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Edge of Empire: Conquest and Collecting in the East 1750–1850
Edge of Empire: Conquest and Collecting in the East 1750–1850
Maya Jasanoff
¥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
Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain
Judith Flanders
¥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 Ocean Railway
The Ocean Railway
Stephen Fox
¥81.52
An epic social history of steamship travel from the 19th-century to the ‘Lusitania’, the ‘Mauretania’ and the ‘Titanic’. The great transatlantic steamships became emblems of an age, of a Victorian audacity of spirit-cathedrals to man's harnessing of new technology. Through the innovations and designs of key engineers and shipping magnates – Samuel Cunard, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Edward Knights Collins – ‘the largest movable objects in human history' were created. To the wealthy, steamships represented glamorous travel, but to most they offered cheap passage out of Europe to the New World. At their peak, steamships delivered one million new Americans each year, transforming the world’s oceans from barriers into highways. In this fascinating history, Stephen Fox chronicles the tragedies that marked the evolution of the ocean liner, including the 1852 sinking of the ‘Arctic’, with the loss of three hundred and twenty-two lives, and the early 20th-century losses of the ‘Lusitania’ and the ‘Titanic’. Using contemporary records, diaries and writing, he penetrates the experience of transatlantic passage and examines the societies created on the vast floating cities, ‘a kind of third human environment, neither land nor sea but partaking of each, and bridging them in unprecedented ways’.
The Big House: The Story of a Country House and its Family
The Big House: The Story of a Country House and its Family
Christopher Simon Sykes
¥81.03
Please note that some images were unavailable for the electronic edition. The highly praised biography of an archetypal great house and the family who lived there for over 250 years. ‘The Big House’ is the biography of a great country house and the lives of the Sykes family who lived there, with varying fates, for the next two hundred and fifty years. It is a fascinating social history set against the backdrop of a changing England, with a highly individual, pugnacious and self-determining cast, including: ‘Old Tat’ Sykes, said to be one of the great sights of Yorkshire (the author’s great-great-great-grandfather), who wore 18th-century dress to the day of his death at ninety-one in 1861. His son was similarly eccentric, wearing eight coats that he discarded gradually throughout the day in order to keep his body temperature at a constant. He was forced to marry, aged forty-eight, eighteen-year-old Jessica Cavendish-Bentick – a lively and highly intelligent woman who relieved the boredom of her marriage by acquiring a string of lovers, writing novels and throwing extravagant parties (her nickname became ‘Lady Satin Tights’), all the while accumulating debts that ended in a scandalous court case. Their son, Mark, died suddenly whilst brokering the peace settlement at the Paris Peace Conference at the end of World War I; Sledmere was destroyed by fire shortly afterwards. But the rebuilt Sledmere rose from the flames to resound again with colourful, brilliant characters in the 1920s and 1930s including the author’s grandmother, Lily, who had been a celebrated bohemian in Paris. ‘The Big House’ is vividly written and meticulously researched using the Sykes’ own family’s papers and photographs. In this splendid biography of place and time, Christopher Simon Sykes has resuscitated the lives of his ancestors and their glorious home from the 18th- through to the 20th-century.
LZ-’75: Across America with Led Zeppelin
LZ-’75: Across America with Led Zeppelin
Stephen Davis
¥18.74
Stephen Davis’s brilliantly-written personal account of criss-crossing America with Led Zeppelin on their 1975 tour. A warts-and-all snapshot of the world’s biggest hard-rock band at their peak. As a young rock writer Stephen Davis landed the ultimate commission – touring America with Led Zeppelin. This is a personal account by Davis of his journey, which saw him crossing the country with the band on board the Starship, their famous Boeing passenger jet, complete with deep shag purple carpet, electric pianos, girlfriends and star-struck hangers-on. This is also the story of one of the hardest-living bands in the world at their peak. For Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham, the most beautiful women in America tear their spangled jackets from them and riots start outside their gigs. LZ-75 captures a few perfect months in rock, when Led Zeppelin epitomised the free-living rock dream, but, like Icarus, their wings were already beginning to melt. It wouldn't be long before John Bonham died of a vodka overdose, and punk killed their brand of monumental rock. With it's up-close-and-personal accounts of band members, managers, groupies, fans and drug-dealers, there's a lot of Almost Famous about this book – Led Zep's 1975 tour is in fact the very one on which Cameron Crowe's film was based. Stephen Davis was barely twenty in 1975, but now he is recognised as one of the best rock writers in the world. He is the author of the mega-selling Hammer of the Gods – a biography of Led Zeppelin. He recently unearthed his notebooks of the 1975 tour – which he didn't use for Hammer of the Gods – to write LZ-75. LZ-75: Across America with Led Zeppelin is a wonderful and unique thing – a beautifully succinct account of a single moment in rock, when no lyric was too far-fetched, no drink went undrunk and no expense was ever, ever spared. It's a moment that will never be repeated.
