Sylvia’s Story (GI Brides Shorts, Book 3)
¥9.71
This is Sylvia’s story, one of four true stories from the book GI Brides. The room was filled with GIs – some playing pool, some jostling for control of the jukebox, and others taking doughnuts from a silver machine in the corner – while half a dozen young women rushed around serving them. ‘So, what can I do?’ Sylvia asked, keen to get stuck in. Sylvia is volunteering at a Red Cross Club in the West End when she meets a charismatic Irish-American called Bob. He sweeps her off her feet and convinces her to fly to America to marry him after the war. But living with Bob’s gambling relatives proves a nightmare, and in desperation Sylvia runs away to England, giving Bob an ultimatum… Sylvia’s story is extracted from GI Brides, written by the bestselling authors of The Sugar Girls. It captures the memories of the thousands of women who crossed the Atlantic for love after the Second World War.
Dunkirk
¥95.11
New York Times Bestseller THE EPIC TRUE STORY OF DUNKIRK NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHER NOLAN, AND STARRING KENNETH BRANAGH, TOM HARDY, AND MARK RYLANCE The Battle of Dunkirk, in May/June 1940, is remembered as a stunning defeat, yet a major victory as well. The Nazis had beaten back the Allies and pushed them across France to the northern port of Dunkirk. In the ultimate race against time, more than 300,000 Allied soldiers were daringly evacuated across the Channel. This moment of German aggression was used by Winston Churchill as a call to Franklin Roosevelt to enter the war. Now, historian Levine explores the real lives of those soldiers, bombed and strafed on the beaches for days on end, without food or ammunition; the civilians whose boats were overloaded; the airmen who risked their lives to buy their companions on the ground precious time; and those who did not escape.
Woodlands
¥95.75
‘Trees are wildlife just as deer or primroses are wildlife. Each species has its own agenda and its own interactions with human activities …’ Written by one of Britain’s best-known naturalists, Woodlands offers a fascinating new insight into the trees of the British landscape that have filled us with awe and inspiration throughout the centuries. Looking at such diverse evidence as the woods used in buildings and ships, and how woodland has been portrayed in pictures and photographs, Rackham traces British woodland through the ages, from the evolution of wildwood, through man’s effect on the landscape, modern forestry and its legacy, and recent conservation efforts and their effects. In his lively and thoroughly engaging style, Rackham explores woodlands and their history, through names, surveys, mapping and legal documents, archaeology, photographs and works of art, thus offering an utterly compelling insight into British woodlands and how they have come to shape a national obsession.
JFK:History in an Hour
¥18.05
Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, America’s youngest President, was assassinated barely one thousand days into his Presidency. In the fiftieth anniversary of his death, this is the story of the man who brought an aspirational new approach to American politics. Born into the glamorous cast of Kennedys, JFK was propelled to political success despite family tragedy, disappointment and pressure. He engaged in a Space Race, averted the Cuban missile crisis and showed solidarity with the fledging civil rights movement. Throughout all he maintained a charismatic public image as son, brother and husband, despite his concealed personal failings and the chronic illness that beset him. JFK: History in an Hour provides a compelling and comprehensive overview of the man who epitomised the hopes of a decade and remains an influential figure to this day. Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour.
The Life and Times of Call the Midwife:The Official Companion to Series One and
¥114.48
The stories and secrets behind BBC television’s most-loved show. The official companion to series 1 and 2, as well as the forthcoming Christmas special. The Life and Times of Call the Midwife takes you behind the scenes of the small-screen sensation that has brought to life Jennifer Worth’s experiences as a midwife among the slums and buzzing dockyards of London’s East End in the Fifties. Find out how Fifties fashions, make-up and homes were flawlessly recreated. Discover the hidden secrets of the nurses and nuns of Nonnatus House and what flavour cake ruled in the kitchen when war-time rationing finally came to an end. Immerse yourself in a world that’s been fondly revived to celebrate a glimpse of history that, like today, has childbirth at its heart.
Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World
¥173.05
A practical guide to what we have lost in the modern world, why we have lost it and how easily it is to rediscover. Harmony is a blueprint for a more balanced, sustainable world that the human race must create to survive. For more than 30 years His Royal Highness Prince Charles The Prince of Wales has been at the forefront of a growing ecological movement. Originally treated with scepticism, many of his ideas are now widely accepted and gaining increasing impact and influence. His work has sought to meet a huge range of modern challenges, from urbanisation to deforestation. In every case, however, the philosophy that is the foundation of his work has always been the same, but has always been unspoken, until now. For the first time, Prince Charles, with the help of his two leading advisors, has brought together his vast knowledge and experience to set out this philosophy - a philosophy that is as robust as it is practical. In Harmony, Prince Charles looks at different aspects of our modern world to demonstrate how many of the challenges seen in areas as diverse as architecture, farming and medicine can be traced to how we have abandoned a classical sense of balance and proportion. From the rice farms of India to America's corn belt, Harmony spans the globe, dissecting the specific practices of modern life that have put us at odds with the world and showing how this imbalance manifests itself throughout our lives. Harmony shows how the imbalance that has emerged is at heart of a crisis which now threatens our very civilisation. It tells the story of how our disconnection from Nature has contributed to the greatest crisis in the history of mankind and how seeking balance in our actions will return us to a more considered, secure, comfortable and cleaner world. Drawing on his own practical experience, Prince Charles charts how changes to how we look at the world could lead us toward a better future. He describes how knowledge and perspectives now largely lost could help us meet very modern challenges, including in the built environment, engineering, medicine and farming.
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror
¥95.75
Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books, Richard Holmes’s dazzling portrait of the age of great scientific discovery is a groundbreaking achievement. The book opens with Joseph Banks, botanist on Captain Cook’s first Endeavour voyage, who stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769 fully expecting to have located Paradise. Back in Britain, the same Romantic revolution that had inspired Banks was spurring other great thinkers on to their own voyages of artistic and scientific discovery – astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical – that together made up the ‘age of wonder’. In this breathtaking group biography, Richard Holmes tells the stories of the period’s celebrated innovators and their great scientific discoveries: from telescopic sight to the miner’s lamp, and from the first balloon flight to African exploration.
Britain AD: A Quest for Arthur, England and the Anglo-Saxons
¥73.58
Leading archaeologist Francis Pryor retells the story of King Arthur, legendary king of the Britons, tracing it back to its Bronze Age origins. The legend of King Arthur and Camelot is one of the most enduring in Britain's history, spanning centuries and surviving invasions by Angles, Vikings and Normans. In his latest book Francis Pryor – one of Britain’s most celebrated archaeologists and author of the acclaimed ‘Britain B.C.’ and ‘Seahenge’ – traces the story of Arthur back to its ancient origins. Putting forth the compelling idea that most of the key elements of the Arthurian legends are deeply rooted in Bronze and Iron Ages (the sword Excalibur, the Lady of the Lake, the Sword in the Stone and so on), Pryor argues that the legends' survival mirrors a flourishing, indigenous culture that endured through the Roman occupation of Britain, and the subsequent invasions of the so-called Dark Ages. As in ‘Britain B.C.’, Pryor roots his story in the very landscape, from Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, to South Cadbury Castle in Somerset and Tintagel in Cornwall. He traces the story back to the 5th-century King Arthur and beyond, all the time testing his ideas with archaeological evidence, and showing how the story was manipulated through the ages for various historical and literary purposes, by Geoffrey of Monmouth and Malory, among others. Delving into history, literary sources – ancient, medieval and romantic – and archaeological research, Francis Pryor creates an original, lively and illuminating account of this most British of legends.
Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble
¥73.58
Part of the ‘Making History Series’ – ‘Waterloo’ is an exciting retelling of one of the moments that shook the world – Waterloo, one of the truly decisive battles of history. The illustrious ‘Making History Series’, edited by Lisa Jardine and Amanda Foreman, explores an eclectic mix of history's tipping points. In ‘Waterloo’, Roberts provides not only a fizzing account of one of the most significant forty-eight hour periods of all time, but also a startling interrogation into the methodology of history – is it possible to create an accurate picture from a single standpoint? What we can say for certain about the battle is that it ended forever one of the great personal epics. The career of Napoleon was brought to a shuddering halt on the evening of 18 June 1815. Interwoven in the clear-cut narrative are exciting revelations brought to light by recent research: accident rather than design led to the crucial cavalry debacle that lost the battle. Amongst the all-too-human explanation for the blunder that cost Napoleon his throne, Roberts sets the political, strategic and historical scene, and finally shows why Waterloo was such an important historical punctuation mark. The generation after Waterloo saw the birth of the modern era: ghastly as the carnage here was, henceforth the wars of the future were fought with infinitely more ghastly methods of trenches, machine-guns, directed starvation, concentration camps, and aerial bombardment. By the time of the Great War, chivalry was utterly dead. The honour of bright uniform and tangible spirit of élan met their final dance at Waterloo.
My Prison, My Home
¥85.65
Robbed in Iran and imprisoned for over 100 days for suspected espionage, this is the true story of one woman's shocking ordeal in the country she called home. The morning of 30 December 2006 began routinely for Haleh Esfandiari. The Iranian-American academic was due to return home to the United States after visiting her ailing mother in Tehran. She got into a taxi to the airport, and was driven by the driver who she always used when in Iran. Fifteen minutes later, Haleh was robbed at knife point by three men, who threatened to kill her. Her baggage, two passports and identification cards were all stolen. Without her documentation, Haleh was unable to leave Iran. What appeared to be an ordinary theft was almost certainly a stage-managed robbery by agents of Iran's Intelligence Ministry, conducted to keep Haleh in the country. This was the beginning of her eight-month Iranian saga - starting with endless hours of interrogation, intimidation and threat, and ending with her release from prison after over 100 days in solitary confinement. Revealing, gripping and, at times, alarming, Haleh Esfandiari's ordeal acts as a microcosm of Iran's difficulties in dealing with the outside world and the modernity that the country only half-embraces.
Getting into Guinness: One man’s longest, fastest, highest journey inside the wo
¥72.99
Getting Into Guinness is the hilarious true story of record breaking attempts, how record obsession has become a global phenomenon, the weird and wonderful characters that set records and the history of the Guinness Book of World Records. Meet Larry Olmsted, a freelance travel and sports writer, always on the hunt for new and intriguing stories. In Spring 2003, somewhere over the North Atlantic, Larry stumbled on an article about the worldwide popularity of Guinness. Inspired by what he read, and in a bid to impress his editor, he took the drastic decision to set a record of his own and become part of the book's history. This leads Larry to break the record for the greatest distance travelled between two rounds of golf played on the same day and two years later to play poker continuously for 72 hours. After his own hilarious record attempts, Larry sets out to discover more about the vast and colourful history of the Guinness Book of World Records. This leads him to his fellow record setters with their widely varied motives for record-mania. Meet Ashrita, Record Breaker for God, who has been breaking records for 30 years and has set or broken 177 Guinness World Records in his lifetime. And Jackie 'The Texas Snakeman' Bibby, who became one of the book's all time icons by sharing a bathtub with poisonous rattlesnakes and dangling them from his mouth, and who literally puts his life on the line every time he breaks one of his rattlesnake records.
