Search results for ""NOTORIOUS""
Workman Publishing Down Along with That Devil's Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy
“We can no longer see ourselves as minor spectators or weary watchers of history after finishing this astonishing work of nonfiction.” —Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy Connor Towne O’Neill’s journey onto the battlefield of white supremacy began with a visit to Selma, Alabama, in 2015. There he had a chance encounter with a group of people preparing to erect a statue to celebrate the memory of Nathan Bedford Forrest, one of the most notorious Confederate generals, a man whom Union general William Tecumseh Sherman referred to as “that devil.” After that day in Selma, O’Neill, a white Northerner transplanted to the South, decided to dig deeply into the history of Forrest and other monuments to him throughout the South, which, like Confederate monuments across America, have become flashpoints in the fight against racism. Forrest was not just a brutal general, O’Neill learned; he was a slave trader and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. O’Neill encountered citizens who still hold Forrest in cult-like awe, desperate to preserve what they call their “heritage,” and he also talked to others fighting to tear the monuments down. In doing so he discovered a direct line from Forrest’s ugly history straight to the heart of the battles raging today all across America. The fight over Forrest reveals a larger battle, one meant to sustain white supremacy—a system that props up all white people, not just those defending the monuments. With clear-eyed passion and honest introspection, O’Neill takes readers on a journey to understand the many ways in which the Civil War, begun in 1860, has never ended. A brilliant and provocative blend of history, reportage, and personal essay, Down Along with That Devil’s Bones presents an important and eye-opening account of how we got from Appomattox to Charlottesville, and of our vital need to confront our past in order to transcend it and move toward a more just society.
£13.36
Permuted Press Dirty Dealing: Grosso v. Miramax—Waging War with Harvey Weinstein, and the Screenplay that Changed Hollywood
A rollicking recounting of the landmark case a writer brought against Miramax, whom he accused of stealing his screenplay and turning it into the cult classic Rounders.When a young screenwriter goes online to check out the promotional website for a new poker movie called Rounders, he’s shocked to discover how similar it is to a screenplay he wrote a few years earlier and submitted to a number of studios. When he later sees the Miramax-produced film in theaters, he is astonished by the number of overlapping elements—the protagonist playing Texas Hold ’em to pay his way through college while deceiving the girlfriend who believes he’s quit, the loss of everything he has in a single hand of high-stakes Hold ’em, a character named “Worm,” and many other commonalities that form the foundation of what will become his lawsuit against Miramax. He leaves the theater that day feeling that not only has the studio stolen his script, but his life, which had encompassed years of professional poker playing that informed the screenplay he hoped would open the door to a writing career in Hollywood. Against all odds, he proceeds to take on Miramax and the Hollywood system with the help of an ingenious lawyer. Jeffrey Grosso simply has to prove how it could have happened and convince a judicial system that often favors studios over writers that he’s a victim of intellectual property theft, which results in a ten-year landmark legal battle against Hollywood’s most notorious studio. Part comic legal thriller, part nail-biting poker memoir, Dirty Dealing: Grosso v. Miramax—Waging War Against Harvey Weinstein, and the Screenplay that Changed Hollywood is the entertaining look at one man’s fight to get the credit he believes he deserves. Does he have a case or are the similarities just an illusion the mind plays on a creator? Perhaps there are only five stories in Hollywood, as his lawyer points out, and no idea is truly original. You be the judge.
£18.00
PublicAffairs,U.S. The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South
This is a tale of two tragedies.At the heart of the first is Dr. Steven Hayne, a doctor the State of Mississippi employed as its de facto medical examiner for two decades. Beginning in the late 1980s, he performed anywhere from 1,200 to 1,800 autopsies per year, five times more than is recommended, all at night, in the basement of a local morgue and flower shop. Autopsy reports claimed organs had been observed and weighed when, in reality, they had been surgically removed from the body years before. But Hayne was the only game in town. He also often brought in local dentist and self-styled "bite mark specialist" Dr. Michael West, who would discover marks on victim's bodies, at times invisible to the naked eye, and then match those marks to law enforcement's lead suspect.This leads to the second tragic tale: that of Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks, two black men each convicted in separate cases of the brutal rape and murder of young girls. Dr. Hayne's autopsy and Dr. West's bite mark matching formed the bases for the convictions. Combined the two men served over 30 years in Mississippi's notorious penitentiary - Parchman Farm - before being exonerated in 2008. Brooks' and Brewer's wrongful convictions lie at the intersection of both the most pressing problem facing this country's criminal justice system - structural injustice built on the historic foundation of race and class as well as with the much more contemporary but equally egregious problem of invalid forensic science. The old problem is inextricably bound up with and exacerbates the new. In Dr. Death and the Country Dentist, Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington write a true story of Southern gothic horror--of two innocent men wrongly convicted of vicious crimes and the legally condoned failures that allowed it to happen. Balko and Carrington will shine a light on the institutional and professional failures that allowed this tragic, astonishing story to happen, identify where it may have happened elsewhere, and show how to prevent it from happening again
£22.00
Fordham University Press Caged: A Teacher's Journey Through Rikers, or How I Beheaded the Minotaur
An honest and gripping memoir of one man’s life-altering experience teaching at Rikers Island. When Brandon Dean Lamson first accepted the teaching position at Horizon Academy, a court-mandated academic program for eighteen- to twenty-year-old prisoners at Rikers Island, even he had to question his own motivation. Why was he risking his life every day at a prison notorious for being one of the most dangerous places to work? Was it his small way of making amends for the blatant and pervasive racism he witnessed every day growing up in his small Southern town? Or was it to prove he wasn’t afraid to go where his own father, a prominent District Court judge, had sent both the innocent and guilty alike? In Caged, Lamson provides an intimate view of his transformative experience teaching inmate students on Rikers Island. Rikers Island resonates as a place of horrific violence and inescapable punishment, one of the last places in America that truly invoke overwhelming, universal fear. Set in the late 1990s—a time when the city was rapidly changing into an increasingly corporatized and policed space—Caged exposes a criminal justice system designed to thwart efforts to rehabilitate and educate the incarcerated. Lamson’s first-hand account illustrates how penitentiaries too often use prison education as another means of control. Written in a gripping, confessional narrative, Caged explores the consequential impact of Lamson’s move to New York City, his childhood experiences with racial justice, and his journey working in four prisons over the course of three years. Lamson provides glimpses into his own self-destructive behavior as parallels emerge between his life on Rikers and his personal life, his white privilege, and how his behavior progressively entraps him in ways that resonate with the challenges faced by his students. The book intimately captures how incarceration changes both prisoner and educator alike as Lamson struggles to integrate into life outside prison after his departure from Horizon Academy.
£23.99
Cornell University Press The Accommodated Jew: English Antisemitism from Bede to Milton
England during the Middle Ages was at the forefront of European antisemitism. It was in medieval Norwich that the notorious "blood libel" was first introduced when a resident accused the city’s Jewish leaders of abducting and ritually murdering a local boy. England also enforced legislation demanding that Jews wear a badge of infamy, and in 1290, it became the first European nation to expel forcibly all of its Jewish residents. In The Accommodated Jew, Kathy Lavezzo rethinks the complex and contradictory relation between England’s rejection of "the Jew" and the centrality of Jews to classic English literature. Drawing on literary, historical, and cartographic texts, she charts an entangled Jewish imaginative presence in English culture. In a sweeping view that extends from the Anglo-Saxon period to the late seventeenth century, Lavezzo tracks how English writers from Bede to Milton imagine Jews via buildings—tombs, latrines and especially houses—that support fantasies of exile. Epitomizing this trope is the blood libel and its implication that Jews cannot be accommodated in England because of the anti-Christian violence they allegedly perform in their homes. In the Croxton Play of the Sacrament, Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta and Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, the Jewish house not only serves as a lethal trap but also as the site of an emerging bourgeoisie incompatible with Christian pieties. Lavezzo reveals the central place of "the Jew" in the slow process by which a Christian "nation of shopkeepers" negotiated their relationship to the urban capitalist sensibility they came to embrace and embody. In the book’s epilogue, she advances her inquiry into Victorian England and the relationship between Charles Dickens (whose Fagin is the second most infamous Jew in English literature after Shylock) and the Jewish couple that purchased his London home, Tavistock House, showing how far relations between gentiles and Jews in England had (and had not) evolved.
£56.70
Cornell University Press Before the Eyes of the World: Mexico and the 1968 Olympic Games
Mexican leaders eagerly anticipated the attention that hosting the world's most visible sporting event would bring, yet they could not have predicted the array of conflicts that would play out before the eyes of the world during the notorious 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Following twenty years of economic growth and political stability—known as the "Mexican miracle"—Mexican policy makers escaped their prior image of being economically underdeveloped to successfully craft an image of a nation that was both modern and cosmopolitan but also steeped in culture and tradition. Buoyed by this new image, they set their sights on the Olympic bid, and they not only won but also prepared impressive facilities. Prior to the opening ceremonies, several controversies emerged, the most glaring of which was a student protest movement that culminated in a public massacre, leaving several hundred students dead. Less dramatic were concerns that athletes would suffer harm in the high elevation and thin air, debates over the nature of amateurism, threats by nations opposing apartheid to boycott if South Africa was allowed to compete, and the introduction of drug and gender testing. Additionally the Olympics provided a forum for the United States and the Soviet Union to carry their Cold War rivalry to the playing field—a way to achieve victory without world destruction at stake. During the Games, one of the most significant controversies occurred when two African American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, raised their fists in the Black Power salute while on the medal stand. This gesture brought worldwide attention to racism within the United States and remains a lasting image of both the Mexico City Olympics and the Civil Rights movement. Although the Olympics are intended to bring athletes of the world together for harmonious competition, the 1968 Games will long be remembered as fraught with discord. This ambitious and comprehensive study will appeal to those interested in US history, Latin American history, sports history, and Olympic history.
