The 12th Earl of Shaftesbury, 39-year-old Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, invites the reader into the house that his family has called home since the fifteenth century. In recent years, his award-winning restoration has brought the house back to life, transforming exquisite spaces that honour the past while being suited to twenty-first-century living. English country-house splendour, through the hands of some of the world s top artisans & craftspeople, returns to the house in the form of re-created wallpapers, customized paints, revived furniture from the Georgian & Victorian periods, reworked antique Brussels tapestries, restored plasterwork & textiles, & a complete overhaul of the landscape, with its sunken garden, woodlands, avenue of beeches, lake, & shell-encrusted grotto. With stories of noteworthy architecture, beautiful interiors, & centuries of a single family s involvement in British & world history, this book will appeal to devotees of country living, the aristocratic life, historic houses, & English interior design. ...

Rosie Ramsden has invented a whole new way of planning meals: it`s called The Recipe Wheel. She takes one simple, core recipe
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Timothy Snyder traces the emergence of four rival modern nationalist ideologies from common medieval notions of citizenship. He presents the ideological innovations & ethnic cleansings that abetted the spread of modern nationalism but also examines recent statesmanship that has allowed national interests to be channeled toward peace.A work of profound scholarship & considerable importance.--Timothy Garton Ash, St. Antony`s College, University of Oxford Timothy Snyder`s style is a welcome reminder that history writing can be--indeed, ought to be--a literary pursuit.--Charles King, Times Literary Supplement A brilliant & fascinating analysis of the subtleties, complexities, & paradoxes of the evolution of nations in Eastern Europe. It has major implications for all of us who want to understand the processes of state collapse & nation-building in the world.--Samuel P. Huntington, Harvard Academy for International & Area Studies Snyder`s ultimate query in this fresh & stimulating look at the path to nationhood is how the bitter experiences along the way, including the bitterest--ethnic cleansing--are to be overcome.--Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs ...

Charting the rise & fall of an ambitious young social climber in a cruel, monarchical society, Stendhal`s ” The Red & the Black” is translated with an introduction & notes by Roger Gard in ” Penguin Classics”. Handsome, ambitious Julien Sorel is determined to rise above his humble provincial origins. Soon realizing that success can only be achieved by adopting the subtle code of hypocrisy by which society operates, he begins to achieve advancement through deceit & self-interest. His triumphant career takes him into the heart of glamorous Parisian society, along the way conquering the gentle, married Madame de Renal, & the haughty Mathilde. But then Julien commits an unexpected, devastating crime
- & brings about his own downfall. ” The Red & the Black” is a lively, satirical portrayal of French society after Waterloo, riddled with corruption, greed & ennui, & Julien
- the cold exploiter whose Machiavellian campaign is undercut by his own emotions
- is one of the most intriguing characters in European literature. Roger Gard`s fine translation remains faithful to the natural, conversational tone of the original, while his introduction elucidates the complexities of Julien`s character. This edition also contains a chronology, further reading & an appendix on Stendhal`s use of epigraphs. Stendhal (1783-1842) was the pseudonym of Henri Marie Beyle, born & raised in Grenoble. Offered a post in the Ministry of War, from 1800 onwards he followed Napoleon`s campaigns throughout Europe before retiring to Italy. Here, as ` Stendhal`, he began writing on art, music & travel. Though not well-received during his lifetime, his work, including ” The Red & the Black” (1830) & ” The Charterhouse of Parma” (1839), now places him among the pioneers of nineteenth-century literary realism. If you enjoyed ” The Red & the Black”, you may like Guy de Maupassant`s ” Bel-Ami”, also available in ” Penguin Classics”.


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Nearly thirty years after the end of the Cold War, its legacy & the accompanying Russian-American tension continues to loom large. Russia`s access to detailed information on the United States & its allies may not seem so shocking in this day of data clouds & leaks, but long before we had satellite imagery of any neighborhood at a finger`s reach, the amount the Soviet government knew about your family`s city, street, & even your home would astonish you. Revealing how this was possible, The Red Atlas is the never-before-told story of the most comprehensive mapping endeavor in history & the surprising maps that resulted. From 1950 to 1990, the Soviet Army conducted a global topographic mapping program, creating large-scale maps for much of the world that included a diversity of detail that would have supported a full range of military planning. For big cities like New York, DC, & London to towns like Pontiac, MI & Galveston, TX, the Soviets gathered enough information to create street-level maps. What they chose to include on these maps can seem obvious like locations of factories & ports, or more surprising, such as building heights, road widths, & bridge capacities. Some of the detail suggests early satellite technology, while other specifics, like detailed depictions of depths & channels around rivers & harbors, could only have been gained by actual Soviet feet on the ground. The Red Atlas

Includes:: over 350 extracts from these incredible Cold War maps, exploring their provenance & cartographic techniques as well as what they can tell us about their makers & the Soviet initiatives that were going on all around us. A fantastic historical document of an era that sometimes seems less distant, The Red Atlas offers an uncanny view of the world through the eyes of Soviet strategists & spies.

