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Language Myths
By Laurie Bauer. 1998
A unique collection of original essays by 21 of the world's leading linguists. The topics discussed focus on some of…
the most popular myths about language: The Media Are Ruining English; Children Can't Speak or Write Properly Anymore; America is Ruining the English Language. The tone is lively and entertaining throughout and there are cartoons from Doonesbury andThe Wizard of Id to illustrate some of the points. The book should have a wide readership not only amongst students who want to read leading linguists writing about popular misconceptions but also amongst the large number of people who enjoy reading about language in general.Making A Killing: The Explosive Story of a Hired Gun in Iraq
By James Ashcroft. 2006
In September 2003, James 'Ash' Ashcroft, a former British Infantry Captain, arrived in Iraq as a 'gun for hire'. It…
was the beginning of an 18-month journey into blood and chaos.In this action-packed page-turner, Ashcroft reveals the dangers of his adrenalin-fuelled life as a security contractor in Baghdad, where private soldiers outnumber non-US Coalition forces in a war that is slowly being privatised. From blow-by-blow accounts of days under mortar bombardment to revelations about life operating deep within the Iraqi community, Ashcroft shares the real, unsanitised story of the war in Iraq - and its aftermath - direct from the front line.The Makers of Rome
By Plutarch. 1965
These nine biographies illuminate the careers, personalities and military campaigns of some of Rome's greatest statesmen, whose lives span the…
earliest days of the Republic to the establishment of the Empire. Selected from Plutarch's Roman Lives, they include prominent figures who achieved fame for their pivotal roles in Roman history, such as soldierly Marcellus, eloquent Cato and cautious Fabius. Here too are vivid portraits of ambitious, hot-tempered Coriolanus; objective, principled Brutus and open-hearted Mark Anthony, who would later be brought to life by Shakespeare. In recounting the lives of these great leaders, Plutarch also explores the problems of statecraft and power and illustrates the Roman people's genius for political compromise, which led to their mastery of the ancient world.A Life of Picasso Volume II: 1907 1917: The Painter of Modern Life (Life of Picasso #2)
By John Richardson. 1988
John Richardson draws on the same combination of lively writing, critical astuteness, exhaustive research, and personal experience which made a…
bestseller out of the first volume and vividly recreates the artist's life and work during the crucial decade of 1907-17 - a period during which Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque invented Cubism and to that extent engendered modernism. Richardson has had unique access to untapped sources and unpublished material. By harnessing biography to art history, he has managed to crack the code of cubism more successfully than any of his predecessors. And by bringing a fresh light to bear on the artist's often too sensationalised private life, he has succeeded in coming up with a totally new view of this paradoxical man of his paradoxical work. Never before has Picasso's prodigious technique, his incisive vision and not least his sardonic humour been analysed with such clarity.Kitchener's Last Volunteer: The Life of Henry Allingham, the Oldest Surviving Veteran of the Great War
By Dennis Goodwin, Henry Allingham. 2008
Henry Allingham is the last British serviceman alive to have volunteered for active duty in the First World War and…
is one of very few people who can directly recall the horror of that conflict. In Kitchener's Last Volunteer, he vividly recaptures how life was lived in the Edwardian era and how it was altered irrevocably by the slaughter of millions of men in the Great War, and by the subsequent coming of the modern age.Henry is unique in that he saw action on land, sea and in the air with the British Naval Air Service. He was present at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 with the British Grand Fleet and went on to serve on the Western Front. He befriended several of the young pilots who would lose their lives, and he himself suffered the privations of the front line under fire.In recent years, Henry was given the opportunity to tell his remarkable story to a wider audience through a BBC documentary, and he has since become a hero to many, meeting royalty and having many honours bestowed upon him.This is the touching story of an ordinary man's extraordinary life - one who has outlived six monarchs and twenty-one prime ministers, and who represents a last link to a vital point in our nation's history.The Life of a Scilly Sergeant
By Colin Taylor. 2016
‘Policing is like this everywhere but not everywhere is Scilly’Meet Sergeant Colin Taylor, he has been a valuable member of…
