Dare to Tri is the amazing story of TV presenter Louise Minchin`s journey from the BBC Breakfast sofa to representing Great Britain at the World Triathlon Championships. This is a warmly written & wonderfully honest adventure-through-sport that will both entertain & inspire.`I didn`t even know what a triathlon was before 2012... When I took up the sport three years ago I didn`t imagine for a second then, that, one day, I would be able to represent my country internationally.` Louise Minchin What started out as a fun television cycling stunt culminated in BBC Breakfast`s Louise Minchin wearing the colours of Great Britain at the World Triathlon Championships in her age group. This is the story of how a newly discoveredsport became a passion
- & then an obsession. Dare to Tri is Louise`s candid memoir of her incredible journey, recounting her rediscovery of competitive sport after nearly 30 years & her first tentative steps as a triathlete. In a story encompassing equal measures of determination & self-doubt, Louise has to overcome personal nerves, a brutal training regime, the odd bike crash & the occasional drama. Her adventure as she strives to represent Great Britain in triathlon is an inspiration for sporting late-starters everywhere.
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Darfield & Wombwell North in 1904 in a fascinating series of reproductions of old Ordnance Survey plans in the Alan Godfrey Editions, ideal for anyone interested in the history of their neighbourhood or family. The map covers a group of villages south-east of Barnsley. A small portion of Wombwell is in the bottom left corner, including a stretch of the Dearne & Dove Canal, station on the GCR Barnsley-Barnetby line, Railway Hotel & glass bottle works. North of this a GCR branch runs to Darfield Main Colliery & South Yorkshire Sanitary Tube Works, with all sidings shown, with Netherwood Hall nearby. In the centre of the map is the hamlet of Low Valley, including Old colliery, Cockstool Bridge. In the north-eastern quarter is Darfield, with Snape Hill, All Saints church, Wombwell Ings (now a valuable bird reserve); Darfield Bridge is in the top right corner, the River Dearne winding down the east edge of the map. Directories of Darfield & Wombwell are on the reverse. About the Alan Godfrey Editions of the 25” OS Series: Selected towns in Great Britain & Ireland are covered by maps showing the extent of urban development in the last decades of the 19th & early 20th century. The plans have been taken from the Ordnance Survey mapping & reprinted at about 15 inches to one mile (1:4, 340). On the reverse most maps have historical notes & many also include extracts from contemporary directories. Most maps cover about one mile (1.6kms) north/south, one & a half miles (2.4kms) across; adjoining sheets can be combined to provide wider coverage.FOR MORE INFORMATION & A COMPLETE LIST OF ALL AVAILABLE TITLES PLEASE CLICK ON THE SERIES LINK. ...

Jim Rogers once had everything: a successful career, the love of a beautiful woman, a Manhattan penthouse & more money than he knew what to do with. Now it had all gone wrong & he was in a seedy hotel in Panama realising that the prostitute he`d just been with had stolen his wallet. Though it wasn`t the money he was worried about but a sheet of folded paper, which he`d just been given by the mysterious Albert Jones: a piece of paper that might have saved his life. The search for the girl & the stolen document lead the two men deep into the Darien archipelago
- a primitive, treacherous idyll that seems like Paradise but may in fact be Hell. The short novel, ” Darien Dogs”, & the four stories that accompany it, mark the fictional debut of an assured & thrillingly gifted writer. With his disaffected, morally driven characters caught up in exotic, ambiguous Edens, there are echoes of Graham Greene
- but Henry Shukman`s writing has an imaginative depth, an erotic, muscular charge, & a dark, compulsive energy all its own.

