Pico Iyer has been engaged in conversation with the Dalai Lama (a friend of his father`s) for the last three decades-a continuing exploration of his message & its effectiveness. Now, in this insightful, impassioned book, Iyer captures the paradoxes of the Dalai Lama`s position: though he has brought the ideas of Tibet to world attention, Tibet itself is being remade as a Chinese province; though he was born in one of the most remote, least developed places on earth, he has become a champion of globalism & technology. He is a religious leader who warns against being needlessly distracted by religion; a Tibetan head of state who suggests that exile from Tibet can be an opportunity; an incarnation of a Tibetan god who stresses his everyday humanity. Moving from Dharamsala, India-the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile-to Lhasa, Tibet, to venues in the West where the Dalai Lama`s pragmatism, rigour, & scholarship are sometimes lost on an audience yearning for mystical visions, The Open Road illuminates the hidden life, the transforming ideas, & the daily challenges of a global icon. ...

At Niagara Falls, Toby O` Hara offers rides over the rushing water in a red & blue striped hot air balloon. The balloon is a day job for Toby, his night work is to continue to perfect his father`s design for a flying machine. On the other side of the Atlantic, Ursula Bridgewater, an independent woman from Liverpool, is ungraciously dumped by her fiance. Ursula turns to the thrill of travel as an escape, & chooses a young orphan, Sally Walker, as her travelling companion. But Sally is never going to be quite as prepared for the land of freedom & opportunity as Ursula
- & certainly not ready to accept Toby O` Hara`s invitation to see Niagara from a great height. Together these indomitable characters are lifted by small acts of bravery to find
- surprised & heartened
- that what once seemed terrifying is in fact the opposite...


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` Poetically written, absorbing, harrowing` The Times` The raw & emotional account of an optician whose family fishing trip suddenly placed him amid the human tragedy of hundreds of drowning migrants is a story that needed to be told` Fiona Wilson, The Times` An important book.. . I cried all the way through` Tracy Chevalier From an award-winning BBC journalist, this moving book turns the testimony of an accidental hero into a timeless story about human fellowship & the awakening of courage & conscience.`I can hardly begin to describe to you what I saw as our boat approached the source of that terrible noise. I hardly want to. You won`t understand because you weren`t there. You can`t underst&. You see, I thought I`d heard seagulls screeching. Seagulls fighting over a lucky catch. Birds. Just birds.` Emma-Jane Kirby has reported extensively on the reality of mass migration today. In The Optician of Lampedusa she brings to life the moving testimony of an ordinary man whose late summer boat trip off a Sicilian island unexpectedly turns into a tragic rescue mission. ...

From an award-winning BBC journalist, this moving book turns the testimony of an accidental hero into a timeless story about the awakening of human courage & conscience. `I can hardly begin to describe to you what I saw as our boat approached the source of that terrible noise. I hardly want to. You won`t understand because you weren`t there. You can`t underst&. You see, I thought I`d heard seagulls screeching. Seagulls fighting over a lucky catch. Birds. Just birds.` Emma-Jane Kirby has reported extensively on the reality of mass migration today. In The Optician of Lampedusa she brings to life the moving testimony of an ordinary man whose late summer boat trip off a Sicilian island unexpectedly turns into a tragic rescue mission. ...

Collapsing stock markets, melting ice caps, floods, tornadoes, terrorism.. . When it comes to bad news, we`ve never had it so good. Perhaps it is time to be a little more optimistic? That`s what Laurence Shorter decided. & that`s why he set himself the challenge of meeting the world`s most cheerful people. Surely with the help of Desmond Tutu, Richard Branson & Bill Clinton, Laurence can find the secret to inner happiness. But first things first
- how on Earth is he going to get to meet them?
...

Shortlisted for a 2018 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award. In the summer after leaving school, a young botanist sets out to fulfil a childhood dream
- to find every species of orchid native to the British Isles. He has just a few months to complete his quest
- no one has ever done it before within one growing season- & it will require ingenuity, stamina & a large dose of luck. Like Two Owls at Eton & My Family & Other Animals, The Orchid Hunter I is a charming account of a precocious adolescent`s obsession with the natural world. As he battles the vagaries of the British climate in his clapped-out car, feverishly chasing each emerging bloom, Leif Bersweden takes the reader on a remarkable botanical journey. This study of the 52 native species is a fantastic gateway into the compendious world of orchids
- one that will open your eyes to the rare hidden delights to be found on the doorstep. Leif`s enthusiasm for his quest is infectious, as is the quiet conviction with which he keeps at it, showing how plant hunting can be the ultimate mindful activity.