Don Quixote
¥111.91
Edith Grossman's definitive English translation of the Spanish masterpiece. Widely regarded as the world's first modern novel, and one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the famous picaresque adventures of the noble knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain. Unless you read Spanish, you've never read Don Quixote. "Though there have been many valuable English translations of Don Quixote, I would commend Edith Grossman's version for the extraordinarily high quality of her prose. The Knight and Sancho are so eloquently rendered by Grossman that the vitality of their characterization is more clearly conveyed than ever before. There is also an astonishing contextualization of Don Quixote and Sancho in Grossman's translation that I believe has not been achieved before. The spiritual atmosphere of a Spain already in steep decline can be felt throughout, thanks to her heightened quality of diction. Grossman might be called the Glenn Gould of translators, because she, too, articulates every note. Reading her amazing mode of finding equivalents in English for Cervantes's darkening vision is an entrance into a further understanding of why this great book contains within itself all the novels that have followed in its sublime wake." From the Introduction by Harold Bloom Miguel de Cervantes was born on September 29, 1547, in Alcala de Henares, Spain. At twenty-three he enlisted in the Spanish militia and in 1571 fought against the Turks in the battle of Lepanto, where a gunshot wound permanently crippled his left hand. He spent four more years at sea and then another five as a slave after being captured by Barbary pirates. Ransomed by his family, he returned to Madrid but his disability hampered him; it was in debtor's prison that he began to write Don Quixote. Cervantes wrote many other works, including poems and plays, but he remains best known as the author of Don Quixote. He died on April 23, 1616.
Men of War: The Changing Face of Heroism in the 19th Century Navy (Text Only)
¥221.12
Through the lives of three outstanding naval officers – each considered the most brilliant commander of his generation – David Crane offers a unique portrait of the Royal Navy at a time when it held unchallenged dominion over the world's oceans. Although all three died young, their careers covered virtually every war of significance in which the navy was involved during the nineteenth century. They fought against French and Americans, Russians, Turks, Egyptians, Indians and Chinese, in fleet engagements and naval bombardments, on the walls of Canton and the banks of the Mississippi, against Malay pirates and sepoy mutineers. As an eleven-year-old volunteer, Frank Hastings saw action at Trafalgar, and he went on to be revered as a hero of the Greek War of Independence. Yet, as the architect and captain of the first successful steam warship and the champion of gunnery and total war, he unwittingly prepared the way for much that would be bloodiest in the century ahead. Nobody who saw him in the trenches of the Crimea would ever forget William Peel's air of inviolable self-mastery under fire, and it was the same in India, where he could ride through a landscape of decomposing corpses as if it were some mythological world conjured up to try his knightly resolve. What was it that enabled a man of his intelligence, temperament, piety and background to fight with such brilliance in defence of an Ottoman Empire that was repugnant to every tenet he held most strongly? If James Goodenough chased Glory as assiduously as Hastings and Peel had done, it was the Glory of the next world, and not this. Throughout his career he strove to reconcile the demands of his faith and his profession, but when he finally met his martyrdom at the hands of the 'savages' of the Pacific islands, a shocked nation was left to face up to the inconsistencies, hypocrisies and self-deceptions on which floated its vision of divine election. Combining thrilling scenes of battle with acute psychological insight, Men of War provides a remarkable picture of the nature of courage, command and warfare. Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.
Dusty Warriors: Modern Soldiers at War (Text Only)
¥72.30
Foremost military historian Richard Holmes offers us a compelling and at times terrifying account of what it means to be a contemporary soldier. In this remarkable book, Holmes draws on the testimonies and personal photographs of the 700 soldiers of the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment in Iraq to vividly capture their day-to-day experiences of the conflict, from camp kitchens to the heart of an armoured convey barrelling out across the desert. As colonel-in-chief of the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment himself from 1999 until 2007, Holmes combines acute observation with heartfelt experience to produce a gripping and deeply moving vision of his regiment at war.
