The ninth edition of Ian Ridpath & Wil Tirion`s famous guide to the night sky is updated with planet positions & forthcoming eclipses to the end of the year 2017. It contains twelve chapters describing the main sights visible in each month of the year, providing an easy-to-use companion for anyone wanting to identify prominent stars, constellations, star clusters, nebulae & galaxies; to watch out for meteor showers (`shooting stars`); or to follow the movements of the four brightest planets, Venus, Mars, Jupiter & Saturn. Most of the sights described are visible to the naked eye & all are within reach of binoculars or a small telescope. This revised & updated edition

Includes:: sections on observing the Moon & the planets, with a comprehensive Moon map. The Monthly Sky Guide offers a clear & simple introduction to the skies of the northern hemisphere for beginners of all ages.

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Its November, 1891. The body of a young woman is discovered at a crossroads on Boulevard Montmartre. Barefoot & dressed in red, she has been strangled & her face disfigured. That same day a single red shoe is delivered to Victor Legris` Parisian bookshop. Suspecting more that just coincidence, the bookseller sleuth & his assistant Jojo are soon engaged in seeking out the identity of both victim & murderer. In this third investigation set in belle-epoque Paris, we are drawn with Victor into the city`s nightlife & the legendary Moulin Rouge immortalised by Toulouse-Lautrec, who features in the story. By the author of the best-selling Murder on the Eiffel Tower, this is the third in the award-winning series of Parisian murder mysteries which have collective sales in excess of 445, 000 copies. ...

The Monument area of the City of London in 1873 in a series of exceptionally detailed reproductions of old Ordnance Survey street plans for areas of larger cities which have undergone substantial redevelopment in the late 19th or the early 20th century, published in the Alan Godfrey Editions. The plans, printed in back & white, have been taken from the original Ordnance Survey mapping at 1:1, 056 & reproduced at 1:1, 760 – the equivalent of 36 inches (or one yard) to a mile. The maps provide an unrivalled, house-by-house picture of streets & individual buildings with inner courtyards, outbuildings, pavements, covered passages, etc. Many important institutions are named; within the National Galley on Trafalgar Square even the individual rooms (the map is from 1871, so no French Impressionists as yet!). On the reverse are historical notes about the area covered by the map, plus extracts from contemporary street directories. These maps provide a fascinating addition to Alan Godfrey’s huge series of some 2, 000 titles presenting reproductions of street plans at taken from the Ordnance Survey mapping at 1:2, 500 (25” to 1 mile) & reprinted at about 15 inches to one mile (1:4, 340). ...

The Monumental Book of India is a limited edition volume of photography by Amit Pasricha documenting north India's architectural ...

From 1943 to 1951, 350 or so men & women from thirteen Allied nations served as the men & women of the Monuments, Fine Arts & Archives section (MFAA) of the Allied armed forces, the eyes, ears & hands of the first & most ambitious effort in history to preserve the world's cultural heritage in times of war. They were known simply as Monuments Men. But during the thick of the fighting in Europe, from D-Day to V-E Day, when Germany surrendered, there were only 65 Monuments Men in the forward operating area. Sixty-five men to cover thousands of square miles, save hundreds of damaged buildings & find millions of cultural items before the Nazis could destroy them forever. Monuments Men is the story of eight of these men in the forward operating theatre: America's top art conservator; an up-&-coming young museum curator; a sculptor; a straight-arrow architect; a gay New York cultural impresario; & an infantry private with no prior knowledge of or appreciation for art, but first-hand experience as a victim of the Nazi regime. They built their own treasure maps from scraps & hints: the diary of a Louvre curator who secretly tracked Nazi plunder through the Paris rail yards; records recovered from bombed out cathedrals & museums; overheard conversations; a tip from a dentist while getting a root canal. They started off moving in different directions, but ended up heading for the same place at the same time: the Alps near the German-Austrian border in the last two weeks of the war, where the great treasure caches of the Nazis were stored: the artwork of Paris, stolen mostly from Jewish collectors & dealers; masterworks from the museums of Naples & Florence; & the greatest prize of all, Hitler's personal hoard of masterpieces, looted from the most important art collections & museums in Europe & hidden deep within a working salt mine
- a mine the Nazis had every intention of destroying before it fell into Allied hands. How does the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History end? As is often the case, history is often more extraordinary than fiction.
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No history of China, India, Persia or Russia can be fully understood without continual reference to central Asia. At the heart of the region lie the deserts & mountain range of Afghanistan that even today remain largely unexplored. Yet in the past Afghanistan saw the rise of great cities, empires & civilizations such as the Kushan in the first few centuries AD, the Ghaznavid in the 11th century, & the Timurid in the 15th. Despite bearing witness to ancient & more recent battles, the scarred landscape of Afghanistan is strewn with the monuments to illustrate this rich history: from the recently uncovered Ai Khanum in the north-east & the spectacular 12th century minarets at Jam in the mountains of the west, to the magnificent palatial complexes of the 11th century sultans at Lashkar Bazar in the south & what remains of the 5th & 7th century Buddhist world of Bamiyan in the Hindu Kush
- notoriously destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. This book provides a general background to the history & cultural heritage of Afghanistan. It

Includes:: broad summaries of the history, architecture & archeology, together with a gazetteer of the main monuments & archeological sites.


