A novel of the friendships & woes of two couples, which tells the story of their lives in lyrical, evocative prose by one of the finest American writers of the late 20th century. When two young couples meet for the first time during the Great Depression, they quickly find they have much in common: Charity Lang & Sally Morgan are both pregnant, while their husbands Sid & Larry both have jobs in the English department at the University of Wisconsin. Immediately a lifelong friendship is born, which becomes increasingly complex as they share decades of love, loyalty, vulnerability & conflict. Written from the perspective of the aging Larry Morgan, Crossing to Safety is a beautiful & deeply moving exploration of the struggle of four people to come to terms with the trials & tragedies of everyday life. With an introduction by Jane Smiley. Wallace Stegner (1909-1993) was the author of, among other novels, Remembering Laughter, 1937; A Shooting Star, 1961; Angle of Repose (Pulitzer Prize), 1971; The Spectator Bird (National Book award), 1977; Recapitulation, 1979. Three of his short stories have won O. Henry prizes, & in 1980 he received the Robert Kirsch award from the Los Angeles Times for his lifetime literary achievements. His collected stories were published in 1990. Jane Smiley is the author of many novels & works of non-fiction, including, most recently, ” Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel”, about the history & anatomy of the novel. Her most recent novel is ” Good Faith”. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for ”A Thousand Acres”, & was shortlisted for The Orange Prize in 2001 for Horse Heaven. ...

From the mid-fifteenth century to the close of the nineteenth, it is estimated that more than 12 million people from Africa were forced onto slave ships & transported to the Americas; at least 11 million survived the journey. Even after Britain banned the importation of African slaves in its colonies in 1807, & the U.S. followed suit in 1808, more than 3 million Africans made the terrible transit across the Atlantic. Slavery itself was not finally ended until Brazilian emancipation in 1888. Crossings explores the broad sweep of slavery across the Atlantic world, revealing the extraordinary efforts to end it as well as the remarkable degree to which slavery & the slave trade managed to survive, even to the present day. In the most authoritative history of the entire slave trade to date, James Walvin returns the emphasis of the story to its origins in Africa. It was here that the trade originated, here that the terrible ordeal of slaves began, & here that the scars remain today. Journeying across the ocean, Crossings also explores the history of Portugese, French & British colonies, as well as its development in the USA, & shows how Brazilian slavery was central to the development of the slave trade itself: that country tested techniques & methods for trading & slavery that were successfully exported to the Caribbean & the rest of the Americas in the following centuries. This book examines some vital unanswered questions, such as how did a system which the Western world had come to regard with distaste manage to survive for so long? & why were the British
- so fundamental in developing & perfecting the slave trade
- so prominent in its eradication? This groundbreaking study makes use of major new developments in research, rendering them available to a broad readership for the first time & offering a new understanding of one of the most important, & tragic, episodes in world history.

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Reinventing plant-based eating is what Tal Ronnen is all about. At his Los Angeles restaurant, Crossroads, vegans, vegetarians, & carnivores sit side by side & eat dishes that satisfy each of them. Ronnen`s cooking is Mediterranean first
- think warm bowls of tomato-sauced pappardelle, plates of spicy carrot salad, & crunchy flatbreads piled high with roasted vegetables
- & vegan second. Ronnen proves that the flavours we crave are easily replicated in dishes made without animal products. With accessible, unfussy recipes, Crossroads stresses simple preparations & fresh ingredients, & takes plant-based eating firmly out of the realm of hippie health food & into a cuisine that fits perfectly with today`s modern palate. After all, the backbones of Ronnen`s food-seasonal vegetables, beans, nuts, & grains-are what many of us are already eating daily. The recipes are photographed in sumptuous detail, & with more than 100 of them, this book is an indispensable resource for healthy, mindful eaters everywhere.

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This classic Reaktion title, now available in B-format, is a survey of crows, ravens, magpies & their relatives in myth, literature & life. It ranges from the raven sent out by Noah to the corvid deities of the Eskimo, to Taoist legends, Victorian novels & contemporary films. It will be of interest to anyone who has ever been intrigued, puzzled, annoyed or charmed by these wonderfully intelligent birds. ...

