For as long as civilizations have known how to ascribe numerical values to quantities, there have been number puzzles; ancient Egyptian scrolls have been found with difficult problems for the reader to solve. Now Mensa, the leading high IQ society, have created a book which will challenge even the most adept puzzle-solver. A wide variety of puzzle types have been included from societies around the world in The Mensa Number Puzzle Book. Many include a historical introduction & advice on how to solve them from Mensa`s top puzzle-setters. ...

This extraordinary re-creation of the life of a medieval Italian merchant, Francesco di Marco Datini, is one of the greatest historical portraits written in the twentieth century. Drawing on an astonishing cache of letters unearthed centuries after Datini`s death, it reveals to us a shrewd, enterprising, anxious man, as he makes deals, furnishes his sumptuous house, buys silks for his outspoken young wife & broods on his legacy. It is an unequalled source of knowledge about the texture of daily life in the small, earthy, violent, striving world of fourteenth-century Tuscany. ` Datini has now probably become most intimately accessible figure of the later Middle Ages.. .brilliant & intricate` The Times ` As a picture of Tuscany before the dawn of the Renaissance it is a complement to The Decameron` Sunday Times ...

What hope is there for Syria? Clues can be found in the story of the Syrian cloth merchant Abu Chaker & his success against the odds. Barely literate, & supporting his mother & sisters from the age of ten, Abu Chaker built up a business empire--despite twice losing everything he had. Diana Darke follows his tumultuous journey, from instability in Syria & civil war in Lebanon, to his arrival in England in the 1970s, where he rescued a failing Yorkshire textile mill, Hield Bros, & transformed it into a global br&. The Merchant of Syria tells two parallel stories: the life of a cloth merchant & his resilience, & the rich history of a nation built on trade. Over millennia Syria has seen great conflict & turmoil, but like the remarkable story of Abu Chaker, it continues to survive. ...

In the late 16th century the greatest philosophers, alchemists, astronomers, painters, & mathematicians of the day flocked to Prague to work under the patronage of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, an emperor more interested in the great minds of his times than in the exercise of his immense power. Rarely leaving Prague Castle, he gathered around him a galaxy of famous figures: among them the painter Arcimboldo, the astronomer Tycho Brahe, the mathematician Johannes Kepler, the philosopher Giordano Bruno & the magus John Dee. Fascinated by the new Renaissance learning, Rudolf found it nearly impossible to make decisions of state. Like Faust, he was prepared to risk all in the pursuit of magical knowledge & the Philosopher`s Stone which would turn base metals into gold & prolong life indefinitely. But he also faced threats: religious discord, the Ottoman Empire, his own deepening melancholy & an ambitious younger brother. As a result he lost his empire & nearly his sanity. But he enabled Prague to enjoy a golden age of peace & creativity before Europe was engulfed in the Thirty Years` War. Filled with angels & devils, high art & low cunning, talismans & stars, The Mercurial Emperor offers a captivating perspective on a pivotal moment in the history of Western civilisation. ...

Englishman Paul West is living the Parisian dream, & doing his best not to annoy the French. But recently things have been going tres wrong: He`s stuck in an apartment so small that he has to cut his baguettes in two to fit them in the kitchen. His research into authentic French cuisine is about to cause a national strike
- & it could be all his fault. His Parisian business partner is determined to close their tea-room. & thinks that sexually harrassing his female employees is a basic human right. & Paul`s gorgeous ex-girlfriend seems to be stalking him. Threatened with eviction, unemployment & bankrupcy, Paul realises that his personal merde factor is about to hit the fan...
...

This voyage is special. It will change everything… One September evening in 1785, the merchant Jonah Hancock hears urgent knocking on his front door. One of his captains is waiting eagerly on the step. He has sold Jonah’s ship for what appears to be a mermaid. As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlours & brothels, everyone wants to see Mr Hancock’s marvel. Its arrival spins him out of his ordinary existence & through the doors of high society. At an opulent party, he makes the acquaintance of Angelica Neal, the most desirable woman he has ever laid eyes on… & a courtesan of great accomplishment. This meeting will steer both their lives onto a dangerous new course, on which they will learn that priceless things come at the greatest cost. Where will their ambitions lead? & will they be able to escape the destructive power mermaids are said to possess? In this spell-binding story of curiosity & obsession, Imogen Hermes Gowar has created an unforgettable jewel of a novel, filled to the brim with intelligence, heart & wit. ...

Somebody in Laos is wooing & wedding country girls
- & then killing them on honeymoon & binding their bodies to trees. The horror
...

Unable to find stage work, actresses Cordelia Preston & Rillie Spoons need to find a way of making a living. Cordelia remembers the skills of her aunt & sets out to be a phreno-mesmerist, advising couples on their compatibility & enlightening women on The Gentle Intricacies of the Wedding Night'. Cordelia finds that she does indeed possess the gift for mesmerism, & as her popularity grows, she & Rillie are finally living their dream. But events from Cordelia's past return to haunt her, & the women become embroiled in a scandal that threatens to ruin not only them but those they love.. . ...

When the battered body of a young woman is discovered on a remote Greek isl&, the local police are quick to dismiss her death as an accident. Then a stranger arrives, uninvited, from Athens, announcing his intention to investigate further. His methods are unorthodox, & he brings his own mystery into the web of dark secrets & lies. Who has sent him, on whose authority is he acting, & how does he know of dramas played out decades ago? ...

After the critical & commercial success of her Orange Prize-shortlisted novel, Foreign Bodies (2012), Atlantic Books is proud to republish what is widely considered to be Cynthia Ozick`s masterpiece, The Messiah of Stockholm Lars Andeming, perhaps overly intellectual & certainly eccentric, is the Monday book reviewer for a Stockholm daily. He is also the self-proclaimed son of Bruno Schulz, a Polish writer who was executed by the Nazis before his last novel, The Messiah, could be published. When a manuscript of The Messiah mysteriously appears in Stockholm, in the possession of Schulz`s `daughter`, Lars`s circumscribed world of paper, apartment, & favorite bookstore turns upside down, catapulting him into a whirlwind of dream, magic, & illusion. ...