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La Belle Saison
By Patricia Atkinson. 2005
How often have you eaten a mushroom that you picked yourself that morning? Or sat on a boat opening and…
eating oysters as you lift them from the sea? Or partaken of a seven course feast of game to celebrate the success of the chasse? When Patricia Atkinson - bestselling author of The Ripening Sun - first moved to France, her intention was simply to establish a vineyard. Over the years, however, she found herself becoming integrated into a way of life that, had she stayed in England, she would hardly have believed existed. Grounded in the rhythms of the land and the seasons, daily life in Patricia's south-western corner of France is dictated by a series of rituals and celebrations that we have long lost in our supermarket age.La Belle Saison is Patricia's eulogy to this way of life: a testament to the timelessness of the beautiful French countryside, the bounty of the land, and the generous-hearted French neighbours who showed Patricia that a simple life has many rewards. In France, every season is 'la belle saison', offering up its gifts to those willing to appreciate and look after the land.Krishna: Srimad Bhagavata Purana
By Edwin F. Bryant. 2003
The Purana is one of the two most important and popular Hindu texts, the other being the Ramayana. It is…
part of the popular tradition, rather than a literary classic like the Upanishads or the Gita. It tells the story of the god Krishna, the supreme godhead of the Hindus and worshipped by them for over two and a half millennia. The most popular stories about him occur in this, the 10th book, which is the climax of the epic. The stories relate to Krishna's childhood and adolescence in the forests of Vrindavan among the herdspeople, delightful tales which lie behind much of Hindu art, appearing in painting, temple sculpture, drama, dance and song.Life on the Golden Horn
By Mary Wortley Montagu. 2007
Travelling through the wartorn Balkans with her husband on what proved to be a wholly useless diplomatic mission to Constantinople,…
Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) left a vivid, informative, clever account of her adventures in the mysterious, sophisticated culture of Ottoman palaces, bathing places and courts which - even as her husband's career was falling apart - she could not have enjoyed more.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.Life In A Postcard
By Rosemary Bailey. 2002
'I wake to the sun striking gold on a stone wall. If I lean out of the window I can…
see Mount Canigou newly iced with snow. It is wonderful to live in a building with windows all around, to see both sunrise and sunset, to be constantly aware of the passage of the sun and moon.' In 1988, Rosemary Bailey and her husband were travelling in the French Pyrenees when they fell in love with, and subsequently bought, a ruined medieval monastery, surrounded by peach orchards and snow-capped peaks. Traces of the monks were everywhere, in the frescoed 13th century chapel, the buried crypt, the stone arches of the cloister. For the next few years the couple visited Corbiac whenever they could, until in 1997, they took the plunge and moved from central London to rural France with their six-year-old son. Entirely reliant on their earnings as freelance writers, they put their Apple Macs in the room with the fewest leaks and sent Theo to the village school. With vision and determination they have restored the monastery to its former glory, testing their relationship and resolve to the limit, and finding unexpected inspiration in the place.Life in a Postcard is not just Rosemary Bailey's enthralling account of the challenges of life in a small mountain community, but also a celebration of the rugged beauty of French Catalonia, the pleasures of Catalan cooking, and an exploration of an alternative, often magical world.Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ - A Study In Creative Mythology
By Alvar Ellegard. 1999
The starting point for the book is the following anomoly: If Jesus lived as has been supposed at the beginning…
