In this affectionate history, Travis Elborough tells the story of the Routemaster`s invention, rise & decline, of the people who worked on it, & of the enthusiasts who were mad about it. Slowly, route by route, London has been losing one of its most famous symbols as more modern designs are brought into service. The streets will never be the same again. ...

This is a true story of exodus, the inevitable journey of the last of the First People, as they leave the Great Sand Face & head for the modern world & cultural oblivion. Paul John Myburgh spent seven years with the ` People of the Great Sand Face`, a group of / Gwikwe Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert. They were years of physical & spiritual immersion into a way of life of which only an echo remains in living memory. But all does not end there. In The Bushman Winter Has Come, the author imagines a continuing journey towards a place where we may, once again, know who we are in the context of our life on this earth.. .towards a time when we may answer the / Gwikwe`s morning greeting, Tsamkwa/tge? (Are your eyes nicely open?) with a confident Yes. ...

Once upon a time there was a beaver who was so busy that he didn`t always think things through. After finding himself on the wrong side of a falling tree one day, the beaver begins to see the error of his careless ways. He`s eager to put things right, but will his friends & neighbours believe he`s truly a changed beaver? Starring a charming cast of characters, Nicholas Odland`s humorous contemporary fable highlights the importance of taking care of our wild places & our friendships. Themes: care for the environment, friendship, perseverance ...

With an introduction by Ross Raisin A modern classic of Irish fiction, shortlisted for the 1992 Booker prize. When I was a young lad twenty or thirty or forty years ago I lived in a small town where they were all after me on account of what I done on Mrs Nugent. Francie Brady is a small-town rascal who spends his days turning a blind eye to the troubles at home & getting up to mischief with his best friend Joe
- hiding in the chicken-house, shouting abuse at fish in the local stream. But after a disagreement with his neighbour Mrs Nugent over her son`s missing comic books, Francie`s reckless streak spirals out of control & gives rise to a monstrous obsession.. . Fearless, shocking & blackly funny, Patrick Mc Cabe`s The Butcher Boy won the 1992 Irish Times Literature Prize & was shortlisted for the 1992 Booker Prize. It is a modern classic of Irish fiction, a portrait of the insidious violence latent in small town life & of a frenzied young man lashing out at everyone, even himself.
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At the beginning of each decade for 200 years the national census has presented a self-portrait of the British Isles. The census has surveyed Britain from the Napoleonic wars to the age of the internet, through the agricultural & industrial revolutions, possession of the biggest empire on earth & the devastation of the 20th century`s two world wars. In The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker, Roger Hutchinson looks at every census between the first in 1801 & the latest in 2011. He uses this much-loved resource of family historians to paint a vivid picture of a society experiencing unprecedented changes. Hutchinson explores the controversial creation of the British census. He follows its development from a head-count of the population conducted by clerks with quill pens, to a computerised survey which is designed to discover `the address, place of birth, religion, marital status, ability to speak English & self-perceived national identity of every twenty-seven-year-old Welsh-speaking Sikh metalworker living in Swansea`. All human life is here, from prime ministers to peasants & paupers, from Irish rebels to English patriots, from the last native speakers of Cornish to the first professional footballers, from communities of prostitutes to individuals called `abecedarians` who made a living from teaching the alphabet. The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker is as original & unique as those people & their islands on the cutting edge of Europe. ...

`A brilliant & gripping account of the almost unimaginable horrors of surgery & post-operative infection before Joseph Lister transformed it all` Henry Marsh, author of Do No Harm The story of a visionary British surgeon whose quest to unite science & medicine delivered us into the modern world
- the safest time to be alive in human history In The Butchering Art, historian Lindsey Fitzharris recreates a critical turning point in the history of medicine, when Joseph Lister transformed surgery from a brutal, harrowing practice to the safe, vaunted profession we know today. Victorian operating theatres were known as `gateways of death`, Fitzharris reminds us, since half of those who underwent surgery didn`t survive the experience. This was an era when a broken leg could lead to amputation, when surgeons often lacked university degrees, & were still known to ransack cemeteries to find cadavers. While the discovery of anaesthesia somewhat lessened the misery for patients, ironically it led to more deaths, as surgeons took greater risks. In squalid, overcrowded hospitals, doctors remained baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. At a time when surgery couldn`t have been more dangerous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: Joseph Lister, a young, melancholy Quaker surgeon. By making the audacious claim that germs were the source of all infection
- & could be treated with antiseptics
- he changed the history of medicine forever. With a novelist`s eye for detail, Fitzharris brilliantly conjures up the grisly world of Victorian surgery, revealing how one of Britain`s greatest medical minds finally brought centuries of savagery, sawing & gangrene to an end.


