The Botham Report
¥53.76
Ian Botham was the most thrilling sight in sport for nearly two decades at the top of international cricket. He retired from the game in 1993 and has since acted as coaching advisor to the England team on the 1997/98 Zimbabwe and New Zealand tour, a commentator for Sky TV, and he has a newspaper column in the Daily Mirror. He continues to be a keen analyser of the game.
Travels in an Old Tongue: Touring the World Speaking Welsh
¥65.24
Pamela Petro has been educated at Brown, Paris and Harvard Universities; in 1983 she went to the University of Wales at Lampeter for the first time, to do her MA, returning in 1992 for intensive instruction in the Welsh language. She has since taught Welsh and travel writing in the USA. She regularly contributes to the New York Times Travel Section and to Planet, and has compiled a guide to New England. This is her first ‘real’ book. She has, by the way, no Welsh blood.
Writing Fiction (Collins Need to Know?)
¥76.91
Alan Wall is an internationally acclaimed novelist and short story writer. His works have been published in eleven countries and translated into nine languages. He holds an MA in English from Oxford University, and is currently programme leader of the Creative Writing course at the University of Chester. His reviews and essays appear in a number of publications, including the Spectator, the Guardian, and the Literary Review..
101 Ways to Win at Scrabble: Top tips for Scrabble success (Collins Little Books
¥51.50
Barry Grossman is one of the UK's best Scrabble players, and former chairman of the influential London Scrabble League. Barry also writes for radio; his best-known work is the Radio 4 comedy “The Attractive Young Rabbi”, which ran for three series between 1999 and 2002.
100 Of The Best Curses and Insults In Spanish: A Toolkit for the Testy Tourist
¥62.69
Rachel Perez is the author of Test Your Dog and Kiss in the Dark and co-founder of High Impact Philanthropy. In her free time, she alternately worries about whether she insulted someone and keeps exhaustive records of offensive conversations.
The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of Victorian Britain
¥73.48
By F. M. L. Thompson
The Hellenistic World
¥88.39
F. W. Walbank was Rathbone Professor of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at the University of Liverpool and a Fellow of the British Academy.
Collins Scrabble Hints and Tips
¥44.24
Pioneers in dictionary publishing since 1819
The Irish Are Coming
¥80.25
In the sequel to his bestselling JFK in Ireland, the Emerald Isle’s favourite son delves into his country’s past to celebrate the Irish people who through their skills and endeavours helped make the British Isles great. In ‘The Irish Are Coming’ Ryan Tubridy takes a journey into Ireland’s past to unearth the many amazing, and altogether fascinating, contributions the Irish have made to everyday British life; whether it be making us laugh (Graham Norton), thrilling us with their acting (Peter O’Toole), or dazzling us with their audacious adventuring (Earnest Shackleton). Just as Stuart Maconie has celebrated in his own unique way all that is great about his North of England roots, so Ryan Tubridy makes a passionate case for the magnificent contribution Ireland has made to its nearest neighbour.
Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain
¥66.22
Summer, 1940: western Europe has been conquered, and all that stands between Hitler and the invasion of England is the matter of air supremacy. And the RAF… Hitler’s top-secret Directive No. 16, July 1940: ‘The English air force must be beaten down to such an extent, that it can no longer muster any power of attack worth mentioning against the German advance.’ ‘Fighter’ is Len Deighton’s thrilling history of the ensuing Battle of Britain – the aerial combat between the RAF and the Luftwaffe that was fought over the summer of 1940. Ex-RAF pilot Deighton has written a balanced study of strategies and tactics that also expertly recounts the development of the aeroplanes that fought each other in the skies – the Spitfires and Messerschmitts – and of radar. Behind the strategies and tactics, and in the cockpits of the aeroplanes, are the men brought vividly to life by Deighton’s skill as a novelist.
The Trial: A History from Socrates to O. J. Simpson
¥94.67
In an extraordinary history of the criminal trial, Sadakat Kadri shows with wit, legal insight and a travel writer’s eye for detail, how the irrationality of the past lives on in the legal systems of the present. A bold and brilliant debut from a prize-winning writer. ‘The Trial’ spans a vast distance in time, opening in the dread silence of the Egyptian Hall of the Dead and ending with the melodramas and hubbub of the 21st-century trial circus. Reconciliation and vengeance, secrecy and spectacle, superstition and reason all intertwine continually. The book crosses from the marbled courtrooms of Athens through the ordeal pits of Anglo-Saxon England, past the torture chambers of the Inquisition to the judicial theatres of 17th-century Salem, and from 1930s Moscow and post-war Nuremberg to the virtual courtrooms of modern Hollywood. Kadri shows throughout how the trial has always been concerned with doing more than guaranteeing fairness and holding human beings to account for their deliberate crimes. He recounts how insentient and irrational defendants from caterpillars to corpses were once summonsed to court, before being exiled for their failure to attend or sentenced to die again – and argues that the same urge to punish lives on in today's trials of children and the mentally ill. But although Justice’s sword has always been double-edged – as ready to destroy a community’s enemies as to defend its dreams of due process – the judicial contest also operates to enshrine some of the western world’s most cherished values. The show trials of Stalin's Soviet Union were shams, but Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib are a reminder that a lack of a trial is equally unjust, and at a time when our constitutional landscape seems to be melting away, an appreciation of the criminal courtroom’s history is more necessary than ever. As the Labour government launches an almost annual attempt to truncate trial by jury, and as authorities on both sides of the Atlantic are indefinitely detaining people in the name of an endless war on terror, ‘The Trial’ could hardly be more timely. Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.
