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This is a Sunday Times bestseller. It is shortlisted for the 2013 Samuel Johnson Prize. Dave Goulson has always been obsessed with wildlife, from his childhood menagerie of exotic pets & dabbling in experimental taxidermy to his groundbreaking research into the mysterious ways of the bumblebee & his mission to protect our rarest bees. Once commonly found in the marshes of Kent, the short-haired bumblebee is now extinct in the UK, but still exists in the wilds of New Zeal&, descended from a few queen bees shipped over in the nineteenth century. A Sting in the Tale tells the story of Goulson`s passionate drive to reintroduce it to its native land & contains groundbreaking research into these curious creatures, history`s relationship with the bumblebee, the disastrous effects intensive farming has had on our bee populations & the potential dangers if we are to continue down this path. ...

The Birds & the Bees series was designed for Vintage Classics by Timorous Beasties, the Scottish studio famous for their designs inspired by the natural world. As a small boy, Dave Goulson was obsessed with wildlife
- from his childhood menagerie of exotic pets to his ill-fated experiments with taxidermy. But it was the bumblebee that fascinated him the most. Once commonly found in the marshes of Kent, the short-haired bumblebee was driven to extinction in Britain by intensive farming practices. With ground-breaking research into these curious creatures, A Sting in the Tale tells the story of Goulson`s passionate drive to reintroduce them to their native l&. SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE.
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Ancient & modern landmarks from across the world fill this original & creative design. The Elizabeth Tower (home to Big Ben) rubs shoulders with the Statue of Liberty, Sydney Opera House nestles in front of St Basil`s Cathedral, whilst The Sphinx crouches in front of Stonehenge. There are 50 famous sites to discover
- how many can you identify? Supplied with in-box leaflet listing all 50 landmarks, & additional puzzle picture for reference.
- High quality 1000 piece cardboard jigsaw puzzle.
- The finished puzzle measures 70 x 50cm when complete.
- Suitable for ages 12 years & up.
- Made from strong premium grade cardboard, with linen finish print to minimise glare on puzzle image.




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Many of the world's major cities sprang up on the banks of rivers. Used for water, food, irrigation, transportation & power, rivers sustain life & connect places & countries, but most of us think of them simply as waterways that must be crossed on the way to somewhere else. Relating the biographies of four European & two North American rivers, A Story of Six Rivers considers the place of rivers in our world & emphasizes the inextricable links between their history, culture & ecology. This book gives voice to six bodies of water: the Danube, the second-longest river in Europe; the Spree, which flows through Berlin; the Po, which cuts eastward across northern Italy; the Mersey in northwest England; the Yukon, which runs through Canada & Alaska; & the Los Angeles River in California. Rivers nurture us, provide cultural & economic opportunities & pose threats to our everyday lives. Though recent narratives paint rivers as the victims of abuse, pollution & damage at the hands of humans, this book focuses on change rather than devastation. Though humans & rivers form a symbiotic
- & sometimes mutually destructive
- relationship, rivers also illustrate the limits of human authority, & their capacity to inspire us is as strong as our ability to pollute them. An intimate portrait of the way these watercourses inform our lives, A Story of Six Rivers will make us reconsider the liquid ribbons we traverse each day.

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A Strange Kind of Paradise is an exploration of India`s past & present, from the perspective of a foreigner who has lived in India for many years. Sam Miller investigates how the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the Chinese, Arabs, Africans, Europeans & Americans
- everyone really, except for Indians themselves
- came to imagine India. His account of the engagement between foreigners & India spans the centuries from Alexander the Great to Slumdog Millionaire. It features, among many others, Thomas the Apostle, the Chinese monk Xuanzang, Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta, Vasco da Gama, Babur, Clive of India, several Victorian pornographers, Mark Twain, E. M. Forster, Allen Ginsberg, the Beatles & Steve Jobs. Interspersed between these tales is the story of Sam Miller`s own 25-year-long love affair with India. The result is a spellbinding, 2, 500-year-long journey through Indian history, culture & society, in the company of an author who informs, educates & entertains in equal measure, as he travels in the footsteps of foreign chroniclers, exposes some of their fabulous fantasies & overturns long-held stereotypes about race, identity & migration. At once scholarly & thought-provoking, delightfully eccentric & laugh-out-loud funny, this book is destined to become a much-loved classic.

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A Strangeness in My Mind is a novel Orhan Pamuk has worked on for six years. It is the story of boza seller Mevlut, the woman to whom he wrote three years` worth of love letters, & their life in Istanbul. In the four decades between 1969 & 2012, Mevlut works a number of different jobs on the streets of Istanbul, from selling yoghurt & cooked rice, to guarding a car park. He observes many different kinds of people thronging the streets, he watches most of the city get demolished & re-built, & he sees migrants from Anatolia making a fortune; at the same time, he witnesses all of the transformative moments, political clashes, & military coups that shape the country. He always wonders what it is that separates him from everyone else
- the source of that strangeness in his mind. But he never stops selling boza during winter evenings & trying to understand who his beloved really is. What matters more in love, what we wish for, or what our fate has in store? Do our choices dictate whether we will be happy or not, or are these things determined by forces beyond our control? A Strangeness in My Mind tries to answer these questions while portraying the tensions between urban life & family life, & the fury & helplessness of women inside their homes.
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At a family wedding Mevlut catches sight of a girl with whom he falls in love. After a secret courtship of letters passed via his cousin, she agrees to elope with him, & on a dark night the two come together for the first time. As they rush to catch a train to Istanbul, Mevlut realises he has been misled. But the die is cast, & the situation will determine the rest of his days. Over the next four decades in Istanbul, Mevlut works various jobs to support his loving wife & family; work that gives him a special perspective on his rapidly changing city & the people who live there. & every evening he walks the streets, selling his wares & dreaming his dreams. ...

In the last year of the 20th century the celebrated foreign correspondent Fergal Keane set out for the BBC on a journey through Britain. After years covering the world's conflict zones, Keane
- the child of Irish parents living temporarily in London
- turned his attention to the country in which he was born but where, until recently, he had never lived. From Glasgow to Leeds, London, Cornwall, Wales & to the very fringed of United Kingdom in Country Tyrone, he discovered a surprising & little-known world of poverty, exclusion & alienation. At times angry & always passionate, this is Fergal Keane at his very best. It is a work of compelling story-telling, as the author hears the small voices lost in the bigger picture: listen to Fiona, the young heroin addict who sells her body & steals to support her habit; meet the Protestants & Catholics living side by side on this country's westernmost border; hear the tragic story of a farming family in South Wales blighted by suicide. & consider that in August 1999 a Scottish shipyard where 1, 200 men work was sold for two million pounds
- the price of a large house in Islington, spiritual home of New Labour. Though this is an unflinching & sometimes shocking book, it is also curiously uplifting, as Keane reports on the courage & lack of self-pity of those he encountered. Applying the compassion & insight for which his foreign reporting is widely admired, Fergal Keane has written a compelling account of the nation today as well as a provocative challenge to those who promised a new Britain for the new millennium.


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These are the autobiographical tales of George Hewins (the Dillen), a Warwickshire labourer of the era before the Great War, & his daughter Mary, a Stratford factory worker in the 1930s & '40s. Told in their own voices to Angela Hewins
- George's grandson's wife
- their extraordinary & moving stories are records of a life as it was really lived by men & women who, until recently, had no history they could call their own.

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