Art of the New Naturalists: A Complete History
¥456.66
The stunning, specially commissioned cover illustrations are one of the great joys of the New Naturalist series, lending it a distinctive style which has inspired nature enthusiasts for many decades. The Collins New Naturalist series is the longest-running and arguably the most influential natural history series in the world with over 100 volumes published in over 60 years. Throughout the years, the highly characteristic dust jacket illustrations have become iconic, lifting the books to a level of collectibility and increasing the level of admiration for an already well-established and respected series. With early cover illustrations prepared by Clifford and Rosemary Ellis, later and more recent covers have been designed by Robert Gillmor. Featuring prints of the awe-inspiring artwork of the New Naturalists, the book will offer a unique insight into Gillmor’s approach to each subject matter and the intricate and creative way through which he has brought his own distinctive style and craft of printmaking to the New Naturalist series. Marren explores the findings from the Ellis archive, which has thrown up considerable information on how the old covers were developed, approved, in some cases rejected, and then proofed. The Art of the New Naturalists offers a fascinating insight into how the creation of these eminent cover designs has developed and progressed and will be essential reading for everyone interested in the frantic workings behind the seemingly serene collection of artwork that is one of Britain’s iconic book series.
British Bats (Collins New Naturalist Library, Book 93)
¥456.66
British Bats is a comprehensive account of the natural history of these fascinating animals, from their origins and evolution to their feeding habits and reproduction. This edition is exclusive to newnaturalists.com Bats are arguably the most successful and diverse mammals ever to evolve. In Britain, one in three of our native land mammals is a bat. Their ecology and behaviour is fascinating. Few mammals live closer to humans; in fact many species roost unnoticed in our homes, and some are now almost entirely dependent on man-made structures for their survival. Bats are the only mammals capable of powered flight. They are also one of just two groups which have a sophisticated echolocation system (the other being the dolphins and their relatives). In this book, John Altringham discusses all the different aspects of the natural history of bats, from their origins and evolution to their behaviour, feeding habits and reproduction. He also discusses the threats to the survival of bats, and how we are working to conserve them. Finally, he gives an account of how to watch and study bats in the wild.
Seashore (Collins New Naturalist Library, Book 94)
¥456.66
A comprehensive, authoritative account of the natural history of the seashore, from earliest times to the present day. The seashore, with its endlessly changing tides, is one of the most fluctuating physical environments on the planet. Home to an abundance of animal and plant life, it is also one of the richest habitats the naturalist can explore. Here in Britain, we are fortunate to have a long and varied coastline, and our relatively large tidal ranges mean that our seashore offers a wide range of coastal habitats, including mud, sand, shingle and rock. In New Naturalist Seashore, Peter Hayward looks at: ? Resident and migrant species, including fish, barnacles, limpets, winkles, sponges, algae, lichens and sea grasses ? The effects of tourism and pollution on these habitats ? The geology of the British Isles, with its sinking and rising coastlines ? The responses and adaptations of plant and animal life to a changing physical environment This narrow strip of beach between the land and the sea that we call the seashore, has always attracted man, in the early years as a source of food, and in Victorian times as a rich habitat that the early naturalists would explore. In this fascinating addition to the highly regarded New Naturalist series, Peter Hayward brings the natural history of the seashore right up to date.
Mushrooms and Toadstools (Collins New Naturalist Library, Book 7)
¥456.66
Britain's neglect of fungi as table delicacies has perhaps been responsible for our surprising ignorance of the natural history of such fascinating plants. This edition is exclusive to newnaturalists.com Puff-balls, more than a foot in diameter; mouls in jam-pots; dry rot; truffles; these are examples of the wide range of the Group, comprising over 100,000 species. Many are of economic importance – for example, the rusts that attack wheat and other crops, and the yeasts which ferment beer – and there are others of great biological interest, such as the mycorrhizal fungi which live in association with the roots of forest trees, orchids and other plants, and help them to absorb food from the soil. Penicillin, of course, has become a household word, and this book's final chapter on the industry is one of the best short accounts of the subject yet writtern. Dr. Ramsbottom was for many years Keeper of Botany at the Natural History Museum, and has devoted his life to the study of fungi in all their aspects. He is equally at home in the field, the laboratory and the library. One of the special features of Mushrooms and Toadstools is the wealth of historical allusion to fungi extracted from old books. Set out in a style reminiscent of Robert Burton, this volume can truly be described as a 20th century Anatomy of Toadstool. Indeed, in fairy rings, science and superstition have gone hand in hand to produce a lively story of alternating surmise and research – and even today a full and final explanation of these mysterious rings has not yet been made. Many of the larger toadstools are brightly coloured and lend themselves admirably to colour photography, as shown by the 80 remarkable illustrations by Mr Paul de Laszlo.