£26.99
Johns Hopkins University Press Vision's Immanence: Faulkner, Film, and the Popular Imagination
William Faulkner occupied a unique position as a modern writer. Although famous for his modernist novels and their notorious difficulty, he also wrote extensively for the "culture industry," and the works he produced for it-including short stories, adaptations, and screenplays-bore many of the hallmarks of consumer art. His experiences as a Hollywood screenwriter influenced him in a number of ways, many of them negative, while the films turned out by the "dream factories" in which he labored sporadically inspired both his interest and his contempt. Faulkner also disparaged the popular magazines-though he frequently sold short stories to them. To what extent was Faulkner's deeply ambivalent relationship to-and involvement with-American popular culture reflected in his modernist or "art" fiction? Peter Lurie finds convincing evidence that Faulkner was keenly aware of commercial culture and adapted its formulae, strategies, and in particular, its visual techniques into the language of his novels of the 1930s. Lurie contends that Faulkner's modernism can be best understood in light of his reaction to the popular culture of his day. Using Theodor Adorno's theory about modern cultural production as a framework, Lurie's close readings of Sanctuary, Light in August, Absalom! Absalom!, and If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem uncover the cultural history that surrounded and influenced the development of Faulkner's art. Lurie is particularly interested in the influence of cinema on Faulkner's fiction and especially the visual strategies he both deployed and critiqued. These include the suggestion of cinematic viewing on the part of readers and of characters in each of the novels; the collective and individual acts of voyeurism in Sanctuary and Light in August; the exposing in Absalom! Absalom! and Light in Augustof stereotypical and cinematic patterns of thought about history and race; and the evocation of popular forms like melodrama and the movie screen in If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem. Offering innovative readings of these canonical works, this study sheds new light on Faulkner's uniquely American modernism.
£43.00
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Anon Pls.: A Novel
Called One of the Best Books of the Year by NPR"Dazzling, propulsive, and delightfully juicy, Anon Pls. is the digital age’s love letter to The Devil Wears Prada. Sexy, suspenseful, and so good you won’t want to put it down—not even to check on the latest stories in Deuxmoi’s feed. What an incredible debut." — Christina Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of The UnhoneymoonersFrom the creator of @Deuxmoi, the popular—and infamous—celebrity gossip Instagram, comes a fun and charming debut novel about a stylist assistant whose drunken decision to turn her Instagram into a celeb gossip account turns her life completely upside down. When Cricket Lopez, assistant to one of the most notorious celebrity stylists, revamps her old fashion Instagram account and turns it into a source for celebrity gossip on a drunken whim, she never thinks it will become anything. It's just a way to blow off steam after a terrible, terrible day at work where her nightmarish boss screams at her and blames her for some 18-year-old influencer's screw-up. But when the account grows overnight and, even wilder, when she starts getting gossip from fans and insiders —juicy gossip—she has to face facts: her Instagram is now famous. She is now famous.Though no one knows that she is behind the account, its newfound success quickly wreaks havoc on her real life. Her boss wonders why she’s disappearing on the job, her friends are increasingly irritated by her dedication to the account, and she has celebrities, investors, and journalists approaching her nonstop. Plus, there's a steamy new love interest who she meets through her online persona—except she has no idea if she can truly trust his motives. As the account grows and becomes more and more influential, she has to wonder: is it—the fame, the insider access, the escape from real life—really worth losing everything she has?
£9.99
HarperCollins Publishers Curse of the Celts (The Once and Future Queen, Book 2)
An absolute must-read for fans of Shadow and Bone… You are accused of crimes against the Code. How do you plead? After failing to escape the Roman metropolis of Londinium with Devyn, her lover, and Marcus, her betrothed, Cassandra wakes in inky darkness to find the ground giving way to sand beneath her feet. All three of them have been carted back to the notorious arena at the heart of the city to stand trial by public vote. Cass knows they must escape at any cost: to warn the Celts of the mysterious blood curse ravaging their kin, to foil the schemes of the imperial council… To find the fabled Lady of the Lake, the one who could save them all. But even as the jaws of death close in around her, another threat looms in the shadows, a danger she never could have foreseen, a betrayal that could burn down her entire world. Fans of The Hunger Games will revel in this sweeping dystopian adventure set in an alternate fantasy universe where the Roman Empire never fell. Praise for The Once and Future Queen Series: ‘OH MY HEART AND SOUL … I am still reeling … seriously I would put this series up with the big ones, like Throne of Glass and The Cruel Prince’ Richelle, 5* NetGalley review ‘OMG. I will forever be in love with this series … this author has me as a fan for life’ Penelope, 5* NetGalley review ‘Beautifully written and one of the best dystopian novels I’ve read … an epic journey you won’t forget. I would love to see this made into a film’ Zoe, 5* NetGalley review ‘I couldn’t put it down. There were times when I gasped, when I cried and when I felt my jaw drop. The world Clara O’Connor has woven together is so intricate and real and the storytelling is flawless. Absolutely my favourite series I have read this year’ Jessica, 5* NetGalley review
£8.99
HarperCollins Publishers GCHQ
As we become ever-more aware of how our governments “eavesdrop” on our conversations, here is a gripping exploration of this unknown realm of the British secret service: Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ). GCHQ is the successor to the famous Bletchley Park wartime code-breaking organisation and is the largest and most secretive intelligence organisation in the country. During the war, it commanded more staff than MI5 and MI6 combined and has produced a number of intelligence triumphs, as well as some notable failures. Since the end of the Cold War, it has played a pivotal role in shaping Britain's secret state. Still, we know almost nothing about it. In this ground-breaking new book, Richard Aldrich traces GCHQ's evolvement from a wartime code-breaking operation based in the Bedfordshire countryside, staffed by eccentric crossword puzzlers, to one of the world leading espionage organisations. It is packed full of dramatic spy stories that shed fresh light on Britain's role in the Cold War – from the secret tunnels dug beneath Vienna and Berlin to tap Soviet phone lines, and daring submarine missions to gather intelligence from the Soviet fleet, to the notorious case of Geoffrey Pine, one of the most damaging moles ever recruited by the Soviets inside British intelligence. The book reveals for the first time how GCHQ operators based in Cheltenham affected the outcome of military confrontations in far-flung locations such as Indonesia and Malaya, and exposes the shocking case of three GCHQ workers who were killed in an infamous shootout with terrorists while working undercover in Turkey. Today's GCHQ struggles with some of the most difficult issues of our time. A leading force of the state's security efforts against militant terrorist organisations like Al-Qaeda, they are also involved in fundamental issues that will mould the future of British society. Compelling and revelatory, Aldrich's book is the crucial missing link in Britain’s intelligence history.
£13.49
Headline Publishing Group Children in Chains: A totally gripping and heart-racing crime thriller (DI Sterling Thriller Series, Book 2)
HE'S EVERY PARENT'S WORST NIGHTMARE . . .In the early hours of the morning, Detective Inspector Paolo Sterling receives a tip-off about a group of children being trafficked on to the streets of Bradchester as sex workers. Hoping he is one step closer to bringing down a notorious syndicate of twisted criminals, it soon becomes clear that Paolo and his team have been misled and that the gang have once again evaded arrest. Then a young girl is found dead in a shop doorway and, with all signs pointing towards the investigation, it quickly gathers momentum. As DI Sterling delves deeper into the darkest corners of society, he begins to unravel the most unimaginable crimes but with the shadowy leader always one step ahead, Paolo must work harder than ever before to bring the culprits to justice - before another child's life is taken.Lorraine Mace brings us the second unflinching and totally gripping instalment in her dark and gritty series featuring DI Paolo Sterling. Perfect for fans of Angela Marsons, M. J. Arlidge and Karin Slaughter.'Lorraine Mace has done it again. Crime fiction at its absolute finest' MARION TODD 'What an opening! Lorraine certainly knows how to write a gripping thriller. A chilling read' KAREN KINGLOVE FOR LORRAINE MACE'S WRITING:'I. Am. Not. Okay. That ending - mind blown!!!! Rage and Retribution deserves ALL the stars! It is AMAZING!' 5* Reader Review'Wow, just wow is all I can say. The whole series is just too good to miss.' 5* Reader Review'I am an absolutely massive fan of this series . . . the books are just getting better and better' 5* Reader Review'I am blown away by this story and LOVE everything about it. I cannot wait for the next instalment.' 5* Reader Review'OMG! That opening scene' 5* Reader Review'I could not put my kindle down while reading this!' 5* Reader Review
£9.67
Medina Publishing Ltd Charles Huber: France's Greatest Arabian Explorer
The French-Alsatian geographer Charles Huber (1847–84) achieved fame as one of the 19th century’s great Arabian explorers. On his two heroic journeys between 1880 and 1884, he pioneered the scientific mapping of inland Arabia and made some of the earliest records of ancient North Arabian inscriptions and rock art. His tragic murder in 1884 meant that he published little, and the only connected narrative that he managed to write was of his first journey in 1880–81. This highly significant document of Arabian exploration has not been published since 1885, and is presented here for the first time in English translation. Despite Huber’s great posthumous reputation, almost nothing has been written about him. William Facey’s biographical. introduction fills this void, revealing much that was hitherto unknown about Huber’s complex and risk-taking personality, and about his colourful life as a fervent French patriot coming of age in Strasbourg during a time of Franco-German conflict. New light is shed on the dates and itinerary of Huber’s first Arabian journey, an epic quest of some 5,000 kilometres on camelback requiring immense fortitude. For this he used Ha’il as a base before travelling with the pilgrim caravan to Iraq and thence to Syria. The focus then shifts to his return to Arabia in 1883 with Julius Euting, the eminent German Semitist, and the twists and turns of their unsuccessful collaboration. Having parted company with Euting at the great Nabataean site of Mada’in Salih in the northern Hijaz, Huber went back into central Arabia before making a dangerous journey to Jiddah. He was murdered shortly after, on 29 July 1884, by his guides on the Red Sea coast. Finally, the affair of the Tayma Stele, the celebrated Aramaic inscription now in the Musée du Louvre, comes under the spotlight. In a new analysis of this notorious Franco-German imbroglio, the prevailing idea that Huber first saw it in 1880 is held up to scrutiny, and Euting at last given his due for its discovery in 1884.
