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A Foreign Field (Text Only)
￥57.09
This edition does not include illustrations. A wartime romance, survival saga and murder mystery set in rural France during the First World War. From the Number 1 bestselling author of ‘Agent ZigZag’ and ‘Operation Mincemeat’. Four young British soldiers find themselves trapped behind enemy lines at the height of the fighting on the Western Front in August 1914. Unable to get back to their units, they shelter in the tiny French village of Villeret, where they are fed, clothed and protected by the villagers, including the local matriarch Madame Dessenne, the baker and his wife. The self-styled leader of the band of fugitives, Private Robert Digby, falls in love with the 20-year-old daughter of one of his protectors, and in November 1915 she gives birth to a baby girl. The child is just six months old when someone betrays the men to the Germans. They are captured, tried as spies and summarily condemned to death. Using the testimonies of the daughter, the villagers, detailed town hall records and, most movingly, the soldiers’ last letters, Ben Macintyre reconstructs an extraordinary story of love, duplicity and shame – ultimately seeking to discover through decades of village rumour the answer to the question, ‘Who betrayed Private Digby and his men?’ In this new updated edition the mystery is finally solved. This edition does not include illustrations.
Books and Naturalists (Collins New Naturalist Library, Book 112)
￥231.22
Natural history, perhaps more than any other pursuit or study, has always relied heavily on books. Without their basic function of enabling the different kinds of animals and plants to be described in adequate detail, the subject could never have come into being and gone on to thrive as it does today. In displaying nature's colourful diversity, books have stimulated attempts to capture the wonders of the natural world with the pencil or in paint. They have challenged their readers to seek out and record what the countryside has to offer, and they have enabled naturalists to convey to unknown fellow spirits the excitements of 'the chase' and of unexpected discoveries. In this latest book in the highly-acclaimed New Naturalist series, David Elliston Allen explores the often complicated ways in which books on the flora and fauna of these islands have been published through the years, from the earliest days of printing through to the era of the computerised distribution atlas and the giant multinational compendium. Difficult to free from market constraints, publication in book form would have remained an elusive aim for all too many naturalists but for the regular trickle of individual publishers who have shared their delight in the subject and leant over backwards to assist it. The important role played by these allies, the colourful backgrounds of many of the authors and the sometimes fraught relationship between the partners in a process in which the aims of business and learning do not necessarily coincide are among the many themes woven together into a fascinating account, which also breaks new ground.
Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna
￥80.25
Following on from his epic ‘1812: Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow’, bestselling author Adam Zamoyski has written the dramatic story of the Congress of Vienna. In the wake of his disastrous Russian campaign of 1812, Napoleon's imperious grip on Europe began to weaken, raising the question of how the Continent was to be reconstructed after his defeat. There were many who dreamed of a peace to end all wars, in which the interests of peoples as well as those of rulers would be taken into account. But what followed was an unseemly and at times brutal scramble for territory by the most powerful states, in which countries were traded as if they had been private and their inhabitants counted like cattle. The results, fixed at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, not only laid the foundations of the European world we know; it put in place a social order and a security system that lie at the root of many of the problems which dog the world today. Although the defining moments took place in Vienna, and the principle players included Tsar Alexander I of Russia, the Austrian Chancellor Metternich, the Duke of Wellington and the French master of diplomacy Talleyrand, as well as Napoleon himself, the accepted view of the gathering of statesmen reordering the Continent in elegant salons is a false one. Many of the crucial questions were decided on the battlefield or in squalid roadside cottages amid the vagaries of war. And the proceedings in Vienna itself were not as decorous as is usually represented. Drawing on a wide range of first-hand sources in six languages, which include not only official documents, private letters, diaries and first-hand accounts, but also the reports of police spies and informers, Adam Zamoyski gets below the thin veneer of courtliness and reveals that the new Europe was forged by men in thrall to fear, greed and lust, in an atmosphere of moral depravity in which sexual favours were traded as readily as provinces and the 'souls' who inhabited them. He has created a chilling account, full of menace as well as frivolity.