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If you want to drive from North America to South America, you`ll have a hard time when you reach Panama`s southernmost province, Darien. The Pan-American Highway ends just sixty miles short of Colombia. It`s the only missing link in what would otherwise be uninterrupted highway from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. When Balboa marched through these jungles to cross the narrow isthmus in 1513, he was the first European to sight the Pacific from its eastern shores. For the next four centuries, countries fought to control the traffic & trade through Darien. Yet today, Darien has returned to its original state
- road-less backwater between the two massive American continents, home to native communities, Colombian guerrillas, & the descendants of black slaves & Spanish colonists. For twenty years, Martin Mitchinson has travelled in Central & South America. Fascinated by tales of Darien, he arrived aboard Ishmael, his 36-foot sailboat, & spent 18 months there, navigating both physical challenges & native politics. Mitchinson learned to travel as the natives do, moving silently through the rainforest, gliding alone in a narrow dugout. He found temporary shelter in native communities, not staying in any place for long since gringos are easy targets for kidnappers in Panama`s Darien Gap. With two Kuna guides, he set off to follow the route Balboa took when he made his historic crossing to the Pacific. Drawing on first-hand accounts from Spanish explorers, pirates, Scottish colonists, & the US navy to illuminate the history of the region, & recounting his travels with extraordinary honesty & grace, Mitchinson has produced the first of what we hope will be many fine travel narratives.
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The Company of Scotland & its attempts to establish the colony of Caledonia on the inhospitable isthmus of Panama in the late seventeenth century is one of the most tragic moments of Scottish history. Devised by William Paterson, the stratagem was to create a major trading station between Europe & the East. It could have been a triumph, but inadequate preparation & organization ensured it was a catastrophe
- of the 3000 settlers who set sail in 1688 & 1699, only a handful returned, the rest having succumbed to disease, & the enormous financial loss was a key factor in ensuring union with England in 1707. Based on archive research in the UK & Panama, as well as extensive travelling in Darien itself, John Mckendrick explores this fascinating & seminal moment in Scottish history & uncovers fascinating new information from New World archives about the role of the English & Spanish, & about the identities of the settlers themselves.
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THE STORY OF THE WOMAN WHO INSPIRED CHANGE WITH HER CALL FOR GREATER FREEDOMS FOR WOMEN.THE GUARDIAN: `MANAL AL-SHARIF BECAME A GLOBAL FIGUREHEAD OF A CAUSE THAT DREW THE ATTENTION OF GLOBAL LEADERS WHO URGED THE [SAUDI] KINGDOM TO OVERTURN THE BAN` ON WOMEN DRIVING. ` Future generations will marvel at Manal al-Sharif. Her gripping account of homegrown courage will speak to the fighter in all of us. Books like this one can change the world` Deborah Feldman, New York Times bestselling author of Unorthodox ` Manal al-Sharif is following in a long tradition of women activists around the world who have put themselves on the line to expose & challenge discriminatory laws & policies` Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International News Manal al-Sharif was born in Mecca the year fundamentalism took hold in Saudi Arabia. As a young girl she would burn her brother`s boy band CDs in the oven because music was haram: forbidden by Islamic law. By her twenties she was a computer security engineer. But as she became older, the unequal way in which women are treated became too much to bear: she was branded a slut for talking to male colleagues at work; her school-age brother had to chaperone her on business trips &, while she kept a car in her garage, she was forbidden from driving down Saudi streets. Her personal rebellion began the day she got behind the wheel of a car: an act that ultimately led to her arrest & imprisonment. Manal`s Women 2 Drive campaign inspired other women to take action. Manal has been lauded by the Oslo Freedom Forum, described by Time Magazine as one of the most 100 most influential people in the world, & she was awarded the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent. Daring to Drive is an account of Manal al-Sharif`s fight for equality in an unequal society. A visceral coming-of-age tale, it is also a celebration of resilience, the power of education & the strength of female solidarity in the face of hardship. ...

A pioneering aviator & advocate of women`s equality, Amelia Earhart was, & continues to be, an inspiration to people the world over. Her fierce determination to break records & push the boundaries of aviation led her to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932, as well as the first person (man or woman) to fly solo the trans-Pacific flight from Hawaii to California in 1935. Not content to leave it at that, Amelia set her sights on becoming the first woman to circumnavigate the world, but her brave attempt was cut short when she & her navigator, Fred Noonan, vanished over the Pacific Ocean on the final stretch of the challenge in 1937. Eighty years on & our fascination with Amelia Earhart continues. Here, Mike Roussel charts her life & experiences, exploring the investigations & theories surrounding her mysterious disappearance & revealing the naturally courageous spirit that made her one of the most daring of twentieth-century women. ...

Winner of the 2016 IACP Award: Literary Food Writing Set against the backdrop of the looming Himalayas & drenching monsoons, this is the story of how Darjeeling developed its tea industry under Imperial British rule & eventually came to produce the world`s finest leaves. But today the industry is battling dropping production, a violent struggle for independent statehood, labour unrest & the devastating effect of climate change. It`s the story, too, of the measures being taken to counter these challenges & save India`s most exclusive & iconic brew that are nothing short of radical. A fascinating portrait of the region & a story rich in intrigue & empire, full of adventurers & romance, it illuminates the historic, arcane & changing world of this celebrated tea. ...

Darjeeling`s tea bushes stretch across a picturesque landscape steeped in religious, sacred & mythical history. Planted at high elevation in the heart of the Eastern Himalayas
- in an area of northern India bound by Nepal to the west, Bhutan to the east & Sikkim to the north
- the rows of brilliant green, waist-high shrubs that coat the steep slopes & valleys around this Victorian `hill town` produce only a fraction of the world`s tea, & less than one per cent of India`s total. Yet the tea from this limited crop, with its characteristic bright, amber-coloured brew & muscatel flavours
- delicate & flowery, with hints of apricots & peaches
- is generally considered the best on the globe. This is the story of how Darjeeling developed its prodigious tea industry under Imperial British rule & eventually came to produce some of the highest-quality leaves in the world. It is a fascinating portrait of the region from the days of the Raj to that of the `voodoo farmers` of the present day, who get world-record prices for their fine teas, all set against the backdrop of the looming Himalayas & drenching monsoons. It is a story rich in intrigue & empire, full of adventurers & unlikely successes in culture & religion, ecology & terroir, & one that began with one of the most audacious acts of corporate smuggling in history. It is also the tale of how the industry had spiralled into decline by the end of the twentieth century, & how this paradisiacal spot in the high Himalayas seethes with union unrest & a violent struggle for independent statehood. It is on the front line against the devastating effects of climate change & decades of harmful farming practices, a war that is being fought in some tea gardens
- &, astonishingly, won
- using radical methods.





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Basic city map naming the main streets & marking places of interest. The map comes with a booklet of useful & essential information for visitors, including information on treks in the region around Darjiling, a basic plan of Gangtok, & a route map of Calcutta-Darjiling-Gangtok. ...