At the height of the Second World War this small pocket-book was issued to all ratings on board ships of the Royal Navy. In straight period prose it outlines all the basic expressions & tasks a seaman needed to know to perform his duties efficiently. Chapters are broken down into: Sea Terms; Navigation; Steering the Ship; Rigging; Anchors & Cables; Boatwork; Miscellaneous (which

Includes:: details on uniform & folding a hammock, etc); & Ship Safety. Functional black line illustrations are used throughout, as well as a few pages of colour (used sparingly) for flag recognition. Faithfully reproduced, with a short introduction by Brian Lavery, which explains the importance of a book like this to a navy that had to take on vast numbers of civilians or Hostilities Only men to meet the manning needs of the war, this volume provides a real mixture of wartime nostalgia & historical authenticity. It makes a world now lost to us accessible again, explaining as it does the terms, skills & conventions of ship board life, a life that required a common language, & where failure to respond to orders instantly could mean the difference between life & death. The book is sure to appeal to those who served in the war as well as the current generation who are becoming increasingly interested in the role their grandparents, fathers & uncles played during that time.

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WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE 1995 When the horrors of Rwanda were shown on televisions around the world, the media soon moved on to new stories; Fergal Keane travelled through the country as the genocide was continuing, & his powerful account reveals the terrible truths behind the headlines. He takes us to the scene of the appalling massacre at Nyarubuye, to the camp in Tanzania where the chief perpetrator lives like a prince, to the orphanages & Red Cross hospital, through territory controlled by Hutu extremists, & behind the siege lines, as Kigali is about to fall. Yet his searing descriptions are matched by trenchant political & historical analysis. This book offers a few brief glimpses of hope
- of individual decency & heroism
- but is essentially the story of an encounter with unspeakable evil. It offers a portrait of one of the century`s greatest man-made catastrophes.

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Sweeping from the Great War, through the Jazz Age to the 1940s, this unforgettable tale follows the entwined lives of the Fentons, an aristocratic family from Yorkshire. Thea, the eldest daughter of Viscount Gilbert Fenton, flouts the unwritten rules of her class by embarking on a love affair with Hal, the fiercely socialist son of one of her father`s tenant farmers. Carrie, her close childhood friend & granddaughter of the Viscount`s nanny, has always been expected to marry Hal
- but when she goes into service she finds herself longing for the one person she can never hope to marry. Olivia, the middle Fenton sister, follows a more conventional path, forging friendships with the British royal family & attending a finishing school in Germany. Her relationship with Count von der Schulenburg does not raise eyebrows, but as the mid-1930s approach, she finds herself in a country experiencing rapid, radical & dangerous social change. violet, the youngest of the Fenton sisters, is also the most reckless. She dreams of becoming an actress in Hollywood, unaware her life will be filled with more drama than any part she will ever play. And then there is Rozalind, their American cousin, who is secretly in love with a married U.S. senator. Her ambitions to become a photojournalist will also take her into the heart of Hitler`s Germany. Set against the rich canvas of the first half of the twentieth century, A Season of Secrets is an unforgettable tale of passion & betrayal, love & war from the ever popular Margaret Pemberton.
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After twenty years in Italy, Parks decides to explore the country in a different way: he follows for a whole year Hellas Verona, the Verona football club. The result is a highly personal account of one man`s relationship with a country, its people & its national sport. ...

Australia often gets a bad press over here: Crocodile Dundee, Neighbours, etc. This book is about a different Australia. John Pilger shocks when he writes about issues of oppression, race & class but inspires when he writes of his hopes for the future & about the people of Australia who are intrinsically honest, fair, heroic & often unpublisised. A book that explores the truth behind the sunny image. ...

First ever critical study of Tolkien`s little-known essay, which reveals how language invention shaped the creation of Middle-earth & beyond, to George R R Martin`s Game of Thrones. J.R.R. Tolkien`s linguistic invention was a fundamental part of his artistic output, to the extent that later on in life he attributed the existence of his mythology to the desire to give his languages a home & peoples to speak them. As Tolkien puts it in `A Secret Vice`, `the making of language & mythology are related functions”. In the 1930s, Tolkien composed & delivered two lectures, in which he explored these two key elements of his sub-creative methodology. The second of these, the seminal Andrew Lang Lecture for 1938-9, ` On Fairy-Stories`, which he delivered at the University of St Andrews in Scotl&, is well known. But many years before, in 1931, Tolkien gave a talk to a literary society entitled `A Hobby for the Home`, where he unveiled for the first time to a listening public the art that he had both himself encountered & been involved with since his earliest childhood: `the construction of imaginary languages in full or outline for amusement`. This talk would be edited by Christopher Tolkien for inclusion as `A Secret Vice` in The Monsters & the Critics & Other Essays & serves as the principal exposition of Tolkien`s art of inventing languages. This new critical edition, which

Includes:: previously unpublished notes & drafts by Tolkien connected with the essay, including his ` Essay on Phonetic Symbolism`, goes some way towards re-opening the debate on the importance of linguistic invention in Tolkien`s mythology & the role of imaginary languages in fantasy literature.