I Didn’t Do It For You: How the World Used and Abused a Small African Nation (Te
￥81.03
One small East African country embodies the battered history of the continent: patronised by colonialists, riven by civil war, confused by Cold War manoeuvring, proud, colorful, with Africa's best espresso and worst rail service. Michela Wrong brilliantly reveals the contradictions and comedy, past and present, of Eritrea. Just as the beat of a butterfly’s wings is said to cause hurricanes on the other side of the world, so the affairs of tiny Eritrea reverberate onto the agenda of superpower strategists. This new book on Africa is from the author of the critically acclaimed In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz. Eritrea is a little-known country scarred by decades of conflict and occupation. It has weathered the world's longest-running guerrilla war, and the dogged determination that secured victory against Ethiopia, its giant neighbour, is woven into the national psyche. Fascist Italy wanted Eritrea as the springboard for a new, racially-pure Roman empire, Britain sold off its industry for scrap, the US needed headquarters for its state-of-the-art spy station and the Soviet Union used it as a pawn in a proxy war. Michela Wrong reveals the breathtaking abuses this tiny nation has suffered and, with the sharp eye for detail that was the hallmark of her account of Mobutu's Congo, she tells the story of colonialism itself. Along the way, we meet a formidable Emperor, a guerrilla fighter who taught himself French cuisine in the bush, and a chemist who arranged the heist of his own laboratory. An arresting blend of travelogue and history, ‘I Didn't Do It For You’ pierces the dark heart of our colonial history.
Italian Racing Motorcycles
￥245.17
Above all else, Italy has a reputation for style, having gained fame for its beautiful architecture, up-to-the-minute fashion design, exotic cars, and motorcycles which display a rare combination of sheer style and exciting performance.
Restoring Sprite & Midgets
￥245.17
Whenever I see a rebuild guide I am impressed by how easy everything looks - every job seems to be so straightforward. Not surprisingly, since they have been written by seasoned professionals who have all the tools, own large workshops and have worked on the same cars for years.
White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in 18th-century India (Text Only)
￥95.75
From the author of the Samuel Johnson prize-shortlisted ‘Return of a King’, the romantic and ultimately tragic tale of a passionate love affair that transcended all the cultural, religious and political boundaries of its time. James Achilles Kirkpatrick was the British Resident at the court of Hyderabad when he met Khair un-Nissa – ‘Most Excellent among Women’ – the great-niece of the Prime Minister of Hyderabad. He fell in love with her and overcame many obstacles to marry her, converting to Islam and, according to Indian sources, becoming a double-agent working against the East India Company. It is a remarkable story, but such things were not unknown: from the early sixteenth century to the eve of the Indian Mutiny, the ‘white Mughals’ who wore local dress and adopted Indian ways were a source of embarrassment to successive colonial administrations. Dalrymple unearths such colourful figures as ‘Hindoo Stuart’, who travelled with his own team of Brahmins to maintain his temple of idols, and Sir David Auchterlony, who took all 13 of his Indian wives out for evening promenades, each on the back of her own elephant. In ‘White Mughals’, William Dalrymple discovers a world almost entirely unexplored by history, and places at its centre a compelling tale of seduction and betrayal.
Out of Time
￥66.22
From the hugely respected journalist Miranda Sawyer, a very modern look at the midlife crisis – delving into the truth, and lies, of the experience and how to survive it, with thoughtfulness, insight and humour. ‘You wake one day and everything is wrong. It's as though you went out one warm evening – an evening fizzing with delicious potential, so ripe and sticky-sweet you can taste it on the air – for just one drink … and woke up two days later in a skip. Except you're not in a skip, you're in an estate car, on the way to an out-of-town shopping mall to buy a balance bike, a roof rack and some stackable storage boxes.’ Miranda Sawyer’s midlife crisis began when she was 44. It wasn’t a traditional one. She didn’t run off with a Pilates teacher, or blow thousands on a trip to find herself. From the outside, all remained the same. Work, kids, marriage, mortgage, blah. Days, weeks and months whizzed past as she struggled with feeling – knowing – that she was over halfway through her life. It seemed only yesterday that she was 29, out and about. Out of Time is not a self-help book. It’s an exploration of this sudden crisis, this jolt. It looks at how our tastes, and our bodies, change as we get older. It considers the unexpected new pleasures that the second half of life can offer, from learning to code to taking up running (slowly). Speaking to musicians and artists, friends and colleagues, Miranda asks how they too have confronted midlife, and the lessons, if any, that they’ve learned along the way.
Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking)
￥73.58
An irreverent, provocative, and visually fascinating look at what our online lives reveal about who we really are – and how this deluge of data will transform the science of human behaviour. Big Data is used to spy on us, hire and fire us, and sell us things we don't need. In ‘Dataclysm’, Christian Rudder, founder of one of the world’s biggest dating websites OkCupid, puts this flood of information to an entirely different use: understanding human nature. Drawing on terabytes of data from Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, OkCupid, and many other sites, Rudder examines the terrain of human experience to answer a range of questions: Does it matter where you went to school? How racist are we? How do political views alter relationships? Philosophers, psychologists, gene hunters and neuroscientists have tried to explain our flaws and foibles. Rudder shows that in today's era of social media, a powerful new approach is possible, one that reveals how we actually behave when we think no one's looking. Outrageous and illuminating, ‘Dataclysm’, is a portrait of our essential selves – dark, absurd, occasionally noble – and a first look at a revolution in the making.
Longitude
￥34.14
The dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest: the search for the solution of how to calculate longitude and the unlikely triumph of an English genius. With a Foreword by Neil Armstrong.
Americans in Paris: Life and Death under Nazi Occupation 1940–44
￥95.75
An elegantly written and highly informative account of a group of Americans living in Paris when the city fell to the Nazis in June 1940. In the early hours of 14 June 1940, Nazi troops paraded through the streets of Paris, marking the beginning of the city’s four-year occupation. French troops withdrew in order to avoid a battle and the potential destruction of their capital. It wasn't long before German tanks rumbled past the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs Elysees to the Place de la Concorde. The American community in Paris was the largest in Continental Europe, totalling approximately 30,000 before the Second World War. Although Ambassodor Bullitt advised those without vital business in the city to leave in 1939, over half of the Americans in Paris chose to stay. Many had professional and family ties to the city; the majority, though, had a peculiarly American love for the city, rooted in the bravery of the Marquis de la Fayette and the 17,000 Frenchmen who volunteered to fight for American independence in 1776. An eclectic group, they included black soldiers from the Harlem Hellfighters, who were determined not to return to the racial segregation that they faced at home, rich socialites like Peggy Guggenheim and Florence Jay Gould, as well as painters, musicians, bankers and businessmen. There were those whose lives went on as if the Germans were ephemera, those who collaborated and those, like Dr Sumner Jackson and Etta Shiber, who worked underground for the resistance movement. This is a book about adventure, intrigue, passion and deceit, and one which follows its characters into the Maquis, the concentration camps and overseas. Filled with a huge amount of new analysis on the Second World War, ‘Americans in Paris’ is a fascinating, revealing and moving read.
The Great Divorce
￥58.86
A stunning new edition of this timeless allegory of heaven and hell, repackaged and rebranded as part of the C.S. Lewis Signature Classics range. C.S. Lewis’s dazzling allegory about heaven and hell and the chasm fixed between them, is one of his most brilliantly imaginative tales which will appeal to readers of all ages. Lewis communicates deep spiritual truths through the sheer power of the fantastic. In The Great Divorce the writer in a dream boards a bus on a drizzly afternoon and embarks on an incredible voyage through Heaven and Hell. He meets a host of supernatural beings far removed from his expectations and comes to significant realisations about the ultimate consequences of everyday behaviour. This is the starting point for a profound meditation upon good and evil. “If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell.”