the police force for over 20 years, 5 of which have been spent policing the ‘quiet’ Isles of Scilly, a group of islands off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula. Colin has made it his purpose to keep the streets of Scilly free from drunk anchor thieves, Balance Board riders and other culprits, mostly drunken, intent on breaking the law. This book is the first hand account of how he did it.Coupled with his increasingly popular ‘Isle of Scilly Police Force’ Facebook page, this book charts the day to day trials and tribulations of a small-island police officer, told in a perfectly humorous and affectionate way. This book is a fantastic read and Colin's antics are soon to be the feautre of a major ITV TV series.In My Wildest Dreams
By Leslie Thomas. 1984
From Barnardo boy to original virgin soldier; from apprentice journalist in London's Fleet Street to famous novelist...At times funny, at…
times sad, but always honest and utterly compulsive, Leslie Thomas's story is straight out of fiction. As an orphan, he picked his way through the rubble of post-war Britain and was sent on national service to the Far East. Later he became a Fleet Street reporter, with hilarious experiences to relate, and then became the bestselling author of The Virgin Soldiers - the novel that, although scandalous in its day, is now recognised as a classic of its kind. He is also the creator of Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective, which has been adapted into a popular television series. In 2005, Leslie Thomas was awarded an OBE for services to literature.With a new introduction for this edition, this is an amazing story, and Leslie Thomas's magic touch brings it crackling to life with warmth, wit and humour.Jawaharlal Nehru;a Biography Volume 1 1889-1947
By Dr Sarvepalli Gopal. 1975
Among the few great statesmen to emerge in Asia, Jawaharal Nehru achieved a national metamorphosis in some ways even more…
astonishing than that of another towering patriarch, Mao Tse-tung. Not only did he wrest from the British their most prized and dearly loved Imperial possession and give his people independence, he brought his culturally rich yet economically improvised nation into the twentieth century as a force to be reasoned with. The first volume of Sarvepalli Gopal’s remarkable biographic, covering Nehru’s youth and ending with Independence in 1947, is written from first-hand knowledge of the man who served for ten years in the Ministry for External Affairs and from the unlimited access granted him by the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to her father’s private papers.Immediate Response: Original Edition
By Mark Hammond. 2009
2006 in Helmand saw British forces engaged in the most ferocious fighting since the Korean War. For much of the…
time they were hanging on by their fingertips, holed up in remote platoon houses, outnumbered, facing relentless assault and nearly overwhelmed. Only the Chinooks kept them in the game. But that meant their crews putting down in hot LZs, exposing their aircraft to withering attack from an enemy for whom downing one of the big helos would be the ultimate prize.They had been lucky. So far. Then they launched their biggest operation yet: a complicated, high-risk airborne assault that launched a fleet of heavily armed helicopters into the Afghan Heart of Darkness. And then a report came over the net that one of the Chinooks was down . . .In Immediate Response, Major Mark Hammond, a Royal Marine flying with the RAF, tells the gripping inside story of the Chinook squadrons' war for the first time. It's a visceral, unputdownable combination of hi-tech and old-fashioned grit; an action-packed story shot through with a mix of aviation fuel and cordite ...Immediate Action
By Andy McNab. 2015
Immediate Action is a no-holds-barred account of an extraordinary life, from the day Andy McNab was found in a carrier…
bag on the steps of Guy's Hospital to the day he went to fight in the Gulf War.As a delinquent youth he kicked against society. As a young soldier he waged war against the IRA in the streets and fields of South Armagh. As a member of 22 SAS Regiment he was at the centre of covert operations for nine years - on five continents.Recounting with grim humour and in riveting, often horrifying, detail his activities in the world's most highly trained and efficient Special Forces unit, McNab sweeps us into a world of surveillance and intelligence-gathering, counter-terrorism and hostage rescue.There are casualties: the best men are so often the first to be killed, because they are in front.By turns chilling, astonishing, violent, funny and moving, this blistering first-hand account of life at the forward edge of battle confirms Andy McNab's standing in the front rank of writers on modern war.Jaguars and Electric Eels (Great Journeys Ser.)