£30.00
Island Press A Good Drink: In Pursuit of Sustainable Spirits
Shanna Farrell loves a good drink. As a bartender, she not only poured spirits, but learned their stories—who made them and how. Living in San Francisco, surrounded by farm-to-table restaurants and high-end bars, she wondered why the eco-consciousness devoted to food didn’t extend to drinks. The short answer is that we don’t think of spirits as food. But whether it's rum, brandy, whiskey, or tequila, drinks are distilled from the same crops that end up on our tables. Most are grown with chemicals that cause pesticide resistance and pollute waterways, and distilling itself requires huge volumes of water. Even bars are notorious for generating mountains of trash. The good news is that while the good drink movement is far behind the good food movement, it is emerging. In A Good Drink, Farrell goes in search of the bars, distillers, and farmers who are driving a transformation to sustainable spirits. She meets mezcaleros in Guadalajara who are working to preserve traditional ways of producing mezcal, for the health of the local land, the wallets of the local farmers, and the culture of the community. She visits distillers in South Carolina who are bringing a rare variety of corn back from near extinction to make one of the most sought-after bourbons in the world. She meets a London bar owner who has eliminated individual bottles and ice, acculturating drinkers to a new definition of luxury. These individuals are part of a growing trend to recognize spirits for what they are—part of our food system. For readers who have ever wondered who grew the pears that went into their brandy or why their cocktail is an unnatural shade of red, A Good Drink will be an eye-opening tour of the spirits industry. For anyone who cares about the future of the planet, it offers a hopeful vision of change, one pour at a time.
£22.99
Headline Publishing Group Traitor in the Ice: Treachery has gripped the nation. But the King has spies everywhere.
'Full of tension and danger... powerfully atmospheric' JENNIFER SAINT'A beautifully crafted thriller... Breathtaking and bone-chilling' MANDA SCOTT'Maitland is a superlative historical novelist' REBECCA MASCULL---Whispers haunt the walls and treachery darkens the shadows in this captivating historical novel for readers of C.J. Sansom, Andrew Taylor's Ashes of London and Kate Mosse.Winter, 1607. A man is struck down in the grounds of Battle Abbey, Sussex. Before dawn breaks, he is dead.Home to the Montagues, Battle has caught the paranoid eye of King James. The Catholic household is rumoured to shelter those loyal to the Pope, disguising them as servants within the abbey walls. And the last man sent to expose them was silenced before his report could reach London.Daniel Pursglove is summoned to infiltrate Battle and find proof of treachery. He soon discovers that nearly everyone at the abbey has something to hide - for deeds far more dangerous than religious dissent. But one lone figure he senses only in the shadows, carefully concealed from the world. Could the notorious traitor Spero Pettingar finally be close at hand?As more bodies are unearthed, Daniel determines to catch the culprit. But how do you unmask a killer when nobody is who they seem?DANIEL PURSGLOVE BOOK TWO---Praise for THE DROWNED CITY'Dark and enthralling' ANDREW TAYLOR'This gripping thriller shows what a wonderful storyteller Maitland is' THE TIMES'Colourful and compelling' SUNDAY TIMES'Goes right to the heart of the Jacobean court' TRACY BORMAN'Devilishly good' DAILY MAIL'Spies, thieves, murderers and King James I? Brilliant' CONN IGGULDEN'There are few authors who can bring the past to life so compellingly... Brilliant writing and more importantly, riveting reading' SIMON SCARROW'The intrigues of Jacobean court politics simmer beneath the surface in this gripping and masterful crime novel' KATHERINE CLEMENTS'Beautifully written with a dark heart, Maitland knows how to pull you deep into the early Jacobean period' RHIANNON WARD
£17.76
Little, Brown Book Group The Viper: The dark and sexy spin-off series from the beloved Black Dagger Brotherhood
'Utterly absorbing and deliciously erotic' Angela Knight'Hot, sexy, unique, intriguingly wicked' Christine FeehanIn the next Prison Camp instalment, No. 1 New York Times bestselling author J. R. Ward pens a heart-wrenching tale of love and betrayal in the Black Dagger Brotherhood world . . . Framed for the grisly murder of his shellan , Kane is condemned to the notorious prison camp - unaware of the dark truth behind his arranged mating. Centuries later, when he is horribly burned while attempting to save others, he prays he'll finally be reunited in the Fade with his mate . . . not knowing what revelations await him.Nadya is a self-taught nurse who does what she can to ease the suffering of the prisoners. When Kane comes under her care, she cannot help but empathise with his condition for very personal reasons - and as the guards take him away one last time, she fears he is facing a terrible death.After a daring rescue, Kane is offered a treatment that will change his very nature. Choosing life, for the time being, he goes back for the female who took such good care of him - but his duty to Nadya sets him on a collision course with his own past. When long-buried secrets are exposed, his self-destruction is inevitable . . . unless true love can save his soul.Find out why readers are OBSESSED with the Black Dagger Brotherhood . . . Insanely good! . . . Intensely romantic and straight up flipping steamy, violent and gruesome, heartbreaking and deep. Her addictive writing tells a story like none other' Goodreads reviewer'I can't get enough of these sexy, tough, intriguing vampires' Amazon reviewer'Emotional by epic proportions' Kobo reviewer'The Black Dagger Brotherhood is a twisting, often surprising, but always awesome read' Amazon reviewer'A must read' Goodreads reviewer'The story had me captivated the whole way' Kobo reviewer'Each and every character is compelling' Amazon reviewer
£18.00
Simon & Schuster American Rascal: How Jay Gould Built Wall Street's Biggest Fortune
A gripping, “rollicking” (John Carreyrou, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Blood) biography of Jay Gould, the greatest of the 19th-century robber barons, whose brilliance, greed, and bare-knuckled tactics made him richer than Rockefeller and led Wall Street to institute its first financial reforms. Had Jay Gould put his name on a university or concert hall, he would undoubtedly have been a household name today. The son of a poor farmer whose early life was marked by tragedy, Gould saw money as the means to give his family a better life…even if, to do so, he had to pull a fast one on everyone else. After entering Wall Street at the age of twenty-four, he quickly became notorious when he paralyzed the economy and nearly toppled President Ulysses S. Grant in the Black Friday market collapse of 1869 in an attempt to corner the market on gold—an event that remains among the darkest days in Wall Street history. Through clever financial maneuvers, he gained control over one of every six miles of the country’s rapidly expanding network for railroad tracks—coming close to creating the first truly transcontinental railroad and making himself one of the richest men in America.American Rascal shows Gould’s complex, quirky character. He was at once praised for his brilliance by Rockefeller and Vanderbilt and condemned for forever destroying American business values by Mark Twain. He lived a colorful life, trading jokes with Thomas Edison, figuring Thomas Nast’s best sketches, paying Boss Tweed’s bail, and commuting to work in a 200-foot yacht. Gould thrived in an expanding, industrial economy in which authorities tolerated inside trading and stock price manipulation because they believed regulation would stifle the progress. But by taking these practices to new levels, Gould showed how unbridled capitalism was, in fact, dangerous for the American economy. This “gripping biography” (Fortune) explores how Gould’s audacious exploitation of economic freedom triggered the first public demands for financial reforms—a call that still resonates today.
£11.69
Trailblazer Publications Japan by Rail: Includes Rail Route Guide and 30 City Guides
Japan is steeped in legend and myth, perhaps the greatest of which is the popular misconception that the country is simply too expensive to visit. The truth is that flights to Japan are cheaper than they've ever been, accommodation can be great value, while the warm hospitality which awaits every visitor costs nothing at all. The real secret to travelling around the country on a budget, however, is the Japan Rail Pass. Use this comprehensive guide in conjunction with a rail pass to get the most out of a trip to Japan. * Practical information - planning your trip; when to go; suggested itineraries; what to take; festivals and events. * City guides and maps - where to stay, where to eat, what to see in 30 towns and cities; historical and cultural background. * Kilometre-by-kilometre route guides - covering train journeys from the coast into the mountains, from temple retreat to sprawling metropolis and from sulphurous volcano to windswept desert; 33 route maps. * Japan Rail service schedules - Bullet trains and main routes in this guide. * Customs, etiquette, Japanese words and phrases - with kanji- With kanji/hiragana/katakana for all place name text - readers can point to the text when asking Japanese speakers for directions. * Extended Highlights - extra colour sections make this book even more user-friendly and attractive. What's new in this fully-updated 5th edition? * Greater coverage of Tokyo with additional mapping following post-Olympic interest in the capital and the country * More hot-spring resorts added (including Kinosaki, Kinugawa and Nyuto) * More information about areas off the beaten track including the wood-carving town of Inami, Yanagawa where you can ride in a 'gondola' along its canals, Tomioka Silk Mill (where silk production was first mechanised), Okunoshima island (notorious for its WWII poison gas factory) * New Style Trailblazer guide with twin-colour layout and restyled maps * Expanded colour section with 'Best' lists to help plan a trip * Kanji and katakana are now included for all place names * Fully updated post Covid outbreak.
£17.99
Headline Publishing Group Traitor in the Ice: Treachery has gripped the nation. But the King has spies everywhere.
