Life is so unfair, & it sends many things to try Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, author of Portuguese Irregular Verbs & pillar of the Institute of Romance Philology in the proud Bavarian city of Regensburg. There is the undeserved rise of his rival (and owner of a one-legged dachshund), Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer; the interminable ramblings of the librarian, Herr Huber; & the condescension of his colleagues with regard to his unmarried state. But when his friend Ophelia Prinzel takes it upon herself to match-make, & duly produces a cheerful heiress with her own Schloss, it appears that the professor`s true worth is about to be recognised. Maddening, idiotic & hugely entertaining, von Igelfeld is an inspired comic creation. ...

Volcanic vineyards listed as UNESCO World Heritage, a peace wine blending over 600 varieties from around the world, vines standing 15 metres tall in Italy & Portugal, ice wines from Quebec, a wine from the Gobi desert, Taiwan`s huge yields, harvesting on 31 December, classical music among the vines, a Bordeaux made with dry ice, a sparkling wine for disgorging at home. This book features the viticultural techniques of many countries; they are far enough off the radar to delight anyone who loves originality & hates standardization. The book covers eight topics: Climates, Terroirs, Grape varieties, Work in the vineyard, Winemaking, Colour, Ageing, Packaging. ...

p.p 1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; -webkit-text-stroke: 000000}span.s 1 {font-kerning: none} In the gossip-fuelled world of Victorian London, Persephone Lavelle is the name on everyone`s lips. As Mary`s secret identity is exposed & rumours fly, she flees the scandal by escaping to Venice. Lost among the twisting alleyways & shadowy canals she encounters a mysterious, masked young man. He offers her the world, but at what price? ...

From the bestselling author of ” The God Delusion”, Richard Dawkins` ” Unweaving the Rainbow” explores the most important & compelling topics in modern science, & our appetite for wonder. Keats accused Newton of destroying the poetry of the rainbow by explaining the origin of its colours, thus dispelling its mystery. In this illuminating & provocative book, Richard Dawkins argues that Keats could not have been more mistaken & shows how an understanding of science in fact inspires the human imagination & enhances our wonder of the world. ” Beautifully written & full of interesting, original ideas. Essential reading”. (” The Times”). ”A brilliant assertion of the wonder & excitement of real, tough, grown-up science”. (A.S. Byatt). ” The way Dawkins writes about science is not just a brain-tonic. It is more like an extended stay on a brain health-farm.. .you come out feeling lean, tuned & enormously more intelligent”. (” Sunday Times”). ” For Dawkins there is more poetry, not less, in the rainbow because of Newton.. .warming to his theme, he weaves rainbows of wonder from other provinces of science & then unleashes his fury on those who accuse scientists like him of being unimaginative for not believing in horoscopes, telepathy, ghosts & gods”. (Matt Ridley). ” Brilliantly entertaining & stimulating”. (” Observer”). Richard Dawkins is a Fellow of both the Royal Society & the Royal Society of Literature, & Vice President of the British Humanist Association. He was first catapulted to fame with The Selfish Gene, which he followed with a string of bestselling books: ” The Extended Phenotype”, ” The Blind Watchmaker”, ” River Out of Eden”, ” Unweaving the Rainbow”, & an impassioned defence of atheism, ” The God Delusion”. ...

Mariel Baxter, a famous American soprano, has suddenly cancelled all her recitals & flown to Vienna. In the 1980s she came to the city to study the art of lieder singing with the reclusive Ursule Kroll, one of the brightest stars of the Nazi era & a favourite of the Fuhrer himself. The two haven`t communicated since Mariel`s unexpected departure over twenty-five years ago. So why has Mariel come back? As they play a vicious cat-and mouse game, terrible revelations & recriminations about the past slowly begin to unfold & Mariel & Ursule soon discover that some secrets are better left buried. ...

