The Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1955-58 organised & led by Sir Vivian Fuchs & supported by Sir Edmund Hillary was one of the most extraordinary exploits ever undertaken in Antarctica
- but it has been underappreciated. On the sixtieth anniversary of the crossing, this book tells the complete story of this remarkable episode in the history of exploration. The Crossing is illustrated with photographs from the Royal Geographical Society, with the kind permission of Mary Lowe, widow of expedition photographer George Lowe, & from Peter & Sarah Hillary & the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Sir Ernest Shackleton had tried unsuccessfully to cross the Antarctic in 1914. He called it the Last Great Journey, but he & his men escaped by the skin of their teeth. The new post-war expedition was therefore, with knowledge of what had gone before, a brave attempt to conquer the vast frozen continent. For this historic endeavour, planning had to be done at opposite ends of the Earth, in the UK & New Zeal&, & members of the expedition were drawn from the Commonwealth. The plan was meticulous but flawed, & the stakes were high: national, political & scientific interests all depended on its success. John Knight`s account shows how the expedition was organised, from the scientific insight it relied on, to the voyage to Antarctica & the choice of the largely mechanised transport intended to carry the men across the ice desert
- though the courageous dog teams would be crucial as pathfinders. Survival at times was touch & go, & controversies arose amid the pressure of the journey. This book not only provides a technical insight into a ground-breaking venture but touches on the human aspects of the challenge. Crucially, did Ed Hillary exceed his remit by pushing on south, when his specific instructions were to establish depots for ` Bunny` Fuchs`s journey, not to engage in a ` Second Race to the Pole`? The Crossing charts a unique event in postwar history.

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This guide is a celebration of the beauty of birds & the British & Irish countryside. Aimed at beginner & intermediate birders, yet suitable for all levels, this new volume in the groundbreaking Crossley ID Guide series is the most user-friendly guide to the birds of Britain & Irel&. Following The Crossley ID Guides` award-winning design, this book looks at all regularly occurring species in Britain & Irel&, & shows readers how to identify birds in their natural habitats using size, structure, shape, probability, & behavior
- just like the experts do! stunning images are accompanied by the colorful & compelling text of Dominic Couzens, one of Britain`s leading nature writers. This unique book treats more than 300 species
- all the regularly occurring birds likely to be encountered by observers
- & the guide`s attractive pages provide a real-life approach to bird identification. Beautiful, in-focus scenes present birds in various plumages & in lifelike poses set in identifiable British & Irish habitats. The plates also illustrate how a bird`s appearance changes with distance. Organising images in cohesive, easy-to-understand plates rather than as separate photographs, this book also sets itself apart by containing more images that demonstrate flight, behavior, habitat, & plumages than any other volume available. Not only is this field guide a reference book, it is also a spectacular teaching resource that makes it easy for nature enthusiasts to see & appreciate the big picture of bird identification.

Features: the most user-friendly guide to the birds of Britain & Ireland; a close look at more than 300 regularly occurring species; award-winning Crossley ID Guide design; lifelike images of birds from near to far; a celebration of the British & Irish countryside; a teaching & field guide & essential reference; & concise & compelling text by Dominic Couzens & Richard Crossley.




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Cristiano is thirteen. Home life is far from perfect. When his father & two friends come up with a plan to rob a bank, Cristiano sees the chance of a better life. As a tremendous storm brews that night, Cristiano will have to put childhood behind him once & for all, & the perfect crime will have shocking consequences. ...

A BBC Radio 4 ` Book of the Week` in 2018. In 2013 Guy Stagg made a pilgrimage from Canterbury to Jerusalem. Though a non-believer, he began the journey after suffering several years of mental illness, hoping the ritual would heal him. For ten months he hiked alone on ancient paths, crossing ten countries & more than 5, 500 kilometres. The Crossway is an account of this extraordinary adventure. Having left home on New Year’s Day, Stagg climbed over the Alps in midwinter, spent Easter in Rome with a new pope, joined mass protests in Istanbul & survived a terrorist attack in Lebanon. Travelling without support, he had to rely each night on the generosity of strangers, staying with monks & nuns, priests & families. As a result, he gained a unique insight into the lives of contemporary believers & learnt the fascinating stories of the soldiers & saints, missionaries & martyrs who had followed these paths before him. The Crossway is a book full of wonders, mixing travel & memoir, history & current affairs. At once intimate & epic, it charts the author’s struggle to walk towards recovery, & asks whether religion can still have meaning for those without faith. ...

