The close-knit villages of the Dearne Valley were home to four generations of the Hollingworth family. Spanning Richard Benson`s great-grandmother Winnie`s ninety-two years in the valley, & drawing on years of historical research, interviews & anecdotes, The Valley lets us into generations of carousing & banter as the family`s attempts to build a better & fairer world for themselves meet sometimes with triumph, sometimes with bitter defeat. Against a backdrop of underground explosions, strikes & pit closures, these are unflinching, deeply personal stories of battles between the sexes in a man`s world sustained by strong women; of growing up, & the power of love & imagination to transform lives. ...

Three valleys – Gallinera, Alcalà & Ebo – with the surrounding sierras in the hinterland of the northern Costa Blanca on a contoured & GPS compatible map at 1:20, 000 from Editorial Piolet, with on the reverse detail & route profiles of 21 recommended walks. Centered on Benissivà & Benirrama, coverage extends north across Serra de l’ Almirant to Villalonga, south to Benimaurell, & east to Pego & Serra del Cabal, with a panel on the reverse extending the main map beyond Pego to show the Parc Natural de la Marjal de Pego – Oliva with the local beaches. Topography is presented by contours at 10m intervals with plenty of additional spot heights. An overprint highlights waymarked local & long distance routes & symbols show various facilities & places of interest including different types of accommodation (hotels, campsites, refuges, etc), tourist information offices, banks/cash points, interesting rock formations, climbing & abseiling sites, etc. The map has a 1-km UTM grid; map legend

Includes:: English. On the reverse 21 local walks are presented with route profiles, details of length, duration, change in altitude & the degree of difficulty, plus a QR code for further information. To see the list of titles in this series please click on the series link.

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When twenty-two-year-old Gerty Freely travels to Russia to work as a governess in early 1914, she has no idea of the vast political upheavals ahead, nor how completely her fate will be shaped by them. Yet as her intimacy with the charismatic inventor, Nikita Slavkin, deepens, she`s inspired by his belief in a future free of bourgeois clutter, alight with creativity & sleek as a machine. In 1917, revolution sweeps away the Moscow Gerty knew. The middle classes
- & their governesses
- are fleeing the country, but she stays, throwing herself into an experiment in communal living led by Slavkin. In the white-washed modernist rooms of the commune the members may be cold & hungry, but their overwhelming feeling is of exhilaration. They abolish private property & hand over everything, even their clothes, to the collective; they swear celibacy for the cause. Yet the chaos & violence of the outside world cannot be withstood for ever. Nikita Slavkin`s sudden disappearance inspires the Soviet cult of the Vanishing Futurist, the scientist who sacrificed himself for the Communist ideal. Gerty, alone & vulnerable, must now discover where that ideal will ultimately lead. Strikingly vivid, this debut novel by award-winning writer Charlotte Hobson pierces the heart with a story of fleeting, but infinite possibility.

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When twenty-two-year-old Gerty Freely travels to Russia to work as a governess in early 1914, she has no idea of the vast political upheavals ahead, nor how completely her fate will be shaped by them. Yet as her intimacy with the charismatic inventor, Nikita Slavkin, deepens, she`s inspired by his belief in a future free of bourgeois clutter, alight with creativity & sleek as a machine. In 1917, revolution sweeps away the Moscow Gerty knew. The middle classes
- & their governesses
- are fleeing the country, but she stays, throwing herself into an experiment in communal living led by Slavkin. In the white-washed modernist rooms of the commune the members may be cold & hungry, but their overwhelming feeling is of exhilaration. They abolish private property & hand over everything, even their clothes, to the collective; they swear celibacy for the cause. Yet the chaos & violence of the outside world cannot be withstood for ever. Nikita Slavkin`s sudden disappearance inspires the Soviet cult of the Vanishing Futurist, the scientist who sacrificed himself for the Communist ideal. Gerty, alone & vulnerable, must now discover where that ideal will ultimately lead.