'Full of tension and danger... powerfully atmospheric' JENNIFER SAINT'A beautifully crafted thriller... Breathtaking and bone-chilling' MANDA SCOTT'Maitland is a superlative historical novelist' REBECCA MASCULL---Whispers haunt the walls and treachery darkens the shadows in this captivating historical novel for readers of C.J. Sansom, Andrew Taylor's Ashes of London and Kate Mosse.Winter, 1607. A man is struck down in the grounds of Battle Abbey, Sussex. Before dawn breaks, he is dead.Home to the Montagues, Battle has caught the paranoid eye of King James. The Catholic household is rumoured to shelter those loyal to the Pope, disguising them as servants within the abbey walls. And the last man sent to expose them was silenced before his report could reach London.Daniel Pursglove is summoned to infiltrate Battle and find proof of treachery. He soon discovers that nearly everyone at the abbey has something to hide - for deeds far more dangerous than religious dissent. But one lone figure he senses only in the shadows, carefully concealed from the world. Could the notorious traitor Spero Pettingar finally be close at hand?As more bodies are unearthed, Daniel determines to catch the culprit. But how do you unmask a killer when nobody is who they seem?DANIEL PURSGLOVE BOOK TWO---Praise for THE DROWNED CITY'Dark and enthralling' ANDREW TAYLOR'This gripping thriller shows what a wonderful storyteller Maitland is' THE TIMES'Colourful and compelling' SUNDAY TIMES'Goes right to the heart of the Jacobean court' TRACY BORMAN'Devilishly good' DAILY MAIL'Spies, thieves, murderers and King James I? Brilliant' CONN IGGULDEN'There are few authors who can bring the past to life so compellingly... Brilliant writing and more importantly, riveting reading' SIMON SCARROW'The intrigues of Jacobean court politics simmer beneath the surface in this gripping and masterful crime novel' KATHERINE CLEMENTS'Beautifully written with a dark heart, Maitland knows how to pull you deep into the early Jacobean period' RHIANNON WARD
£9.99
Simon & Schuster Ltd Niki Lauda: The Biography
LONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZE 2020'The definitive biography of a racing driver who won three World Championship titles' Matt Dickinson, The Times, Sports Books of the Year'Thoroughly gripping...a fitting tribute' Justin Marozzi, Sunday Times Niki Lauda was one of the greatest stars in motor racing – a superb driver on the track and a much-loved personality off it. From his famous rivalry with James Hunt in 1976, as depicted in the film Rush, to working with Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes, his career helped define modern Formula One. Six weeks after the 1976 crash at the notorious Nürburgring that left him burned and receiving the last rites while obituaries were written, Niki Lauda stepped back into his Ferrari at Monza to defend his first World Champion title. Jackie Stewart called it ‘the most courageous thing I have ever witnessed in sport’. Lauda and Hunt were playing cat-and-mouse for the championship. At the final race of the season in Japan, the weather was appalling and conditions treacherous. Lauda had a narrow lead and an agonising decision to make – high-speed drama at its best. Following his extraordinary recovery from the accident, Lauda won the title in 1977 and again, following a return from retirement, in 1984 with McLaren. When he eventually hung up his helmet for good, he started his own airline and had to deal with the horrendous aftermath when one of his aircraft crashed, killing all 223 on board. He later returned to the sport in various management roles and successfully persuaded Lewis Hamilton to join Mercedes. Maurice Hamilton first came across Lauda in 1971 and in this definitive biography tells his remarkable story. Based on interviews with friends, family, rival drivers and colleagues, it is a superb tribute to a brave, supremely talented and much-missed star of Formula One.
£9.99
Taschen GmbH The History of EC Comics
In 1947, Bill Gaines inherited EC Comics, a new venture founded by his legendary father M. C. Gaines, who was responsible for midwifing the birth of the comic book as we know it during his tenure at All-American Comics, bringing the likes of Wonder Woman and Green Lantern to the world. Over the next eight years, Bill Gaines and a “who’s who” of the era including Al Feldstein, Harvey Kurtzman, and Wally Wood would reinvent the very notion of the comic book with titles like Tales from the Crypt, Crime SuspenStories, Weird Science, and MAD. EC delighted in publishing gory, morbid horror and crime comics that had snap, ironic endings—but they also pioneered the first true-to-life war comics, the first “real” science-fiction stories, and a series of tales about such then-taboo subjects as racism, bigotry, vigilantism, drug addiction, police corruption, and anti-Semitism. Too good to last, they were eventually caught up by various 1950s guardians of morality, who were convinced that EC’s often over-the-top content was causing juvenile delinquency. A year or so after a full inquiry investigating horror and crime comics, the incredible EC Comics were no more. TASCHEN presents the full, fascinating story of this fabled company, written and expertly curated by EC-authority Grant Geissman. Even the most die-hard EC Fan-Addicts will find something new within these pages, with the Gaines family archives providing more than 100 rarities that have never seen print. Many of the cover images are reproduced from Gaines File Copies, which are widely regarded as the best surviving copies of the EC Comics. Gathering more than 1,000 illustrations that include the rarest and most notorious covers, interior pages and panels, photos, vintage original artwork, and some of the most celebrated stories ever to be printed in four colors for a dime, this is the ultimate EC Comics compendium and a must-have for any comics enthusiast or pop culture historian.
£150.00
Pen & Sword Books Ltd The Canal Line 1940: The Dunkirk Campaign
The network of canals stretching from the coast at Gravelines, through St-Omer, B thune and La Bass e, follows the approximate boundary between Artois and Flanders and was, in 1940, the defensive line established on the western edge of the so-called Dunkerque Corridor designed by Lord Gort to provide an evacuation route to the channel coast. Even before events on the line of the Escaut line had concluded with yet another Allied withdrawal, Lord Gort was diverting units to bolster the Canal Line defenses This is probably the first occasion that the fighting along the Canal Line has been looked at in detail; overlooked by the inevitable withdrawal towards the channel coast, the units deployed along the canal faced some of the stiffest fighting in the whole 1940 France and Flanders campaign. Whole battalions, particularly those in the 2nd Division, were sacrificed as units were thrown into the battle in an attempt to slow down the German advance. The book looks in some detail at the ad hoc nature of the Usherforce and Polforce units, the units of the independent 25 Brigade and the vicious fighting that enveloped the 2nd Division. Time is given also to the notorious massacre of the Royal Norfolks at Louis Creton's farm near Le Paradis. Material concerning the deployment of units along the Canal Line in 1940 has been found in a variety of sources, including regimental histories and unit war diaries. The author has been fortunate in being able to access a number of personal diaries and accounts from men serving with the independent 25 Brigade and the 2nd Division, which has, in some cases, added to and enhanced the actions taken by those units while deployed on the canal. The book is illustrated by over a hundred contemporary and modern photographs and by five car tours and three walks, all of which give the tourist a greater access to the battlefield.
£14.99
Transworld Publishers Ltd Water: A haunting, confronting novel from the author of The Heart’s Invisible Furies
‘Subtle, intelligent and humane’ Sunday Telegraph'Boyne not only opens up conversations, he writes beautifully and sensitively' Woman&Home‘A perceptive, moving exploration of guilt, grief and complicity’ Sunday Express‘Boyne does not put a foot wrong in this masterly novella’ Mail on Sunday'An intriguing investigation of contemporary trauma... [a] short but powerful book' Guardian'His quietest novel... but one just as powerful as his larger canvases' Business Post___________From million-copy-bestselling author John Boyne comes a masterfully reflective story about one woman coming to terms with the demons of her past and finding a new path forward.The first thing Vanessa Carvin does when she arrives on the island is change her name. To the locals, she is Willow Hale, a solitary outsider escaping Dublin to live a hermetic existence in a small cottage, not a notorious woman on the run from her past.But scandals follow like hunting dogs. And she has some questions of her own to answer. If her ex-husband is really the monster everyone says he is, then how complicit was she in his crimes?Escaping her old life might seem like a good idea but the choices she has made throughout her marriage have consequences. Here, on the island, Vanessa must reflect on what she did - and did not do. Only then can she discover whether she is worthy of finding peace at all.Can you ever truly wash away your past?___________What readers are saying:'A scorching, devastating tale''Powerful, challenging and beautifully written’'Compelling, propulsive, and completely immersive’'Written with the same emotional intensity and thought provoking honesty as his longer works’'Packs a hard hitting punch with its depth of emotional understanding of what it is to be human’'What an astoundingly brilliant piece of writing this is . . . by its end you feel as though you have read something much more epic in length'
£12.99
Little, Brown Book Group The Viper: The dark and sexy spin-off series from the beloved Black Dagger Brotherhood
'Utterly absorbing and deliciously erotic' Angela Knight'Hot, sexy, unique, intriguingly wicked' Christine FeehanIn the next Prison Camp instalment, No. 1 New York Times bestselling author J. R. Ward pens a heart-wrenching tale of love and betrayal in the Black Dagger Brotherhood world . . . Framed for the grisly murder of his shellan , Kane is condemned to the notorious prison camp - unaware of the dark truth behind his arranged mating. Centuries later, when he is horribly burned while attempting to save others, he prays he'll finally be reunited in the Fade with his mate . . . not knowing what revelations await him.Nadya is a self-taught nurse who does what she can to ease the suffering of the prisoners. When Kane comes under her care, she cannot help but empathise with his condition for very personal reasons - and as the guards take him away one last time, she fears he is facing a terrible death.After a daring rescue, Kane is offered a treatment that will change his very nature. Choosing life, for the time being, he goes back for the female who took such good care of him - but his duty to Nadya sets him on a collision course with his own past. When long-buried secrets are exposed, his self-destruction is inevitable . . . unless true love can save his soul.Find out why readers are OBSESSED with the Black Dagger Brotherhood . . . Insanely good! . . . Intensely romantic and straight up flipping steamy, violent and gruesome, heartbreaking and deep. Her addictive writing tells a story like none other' Goodreads reviewer'I can't get enough of these sexy, tough, intriguing vampires' Amazon reviewer'Emotional by epic proportions' Kobo reviewer'The Black Dagger Brotherhood is a twisting, often surprising, but always awesome read' Amazon reviewer'A must read' Goodreads reviewer'The story had me captivated the whole way' Kobo reviewer'Each and every character is compelling' Amazon reviewer
£9.99
Dorling Kindersley Ltd American Revolution
Explore like never before a journey through one of the most famous revolutionary wars in history. Become an eyewitness to the American struggle for independence, from the events that sparked the war to the signing of the Constitution, this picture-led guide will take you on a visual tour through revolutionary America like never before. Discover how American soldiers won battles against the great British Empire, learn how soldiers were drilled, and go face-to-face with American revolutionaries including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. Throughout the pages of this newly- revised incredible history book, you can expect to find: -Up to 20 per cent new images, including photography and updated diagrams-All information updated by expert consultants-Packed with amazing facts, infographics, statistics, and timelines-Includes brand new eyewitness accounts from experts in the fieldThis museum in a book uses striking full-colour photographs and illustrations of colonial weaponry, the notorious British red-coat uniform, deadly warships, the historic Declaration of Independence, and much more as well as amazing facts, infographics, statistics, and timelines to help bring this extraordinary war to life. The unique visual approach immerses curious children in every page, and the added wall chart is the perfect historical-themed accessory for the bedroom or classroom! A must-have volume for curious children aged 9+ with a thirst for knowledge and learning, alongside teachers, parents and librarians.So, what's new? Part of DK's best-selling Eyewitness series, this popular title has been reinvigorated for the next generation of information-seekers and stay-at-home explorers, with a fresh new look, up to 20 per cent new images, including photography and updated diagrams, updated information, and a new "eyewitness" feature with fascinating first-hand accounts from experts in the field.Explore the series!Globally, the Eyewitness series has sold more than 50 million copies over 30 years. Join the journey to combat climate change with Eyewitness Climate Change or take a trip aboard the most famous ship in history with Eyewitness Titanic.