A Foreign Field (Text Only)
A Foreign Field (Text Only)
Ben Macintyre
¥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.
Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna
Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna
Adam Zamoyski
¥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
I Didn’t Do It For You: How the World Used and Abused a Small African Nation (Te
Michela Wrong
¥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.
The Doctor’s Kitchen: Supercharge your health with 100 delicious everyday recipe
The Doctor’s Kitchen: Supercharge your health with 100 delicious everyday recipe
Dr Rupy Aujla
¥115.56
Dr Rupy Aujla is a practising GP in London. Trained at Imperial College London, his aim is to be the leading voice in how nutrition can heal and improve health. He is one of twenty global ‘I Quit Sugar’ experts, regular Doctor on BBC Asian Network’s Noreen Khan show with half a million listeners, Men’s Health Recipe Creator and Doctor, TEDxNHS Speaker, Huffington Post, Shortlist, Stylist, Metro contributor as well as leading nutrition websites including Nutritionfacts.org. Dr Rupy is developing The Doctors Kitchen social presence on You Tube, Instagram and Twitter.
Serious Survival: How to Poo in the Arctic and Other essential tips for explorer
Serious Survival: How to Poo in the Arctic and Other essential tips for explorer
Marshall Corwin,Bruce Parry
¥115.56
Marshall Corwin is producer of the BBC TV series and has been on every expedition, so has first-hand experience of organising expeditions and living in far-away places.
The World’s Best Skiing Jokes
The World’s Best Skiing Jokes
Ernest Forbes
¥18.93
‘Why the hell did you write that insurance policy for a 96-year-old man going on a skiing holiday?’ shouted the manager at the travel clerk.‘Well,’ said the clerk, ‘I checked the records and no one of that age has ever had a skiing accident.’The skier came to a stop at the end of the run and threw his poles, hat and gloves to the ground as he snorted in disgust, ‘I’ve never skied so badly before!’‘Oh,’ probed an interested instructor, ‘you mean to say you’ve skied before?’
Telling Secrets
Telling Secrets
Buechner, Frederick
¥77.49
With eloquence, candor, and simplicity, a celebrated author tells the story of his father's alcohol abuse and suicide and traces the influence of this secret on his life as a son, father, husband, minister, and writer.
We Are Our Mothers' Daughters
We Are Our Mothers' Daughters
Roberts, Cokie
¥77.49
In this tenth-anniversary edition of We Are Our Mothers' Daughters, renowned political commentator Cokie Roberts once again examines the nature of women's roles through the revealing lens of her personal experience. From mother to mechanic, sister to soldier, Roberts reveals how much progress has now been made and how much further we have to go. Updated and expanded to include a diverse new cast of women, this collection of essays offers tremendous insight into the opportunities and challenges that women encounter today. In a series of new profiles and revealing updates, Roberts reflects upon the number of female achievers who have graced the public stage in the past decade. In addition to the illuminating and sometimes surprising history of women in a variety of fields, several chapters also introduce us to some of the fascinating women she has encountered during the course of her reporting career including Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Laura Bush, Billie Jean King, Michelle Rhee, and Dorothy Height. Looking into the future, Roberts focuses on the question of "What next?", exploring how several women including herself have begun to define themselves in the next stages of their lives. She also relates moving anecdotes about the women in her personal life, including her mother, former congresswoman Lindy Boggs. Sensitive, straightforward, and perceptive, We Are Our Mothers' Daughters celebrates the new diversity of choices and perspectives available to women today and affirms the bonds of sisterhood over the centuries a vital, powerful interconnection among all women, regardless of background.
