a-sitting read'Daily Mail'A potent meditation on the intensity of women's lives'Charlotte Wood, author of The Weekend'A miracle... Engaging and evocative'Washington Post'I loved and admired The Performance... Unmissable'Emma Stonex, author of The Lamplighters'Lively and intimate... The way Thomas plays with the reader is a sort of genius'Guardian'Thomas writes these women with such wisdom and compassion, that by the end we are all transformed'Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground The false cold of the theatre makes it hard to imagine the heavy wind outside in the real world, the ash air pressing onto the city from the nearby hills where bushfires are taking hold. The house lights lower. The auditorium feels hopeful in the darkness. As bushfires rage outside the city, three women watch a performance of a Beckett play. Margot is a successful professor, preoccupied by her fraught relationship with her ailing husband. Ivy is a philanthropist with a troubled past, distracted by the snoring man beside her. Summer is a young theatre usher, anxious about the safety of her girlfriend in the fire zone. As the performance unfolds, so does each woman's story. By the time the curtain falls, they will all have a new understanding of the world beyond the stage.

A novel about three women at turning points in their lives, and the one night that changes everything. One night, three women go to the theater to see a play. Wildfires are burning in the hills outside, but inside the theater it is time for the performance to take over. Margot is a successful, flinty professor on the cusp of retirement, distracted by her fraught relationship with her adult son and her ailing husband. After a traumatic past, Ivy is is now a philanthropist with a seemingly perfect life. Summer is a young drama student, an usher at the theater, and frantically worried for her girlfriend whose parents live in the fire zone. While the performance unfolds on stage, so does the compelling trajectory that will bring these three women together, changing them all. Deliciously intimate and yet emotionally wide-ranging, The Performance is a novel that both explores the inner lives of women as it underscores the power of art and memory to transform us.

'Quietly transformational'The Times 'A tour de force... I can't recommend this too highly'Patrick Gale'Innovative... an original, at-a-sitting read'Daily Mail'A potent meditation on the intensity of women's lives'Charlotte Wood, author of The Weekend'A miracle... Engaging and evocative'Washington Post'I loved and admired The Performance... Unmissable'Emma Stonex, author of The Lamplighters'Lively and intimate... The way Thomas plays with the reader is a sort of genius'Guardian'Thomas writes these women with such wisdom and compassion, that by the end we are all transformed'Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground The false cold of the theatre makes it hard to imagine the heavy wind outside in the real world, the ash air pressing onto the city from the nearby hills where bushfires are taking hold. The house lights lower. The auditorium feels hopeful in the darkness. As bushfires rage outside the city, three women watch a performance of a Beckett play. Margot is a successful professor, preoccupied by her fraught relationship with her ailing husband. Ivy is a philanthropist with a troubled past, distracted by the snoring man beside her. Summer is a young theatre usher, anxious about the safety of her girlfriend in the fire zone. As the performance unfolds, so does each woman's story. By the time the curtain falls, they will all have a new understanding of the world beyond the stage.

A novel about three women at turning points in their lives, and the one night that changes everything. One night, three women go to the theater to see a play. Wildfires are burning in the hills outside, but inside the theater it is time for the performance to take over. Margot is a successful, flinty professor on the cusp of retirement, distracted by her fraught relationship with her adult son and her ailing husband. After a traumatic past, Ivy is is now a philanthropist with a seemingly perfect life. Summer is a young drama student, an usher at the theater, and frantically worried for her girlfriend whose parents live in the fire zone. While the performance unfolds on stage, so does the compelling trajectory that will bring these three women together, changing them all. Deliciously intimate and yet emotionally wide-ranging, The Performance is a novel that both explores the inner lives of women as it underscores the power of art and memory to transform us.

I am not writing this to be sentimental. I am just trying to find an answer to a story... An artistic girl in Renaissance Venice, quietly rebelling against the constraints of her gender. A young milordi on a European Grand Tour, recognising the world and his secret sexuality. A ballerina in nineteenth-century Paris, choosing between suitors. A Greek mother, beginning a new life with her family in a migrant reception centre in regional Australia. And, finally, a paintings conservator in contemporary Melbourne, breaking her own heart. A single, small artwork - subversive, hidden, and oddly blue - somehow survives for five hundred years, linking the lives of these characters. An intricate tale of grief and discovery, of watery destruction and earthly love.

A playful and delicious cookbook from the host of ABC's Food for Thought with Claire Thomas and creator of the much loved food blog The Kitchy Kitchen. Every cook needs an arsenal of staples, whether for the perfect dinner party entr e to wow a crowd, or throw-it-together lunches for lazy afternoons...but we all know that the real fun comes in making basic recipes your own. The Kitchy Kitchen is tastemaker Claire Thomas's solution for amping up your everyday culinary routine, introducing her approach to her own kitchen: loose, personal, unfussy, and most of all, fun. With new takes on classic favorites--think adding farmer's market peaches to upgrade a BLT, spicing up tempura cauliflower with a zesty harissa sauce, or transforming basic red velvet cupcakes into decadent pancakes--this cookbook is filled with fresh, produce-driven recipes for every skill set and occasion. It's your best friend and personal chef, all rolled into one. Gorgeously illustrated and peppered with stylish entertaining tips and quirky essays that will inspire you to take the recipes you love and make them new, The Kitchy Kitchen will make your life in the kitchen a little easier, a little more fabulous, and positively delicious.

