Category Archives: Travel Guides
Hillforts of England and Wales
The purpose the hillforts served is examined in this book. It also describes how the defences were constructed, the design of the entrances, and the buildings that were erected inside.`
Discovering Timber-Framed Buildings
Half-timbered houses, cottages and barnes are a familiar feature of the landscape, but only rarely do we have an opportunity to see below the surface and understand how they were planned and constructed. Timber-framed buildings catch the imagination of those who work with them because of their beauty, their strength and the quality of the
Resistance
In the summer of 1940, as the German Occupation tightened its grip on Paris, Agnes Humbert helped to establish one of the first resistance cells. Within a year the group was publishing a news bulletin, helping allied airmen escape and passing military information back to London. Then came the catastrophe of betrayal, followed by arrest
Discovering London Street Names
Piccadilly, Pall Mall, Old Bailey, Houndsditch and Crutched Friars are some of the unusual London street names that must puzzle those who use them daily as much as they puzzle the tourist. How did they arise, and what do they mean? This book explains these and over seven hundred and fifty other sin London. The
Telephone Boxes
For such a familiar part of the British scene, the telephone box is something of an unknown quantity. What is its story? Why is it the way it is? Who designed it? What came before it? This generously illustrated book answers these questions and more, providing a concise history of one of the most recognizable
Come on shore and we will kill you and eat you all
Come On Shore and We Will Kill And Eat You All is a sensitive and vibrant portrayal of the cultural collision between Westerners and Maoris, from Abel Tasman`s discovery of New Zealand in 1642 to the author`s unlikely romance with a Maori man. An intimate account of two centuries of friction and fascination, this intriguing
Old Letter Boxes
Pillar boxes were first introduced into Britain at the instigation of Anthony Trollope, the novelist, who was also a Post Office surveyor. Although many letter boxes are ordinary, some types, such as those that survive from the 1850s, are understandably rare. This book describes and illustrates some of those from the Channel Islands, where pillar
China Road
China Road” sees Rob Gifford travel deep into the heart of Modern China. Running 3,000 miles from the east-coast boomtown of Shanghai to the border of Kazakhstan in the north-west, Route 312 – China’s ‘Route 66’ – is a road that Rob Gifford has always wanted to travel.Gifford’s journey and his desire to get to
The Death of Vishnu
Vishnu, the odd-job man in a Bombay apartment block, lies dying on the staircase landing. Around him the lives of the apartment dwellers unfold – the warring housewives on the first floor, the lovesick teenagers on the second, and the widower, alone and quietly grieving at the top of the building. In a fevered state
Beethoven Was One-sixteenth Black
This rich story collection will be a reminder to Nadine Gordimer`s countless admirers, and a taster for the uninitiated, of her enduring imaginative power. A woman gauges the state of her marriage by the tone of her husband`s cello; a wife reads her husband`s mood by the scent in the nape of his neck; a
Veg Patch (River Cottage Handbook No.4)
Drawing directly from his experience as an acclaimed climate-change gardener, and of setting up a kitchen garden from scratch for River Cottage, Mark explains the practical aspects of organic growing, introduces us to a whole world of vegetables we may not have previously considered, and does away with alienating gardening jargon once and for all.
Marrying Anita – A Quest for Love in the New India
Anita Jain, a New York-based Indian-American journalist, is single. For years she has trusted the Western way of finding a husband, but maybe there`s something in arranged marriages after all. So she`s traveling to India in search of a perfect husband, the old-fashioned way. Will she find a suitable man? If so, will he please
The Other
Seattle, 1972: Neil Countryman and John William Barry, two teenage boys from very different backgrounds, are at the start of an 800m race. Their lives collide for the first time, and so begins an extraordinary friendship. As they grow older Neil follows the conventional route of the American dream, but the eccentric, fiercely intelligent John
Pavel and I
Berlin, 1946. During one of the coldest winters on record, Pavel Richter, a decommissioned GI, finds himself at odds with a rogue British Army colonel and a Soviet General when a friend deposits the frozen body of a dead Russian spy in his apartment. So begins the race to take possession of the spy`s secret,
The Indian Clerk
January, 1913, Cambridge. G.H. Hardy – eccentric, charismatic and considered the greatest British mathematician of his age – receives a mysterious envelope covered with Indian stamps. Inside he finds a rambling letter from a self-professed mathematical genius who claims to be on the brink of solving the most important mathematical problem of his time. Hardy
The Truth Commissioner
Henry Stanfield, the newly arrived Truth Commissioner, is troubled by his estrangement from his daughter, and struggling with the consequences of his infidelities. Francis Gilroy, veteran Republican and recently appointed government minister, risks losing what feels tantalisingly close to his grasp. In America, Danny and his partner plan for the arrival of their first child,
Eating India
In Eating India, the award-winning writer Chitrita Banerji takes us on a thrilling journey through a national food formed by generations of arrivals, assimilations and conquests. In mouth-watering prose, she explores how each wave of newcomers brought innovative new ways to combine the subcontinent`s rich native spices, poppy seeds, saffron and mustard with the vegetables,
The Aviary Gate
Elizabeth Stavely sits in the Bodleian Library, her hands trembling as she holds a fragment of parchment, the key to a story untold for four hundred years Constantinople 1599: the English merchant Paul Pindar must deliver an extraordinary gift to the Sultan. Grieving for his lost love, drowned in a shipwreck, he hears rumours of
Imperial Life in the Emerald City – Inside Baghdad`s Green Zone
From inside a surreal bubble of pure Americana known as the Green Zone, the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority attempted to rule Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein`s regime. Drawing on interviews and internal documents, Rajiv Chandrasekaran tells the memorable story of this ill-prepared attempt to build American democracy in a war-torn Middle Eastern country,
Suspicions of Mr Whicher
It is a summer`s night in 1860. In an elegant detached Georgian house in the village of Road, Wiltshire, all is quiet. Behind shuttered windows the Kent family lies sound asleep. At some point after midnight a dog barks. The family wakes the next morning to a horrific discovery: an unimaginably gruesome murder has taken