3 Para
￥68.67
Afghanistan in the summer of 2006. In blazing heat in remote outposts the 3 Para battlegroup is pitted against a stubborn enemy who keep on coming. Until now, the full story of what happened there has not been told. This is it. In April 2006, the elite 3 Para battlegroup was despatched to Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. They were tasked with providing security to reconstruction efforts, a deployment it was hoped would pass off without a shot being fired. In fact, over the six months they were there, the 3 Para battle group saw near continuous combat – one gruelling battle after another – in what would become one of the most extraordinary campaigns ever fought by British troops. Around parched, dusty outposts reliant on a limited number of helicopters for food and ammunition resupply, troops were subjected to relentless Taliban attacks, as well as energy-sapping 50 degree heat and spartan conditions. At the end of the tour, the Taliban offensive aimed at driving the British and Afghan Government troops out of Helmand had been tactically defeated. But 3 Para paid a high price: fourteen soldiers and one interpreter were killed, and 46 wounded. ‘3 Para’ will tell the stories of the men and women who took part in this extraordinary and largely unreported saga. Best-selling author Patrick Bishop has been given exclusive access to the soldiers whose tales of courage and endurance provide an unforgettable portrait of one of the world's finest and most fascinating fighting regiments, and a remarkable band of warriors. Their bravery was reflected in the array of gallantry medals that were bestowed on their return, including the Victoria Cross awarded to Corporal Bryan Budd and the George Cross won by Corporal Mark Wright, both of whom were killed winning their awards. 3 Para’s saga of comradeship, courage and fortitude is set to become a classic.
The Real Band of Brothers
￥72.30
Personal stories from the soldiers who volunteered to fight for a cause they passionately believed in The Spanish Civil War, which raged from 1936-9, was brutal and intense, claiming well over 500,000 lives. Rightly predicting that the rise of Fascism in Spain could develop into a more global conflict, almost 2,500 British volunteers travelled to Spain under the banner of the International Brigade to fight for the Spanish Republic in an attempt to stem the tide. Acclaimed oral historian Max Arthur tracked down the eight survivors of this conflict and interviewed them for their unique perspective, their memories of their time fighting and the motives that compelled them to fight. From Union leader to nurse, Egyptologist to IRA activist, theirs is a unique story, of men and women volunteering to lay down their lives for a cause, believing passionately that the Spanish Republic's fight was their fight too. And, in 2009, they were finally granted Spanish nationality as a mark of the importance of that decision. Since the book was first published, two of the people featured have died, but their stories survive. These incredible, compelling and sometimes harrowing tales of their experiences reveal their ideologies, pride, regrets and feelings about the legacy of the actions they took. ‘For most young people there was a feeling of frustration, but some were determined to do anything that seemed possible, even if it meant death, to try to stop the spread of Fascism. It was real, and it had to be stopped.’ Jack Jones (1913-2009) - Volunteer
Lakes, Loughs and Lochs (Collins New Naturalist Library, Book 128)
￥257.90
Another volume in the popular New Naturalist series, this book gives a comprehensive account of the natural history of Britain and Ireland’s inland waters, many of which are popular holiday destinations. The study of life in British lakes and rivers has been traditionally neglected in natural history publications, and yet the intricacies of plant and animal ecology as a whole can be readily studied in a pond or lake. Not since Macan and Worthington’s landmark publication in 1951, Life in Lakes and Rivers – volume 15 in the New Naturalist series – has there been a comprehensive overview of British freshwater life. In Brian Moss’s much-anticipated new volume, he gives a passionate account of the natural history of our lakes, loughs and lochs. Our understanding of lakes has changed enormously since the days of Macan and Worthington. From new techniques using stable isotopes and molecular biology to ambitious approaches using whole lakes for experiments; from advances in chemical methods that detect tiny traces of organic substances to the development of new electronic instruments, it is becoming increasingly urgent to make use of these advances to help maintain and conserve some of the most damaged of the Earth’s ecosystems. Freshwaters form the fascinating threads that stitch together the landscapes of our planet with a myriad of exchanges involving an array of organisms, from algae and insects to hippopotami and otters. Healthy lakes and their shores influence our quality of life and they strengthen the economy. They are important ecosystems that can sustain a healthy balance of aquatic life, provide us with much enjoyment, and help support our socio-economic needs. At the same time they suffer the consequences of human abuses of the land – increasing urbanisation, intensive farming, drainage and an increasing invasion of non-native species, to name but a few. Moss explores the richness of their fundamental ecology, emphasizing the need to view these freshwater systems as a whole, and not to manage or assess them in isolation, as well as the importance of ongoing conservation efforts.