£9.99
Penguin Books Ltd The Collected Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker, more than any of her contemporaries, captured the spirit of the Jazz Age in her poetry and prose, and The Collected Dorothy Parker includes an introduction by Brendan Gill in Penguin Modern Classics.Dorothy Parker was the most talked-about woman of her day, notorious as the hard-drinking bad girl with a talent for stinging repartee and endlessly quotable one-liners. The decadent 1920s and 1930s in New York were a time of great experiment and daring for women. For the rich, life seemed a continual party, but the excesses took their emotional toll. In the bitingly witty poems and stories collected here, along with her articles and reviews, she brilliantly captures the spirit of the decadent Jazz Age in New York, exposing both the dazzle and the darkness. But beneath the sharp perceptions and acidic humour, much of her work poignantly expresses the deep vulnerability of a troubled, self-destructive woman who, in the words of philosopher Irwin Edman, was 'a Sappho who could combine a heartbreak with a wisecrack'.Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was born in West End, New Jersey, and grew up in New York. In 1916 she sold some of her poetry to the editor of Vogue, and was subsequently given an editorial position on the magazine. She then became drama critic of Vanity Fair and the central figure of the celebrated Algonquin Round Table, whose members included George S. Kaufman and Harpo Marx. Her collections of poems included Enough Rope (1926) and Not So Deep as a Well (1936), and her collections of stories included Here Lies (1939); in addition, she collaborated on and wrote screenplays including the Oscar-winning A Star is Born (1937), and Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942).If you enjoyed The Collected Dorothy Parker, you might like Truman Capote's The Complete Stories, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.'She managed to express her real feelings in stanzas which snap and glitter like a Chanel handbag'Peter Ackroyd, The Times
£12.99
Skyhorse Publishing Devils Within
William C. Morris Award FinalistAlabama Library Association 2019 Young Adult Award WinnerKirkus Best Book of 20172018 Best Fiction for Young Adults, YALSA2019 Sequoia Master List2018-2019 Green Mountain Book Award Master List2019-2020 Volunteer State Book Award Nominee2020 Georgia Peach Book Award NomineeAge range 14+Killing isn't supposed to be easy. But it is. It's the after that's hard to deal with. Nate was eight the first time he stabbed someone, he was eleven when he earned his red laces — a prize for spilling blood for 'the cause.' And he was fourteen when he murdered his father (and the leader of The Fort, a notorious white supremacist compound) in self-defense, landing in a treatment centre while the state searched for his next of kin. Now, in the custody of an uncle he never knew existed, who wants nothing to do with him, Nate just wants to disappear. Enrolled in a new school under a false name, so no one from The Fort can find him, he struggles to forge a new life, trying to learn how to navigate a world where people of different races interact without enmity. But he can't stop awful thoughts from popping into his head, or help the way he shivers with a desire to commit violence. He wants to be different — he just doesn't know where to start. Then he meets Brandon, a person The Fort conditioned Nate to despise on sight. But Brandon's also the first person to treat him like a human instead of a monster. Brandon could never understand Nate's dark past, so Nate keeps quiet. And it works for a while. But all too soon, Nate's worlds crash together, and he must decide between his own survival and standing for what's right, even if it isn't easy. Even if society will never be able to forgive him for his sins.
£10.66
Skyhorse Publishing Walking with Ghosts in Papua New Guinea: Crossing the Kokoda Trail in the Last Wild Place on Earth
Rick Antonson has lots of miles under his belt: from the summit of Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey, to the abandoned stretches of Route 66, from going to Timbuktu for a haircut, to travels in Iraq and Iran. He didn't think twice when one day a chance Australian acquaintance invited him for a "walk across the country" of Papua New Guinea.The "walk" turned out to be a grueling trek on the notorious Kokoda Trail — a narrow, 60-mile footpath featuring rough jungle, 6,000 feet in elevation change, and punishing weather extremes. The Kokoda Trail featured some of the fiercest fighting of World War II among the Australian, Japanese, and American armies. The stark history unfolds with each conquered mile, as Antonson's astute asides bring out real names and people from the faceless fog of history.Antonson sets out to understand the magnetism of Papua New Guinea, a place both misunderstood and lionised by the likes of Amelia Earhart, Errol Flynn, and Michael Rockefeller, whose cameos add vibrant colours to his journey. Antonson struggles with his own demons summoned by the unforgiving trail: travelling with a mostly Australian group, he catches himself sympathising with the Australian war casualties over the Japanese ones, despite being intellectually aware of the impartial horrors of war. Further, Antonson fights the temptation to carry on the sensationalist reportage of headhunting and cannibalism, the scourging stereotypes the young country is still trying to shake off. His writing shows that dated imagery in sharp contrast to today's realities, and Antonson's new-forged friendships with the expedition's porters, Bowrie, Winterford, and Woody, who represent the best of Papua New Guinea: proud of their land and eager to share it without sacrificing their dignity. Walking with Ghosts in Papua New Guinea is like the Kokoda Trail itself: a winding path that glimmers with beauty one moment, and darkness the next, illuminated by its inhabitants, both living and ghosts.
£21.25
Rowman & Littlefield Archy Lee's Struggle for Freedom: The True Story of California Gold, the Nation’s Tragic March Toward Civil War, and a Young Black Man’s Fight for Liberty
In San Francisco, CA, in 1858, a young African American man was freed from the claims of a white man who sought to return him to slavery in Mississippi. This was one year after the Supreme Court’s notorious Dred Scott decision and during the California Gold Rush, which saw the population of the state rise from 7,000 to more than 60,000 in a few short years. Archy Lee was the name of the man who, with the aid of anti-slavery lawyers and determined opponents of human bondage, had just won his freedom from the claims of Charles Stovall. With the aid of pro-slavery lawyers and equally determined supporters, Stovall had sought to capture him and carry him back to a far-away slave plantation. Yet the book is not solely about Archy Lee. It is also about the travel routes that the gold-seekers followed to California in the 1850s, some by land over the Great Plains, some by sea around Cape Horn, yet others by sailing from the east coast of North America to the isthmus of Panama, where they crossed over the land there by train and continued on by sea to San Francisco. It is about the efforts of the racially motivated lawmakers to suppress the rights of all of California’s residents except whites, and to subject people of African, Asian, Hispanic, and Native American descent to second-, third-, or even fourth-class citizenship. It is about the residents of the state—including many whites—who fought back against those efforts, seeking to ameliorate or repeal the discriminatory laws and introduce a measure of fairness and justice into California’s civil life. It is about the lawyers and judges who participated in Archy Lee’s legal struggles in 1858, some supporting his claims for freedom while others ferociously opposed them and, in the process, elevated their own political and professional profiles.
£20.43
Dundurn Group Ltd The Flyer Vault: 150 Years of Toronto Concert History
A visual tour de force showcasing Toronto’s vast concert history.“Not sure there’s ever been anything like this...The graphics are fascinating, the script is comprehensive. It’s staggering what’s been unleashed from the Vault.” — Gary Topp, promoter, half of the legendary duo the Garys“These pages will take you on a musical magical mystery tour of Toronto’s important place in concert history. Reading The Flyer Vault gives you a rush, just like the one you get when the house lights go down!” — Dan Kanter, multi-platinum-selling songwriter/producer“The Flyer Vault book helps bottle the lore, bringing me a little bit closer to my Toronto and its shows that have only grown in renown.” —Danko Jones, lead singer/guitarist of the rock trio Danko Jones Duke Ellington. Johnny Cash. David Bowie. Nirvana. Bob Marley. Wu-Tang Clan. Daft Punk. These are just some of the legendary names that played Toronto over the last century. Drawing from Daniel Tate’s extensive flyer collection, first archived on his Flyer Vault Instagram account, Tate and Rob Bowman have assembled a time capsule that captures a mesmerizing history of Toronto concert and club life, ?running the gamut of genres from vaudeville to rock, jazz to hip-hop, blues to electronica, and punk to country.The Flyer Vault: 150 Years of Toronto Concert History traces seminal live music moments in the city, including James Brown’s debut performance in the middle of a city-wide blackout, a then-unknown Jimi Hendrix backing up Wilson Pickett in 1966 — the year a new band from London named Led Zeppelin performed in Toronto six times — and the one and only show by the Notorious B.I.G., which almost caused a riot in the winter of 1995.Complementing the book’s flyers is the story of the music, highlighting such iconic venues as Massey Hall, the Concert Hall/Rock Pile/Club 888, and the BamBoo, alongside lesser-known but equally important clubs such as Industry Nightclub and the Edge.
£22.45
Whittles Publishing The Nearly Man
The Nearly Man is the true, yet almost unbelievable, story of one man's incredible life, beginning in rural Scotland in the reign of Queen Victoria, and ending on the west coast of Canada in the 1970s. In one of the 20th century's great untold stories we travel with Francis Metcalfe on an amazing journey from the great estates of Scotland to the battlefields of Flanders, and the trenches of the Somme. His associations with the soon-to-be famous and his brushes with death were followed by his heroics in the ice fields of Arctic Russia, wasted years in post-war London, and a narrow escape from being murdered by Sinn Fein in Ireland. After a spell in prison for fraud, Metcalfe became a fugitive from Scottish Law as he engineered a daring escape to France, while the attention of the police was diverted. After hiding in Paris during the 1920s, among the 'Lost Generation' of writers, Metcalfe was arrested at gunpoint and thrown in France's most notorious jail. In his own words, Metcalfe tells the astounding story of his flight from justice, his subsequent trial, imprisonment, followed by release, his second escape from the police, his capture and his decision to start a new life in Canada. . . . only to become embroiled in Communist riots, the hardship of the depression, the infamous 'Ottawa Trek', and the impending war. The Nearly Man tells the story of one man's adventures through some of the last century's lesser- known conflicts, and his encounters with the famous thinkers, writers and soldiers of his time. But it also shows how his exploits impacted the people around him. Francis Metcalfe almost became one of Britain's notable war heroes, poets, writers, adventurers, businessmen and criminals. If Metcalfe had succeeded, he would doubtless be immortalised in history. Instead, his incredible adventures through some of history's forgotten events had become lost in time, until his story was painstakingly unearthed for this book.