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.
The Frozen Water Trade (Text Only)
¥72.99
The story of the 19th-century ice trade, in which ice from the lakes of New England – valued for its incredible purity – revolutionised domestic life around the world. In the days before artificial refrigeration, it was thought impossible to transport ice for long distances. But one man, Frederic Tudor, was convinced it could be done. This is the story of how, almost single-handedly, and in the face of near-universal mockery, he established a vast industry that would introduce the benefits of fresh ice to large parts of the globe. Thanks to Tudor, the American fashion for drinks ‘on the rocks’ spread to tropical areas such as the West Indies and British India. By the 1830s fleets of schooners carried the frozen cargo, packed with sawdust and tarpaulins for insulation, to all corners of the world. The harvesting of the ice from New England’s lakes employed thousands of men. The frozen water trade had a profound influence on the tastes of a large part of the world, but with the development of artificial cooling systems in the first quarter of the 20th century, the huge industry established by Frederic Tudor vanished as if it had never been. Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.
Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum (Text Only)
¥80.25
This edition does not include illustrations. ‘Dry Store Room No. 1’ is an intimate biography of the Natural History Museum, celebrating the eccentric personalities who have peopled it and capturing the wonders of scientific endeavour, academic rigour and imagination. Behind the public fa?ade of any great museum there lies a secret domain: one of unseen galleries, locked doors, priceless specimens and hidden lives.Through the stories of the numerous eccentric individuals whose long careers have left their mark on the study of evolutionary science, Richard Fortey, former senior paleaontologist at London's Natural History Museum, celebrates the pioneering work of the Museum from its inception to the present day. He delves into the feuds, affairs, scandals and skulduggery that have punctuated its long history, and formed a backdrop to extraordinary scientific endeavour from Darwin to the present day. He explores the staying power and adaptability of the Museum as it responds to changes wrought by advances in technology and molecular biology – 'spare' bones from an extinct giant bird suddenly become cutting-edge science with the new knowledge that DNA can be extracted from them, and ancient fish are tested with the latest equipment that is able to measure rises in pollution. 'Dry Store Room No.1’ is a fascinating and affectionate account of a hidden world of untold treasures, where every fragment tells a story about time past, by a scientist who combines rigorous professional learning with a gift for prose that sparkles with wit and literary sensibility. Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.
Witnessing Waterloo: 24 Hours, 48 Lives, A World Forever Changed
¥73.58
‘Of all the books marking the bicentenary Waterloo, this has to be the best’ Spectator ‘A book to die for’ Evening Standard From Samuel Johnson Prize shortlisted author David Crane, this is a breathtaking portrait of the Britain that fought the battle of Waterloo. As Wellington’s rain-sodden army retreated towards an obscure valley called Waterloo, the men and women of Britain were still going to the theatre and science lectures, working in the fields and the factories, reading and writing books and sermons, painting their pictures and sitting in front of Lord Elgin’s marbles. David Crane’s stunning freeze-frame of Britain on this day of momentous change shifts hour by hour between Britain and Belgium. The Britain that fought Waterloo – its radicals and patriots, artisans and aristocrats, prisoners and poets – appears through the smoke of battle and the mythology of Waterloo in this magnificent and original tracing of the endless, overlapping connections between people’s lives.
The Lighthouse Stevensons (Stranger Than…)
¥46.11
Bella Bathurst’s epic story of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ancestors and the building of the Scottish coastal lighthouses against impossible odds. ‘Whenever I smell salt water, I know that I am not far from one of the works of my ancestors,’ wrote Robert Louis Stevenson in 1880. ‘When the lights come out at sundown along the shores of Scotland, I am proud to think they burn more brightly for the genius of my father!’ Robert Louis Stevenson was the most famous of the Stevensons, but not by any means the most productive. The Lighthouse Stevensons, all four generations of them, built every lighthouse round Scotland, were responsible for a slew of inventions in both construction and optics, and achieved feats of engineering in conditions that would be forbidding even today. The same driven energy which Robert Louis Stevenson put into writing, his ancestors put into lighting the darkness of the seas. ‘The Lighthouse Stevensons’ is a story of high endeavour, beautifully told; indeed, is was one of the most celebrated works of historical biography in recent memory. ‘My own interest in the Lighthouse Stevensons is threefold. Firstly, from the writings of Robert Louis Stevenson, who turned his family’s trade into the raw gold of all his best fiction. Secondly, from various trips around Scotland. The country’s coast is a mass of storm-beaten rocks and treacherous headlands on which even the seagulls have trouble landing. It is impossible not to speculate what combination of courage and skill built the lighthouses around such an environment. And thirdly, because somewhere in there, unrecognised and unsung, is the most wonderful story!’
