January, 1913, Cambridge. G.H. Hardy
- eccentric, charismatic & considered the greatest British mathematician of his age
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In 1895/6 the sixty-year-old Mark Twain set off on a worldwide lecture tour to pay off his debts from a publishing company bankruptcy, notes from which a year later became his final travel book Following the Equator. Two years later he wrote, ` How I did loathe that journey around the world! except the sea-part & India.` Although he was only in India for just over two of the twelve months, his exploits & observations there take up forty per cent of the book-and by common consent are by far the best & liveliest part of it. In The Indian Equator the Mark Twain travel trilogist Ian Strathcarron, his wife & photographer Gillian & his factota Sita follow in his mentor`s footsteps, train tracks & boat wakes tracing the route that Twain, his wife Livy, his daughter Clara, his manager Smythe & his bearer Satan took as they crisscrossed the sub-continent. Leaving from the Bombay that was & the Mumbai that is, both writers follow the lecture circuit of old India--including what is now Pakistan--across the plains & cities of the north up to the peaks of the Himalayas by way of Baroda, Jaipur, Delhi, Agra, Lucknow, Benares/ Varanasi, Calcutta/ Kolkata, Darjeeling, Lahore & Rawalpindi. Staying in the same Raj clubs, travelling down the same train lines, meeting the high & mighty & the downtrodden & destitute, Twain & Strathcarron are absorbed by an India that then was & now is `not for the faint of heart nor mild of spirit nor weak of mind nor dull of sense nor correct of politic`; a rapidly changing yet still deeply traditional society where `a few hundred million have grabbed the twenty-first century by the whiskers & many more hundred million still tuck the nineteenth century into bed at night`. Mark Twain loved the India of 1896; like his trilogist, he would love it still. ...

A feast for the eyes as well as the mind, this is a comprehensive encyclopaedia of the mouth-watering ingredients used in Indian cooking. Monisha Bharadwaj shares the secrets of Indian cuisine & celebrates variety & ingenuity. From asafoetida to walnuts, each of 100 ingredients is explored giving useful advice about its appearance & taste, how it grows, how to store it &, of course, its culinary uses, complemented with over 200 classic Indian dishes. Every ingredient is a vivid insight into India's great & colourful traditions, from the earthy, creamy lentil dishes & yogurt-based marinades in North Indian cooking to the rice, coconut & curry leaves that are the famous staples of the South. Including tips on how to balance hot, sweet & sour flavours, how to cook spices so that they achieve their full-bodied, almost nutty-tasting flavour & explanations for why it is so essential to brown onions to a deep russet colour, The Indian Kitchen will bring rich & heady flavours into the heart of every home. ...

Indian Slow Cooker helps you to create authentic Indian food with over 60 delicious, fuss-free recipes that can be prepared ...

The Indian Spa achieves that rare combination of photographic indulgence with authoritative coverage of Indian wellness therapies in their entirety. As people turn to the spa for health, relaxation & rejuvenation, interest in India & its wellness traditions grows & this new book illustrates how these centuries-old practices are relevant in today's world. All of the subcontinents healing traditions Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani & traditional Tibetan medicine are covered, alongside the related practices of yoga & meditation & numerous forms of herbal & beauty treatments. Lavishly illustrated with over 550 new, full colour photographs, the book offers the reader an insight into the sheer luxury of the worlds leading retreats & their facilities, as well as comprehensive chapters on the various therapies offered in India & overseas (many never photographed before). Details on natural products & key botanicals as well as an overview of related cultural practices like astrology, dance & martial arts ensures this book is a treasure trove of information & inspiration for spa goers worldwide. ...

This historical novel is focussed around a church located in Florence, & what happens to it through different periods of history. The story starts in the present day, with a tour guide taking a family around a museum that originally was the church. The tour guide, Molly Cavendish is the present day link, & as the story changes from the past to the present day, she asks the questions as well as proving the answers to what happened to the ” Chiesa di Santa Maria” during its history. This is a tragic story of one man`s quest using the brightest & the best talent in Florence of that age. Through time we see the trials & tribulations of the Chiesa di Santa Maria, dating through the Napoleonic War, World War Two & the Florentine Floods of 1966; & the end of the story is based in the present day. ...

Indonesia is the world`s largest archipelago, encompassing nearly 18, 000 islands. The fourth most populous country in the world, it has a larger Muslim population than any other nation. ” The Indonesia Reader” is a unique introduction to this extraordinary country. Assembled for the traveller, student, & expert alike, the Reader

Includes:: more than 150 selections: journalists` articles, explorers` chronicles, photographs, poetry, stories, cartoons, drawings, letters, speeches, & more. Many pieces are by Indonesians; some are translated into English for the first time. All of them are preceded by introductions written by the volume`s editors. Well-known figures such as Indonesia`s acclaimed novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer & the American anthropologist Clifford Geertz are featured alongside other artists & scholars as well as politicians, revolutionaries, colonists, scientists, & activists. Organized chronologically, the volume addresses early Indonesian civilizations; contact with traders from India, China, & the Arab Middle East; &, the European colonization of Indonesia, which culminated in centuries of Dutch rule. Selections offer insight into Japan`s 1942-45 occupation, the establishment of an independent Indonesia, & the post-independence era, from the Sukarno presidency (1945-67), through Suharto`s dictatorial regime (1967-98), to the present Reformasi period. Themes of resistance & activism recur: in a book excerpt decrying the exploitation of Java`s natural wealth by the Dutch; in the writing of Kartini (1879-1904), a Javanese princess considered the icon of Indonesian feminism; in a 1978 statement from East Timor objecting to annexation by Indonesia; &, in an essay by the founder of Indonesia`s first gay activist group. From fifth-century Sanskrit inscriptions in stone to selections related to the 2002 Bali bombings & the 2004 tsunami, ” The Indonesia Reader” conveys the long history & the cultural, ethnic, & ecological diversity of this far-flung archipelago nation.