God’s Secret Agents: Queen Elizabeth's Forbidden Priests and the Hatching of the
￥102.51
A thrilling account of treachery, loyalty and martyrdom in Elizabethan England from an exceptional new writer. As darkness fell on the evening of Friday, 28 October 1588, just weeks after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, two young Englishmen landed in secret on a Norfolk beach. They were Jesuit priests. Their aim was to achieve by force of argument what the Armada had failed to do by force of arms: return England to the Catholic Church. Eighteen years later their mission had been shattered by the actions of a small group of terrorists, the Gunpowder Plotters; they themselves had been accused of designing ‘that most horrid and hellish conspiracy’; and the future of every Catholic they had come to save depended on the silence of an Oxford joiner, builder of priest-holes, being tortured in the Tower of London. ‘God’s Secret Agents’ tells the story of Elizabeth’s ‘other’ England, a country at war with an unseen enemy, a country peopled – according to popular pamphlets and Government proclamations – with potential traitors, fifth-columnists and assassins. And it tells this story from the perspective of that unseen ‘enemy’, England’s Catholics, a beleaguered, alienated minority, struggling to uphold its faith. Ultimately, ‘God’s Secret Agents’ is the story of men who would die for their cause undone by men who would kill for it.
Edge of Empire: Conquest and Collecting in the East 1750–1850
￥78.38
Talented historian Maya Jasonoff offers an alternative history of the British Empire. It is not about conquest – but rather a collection of startling and fascinating personal accounts of cross-cultural exchange from those who found themselves on the edges of Empire. A Palladian mansion filled with Western art in the centre of old Calcutta, the Mughal Emperor’s letters in an archive in the French Alps, the names of Italian adventurers scratched into the walls of Egyptian temples: in this imaginative book, Maya Jasanoff delves into the stories behind artefacts like these to uncover the lives of collectors in India and Egypt who lived on the frontiers of European empire. ‘Edge of Empire’ traces their exploits to tell an intimate history of imperialism. Written and researched on four continents, ‘Edge of Empire’ tells a story about the making of European empires, ones that break away from the grand narratives of power, exploitation, and resistance, to delve into the personal dimensions of imperialism. She asks what people brought to imperial frontiers and what they took away, and what motives drove them, whether ambition, opportunism, curiosity or greed. This rich and compelling book enters a world where people lived, loved and died, and identified with each other across cultures much more than our prejudices about ‘Empire’ might suggest.
Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain
￥80.25
A delightful and fascinating social history of Victorians at leisure, told through the letters, diaries, journals and novels of nineteenth-century men and women, from the author of the bestselling ‘The Victorian House’. Imagine a world where only one in five people owns a book, where just one in ten has a knife or a fork – a world where five people out of every six do not own a cup to hold a hot drink. That was what England was like in the early eighteenth century. Yet by the close of the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution had brought with it not just factories, railways, mines and machines but also fashion, travel, leisure and pleasure. Leisure became an industry – a cornucopia of excitement for the masses – and it was spread by newspapers, advertising, promotions and publicity – all of which were eighteenth-century creations. It was Josiah Wedgwood and his colleagues who invented money-back guarantees, free delivery and celebrity endorsements. New technology such as the railways brought audiences to ever-more-elaborate extravaganzas, whether it was theatrical spectaculars with breathtaking pyrotechnics and hundreds of extras – ‘hippodramas' recreating the battle of Waterloo – or the Great Exhibition itself, proudly displaying 'the products of all quarters of the globe' under twenty-two acres of the sparkling 'Crystal Palace'. In ‘Consuming Passions’, the bestselling author of ‘The Victorian House’ explores this dramatic revolution in science, technology and industry – and how a world of thrilling sensation, lavish spectacle and unimaginable theatricality was born.
