During much of his early career from 1944 through to the early 1960s Richard Hardy took hundreds of pictures of life on the railways & the men he knew & worked with on a daily basis using his trusty Brownie 620 box camera These unique behind the scenes images form a fascinating & hugely evocative portrayal of Britain at the height of the era of steam during the time of the ' Big Four' & after 1947 when the sprawling nationalised network known as British Railways came of age The second edition contains many new unseen photos which capture the railways in wartime providing a valuable social record of the nation at war In addition there is a sequence of rare photographs of French engines railways & railwaymen offering a superb contrast to the British rail network (it quickly becomes evident that the British rail system ran on tea whereas the French system ran on wine) Great characters are the unifying theme of the pictures & they include famous figures associated with the railways such as the poet John Betjeman This wonderfully illustrated book sets Richard's personal photographs & text alongside a carefully collated selection of ephemera artworks & photographs drawn from the National Railway Museum in York Collectively these images & artefacts tell the stories of the great brotherhood of railwaymen brilliantly evoking the speed heat & dust of the footplate ...

From the bestselling author of the Coroner Jenny Cooper series comes A Life to Kill Matthew Hall's most gripping moving & timely thriller to date If they're hiding something we've got a right to know We've got a right to know what Kenny died for The day they've all been waiting for is at hand The last British combat soldiers in Helmand are counting the minutes until their departure for home For their excited families in Highcliffe it spells the end of an agonizing six month wait But in the final hours disaster strikes Nineteen-year-old Private Pete ' Skippy' Lyons is abducted & the patrol sent out to locate him is ambushed One killed two injured One still missing in action Their loved ones are left desperate for answers the Army won't provide How could Private Lyons have been snatched from a heavily fortified command post? & why are officers trying to disguise what happened during the mission to save him? Their only hope lies with Coroner Jenny Cooper who must take on the full might of the military to stop the truth being buried along with the boy soldiers But in a town filled with secrets & rumours it's not only the Army that has something to hide A Life to Kill is the seventh installment in the Coroner Jenny Cooper series ...

WINNER OF THE 2011 WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEARWINNER OF THE BRITISH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2012 FOOTBALL BOOK OF THE YEARWhy does an international footballer with the world at his feet decide to take his own life? On 10 November 2009 the German national goalkeeper Robert Enke stepped in front of a passing train He was thirty-two years old & a devoted husband & father Enke had played for a string of Europe's top clubs including Barcelona & Jose Mourinho's Benfica & was destined to become his country's first choice in goal for years to come But beneath the veneer of success Enke battled with crippling depression Award-winning writer Ronald Reng pieces together the puzzle of his friend's life shedding valuable light on the crushing pressures endured by professional sportsmen & on life at the top clubs At its heart Enke's tragedy is a universal story of a man struggling against his demons ...

While other golfers have won more tournaments than Arnold Palmer has no one has won more fans around the world & no player has had a bigger impact on the sport In fact Palmer is considered by many to be the most important golfer in history As a follow-up to his 1999 autobiography Palmer takes stock of the many experiences of his life bringing new details & insights to some familiar stories & sharing new ones Palmer has had tremendous success but is most notable for going about it the right way Gracious fair & a true gentleman Arnold Palmer is the gold standard of how to conduct yourself He offers advice & guidance sharing stories of his career on the course success in business & the great relationships that give meaning to his life This book is Palmer's gift to the world a treasure trove of entertaining anecdotes & timeless wisdom that readers will celebrate & cherish ...