This is the international thriller sensation. It starts with just one body
- the hands bound, the skin covered in marks. Detective
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The Crows of Pearblossom tells the story of Mr. & Mrs. Crow, who live in a cotton-wood tree at Pearblossom, California. Due to a hungry Rattlesnake living at the bottom of the tree, Mrs. Crow's eggs disappear before they hatch. After catching the snake eating her 297th egg that year (she does not work on Sundays), Mrs. Crow tells Mr. Crow go & kill the snake. Thinking better of it, Mr. Crow confers with his wise friend, Old Man Owl. Owl bakes mud into two stone eggs & paints them to resemble Mrs. Crows eggs. These dummy eggs are left in the nest to trick the Rattlesnake, who unwisely eats them the next day, causing the Rattlesnake such pain, that he thrashes about, tying himself in knots around the branches. Mrs. Crow goes on to hatch four families of seventeen children each & uses the snake as a clothesline on which to hang the little crows' diapers. ...

Arthur Miller`s classic parable of mass hysteria draws a chilling parallel between the Salem witch-hunt of 1692
- one of the strangest
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Based on the author`s own vivid experiences, The Cruel Sea is the nail-biting story of the crew of HMS Compass Rose, a corvette assigned to protect convoys in World War Two. Darting back & forth across the icy North Atlantic, Compass Rose played a deadly cat & mouse game with packs of German U-boats lying in wait beneath the ocean waves. Packed with tension & vivid descriptions of agonizing U-boat hunts, this tale of the most bitter & chilling campaign of the war tells of ordinary, heroic men who had to face a brutal menace which would strike without warning from the deep... ...

From the bestselling & prize-winning author of `A Brilliant Little Operation` comes the long neglected D-Day story of the largest action by the French Resistance during WWII, published to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings. In early 1941, three separate groups of plotters
- one military, one political, one intellectual
- began to organise & plan on & around the forbidding mountainous plateau near Grenoble
- the Vercors. The aims of the groups were the same: to hasten the departure of the German occupiers; to restore the pride of France after its fall & the humiliations of the puppet Vichy government which followed; & to build a new France. The overwhelming desire to get rid of the Germans would unite them. Their different views of the France they hoped for in the future would divide them. Over the next three years these sparks of resistance would grow to challenge the might of the hated German occupiers. As the Allied troops stormed the D-Day beaches, the Vercors rose up to fight the Nazis in a planned rearguard action. It was to prove not only the largest Resistance action of the entire war but also, in the severity of the German response, the most brutal crushing of resistance forces in Western Europe. For the men & women of Vercors, aided & abetted by the Free French forces of General de Gaulle & SOE operatives from London, the events on the Vercors took them on a journey from early idealism through hope, misjudgement, folly, despair, sacrifice & slaughter to a kind of cruel victory. The tragedy drew the attention of those at the highest level of the Allied war effort & placed the Vercors deep into the heart of the history of modern France in a way which resonates still in the country`s daily life & politics. Long overlooked by English language histories, this magnificent book sets the story in the context of D-Day, the muddle of politics & many misjudgements of D-Day planners in both London & Algiers, &
- most importantly
- it gives voice to the many Maquisards fighters who fought to gain a voice in their country`s future.




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In an early series of journalistic pieces for an American magazine, Motor, F. Scott Fitzgerald described a journey he took with his wife Zelda from Connecticut to Alabama in a clapped out automobile which he called the ` Rolling Junk`. It is a piece of writing whose style, in free-ranging alternation of fact & fiction, has been compared to Jerome K. Jerome`s Three Men in a Boat. This book collects together the articles as one text, illustrated with the original illustrations of Fitzgerald, Zelda & the ` Junk`. ...