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The Infatuations is a metaphysical murder mystery & a stunningly original literary achievement by Javier Marias, the internationally acclaimed author of A Heart So White & Your Face Tomorrow. Every day, Maria Dolz stops for breakfast at the same cafe. & every day she enjoys watching a handsome couple who follow the same routine. Then one day they aren't there, & she feels obscurely bereft. It is only later, when she comes across a newspaper photograph of the man, lying stabbed in the street, his shirt half off, that she discovers who the couple are. Some time afterwards, when the woman returns to the cafe with her children, who are then collected by a different man, & Maria approaches her to offer her condolences, an entanglement begins which sheds new light on this apparently random, pointless death. With The Infatuations, Javier Marias brilliantly reimagines the murder novel as a metaphysical enquiry, addressing existential questions of life, death, love & morality. The Infatuations is an extraordinary, immersive book about the terrible force of events & their consequences. I am greatly impressed by the quality of Marias' writing.. .he uses language like an anatomist uses the scalpel to cut away the layers of the flesh in order to lay bare the innermost secrets of that strangest of species, the human being. (W. G. Sebald). Years ago, I said that Marias was Spain's best living writer... Nothing, afterwards, has made me alter that opinion. (Eduardo Mendoza, El Pais). [I am] enthralled by his strange mix of made-up memories, lost experiences & real-life fantasies. (Marina Warner, Guardian). Stylish, cerebral... Marias is a startling talent. (The New York Times). Sentence by glorious sentence, is there a better novelist alive in Europe now than Javier Marias?. (Independent) Javier Marias was born in Madrid in 1951. He has published ten novels, two collections of short stories & several volumes of essays. His work has been translated into thirty-two languages & won a dazzling array of international literary awards, including the prestigious Dublin IMPAC award for A Heart So White. He is also a highly practised translator into Spanish of English authors, including Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Thomas Browne & Laurence Sterne. He has held academic posts in Spain, the United States & in Britain, as Lecturer in Spanish Literature at Oxford University. Margaret Jull Costa has been a literary translator for over twenty-five years & has translated many novels & short stories by Portuguese, Spanish & Latin American writers, including Javier Marias, Fernando Pessoa, Jose Saramago, Bernardo Atxaga & Ramon del Valle-Inclan. She has won various prizes for her work, including, in 2008, the PEN Book-of-the-Month Translation Award & the Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize for her version of Eca de Queiroz's masterpiece The Maias, &, most recently, the 2011 Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize for The Elephant's Journey by Jose Saramago. ...

The Infatuations is a critically acclaimed novel by the great Spanish writer Javier Marias. Every day, Maria Dolz stops for breakfast at the same cafe. & every day she enjoys watching a handsome couple who follow the same routine. Then one day they aren`t there, & she feels obscurely bereft. It is only later, when she comes across a newspaper photograph of the man, lying stabbed in the street, his shirt half off, that she discovers who the couple are. Some time afterwards, when the woman returns to the cafe with her children, who are then collected by a different man, & Maria approaches her to offer her condolences, an entanglement begins which sheds new light on this apparently random, pointless death. With The Infatuations, Javier Marias brilliantly reimagines the murder novel as a metaphysical enquiry, addressing existential questions of life, death, love & morality. Praise for The Infatuations: ” Mesmerising...chillingly clear & hypnotically eerie... At this very fine & disturbing novel`s core is a compelling meditation on love in all its ramifications”. (Herald). ” Keeps us guessing until almost the last page”. (Financial Times).” Few writers have sustained such an engagement with the classic (Anglophone) canon. As a translator he has rendered into Spanish work by Hardy, Yeats, Conrad, Nabokov, Faulkner, Updike, Salinger & many others. As a novelist, he has threaded his work with traces of these writers, & is explicitly underpinned by an empathy with Shakespeare & Sterne, as well as Cervantes & Proust”. (Guardian). Javier Marias was born in Madrid in 1951. He has published thirteen novels, two collections of short stories & several volumes of essays. His work has been translated into forty-two languages & won a dazzling array of international literary awards. Margaret Jull Costa has been a literary translator for over twenty-five years & has translated many novels & short stories by Portuguese, Spanish & Latin American writers, including Javier Marias, Fernando Pessoa, Jose Saramago, Bernardo Atxaga & Ramon del Valle-Inclan. ...

Infinite games, infinite fun, infinite possibilities. Designed by James Kyle to be for board games what a deck of cards is for card games
- versatile, portable, complete
- the piecepack system is an ingenious 56-piece gaming set that can be used to play hundreds & hundreds of board games, both classic & newly created. A piecepack

Includes:: dice, pawns, tiles, & coins & is already an online phenomenon among gamers. The Infinite Board Game
- meticulously edited & curated by W. Eric Martin, a widely respected figure in the gaming world
- combines a complete, custom-designed 56-part piecepack game set with a full-colour book containing instructions for 50 of the liveliest games to play. It`s the perfect kit for game night with friends, for families, for board game lovers of all ages. There are classic games like Checkers & a version of the ancient Indian game Pachisi. Games for one: Fuji-san, Piece Gaps, Landlocked, & Crocodile Hop
- possibly the most entertaining way to kill 15 minutes by yourself. Plus, destroy the enemy in Sea Battle; play the part of a corporate bigwig in Takeover; & get the adrenaline going with Moto X. You can also go online to join the piecepack community & discover hundreds more games to play.






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