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The Monuments of Syria is a new & updated guide to the country’s richest historical & archaeological remains & sites, dating from the Bronze Age through biblical & Byzantine times to the early Islamic & Ottoman periods. Organized as a gazetteer of Syria’s historical locations, The Monuments of Syria is detailed with complimentary sections on historical narrative & architectural influences, as well as comprehensive chronologies & glossaries. In-depth information is given on the presentation of sites & the lay out of museums & detailed itineraries for further travel is presented alongside regional & thematic black & white overview summary maps. Place names are given in contemporary Arabic with their accepted English variants as well as their historical/period variants. A colour photograph section illustrates some of the sites covered in the guide, a thorough chronology & bibliography are provided, as is a glossary of relevant architectural terms. ...

The Tour de France may provide the most obvious fame & glory, but it is cycling's one-day tests that the professional riders really prize. Toughest, longest & dirtiest of all are the so-called ' Monuments', the five legendary races that are the sport's equivalent of golf's majors or the grand slams in tennis. Milan-Sanremo, the Tour of Flanders, Paris--Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege & the Tour of Lombardy date back more than a century, & each of them is an anomaly in modern-day sport, the cycling equivalent of the Monaco Grand Prix. Time has changed them to a degree, but they remain as brutally testing as they ever have been. They provide the sport's outstanding one-day performers
- the likes of Philippe Gilbert, Fabian Cancellara, Mark Cavendish, Tom Boonen, Peter Sagan & Thor Hushovd
- with a chance to measure themselves against each other & their predecessors in the most challenging tests in world cycling. From the bone-shattering bowler-hat cobbles of the Paris-Roubaix to the insanely steep hellingen in the Tour of Flanders, each race is as unique as the riders who push themselves through extreme exhaustion to win them & enter their epic history. Over the course of a century, only Rik Van Looy, Eddy Merckx & Roger De Vlaeminck have won all five races. Yet victory in a single edition of a Monument guarantees a rider lasting fame. For some, that one victory has even more cachet than success in a grand tour. Each of the Monuments has a fascinating history, featuring tales of the finest & largest characters in the sport. In The Monuments Peter Cossins tells the tumultuous history of these extraordinary races & the riders they have immortalised.

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The Tour de France may provide the most obvious fame & glory, but it is cycling`s one-day tests that the professional riders really prize. Toughest, longest & dirtiest of all are the so-called ` Monuments`, the five legendary races that are the sport`s equivalent of golf`s majors or the grand slams in tennis. Milan-Sanremo, the Tour of Flanders, Paris--Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege & the Tour of Lombardy date back more than a century, & each of them is an anomaly in modern-day sport, the cycling equivalent of the Monaco Grand Prix. Time has changed them to a degree, but they remain as brutally testing as they ever have been. They provide the sport`s outstanding one-day performers
- the likes of Philippe Gilbert, Fabian Cancellara, Mark Cavendish, Tom Boonen, Peter Sagan & Thor Hushovd
- with a chance to measure themselves against each other & their predecessors in the most challenging tests in world cycling. From the bone-shattering bowler-hat cobbles of the Paris-Roubaix (rumoured to be Bradley Wiggins` next challenge) to the insanely steep hellingen in the Tour of Flanders, each race is as unique as the riders who push themselves through extreme exhaustion to win them & enter their epic history. Over the course of a century, only Rik Van Looy, Eddy Merckx & Roger De Vlaeminck have won all five races. Yet victory in a single edition of a Monument guarantees a rider lasting fame. For some, that one victory has even more cachet than success in a grand tour. Each of the Monuments has a fascinating history, featuring tales of the finest & largest characters in the sport. In The Monuments Peter Cossins tells the tumultuous history of these extraordinary races & the riders they have immortalised.

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This stylish & unique Moomin Colouring Book features original artwork from the coveted archive of Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomins; one of the most cherished children`s book series ever written. Beautifully conceived & designed, this contemporary colouring book features striking patterns & scenes as well as all your favourite Moomin characters & their most memorable"es. The perfect gift for Moomin fans of all ages. ...