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`A HIGH-FINISH PERFORMANCE` Observer (New Faces of Fiction) `DARK WEIRD & GLORIOUSLY FEMINIST` Elle UK (Best New Books For 2016) `A TOP-CLASS DEBUT` Fanny Blake, Woman & Home `A DOOZY` Glamour `A CRACKING READ` Cathy Rentzenbrink, Prima `ONE OF THE MOST HOTLY-TIPPED DEBUTS OF 2016` Daily Express `A SPIRITED, DARK DEBUT` Woman & Home `COMPELLING...MAGNETIC` Sainsbury`s Magazine `FUN, GRIMY & ROMANTIC` Debrief `TERRIFIC` Bookseller `STRANGE, DARK & UTTERLY MESMERIC` Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites `A MASTERFUL STORYTELLER` Clare Mackintosh, author of I Let You Go `BEWITCHING` Antonia Hodgson, bestselling author of The Devil in the Marshalsea `A TRIUMPH` Erin Kelly, author of The Poison Tree Georgian London, in the summer of 1763. At nineteen, Anne Jaccob is awakened to the possibility of joy when she meets Fub, the butcher`s apprentice, & begins to imagine a life of passion with him. The only daughter of well-to-do parents, Anne lives a sheltered life. Her home is a miserable place. Though her family want for nothing, her father is uncaring, her mother is ailing, & the baby brother who taught her to love is dead. Unfortunately her parents have already chosen a more suitable husband for her than Fub. But Anne is a determined young woman, with an idiosyncratic moral compass. In the matter of pursuing her own happiness, she shows no fear or hesitation. Even if it means getting a little blood on her hands. A vivid & surprising tale, The Butcher`s Hook brims with the colour & atmosphere of Georgian London, as seen through the eyes of a strange & memorable young woman. -~-~-~-~-~- ` Do you know what this is?` He holds a short twist of thick metal, in the shape of the letter `S`, sharpened at both ends. I shake my head. `A butcher`s hook, ` he says, testing the tip of his finger against each point. `A perfect design. Whichever way up you use it, it`s always ready. One end to hook, the other to hang. It has only one simple purpose.` He stands on a stool & fixes it over the bar above him. It waits there, empty. He climbs down. ` Pleasing, isn`t it?` ...

Written with a thrilling narrative pull, The Butcher`s Trail chronicles the pursuit & capture of the Balkan war criminals indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Borger recounts how Ratko Mladic
- now on trial in The Hague
- & recently convicted Radovan Karadzic were finally tracked down, & describes the intrigue behind the arrest of Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president who became the first head of state to stand before an international tribunal for crimes perpetrated in a time of war. Based on interviews with former special forces soldiers, intelligence officials, & investigators from a dozen countries
- most speaking about their involvement for the first time
- this book reconstructs a fourteen-year manhunt carried out almost entirely in secret. Indicting the worst war criminals that Europe had known since the Nazi era, the ICTY ultimately accounted for all 161 suspects on its wanted list, a feat never before achieved in political & military history.



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` The Butterflies of Britain & Ireland` provides comprehensive coverage of all our resident & migratory butterflies, including the latest information on newly discovered species such as Cryptic Wood & the Geranium Bronze. ` The Butterflies of Britain & Ireland` is widely considered not only the best butterfly book ever published but also one of the classic nature books. When first published in 1991 it won the Natural World Book of the Year Award & won plaudits from all quarters. Fully revised, considerably expanded & reset in 2010, it was judged that year`s ` Guardian` Nature Book of the Year. Now revised again to reflect the latest research findings, & with up-to-date distribution maps, this remarkable book is the guide to the appearance, behaviour, life cycle & ecology of the butterflies of Britain & Irel&. ...

Jack, Lizzy & their naughty cat, Cat, are off to spend the afternoon with their grandmother. But Georgina Fiona-May Orbis is no ordinary grandmother: she lives in a house full of butterflies! Georgina also has a secret
- she knows how to turn into a butterfly
- The Butterfly House is a charming story of friendship between children & their grandparents from one of the youngest talents in British illustration, Sarah Smith. The book`s richly textured illustrations & delightful details will capture the imaginations of young & old alike.

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