This wonderfully inspiring book has clearly been put together with great love. Two friends, Tess Carr & Kat Heyes, have created this guide to make for the perfect camping experience, whoever you are & wherever & whenever you’re going. Beautiful, timeless photography illustrates every page & the book is written in the most easily accessible, warm tone. The guide is split into sections
- before you go, setting up camp, food glorious food, play, wild world & food for the soul
- & each has a number of different aspects to it. The planning sections will boost the confidence of any first-time campers, the food section contains fabulous recipes that can be enjoyed whether you’re under canvas or not, while the play & wild world sections will keep the little, & not so little, ones happy. The star, cloud & tree maps in the final section are a great addition & are a clear sign of the love & care used in the book’s creation. You can feel the sun on your back & the wind in your hair as you flick through its pages, feel inspired & be prepared.

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With the deft, sure eye of master craftsmen, they portray the mellow stone of country towns, spray swept seaside promenades, strolls among sand dunes, Mr Pimpkins the jobbing gardener, roach fishing at dawn, the art of pear growing, & much more to make a book that is lasting pleasure. Above all, The Happy Countryman was HE Bates statement of his own ideals about the countryside & his hopes & fears for its future. ...

Desperately in need to get away from things, Paul Theroux is inspired by the view he sees from the plane that is taking him from Hawaii to New Zealand: ” More than an ocean, the Pacific was like a universe, like outer space, an immensity of emptiness, dotted with misshapen islands that twinkled like stars, archipelagos like star clusters”. So he sets off for the wilderness. ...

A haunting, magical fairy-tale collection, in which Oscar Wilde beautifully evokes (among others) The Happy Prince who was not so happy after all, The Selfish Giant who learned to love little children & The Star Child who did not love his parents as much as he should. Each of the stories shines with poetry & magic & will be enjoyed by children of every age. This is a perfect collection for children young & old, introduced by Markus Zusak, bestselling author of ” The Book Thief”. ...

The richness of Oscar Wilde`s way with words & ideas is given full range in this sparkling collection of short stories written between 1887 & 1891. From the comic tales of The Canterville Ghost & Lord Arthur Savile`s Crime to the marvelous fairy stories & fantasies of The Selfish Giant, The Happy Prince & The Star Child, we are treated to the extravagance & dexterity of Wilde`s exceptional wit, in stories that will appeal to both adults & children. Beautifully illustrated by Wilde`s fellow decadent & aestheticist, the inimitable Aubrey Beardsley, this Macmillan Collector`s Library edition of The Happy Prince & Other Stories also features an afterword by author David Stuart Davies. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector`s Library is a series of beautiful special gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector`s Library are books to love & treasure. ...

Fulco Santostefano della Cerda, Duke of Verdura, was born in the 1890s at the Vill Niscemi on the outskirts of Palermo. This book describes his childhood in that beautiful place at the beginning of this century & paints vignettes of a bygone era of luxurious palaces, gardens & parks. ...

Joe Brown is one of the greatest names in British climbing. This book not only describes his many notable climbs, but reflects a most engaging personality with a highly interesting approach to his craft. He was born in a Manchester slum, the youngest of seven children; his father died before he was a year old. The characteristics he showed as a child
- a quite extraordinary self-reliance & an unexpected love of the countryside
- are reflected throughout his life-story. The Hard Years is also the story of Joe Brown`s climbs up some of the toughest mountains in the world.

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It`s time we all stopped whining & learned a thing or two from The Toughest Cyclists Ever. Including: Stephen Roche, whose cure for exhaustion was to go up a gear & fight harder, all the way to the ambulance. Eddy Merckx, who hurt himself so badly in breaking the Hour record that, he estimated, he shortened his career by a year. Beryl Burton, who crushed her (male) rival`s morale with the offer of a piece of liquorice, before speeding past to victory. Nicole Cooke & Edwig Van Hooydonck, who rejected dope & became legends. The Hardmen tells the stories
- the good bits, anyway
- of the 40 most heroic Cyclists ever. Their bravery, their panache & their Perfect Amount of Dumb. It reminds us that suffering on a bike liberates us from our daily lives, & that, in the words of Lance Armstrong `pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever`; proof that even assholes can be insightful.

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It`s time we all stopped whining & learned a thing or two from The Toughest Cyclists Ever. Including: Stephen Roche, whose cure for exhaustion was to go up a gear & fight harder, all the way to the ambulance. Eddy Merckx, who hurt himself so badly in breaking the Hour record that, he estimated, he shortened his career by a year. Beryl Burton, who crushed her (male) rival`s morale with the offer of a piece of liquorice, before speeding past to victory. Nicole Cooke & Edwig Van Hooydonck, who rejected dope & became legends. The Hardmen tells the stories
- the good bits, anyway
- of the 40 most heroic Cyclists ever. Their bravery, their panache & their Perfect Amount of Dumb. It reminds us that suffering on a bike liberates us from our daily lives, & that, in the words of Lance Armstrong ”pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever”; proof that even assholes can be insightful.

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When potter Edmund de Waal first came across the 264 minute wood & ivory carvings in the Tokyo apartment of his great uncle Iggie, he was entranced. Later, when Edmund inherited the 'netsuke' carvings, they unlocked a story far larger than he could ever have imagined... The Ephrussis came from Odessa, & at one time were the largest grain exporters in the world; in the 1870s, Charles Ephrussi was part of a wealthy new generation settling in Paris. Marcel Proust was briefly his secretary & used Charles as the model for the aesthete Swann in Remembrance of Things Past. Charles' passion was collecting; the netsuke, bought when Japanese objects were all the rage in the salons, were sent as a wedding present to his banker cousin in Vienna. Later, three children
- including a young Ignace
- would play with the netsuke as history reverberated around them. The Anschluss & Second World War swept the Ephrussis to the brink of oblivion. Almost all that remained of their vast empire was the netsuke collection, smuggled out of the huge Viennese palace (then occupied by Hitler's theorist on the ' Jewish Question'), one piece at a time, in the pocket of a loyal maid
- & hidden in a straw mattress. The Hare with the Amber Eyes is an elegant & original memoir; Edmund de Waal travels the world to stand in the great buildings his forebears once inhabited. He traces the network of a remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century & tells the story of the unique netsuke collection which passed from hand to hand
- & which, in a twist of fate, found its way home to Japan.



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