of the 1st century AD, the only NT documents written by a near contemporary, the Epistles of St Paul, make no mention of him as an historical figure, neither do they record any of his sayings, but rather they talk of him as a vision or mystical experience of the risen Christ. Further, the same is true of the earliest Christian non-NT texts, such as the Epistles of St Clement, roughly contemporary with Paul. Furthermore, contemporary records of the region from non-Christian sources, such as those by the Jewish historian Josephus, fail to mention Jesus at all where we would expect them to; the mentions that there are have recently been shown to be later interpolations by medieval Christian apologists - the gospel accounts of Jesus and his millieu are inaccurate in all major respects e. g. the relative dates of Herod and Pilate, if contemporary Roman and Jewish historians, who had no theological axe to grind, are taken as measure. By comparative textual studies, the author shows that the gospel accounts of Jesus' life and sayings were written approximately 100 years after Jesus is supposed to have lived, and so 100 years later than alleged contemporaries such as Paul, Clement, Josephus etc.In The Footsteps Of Alexander The Great
By Michael Wood. 2004
Michael Wood retraces Alexander the Greats amazing journey from Greece to India, searching for the truth behind the legend and…
experiencing the tremendous scale of his achievements. Using the ancient historians as his guides, Wood follows Alexanders journey as closely as possible, crossing deserts and rivers, from Turkey to war-torn Afghanistan. As the journey progresses, he recreates the drama of Alexanders epic marches and bloody battles. All along the way he finds proof of the survival of the legends surrounding Alexander, a leader whose life has excited the worlds imagination for the 2,000 years. 'Wood tells a glorious story with some very dark shadows.' New York Times 'Wood is a perceptive, entertaining and enthusiastic companion.' Sunday Times 'Wood is a lively storyteller.' The Washington PostThe Life and Passion of William of Norwich
By Thomas Of Monmouth. 2014
A fascinating surviving chronicle from 12th-century England which holds a unique and terrible place in the history of anti-SemitismThe Life…
and Passion of William of Norwich gives a remarkable insight into life in a medieval cathedral city, brilliantly capturing the everyday concerns of ordinary people and focussing on the miraculous cures carried out at a shrine. But this was no ordinary shrine; fervent worshippers gathered around the burial-place where they believed that a boy was buried, a boy murdered by the Jews of Norwich. A chilling, highly significant document, The Life and Passion of William of Norwich is, as far as we know, the earliest version of what was to become the 'blood libel' which has haunted Europe ever since. Miri Rubin both superbly translates the book and in her introduction interprets the sequence of events that led to the monk Thomas of Monmouth's appalling narrative. The consequences of his fantasies have been incalculable.A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
By James Boswell, Samuel Johnson. 1984
Book by Samuel Johnson, published in 1775. The Journey was the result of a three-month trip to Scotland that Johnson…
took with James Boswell in 1773. It contains Johnson's descriptions of the customs, religion, education, trade, and agriculture of a society that was new to him. The account in Boswell's diary, published after Johnson's death as The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1785), offers an intimate personal record of Johnson's behavior and conversation during the trip.Journey To The Sea
By Gil McNeil, Hugo Tagholm, Sarah Brown. 2005
Whether it is memories of childhood holidays or exotic fantasies of faraway places, a sea and its coast forms the…
most evocative of landscapes. Combining elements of romance, danger and mystery, it provides the perfect inspiration for this unique collection. The finest writers from our water-bound nation, including Alexander McCall Smith, Ruth Rendell, Joanne Harris, Joseph O'Connor and Libby Purvis, give us their accounts of adventures and chance encounters, short stories and non-fiction pieces representing the many facets of the sea's power that will haunt and inspire. The collection also includes gripping accounts of real-life adventures on the ocean from such experienced sailors as Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Alan West and Tracy Edwards.A literary tribute to the last earthly frontier - the ocean.The Imitation of Christ (The five Foot Shelf Of Classics Ser.)
