Category Archives: Travel Guides
Bollocks To Alton Towers
The British Lawnmower Museum, Keith Harding`s World of Mechanical Music and Mad Jack`s Sugar Loaf. In a world of theme parks, interactive exhibits, over-priced merchandise and queues, don`t worry, these are names to stir the soul. They are reassuring evidence that there`s still somewhere to turn in search of the small, fascinating, unique and, dammit,
Gig: The Life and Times of a Rock-star Fantasist
A poet is a rock star without the sex`n`drugs, or the rock`n`roll. But that never stopped Simon Armitage dreaming, and in “Gig”, he explores how music and the muse intertwine in work and in life. Crammed with stories, anecdotes, jokes, absurdities, the odd informal homily, pitfalls and pratfalls (not all the author`s own), Yorkshire life
Homo Britannicus – The Story of Life in Britain
Chris Stringer`s “Homo Britannicus” is the epic history of life in Britain, from man`s very first footsteps through to the present day. When did the first people arrive here? What did they look like? How did they survive? Who were the Neanderthals? Chris Stringer takes us back to when it was so tropical we lived
The Frock-coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels is one of the most attractive and contradictory figures of the nineteenth century. Born to a prosperous mercantile family in west Germany, he spent his career working in the Manchester cotton industry, riding to the Cheshire hounds, and enjoying the comfortable, middle-class life of a Victorian gentleman. Yet Engels was also the co-founder
On Brick Lane
On Brick Lane explores the contrast of extremes that make up the historical street in East London – a street that is constantly reinventing itself. Blending history and reportage with personal testimony and urban myths, and interspersing these with maps and photography, Rachel Lichtenstein’s work is a unique chronicle of one of London`s most remarkable
The Classical World: An Epic History Of Greece And Rome
Robin Lane Fox`s “The Classical World: An Epic History of Greece and Rome” is a comprehensive and enthralling introduction to Ancient civilization. The classical civilizations of Greece and Rome dominated the world for centuries and continue to intrigue and enlighten us with their inventions, whether philosophy, politics, theatre, athletics, celebrity, science or the pleasures of
Diamond Street: The Hidden World of Hatton Garden
Hatton Garden is one of the most secret streets in England, home for two centuries to a deeply private working community of diamond and jewellery dealers. Intimately connected to the area both personally (her family run a jewellery business there) and professionally (as an artist archivist of London`s streets), Rachel Lichtenstein is uniquely placed to
Not Quite the Diplomat
Part memoir, part remedy for the state we`re in, with liberal sprinklings of common sense, Chris Patten`s “Not Quite the Diplomat” is a frank and funny book from a very outspoken politician. After spending several years in the thick of international events, Chris Patten has seen rather a lot of the world – and the
Estuary: Out from London to the Sea
Out at the eastern edge of England, between land and ocean, you will find beautiful, haunted salt marshes, coastal shallows and wide-open skies: the Thames Estuary. The estuary is an ancient gateway to England, a passage for numberless travellers in and out of London. And for generations, the people of Kent and Essex have lived
The Universe – A Biography
“The Universe: A Biography” makes cosmology accessible to everyone. John Gribbin navigates the latest frontiers of scientific discovery to tell us what we really know about the history of the universe. Like Hawking’s ‘A Brief History of Time” and other popular science publications, Gribbin’s book will explain what many feel daunted to understand, in a
Magic Bus
In the 1960s hundreds of thousands of young Westerners, inspired by Kerouac and the Beatles, blazed the `hippie trail` overland from Istanbul to Kathmandu in search of enlightenment and a bit of cheap dope.Since the Summer of Love, the countries that offered so much to these dreamers have confronted the full force of modernity and
Unexploded
Unexploded is Alison MacLeod`s heartrending novel of love and prejudice in wartime Brighton. It is longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013. May, 1940. Wartime Brighton. On Park Crescent, Geoffrey and Evelyn Beaumont and their eight-year-old son, Philip, anxiously await news of the expected enemy landing on the beaches. It is a year of change.
The New Spaniards
A fully revised, expanded and updated edition of John Hooper`s fantastic look at contemporary Spain. The restoration of democracy in 1977 heralded a period of intense change that continues today. Since then Spain has become a land of extraordinary paradoxes in which traditional attitudes and contemporary preoccupations exist side by side. Focussing on issues which
The Disinherited – The Exiles Who Created Spanish Culture
Spain has had a long history of exiles. Since the destruction of the last Muslim territories in Granada in 1492, wave after wave of its people have been driven from the country. “The Disinherited” paints a vivid picture of Spain`s diverse exiles, from Muslims, Jews and Protestants to Liberals, Socialists and Communists, artists, writers and
Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire
Niall Ferguson`s “Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire” charts America`s rise as a world power, and issues a dire warning about its future. Is America the new world empire? Presidents from Abraham Lincoln to George W. Bush may have denied it but, as Niall Ferguson`s brilliant and provocative book shows, the United
East End Chronicles
In East End Chronicles, Ed Glinert explores the dark, unusual and arcane stories of East London in his renowned and absorbing style. Medieval burial ground, Victorian hell hole, Blitz bombing target, modern artists’ playground – the East End has always been London’s strange alter ego with an identity unlike anywhere else. Here Glinert tells the
Citizens
One of the great landmarks of modern history publishing, Simon Schama`s “Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution” is the most authoritative social, cultural and narrative history of the French Revolution ever produced. “Monumental …provocative and stylish, Simon Schama`s account of the first few years of the great Revolution in France, and of the decades
Lights Out For The Territory
In ‘Lights Out for the Territory” Iain Sinclair paints for the reader a daring, provocative, enlightening, disturbing and utterly unique picture of modern urban life; in the process he reveals the dark underbelly of a London many of us did not know existed.Walking the streets of London Iain Sinclair traces nine routes across the territory
The Hammer and the Cross
The Hammer and the Cross, Robert Ferguson’s new history of the Vikings, sheds light on some of the most characteristic aspects of the Vikings’ culture, including their heathen religion, their shipbuilding and architectural skills, and the literary and poetic culture that celebrated the deeds of such thought provoking named leaders as Harald Bluetooth and Ivar
House of Orphans
Helen Dunmore`s House of Orphans opens in Finland in 1901, when Finland was still part of the Russian Empire. Eeva, the young orphaned daughter of a revolutionary, is sent from Helsinki to a country orphanage. Once she is old enough, she goes to work as housekeeper for Thomas Eklund, a widowed doctor. Eeva’s challenging, independent,
