All you need to know about books at www.booksmonthly.co.uk                                                     Issue 4 July 2008

GREG BEHRENDT: HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU ~ OH MY WORD.. girls if you never buy another book in your life... make sure this is the one that you do. As a single girl on the dating scene I have to say that this book totally opened my eyes to the way guys work. To the girl who wrote the negative review on here... wake up and smell the bullsh*t, you're kidding yourself... these excuses that guys come out with are just that.. EXCUSES, all they are really saying is 'I'm just not that into you' but simply don't have the guts to say it to your face. I have saved myself so much heartache and saved myself so much time waiting by my phone just by reading this book. If a guy doesn't ring you within 3 days of a date, put him out of your mind and move on. If he says 'i've been really busy at work'... move on. These are the kind of excuses that the book addresses, and anyone who contradicts what Greg Behrendt has to say is essentially one of the poor girls who is victim to the rubbish that come's out of guys mouths. A fantastic, amusing read and totally totally liberating!

ANDY PRIAULX: AUTOBIOGRAPHY ~ The inspiring autobiography of Britain's three-time World Touring Car champion, and almost certainly this country's best-kept sporting secret ! until now! For someone who grew up on a small island with a speed limit of just 35 mph, Andy Priaulx drives his car awfully fast. But then the man from Guernsey is a hugely determined figure who has been fighting against the odds and performing the role of underdog throughout his entire career. In this his first book, Priaulx tells of how he has fought - tooth and claw, with virtually no back-up - for every sponsor, every car, every penny on his way to achieving his dream of one day becoming a world champion. With refreshing honesty, Priaulx reveals how he and his wife risked everything financially to get on the lower rungs of the motor racing ladder, even spending some time living in a borrowed caravan at the Silverstone circuit in an attempt to save money. "Pikey Priaulx" was his nickname at the time, but the story only goes to show how sacrifice and sheer bloody-mindedness can pay off.Priaulx's reserves of energy, enthusiasm and dedication - not to mention his natural talent - served him well as he won the European Touring Car Championship in 2004.Motor sport's governing body, the FIA, recognises only three world championships - Formula 1, World Rally and World Touring Cars. Priaulx has won the WTC championship for the last three years, an unprecedented achievement. In fact, such has been Priaulx's success that he has been universally hailed as the greatest touring car driver of all time, and widely dubbed "Britain's Schumacher". In 2007 Priaulx received the ultimate accolade when he was awarded the Gold Medal of the British Racing Drivers' Club "in recognition of outstanding contemporary racing success". This was only the eighth time the Gold Medal has been awarded. Told in Andy's energetic and engaging style, this is the story of that most rare of sporting beasts - a true British world champion.

ROBIN SHARMA: THE GREATNESS GUIDE BOOK 2 ~Do you want to find the inspiration, passion and enthusiasm to become extraordinary? Robin Sharma, author of no.1 international bestseller The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, will excite, energize and elevate you to world class greatness with his remarkable insights and powerful tools. Are you ready to take your work and personal life to a whole new level of greatness? Part manifesto for excellence, part business mastery manual and part inspirational companion, The Greatness Guide: Book 2 distils Robin Sharma's latest thinking into 101 simple yet powerful lessons to help you work brilliantly and live beautifully. You'll discover: / the personal practices of spectacularly successful people / potent ideas to propel you to greatness / revolutionary tactics for peak performance / practical strategies to turn setbacks into opportunities / time management techniques that really work / breakthrough ideas to generate energy and health / tool kits for practical work--life balance

GAVIN MENZIES: 1434 ~ In his bestselling book 1421:The Year China Discovered the World, Gavin Menzies revealed that it was the Chinese that discovered America, not Columbus. Now he presents further astonishing evidence that it was also Chinese advances in science, art, and technology that formed the basis of the European Renaissance and our modern world. In his bestselling book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, Gavin Menzies presented controversial and compelling evidence that Chinese fleets beat Columbus, Cook and Magellan to the New World. But his research has led him to astonishing new discoveries that Chinese influence on Western culture didn't stop there. Until now, scholars have considered that the Italian Renaissance - the basis of our modern Western world - came about as a result of a re-examining the ideas of classical Greece and Rome. However, a stunning reappraisal of history is about to be published. Gavin Menzies makes the startling argument that a sophisticated Chinese delegation visited Italy in 1434, sparked the Renaissance, and forever changed the course of Western civilization.After that date the authority of Aristotle and Ptolemy was overturned and artistic conventions challenged, as was Arabic astronomy and cartography.Florence and Venice of the 15th century attracted traders from across the world. Menzies presents astonishing evidence that a large Chinese fleet, official ambassadors of the Emperor, arrived in Tuscany in 1434 where they met with Pope Eugenius IV in Florence. A mass of information was offered by the Chinese delegation to the Pope and his entourage - concerning world maps (which Menzies argues were later given to Columbus), astronomy, mathematics, art, printing, architecture, steel manufacture, civil engineering, military machines, surveying, cartography, genetics, and more. It was this gift of knowledge that sparked the inventiveness of the Renaissance - Da Vinci's inventions, the Copernican revolution, Galileo, etc. Following 1434, Europeans embraced Chinese intellectual ideas, discoveries, and inventions, which formed the basis of European civilization just as much as Greek thought and Roman law. In short, China provided the spark that set the Renaissance ablaze.

JUDY WESTWATER: NOWHERE TO RUN ~ How can you forget your past when it keeps coming back to haunt you? Judy Westwater, the Sunday Times bestselling author of Street Kid, was determined to turn her back on her cruel and violent childhood. She didn't stand a chance. All too soon hope turned to fear and she knew she'd have to run again. Judy was only 11 years old when she was forced to live on the streets. Beaten, half-starved and horrifically abused, she finally escaped to a life in the circus and fell in love with one of the circus hands. But the charming man who seemed so perfect had a dark and sinister side. If she wanted to survive she had to get away. Judy fled to South Africa, taking with her her two young children. But the streets of South Africa were just as cruel. One day a man took her five-year-old daughter and her violent past was replayed in front of her eyes. Judy's incredible story of courage and determination will inspire as it will amaze.

JASON DONOVAN: BETWEEN THE LINES - MY STORY UNCUT ~ In his frank and honest account of his life, Jason talks candidly about the drugs that nearly saw the end of his career, about his relationship with the princess of pop, Kylie Minogue, and how he finally got his own very happy ending with the woman who saved him, his partner Angela and their two children.

Books Monthly (formerly Gateway Monthly) is published by Paul Edmund Norman on the first day of each month. You can contact me via e-mail at: editor@booksmonthly.co.uk. If you'd like to get a story published in Books Monthly just e-mail it to me and I'll consider it - no payment though, I'm afraid!