All islands have their secrets. This one has more than most. When Fingal Mc Millan rows out into the Atlantic never to return, his grandson Alexander is left with questions. What really happened to Alexander`s mother? Was his grandfather trying to reach The Looming, a rock of local myth? & why have mysterious words appeared on the cliff by the bay? Alexander is not the only local boy whose origins are clouded by mystery
- a mystery which stretches back to Victorian times, when a pioneering travel writer alighted on Scottish shores. But will the island give up its secrets? Or will Ivor Punch
- the man who links the past to the present
- take them to the grave?


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The story of Britain's colourful maritime past seen through the changing fortunes of the Cornish port of Falmouth. Within the space of few years, during the 1560s & 1570s, a maritime revolution took place in England that would contribute more than anything to the transformation of the country from a small rebel state on the fringes of Europe into a world power. Until then, it was said, there was only one Englishman capable of sailing across the Atlantic. Yet within ten years an English ship with an English crew was circumnavigating the world. At the same time in Cornwall, in the Fal estuary, just a single building
- a lime kiln
- existed where the port of Falmouth would emerge. Yet by the end of the eighteenth century, Falmouth would be one of the busiest harbours in the world. ' The Levelling Sea' uses the story of Falmouth's spectacular rise & fall to explore wider questions about the sea & its place in history & imagination. Drawing on his own deep connection with Cornwall, award-winning author Philip Marsden writes unforgettably about the power of the sea & its ability to produce greed on a piratical scale, dizzying corruption, & grand & tragic aspirations.

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The story of Britain`s colourful maritime past seen through the changing fortunes of the Cornish port of Falmouth. Within the space of few years, during the 1560s & 1570s, a maritime revolution took place in England that would contribute more than anything to the transformation of the country from a small rebel state on the fringes of Europe into a world power. Until then, it was said, there was only one Englishman capable of sailing across the Atlantic. Yet within ten years an English ship with an English crew was circumnavigating the world. At the same time in Cornwall, in the Fal estuary, just a single building
- a lime kiln
- existed where the port of Falmouth would emerge. Yet by the end of the eighteenth century, Falmouth would be one of the busiest harbours in the world. ` The Levelling Sea` uses the story of Falmouth`s spectacular rise & fall to explore wider questions about the sea & its place in history & imagination. Drawing on his own deep connection with Cornwall, award-winning author Philip Marsden writes unforgettably about the power of the sea & its ability to produce greed on a piratical scale, dizzying corruption, & grand & tragic aspirations.

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Following orders from President Thomas Jefferson, Captains Meriwether Lewis & William Clark set out from their wintering camp in Illinois in 1804 to search for a river passage to the Pacific Ocean. In this riveting account, editor Gary E. Moulton blends the narrative highlights of the Lewis & Clark journals so that the voices of the enlisted men & of Native peoples are heard alongside the words of the captains. All their triumphs & terrors are here-the thrill of seeing the vast herds of bison on the plains; the tensions & admiration in the first meetings with Indian peoples; Lewis`s rapture at the stunning beauty of the Great Falls; the fear the captains felt when a devastating illness befell their Shoshone interpreter, Sacagawea; the ordeal of crossing the Continental Divide; the kidnapping & rescuing of Lewis’s dog, Seaman; miserable days of cold & hunger; & Clark`s joy at seeing the Pacific. The cultural differences between the corps & Native Americans make for living drama that at times provokes laughter but more often is poignant &, at least once, tragic. ...

An unidentified corpse is recovered from a Lewis peat bog; the only clue to its identity being a DNA sibling match to a local farmer. But this islander, Tormod Macdonald
- now an elderly man suffering from dementia
- has always claimed to be an only child. When Tormod`s family approach Fin Macleod for help, Fin feels duty-bound to solve the mystery.

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From the author of The Power, winner of the Baileys Women`s Prize for Fiction 2017`A visceral retelling of the events surrounding the life of Jesus` Hilary Mantel, Guardian, Books of the Year` He was a traitor, a rabble-leader, a rebel, a liar & a pretender to the throne. We have tried to forget him here.` Now, a year after Yehoshuah`s death, four people tell their stories. His mother flashes between grief & rage while trouble brews between her village & the occupying soldiers. Iehuda, who was once Yehoshuah`s friend, recalls how he came to lose his faith & find a place among the Romans. Caiaphas, the High Priest at the great Temple in Jerusalem, tries to hold the peace between Rome & Judea. Bar-Avo, a rebel, strives to bring that peace tumbling down. Viscerally powerful in its depictions of the realities of the period: massacres & riots, animal sacrifice & human betrayal, The Liars` Gospel finds echoes of the present in the past. It was a time of political power-play & brutal tyranny & occupation. Young men & women took to the streets to protest. Dictators put them down with iron force. Rumours spread from mouth to mouth. Rebels attacked the greatest Empire the world has ever known. The Empire gathered its forces to make those rebels pay. & in the midst of all of that, one inconsequential preacher died. & either something miraculous happened, or someone lied. ...

