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. ...

You are going to die. You can preserve a handful of special memories for ever. Which ones would you choose? True death is a thing of the past. Now you can spend the rest of eternity re-living your happiest memories: that first kiss, falling in love, the birth of your children, enjoyed on loop for ever & ever. Isobel is a Heaven Architect, & she helps dying people create afterlives from these memories. So when she falls for Jarek, one of her terminal
- & married
- clients, she knows that while she cannot save him, she can create the most beautiful of heavens, just for him. But when Jarek`s wife is found dead, Isobel uncovers a darker side of the world she works within, & she can trust no one with what she finds. The Memory Chamber is a thrilling & original story which vaults the reader into a world that is terrifyingly close to our own, where we can avoid everything we fear
- even death itself. But can we ever escape the truth? Perfect for fans of Black Mirror.


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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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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 ...

The Men Who Mapped the World by Beau Riffenburgh, historian & author of many books particularly on Polar explorations, tells the story of philosophers, travellers, artists & scientists who brought together their skills & knowledge to produce some of the most interesting or intriguing examples of cartography. The book’s five chapters, each with several sections, deal with mapping in the ancient & medieval world, cartography in the age of discovery, filling in the missing gaps as the knowledge of the world expanded, maps in the age of empires & nationalism, & mapping the modern world. Lavishly illustrated throughout by maps & map extracts, the book also

Includes:: an imaginative innovation: five envelopes with 15 reproductions of maps from the archives of the Royal Geographical Society. The selected examples beautifully illustrate the development of cartographic styles from early pictorial mapping to modern aerial photography.

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From bestselling author Simon Winchester, the extraordinary story of how America was united into a single nation. For more than two centuries, E pluribus unum
- out of many, one
- has been featured on America`s official government seals & stamped on its currency. But how did America become `one nation, indivisible`? In this monumental history, Simon Winchester addresses this question, introducing the fearless trailblazers whose achievements forged & unified America. Winchester follows in the footsteps of America`s most essential explorers, thinkers, & innovators. He treks vast swaths of territory, introducing these fascinating pioneers
- some, such as Washington & Jefferson, Lewis & Clark being familiar, some forgotten, some hardly known
- who played a pivotal role in creating today`s United States. Throughout, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, & to what degree. ` The Men Who United the States` is a fresh, lively, & erudite look at the way in which the most powerful nation on earth came together, from one of our most entertaining, probing, & insightful observers.



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