Look out! There’s a mammoth on the loose! Follow Oscar through a magical museum of curious creatures to find the mammoth before the clock strikes one! Is he munching sandwiches with Diplodocus Dave in the Dinosaur room? Or joining an aerobics class with the Extinct & Endangered Species? The Curious Case of the Missing Mammoth is a riotous adventure, packed with fascinating facts & lift-the-flap fun. With stunning illustrations from Karl James Mountford, this brilliantly interactive book brings museums to life. ...

40 Years of Marriage. 8 Golden Charms. One Man`s Journey of Discovery. ` Eccentric, charming & wise, this will illuminate your heart` Nina George, author of The Little Paris Bookshop Having been married for over 40 years, 69-year-old Arthur Pepper is mourning the loss of his wife. On the anniversary of her death, he finally musters the courage to go through her possessions, & happens upon a charm bracelet that he has never seen before. What follows is a surprising adventure that takes Arthur from London to Paris & India in an epic quest to find out the truth about his wife`s secret life before they met, a journey that leads him to find healing, self-discovery, & love in the most unexpected of places. ...

40 Years of Marriage. 8 Golden Charms. One Man`s Journey of Discovery. ”[A] charming, unforgettable story.”
- Harper`s Bazaar
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A beautiful, hardback, peep-inside guide to the Moominhouse
- the perfect gift for Moomin fans young & old. Welcome to the Moominhouse!
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From armadillo to zebras, chameleons to quetzals, these exotic animals will surprise & delight. No curious explorer should be without Marc Martin`s stunning celebration of strange & beautiful creatures from all over the world. Here is a book of wonder, a unique & breathtaking treasure from an outstanding new talent. ...

Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year ` Outstanding...a stunningly good read` Observer ` Mark Haddon`s portrayal of an emotionally dissociated mind is a superb achievement... Wise & bleakly funny` Ian Mc Ewan The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, & narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen & has Asperger`s Syndrome. He knows a very great deal about maths & very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns & the truth. He hates the colours yellow & brown & being touched. He has never gone further than the end of the road on his own, but when he finds a neighbour`s dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his whole world upside down. ...

Christopher is 15 & lives in Swindon with his father. He has Asperger`s Syndrome, a form of autism. He is obsessed with maths, science & Sherlock Holmes but finds it hard to understand other people. When he discovers a dead dog on a neighbour`s lawn he decides to solve the mystery & write a detective thriller about it. As in all good detective stories, however, the more he unearths, the deeper the mystery gets
- for both Christopher & the rest of his family.
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Mapmaking has always been a serious business, whether surveying property limits, marking international boundaries or plotting lines of travel. Yet cartographers of all periods had a sense of humour, & mapmakers often used their artistic talents to create maps not for strictly geographical purposes but for the pleasure & entertainment of others. In this book, an expert cartographic researcher uncovers 100 curious, entertaining maps, drawn mainly from the unrivalled map collection in the British Library. Many of the maps depict countries in human or animal form, among them the famous ` Leo Belgicus`
- the Low Countries in the shape of a lion. Many of the maps featured here were created for recreational play, with the secondary purpose of educating through enjoyment, including some of the very earliest cartographical game-maps, jigsaws, playing-card maps & even a jigsaw globe. With advances in printing techniques, publishers found they could affix maps to all manner of objects, often commemorative, such as the tankard celebrating Nelson`s victory at Trafalgar in 1805. There are also maps on cups & saucers, tea towels, umbrellas, scarves & commemorative medals. Through images of these maps & many more, this amusing & unusual book reveals the little-known playful side of mapmaking.
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An intimate portrait of two pivotal Restoration figures during one of the most dramatic periods of English history Samuel Pepys & John Evelyn are two of the most celebrated English diarists. They were also extraordinary men & close friends. This first full portrait of that friendship transforms our understanding of their times. Pepys was earthy & shrewd, while Evelyn was a genteel aesthete, but both were drawn to intellectual pursuits. Brought together by their work to alleviate the plight of sailors caught up in the Dutch wars, they shared an inexhaustible curiosity for life & for the exotic. Willes explores their mutual interests--diary-keeping, science, travel, & a love of books--and their divergent enthusiasms, Pepys for theater & music, Evelyn for horticulture & garden design. Through the richly documented lives of two remarkable men, Willes revisits the history of London & of England in an age of regicide, revolution, fire, & plague to reveal it also as a time of enthralling possibility. ...

This is the story of Aurora Ortiz, who lives in Madrid, & who, at the age of only thirty, has been widowed & needs to find a job. Although she is in no position to choose, she would ideally like to work as a caretaker in a quiet block of flats where she would just watch life pass by. Aurora`s aspirations are simple & few, & with the help of her neighbour & friend Fany, who lends her a computer, she composes what she considers a suitable curriculum vitae & proceeds to tramp the streets of the city in search of work. With her vitality & freshness, her innocence, her unconventional intelligence & her relative lack of commercial ambition, Aurora Ortiz is a new type of heroine, one whose ethos & view of the world run contrary to most contemporary trends, she is a character who might have emerged from one of Pedro Almod-var`s films. The means by which she comes to terms with the burden & pressures of modern life will strike chords with many of her own European generation. ...