By Thomas À Kempis. 2013
One of the most influential and well-loved books of Christianity, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis appears here…
in Penguin Classics in a new translation by Robert Jeffery, with an introduction by Max Von Habsburg, notes, a chronology and further reading.The Imitation of Christ is a passionate celebration of God's love, mercy and holiness, which has stimulated religious devotion for over five hundred years. With great personal conviction and deep humanity, Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471) demonstrates the individual's reliance on God and on the words of Christ, and the futility of a life without faith, as well as exploring the ideas such as humility, compassion, patience and tolerance. Thomas spent some seventy years of his life in the reclusive environment of monasteries, yet in this astonishing work he demonstrates an encompassing understanding of human nature, while his writing speaks to readers of every age and every nation.Thomas à Kempis was born at Kempen near Dusseldorf in 1380. He received the priesthood in 1413. Thomas wrote many other devotional works besides The Imitation of Christ, his masterpiece, as well as biographies of Gerald Groote and Florentius Radewyn. He died in 1471.The Very Revd Robert Jeffery was born in 1935 and ordained in 1959. He has written on matters of Church history, spirituality, mission and ecumenism. In 1978, he became Archdeacon of Salop, and was Dean of Worcester from 1987-96 and subsequently Canon and Sub-Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. He retired in 2002 and is an Hon Doctor of Divinity of Birmingham University.Max von Habsburg is the author of Catholic and Protestant Translations of the Imitatio Christi 1425-1650 (2011).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.The Journals Of A White Sea Wolf
By Mariusz Wilk. 1998
In 1991 Mariusz Wilk, a Polish journalist long fascinated by the mysteries of the Russian soul, decided to take up…
residence in the Solovki islands, a lonely archipelago lost amid the far northern reaches of Russia's White Sea. For Wilk these islands represented the quintessence of Russia: a place of exile and a microcosm of the crumbling Soviet empire. On the one hand, they were a cradle of the Orthodox faith and home to an important monastery; on the other, it was here that the first experimental gulag was built after the 1917 revolution. Over the course of years Wilk came to know every single one of the islands' 1000 or so residents. From his remote home, from which he sent regular despatches to the Paris-based Polish newspaper Kultura, he attempted to observe and come to terms with the complexities and contradictions of Russian history, its glorious past and the cruelty of Soviet Communism. In the process, he has written a most unusual travel book, a beautifully descriptive work that belongs in the best tradition of writers such as Norman Lewis, Patrick Leigh Fermor and Claudio Magris.If You’d Just Let Me Finish
By Jeremy Clarkson. 2018
Clarkson is back with a brand new book of hilarious stories and observations about our gone-wrong world. ___________In November 2016…
we woke up to the news that the forthright presenter of a popular television programme had become the most powerful man on the planet. His name, sadly, was not Jeremy Clarkson, but we might not have been any more surprised if it had been.Because the world seems to have taken a decidedly odd turn since Jeremy last reflected on the state of things between the covers of a book. But who better than JC to help us navigate our way through the mess?And while he's being trying to make sense of it all he's discovered one or two things along the way, including- The disabling effects of being vegan- How Blackpool might be improved by drilling a hole through it- The problem with meditation- A perfect location for rebuilding Palmyra- Why Tom Cruise can worship lizards if he wants toIt's all been a bit unsettling.But don't worry. If You'd Just Let Me Finish is Clarkson at his best. He may be as bemused, exasperated, amused and surprised as the rest of us, but in a world gone crazy, thank God someone has still got his head screwed on ...Praise for Clarkson:'Brilliant...laugh-out-loud' - Daily Telegraph'Outrageously funny...will have you in stiches' - Time Out'Very funny...I cracked up laughing on the tube' - Evening StandardIf Only I Had Told
By Esther W.. 2013
‘The satanic sex ring takes place around a quarry, near your friend’s house. As well as your family there are…
four others, so far that we know of, involved.’When her dad was arrested and imprisoned for violently abusing his 15 children, Esther thought her life could begin at last. She couldn't have been more wrong. Another man was ready to take advantage of this vulnerable girl. Social services stepped in again, but this time they made things much, much worse . . .If Only I Had Told is Esther’s personal and very brave memoir that tells the truth about Orkney’s 1991 satanic sex scandal. It is a shocking account of how two evil men and a flawed system let down not just a young girl but a whole community.Jogging Round Majorca
By Gordon West. 1994
In the 1920s, Gordon West and his wife decided they wanted to go somewhere unexplored and unspoiled, right off the…