What Do You Really Want for Your Children?
What Do You Really Want for Your Children?
Dyer, Wayne W.
¥94.10
If you have children, then you have dreams for them. You want to see them growing up happy, healthy, self-reliant, and confident in themselves and their abilities. You’ve also probably wondered if you'll be able to give them all this. There's good news: you can. Wayne Dyer shares the wisdom and guidance that have already helped millions of readers take charge of their lives and shows how to make all your hopes for your children come true. Learn valuable advice including Dyer’s original seven simple secrets for building your child's self-esteem every day; how to give very young children all the love they need without spoiling them; how to encourage risk-taking without fear of failure; action strategies for dealing with both your own anger and your child's; the right way (and the wrong way) to improve your child's behavior; the secrets of raising kids relatively free of illness; techniques that encourage children to enjoy life, and much more. It's all here – straightforward, commonsense advice that no parent can afford to do without.
How to Marry a Divorced Man
How to Marry a Divorced Man
Fram, Leslie
¥78.43
You may not be his first wife -- but you want to be his last! More than half of all American women between the ages of 18 and 54 will date or marry a divorced man during their lifetime.Entering a relationship with any man is daunting. But entering one with a divorced man means navigating a host of new and complicated problems. Will remnants of his past -- his guilt, the X, their children, the financial and legal fallout -- wreak havoc on your sanity and finances and sabotage your quest for loveIn this reassuring book, Leslie Fram combines fundamental wisdom, guerrilla tactics, and humor to inform and empower the millions of women who are dating divorces -- and the many more who someday will.
Normal Gets You Nowhere
Normal Gets You Nowhere
Cutrone, Kelly
¥84.16
nor-mal: according with, constituting,or not deviating from a norm, ruleor principle / conforming to a type,standard, or regular pattern / of,relating to, or characterized byaverage intelligence or developmentNormalWho wants to be thatWhen Kelly Cutrone's first book, If You Haveto Cry, Go Outside, was first published, youngpeople flocked to this new voice finally,someone was telling it like it is, in languagethey spoke. It quickly became a New YorkTimes bestseller, and fashion publicist KellyCutrone became more than a personality,she became a beloved guru, mentor, andfairy godmother.Now she's back with another no-holds-barredbook to awaken our souls and kick our assesinto gear. With Normal Gets You Nowhere,she invites us to get our freak on. History isfull of successful, world-changing people whodid not fit in. Think Nelson Mandela, Joanof Arc, Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart,John Lennon, and Rosa Parks. Instead ofchanging themselves to accommodate thestatus quo or what others thought they shouldbe, these people hung a light on their differences and changed humanity in the process. I know you don't feel normal, so why areyou trying to act it and prove to everyone you areCutrone says. So much of what we sayor don't say, and what we do or don't do, isdictated by what others have told us, or whatpeople may think of us. This is not how weshould be living, by measuring ourselvesagainst the mundane.An invitation to rethink who you are, what youvalue, and what you want from life, NormalGets You Nowhere goes beyond how to reinventyourself and create your own brand, andinvestigates what it means to live in this worldas a tuned-in, caring individual with a passionfor making a difference. There's already anarmy of super talented uberfreaks changingthe world isn't it time you joined them?
Your Sacred Self
Your Sacred Self
Dyer, Wayne W.
¥94.10
Bestselling author Wayne W. Dyerreveals a three-step plan for finding joyand taking strength from ourselves. In this liberating and enriching book, Wayne W. Dyer teaches us:To tap into the power of our higher selves To live each day, regardless of what we do, with a greater sense of peace and fulfillment To develop a sense of satisfaction with ourselves and others To move from our insatiable need for more to an awareness of abundance Step by step, Your Sacred Self will help you understand your place in the world and develop a sense of satisfaction with yourself and others.
Embracing the Love of God
Embracing the Love of God
Smith, James B.