The Liberation is set in Italy in 1945 as British & American troops attempt to bring order to the devastated country & Italy`s population fights to survive. Caterina Lombardi is desperate
- her father is dead, her mother has disappeared & her brother is being drawn towards danger. One morning, among the ruins of the bombed Naples streets, Caterina is forced to go to extreme lengths to protect her own life & in doing so forges a future in which she must clear her father`s name. An Allied Army officer accuses him of treason & Caterina discovers a plot against her family. Who can she trust & who is the real enemy now? & will the secrets of the past be her downfall? This epic novel is an unforgettably powerful story of love, loss & the long shadow of war.
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` Vickers sees with a clear eye & writes with a light hand; she`s a presence worth cherishing in the ranks of modern novelists.` Philip Pullman In 1958, Sylvia Blackwell, fresh from one of the new post-war Library Schools, takes up a job as children`s librarian in a run down library in the market town of East Mole. Her mission is to fire the enthusiasm of the children of East Mole for reading. But her love affair with the local married GP, & her befriending of his precious daughter, her neighbour`s son & her landlady`s neglected grandchild, ignite the prejudices of the town, threatening her job & the very existence of the library with dramatic consequences for them all. The Librarian is a moving testament to the joy of reading & the power of books to change & inspire us all.` Underneath the delightful patina of nostalgia for post-War Engl&, there are stern & spiky questions about why we are allowing our children to be robbed of their heritage of story.` Frank Cottrell Boyce` Vickers has a formidable knack for laying open the human heart` Sunday Times ...

Gromov is merely a forgotten writer of Soviet propagandist novels. But he has left behind his Books & the powers they impart
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`A wonderful book: Nancy Campbell is a fine storyteller with a rare physical intelligence. The extraordinary brilliance of her eye confers the reader a total immersion in the rimy realms she explores. Glaciers, Arctic floe, verglas, frost & snow
- I can think of no better or warmer guide to the icy ends of the Earth` Dan Richards, author of Climbing Days A vivid & perceptive book combining memoir, scientific & cultural history with a bewitching account of landscape & place, which will appeal to readers of Robert Macfarlane, Roger Deakin & Olivia Laing. Long captivated by the solid yet impermanent nature of ice, by its stark, rugged beauty, acclaimed poet & writer Nancy Campbell sets out from the world`s northernmost museum
- at Upernavik in Greenland
- to explore it in all its facets. From the Bodleian Library archives to the traces left by the great polar expeditions, from remote Arctic settlements to the ice houses of Calcutta, she examines the impact of ice on our lives at a time when it is itself under threat from climate change. The Library of Ice is a fascinating & beautifully rendered evocation of the interplay of people & their environment on a fragile planet, & of a writer`s quest to define the value of her work in a disappearing landscape.` The Library of Ice instantly transported me elsewhere... This luminous book is both beautifully written & astute in its observations, turning the pages of time backwards & revealing, like the archive of the earth`s climate stored in layers of solidified water, the embedded meanings of the world`s icy realms. It is a book as urgently relevant as it is wondrous` Julian Hoffman, author of The Heart of Small Things ` An extraordinary work not only for the perspicacity & innate experience of the author who leads the reader carefully across intertwined icy tracks of crystallised geographics, melting myths & frozen exploration histories, but through her own tender diagnostics of what reading ice can show us in these times.. . Perilous in its scope, exacting in its observation, wild in intellect, The Library of Ice captures the reader`s attention almost as if caught in ice itself` Kirsten Macgillivray, poet ` This is travel writing to be treasured. A biography of ice, the element that has another life, with hard facts thawed & warmed by a poet`s voice. Campbell`s writing is companionable, curious, deeply researched & with no bragging about the intrepidity that has taken her between winter-dark Greenl&, Polar libaries, Scottish curling rinks, Alpine glaciers & Henry Thoreau`s pond at Walden` Jasper Winn, author of Paddle


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