A Model Victory
¥66.22
A vivid retelling of the Battle of Waterloo, based on unpublished soldiers’ written accounts. When a patriotic model-maker recorded the days’ events for posterity he left us with a glorified version of an English victory. Malcolm Balen brings us the muddy truth. More than fifty thousand died or were wounded on the single bloody day of the Battle of Waterloo. This was killing on the scale of the First World War, and yet the glory of the British victory soon came to overshadow any notion of its gore. In this electrifying account of the day itself, Malcolm Balen combines extraordinary first-hand accounts of the battle with the story of William Siborne, a model-maker who, in the wake of the battle, wanted to leave to posterity a perfect and accurate representation of the crucial moment in the battle. The question was: Who won it? Was it Wellington’s forces or Blucher’s Prussians, or a combination of the two? The accounts Siborne used to piece the muddy truth together read as if Waterloo had been fought yesterday. But the accuracy he relentlessly pursued came up against the British establishment and the Duke of Wellington’s desire to control the narrative of the day. In this fascinating and refreshing account of one of the bloodiest days in history, Malcolm Balen interweaves two battles fought: one in the muddy fields of Belgium, and the other over history itself.
Empire’s Children: Trace Your Family History Across the World (Text only)
¥76.91
From the makers of 'Who Do You Think You Are?' comes 'Empire's Children' – a tie-in edition to a six part TV series for Channel 4 – which tells the story of Empire, and follows the personal journeys of six British celebrities as they retrace their steps through their multicultural past. British society is in every way defined by its Imperial past. It is home to 2.3 million British Asians, 570,000 Caribbeans and 250,000 Chinese. Not to mention Cypriots, Australians and southern Africans. These people represent different cultures and divergent experiences but they all share a common heritage: they are the children (grandchildren, or great grandchildren) of Empire; and their lives have been shaped by that legacy. In the second part of the 20th century, Britain relinquished control of 64 countries and half a billion subjects. During that period, many thousands of those same former British subjects fled their homes to build new lives here. What were they hoping to find? Why did they want to come to the very country they'd fought so hard to free themselves from? What kinds of lives were they leaving behind? What was the reality of their new life here? And how was British society itself shaped by their arrival and assimilation here? Real concerns that are very much in forefront of our minds in the multicultural melting pot that Britain is today. ‘Empire’s Children’ seeks to answer these questions by concentrating on the personal and emotive journeys of six chosen celebrities as they retrace the steps which they – or their parents or grandparents – took in order to reach this country for the first time. The stories will cover post colonial histories of Africa, the subcontinent, the West Indies, Australasia, South East Asia and Cyprus. In some cases, they will spend some time in the former colony and experience the motivations as well as the drama of the journey itself.
Britain BC: Life in Britain and Ireland Before the Romans (Text Only)
¥80.25
An authoritative and radical rethinking of the history of Ancient Britain and Ancient Ireland, based on remarkable new archaeological finds. British history is traditionally regarded as having started with the Roman Conquest. But this is to ignore half a million years of prehistory that still exert a profound influence. Here Francis Pryor examines the great ceremonial landscapes of Ancient Britain and Ireland – Stonehenge, Seahenge, Avebury and the Bend of the Boyne – as well as the discarded artefacts of day-to-day life, to create an astonishing portrait of our ancestors. This major re-revaluation of pre-Roman Britain, made possible in part by aerial photography and coastal erosion, reveals a much more sophisticated life in Ancient Britain and Ireland than has previously been supposed. This edition does not include illustrations.