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In 1845, a Reading bookseller named John Snare came across the dirt-blackened portrait of a prince at a country house auction. Suspecting that it might be a long-lost Velazquez, he bought the picture & set out to discover its strange history. When Laura Cumming stumbled on a startling trial involving John Snare, it sent her on a search of her own. At first she was pursuing the picture, & the life & work of the elusive painter, but then she found herself following the bookseller`s fortunes too
- from London to Edinburgh to nineteenth-century New York, from fame to ruin & exile. With an innovative fusion of detection & biography, this book shows how & why great works of art can affect us, even to the point of mania. & on the trail of John Snare, Cumming makes a surprising discovery of her own. But most movingly, the Vanishing Man is an eloquent & passionate homage to the Spanish master Velazquez, bringing us closer to the creation & appreciation of his works than ever before.
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Some of the most stunning architectural structures in India are to be found below ground: these are its stepwells, ancient ...

`A breathtaking, magisterial panorama, telling the epic story of post-war anarchy, dying empires & rising nation states. It makes us rethink our understanding of Europe`s twentieth century` David Motadel, The Times Literary Supplement For the Western allies 11 November 1918 has always been a solemn date
- the end of fighting which had destroyed a generation, & also a vindication of a terrible sacrifice with the total collapse of their principal enemies: the German Empire, Austria-Hungary & the Ottoman Empire. But for much of the rest of Europe this was a day with no meaning, as a continuing, nightmarish series of conflicts engulfed country after country. In this highly original, gripping book Robert Gerwarth asks us to think again about the true legacy of the First World War. ` Lucid, incisive & packed with fascinating details` Financial Times, Books of the Year ` Important & timely.. .obliges us to reconsider a period & a battlefront that has too often been neglected` Margaret Mac Millan, The New York Times Review of Books ` This narrative of continent-wide chaos performs a valuable service by chronicling the postwar turmoil of Europe.. .helps us understand why few wars reach tidy conclusions` Max Hastings, Sunday Times ` Reminds us, in vivid & often shocking detail, that only some countries saw killing end on the 11th day of the 11th month.. .leaves a sense of foreboding for our own time` Robert Tombs, The Times
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` This war is not the end but the beginning of violence. It is the forge in which the world will be hammered into new borders & new communities. New molds want to be filled with blood, & power will be wielded with a hard fist.` Ernst Junger (1918) For the Western allies 11 November 1918 has always been a solemn date
- the end of fighting which had destroyed a generation, & also a vindication of a terrible sacrifice with the total collapse of their principal enemies: the German Empire, Austria-Hungary & the Ottoman Empire. But for much of the rest of Europe this was a day with no meaning, as a continuing, nightmarish series of conflicts engulfed country after country. In this highly original, gripping book Robert Gerwarth asks us to think again about the true legacy of the First World War. In large part it was not the fighting on the Western front which proved so ruinous to Europe`s future, but the devastating aftermath, as countries on both sides of the original conflict were wrecked by revolution, pogroms, mass expulsions & further major military clashes. If the War itself had in most places been a struggle purely between state-backed soldiers, these new conflicts were mainly about civilians & paramilitaries, & millions of people died across central, eastern, & south-eastern Europe before the USSR & a series of rickety & exhausted small new states came into being. Everywhere there were vengeful people, their lives racked by a murderous sense of injustice, & looking for the opportunity to take retribution against enemies real & imaginary. Only a decade later, the rise of the Third Reich & other totalitarian states provided them with the opportunity they had been looking for.
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Our planet is full of life! Did you know there are 400, 000 species of beetle
- but only eight species of bear? This stunning
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Set in the 1890s, Andre Gide`s famous satire centres around a group of ingenious fraudsters (` The Millipede`) who convince their wealthy victims that the pontiff has been imprisoned in the Vatican cellars, & a false Pope has been enthroned in his place. Posing as clergy, they con money by promising to obtain the true Pope`s release & restoration. The book features one of Gide`s most memorable creations: the amoral Lafcadio, who in pushing a man from a moving train commits the ultimate motiveless crime. Unavailable in the UK for 25 years, this scandalous, funny & highly original novel has been re-translated to mark the centenary of its publication. Supported by English PEN. ...