...

In the summer after leaving school, a young botanist sets out to fulfil a childhood dream -- to find every species of orchid native to the British Isles. He has just a few months to complete his quest
- no one has ever done it before within one growing season
- & it will require ingenuity, stamina & a large dose of luck. As he battles the vagaries of the British climate, feverishly chasing each emerging bloom, Leif Bersweden takes the reader on a remarkable botanical journey. This study of the 52 native species is a fantastic gateway into the compendious world of orchids
- one that will open your eyes to the rare hidden delights to be found on our doorstep. --

Includes:: an essential guide to finding all 52 British orchids --




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From the author of ` Britons`, the story of the exceptional life of the intrepid Elizabeth Marsh -- an extraordinary woman of her time who was caught up in trade, imperialism, war, exploration, migration, growing maritime reach, & new ideas. Linda Colley`s new book breaks the boundaries between biography, family stories & global history. This is a book about a world in a life. An individual lost to history, Elizabeth Marsh (1735-85) travelled farther, & was more intimately affected by developments across the globe, than the vast majority of men. Conceived in Jamaica & possibly mixed-race, she was the first woman to publish in English on Morocco, & the first to carry out extensive overland explorations in eastern & southern India, journeying in each case in close companionship with an unmarried man. She spent time in some of the world`s biggest ports & naval bases, Portsmouth, Menorca, Gibraltar, London, Rio de Janeiro, Calcutta & the Cape. She was damaged by the Seven Years War & the American Revolutionary War; & linked through her own migrations with voyages of circumnavigation, & as victim & owner, she was involved in three different systems of slavery. But hers is a broadly revealing, not simply an exceptional, life. Marsh`s links to the Royal Navy, the East India Company, empire & international trade made these experiences possible. To this extent, her career illumines shifting patterns of British & Western power & overseas aggression. The swift onset of globalization occurring in her lifetime also ensured that her progress, relationships & beliefs were repeatedly shaped & deflected by people & events beyond Europe. While imperial players like Edmund Burke & Eyre Coote form a part of her story, so do African slave sailors, skilled Indian weavers & astronomers, ubiquitous Sephardi Jewish traders, & the great Moroccan Sultan, Sidi Muhammad, who schemed to entrap her. Many modern biographies remain constrained by a national framework, while global histories are generally impersonal. By contrast, in this dazzling & original book, Linda Colley moves repeatedly & questioningly between vast geo-political transformations & the intricate detail of individual lives. This is a global biography for our globalizing times. ...

The bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics takes us on an enchanting, consoling journey to discover the meaning of time` We are time. We are this space, this clearing opened by the traces of memory inside the connections between our neurons. We are memory. We are nostalgia. We are longing for a future that will not come.` Time is a mystery that does not cease to puzzle us. Philosophers, artists & poets have long explored its meaning while scientists have found that its structure is different from the simple intuition we have of it. From Boltzmann to quantum theory, from Einstein to loop quantum gravity, our understanding of time has been undergoing radical transformations. Time flows at a different speed in different places, the past & the future differ far less than we might think, & the very notion of the present evaporates in the vast universe. With his extraordinary charm & sense of wonder, bringing together science, philosophy & art, Carlo Rovelli unravels this mystery. Enlightening & consoling, The Order of Time shows that to understand ourselves we need to reflect on time -- & to understand time we need to reflect on ourselves. Translated by Simon Carnell & Erica Segre ...

Are YOU the ultimate map-reader? Do you know your trig points from your National Trails? Can you calculate using contours? & can you fathom exactly how far the footpath is from the free house? Track down hidden treasures, decipher geographical details & discover amazing facts as you work through this unique puzzle book based on 40 of the Ordnance Survey`s best British maps. Explore the first ever OS map made in 1801, unearth the history of curious place names, encounter abandoned Medieval villages & search the site of the first tarmac road in the world. With hundreds of puzzles ranging from easy to mind-boggling, this mix of navigational tests, word games, code-crackers, anagrams & mathematical conundrums will put your friends & family through their paces on the path to becoming the ultimate map-master! ...