In Richard Mabey`s characteristically lyrical & informative tone, The Cabaret of Plants explores plant species which have challenged our imaginations, awoken that cliched but real human emotion of wonder, & upturned our ideas about history, science, beauty & belief. Picked from every walk of life, they encompass crops, weeds, medicines, religious gathering-places & a water lily named after a queen. Beginning with pagan cults & creation myths, the cultural significance of plants has burst upwards, sprouting into forms as diverse as the panacea (the cure-all plant ginseng, a single root of which can cost up to $10, 000), Newton`s apple, the African `vegetable elephant` or boabab, whose swollen trunks store thousands of litres of water
- & the mystical, night-flowering Amazonian cactus, the moonflower. From Ice Age artists, to the Romantic poets, via colonialism & the nineteenth century botanical mania of empire, Mabey concludes his magnum opus with the latest revelations of possible `plant intelligence` in this extraordinary collection of encounters between plants & people.
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In The Cabaret of Plants, Mabey explores the plant species which have challenged our imaginations, awoken our wonder, & upturned our ideas about history, science, beauty & belief. Picked from every walk of life, they encompass crops, weeds, medicines, religious gathering-places & a water lily named after a queen. Beginning with pagan cults & creation myths, the cultural significance of plants has burst upwards, sprouting into forms as diverse as the panacea (the cure-all plant ginseng, a single root of which can cost up to $10, 000), Newton`s apple, the African `vegetable elephant` or boabab
- & the mystical, night-flowering Amazonian cactus, the moonflower. Ranging widely across science, art & cultural history, poetry & personal experience, Mabey puts plants centre stage, & reveals a true botanical cabaret, a world of tricksters, shape-shifters & inspired problem-solvers, as well as an enthralled audience of romantics, eccentric amateur scientists & transgressive artists. The Cabaret of Plants celebrates the idea that plants are not simply `the furniture of the planet`, but vital, inventive, individual beings worthy of respect
- & that to understand this may be the best way of preserving life together on Earth.

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There are a multitude of ` London Calling` cards in the collection at Rocket 68. This lively illustrated range of London themed prints & cards aims to portray the vibrancy & beauty of London`s architecture, areas, life & communities. Each card is supplied with quality Gunpowder grey envelope in a cellophane wrapper. These cards are all illustrated by Jill White & printed in the UK on a lovely soft Calisto FSC accredited board. ...

In just four months in 2009, Sri Lanka`s 26 year-old desperate civil war came to a brutal & bloody end on a desolate stretch of beach in the island`s north east. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed when the government decimated the guerilla organisation, the Tamil Tigers. Gordon Weiss witnessed the conflict at first hand as a UN spokesman in Colombo. His devastating account unravels the compelling history that led up to that final horrific episode, peeling back the Sri Lankan government`s cloak of silence to reveal the truth of those tragic events. ...

Now entering its fifteenth year, the Caine Prize for African Writing is Africa`s leading literary prize, & is awarded to a short story by an African writer published in English, whether in Africa or elsewhere. This collection brings together the five 2014 shortlisted stories, along with stories written at the Caine Prize Writers` Workshop, taking place in Spring 2014. ...

An illustrated history from the Scottish Mountaineering Trust of the first 100 years of mountaineering in The Cairngorms
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Secret Histories of the Cairngorms is a series of journeys exploring barely known human & natural stories of the Cairngorm Mountains. It looks at a unique British landscape, its last great wilderness, with new eyes. History combines with travelogue in a vivid account of this elemental scenery. There have been rare human incursions into the Cairngorm plateau, & Patrick Baker tracks them down. He traces elusive wildlife & relives ghostly sightings on the summit of Ben Macdui. From the search for a long-forgotten climbing shelter & the locating of ancient gem mines, to the discovery of skeletal aircraft remains & the hunt for a mysterious nineteenth-century aristocratic settlement, he seeks out the unlikeliest & most interesting of features in places far off the beaten track. The cultural & human impact of this stunning landscape & reflections on the history of mountaineering are the threads which bind this compelling narrative together. ...

`I am still unable to leave the burnt-out ruins` Akiyuki Nosaka, 2014 In 1945, Akiyuki Nosaka watched the Allied firebombing of Kobe kill his adoptive parents, & then witnessed his sister starving to death. The shocking & blisteringly memorable stories of The Cake Tree in the Ruins are based on his own experiences as a child in Japan during the Second World War. They are stories of a lonely whale searching the oceans for a mate, who sacrifices himself for love; of a mother desperately trying to save her son with her tears; of a huge, magnificent tree which grows amid the ruins of a burnt-out town, its branches made from the sweetest cake imaginable. Profound, heartbreaking & aglow with a piercing beauty, they express the chaos & terror of conflict, yet also how love can illuminate even the darkest moment. ...

Windows, mirrors & chandeliers are spontaneously shattering & Tintin is flummoxed! After a shooting & a break in, Tintin knows Calculus is in danger, but has only one clue: an unusual packet of cigarettes. Tintin must solve the mystery before a terrible weapon falls into the wrong hands... ...

The 5, 000-year struggle to align the heavens with the clock & what happened to the missing ten days. Measuring the daily & yearly cycle of the cosmos has never been entirely straightforward. The year 2000 is alternatively the year 2544 (Buddhist), 6236 (Ancient Egyptian), 5761 (Jewish) or simply the year of the Dragon (Chinese). The story of the creation of the Western calendar is a story of emperors & popes, mathematicians & monks, & the growth of scientific calculation to the point where, bizarrely, our measurement of time by atomic pulses is now more acurate than Time itself: the Earth is an elderly lady & slightly eccentric
- she loses half a second a century. Days have been invented (Julius Caesar needed an extra 80 days in 46BC), lost (Pope Gregory XIII ditched ten days in 1582) & moved (because Julius Caesar had thirty-one in his month, Augustus determined that he should have the same, so he pinched one from February). The Calendar links politics & religion, astronomy & mathematics, Cleopatra & Stephen Hawking. & it is published as millions of computer users wonder what will happen when, after 31 December 1999, their dates run out...
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