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. ...

The Lizardine Empire is under threat. When Mycroft Holmes is murdered in London, it is up to retired shadow executive Smith to track down his killer
- & stumble on the greatest conspiracy of his life. Mycroft's protege, returns from Abyssinia with an ancient device that summons deadly, giant tripods. Across the ocean, a young Harry Houdini faces death...and the return of an enemy once thought vanquished. File Under: Steampunk [ Alternate History! Victorians Bite End Of Days Oooo-Laaaaah ] The juicy backstory is unfolded by Tidhar, making it a key part of what makes the narrative so compelling...skilful, clever & hugely enjoyable. 4
- SFX Magazine

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The gardens of Italy rank amongst the great treasures of the world. They have influenced & inspired almost every landscape designer & architect since the Renaissance yet they are not isolated historical artifacts. A garden is always a living, evolving entity that tells a thousand stories about the people that made it as well as the plants that occupy it. Above all, great gardens become a celebration of man`s creative need to work with nature. This book is a personal exploration of Italy`s legendary gardens. Over thirty are featured, including some that are very well known as well as others that might not be on many people`s obvious list. Few people have travelled more widely & have a more passionately practical engagement with gardening than Monty Don. Through captivating text & outstanding photography, Monty & Derry invite the reader to accompany them on their tour around Italy. Their underlying message is that to appreciate a garden fully you must also know something of the food grown & eaten in the area, of the politics, religion & weather of the region, & of the dreams for the garden`s future as well as the glories of its past. Each garden is placed in the context of its surrounding landscape & the lives of those who made it & who tend it today. Far more than an inventory of interesting plants or classical designs, this book leads the reader through a truly stunning odyssey of the breadth & magnificence of Italian gardens, always engaging, occasionally provocative & utterly mesmerising. ...

In 1922, F Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write ”something new- something extraordinary & beautiful & simple, intricately patterned”. That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned &, above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald`s finest work & one of the greatest American novels of the twentieth century, let alone the twenties.A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence & excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author`s generation & earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald`s- & his country`s- most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed & the promise of new beginnings. ” Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that`s no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... & one fine morning- ” Gatsby`s rise to glory & eventual fall from grace be comes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream. ...

Now the subject of a major new film from director Baz Luhrmann (” Romeo+ Juliet”, ” Moulin Rouge!”), starring Leonardo Di Caprio & Carey Mulligan, ” The Great Gatsby” is F. Scott Fitzgerald`s brilliant fable of the hedonistic excess & tragic reality of 1920s America. This ” Penguin Classics” edition is edited with an introduction & notes by Tony Tanner. Young, handsome & fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby is the bright star of the Jazz Age, but as writer Nick Carraway is drawn into the decadent orbit of his Long Island mansion, where the party never seems to end, he finds himself faced by the mystery of Gatsby`s origins & desires. Beneath the shimmering surface of his life, Gatsby is hiding a secret: a silent longing that can never be fulfilled. & soon, this destructive obsession will force his world to unravel. In ” The Great Gatsby”, Fitzgerald brilliantly captures both the disillusionment of post-war America & the moral failure of a society obsessed with wealth & status. But he does more than render the essence of a particular time & place, for
- in chronicling Gatsby`s tragic pursuit of his dream
- Fitzgerald re-creates the universal conflict between illusion & reality. Like Jay Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) has acquired a mythical status in American literary history, & his masterwork. ” The Great Gatsby” is considered by many to be the `great American novel`. In 1920 he married Zelda Sayre, dubbed `the first American Flapper`, & their traumatic marriage & Zelda`s gradual descent into insanity became the leading influence on his writing. As well as many short stories, Fitzgerald wrote five novels ” This Side of Paradise”, ” The Great Gatsby”, ” The Beautiful & the Damned”, ” Tender is the Night” &, incomplete at the time of his death, ” The Last Tycoon”. After his death ” The New York Times” said of him that `in fact & in the literary sense he created a ”generation”`. ”A classic, perhaps the supreme American novel”. (John Carey, ” Sunday Times” Books of the Century).

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Fitzgerald`s classic tale of jazz-era New York & the mysterious, party-throwing millionaire Jay Gatsby. It`s 1922 & New York is electric. A hotbed of jazz, glamour & scandal. The playground of the super-rich. & the new home of Nick Carraway, a Mid-Western man chasing his American dream. For eighty dollars a month, Carraway finds himself the unlikely neighbour of his beautiful cousin Daisy Buchannan & a mysterious millionaire
- Jay Gatsby. From the shadow of Gatsby`s mansion, Carraway is drawn into the glittering, captivating world of the wealthy
- their parties, their love affairs, & their lies. & as he watches his new friends, he writes their story. A tale of roaring excess, impossible love & the devastating, tragic consequences.

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