' This novel made me sob & it made me smile It's a gorgeous beautiful & evocative novel about love hope & forgiveness'
- Amazon
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Jessica Wong is the kind of girl nobody notices She's also the kind of girl who sees everything There's no one better at overlooking Jess than her best friend Angie Jess can live without Angie knowing her real feelings just so long as they're best friends But when Angie meets Margot Jess recognises that things will never be the same Worse still Margot is one of the rare people who sees exactly how Jess feels about Angie As Angie falls hard for Margot & gets caught up with Margot's wealthy friends Jess's life begins to fall apart If she isn't Angie's best friend what is she? Then at a party surrounded by Margot's friends Jess finally breaks down & starts revealing a few of the secrets she knows Not everyone in the party can handle what Jess reveals & before the sun rises someone's dead Dark disturbing & full of twists A Line in the Dark is a cleverly crafted YA mystery that will delight readers craving a queer teenage girl antihero just as morally complicated as her male counterparts ...

In 1916 in the middle of the First World War two men secretly agreed to divide the Middle East between them Sir Mark Sykes was a visionary politician; Francois Georges-Picot a diplomat with a grudge The deal they struck which was designed to relieve tensions that threatened to engulf the Entente Cordiale drew a line in the sand from the Mediterranean to the Persian frontier Territory north of that stark line would go to France; land south of it to Britain Against the odds their pact survived the war to form the basis for the post-war division of the region into five new countries Britain & France would rule The creation of Britain's 'mandates' of Palestine Transjordan & Iraq & France's in Lebanon & Syria made the two powers uneasy neighbours for the following thirty years Through a stellar cast of politicians diplomats spies & soldiers including T E Lawrence Winston Churchill & Charles de Gaulle A Line in the Sand vividly tells the story of the short but crucial era when Britain & France ruled the Middle East It explains exactly how the old antagonism between these two powers inflamed the more familiar modern rivalry between the Arabs & the Jews & ultimately led to war between the British & the French in 1941 & between the Arabs & the Jews in 1948 In 1946 after many years of intrigue & espionage Britain finally succeeded in ousting France from Lebanon & Syria & hoped that having done so it would be able to cling on to Palestine Using newly declassified papers from the British & French archives James Barr brings this overlooked clandestine struggle back to life & reveals for the first time the stunning way in which the French finally got their revenge ...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2017A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEARWhen I finished Sara Baume's new novel I immediately felt sad that I could not send it in the post to the late John Berger He too would have loved it & found great joy in its honesty its agility its beauty its invention Baume is a writer of outstanding grace & style She writes beyond the time we live in' Colum Mc Cann Struggling to cope with urban life
- & with life in general
- Frankie a twenty-something artist retreats to the rural bungalow on turbine hill' that has been vacant since her grandmother's death three years earlier It is in this space surrounded by nature that she hopes to regain her footing in art & life She spends her days pretending to read half-listening to the radio failing to muster the energy needed to leave the safety of her haven Her family come & go until they don't & she is left alone to contemplate the path that led her here & the smell of the carpet that started it all Finding little comfort in human interaction Frankie turns her camera lens on the natural world & its reassuring cycle of life & death What emerges is a profound meditation on the interconnectedness of wilderness art & individual experience & a powerful exploration of human frailty

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In 2008 a You Tube clip became an internet phenomenon It showed the emotional reunion of two young men & their pet lion Christian after they had left him in Africa to be introduced into his rightful home in the wild Anthony ' Ace' Bourke & John Rendall visited London from Australia in 1969 & bought a boisterous lion cub in Harrods But Christian soon grew from cuddly cub to King of the Kings Road in London & the only way to avoid him being incarcerated in a zoo was to place him under the expert care of George Adamson in Kenya Ace & John did not return to see their lion for a year A Lion Called Christian tells their touching story accompanied by stunning photographs It's a unique & extraordinary tale of its time that resonates again today with a worldwide audience thanks to the internet age & is destined to become one of the great classics of animal literature ...

From the creator of Penguin & the Tilly & Friends series comes a wicked rollicking read-aloud which asks the question Is a lion still a lion if he wears a hat? & carries an umbrella? Is a lion still a lion if he arrives at your door & invites himself in with a " How do you do?" (Isn't he polite!) & is a lion still a lion if he asks for a dance? What about when he licks his lips & says " Oh yes lunch would be lovely thank you" Is a lion still a lion then? ...