The Number Mysteries: A Mathematical Odyssey through Everyday Life
¥66.22
From the author of The Music of the Primes and Finding Moonshine comes a short, lively book on five mathematical problems that just refuse be solved – and on how many everyday problems can be solved by maths. Every time we download a song from i-tunes, take a flight across the Atlantic or talk on our mobile phones, we are relying on great mathematical inventions. Maths may fail to provide answers to various of its own problems, but it can provide answers to problems that don't seem to be its own – how prime numbers are the key to Real Madrid's success, to secrets on the Internet and to the survival of insects in the forests of North America. In The Num8er My5teries, Marcus du Sautoy explains how to fake a Jackson Pollock; how to work out whether or not the universe has a hole in the middle of it; how to make the world's roundest football. He shows us how to see shapes in four dimensions – and how maths makes you a better gambler. He tells us about the quest to predict the future – from the flight of asteroids to an impending storm, from bending a ball like Beckham to predicting population growth. It's a book to dip in to; a book to challenge and puzzle – and a book that gives us answers.
More Than Just a Game: Football v Apartheid
¥58.86
The most important football story ever told. `It is amazing to think that a game that people take for granted all around the world, was the very same game that gave a group of prisoners sanity – and in a way, gave us the resolve to carry on the struggle'. Anthony Suze, Robben Island Prisoner. This is the astonishing story of a unique group of political prisoners and freedom fighters who found a sense of dignity in one of the ugliest hellholes on Earth: South Africa’s infamous Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was famously incarderated. Despite all odds and regular torture, beatings and daily backbreaking hard labour, these extraordinary men turned soccer into an active force in the struggle for freedom. For nearly 20 years, these prisoners found the energy, spirit and resolve to organise a 1400 prisoner-strong, eight club football league which was played with strict adherance to FIFA rules. The prisoners themselves represented a broad array of political beliefs and backgrounds, yet football became an impassioned and unified symbol of resistance against apartheid. They refused to let their own political differences sway their devotion to the sport, which allowed them to organise and maintain leadership right under the noses of their captors. This league not only provided sanctuary and respite from the prisoners’ cruel surroundings, it kept their minds active and many credit it with keeping them alive. More Than Just a Game chronicles their story, the politics of the time, the extraordinary characters, their heroism and the thrilling matches themselves.
Ten Fighter Boys
¥66.22
The extraordinary stories of ten fighter pilots, told in their very own words during the Second World War. First published by Collins in 1942, this utterly compelling collection of first-hand accounts of ten fighter pilots’ experiences at the helm of the Spitfires of 66 Squadron paints one of the most realistic depictions of the battle for the skies over wartime Europe. Offering incredible personal insights into the wartime experience – both in the air and on the ground – the stories are told with unaffected zest, by men who were living in the constant presence of death. Five of the original contributors were killed before the book was originally printed, including the books editors, Wing Commander Athol Forbes and Squadron Leader Hubert Allen. Jimmy Corbin, the last surviving contributor and author of the foreword, passed away in December 2012. Written right in the middle of the war, in the pilots’ own words, Ten Fighter Pilots is a truly original and unique account of a terrifying time.
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.
Heroes: The Greatest Generation and the Second World War
¥82.01
‘Heroes’ is the story of an extraordinary generation of young men, mostly British, who came of age in the Second World War. These young men – and women – found themselves facing life-threatening danger and the kind of responsibility few would be prepared to shoulder today. Whether fighting in the jungles of Burma or on the D-Day beaches, as submariners, pilots, spies or prisoners of war, young soldiers in WWII displayed astonishing courage and resilience, united by honour and bound by the fellowship of their comrades. Those who made it home are now a passing generation, and for many this is the last chance for them to tell their stories – men like football legend Tom Finney, who saw action in southern Italy; or James Bond set-designer Ken Adam, a German Jew who flew as a fighter pilot for the RAF; or identical twins Tom and Dee Bowles, who landed together on Easy Red beach on D-Day. Many of these young men never returned home and those who did faced insurmountable challenges assimiliating back into civilian life. ‘Heroes’ is a moving and uplifting tribute to an remarkable generation.