Category Archives: Travel Guides
Like a Fading Shadow
On April 4th 1968, Martin Luther King was murdered by a man named James Earl Ray. Before Ray`s capture and sentencing to 99 years` imprisonment, he evaded the FBI for two months as he crossed the globe under various aliases. At the heart of his story is Lisbon, where he spent ten days attempting to
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
“Everyone needs to read this book as an act of digital self-defense.” Naomi Klein, Author of `No Logo`, `The Shock Doctrine`, `This Changes Everything` and `No is Not Enough`The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called “surveillance capitalism,” and the quest by powerful
The Moor`s Last Stand: How Seven Centuries of Muslim Rule in Spain Came to an End
In 1482, Abu Abdallah Muhammad XI became the twenty-third Muslim King of Granada. He would be the last. This is the first history of the ruler, known as Boabdil, whose disastrous reign and bitter defeat brought seven centuries of Moorish Spain to an end. It is an action-packed story of intrigue, treachery, cruelty, cunning, courtliness,
In the Night of Time
October 1936. Spanish architect Ignacio Abel arrives at Penn Station, the final stop on his journey from war-torn Madrid, where he has left behind his wife and children, abandoning them to uncertainty. Crossing the fragile borders of Europe, he reflects on months of fratricidal conflict in his embattled country, his own transformation from a bricklayer`s
Being a Beast
Charles Foster wanted to know what it was like to be a beast: a badger, an otter, a deer, a fox, a swift. What it was really like. And through knowing what it was like he wanted to get down and grapple with the beast in us all. So he tried it out; he lived
The Essex Serpent
London 1893. When Cora Seaborne`s controlling husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness. Along with her son Francis – a curious, obsessive boy – she leaves town for Essex, in the hope that fresh air and open space will provide refuge.On arrival, rumours reach them
The Signalman: A Ghost Story
On the 9th of June 1865, Charles Dickens was travelling aboard the Folkestone to London Boat Train with his mistress and her mother, when it derailed while crossing a viaduct near Staplehurst in Kent. The train plunged down a bank into a dry river bed, killing ten passengers, and badly wounding forty. Dickens was profoundly
Making Sense: The Glamorous Story of English Grammar
The world`s greatest authority on language explains the secrets and subtleties of the grammar of English. David Crystal explores its history and varieties, explains its rules and irregularities and shows how to navigate its snares and pitfalls. He gives practical guidance on how grammar is used in different ways for different purposes and in different
The Travelling Bag: And Other Ghostly Stories
From the foggy streets of Victorian London to the eerie perfection of 1950s suburbia, the everyday is invaded by the otherworldly in this unforgettable collection of new ghost stories from the bestselling author of The Woman in Black. In the title story, on a murky evening in a club off St James, a paranormal detective
The Forager`s Calendar: A Seasonal Guide to Nature`s Wild Harvests
Shortlisted for the Andre Simon Food and Drink Book Awards for 2019″He writes so engagingly that it`s hard to imagine that actual foraging can be more attractive than reading his accounts of it. …[This book] is a treasure. It is beautifully produced, designed and illustrated.” The Sunday TimesLook out of your window, walk down a
The Lady in the Van
For fifteen years, the recalcitrant Miss Shepherd lived in her broken-down van on Alan Bennett`s driveway in Camden. Deeply eccentric and stubborn to her bones, Miss Shepherd was not an easy tenant. Bennett, despite inviting her in the first place, was a reluctant landlord, never under the illusion that his impulse was purely charitable. This
War & War
Winner of the 2015 Man Booker International Prize War & War begins at a point of danger: on a dark train platform Korim is on the verge of being attacked and robbed by thuggish teenagers. From here, we are carried along by the insistent voice of this nervous clerk. Desperate, at times almost mad, but
How the Zebra Got its Stripes: Tales from the Weird and Wonderful World of Evolution
Why do giraffes have such long necks? Why are zebras striped? Why are buffalo herds broadly democratic while elephants prefer dictatorships? What explains the architectural brilliance of the termite mound or the complications of the hyena`s sex life? And why have honey-badgers evolved to be one of nature`s most efficient agents of mass destruction?Deploying the
Rainforest: Dispatches from Earth`s Most Vital Frontlines
Rainforests are the lungs of our planet – regulators of the earth`s temperature and weather. They are also home to 50 per cent of the world`s animals and plants – which for centuries have been the source of many of our key medicines. And yet we`ve all heard of their systematic destruction; the raising of
Babel: Around the World in 20 Languages
If you were to master the twenty languages discussed in `Babel`, you could talk with three quarters of the world`s population. But what makes these languages stand out amid the world`s estimated 6,500 tongues?Gaston Dorren delves deep into the linguistic oddities and extraordinary stories of these diverse lingua francas, tracing their origins and their sometimes
What Nature Does for Britain
From the peat bogs and woodlands that help to secure our water supply, to the bees and soils that produce most of the food we eat, Britain is rich in `natural capital`. Yet we take supplies of clean water and secure food for granted, rarely considering the free work nature does for Britain. In fact
On the Edge: Ireland`s Off-shore Islands: A Modern History
The islands off the coast of Ireland have long been a source of fascination. Seen as repositories of an ancient Irish culture and the epitome of Irish romanticism, they have attracted generations of scholars, artists and filmmakers, from James Joyce to Robert O`Flaherty, looking for a way of life uncontaminated by modernity or materialism.But the
Boots on the Ground: Britain and Her Army Since 1945
On Luneberg Heath in 1945, the German High Command surrendered to Field Marshall Montgomery; in 2015, seventy years after this historic triumph, the last units of the British Army finally left their garrisons next to Luneberg Heath. Boots on the Ground is the story of those years, following the British Army against the backdrop of
The Time Travel Handbook: From Pompeii to Woodstock
Not many of us can claim to have dipped our handkerchiefs in Charles I`s blood after his execution, or to have watched Vesuvius erupt, but that`s about to change. Wyllie, Acton & Goldblatt`s Time Travel Handbook offers eighteen exceptional trips to the past, transporting you back to the greatest spectacles in history. We offer the
Gone to Ground: One Woman`s Extraordinary Account of Survival in the Heart of Nazi Germany
Berlin 1941. Marie Jalowicz Simon, a nineteen-year-old Jewish woman, makes an extraordinary decision. All around her, Jews are being rounded up for deportation, forced labour and extermination. Marie takes off the yellow star and vanishes into the city. In the years that follow, Marie lives under an assumed identity, moving between almost twenty different safe
