A monumental wholly accessible work of scholarship that retells human history through the story of mankind's relationship with the sea An accomplishment of both great sweep & illuminating detail The Sea & Civilization is a stunning work of history that reveals in breathtaking depth how people first came into contact with one another by ocean & river & how goods languages religions & entire cultures spread across & along the world's waterways Lincoln Paine takes us back to the origins of long-distance migration by sea with our ancestors' first forays from Africa & Eurasia to Australia & the Americas He demonstrates the critical role of maritime trade to the civilizations of ancient Egypt & Mesopotamia & the Indus Valley He reacquaints us with the great seafaring cultures of antiquity like those of the Phoenicians & Greeks as well as those of India Southeast & East Asia who parlayed their navigational skills shipbuilding techniques & commercial acumen to establish vibrant overseas colonies & trade routes in the centuries leading up to the age of European overseas expansion His narrative traces subsequent developments in commercial & naval shipping through the post-Cold War era Above all Paine makes clear how the rise & fall of civilizations can be traced to the sea ...

A masterly study of grief memory & love recollected' Professor John Sutherland Chair of Judges Man Booker Prize 2005 The Sea is John Banville's Man Booker prize-winning exploration of memory childhood & loss When art historian Max Morden returns to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday he is both escaping from a recent loss & confronting a distant trauma The Grace family had appeared that long-ago summer as if from another world Mr & Mrs Grace with their worldly ease & candour were unlike any adults he had met before But it was his contemporaries the Grace twins Myles & Chloe who most fascinated Max He grew to know them intricately even intimately & what ensued would haunt him for the rest of his years & shape everything that was to follow ...

The first mystery in a truly unique crime series ' There comes a time when a novel raises the bar for a particular genre & The Sea Detective does just that for Scottish crime fiction' (Scotsman) Cal Mc Gill is an Edinburgh-based oceanographer environmentalist & one-of-a-kind investigator Using his knowledge of the waves
- ocean currents prevailing winds shipping records
- Mc Gill can track where objects have come from or where they've gone It's a unique skill that can help solve all sorts of mysteries Such as when two severed feet wash up miles apart on two different islands off the coast of Scotland Most strangely forensic tests reveal that the feet belong to the same body As Cal Mc Gill investigates he unravels a web of corruption exploitation & violence which threatens many lives across the globe
- very soon including his own Praise for The Sea Detective' Raises the bar for Scottish crime fiction elegantly written & compelling' The Scotsman' Excellent' The Literary Review
- top five crime books of the year' Promises to be a fine series of detective novels' Sunday Times Crime Book of the Month' An unusual interesting & enthralling read' Shotsmag'A compelling protagonist' The Times Literary Supplement



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Please note this is a region 2 DVD & will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play Winner of the 2004 Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival Javier Bardem gives a remarkable unforgettable performance in Alejandro Amenabar&s gripping drama about dying with dignity & The Sea Inside& ; ; Thirty-five-year-old Bardem plays 55-year-old Ramon Sampedro a Galician who broke his neck as a young man & has spent more than a quarter of a century as a quadriplegic confined to bed Reflecting on his past & considering his future he chooses to die petitioning the courts for permission to be euthanised His radical decision sets off controversy throughout Spain as well as in his own house where his family & friends all have different opinions on the fate he has chosen ; ; While Ramon&s father (Alberto Gimenez) & brother (Celso Bugallo) refuse to help him die & his nephew Javi (Tamar Novas) tries to understand his uncle&s decision Ramon is surrounded by women who virtually fight over him
- Rosa (Lola Duenas) a single mother of two who visits him to talk about her difficult life; Manuela (Mabel Rivera) his sister-in-law who takes care of his daily needs; Gene (Clara Segura) who works for the Death with Dignity organization; & Julia (Belen Rueda in a powerful film debut) a married lawyer with a secret of her own ; ; Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Venice Film Festival & The Sea Inside& is a special film with marvelous acting a strong soundtrack a moving story & an enchanting visual style that features poetic shots of the countryside as Ramon dreams he can fly
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Alistair Moffat's journey from the Scottish islands & Scotland to the English coast Wales Cornwall & Ireland ignores national boundaries to reveal the rich fabric of culture & history of Celtic Britain which still survives today This is a vividly told dramatic & enlightening account of the oral history legends & battles of a people whose past stretches back many hundred of years The Sea Kingdoms is a story of great tragedies ancient myths & spectacular beauty Alistair Moffat was born & raised in Kelso He took degrees at the universities of St Andrews Edinburgh & London & played rugby for Kelso & his universities In 1976 he took charge of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as it grew into the largest arts festival in the world He now lives in Selkirk The Sea Kingdoms has previously been published by Harper Collins ...

