Welcome to the British Museum, home to Lottie Lipton: nine-year-old investigator extraordinaire! Lottie loves the Great Library & all the beautiful books that fill it. But the money hungry Head Curator of the British Museum, Sir Trevelyan Taylor wants to sell all of the ancient books to the highest bider. The missing scroll of Alexandria is the only thing that can prove that the books must stay in the museum. Can Lottie, Great Uncle Bert & Reg the caretaker follow the clues & track down the missing scroll before it`s too late? Perfect for developing & newly confident readers, Lottie Lipton Adventures are packed with action, adventure & puzzles for the reader to solve. ...

Whether you are looking for an introduction to the basics or advanced diving techniques to improve your skills, this indispensable guide will help you get the most out of your diving. John Bantin combines over 350 colour photographs & diagrams with step by step exercises & practice programs to explore all aspects of diving:- Choosing the right diving equipment
- Techniques for entering the water
- Ascending & descending safely
- Finding your way underwater
- Coping with currents & submerged hazards
- Drift & wreck diving
- How to communicate with dive buddies
- Finding the best dive sites around the world With tips on safe diving, etiquette, & the basic science behind scuba diving, this handy book covers everything you need to know to take you to the next level.






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Written by a master of the scythe, professionally trained in Austria, & drawing deeply on research into original German texts, The Scything Handbook brings centuries-old scything techniques into the twent-first century. Detailed illustrations cover scythe assembly, perfecting the stroke, blade selection, honing, peening, & aftercare, as well as background on how scythes are forged. Also covered are the basics of making hay & mulch by h&, & how to grow & harvest gains at the home & homestead scale for self-sufficiency. Scything promotes health, flexibility, mind-body connection, & a meditative contemplation of the natural world while producing beautiful lawns & luscious mulch for the modern gardener & homesteader. This is truly an heirloom tool to master. ...

Renowned for his pictures of Breton lighthouses, Plisson widens his focus to encompass the subject of the sea as a whole. Dramatic pictures of giant swells alternate with peaceful shots of flat waters. Every photograph captures a love of the element that is as deep as the deepest sea! ...

' There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, & enslaving than the life at sea' wrote Joseph Conrad. In The Sea: A Cultural History John Mack considers the ways in which human beings interact because of the sea, navigate their course across it, & live on & around it
- whether promontories, estuaries, ports or coves. The Sea considers the characteristics of different seas & oceans & investigates how the sea is conceptualized in various cultures. It looks at the diversity of maritime technologies, especially the practice of navigation & the 'society' of the sea
- in many cultures all-male, often cosmopolitan, always hierarchical. The separation of the sea & the land is evident in the use of different vocabularies for the same things, the change in a mariner's behaviour when on land for a period, & in the liminal status of points of interaction between the two realms, notably on beaches & at ports. Ships are also deployed in symbolic contexts on land from ship burials, such as that at Sutton Hoo, to ecclesiastical & public architecture. The two realms are thus in dialogue in both symbolic & economic terms, rather than irrevocably separated. In describing the diversities of maritime cultures, this book moves beyond conventional boundaries, using histories, maritime archaeology, biography, art history & literary sources to provide an innovative & experiential account of 'the great blue yonder'.

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`A masterly study of grief, memory & love recollected` Professor John Sutherl&, Chair of Judges, Man Booker Prize 2005 When art historian Max Morden returns to the seaside village where he once spent a childhood holiday, he is both escaping from a recent loss & confronting a distant trauma. The Grace family had appeared that long-ago summer as if from another world. Mr & Mrs Grace, with their worldly ease & candour, were unlike any adults he had met before. But it was his contemporaries, the Grace twins Myles & Chloe, who most fascinated Max. He grew to know them intricately, even intimately, & what ensued would haunt him for the rest of his years & shape everything that was to follow. `A novel in which all of his remarkable gifts come together to produce a real work of art, disquieting, beautiful, intelligent, & in the end, surprisingly, offering consolation` Allan Massie, Scotsman ` You can smell & feel & see his world with extraordinary clarity. It is a work of art, & I`ll bet it will still be read & admired in seventy-five years` Rick Gekoski, The Times ` Poetry seems to come easily to Banville. There is so much to applaud in this book that it deserves more than one reading` Literary Review `A brilliant, sensuous, discombobulating novel` Spectator ...

