A concise & accessible study of the foundations, development & enduring legacy of the cultures of Greece & Rome, centred on ten locations of seminal importance in the development of Classical civilisation. Starting with Troy, where history, myth & cosmology fuse to form the origins of Classical civilisation, Nigel Spivey explores the contrasting politics of Athens & Sparta, the diffusion of classical ideals across the Mediterranean world, Classical science & philosophy, the eastward export of Greek culture with the conquests of Alexander the Great, the power & spread of the Roman imperium, & the long Byzantine twilight of Antiquity. A secure grasp of the nature of our Greek & Roman heritage is absolutely fundamental to a true understanding of contemporary European society & culture. Nigel Spivey outlines & explains that heritage with supreme passion, rigour & clarity. ...

Dance in India has been deemed sacred because of its innate capacity to visualise & actualise the deepest philosophical concepts through gestures, movements & the art of suggestion. Immediate collective transcendence is possible only through dance when the dancer disappears & melts away in the dance & when the audience is transported to the realm of `rasa srishti`, the pure aesthetic delight. Any attempt to transcribe & describe dance through words is bound to remain incomplete as dance is a visual art. In India, it has sat atop a pyramid of various art forms which have had an oral & written history. As dance in India freely uses literary & poetic works taken from all vernacular languages, its repertory is rich beyond imagination. Vocal & instrumental music provides a constant accompaniment to translate ideas contained in these literary texts. Profusion of intricately carved sculptures on temple-walls have kept the forms alive even through dark periods of unsympathetic foreign rule. Dance has inspired a wealth of stone, metal & wood carvings, frescoes, murals & miniature paintings as well as textiles reflecting a panorama of dance movements. Special ornaments in gold, ruby, emerald, diamond or silver used by dancers have had a tradition of being crafted by h&. The art of decorating hair with different kinds of arrangements of flowers & fragrant leaves according to seasonal availability & suitability was specially taught as an additional accomplishment of a dancer. This book points at many such ideas & urges the reader to take a plunge in the ocean of ambrosial knowledge, which is called `natya vidya`. ...

Meet Claude
- the ordinary dog with an extraordinary life. Now the star of his very own TV show on Disney Junior with 52 episodes.
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In this glorious picture book Claude goes on a rollicking seafaring adventure! He swooshes out of the house in the bathtub
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Doodle, design & draw a huge range of delights from Claude`s world! Set your imagination free & doodle away in this doodle book based on the young fiction series. Learn how to draw Claude & Sir Bobblysock, design outfits, friends & book covers for Claude, invent accessories & adventures & much much more... Claude was selected for the Waterstone`s Children`s Book Prize & the Richard & Judy Book Club. Alex T. Smith is the World Book Day Illustrator 2014. Praise for Claude: `...illustrated with humour & elegance...` The Times Follow the author at http://alextsmith.blogspot.co.uk & http://twitter.com/ Alex_T_ Smith ...

Claudius has survived the murderous intrigues of his predecessors to become, reluctantly, Emperor of Rome. Here, he recounts his surprisingly successful reign: how he cultivates the loyalty of the army & the common people to repair the damage caused by Caligula; his relations with the Jewish King Herod Agrippa; & his invasion of Britain. But the growing paranoia of absolute power & the infidelity of his promiscuous young wife, Messalina mean that his good fortune will not last forever. In this second part of Robert Graves` fictionalized autobiography, Claudius
- wry, rueful, always inquisitive
- brings to life some of the most scandalous & violent times in history.

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Emma`s sister is missing. Her parents have spent all their money trying to find her & the family has moved to a trailer park for Crags
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” After Mark Cocker`s glorious book, you will never look at a blackberry bush the same way again.” (Philip Hoare, New Statesman). In 2001 Mark Cocker moved to Claxton, a small village in Norfolk. In a series of daily writings spanning the course of a year he explores his relationship to the landscape he lives in, to nature & to all the living things around him
- the birds, plants, trees, mammals, hoverflies, moths, butterflies, bush crickets, grasshoppers, ants & bumblebees. Passionate, astonishing & inspiring, this book is a celebration of the wonder that lies in our everyday experience.
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Shortlisted for the 2015 Thwaites Wainwright Prize
- In a single twelve-month cycle of daily writings Mark Cocker explores his
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A boy creeps down from a high-rise block in the half-light of dawn to see the neat prints left by a fox on the frosty grass. He is TC, eight years old & skipping school to spend his time exploring the city's waste ground & long-forgotten wild corners. At school & at home he is barely missed. Sophia, seventy-eight & a half & still wearing her dear dead husband's shoes, looks out through her kitchen window at the little city park outside her flat, its grassy acres grimy & litter-blown, but to her eyes beautiful. She is writing her weekly letter to her granddaughter Daisy, whose privileged upbringing means she exists in a different world to that of TC, even though they live less than a mile apart. Jozef spends his days clearing houses & works night shifts at the local takeaway, but he is unable to forget the farm he left behind in Pol&, the woods & fields he grew up with still a part of him, although he is a thousand miles away. When he meets TC in the little park one night he finds a kindred spirit, despite the forty years between them: both lonely, both looking for something, both lost.A lyrical debut novel about innocence & experience, class & consumerism, Clay captures the delicate balance of life in the city, between young & old, between nature & development, between recklessness & caution. ...