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.


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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! ...

The Orient Express is a name synonymous with luxury train travel in Europe. In 1883, the first train with its gleaming livery ...

Central Asia is a vibrant mixture of civilizations & tongues; united by Islam, diversified by differing histories, cultures & languages. Iran, Turkey & Afghanistan & their neighbours are famed for their literature & their multi-hued arts & crafts, but few realize how alive, how close to the surface, are their powerful & enduring traditions. The Orient in a Mirror counterpoints the colour photographs of Roland & Sabrina Michaud with reproductions of 14th- to 19th-century central Asian miniatures. The two art forms enhance one another, providing a multifaceted insight into the glories of the region
- from glimpses of students & solemn mullahs to Afghan horsemen, in a plethora of exotic beauty & colour. This book was acclaimed on first publication in 1980 but was long out of print. It is now republished in a revised & expanded form, with twice as many images.
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The Orientalist unravels the mysterious life of a man born on the border between West & East, a Jewish man with a passion for the Arab world. Tom Reiss first came across the man who called himself ` Kurban Said` when he went to the ex-USSR to research the oil business on the Caspian Sea, & discovered a novel instead. Written on the eve of the Second World War, Ali & Nino is a captivating love story set in the glamorous city of Baku, Azerbaijan`s capital. The novel`s depiction of a lost cosmopolitan society is enthralling, but equally intriguing is the identity of the man who wrote it. Who was its supposed author? & why was he so forgotten that no one could agree on the simplest facts about him? For five years, Reiss tracked Lev Nussimbaum, alias Kurban Said, from a wealthy Jewish childhood in Baku, to a romantic adolescence in Persia on the run from the Bolsheviks, & an exile in Berlin as bestselling author & self-proclaimed Muslim prince. The result is a thoroughly unexpected picture of the twentieth-century
- of the origins of our ideas about race & religious self-definition, & of the roots of modern fanaticism.
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The rapid expansion of ISIS & its swathe of territorial gains across the Middle East have been headline news since 2013. Yet much media attention & analysis has been focussed upon the military exploits, brutal tactics & radicalisation methods employed by the group. While ISIS remains a relatively new phenomenon, it is important to consider the historical & local dynamics that have shaped the emergence of the group in the past decade. In this book Simon Mabon & Stephen Royle provide the reader with a comprehensive overview of the roots, tactics & ideology of the group, exploring the interactions of the various participants involved in the formative stages of ISIS. Based on original scholarly sources & first-hand research in the region, this book provides an authoritative & closely-analysed look at the emergence of one of the defining forces of the early twenty-first century. ...

A grain in the balance will determine which individual shall live & which shall die...`. Darwin`s theory of natural selection issued a profound challenge to orthodox thought & belief: no being or species has been specifically created; all are locked into a pitiless struggle for existence, with extinction looming for those not fitted for the task. Yet The Origin of Species (1859) is also a humane & inspirational vision of ecological interrelatedness, revealing the complex mutual interdependencies between animal & plant life, climate & physical environment, &
- by implication
- within the human world. Written for the general reader, in a style which combines the rigour of science with the subtlety of literature, The Origin of Species remains one of the founding documents of the modern age.

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