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The United Kingdom`s domestic counter-intelligence & security agency, most commonly known as MI5, was founded in 1909 by Sir Vernon Kell KBE. Kell (`K` within the agency) not only founded MI5 but was also its Director for 31 years, the longest tenure of any head of a British government department during the twentieth century. Kell was also fluent in six foreign languages, making him arguably the most gifted linguist ever to head a Western intelligence agency. A Secret Well Kept was written by Kell`s wife, Constance, in the 1950s, & the manuscript has been a treasured family possession ever since. Constance`s story is endlessly fascinating: she tells of their life in China during the Boxer Rebellion, the formation of MI5 in 1909, the key characters, events & spy cases of Kell`s career, & his important work achieved for the country during two world wars. A modern-day preface from Kell`s great-granddaughter, introduction by Stewart Binns & notes from Dr Chris Northcott add historical context to this delightful & unparalleled insight into the personal life of an extremely powerful & important man. ...

Previously published as Woman of State `A stunning debut novel from a top TV producer. It could not be more timely.`
- Gavin
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A young secular writer`s journey along ancient religious pilgrimage routes in Spain, Japan & Ukraine leads to a surprise family reconciliation in this literary memoir Gideon Lewis-Kraus arrived in free-spirited Berlin from San Francisco as a young writer in search of a place to enjoy life to the fullest, & to forget the pain his father, a gay rabbi, had caused his family when he came out in middle age & emotionally abandoned his sons. But Berlin offers only unfocused dissipation, frustration & anxiety; to find what he is looking for (though he`s not quite sure what it is), Gideon undertakes three separate ancient pilgrimages, travelling hundreds of miles: the thous&-year old Camino de Santiago in Spain with a friend, a solo circuit of eighty-eight Buddhist temples on the Japanese island of Shikoku, & finally, with his father & brother, a migration to the tomb of a famous Hassidic mystic in the Ukraine. It is on this last pilgrimage that Gideon reconnects with his father, & discovers that the most difficult & meaningful quest of all was the journey of his heart.A beautifully written, throught-provoking, & very moving meditation on what gives our lives a sense of purpose, & how we travel between past & present in search of hope for our future. ” Beautiful, often very funny...a story that is both searching & purposeful, one that forces the reader, like the pilgrim, to value the journey as much as the destination.” New Yorker ” If David Foster Wallace had written Eat, Pray, Love it might have come close to approximating the adventures of Gideon Lewis-Kraus” Gary Shteyngart ” Gideon Lewis-Kraus has written a very honest, very smart, very moving book about being young & rootless & even wayward. With great compassion & zeal he gets at the question: why search the world to solve the riddle of your own heart?” Dave Eggers Gideon Lewis-Kraus has written for numerous US publications, including Harper`s, The Believer, The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times Book Review, Slate & others. A 2007-08 Fulbright scholarship brought him to Berlin, a hotbed of contemporary restlessness where he conceived this book. He now lives in New York, but continues to find himself frequently on the road to other places. ...

When Lieutenant James Holman sailed to Russia in 1822, intent on crossing Siberia on his way to circumnavigate a globe still largely uncharted, the authorities of the Tsar arrested him on suspicion of espionage. Their scepticism was understandable: James Holman was completely blind. Holman returned to London & wrote a bestselling book about his abortive trip. But the wanderlust remained: as he put it, ” In my case, the deprivation of sight has been succeeded by an increased desire for locomotion.” In 1827 he set off again, this time for Africa. He would not return until 1832, having visited India, the Far East & Australia en route, & indulged in seemingly suicidal adventures such as stalking rogue elephants in Ceylon & helping blaze a road through uncharted New South Wales. For Holman it was the raw intensity of such experiences that kept depression at bay: he travelled in order to regain the sensation of feeling fully alive. Jason Roberts has used Holman`s own writings as well as myriad other contemporary sources to weave a spellbinding narrative about this fascinating character. Full of suspense & humour, & vivid in its re-creation of a world experienced through the non-visual senses, A SENSE OF THE WORLD is a marvellous blend of travel, biography & history, & a great tribute to a man of rare spirit. ...