By Alexander Von Humboldt. 2007
A great, innovative and restless thinker, the young Humboldt (1769-1859) went on his epochal journey to the New World during…
a time of revolutionary ferment across Europe. This part of his matchless narrative of adventure and scientific research focuses on his time in Venezuela - in the Llanos and on the Orinoco River - riding and paddling, restlessly and happily noting the extraordinary things on every hand.Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries – but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.Joint Force Harrier
By Adrian Orchard, James Barrington. 2009
Days after arriving in Kandahar, the Harriers of 800 Naval Air Squadron were in the thick of fierce fighting. Armed…
with rockets and bombs, the pilots were flying crucial danger-close attack missions in defence of troops engaged in the most intense battles seen by British forces since the Korean War. While facing the constant threat of surface-to-air missiles, the British Top Guns knew that any mistake would have fatal consequences for the soldiers who depended on their skill and determination. Written by the Commanding Officer of the first Royal Navy squadron to deploy to Afghanistan, Joint Force Harrier is a compelling insight into the exciting world of modern air warfare.I Fought at Dunkirk: Seven Veterans Remember Their Fight For Salvation
By Mike Rossiter. 1999
SURVIVOR STORIES FROM DUNKIRK, NOW THE SUBJECT OF A MAJOR FILM FROM CHRISTOPHER NOLANWhen Britain declared war against Germany in…
September 1939, thousands of young men sailed across the English Channel to fight for their country. Among them were the seven soldiers who share their stories in this book. Some joined up out of patriotism, others for adventure or the prospect of a secure wage. They were fit, trained and proud to wear the armband of the British Expeditionary Forces. For many, the first months were strangely peaceful, but when the Germans invaded in May 1940 they advanced with shocking speed. The German armoured columns sliced through neutral Holland and Belgium. The French Army collapsed and within a week the soldiers of the BEF were forced to retreat. Fighting tough and bloody rearguard actions, they endured relentless shelling and fearsome dive-bomb attacks. Constantly on the move, and facing a German onslaught on three fronts, they were soon exhausted, hungry and low on ammunition. They headed finally to their one chance of salvation: the beaches of Dunkirk. Mike Rossiter tells the stories of seven veterans who went through a hellish baptism of fire in the first battles on the front line, and fought in the last-ditch defence of Dunkirk. They saw their comrades bombed and drowned off the beaches. Their accounts give us a fascinating and privileged insight into the reality of the war and what it was really like to face the German Blitzkrieg in 1940. They take us from the confident, idyllic days of the phoney war in the French countryside to the sudden shock of battle, from the fear and confusion of retreat to the wait for an uncertain rescue. These are the compelling stories of seven men who are proud to say I Fought at Dunkirk.I Am Justice: A Journey Out of Africa
By Paul Kenyon. 2009
Eighty miles off the Libyan coast water is leaking rapidly into the bottom of a dilapidated wooden boat. Twenty-seven men,…
crammed in side-by-side, desperately attempt to bail it out, but the boat is sinking. In the distance one of their number spots a ship and, forcing the last moments of life from the engine, they move towards it. But the crew refuses to allow them on board. Instead the men scramble onto the floats of a huge industrial tuna net, and watch as their boat rolls over and disappears into the heaving Mediterranean.Like tens of thousands of others Justice set off from his rural village with an idealised vision of an new life in England - the 'home' country - desperate just to earn his way and help his orphaned brother and sister left behind. During his long journey to the African coast, he's captured, jailed and tortured, before escaping and heading northwards again. Once in Tripoli he's duped into handing over his life savings for a trip in a wreck of a boat across miles of open sea to almost certain death. But there is also compassion here and he meets old and wise souls along the way. The tuna net is not the end of Justice's story. It is an extraordinary tale of courage, and an important account of a life caught between cultures, on the edge of survival.The Horrors and Absurdities of Religion (Penguin Great Ideas)
By Arthur Schopenhauer. 1970
A fascinating examination of ethics, religion and psychology, this selection of Schopenhauer's works contains scathing attack on the nature and…
logic of religion, and an essay on ethics that ranges from the American slavery debate to the vices of Buddhism. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography Volume 3 1956-1964
By Dr Sarvepalli Gopal. 1957
The third and final volume of Sarvepalli Gopal’s biography of Jawaharlal Nehru covers the last eight years of his life…