£18.99
Little, Brown & Company After the Miracle: The Political Crusades of Helen Keller
Raised in Alabama, she sent shockwaves through the South when she launched a public broadside against Jim Crow and donated to the NAACP. She used her fame to oppose American intervention in WWI. She spoke out against Hitler the month he took power in 1933 and embraced the anti-fascist cause during the Spanish Civil War. She was one of the first public figures to alert the world to the evils of Apartheid, raising money to defend Nelson Mandela when he faced the death penalty for High Treason, and she lambasted Joseph McCarthy at the height of the Cold War, even as her contemporaries shied away from his notorious witch hunt. But who was this revolutionary figure?She was Helen Keller.From books to movies to Barbie dolls, most mainstream portrayals of Keller focus heavily on her struggles as a deafblind child-portraying her Teacher, Annie Sullivan, as a miracle worker. This narrative-which has often made Keller a secondary character in her own story-has resulted in few people knowing that her greatest accomplishment was not learning to speak, but what she did with her voice when she found it.After the Miracle is a much-needed corrective to this antiquated narrative. In this first major biography of Keller in decades, Max Wallace reveals that the lionization of Sullivan at the expense of her famous pupil was no accident, and calls attention to Keller's efforts as a card-carrying socialist, fierce anti-racist, and progressive disability advocate. Despite being raised in an era when eugenics and discrimination were commonplace, Keller consistently challenged the media for its ableist coverage and was one of the first activists to highlight the links between disability and capitalism, even as she struggled against the expectations and prejudices of those closest to her.Peeling back the curtain that obscured Keller's political crusades in favor of her "inspirational" childhood, After the Miracle chronicles the complete legacy of one of the 20th century's most extraordinary figures.
£25.00
University of Minnesota Press Internet Spaceships Are Serious Business: An EVE Online Reader
EVE Online is a socially complex, science-fiction-themed universe simulation and massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) first released in 2003. Notorious for its colossal battles and ruthless player culture, it has hundreds of thousands of players today. In this fascinating book, scholars, players, and EVE’s developer (CCP Games) examine the intricate world of EVEOnline--providing authentic accounts of lived experience within a game with more than a decade of history and millions of “real” dollars behind it.Internet Spaceships Are Serious Business features contributions from outstanding EVE Online players, such as The Mittani, an infamous member of the game’s community, as well as academics from around the globe. They cover a wide range of subjects: the game’s technicalities and its difficulty; its projection of humanity’s future in space; the configuration of its unique, single-server game world; the global nature of warfare in its “nullsec” territory (and how EVE players have formed a global concept of time); stereotypes of Russian players; espionage play; in-game memorials to Vile Rat (aka U.S. State Department official Sean Smith, murdered in the 2012 Benghazi attack); its gendered playing experience; and CCP Games’ relationship with players; and its history and legacy.Internet Spaceships Are Serious Business is a must for EVE Online players interested in a broad perspective on their all-consuming game. It is also accessible to scholars, game designers seeking to understand and replicate the successful aspects unique to EVE Online, and even those who have never played this notoriously complex game.Contributors: William Sims Bainbridge, National Science Foundation; Chribba; Jedrzej Czarnota; Kjartan Pierre Emilsson; Dan Erdman; Rebecca Fraimow; Martin R. Gibbs, U of Melbourne; Catherine Goodfellow; Kathryn Gronsbell; Keith Harrison; Kristin MacDonough; Mantou (Zhang Yuzhou); Oskar Milik; The Mittani (Alexander Gianturco); Joji Mori; Richard Page; Christopher Paul, Seattle U; Erica Titkemeyer, U of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Nick Webber, Birmingham City U.
£19.99
John Wiley & Sons Inc Hydrodynamics of Free Surface Flows: Modelling with the Finite Element Method
A definitive guide for accurate state-of-the-art modelling of free surface flows Understanding the dynamics of free surface flows is the starting point of many environmental studies, impact studies, and waterworks design. Typical applications, once the flows are known, are water quality, dam impact and safety, pollutant control, and sediment transport. These studies used to be done in the past with scale models, but these are now being replaced by numerical simulation performed by software suites called “hydro-informatic systems”. The Telemac system is the leading software package worldwide, and has been developed by Electricité de France and Jean-Michel Hervouet, who is the head and main developer of the Telemac project. Written by a leading authority on Computational Fluid Dynamics, the book aims to provide environmentalists, hydrologists, and engineers using hydro-informatic systems such as Telemac and the finite element method, with the knowledge of the basic principles, capabilities, different hypotheses, and limitations. In particular this book: presents the theory for understanding hydrodynamics through an extensive array of case studies such as tides, tsunamis, storm surges, floods, bores, dam break flood waves, density driven currents, hydraulic jumps, making this a principal reference on the topic gives a detailed examination and analysis of the notorious Malpasset dam failure includes a coherent description of finite elements in shallow water delivers a significant treatment of the state-of-the-art flow modelling techniques using Telemac, developed by Electricité de France provides the fundamental physics and theory of free surface flows to be utilised by courses on environmental flows Hydrodynamics of Free Surface Flows is essential reading for those involved in computational fluid dynamics and environmental impact assessments, as well as hydrologists, and bridge, coastal and dam engineers. Guiding readers from fundamental theory to the more advanced topics in the application of the finite element method and the Telemac System, this book is a key reference for a broad audience of students, lecturers, researchers and consultants, right through to the community of users of hydro-informatics systems.
£115.95
Little, Brown Book Group Something Wilder: a swoonworthy, feel-good romantic comedy from the bestselling author of The Unhoneymooners
'Something Wilder is exactly what we all need right now . . . a true escape within the pages of a book, filled with adventure, rekindled romance and second chances' Jodi Picoult, No.1 New York Times bestselling authorThe New York Times bestselling authors of The Unhoneymooners present a charming, laugh-out-loud novel filled with adventure, treasure, and, of course, love.Lily has never forgotten the man that got away . . . but she certainly hasn't forgiven him either! As the daughter of a notorious treasure hunter, Lily makes ends meet using her father's coveted hand-drawn maps, guiding tourists on fake treasure hunts through the canyons of Utah. When the man she once loved walks back into her life with a motley crew of friends, ready to hit the trails, Lily can't believe her eyes. Frankly, she'd like to take him out into the wilderness - and leave him there.Leo wants nothing more than to reconnect with his first and only love. Unfortunately, Lily is all business: it's never going to happen. But when the trip goes horribly and hilariously wrong, the group wonders if maybe the legend of the hidden treasure wasn't a gimmick after all. Alone under the stars in the isolated and dangerous mazes of the Canyonlands, Leo and Lily must decide whether they'll risk their lives, and their hearts, on the adventure of a lifetime . . . Find out why readers LOVE Christina Lauren . . . 'Pure, irresistible magic from start to finish' Emily Henry, New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read'Witty and downright hilarious . . . a perfect feel-good romantic comedy' Helen Hoang, author of The Kiss Quotient'Pure joy' Sally Thorne, USA Today bestselling author of The Hating Game'Writing duo Christina Lauren are my go-to when I'm feeling sad' Beth O' Leary, author of The Flatshare'What a joyful, warm, touching book! This is the book to read if you want to smile so hard your face hurts' Jasmine Guillory, New York Times bestselling author of The Proposal
£9.99
Three Rooms Press Standalone: A Dickie Cornish Mystery
“Top 25 Mystery Novels of 2022” —The Strand Magazine“Chambers makes the smell and harrowing vibe of the mean streets of the nation’s capital come alive.” —Publishers WeeklyDickie Cornish, Washington, DC street denizen turned unlicensed private investigator, is forced at gunpoint to track down the daughter of an ex-con, setting up a chain of events that unleashes a war within the corrupt police force, exposes shocking conduct in child services, and unearths a secret that threatens to tear the nation’s capital apart. The second book in the Dickie Cornish mystery series, STANDALONE is a must-read for fans of S. A. Cosby, George Pelecanos, and Joe Ide.It’s been over year since that bleak Christmas when a rich man peeled homeless, drug-addled Dickie Cornish from a steam grate, cleaned him up, and convinced him to use his street connections to track down his missing property. Now, as the summer sun bakes those same mean streets, the air is thick with crime, contagion, corruption. Dickie struggles with sobriety, anti-psychotic meds, and counseling at the VA, but manages to make a meager living as a private investigator with his sidekick, “Stripe”—until an ex-con named Al-Mayadeen Thomas sticks a gun to Dickie’s forehead and kidnaps him to a grim flophouse—a motel filled with squatters more desperate than the poor souls in the shelters. Thomas demands that Dickie find his daughter, missing for years from the motel in a notorious cold case. The other squatters plead for him to find their vanished children as well. Thomas takes his own life to seal Dickie’s help, Police Chief Linda Figgis hauls Dickie in, gives him a Faustian choice: she directs him to help her close the Thomas cold case, but only if he forgets about the other vanished and abused children. To his horror, Dickie finds himself in the middle of a war within the police, with either side closing in for the kill to keep the truth hidden.
£10.99
Three Rooms Press Yippie Girl: Exploits in Protest and Defeating the FBI
HONORABLE MENTION, Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award, Autobiography & Memoir!Lifelong activist Judy Gumbo, an original member of The Yippies, a 1960s anti-war satirical protest group, offers an insider feminist memoir of her involvement with the Yippies, Black Panthers, women's rights, environmental actions, and a life of activism. In 1968, a 24-year-old woman moved to Berkeley, California and immediately became enmeshed in the Youth International Party, aka The Yippies, an anti-war satirical protest group. In the next few years, Judy Gumbo (a nickname given her by Eldridge Cleaver), was soon at the center of counter-cultural activity—from protests in People’s Park, to meetings at Black Panther headquarters, to running a pig for President at the raucous Democratic National Convention in Chicago, a protest that devolved into violent attacks by the police and arrests that led to the notorious Chicago Conspiracy Trial. In this historical account, Gumbo reveals intimate details of—and struggles with—her fellow radicals Jerry Rubin, Anita & Abbie Hoffman, Eldridge Cleaver, Paul Krassner, Stew Albert, and more, detailing their experiences in radical protests. This deep dive into her activism includes details of her organization of a national women's rights group, her visit to North Vietnam during the war, her travels around the globe to promote women's liberation and anti-war protest, and her environmental activism. It also includes extensive excerpts from illegal wiretaps and surveillance by the FBI.“A welcome addition to the literature of radical activism.” —Kirkus Reviews “A fun read and a valuable political document, long overdue.” —Counterpunch Yippie Girl explores Gumbo’s life as a protester to show that, while circumstances always change, protesters can stay loyal to the causes they believe in and remain true to themselves. She also reveals how dogmatism, authoritarianism, and interpersonal conflict can damage those same just causes, offering a timeless and strategic guide for activists today protesting against injustice in all its forms.