New novel in PC Hodgell's Kencyrath series & sequel to Honor's Paradox Kothifir the Great ruled by an obscenely obese god-king peopled with colorful dueling guilds guarded by the Southern Host of the Kencyrath Here Jame arrives only to find that the turbulent city claims more of her attention as the Talisman than the Host training fields do as a second year randon cadet In order to save the present Jame must search the past be it fifteen years ago when as a boy her brother Torisen arrived here unknown & unwanted or three thousand years ago when the Wastes were a great sea ringed with rich civilizations ...

I live in a world without magic or miracles A place where there are no clairvoyants or shapeshifters no angels or superhuman boys to save you A place where people die & music disintegrates & things suck I am pressed so hard against the earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet to walk Former piano prodigy Nastya Kashnikov wants two things to get through high school without anyone learning about her past & to make the boy who took everything from her-her identity her spirit her will to live-pay All Josh Bennett wants is to be left alone & everyone allows it because they all know his story each person he loved was taken from his life until at seventeen years old there was no one left When your name is synonymous with death people tend to give you your space Everyone except Nastya a new girl in town who won't go away until she's insinuated herself into every aspect of his life But the more he gets to know her the more of a mystery she becomes As their relationship intensifies & the unanswered questions begin to pile up he starts to wonder if he will ever learn the secrets she's been hiding--or if he even wants to The Sea of Tranquility is a rich intense & brilliantly imagined story about a lonely boy an emotionally fragile girl & the miracle of second chances For fans of Perks of Being a Wallflower ...

' slowly uncoiling their tentacles & making a soft purring sound to each other'A disgusting account of a school of giant squid attacking a seaside resort & two other examples of Wells' extraordinary imagination at work
- ' The Magic Shop' & ' The Land Ironclads' One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946 Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range & diversity with works from around the world & across the centuries
- including fables decadence heartbreak tall tales satire ghosts battles & elephants

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Please note this is a region 2 DVD & will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play A stirring British war film depicting the boat crews whose job it was to rescue downed RAF pilots After the Normandy D-Day landings a dangerous attempt is made to rescue the survivors of a WWII British Hudson bomber crashed at sea On board is an Air Commodore who has secret plans that could stop enemy air raids on London Produced by Daniel M Angel Written by Lewis Gilbert & Vernon Harris from the novel by John Harris ...

This is a classic real-life story of derring do on the high seas complete with extreme risk last-minute ingenuity & many near-misses Beginning in the 1960s this book tells of the real life adventures of the author as a boy
- a time of boarding schools long holidays & an unbelievable (to today's parents) amount of freedom & danger Encouraged by his parents (who lived abroad) to become more independent & self-sufficient Peter decided to see how far he could get in his family's small open dinghy Calypso Aged 16 he spent a winter restoring her before pootling straight out into a force 7 gale & very nearly capsizing after which he headed back to land to plan even more extreme adventures Calypso was a wayfarer a small (16ft) & very popular class of open dinghy; a boat designed for pottering around coastlines & estuaries during the day But along with the occasional brave crewmate Peter managed to sail her across the Channel through the Bay of Biscay down the French canals & into the Mediterranean then up into the North Sea & the Baltic to Oslo living aboard for three months at a time These were some of the longest voyages that anyone had ever achieved in an open boat where (as Peter says) you have to be like a tightrope walker concentrating on balance day & night fully aware of the consequence of relaxing your vigilance' He survived huge waves nine rudder breakages in heavy seas dismasting capsizes & hallucinations caused by sleep deprivation He also managed it on a tiny budget working as a farm labourer hitchhiking everywhere & at times living on one meal of cereal a day to save the maximum amount for his boat Charming quite British in style beautifully written & a lovely insight into a seemingly golden time this is primarily a great read but will be of huge practical use to anyone wanting to go that bit further in their dinghy It also

Includes:: a lovely Foreword by world-famous yachtsman Brian Thompson


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