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` Destined to be a classic.. .a sharply funny, clear-eyed examination, in the vein of Mary Mc Carthy`s The Group, of the power & burden of privilege, the reality of being a modern woman & the lasting bonds of female friendship.`
- Vanity Fair Can a weekend change your life? Clover, Addison, Mia & Jane were college roommates until their graduation in 1989. Now, twenty years later, their lives are in free fall. Clover, once a securities broker with Lehman Brothers, living the Manhattan dream, is out of a job, newly married & fretting about her chances of having a baby. Addison`s marriage to a novelist with writers` block is as stale as her artistic `career`. Mia`s acting ambitions never got off the ground, & she now stays home with her four children, renovating & acquiring faster than her Hollywood director husband can pay the bills. Jane, once the Paris bureau chief for a newspaper, now the victim of budget cuts, has been blindsided by different sorts of loss. The four friends have kept up with one another via the red book, a class report published every five years, in which alumni write brief updates about their lives. But there`s the story we tell the world, & then there`s the real story, as the classmates arriving at their twentieth reunion with their families, their histories, their dashed dreams & secret longings, will discover over the course of an epoch-ending, score-settling, unforgettable weekend.
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It is 1939. The world stands on the brink of Armageddon. In the Soviet Union, years of revolution, fear & persecution have left the country unprepared to face the onslaught of Nazi Germany. For the coming battles, Stalin has placed his hopes on a 30-ton steel monster, known to its inventors as the T-34 tank & the ' Red Coffin' to those men who will soon be using it. But the design is not yet complete. & when Colonel Nagorski, the weapon's secretive & eccentric architect, is found murdered, Stalin sends for Pekkala, his most trusted investigator. Stalin is convinced that a sinister group calling itself the White Guild, made up of former soldiers of the Tsar, intend to bring about a German invasion before the Red Coffin is ready. While Soviet engineers struggle to complete the design of the tank, Pekkala must track down the White Guild & expose their plans to propel Germany & Russia into conflict. ...

It is 1939. The world stands on the brink of Armageddon. In the Soviet Union, years of revolution, fear & persecution have left the country unprepared to face the onslaught of Nazi Germany. For the coming battles, Stalin has placed his hopes on a 30-ton steel monster, known to its inventors as the T-34 tank, &, the ` Red Coffin` to those men who will soon be using it. But the design is not yet complete. & when Colonel Nagorski, the weapon`s secretive & eccentric architect, is found murdered, Stalin sends for Pekkala, his most trusted investigator. Stalin is convinced that a sinister group calling itself the White Guild, made up of former soldiers of the Tsar, intend to bring about a German invasion before the Red Coffin is ready. While Soviet engineers struggle to complete the design of the tank, Pekkala must track down the White Guild & expose their plans to propel Germany & Russia into conflict. ...

A new edition of Richard Skinner`s classic novel about the life of Mati Hari, released to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of her death, October 2017. When Margaretha Zelle, a young woman living in The Hague, answers a lonely hearts advertisement she becomes drawn into a relationship with an army captain twice her age. After a hasty wedding, they depart for Indonesia, where the marriage collapses amid infidelity & violence. Seeking a new life, Margaretha returns to Europe & travels to Paris, where she adopts the stage name Mata Hari, reinventing herself as an exotic dancer. In her new role she attracts the attention of numerous admirers, many of whom are officers, ready to share their secrets with a woman of notorious allure & intrigue, as Europe lurches towards explosive conflict. ...

THUMP THUMP. The Red Dread is on the loose & Shrew & the other animals are afraid. From stolen nuts to missing rabbits, they whisper of the terrible actions of the Red Dread. As panic increases, logic & team spirit evaporate & soon it`s every creature for itself. Told entirely in dialogue, this quirky read-aloud tale plays out in sly illustrations brimming with brilliant visual humour. ...