Raghu Rai is India`s most famous & most lauded photographer. Here, he lends his creative genius to capturing the changing face of Delhi, the place of his birth & India`s capital city, over the last forty years. William Dalrymple says in his introduction to the book that [this is] the work of a sympathetic insider & has a tender & knowing intimacy that no outsider like myself can come close to. That quality is displayed to stunning effect in this spectacular, large format book, which will be prized by anyone with an interest in modern India or photography. ...

Raghu Rai`s ” India” is the India of the everyday
- the life of his rural childhood. His photographs talk about the simple people,
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Greedy, cruel & foolish, the Gods deserve to die.. . From the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession & The Children's Book comes a mesmerising tale of the end of the gods & the destruction of life on this planet. Into her version of Ragnarok, surely one of the most thrilling & apocalyptic of myths, A.S. Byatt weaves the story of a young girl evacuated to the British countryside during the Second World War. Struggling to make sense of her life, she is given a book of Norse myths, & her inner & outer worlds are transformed. ...

Recently evacuated to the British countryside & with World War Two raging around her, one young girl is struggling to make sense of her life. Then she is given a book of ancient Norse legends & her inner & outer worlds are transformed. Intensely autobigraphical & linguistically stunning, this book is a landmark work of fiction from one of Britain's truly great writers. Intensely timely it is a book about how stories can give us the courage to face our own demise. The Ragnarok myth, otherwise known as the Twilight of the Gods, plays out the endgame of Norse mythology. It is the myth in which the gods Odin, Freya & Thor die, the sun & moon are swallowed by the wolf Fenrir, the serpent Midgard eats his own tale as he crushes the world & the seas boil with poison. It is only after such monstrous death & destruction that the world can begin anew. This epic struggle provided the fitting climax to Wagner's Ring Cycle & just as Wagner was inspired by Norse myth so Byatt has taken this remarkable finale & used it as the underpinning of this highly personal & politically charged retelling ...

Set in turn-of-the-century New York, E.L. Doctorow`s ” Ragtime” seamlessly blends fictional characters & realistic depictions of historical figures to bring to life the events that defined American history in the years before the First World War. This ” Penguin Modern Classics” edition

Includes:: an introduction by Al Alvarez. Welcome to America at the turn of the twentieth century, where the rhythms of ragtime set the beat. Harry Houdini astonishes audiences with magical feats of escape, the mighty J. P. Morgan dominates the financial world & Henry Ford manufactures cars by making men into machines. Emma Goldman preaches free love & feminism, while ex-chorus girl Evelyn Nesbitt inspires a mad millionaire to murder the architect Stanford White. In this stunningly original chronicle of an age, such real-life characters intermingle with three remarkable families, one black, one Jewish & one prosperous WASP, to create a dazzling literary mosaic that brings to life an era of dire poverty, fabulous wealth, & incredible change
- in short, the era of ragtime. E.L. Doctorow (b.1931) is one of America`s most accomplished & acclaimed living writers. Winner of the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award (twice), the PEN/ Faulkner Award, & the National Humanities Medal, he is the author of nine novels that have explored the drama of American life from the late 19th century to the 21st, including ” Ragtime”, ” The Book of Daniel” & ” Billy Bathgate”. If you enjoyed ” Ragtime”, you might like John Dos Passos` ”U.S.A.”, also available in ” Penguin Classics”. ” In its perfection it stuns & holds from beginning to end”. (” Daily Mail”). ” Witty, lyrical, put together with admirable craft.. .dazzling economy & insight... Mr Doctorow knows what he is doing & has done it beautifully”. (” Guardian”). ” One of the best American novels for years”. (” Economist”).


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Ragusa Province in a series of handy size road maps from Litografia Artistica Cartografica (LAC) with more minor local roads & tracks than can be found on most regional maps. The series is gradually being changed to a new style of digitally derived cartography, so presentation of adjoining titles may vary. All the maps have hill shading to represent the general relief with spot heights for selected peaks, & show a few more local roads & rough tracks than the other road map series. Intermediate road distances are indicated. Regional, provincial & communal borders are marked, & railways, funiculars, airports, sea ferry links & campsites are shown. The legend is in Italian only. The new, digitally produced editions are indexed & have enhanced, more finely drawn cartography: the hill-shading is less bold, motorway service areas are marked, natural parks are highlighted & an expanded range of symbols indicates various landmarks & sites, e.g. antiquities, churches, etc. Two styles of the new cartography are produced, differing only in the colour of the predominant background shading: grey or yellow/green. Some of the new editions include geographical coordinates for the map corners. The index of localities is on the reverse. This title is still produced in the traditional cartographic style. ...