£11.99
John Murray Press The Barbizon: The New York Hotel That Set Women Free
AS HEARD ON RADIO 4 WOMAN'S HOUR'Captivating . . . a brilliant many-layered social history of women's ambition and a rapidly changing New York' Observer'A fascinating look at a piece of forgotten female history' Sunday Times'A treat, elegantly spinning a forgotten story of female liberation, ambition and self-invention' Guardian'A deeply researched history, leavened with gossip . . . offers a full sweep of the changing status of American women in the twentieth century' TLSWELCOME TO THE BARBIZON, NEW YORK'S PREMIER WOMEN-ONLY HOTELBuilt in 1927 as a home for the 'Modern Woman' seeking a career in the arts, the Barbizon became the place to stay for ambitious, independent women, who were lured by the promise of fame and good fortune. Sylvia Plath fictionalized her time there in The Bell Jar, and over the years, its 688 tiny floral 'highly feminine boudoirs' also housed Joan Crawford, Grace Kelly (notorious for sneaking in men), Joan Didion, Candice Bergen, Charlie's Angel Jaclyn Smith, Ali MacGraw, Cybil Shepherd, Elaine Stritch, Liza Minnelli, Eudora Welty, The Cosby Show's Phylicia Rashad, Grey Gardens's Edith Bouvier Beale, and writers Mona Simpson and Ann Beattie, among many others. Mademoiselle boarded its summer interns there - perfectly turned-out young women, who would never be spotted hatless - as did Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School its students - in their white-gloves and kitten heels - and the Ford Modelling Agency its young models.THE BARBIZON is a colourful, glamorous portrait of the lives of the young women, who -- from the Jazz Age New Women of the 1920s to the Liberated Women of the 1960s -- came to New York looking for something more.'The story of the Barbizon is in many ways the story of American women in the twentieth century' Economist 'Illuminating . . . this vivid, well researched account is testament to its vibrant history and the women who made it such a powerhouse' Daily Express
£9.99
HarperCollins Publishers Inc The House of Brides: A Novel
Jane Cockram makes her thrilling debut with this page-turning tale of psychological suspense in which a young woman whose life is in tatters flees to the safety of a family estate in England, but instead of comfort finds chilling secrets and lies.Miranda’s life and career has been a roller-coaster ride. Her successful rise to the top of the booming lifestyle industry as a social media influencer led to a humiliating fall after a controversial product she endorsed flopped. Desperate to get away from the hate-spewing trolls shaming her on the internet, she receives a mysterious letter from a young cousin in England that plunges her into a dark family mystery. Miranda’s mother Tessa Summers, a famous author, died when Miranda was a child. The young woman’s only connection to the Summers family is through Tessa’s famous book The House of Brides—a chronicle of the generations of women who married into the infamous Summers family and made their home in the rambling Barnsley House, the family’s estate. From Gertrude Summers, a famed crime novelist, to Miranda’s grandmother Beatrice, who killed herself after setting fire to Barnsley while her children slept, each woman in The House of Brides is more notorious than the next. The house’s current “bride” is the beautiful, effervescent Daphne, her Uncle Max’s wife—a famed celebrity chef who saved Barnsley from ruin turning the estate into an exclusive culinary destination and hotel.Curious about this legendary family she has never met, Miranda arrives at Barnsley posing as a prospective nanny answering an advertisement. She’s greeted by the compelling yet cold housekeeper Mrs. Mins, and meets the children and her Uncle Max—none of whom know her true identity. But Barnsley is not what Miranda expected. The luxury destination and award-winning restaurant is gone, and Daphne is nowhere to be found. Most disturbing, one of the children is in a wheelchair after a mysterious accident. What happened in this house? Where is Daphne? What darkness lies hidden in Barnsley?
£12.69
The University of Chicago Press The Man Who Stole Himself: The Slave Odyssey of Hans Jonathan
The island nation of Iceland is known for many things majestic landscapes, volcanic eruptions, distinctive seafood but racial diversity is not one of them. So the little-known story of Hans Jonathan, a free black man who lived and raised a family in early nineteenth-century Iceland, is improbable and compelling, the stuff of novels. In The Man Who Stole Himself, Gisli Palsson lays out Jonathan's story in stunning detail. Born into slavery in St. Croix in 1784, Jonathan was brought as a slave to Denmark, where he eventually enlisted in the navy and fought on behalf of the country in the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen. After the war, he declared himself a free man, believing that not only was he due freedom because of his patriotic service, but because while slavery remained legal in the colonies, it was outlawed in Denmark itself. Jonathan was the subject of one of the most notorious slavery cases in European history, which he lost. Then, he ran away never to be heard from in Denmark again, his fate unknown for more than two hundred years. It's now known that Jonathan fled to Iceland, where he became a merchant and peasant farmer, married, and raised two children. Today, he has become something of an Icelandic icon, claimed as a proud and daring ancestor both there and among his descendants in America. The Man Who Stole Himself brilliantly intertwines Jonathan's adventurous travels with a portrait of the Danish slave trade, legal arguments over slavery, and the state of nineteenth-century race relations in the Northern Atlantic world. Throughout the book, Palsson traces themes of imperial dreams, colonialism, human rights, and globalization, which all come together in the life of a single, remarkable man. Jonathan literally led a life like no other. His is the story of a man who had the temerity the courage to steal himself.
£20.68
Wymer Publishing Easy Action: The Original Alice Cooper Band
The astonishing run of albums unleashed upon an unsuspecting public within the span of five years created the legend of Alice Cooper that lives on to this day. But we’re talking about the original Alice Cooper group here, a band called that with a lead singer also going by that name. In other words, the legend was built by Vincent “Alice Cooper” Furnier, Michael Bruce, Glen Buxton, Dennis Dunaway and “platinum god” Neal Smith. It is all of them working together — along with producer Bob Ezrin — that created the mystique of songs like “I’m Eighteen,” “Is It My Body,” “Desperado,” “Under My Wheels,” “Be My Lover,” “Elected” and “No More Mr. Nice Guy.” And it is all of them working together — along with crack management in Shep Gordon and Joe Greenberg—that created the shock rock buzz that kept the newspapers full of indignation about this band set out to destroy human civilization. Easy Action: The Original Alice Cooper Group tells the story in meticulous chronological detail, from the band’s early days in Phoenix as The Spiders, through being broke on the Sunset Strip, followed by a career-reviving relocation to a notorious party house on the outskirts of Pontiac, Michigan. Corroborating the improbable sequence of events is a plethora of stories from the band themselves, who explain how the original Alice Cooper group went from politely ignored pariahs in Los Angeles to international Public Enemies No. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Listen to the guys and their good-natured explanations behind the mayhem, and it soon becomes apparent that the ghoulish makeup around the singer’s eyes and the boa constrictor around his neck — not to mention the head-choppings, the hangings and the hard rock — were all served up in good fun. Now it’s time for you, dear reader, to join in the fun and see why Alice Cooper was, for a golden moment in time fully 50 years ago now, the most feared and revered act in all of rock ‘n’ roll.
£16.99
John Murray Press Heida: A Shepherd at the Edge of the World
'HEIDA IS A FORCE OF NATURE . . . EXACTLY THE RIGHT SORT OF MODERN ROLE MODEL' SUNDAY TIMESThe inspiring story of Icelandic sheep farmer, former model and feminist heroine Heida Asgeirsdottir has become a double prize-winning international bestseller.As heard on Radio 4's Start the WeekI'm not on my own because I've been sitting crying into a handkerchief or apron over a lack of interested men. I've been made every offer imaginable over the years. Men offer themselves, their sons . . . drunk fathers sometimes call me up and say things like: "Do you need a farmhand?" "I can lift the hay bales" "I can repair your tractors". . .Heida is a solitary farmer with a flock of 500 sheep in a remorseless area bordering Iceland's highlands. It's known as the End of the World. One of her nearest neighbours is Iceland's most notorious volcano, Katla, which has periodically driven away the inhabitants of Ljótarstaðir ever since people first started farming there in the twelfth century. This portrait of Heida written with wit and humour by one of Iceland's most acclaimed novelists, Steinunn Sigurðardóttir, tells a heroic tale of a charismatic young woman, who walked away from a career as a model to take over the family farm at the age of 23. I want to tell women they can do anything, and to show that sheep farming isn't just a man's game. Divided into four seasons, Heida tells the story of a remarkable year, when Heida reluctantly went into politics to fight plans to raise a hydro-electric power station on her land. This book paints a unforgettable portrait of a remote life close to nature. Translated into six languages, Heida has won two non-fiction prizes and has become an international bestseller.We humans are mortal; the land outlives us, new people come, new sheep, new birds and so on but the land with its rivers and lakes and resources, remains.'UTTERLY CHARMING' MAIL ON SUNDAY'REVELATORY AND INSPIRING' HERALD
£10.99
Little, Brown Book Group Evita Burned Down Our Pavilion: A Cricket Odyssey through Latin America
'A highly entertaining read, deftly melding social history with sporting memoir and travelogue' Mail on SundayA history of Latin America through cricketCricket was the first sport played in almost every country of the Americas - earlier than football, rugby or baseball. In 1877, when England and Australia played the inaugural Test match at the MCG, Uruguay and Argentina were already ten years into their derby played across the River Plate.The visionary cricket historian Rowland Bowen said that, during the highpoint of cricket in South America between the two World Wars, the continent could have provided the next Test nation. In Buenos Aires, where British engineers, merchants and meatpackers flocked to make their fortune, the standard of cricket was high: towering figures like Lord Hawke and Plum Warner took star-studded teams of Test cricketers to South America, only to be beaten by Argentina. A combined Argentine, Brazilian and Chilean team took on the first-class counties in England in 1932. The notion of Brazilians and Mexicans playing T20 at the Maracana or the Azteca today is not as far-fetched as it sounds.But Evita Burned Down Our Pavilion is also a social history of grit, industry and nation-building in the New World. West Indian fruit workers battled yellow fever and brutal management to carve out cricket fields next to the railway lines in Costa Rica. Cricket was the favoured sport of Chile's Nitrate King. Emperors in Brazil and Mexico used the game to curry favour with Europe. The notorious Pablo Escobar even had a shadowy connection to the game. The fate of cricket in South America was symbolised by Eva Peron ordering the burning down of the Buenos Aires Cricket Club pavilion when the club refused to hand over their premises to her welfare scheme.Cricket journalists Timothy Abraham and James Coyne take us on a journey to discover this largely untold story of cricket's fate in the world's most colourful continent. Fascinating and surprising, Evita Burned Down Our Pavilion is a valuable addition to cricketing and social history.