and Prime Ministership. It deals with his efforts to sustain economic and social advance of the Indian people and not to lose hold of the principles of his foreign policy even while relations with China deteriorated, culminating the large scale aggression in both the western and eastern sections of the long boundary between the two countries.In Sickness and In Health: Historical Notes from an Attempted Honeymoon
By Mark Clemens. 2019
2018 WINNER OF THE BODLEY HEAD | FINANCIAL TIMES ESSAY PRIZEWith honesty and humour, Mark Clemens describes lessons he learned…
from a honeymoon spent recovering from terrible sickness in a Manhattan hotel room. Years later he considers the complex history of the building in which he and his new bride spent their convalescence. A carpentry shop, a brothel, a butcher's. As Mark reflects on the impermanence of New York and the impermanence of his marriage, he offers insights on history and personal growth.The Hurricane Girls: The inspirational true story of the women who dared to fly
By Jo Wheeler. 2018
Celebrating the lives of the magnificent women, the ATA girls, who courageously flew Spitfires, Tiger Moths, Lancaster Bombers and many…
other aircraft during World War Two.These extraordinary women, Mary Ellis, Jackie Moggridge and Pauline Gower are just a few of the remarkable stories inside . . . Since the invention of aeroplanes, women have taken to the skies. They have broken records, performed daredevil stunts and faced such sexism and prejudice that they were effectively barred from working as pilots.That changed in the Second World War. Led by firebrand Pauline Gower, an elite group of British women were selected as ferry pilots to fly for the Air Transport Auxiliary. They risked their lives flying munitions and equipment for the boys on the front line.Flying day and night without radio; dodging storms, barrage balloons and anti-aircraft fire; and with only a map, compass and their eyesight to guide them, they navigated the treacherous wartime skies.____________The Hurricane Girls is the thrilling, moving and inspirational story of the female air force who once ruled our skies.How To Survive From Nine To Five
By Jilly Cooper Obe. 1977
Jilly Cooper's witty thumbnail sketch of office life - part valentine, part poison pen letter - offers a vivid evocation…
of the world in which many of us spend a large part of our lives. There will be few office workers, whether they are bosses, sekketries or office crones, who do not recognize the Machiavellian politics and the lunacies she describes. The topics covered by this survival guide range from 'The Hierarchy' and 'Office Happenings' to 'Extra-mural Activities' and 'The Firing Squad'. Early in her career the author worked in an office and she has many friends, including a husband, who still do: but it will come as no surprise to readers of this classic volume to learn that since its publication she has been self-employed.Henri Matisse: A Second Life
By Alastair Sooke. 2014
Henri Matisse by Alastair Sooke - an essential guide to one of the 20th century's greatest artists'One January morning in…
1941, only a fortnight or so after his seventy-first birthday, the bearded and bespectacled French artist Henri Matisse was lying in a hospital bed preparing to die.'Diagnosed with cancer, the acclaimed painter, and rival of Picasso, seemed to be facing his demise. Then something unexpected happened. After a life-saving operation that left him too weak to paint, and often too frail to even get out of bed, Matisse invented a ground-breaking and effortless new way of making art. The results rank among his greatest work.In an astonishing blaze of creativity, he began conjuring mesmerising designs of dazzling dancers and thrilling tightrope walkers, sensuous swimmers and mythical figures falling from the heavens. His joyful and unprecedented new works were as spontaneous as jazz music and as wondrous as crystal-clear lagoons. Their medium? Coloured paper and scissors.This book, by art critic and broadcaster Alastair Sooke, focuses on Matisse's extraordinary final decade, which he called 'a second life', after he had returned from the grave. Both a biography and a guide to Matisse's 'cut-outs', it tells the story of the valedictory flourish of one of the most important and beloved artists of the twentieth century.Published in time for a major Tate Modern retrospective.'Sooke is an immensely engaging character. He has none of the weighty self-regard that often afflicts art experts and critics; rather he approaches his subjects with a questioning, open, exploratory attitude' Sarah Vine, The Times 'His shows are excellent - clever, lively, scholarly, but not too lecturey; he's very good at linking his painters with the world outside the studio, and at how these artists have affected the world today' Sam Wollaston reviewing 'Modern Masters', GuardianAlastair Sooke is art critic of the Daily Telegraph. He has written and presented documentaries on television and radio for the BBC, including Modern Masters, The World's Most ExpensivePaintings, Treasures of Ancient Rome and, most recently, Treasures of Ancient Egypt. He is a regular reporter for The Culture Show on BBC Two. He is the author of Roy Lichtenstein: How Modern Art was Saved by Donald Duck.