Shortlisted for the 2008 _ Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction_, ” Crow Country” is Mark Cocker`s brilliant description of his journeys in search of crows & ravens of Engl&, birds that obsessed him & changed his life for ever. Rooks & jackdaws are both members of the same bird family. To ornithologists the group is known as _the corvids_, to the layperson they are `crows`. But to the Mark Cocker these two species have become a fixation & a way of life. When he moved with his family to a rundown cottage in the Norfolk Broads he acquired first a naturalist`s perfect home in the countryside, then the keys to a secret landscape. Twice a day flight-lines of rooks & jackdaws passed over the house on their way to a roost in the Yare Valley. Following them down to the river one winter`s night, the author discovered a roiling, deafening flock of birds which rised at its peak to 40, 000. From the moment he watched the multitudes blossom as a mysterious dark flower above the night woods, these gloriously commonplace birds were unsheathed entirely from their ordinariness. Cocker goes in search of them, journeying from the cavernous, deadened heartland of South England to the hills of Dumfriesshire, experiencing spectacular failures alongside magical successes & epiphanies. Step by step he pieces together the complexities of the birds` inner lives, the historical depth of the British relationship with the rook & the unforeseen richness hidden in that sombre voice, a raucous crow song that he calls `our landscape made audible`.” Crow Country” is a prose poem in a long tradition of English pastoral writing. It is also a celebration of the Norfolk countryside, of its oceanic flatness, its immense skies & of the human intimacies which have shaped it from generation to generation. Yet, the book is also a powerful restatement of the central importance of nature in human affairs. It asks us to recall that ` Crow Country` is not `ours`. It`s a landscape which we cohabit with thousands of other species & is all the richer for these complex fellowships. ” Crow Country” is the perfect companion to the wonderful * Birds Britannica*.‘ Luminously beautiful & dartingly intelligent’ _ Richard Mabey_ ...

The Birds & the Bees series was designed for Vintage Classics by Timorous Beasties, the Scottish studio famous for their designs inspired by the natural world. One night Mark Cocker followed the roiling, deafening flock of rooks & jackdaws which regularly passed over his Norfolk home on their way to roost in the Yare valley. From the moment he watched the multitudes blossom as a mysterious dark flower above the woods, these gloriously commonplace birds became for Cocker a fixation & a way of life. Journeying across Britain, through spectacular failures, magical successes & epiphanies, Cocker uncovers the mysteries of these birds` inner lives. SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2008 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE. ...

Crow Lake is that rare find, a first novel so quietly assured, so compelling, & with an emotional charge so perfectly controlled, that you sense at once that this is the real thing
- a literary experience to relish, a book to lose yourself in, & a name to watch. Here is a gorgeous, slowburning story of families growing up & tearing each other apart in rural Northern Ontario, where tragedy & hardship are mirrored in the landscape. Centre stage are the Morrisons whose tragedy is insidious & divisive. Orphaned young, Kate Morrison was her older brother Matt`s protegee, her curious fascination for pond-life fed by his passionate interest in the natural world. Now a zoologist, she can identify organisms under a microscope, but seems blind to the tragedy of her own emotional life. She thinks she`s outgrown her family, who were once her entire world
- but she can`t seem to outgrow her childhood or lighten the weight of their mutual past.

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A compulsively readable thriller that skillfully weaves together past & present to uncover the sinister secrets buried in the ancient stone quarries under Bath. Kit Parry is reluctant to take the job shoring up the ancient quarries beneath her hometown of Bath -- a place as riddled with memories she`d rather forget as it is with Roman ruins. The miners certainly don`t want her there, & her burgeoning romance with lanky foreman Gary looks likely to complicate matters even further. But when dark developments threaten the spa town`s placid facade, Kit must face up to the past she`s tried so desperately to bury. Someone wants her out of Bath -- that much is clear -- but who was it that brought her childhood to an abrupt end in the summer of her fourteenth year? Why has she never been back to Bath, & how did she escape her violent father? When Kit stumbles across evidence of a lost Mithraic temple, the mysteries in her own past become entangled with a search for what could be the archaeological discovery of the decade -- & what turns into a dangerous obsession! ...

CROWDIE & CREAM: Peopled with characters like Great Aunt Rachel, `built like a Churchill tank & with a personality to match`, these are the stories of a childhood, of the hard years of the Depression, & then the departure of the island`s young men to fight in the Second World War. Together they bring alive the warmth & closeness of a unique Hebridean community. CROTAL & WHITE: Finlay J Macdonald continues his story with a witty account of his adolescent years during the depression. Hard days for the villagers, but their sense of humour never deserted them. & when young Finlay won the bursary to secondary school in the Northlands it was with a mixture of joy & sadness that he prepared to leave behind him a community that would soon be changed forever...THE CORNCRAKE & THE LYSANDER: As Finlay Macdonald set out for high school in Tarbert, Hitler`s growing military strength had begun to menace the people of Europe. But to Finlay this was just one more exciting prospect along with living in Big Grandfather`s house, making new friends & meeting the girls of his adolescent dreams. ...

Croxteth Hall in 1906 in a fascinating series of reproductions of old Ordnance Survey plans in the Alan Godfrey Editions, ideal for anyone interested in the history of their neighbourhood or family. Selected towns in Great Britain & Ireland are covered by maps showing the extent of urban development in the last decades of the 19th & early 20th century. About the Alan Godfrey Editions of the 25 ...