£20.00
Headline Publishing Group Ozark Dogs: GUARDIAN BEST CRIME AND THRILLERS OF 2023
***THE GUARDIAN BEST CRIME AND THRILLERS OF 2023***THE TIMES BEST THRILLERS OF THE MONTH*** ***MAIL ON SUNDAY BEST NEW FICTION***FINANCIAL TIMES BEST NEW THRILLERS***'Powerful' THE GUARDIAN 'A gritty, authentic triumph, one howling to be turned into a film or TV series' FINANCIAL TIMES'Atmospheric and tense thriller that has TV series written all over it.' THE SUN'Eli Cranor is that rare writer who can make you gasp, cry and cheer often in the same paragraph' S. A. COSBYAfter his son is convicted of murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory.He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt.Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend-or in some cases, destroy it.'Ozark Dogs tunnels into your brain with feverish power... thrillingly told, deeply wrenching, not to be missed.' MEGAN ABBOTTPraise for Eli Cranor:'Southern noir at its finest, a cauldron of terrible choices and even more terrible outcomes . . . one of the best debuts of 2022' NEW YORK TIMES'A gripping novel about rage and trauma, redemption and damnation,. . . Cranor's characters bristle with desperation and frustrated masculinity, a volatile cauldron of emotion that brings tension to every page' STEPH CHA'A major work from a bright, young talent' USA TODAY
£10.99
Boatman Cryptics Boatman - The Second 50: More Crosswords from the Guardian and the Stories Behind Them
Boatman is back with fifty more puzzles from the Guardian and an additional five bonus puzzles previously only available online, including the notorious Referendum Day puzzle that was able to predict the result of the UK’s vote over its membership of the European Union with complete confidence. Get inside the mind of one of Britain’s most challenging and innovative crossword compilers, as he tells the story behind the development of each puzzle: how he thought of the theme, the ideas that didn’t make it into print and the odd connections that emerged afterwards. Expect talk of crosswords and coincidences, politics and particle physics. Solve extra clues and hear from solvers who enjoyed the puzzles when they were first published. Dave Gorman writes: Put the kettle on. That’s my advice. Boatman’s puzzles are best served with a cup of tea. If a crossword is painting pictures with words, then every setter has his or her own style. Some create clues that remind me of a Heath Robinson cartoon – full of intricate detail and connections – while others bring to mind the simple brush strokes of an Al Hirschfeld caricature, where there can be almost nothing on the page and yet, somehow, Liza Minelli’s face is staring back at you. Boatman’s puzzles are Magic Eye posters. You stare at them for a while and then suddenly something three dimensional pops out as your eyes defocus. When you first scan through a puzzle, a theme may be apparent. Words will be repeated. Newspaper, newspaper, newspaper, Guardian, red-top, newspaper, newspaper, Independent. It may make you feel dizzy. So put the kettle on. Make that cup of tea. Relax. Defocus. He’s a devious sod and he enjoys going back to the same source and coming back with something different. And you know that it will always be different. No two ‘newspapers’ are ever the same. That’s his thing. Don’t be dizzied by it. Dance with it. Enjoy. Then enjoy again as you get the insight from the commentaries that follow. Mine’s white with no sugar. Ta.
£11.95
Little, Brown Book Group Someone to Care
'One of the best!' Julia Quinn, Sunday Times bestselling author of the Bridgerton series When adventure calls in the form of a handsome aristocrat, will Viola Kingsley throw all caution to the wind?Two years after the death of the Earl of Riverdale, his family has overcome the shame of being stripped of their titles and fortune - except for his one-time countess, Viola. With her children grown and finding herself no longer part of the social whirl of the ton, she is uncertain where to look for happiness - until quite by accident her path crosses once again with that of the Marquess of Dorchester, Marcel Lamarr. Marcel has been a notorious womanizer since the death of his wife nearly twenty years earlier. Viola caught his eye years ago, but she evaded his seduction at the time. She is all the more irresistible to him now.When the two defy convention and run away together, they discover that the ties of respectability are not so easily severed, and pleasure can ensnare you when you least expect it . . .This is the sparkling fourth novel in the Regency romance Westcott series by New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh - perfect for fans of Grace Burrowes and Stephanie Laurens The Westcott Series:Someone to LoveSomeone to HoldSomeone to WedSomeone to CareSomeone to TrustSomeone to HonourSomeone to RememberSomeone to RomanceSomeone to CherishPraise for Mary Balogh'Today's superstar heir to the marvellous legacy of Georgette Heyer' Susan Elizabeth Phillips'A grand mistress of the genre' Romantic Times'Balogh is the queen of spicy Regency-era romance, creating memorable characters in unforgettable stories' Booklist'Mary Balogh sets the gold standard in historical romance' New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz'A romance writer of mesmerising intensity, Mary Balogh has the gift of making a relationship seem utterly real and utterly compelling' Mary Jo Putney
£9.99
Penguin Books Ltd Crime in Progress: The Secret History of the Trump-Russia Investigation
** THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** The never-before-told, inside story of the Steele Dossier and the Trump-Russia investigation'The best procedural yet written about the discovery of Trump's Russia ties' New York TimesThe founders of the Washington-based intelligence firm Fusion GPS Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch were the first to uncover Trump's disturbing ties to the Kremlin and the crimes that have since plagued his presidency. Working with British former MI6 agent and Russia expert Christopher Steele, they produced the notorious dossier which disclosed that the Trump team was deeply compromised by a hostile foreign power bent on disrupting the West and influencing the US presidential election.In Crime in Progress, the authors chronicle their high-stakes investigation and desperate efforts to warn both the American and British governments, the FBI and the media - no matter the cost. When the dossier finally exploded onto the world stage after a leak, it led to the Mueller report and disrupted Trump's secret planned rapprochement with Putin's Russia. After years on his trail, the authors' inescapable conclusion is that Trump is an asset of the Russian government, whether he knows it or not.A real-life political thriller with the makings of a modern classic, Crime in Progress is the definitive story of the pursuit of the truth about Trump and one of the greatest betrayals in American history.'I've read all the books on this subject - this is the one you want to read . . . I feel fairly steeped in this matter and I learned something on every page' Rachel Maddow, MSNBC'You don't need to read John le Carré or Tom Clancy to find espionage thrills in Washington these days, turn over any stone in the Beltway's secret world and you'll observe the seething mass of conspiracy and subterfuge beneath . . . Take Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, who have become central characters in a quite terrifying international spy thriller' Josh Glancy, Sunday Times
£10.99
Savas Beatie Hellmira: The Union’s Most Infamous POW Camp of the Civil War
Long called by some the “Andersonville of the North,” the prisoner of war camp in Elmira, New York, is remembered as the most notorious of all Union-run POW camps. It existed for only a year—from the summer of 1864 to July 1865—but in that time, and for long after, it became darkly emblematic of man’s inhumanity to man. Confederate prisoners called it “Hellmira.” Hastily constructed, poorly planned, and overcrowded, prisoner of war camps North and South were dumping grounds for the refuse of war. An unfortunate necessity, both sides regarded the camps as temporary inconveniences—and distractions from the important task of winning the war. There was no need, they believed, to construct expensive shelters or provide better rations. They needed only to sustain life long enough for the war to be won. Victory would deliver prisoners from their conditions. As a result, conditions in the prisoner of war camps amounted to a great humanitarian crisis, the extent of which could hardly be understood even after the blood stopped flowing on the battlefields. In the years after the war, as Reconstruction became increasingly bitter, the North pointed to Camp Sumter—better known as the Andersonville POW camp in Americus, Georgia—as evidence of the cruelty and barbarity of the Confederacy. The South, in turn, cited the camp in Elmira as a place where Union authorities withheld adequate food and shelter and purposefully caused thousands to suffer in the bitter cold. This finger-pointing by both sides would go on for over a century. And as it did, the legend of Hellmira grew. In Hellmira: The Union’s Most Infamous POW Camp of the Civil War, Derek Maxfield contextualizes the rise of prison camps during the Civil War, explores the failed exchange of prisoners, and tells the tale of the creation and evolution of the prison camp in Elmira. In the end, Maxfield suggests that it is time to move on from the blame game and see prisoner of war camps—North and South—as a great humanitarian failure.
£12.60
Skyhorse Publishing When Pigmen Fly: Redstone Junior High #6
For boys and girls who love Minecraft, a graphic novel adventure that uses over 700 images to transport young readers into the world of the game they love most.Before they can graduate, they must face their greatest challenge! It’s the last semester at Redstone Junior High and Pixel, Sky, and Uma are about to enter into their most exciting adventure yet. The students must complete a bold and dangerous challenge by graduation: travel to the End and ride the notorious Ender dragon. Their first step is to gather the valuable items needed to complete this quest, but a treacherous storm is brewing and nothing is going according to plan.What begins as a simple trade with a villager leads to an accidental explosion, and the students and Mr. Z are cast out of a remote village into the raging storm. The kids survive the night in a cave only to discover that their beloved teacher Mr. Z, has gone missing. Pixel, Sky, and Uma will use every trick in the book to find him, but they risk revealing his deep secret in the process.It will take precious resources, courage, and teamwork to complete their quest in time for graduation, but not everyone is working well together. An old nemesis has joined the class, so Pixel and Uma are watching their backs every step of the way. Tensions are high between even the best of friends as old enemies become friends and old friends become rivals. A journey to the Nether fortress tests their bonds as together they battle blazes, magma cubes, ghasts, and zombie pigmen to get the blaze rods they need. Sky finds himself in need of rescue with no plan for escape. Can Pixel and her friends find Sky, secure the blaze rods, and make it back home in time to build a portal, or will they fail their final project and be trapped in the Nether forever?The students must find a way to band together to make their final days at Redstone Junior High memorable and triumphant.
£13.87