The Sea & Civilization is a stunning work of history that reveals in breathtaking depth how people first came into contact ...

The fourth in the fun new 12-book collectible series for young readers from survival expert & Chief Scout BEAR GRYLLS. Chloe is enjoying activity camp & all the outdoor fun
- what`s not to like? But she can`t understand why everyone goes on & on about ”leaving things the way you found them”. After all, what`s the big deal about a bit of litter in the middle of the woods? The world is big enough for a bit of rubbish not to matter. But when she`s given a mysterious compass with a fifth direction she`s transported to a tropical island beach & has to brave the extreme conditions with the help of survival expert Bear Grylls. It`s not like a typical trip to the seaside! First there`s a shipwreck to escape through raging surf, fresh water to source, not to mention quicksand & sea urchins... Will Bear persuade her to change her ways when she sees how much non-degradable litter still washes up, & the damage it does to wildlife? & who will get the compass next? Each book in this fun new 12-book series from BEAR GRYLLS follows a different child on the outdoor activity camp. Once they are given the magical compass, they meet the inspirational adventurer in an amazing place & learn new skills & facts they can take with them back to their real life.
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A Richard & Judy Summer 2013 Book Club pick. The Sea Change by Joanna Rossiter is a haunting & moving novel about a mother & a daughter, caught between a tsunami & a war. Yesterday was Alice`s wedding day. She is thousands of miles away from the home she is so desperate to leave, on the southernmost tip of India, when she wakes in the morning to see a wave on the horizon, taller than the height of her guest house on Kanyakumari beach. Her husband is nowhere to be seen. On the other side of the world, unhappily estranged from her daughter, is Alice`s mother, violet. Forced to leave the idyllic Wiltshire village, Imber, in which she grew up after it was requisitioned by the army during the Second World War, violet is haunted by the shadow of the man she loved & the wilderness of a home that lies in ruins. As Alice searches for her husband in the debris of the wave she is forced to face up to some truths about herself she has been hiding from. Meanwhile violet is compelled to return to Imber to discover just why she abandoned her great love...”A great theme: impermanence, & the sweeping away of everything we believed was certain. Joanna Rossiter really shines with lovely, fluid, restrained writing. This is such a moving story”. (Helen Dunmore). Joanna Rossiter grew up in Dorset & studied English at Cambridge University before working as a researcher in the House of Commons & as a copy writer. In 2011 she completed an MA in Writing at Warwick University. The Sea Change is her first novel. She lives & writes in London. ...

To sail the oceans needed skill as well as courage & experience, & the sea chart with, where appropriate, the coastal view, was the tool by which ships of trade, transport or conquest navigated their course. This book looks at the history & development of the chart & the related nautical map, in both scientific & aesthetic terms, as a means of safe & accurate seaborne navigation. The Italian merchant-venturers of the early thirteenth century developed the earliest 'portulan' pilot charts of the Mediterranean. The subsequent speed of exploration by European seafarers, encompassing the New World, the extraordinary voyages around the Cape of Good Hope & the opening up of the trade to the East, India & the Spice Islands were both a result of the development of the sea chart & in addition as an aid to that development. By the eighteenth century the discovery & charting of the coasts & oceans of the globe had become a strategic naval & commercial requirement. Such involvements led to Cook's voyages in the Pacific, the search for the Northwest Passage & races to the Arctic & Antarctic. The volume is arranged along chronological & then geographical lines. Each of the ten chapters is split into two distinct halves examining the history of the charting of a particular region & the context under which such charting took place following which specific navigational charts & views together with other relevant illustrations are presented. Key figures or milestones in the history of charting are then presented in st&-alone story box features. ...