beaten tourist route.They settled on the little-known island of Majorca.Travelling via Paris and Barcelona, they finally boarded the small white steamboat which was to take them to the idyllic Bay of Palma, and there they began their exploration of the enchanting island, sometimes in hair-raising motor rides round steep cliffs and on unmade roads, sometimes by mule, and more often on foot.They lodged in simple hotels, small houses, and once in a monastery, and everywhere they observed the rich pageantry of a people whose customs, gentle manners, and generous hospitality made Majorca a unique and fascinating place.I Never Knew That About Britain: Over 1000 questions and answers about our glorious isles
By Christopher Winn. 2009
Bestselling author and quiz master Christopher Winn is here to test your general knowledge of Britain with over 1000 quiz…
questions to perplex and puzzle about our glorious islands. Covering a myriad of subjects including history, cathedrals, sports, records, modern Britain, royalty, people, places, deeds, discoveries and disasters, there is something to test everyone from Britain's brainiest boffins to the quiz beginner.Featuring a range of questions from multiple choice teasers and odd ones out to picture quizzes illustrated with charming line drawings to test your knowledge of the famous faces and facades of Britain. Alongside these sit cryptic and puzzle quizzes plus special features spotlighting different regions so you can see just how well you know your local area.Perfect for all ages, this quiz book will provide hours of entertainment and education for the whole family and have you proclaiming: 'I bet you never knew that!'I Left My Tent in San Francisco
By Emma Kennedy. 2015
It's 1989, and Emma and her best friend Dee head to the USA to make their fortune. But completely inept…
and virtually unemployable, they discover that they can't even get a job in McDonald's.Forced to travel from California to New York with only pennies in their pockets, they bounce from scrape to scrape, surviving on their wits and the kindness of strangers. Bad luck and misfortune throw everything their way - snakes, earthquakes, black magic and incontinent dogs. They even get kidnapped by a sex-crazed midget in a Ferrari. This never happened to Jack Kerouac.A startlingly honest and ridiculously funny book, I Left My Tent in San Francisco tells the miraculous story of how the hapless pair made it back alive to tell the disastrous tale.I Know You Got Soul
By Jeremy Clarkson. 2005
In I Know You Got Soul, Jeremy Clarkson writes about the machines that he believes have 'soul'. It will come…
as no surprise to anyone that Jeremy Clarkson loves machines. But it's not just any old bucket of blots, cogs and bearings that rings his bell. In fact, he's scoured the length and breadth of the land, plunged into the oceans and taken to the skies in search of machines with that elusive certain something.And along the way he's discovered:* The safest place to be in the event of nuclear war* Who would win if Superman, James Bond and The Terminator had a fight* The stupidest person he's ever met* What an old Cornish institution called Arthur has to do with 0898chat lines* And how Jean Claude Van Damme might get eaten by a lion . . .In I Know You Got Soul, Jeremy Clarkson tells stories of the geniuses, innovators and crackpots who put the ghost in the machine. From Brunel's SS Great Britain to the awesome Blackbird spy-plane and from the woeful - but inspiring - Graf Zeppelin to Han Solo's Millennium Falcon, they can't help but love them in return.Praise for Jeremy Clarkson:'Brilliant . . . laugh-out-loud' Daily Telegraph'Outrageously funny . . . will have you in stitches' Time Out'Very funny . . . I cracked up laughing on the tube' Evening StandardIndia's Unending Journey: Finding balance in a time of change
By Mark Tully. 2007
Sir Mark Tully is one of the world's leading writers and broadcasters on India, and the presenter of the much…
loved radio programme 'Something Understood'. In this fascinating and timely work, he reveals the profound impact India has had on his life and beliefs, and what we can all learn from this rapidly changing nation.Through interviews and anecdotes, he embarks on a journey that takes in the many faces of India, from the untouchables of Uttar Pradesh to the skyscrapers of Gurgaon, from the religious riots of Ayodhya to the calm of a university campus. He explores how successfully India reconciles opposites, marries the sensual with the sacred, finds harmony in discord, and treats certainty with suspicion.India: the road ahead
By Mark Tully. 2011
Since the Indian economy was liberated from bureaucratic, socialist controls in 1991, it has developed rapidly. A country once renowned…
for the backwardness of its industries, its commerce and its financial market is now viewed as potentially one of the major world economies of the twenty-first century. But there are many questions which need to be asked about the sustainability of this rapid economic growth and its effect on the stability of the country. Have the changes had any impact on the poor and marginalised? Can India's democracy contain the mounting resentment of those left out of the new economic order? Can a high growth rate be sustained with India's notoriously corrupt and inefficient governance? Can the development of its creaking infrastructure be speeded up? How is India going to feed itself unless agriculture is reformed?This timely book will answer these questions through interviews with industrialists and cricketers, God men and farmers, plutocrats and former untouchables. Full of fascinating stories of real people at a time of great change, it will be of interest to economists, business people, diplomats, politicians, as well as to those who love to travel and who take an interest in the rapid growth of one of the world's largest countries, and what this means to us in the West.