Ragusa Province at 1:150, 000 in a series of handy size provincial road maps from Litografia Artistica Cartografica (LAC) with more minor local roads & country tracks than can be found on most regional maps from other publishers. This title is now published with new digital cartography.LAC’s provincial series is gradually being changed to a new style of digitally derived cartography, so presentation of adjoining titles may vary. All the maps have hill shading to represent the general relief with spot heights for selected peaks, & show a few more local roads & rough tracks than the other road map series. Intermediate road distances are indicated. Regional, provincial & communal borders are marked, & railways, funiculars, airports, sea ferry links & campsites are shown. The legend is in Italian only. The new, digitally produced editions are indexed & have enhanced, more finely drawn cartography: the hill-shading is less bold, motorway service areas are marked, natural parks are highlighted & an expanded range of symbols indicates various landmarks & sites, e.g. antiquities, churches, etc. Two styles of the new cartography are produced, differing only in the colour of the predominant background shading: grey or yellow/green. Some of the new editions include geographical coordinates for the map corners. The index of localities is on the reverse. To see all the titles in this series please click on the series link. ...

The OPC Rail Atlas of Great Britain & Ireland was first published in 1977 & has, over the years, proved itself to be one of the most successful railway titles ever published. The book portrays the railway network on the British Isles, differentiating between passenger & freight lines, as well as between single & multi-track sections. It also shows preserved lines, freight terminals, LRT schemes, passenger stations, lines under construction, proposed lines, depots, etc. As such the book is an essential work of reference for both enthusiasts & professionals. This new edition is fully updated to reflect the developments in railway & LRT infrastructure due for completion by 2013 as well as those schemes currently under development. It

Includes:: the fruits of the current Network Rail investment plan, including the proposed electrification of the ex-GWR main line to Bristol & South Wales, the completion of the first phase of the Edinburgh LRT scheme, the continued extension of the LRTs in Greater Manchester & Nottingham, & indications as to the proposed HS2 high-speed line from London to the Midlands.

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In World War 2 the railways of Britain played a pivotal part in the ultimate defeat of Germany & its allies
- as they had done
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In 1963 the then Chairman of the British Railways Board, Dr (later Lord) Richard Beeching produced his report on the future structure of the railway industry. Innocuously entitled The Reshaping of Britain's Railways, the report was to become one of the most controversial documents ever produced on a major British industry &, 40 years on, still represents one of the defining moments of Britain's railway history. Tasked by the government with reducing the ever-increasing losses suffered by the railway industry, Beeching's response was to take a root-&-branch analysis of each line that was still operational; the result was the infamous 'axe'
- the proposal to close vast swathes of the railway network, thereby creating vast areas that were no longer served by rall. Although there were more positive aspects to the report, such as the emphasis on bulk freight traffic, it was the closure programme that most people, & especially railway enthusiasts, remember most. From 1964 onwards, the railways contracted rapidly; even the election of a new Labour Government in 1964 failed to stem the flow of closures but, by 1970, the majority of closures scheduled by Beeching had occurred. The early 1970s, however, did witness further limited closures as many of the lines which had been reprieved earlier, such as the lines serving much of east Lincolnshire, succumbed. In the second of Ian Allan Publishing's new series of historical railway atlases, the year 1970 comes under the spotlight. Taking 1 May 1970 as the cut off, the book provides a graphic portrait of the railway network as it existed after the wholesale closures of the 1960s. In 45 full colour maps, along with a comprehensive index, the user is provided with an interesting snapsnot of the railway industry at the time. For many, it will be illuminating to see how many routes survived the Beeching era only to succumb in the period after 1970; routes such as those to Bridport, lifracombe, Swanage & Minehead all feature as passenger routes while others, such as the branch to Hemyock, continued to eke out their existence as freight only lines.
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