The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: The tragedy of Mary, Katherine and Lady Jane Gre
￥81.03
The dramatic untold story of the three tragic Grey sisters, all heirs to the Tudor throne, all victims to their royal blood. Lady Jane Grey is an icon of innocence abused. Remembered as the ‘Nine Days Queen’, she has been mythologized as a child-woman sacrificed to political expedience. But behind the legend lay a rebellious adolescent who became a leader, and no mere victim. Growing up in her shadow, Jane’s sisters Katherine and Mary would have to tread carefully to survive. The dramatic lives of the younger Grey sisters remain little known, but both women became heirs and rivals to the Tudor monarchs, Mary and Elizabeth I. To gain Queen Mary’s trust, teenaged Katherine ignored Jane’s final request not to change her religion, only to risk her life with a marriage that threatened Queen Elizabeth’s throne. While Katherine’s friends fought to save her, the youngest Grey sister, Mary, stayed at court. Though too poor and plain to be significant, she looked set to escape the burden of her royal blood. But then she too fell in love and incurred the Queen’s fury. Exploding the many myths of Lady Jane’s life, and casting fresh light onto Elizabeth’s reign, acclaimed historian Leanda de Lisle brings the Grey sisters’ tumultuous world to life: at a time when a royal marriage could gain you a kingdom, or cost you everything.
Liberty’s Exiles: The Loss of America and the Remaking of the British Empire.
￥90.84
From the author of ‘Edge of Empire’ comes a fascinating, thought-provoking and alternative history of the American Revolution – that of those Americans who remained loyal to the British Empire. George Washington's triumphant entrance into New York City in 1783 marked the end of the American Revolution; the British were gone, the patriots were back and a key moment inscribed itself in the annals of the emerging United States. Territorial independence had effectively begun. Although widely perceived as a struggle between nations, the reality of the American Revolution is a strikingly different one. This was a war in which Britons fought Britons and Americans fought Americans. It was also one in which hundreds of thousands of American Loyalists, from Georgia to Maine, took Britain's side. And, when George Washington arrived in New York on that November day, they were forced to face up to a very tough situation; would they be free? Would they be safe? Would they retain their property and their jobs? Would they have to leave? As many as 200,000 American Loyalists left the United States. They lost their homes and their possessions and had little choice but to build new lives elsewhere in the British Empire. In ‘The Imperial Exile’, Maya Jasanoff examines the story of the Loyalist refugees, focusing on the life of one woman - Elizabeth Johnston - and her family, who reconstructed their lives in four different imperial settings: St Augustine, Edinburgh, Jamaica and Nova Scotia. Their movements speak eloquently of a larger history of exile, mobility and the shaping of the British Empire in the wake of the American War. A rich, compelling and untold history.
Dragonflies (Collins New Naturalist Library, Book 106)
￥192.67
Dragonflies are among the most ancient of living creatures – few insect groups fascinate as much or are more immediately recognisable. In this seminal new work, Philip Corbet and Stephen Brooks examine the behaviour, ecology and distribution of dragonflies in Britain and Ireland, placing emphasis on the insects' habitats and also on measures needed to conserve them. Published in 1960 – with Philip Corbet as contributing author – volume 41 of the New Naturalist series provided the first in-depth study of the biology of British dragonflies, helping to inspire many people to take an interest in these intriguing insects. In this new volume, Corbet has teamed up with Stephen Brooks, offering a fascinating new outlook on the natural history of dragonflies. The authors have combined their knowledge and experience to help illuminate the relevance of British dragonfly species, placing them in the overall context of natural history from a broader, worldwide perspective. Illustrated with beautiful photography throughout, New Naturalist Dragonflies explores all aspects of the biological significance of dragonfly behaviour, thus revealing the beauty and hidden complexity of these powerful, agile, flying predators.