Frank Mc Allister has long since dropped ” Retief” as his middle name, but the legacy of his family`s history proves harder to shake. His ancestor Piet Retief, leader of the South African Great Trek, was killed by Zulu king Dingane in the 1838 massacre, along with a hundred men, women, & children. Afrikaner legend paints Retief as a homegrown Moses, bringing his people to the Promised L&. But Frank believes something rotten lies at the core of this family myth. Frank spends his days in his London home with his new partner & her son & the products of his wealth. But the return of his daughter, Lucinda, from rehab in California brings him intense guilt: having sided with him during his divorce from her mother, she crumbled under the weight of the bitter separation. Lucinda has brought home with her a mysterious boy, & they will join the family trip to Frank`s beach house in South Africa--not far from the site of the 1838 massacre. In the lulls of their idyllic days, Frank unravels what really happened on that fateful day, & how it may connect to the violence of the apartheid years, & the violence encroaching on them even now.” Up Against the Night” is an enthralling tale of personal conflict & intrigue, set against the backdrop of South Africa`s tangled past & troubled present, & told with tremendous color & insight. Absolutely original & gripping, it is destined to be as influential as JM Coetzee`s ” Disgrace.” ...

At dusk on 24 September 1975, Doug Scott & Dougal Haston became the first Britons to reach the summit of Everest as lead climbers on Chris Bonington`s epic expedition to the mountain`s immense south-west face. As darkness fell, Scott & Haston scraped a small cave in the snow 100 metres below the summit & survived the highest bivouac ever
- without bottled oxygen, sleeping bags &, as it turned out, frostbite. For Doug Scott, it was the fulfilment of a fortune-teller`s prophecy given to his mother: that her eldest son would be in danger in a high place with the whole world watching. Scott & Haston returned home national heroes with their image splashed across the front pages. Scott went on to become one of Britain`s greatest ever mountaineers, pioneering new climbs in the remotest corners of the globe. His career spans the golden age of British climbing from the 1960s boom in outdoor adventure to the new wave of lightweight alpinism throughout the 1970s & 1980s. In Up & About, the first volume of his autobiography, Scott tells his story from his birth in Nottingham during the darkest days of war to the summit of the world. Surviving the unplanned bivouac without oxygen near the summit of Everest widened the range of what & how he would climb in the future. In fact, Scott established more climbs on the high mountains of the world after his ascent of Everest than before. Those climbs will be covered in the second volume of his life & times.
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At dusk on 24 September 1975, Doug Scott & Dougal Haston became the first Britons to reach the summit of Everest as lead climbers on Chris Bonington`s epic expedition to the mountain`s immense south-west face. As darkness fell, Scott & Haston scraped a small cave in the snow 100 metres below the summit & survived the highest bivouac ever
- without bottled oxygen, sleeping bags &, as it turned out, frostbite. For Doug Scott, it was the fulfilment of a fortune-teller`s prophecy given to his mother: that her eldest son would be in danger in a high place with the whole world watching. Scott & Haston returned home national heroes with their image splashed across the front pages. Scott went on to become one of Britain`s greatest ever mountaineers, pioneering new climbs in the remotest corners of the globe. His career spans the golden age of British climbing from the 1960s boom in outdoor adventure to the new wave of lightweight alpinism throughout the 1970s & 1980s. In Up & About, the first volume of his autobiography, Scott tells his story from his birth in Nottingham during the darkest days of war to the summit of the world. Surviving the unplanned bivouac without oxygen near the summit of Everest widened the range of what & how he would climb in the future. In fact, Scott established more climbs on the high mountains of the world after his ascent of Everest than before. Those climbs will be covered in the second volume of his life & times.
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In this much-anticipated sequel to the internationally best-selling picture book Lost & Found, we revisit the boy & the penguin after their trip to the South Pole... The boy & the penguin still enjoy spending all their time together... That is, until the penguin starts to dream of flying, ignoring the boys advice that it is impossible. Running away, the penguin visits place after place, searching for a chance to get his feet off the ground. But will flying be everything he had hoped? & is the boy missing him, as much as he is missing the boy? A heart-warming story about friendship, love & reaching for your dreams, from highly-regarded, multi-award-winning author-illustrator Oliver Jeffers. ...

A miniature hardback edition of this fantastic sequel to Lost & Found, by internationally bestselling author/illustrator Oliver Jeffers, in which we re-visit the boy & the penguin after their trip to the South Pole... The boy & the penguin still enjoy spending all their time together... That is, until the penguin starts to dream of flying, ignoring the boys advice that it is impossible. Running away, the penguin visits place after place, searching for a chance to get his feet off the ground. But will flying be everything he had hoped? & is the boy missing him, as much as he is missing the boy? A heart-warming story about friendship, love & reaching for your dreams, from highly-regarded, multi-award-winning author-illustrator Oliver Jeffers. ...