When Mr Mellops discovers a family treasure map he takes his sons on a maritime adventure. Before they know it, the Mellops are dodging a giant octopus, exploring an undersea wreck & digging for treasure. But will the Mellops find treasure of another kind? Reissued in English to inspire & delight a new generation of children. ...

While on a family picnic Mr Mellops notices the mountain water has an `awful taste, like oil`. Soon, the intrepid Mellops embark on a quest that takes them to the library, the museum & eventually an oil field! Reissued in English to inspire & delight a new generation of children. ...

With delicacy of perception & memory, humour & pathos, Carson Mc Cullers spreads before us the three phases of a weekend crisis in the life of a motherless twelve-year-old girl. Within the span of a few hours, the irresistible, hoydenish Frankie passionately plays out her fantasies at her elder brother`s wedding. Through a perilous skylight we look into the mind of a child torn between her yearning to belong & the urge to run away. ...

Special collectors` hardback editions lovingly restored to original designs`I love these editions
- so beautifully produced, so
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Edwin Lutyens` Memorial to the Missing of the Somme at Thiepval in Northern France, visited annually by tens of thousands of tourists, is arguably the finest structure erected by any British architect in the twentieth century. It is the principal, tangible expression of the defining event in Britain`s experience & memory of the Great War, the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916, & it bears the names of 73, 000 soldiers whose bodies were never found at the end of that bloody & futile campaign. This brilliant study by an acclaimed architectural historian tells the origin of the memorial in the context of commemorating the war dead; it considers the giant classical brick arch in architectural terms, & also explores its wider historical significance & its resonances today. So much of the meaning of the twentieth century is concentrated here; the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing casts a shadow into the future, a shadow which extends beyond the dead of the Holocaust, to the Gulag, to the `disappeared` of South America & of Tianenmen. Reissued in a beautiful & striking new edition for the centenary of the Somme. ...

In ancient, pre-literate cultures across the globe, tribal elders had encyclopedic memories. They could name all the animals & plants across a landscape, identify the stars in the sky & recite the history of their people. Yet today, most of us struggle to memorize more than a short poem. Using traditional Aboriginal Australian song lines as a starting point, Lynne Kelly has since identified the powerful memory technique used by our ancestors & indigenous people around the world. In turn, she has then discovered that this ancient memory technique is the secret purpose behind the great prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge, which have puzzled archaeologists for so long. The stone circles across Britain & northern Europe, the elaborate stone houses of New Mexico, huge animal shapes in Peru, the statues of Easter Island
- these all serve as the most effective memory system ever invented by humans. They allowed people in non-literate cultures to memorize the vast amounts of information they needed to survive. But how? For the first time, Lynne Kelly reveals the purpose of these monuments & their uses as `memory places`, & shows how we can use this ancient technique to train our minds.
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Freetown, Sierra Leone: a devastating civil war has left an entire populace with terrible secrets to keep. In the capital`s hospital Kai, a gifted young surgeon is plagued by demons that are beginning to threaten his livelihood. Elsewhere in the hospital lies Elias Cole, a university professor who recalls the love that obsessed him & drove him to acts that are far from heroic. As past & present intersect, Kai & Elias are drawn unwittingly closer by Adrian, a British psychiatrist with good intentions, & into the path of one woman at the centre of their stories. The Memory of Love is a heartbreaking story of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. ...

The rooms we live in are always more than just four walls. As we decorate these spaces & fill them with objects & friends, they shape our lives & become the backdrop to our sense of self. One day, the houses will be gone, but even then, traces of the stories & the memories they contained will remain. In this dazzling work of imaginative re-construction, Edward Hollis takes us to the sites of five great spaces now lost to history & pieces together the fragments he finds there to re-create their vanished chambers. From Rome`s Palatine to the old Palace of Westminster & the Petit Trianon at Versailles, & from the sets of the MGM studios in Hollywood to the pavilions of the Crystal Palace & his own grandmother`s sitting room, The Memory Palace is a glittering treasure trove of luminous forgotten places & the people who, for a short time, made them their home. ...

Buenos Aires, 1976. Osvaldo Ferrero, a distinguished doctor, & his wife Yolanda escape the city with their daughters, sensible Julieta & wilful Graciela, who is nineteen & madly in love. On their return, the Argentine military stages a coup. Friends disappear overnight, & Osvaldo is forced to flee to Europe. When her fiance is abducted, Graciela goes into hiding, then she vanishes in turn. As Yolanda fights on the ground for some trace of their beloved daughter, she soon realises she may be fighting for an unknown grandchild as well... ...

Established in June 1940, the Long Range Desert Group was the inspiration of scientist & soldier Major Ralph Bagnold, a contemporary of T.E Lawrence who, in the inter-war years, explored the North African desert in a Model T Ford automobile. Mortimer takes us from the founding of the LRDG, through their treacherous journey across the Egyptian Sand Sea & beyond, offering a hitherto unseen glimpse into the heart of this most courageous organisation, whose unique & valiant contributions to the war effort can now finally be recognized & appreciated. Praise for Gavin Mortimer: ” With unparalleled access to SBS`s archive, Mortimer draws on private papers to produce the definitive account of the SBS`s extraordinary exploits in WWII.” Sunday Telegraph ” The SBS is finally being recognised thanks to a remarkable new book. Author Gavin Mortimer spent more than a decade interviewing veterans, scrutinising SBS archives & poring over recently declassified documents to write The SBS in World War 2.” Daily Mirror ” This gripping first-hand account of the raid is one of many previously unpublished resources that Mortimer`s book draws on.” The Times ” Mortimer deserves full credit for assembling a mountain of material & presenting it with lucidity & balance” Philip Ziegler, Daily Mail ...