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! ...

1640s, The New World In the remote winter landscape a brutal massacre & the kidnapping of a young Iroquois girl violently re-ignites a deep rift between two tribes. The girl`s captor, Bird, is one of the Huron Nation`s great warriors & statesmen. Years have passed since the murder of his family, & yet they are never far from his mind. In the girl, Snow Falls, he recognizes the ghost of his lost daughter, but as he fights for her heart & allegiance, small battles erupt into bigger wars as both tribes face a new, more dangerous threat from afar. Travelling with the Huron is Christophe, a charismatic missionary who has found his calling among the tribe & devotes himself to learning & understanding their customs & language. An emissary from distant lands, he brings much more than his faith to this new world, with its natural beauty & riches. As these three souls dance with each other through intricately woven acts of duplicity, their social, political & spiritual worlds collide
- & a new nation rises from a world in flux.
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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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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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The Origin of Species changed the world. When the eminent naturalist Charles Darwin returned from South America on board HMS Beagle in 1836, he brought with him the notes & evidence which would form the basis of his landmark theory of evolution of species by a process of natural selection. Darwin`s theory, published as On the Origin of Species in 1859, is the basis of modern biology & the concept of biodiversity. It also sparked a fierce scientific, religious & philosophical debate which still continues today. This is the only paperback edition to include both The Origin of Species & The Voyage of the Beagle in one volume. ...

Why was Cinderella bad at soccer? She always ran away from the ball. Two snowmen were standing in a field. One said to the other, Do you smell carrots? Da-dum! The Original 365 Jokes, Puns & Even a Few Riddles delivers a year of guffaws, groans, & belly laughs for the whole family. Here are golf jokes, blonde jokes, lawyer jokes, a guy walks into a bar jokes, knock-knocks, & more. ...

Written as an engrossing detective story by the leading authority, this is the first major account in nearly eighty years to deal with the core issues & multiple influences in the creation of the Irish people. Essential reading, with over 120 informative line drawings & maps, for anyone interested in Ireland & the Irish, this book brings together the evidence of archaeology, culture, tradition, genetics & linguistics to shed welcome new light on the age-old riddle of Irish origins. ...

About eighty million people today can trace their descent back to the occupants of Irel&. But where did the occupants of the island themselves come from & what do we even mean by ” Irish” in the first place? This is the first major attempt to deal with the core issues of how the Irish came into being. J.P. Mallory emphasizes that the Irish did not have a single origin, but are a product of multiple influences that can only be tracked by employing the disciplines of archaeology, genetics, geology, linguistics, & mythology. Beginning with the collision that fused the two halves of Ireland together, the book traces Ireland`s long journey through space & time to become an isl&. The origins of its first farmers & their monumental impact on the island is followed by an exploration of how metallurgists in copper, bronze, & iron brought Ireland into increasingly wider orbits of European culture. Assessments of traditional explanations of Irish origins are combined with the very latest genetic research into the biological origins of the Irish. ...