From LA's trendy bakery comes the new definitive grain-free baking book that makes eating paleo, gluten-free, and dairy-free diets a lot sweeter for home bakers. From the beginning, Sweet Laurel has been about making sweet things simple. The recipes here are indulgent yet healthful. They use just a few quality ingredients to create delicious desserts that benefit your body; all of these treats are paleo, and many are vegan and raw. From Matcha Sandwich Cookies to Salted Lemon Meringue Pie to Classic German Chocolate Cake, these treats are at once uncomplicated, beautiful, and satisfying, made only with wholesome ingredients such as almonds, coconut, cacao, and dates. Here, too, are basic staple recipes to keep with you, like grain-free vanilla extract and vegan caramel, and fancy finishes, like paleo sprinkles and dairy-free ice cream. Whether you're looking for simpler recipes, seeking a better approach to dessert, or struggling with an allergy that has prevented you from enjoying sweets, Sweet Laurel will change the way you bake.

This is an innovative approach to word formation and lexicalisation. In the study of word formation, the focus has often been on generating the form. In this book, the semantic aspect of the formation of new words is central. It is viewed from the perspectives of word formation rules and of lexicalization. An extensive introduction gives a historical overview of the study of the semantics of word formation and lexicalization, explaining how the different theoretical frameworks used in the contributions relate to each other. Each chapter then concentrates on a specific question about a theoretical concept or a word formation process in a particular language and adopts a theoretical framework that is appropriate to the study of this question. From general theoretical concepts of productivity and lexicalization, the focus moves to terminology, compounding, and derivation. Theoretical Framewords discussed include: Jackendoff's Conceptual Structure; Langacker's Cognitive Grammar; Lieber's lexical semantic approach to word formation; Pustejovsky's Generative Lexicon; Beard's Lexeme-Morpheme-Base Morphology; and, the onomasiological approach to terminology and word formation.

A unique new insight into multilingual families, this book views multilingual childhoods from the point of the child and is based on over 50 interviews with adults who grew up in multilingual settings. The book charts their recollections of their childhoods and includes many different types of families, discusses many of the common issues that arise in multilingual families, and draws examples from all over the world. The book fills a significant gap in the literature and resources available to multilingual parents. It was researched and written by a self-help group of multilingual parents and thus the book remains very practical and gives clear and realistic advice to multilingual parents facing choices or dilemmas. However, because of its unique viewpoint, this book also includes much new material that will be of interest to researchers and students of bilingualism.

A unique new insight into multilingual families, this book views multilingual childhoods from the point of the child and is based on over 50 interviews with adults who grew up in multilingual settings. The book charts their recollections of their childhoods and includes many different types of families, discusses many of the common issues that arise in multilingual families, and draws examples from all over the world. The book fills a significant gap in the literature and resources available to multilingual parents. It was researched and written by a self-help group of multilingual parents and thus the book remains very practical and gives clear and realistic advice to multilingual parents facing choices or dilemmas. However, because of its unique viewpoint, this book also includes much new material that will be of interest to researchers and students of bilingualism.

The real history of MI5 during the era of the Cold War, the IRA & international terrorism. 'PO Box 500, London W2'; the nondescript address from behind which one of the world's most famous Secret Services hid: MI5. This book, based on previously secret sources, lifts the lid on Britain's Security Service. Despite an outstanding war record against German espionage, MI5 failed to prevent Soviet agents like Anthony Blunt penetrating the heart of the British establishment, including MI5 itself. The authors look in detail at MI5's role in the post-Cold War world; in particular, they consider its changing role as it took on the main responsibility in countering terrorist threats to Britain. Controversy has never been far away during MI5's battle against the IRA, which included sending deep penetration agents into the heart of Northern Ireland's terrorist organisations. And in the twenty-first century, MI5 has had to face the deadliest terrorist threat of all - from Al Qaeda. The book looks at MI5's attempts to prevent mass murder on the streets of Britain, including the failure to stop the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005.

The real history of MI5. 'PO Box 500, London W2'; the nondescript address from behind which one of the world's most famous Secret Services hid: MI5. This book, based on previously secret sources, lifts the lid on Britain's Security Service in its battle against German espionage. During the Second World War, the Security Service, through brilliant officers such as Guy Liddell, Dick White and the fearsome spy-breaker, 'Tin-eye' Stephens, commandant of MI5's interrogation centre, Camp 020, successfully ran the Double Cross (XX) system. XX agents such as the dynamic, womanising petty criminal ZIGZAG, the suave TRICYCLE and the aptly named CARELESS laid the basis for Operation FORTITUDE in which MI5's agents BRUTUS and GARBO were central to the success of the greatest deception in modern military history: convincing Hitler that the D-Day landings in Normandy were an elaborate diversion to the 'real' Allied landings at Calais. It was MI5's finest hour.

The real history of MI5. 'PO Box 500, London W2' - the nondescript address from behind which one of the world's most famous secret services hid: MI5. Drawing on previously secret sources, this book lifts the lid on Britain's Security Service in its battle against German and Soviet espionage. It tells the sensational stories of the officers and agents and the enemies they confronted, from MI5's creation in 1909 under the direction of Vernon Kell, Britain's first spymaster. Building on the service's wartime success, Maxwell Knight ('M'), MI5's charismatic and eccentric agent runner, penetrated Soviet and Fascist spy networks during the 1920s and 1930s. His agent, 'Miss X', was instrumental in breaking the Percy Glading spy ring run by the Soviets, while the beautiful Joan Miller and 'Miss Z' helped bring to justice Tyler Kent, who was passing information to the Axis powers.