Shortlisted for the 2017 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature. ` How much risk is worth taking for so beautiful a prize?` The Magician`s Glass by award-winning writer Ed Douglas is a collection of eight recent essays on some of the biggest stories & best-known personalities in the world of climbing. In the title essay, he writes about failure on Annapurna III in 1981, one of the boldest attempts in Himalayan mountaineering on one of the most beautiful lines
- a line that remains unclimbed to this day. Douglas writes about bitter controversies, like that surrounding Ueli Steck`s disputed solo ascent of the south face of Annapurna, the fate of Toni Egger on Cerro Torre in 1959
- when Cesare Maestri claimed the pair had made the first ascent, & the rise & fall of Slovenian ace Tomaz Humar. There are profiles of two stars of the 1980s: the much-loved German Kurt Albert, the father of the `redpoint`, & the enigmatic rock star Patrick Edlinger, a national hero in his native France who lost his way. In Crazy Wisdom, Douglas offers fresh perspectives on the impact mountaineering has on local communities & the role climbers play in the developing world. The final essay explores the relationship between art & alpinism as a way of understanding why it is that people climb mountains.

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In The Magnetic North, Sara Wheeler documents her journeys around the Arctic regions of the globe. The book is the product of two years of smaller trips that add up to a circular, anti-clockwise voyage around the top of the inhabited world: from Siberia to Alaska, to Canada, to Greenl&, to Spitsbergen, to Lapland & back to Russia, to the White Sea. The book is part travelogue, part Arctic history, part scientific & political debate & part elegy to a fast changing region of the earth in the 21st century. Wheeler examines the allure of the Arctic & its hold on our imaginations, & encounters the people who live & work on the edge of the world in a book that tells of men eating boots, gulag ghosts & toxic polar bears… ...

This beautiful book will have you captivated! From a terrifying king cobra to a tiny red-eyed tree frog, a rare Galapagos tortoise to a bright Parson`s chameleon, The Magnificent Book of Reptiles & Amphibians is the perfect introduction to these fascinating creatures. Each stunning, detailed illustration is accompanied by intriguing facts, amounting to a wonderful keepsake that you will revisit time & again. ...

When Augustin Meaulnes arrives in Francois` home, he changes everything. Life in the little town where they both go to school suddenly becomes far more adventurous & exciting. On one of his escapades, Meaulnes gets lost in the countryside finds himself at an extraordinary party where he meets the girl of his dreams. From this point on he is haunted by her memory & devotes his life, with Francois` willing help, to finding her again. ...

A ring of spectacular cemeteries, developed at the edges of London in the decade from 1832, have long been referred to as The Magnificent Seven. At the time, they set a new aesthetic for the burial of the dead, & remain rich in social history & beauty to this day. It was entrepreneurs, rather than the religious authorities, who responded to the squalor of the City`s brimming churchyards by fi nancing seemly, hygienic concepts of burial in the rural outskirts, now embraced by inner London. The Seven became showcases for neoclassical & neo-Gothic architecture, matched by splendid
- sometimes eccentric
- memorials recording Victorian society, & the sweep of London`s history to the present day. From grand Kensal Green in the west to modest Tower Hamlets in the east; from heady Highgate to charming Norwood & Nunhead; & from the military influences of Brompton to the Non-conformist woodland of Abney Park
- a host of characters & stories are visited in this distinctive coverage of the subject.


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On a remote Greek Isl&, Nicholas Urfe finds himself embroiled in the deceptions of a master trickster. As reality & illusion intertwine, Urfe is caught up in the darkest of psychological games. John Fowles expertly unfolds a tale that is lush with over-powering imagery in a spellbinding exploration of human complexities. By turns disturbing, thrilling & seductive, ” The Magus” is a feast for the mind & the senses. ...

The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, yet its author remains unknown; this edition has been translated & abridged by John D. Smith. Of immense importance to the culture of the Indian subcontinent, & is a major text of Hinduism, its discussion of human goals (artha or `purpose`, kama or `pleasure`, dharma or `duty`, & moksha or `liberation`) takes place in a long-standing tradition, attempting to explain the relationship of the individual to society & the world (the nature of the ` Self`) & the workings of karma. ...

The colourful narrative history of Duleep Singh, the last Emperor of the Sikhs & protege of Queen Victoria, & his bizarre attempts to regain his kingdom of the Punjab from the British Empire in the late 19th century. In July 1997 the Swiss Bankers` Association, under international pressure to atone for wartime compliance with Hitler`s Germany, published a list of over 1, 700 `dormant accounts`, untouched for over fifty years. The names were supposedly those of Jewish victims of the Holocaust, but among them was an Indian princess, `last heard of in 1942 living in Penn, Bucks`. Intrigued, Christy Campbell, a journalist on the Sunday Telegraph, started to search the records, & so uncovered the remarkable story of how Maharajah Duleep Singh, the last Emperor of the Sikhs, was made by the British
- as a nine-year-old in 1849
- to sign away his kingdom of the Punjab & give Queen Victoria the Koh-i-Noor diamond (the most celebrated diamond in the world, & the jewel in Britain`s Crown). Duleep Singh, a virtual prisoner of Queen Victoria in Engl&, began to dream of regaining his kingdom, & so embarked on a series of adventures (involving Russia & the ` Great Game` of Central Asia) before finally begging Victoria`s forgiveness. He had six children & died in 1893. Today the Sikhs still claim their inheritance, including the Koh-i-Noor & the now-divided Punjab.

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The first English publication of Georges Simenon`s compelling novel about summer escape & elusive obsessions. ` The island itself. Its throbbing heat as if in a belljar under the sun, the scorpion in his son`s bed, the deafening sound of cicadas.` During his first holiday on the island of Porquerolles Dr Mahe caught a glimpse of something irresistible. As the memory continues to haunt him, he falls prey to a delusion that may offer an escape from his conventional existence
- or may destroy him. This is the first English translation of The Mahe Circle, Simenon`s dark, malevolent depiction of an ordinary man trapped in mundanity & consumed by obsession. ” Compelling, remorseless, brilliant”. (John Gray). ” One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century... Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories”. (Guardian). ”A supreme writer.. .unforgettable vividness”. (Independent). Georges Simenon was born in Liege, Belgium, in 1903. Best known in Britain as the author of the Maigret books, his prolific output of over 400 novels & short stories have made him a household name in continental Europe. He died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerl&, where he had lived for the latter part of his life.
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Nanase cannot remember when she first realized she could read people`s minds, but not once during her eighteen years has she ever questioned her particularly unusual ability. Yet, working as a live-in maid, she is inevitably drawn into the lives, thoughts & desires of her employers, with dangerous & at times hilarious consequences. From the sexual rapaciousness of her first boss to the grime & stench of the house where she works next & her third employer`s inability to accept she`s no longer young, Nanase`s adventures are a picaresque journey into the inner sanctum of the lives & psyches of ordinary Japanese people. ...