A diary of adventure in picturesque Sand Bay, The Great Escape: Adventures on the Wild West Coast takes readers on an extraordinary journey as writer & explorer Monty Halls follows his dream of becoming a crofter. With his gigantic (possibly insane) dog Reuben as his companion, Monty raises sheep, pigs & chickens, grows his own vegetables, explores the wildlife, meets the locals, & learns all about life on Scotland`s wild west coast. Living his dream is not without its challenges
- whether it`s renovating an ancient bothy, climbing a mountain called The Inaccessible Pinnacle, or surviving the daily onslaught of midges
- but it`s a life-changing experience, set in the most beautiful & dramatic landscape in Europe. The Great Escape is a book for anyone who has longed to leave the rat race behind.

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When a famous explorer goes missing in the North Pole, his son, Tom, decides he must find him. & so a daring adventure begins across the treacherous icy terrain of the North Pole. Will Tom be able overcome the many challenges ahead & find his father? ...

The Great Explorers profiles 40 of the world’s greatest explorers, from Europe, America, Asia & Australia. The man who has been hailed as the greatest explorer of the recent times, Robin Hanbury-Tenison presents us with the men & women who trod the paths never taken before & who changed our perception of the world through their courageous explorations, opening our eyes to the physical, natural & historical wealth around us. Hanbury-Tenison edits an international team of distinguished travel writers, broadcasters & historians who describe these great explorers’ lives, motives & passions in a series of penetrating biographies, illustrated throughout with beautiful paintings, photographs, engravings & maps. ...

What inspires explorers to push back the boundaries of the known world? Why do they risk their lives in unforgiving conditions far from home? How do they survive at the limits of human endurance? Who are the great pioneers of l&, sea & space? Where next? This book charts the great expeditions of forty of the world`s most intrepid explorers, from da Gama to Gagarin. Gertrude Bell plotted the desert sands, politics & poetry of Arabia; Francis Garnier was driven almost insane on the banks of the Mekong; Edward Wilson twice tried to reach the South Pole with Scott; Nain Singh mapped the vast spaces of Tibet, counting every step. Written by a host of distinguished travel writers, broadcasters & historians, here are journeys to savour from every corner of the earth
- & beyond.
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This is the Great Explosion by Brian Dillon: a masterful account of a terrible disaster in a remarkable place. In April 1916, shortly before the commencement of the Battle of the Somme, a fire started in a vast munitions works located in the Kentish marshes. The resulting series of explosions killed 108 people & injured many more. In a brilliant piece of storytelling, Brian Dillon recreates the events of that terrible day
- &, in so doing, sheds a fresh & unexpected light on the British home front in the Great War. He offers a chilling natural history of explosives & their effects on the earth, on buildings, & on human & animal bodies. & he evokes with vivid clarity one of Britain`s strangest & most remarkable landscapes
- where he has been a habitual explorer for many years. The Great Explosion is a profound work of narrative, exploration & inquiry from one of our most brilliant writers. ” The Great Explosion is exhilarating & moving & lyrical. It is a quiet evisceration of a landscape through the discovery of a lost history of destructiveness, a meditation on Englishness, an autobiography, a mapping of absences. I loved it.” (Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes). ” What a fascinating, unclassifiable, brilliant book, confirming Brian Dillon`s reputation as one of our most innovative & elegant non-fictioneers. No one else could have written it.” (Robert Macfarlane, author of The Old Ways). ” Forensic, fascinating, endlessly interesting.” (Philip Hoare, Samuel Johnson Prize-winning author of Leviathan & The Sea Inside). ”A subtle, human history of the early twentieth century... Explosions are a fruitful subject in Dillon`s hands, one that enables him to reflect movingly on the instant between life & death, on the frailty of human endeavour, & on the readiness of nations to tear one another apart. The Great Explosion deftly covers a tumultuous period of history while centring on the tiniest moments
- just punctuation marks in time.” (Financial Times). ”[ Dillon`s] account of the Faversham explosion is as bold as it is dramatic, while his descriptive passages about the marshlands of Kent are so evocative that you can practically feel the mud sticking at your feet.” (Evening Standard). ”A brilliant evocation of place grasped in its modernity.” (Guardian). ” Dillon...has a WG Sebald-like gift for interrogating the landscape...a work of real elegiac seriousness that goes to the heart of a case of human loss & destruction in England`s sinister pastures green.” (Ian Thomson, Irish Times). ” Exhilarating...utterly beguiling.” (Literary Review).


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This is an engaging & moving account of this most destructive event in Irish history. Over one million people died in the Great Famine, & more than one million more emigrated on the coffin ships to America & beyond. Drawing on contemporary eyewitness accounts & diaries, the book charts the arrival of the potato blight in 1845 & the total destruction of the harvests in 1846 which brought a sense of numbing shock to the populace. Far from meeting the relief needs of the poor, the Liberal public works programme was a first example of how relief policies would themselves lead to mortality. Workhouses were swamped with thousands who had subsisted on public works & soup kitchens earlier, & who now gathered in ragged crowds. Unable to cope, workhouse staff were forced to witness hundreds die where they lay, outside the walls. The next phase of degradation was the clearances, or exterminations in popular parlance which took place on a colossal scale. From late 1847 an exodus had begun. The Famine slowly came to an end from late 1849 but the longer term consequences were to reverberate through future decades. ...

In 1666, London`s citizens woke to see the skyline above their city`s cramped wooden houses ablaze. The Great Fire of London is a hauntingly beautiful visual re-telling of one of the most well-known disasters in the city`s history. To commemorate the 350th anniversary of the fire, powerful & sumptuous drawings from the new east London illustrator, James Weston Lewis, bring the events of November 1666 to life. Lewis`s drawings take readers on a journey, from the single smouldering coal that falls out of the baker`s oven to the swirling clouds of ash that engulf the city & then in to the very heart of the fire itself. As the pages turn, you can witness London burning to the ground & then rebuilding again. Children will love examining the rich detail of each spread, from the detailed city map to the drawings of London before, during & after the fire took hold. This book takes the dramatic historical information surrounding the Great Fire of London & transforms it into a breathtaking story that will transfix readers of all ages. ...

2 SEPTEMBER 1666: 350 YEARS SINCE THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON. In the early hours of 2 September 1666 a small fire broke out in a bakery in Pudding Lane. In the five days that followed it grew into a conflagration that would devastate the third largest city in the Western world. This short edition is the essential guide to the Great Fire of London &

Includes:: first-hand descriptions from the diaries of Samuel Pepys & John Evelyn, as well as a gripping account from renowned historian Adrian Tinniswood.

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John Humphrys is passionate about the state of British food, farming, fishing & agriculture. Here, he looks back to the days of organic farming in England when people shared & swapped food & considered the wildlife as well as the farmed animals, crops & fruits. He examines today`s travesties: factory farming, pouring chemicals into the l&, the scandal of the supermarket wars & cheap imported goods. He then turns to the future & asks: Can we save this ravaged earth & rebuild our community values? Most of all, can we reverse the damage to ourselves & our long-term health that may result from what we eat? John Humphrys` book requires the full attention of anyone who cares about themselves or the future. ...

The classic race game along Britain`s historic railway networks.A nostalgic board game race, around the historic railway networks of Britain. Be the first cummuter to travel from London to each of your mystery destinations & back again. Watch out for station closures & hazards along the way.2-6 players Contents: Game board, cards, playing pieces, dice & shaker. ...