When Tessa de Loo saw Albania for the first time, no foreigners were allowed to enter. Filled with a great curiosity, longing, & a sense of wonderment by this isolated l&, de Loo gazed toward the mountains that stood like `the backs of patiently waiting elephants` across the water from Corfu. Inspired by the famous Thomas Phillips portrait of Lord Byron in Albanian national costume, & enthralled by the image of Lord Byron since her teenage years, she sets about exploring not only his physical journey, but attempts to understand his inner one as well. de Loo stole her way in & found a country suffering the hardships of post-communist reality & the constant & sometimes fractious clash between tradition & modernity. In the tradition of Bruce Chatwin, de Loo, the award-winning author of ” The Twins, ” has written a fascinating travelogue & a very personal reassessment of the a formative chapter in Lord Byron`s short life. ...

In 1815, the clever, courted & cherished Annabella Milbanke married the notorious & brilliant Lord Byron. Just one year later, she fled, taking with her their baby daughter, the future Ada Lovelace. Byron himself escaped into exile & died as a revolutionary hero in 1824, aged 36. The one thing he had asked his wife to do was to make sure that their daughter never became a poet. Ada didn`t. Brought up by a mother who became one of the most progressive reformers of Victorian Engl&, Byron`s little girl was introduced to mathematics as a means of calming her wild spirits. Educated by some of the most learned minds in Engl&, she combined that scholarly discipline with a rebellious heart & a visionary imagination. As a child invalid, Ada dreamed of building a steam-driven flying horse. As an exuberant & boldly unconventional young woman, she amplified her explanations of Charles Babbage`s unbuilt calculating engine to predict, as nobody would do for another century, the dawn today of our modern computer age. When Ada died
- like her father, she was only 36
- great things seemed still to lie ahead for her as a passionate astronomer. Even while mired in debt from gambling & crippled by cancer, she was frenetically employing Faraday`s experiments with light refraction to explore the analysis of distant stars. Drawing on fascinating new material, Seymour reveals the ways in which Byron, long after his death, continued to shape the lives & reputations both of his wife & his daughter. During her life, Lady Byron was praised as a paragon of virtue; within ten years of her death, she was vilified as a disgrace to her sex. Well over a hundred years later, Annabella Milbanke is still perceived as a prudish wife & cruelly controlling mother. But her hidden devotion to Byron & her tender ambitions for his mercurial, brilliant daughter reveal a deeply complex but unsuspectedly sympathetic personality. Miranda Seymour has written a masterful portrait of two remarkable women, revealing how two turbulent lives were often governed & always haunted by the dangerously enchanting, quicksilver spirit of that extraordinary father whom Ada never knew.

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Photoluminescent Vinyl
- 150mm x 150mm. Stanfords is an official distributor of Maritime Progress safety signs. We are able to
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Marc Riboud has continually returned to China since the 1950s to photograph the development & change of a country that he loves. Here, he offers a personally chosen retrospective of his best images of China, ranging from the Great Leap Forward to the economic boom, from the severe egalitarian poverty to the ”nouveau riches”, from the Cultural Revolution to the cult of money. All the photographs are complemented by captions, anecdotes & personal reflections. Arranged chronologically, this work opens with images of China in the 1950s, which can sometimes be seen today. In the photographs which follow, Riboud depicts the contrasts & reflections between old China, while the book`s final section is devoted to the extraordinary changes that this country has undergone in the 1980s & 1990s
- from glass towers & giant interchanges to machinery & mini skirts.
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In 1912, wearing a tweed three-piece suit & a flat cap, Carl Stearns Clancy undertook the longest, most difficult & most perilous journey ever attempted on a motorcycle. By June 1913 he had made history, becoming the first person ever to circumnavigate the globe on a motorbike. One hundred years on, bestselling author & motorcycle adventurer Geoff Hill recreates Clancy`s historic journey. Following the route taken by his illustrious predecessor, & with Clancy`s own account of his journey echoing in his head, Geoff rides down through Europe & north Africa, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China & Japan, all the way to America & Clancy`s hometown of San Francisco. Join Geoff on an epic motorbike adventure, as he relives Clancy`s grand tour, discovering first-hand how the world has changed since Clancy`s first motorbike journey over a century ago, & as he pays tribute to a motorcycling legend. ...

Controversial & compelling, In Cold Blood reconstructs the murder in 1959 of a Kansas farmer, his wife & both their children. Truman Capote`s comprehensive study of the killings & subsequent investigation explores the circumstances surrounding this terrible crime & the effect it had on those involved. At the centre of his study are the amoral young killers Perry Smith & Dick Hickcock, who, vividly drawn by Capote, are shown to be reprehensible yet entirely & frighteningly human. The book that made Capote`s name, In Cold Blood is a seminal work of modern prose, a remarkable synthesis of journalistic skill & powerfully evocative narrative. ...

In ” Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder & its Consequences” is considered by many to be the first work of the true crime genre. In this groundbreaking book, Truman Capote reconstructs the murder of the Clutter family from information provided by newspaper articles & interviews. ` Dick became convinced that Perry was that rarity, ”a natural killer”
- absolutely sane, but conscienceless, & capable of dealing, with or without motive, the coldest-blooded deathblows`. On 15 November 1959, the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, a wealthy farmer, his wife & their two young children were found brutally murdered. Blood all over the walls, the telephone lines cut, & only a few dollars stolen. Heading up the investigation is Agent Al Dewey, but all he has are two footprints, four bodies, & a whole lot of questions. Truman Capote`s detailed reconstruction of the events & consequences of that fateful night, ” In Cold Blood” is a chilling, gripping mix of journalistic skill & imaginative power. ” The American dream turning into the American nightmare. A remarkable book”. (” Spectator”). ” One of the most stupendous books of the decade”. (” Sunday Express”). Truman Capote was one of the most significant American authors of the twentieth century, known for his highly acclaimed books, including: ” Breakfast at Tiffany`s”, ”A Tree of Night & Other Stories” & ” The Grass Harp”. In ” Cold Blood” & ” Breakfast at Tiffany`s” have been selected for the ” Penguin Essentials” series of books considered some of the twentieth century`s most important reads.
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In Court brings together stories written over a span of many years. Some stories draw on feelings of exile & homesickness in America, some on friendships with others from South Africa, some on events during visits back. On the surface, some deal only with Americans. All probe dislocation & imposed identity. They reach out to readers who feel out of place or recall being in place somewhere else. ...

In darkness I count my blessings like Manman taught me. One. I am alive. Two. There is no two. Haiti 2010: in the aftermath of the earthquake a boy lies trapped beneath the rubble: terrified, thirsty & alone. Shorty is a child of the slums, a teenager who has seen enough violence to last a lifetime & who has been inexorably drawn into the world of the gangsters who rule his broken city: men who dole out money with one hand & death with the other. But Shorty has a secret: a flame of revenge that burns inside him, fuelling his determination to find his beloved twin sister, stolen from him five years ago. In the darkness the lines between the present & the past begin to blur &, as Shorty fights for life, his struggle becomes part of a two-hundred-year-old story
- a story of courage & betrayal, of freedom & of hope. Shorty may not be quite as alone as he believes...
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What would dogs ask for, if they knew how? In the ” Sunday Times” bestseller ” In Defence of Dogs” John Bradshaw, an anthropologist at Bristol University who has been at the centre of the latest research into what makes dogs tick, gives us the answers. Overturning the most common myths about dogs` emotions & behaviour, this book shows how we should really treat our pets, & stands up for dogdom: not the wolf in canine clothes, not the small furry child, not the trophy-winner, but the real dog, who wants to be part of the family & enjoy life. ...