¥83.92
Unfortunately, in today's world many people fail to experience the freedom and healing power of God's grace. Even Christians too often experience judgement, rather than the love that is the vital essence of Christian life. A visionary guide in the spirit of Celebration of Discipline, Embracing the Love of God calls Christians back to the basics -- to understanding the promise of God's love to transform our most important relationships and fulfill our deepest spiritual needs.Here James Bryan Smith launches readers on a revitalizing spiritual journey. He distills the basic principles of Christian love and provides a new model for relationship with God, self, and others that is based not on fear and judgement, but rather on acceptance and care. Smith's moving insights illuminate the gentle nature of God's love and teach readers how to continue on the path of love by embracing it day by day. For both new Christians and those desiring renewal, Embracing the Love of God offers hope, peace, and guidance for spiritual growth.
The Right Questions
The Right Questions
Ford, Debbie
¥83.03
New York Times number one bestselling author Debbie Ford presents revolutionary questions that, when answered with complete honesty, change the way we see ourselves and make decisions ultimately moving us toward the life we desire. The realities of the life we live today are a result of the choices we made yesterday, three months ago and three years ago. But we don't wind up $50,000 dollars in debt because of one extravagant purchase. Nor do we put on 30 unwanted pounds as a result of a couple of decadent meals. And our relationships certainly don't fall apart overnight because of one decision. We are where we are because of repeated unconscious choices made day after day. If we want to understand why and how we created our present day reality, all we need to do is look at the choices we made in the past. Ford cuts right through our denial with the 10 questions that immediately reveal the true motivations behind our thoughts and actions. But more than that, by rigorously and honestly asking and answering these 10 vital questions, we regain control and have the power necessary to create the life we always wanted.
How to Be a Grown Up
How to Be a Grown Up
Kaiser, Stacy
¥88.56
Are you pleased with the progress you've made so far in achieving your hopes and dreamsAre you excited about what's coming next in your lifeOr do you need a complete overhaul?In How to Be a Grown Up, renowned psychotherapist Stacy Kaiser demonstrates the life-changing benefits of embracing the concept of the "fully loaded grown up." After counseling thousands of patients, she has identified ten critical areas that determine success, happiness, and fulfillment from conscientious money management to developing strong coping skills to building the right kind of friendships and intimate partnerships.How to Be a Grown Up begins with "The Quiz," the first step to empowering you by helping you become an expert on your own life, exploring what you really want and need in every area of life. In chapters packed full of tips, tools, and exercises, Stacy takes you on a journey of self-discovery in which you evaluate your individual strengths and weaknesses as well as identify self-sabotaging traits and learn how to change them once and for all. Had trouble keeping your cool the last time you talked to your momRead up on the secrets of dynamic communicators. Reevaluating your circle of friendsDiscover the six types of grown-up friendships and appreciate your relationships for what they are. Stuck on a frustrating rung of the corporate ladderLearn the traits that every employer loves and how to master them yourself.Fully loaded grown ups are fully empowered and in charge of their own lives. They are able to initiate change instead of just reacting to events, bounce back from setbacks and disappointments, and enjoy more satisfying relationships with everyone, including themselves. Most important, fully loaded grown ups enjoy true freedom not the kind envisioned as a child, meaning eating ice cream for dinner, but absolute confidence in their ability to live their own best life.With her trademark mix of warmth and toughness, Stacy motivates readers to rally their strengths, let go of childish, outgrown attachments, and arrive at a peaceful balance between freedom and responsibility. Whether you feel you've lost control of your life or you just need a tune-up in an area or two, How to Be a Grown Up is a wise and witty life guide for the twenty-first century.
Your So-Called Life
Your So-Called Life
Lavinthal, Andrea
¥84.16
Now that you're approaching 30 or just getting over the trauma of the big 3-0 reality has set in. You're about to be an adult, minus the air quotes. But you don't have to do it alone.Andrea Lavinthal and Jessica Rozler will help you enter true adulthood looking and feeling good in the only way they know how: with tons of wit and wisdom. Featuring interviews with nearly thirty experts including doctors, career counselors, and financial planners this handy, helpful book guides women through their second bout of growing pains and offers advice on: how to manage a difficult boss. how to deal with your ticking biological clock (if such a thing even exists). how to throw the perfect party in your tiny new apartment without breaking the bank. how to enjoy a Friday night as a seventh wheel with your married friends and their husbands. Your So-Called Life is the bible for all post-quarter-life crisis women who need guidance transitioning into the real world with smarts and savvy.