For three years, Carol Donaldson lived in a caravan on the North Kent Marshes while working for the RSPB, Britain`s largest wildlife conservation charity. Despite the hardship of frozen pipes & electricity which blew out in every storm, what began as a short term financial decision turned into a way of life she came to love. It was a simple life, under a willow tree & close to nature in a home that let the outside in. But Carol was then evicted, a devastating event which also brought about the end of a long term relationship. Carol moved to a nearby town & settled down to a more conventional life. Yet the new sense of security she felt from owning her own home was matched by a powerful urge to escape into the landscapes of the estuary, to find the unconventional people she knew who still lived there, on the watery margins. So in 2014 Carol set out on a series of walks across the marshes, travelling from Gravesend to Whitstable. Both an act of pilgrimage to a landscape she loves & an investigation into why people are drawn to live there, Carol meets the houseboat & caravan owners, the hermits who live in the woods & the men who choose to die in these remote places. On the Marshes brings us a fresh, honest & unflinching book for our times. Able to evoke the landscape of a marginalised corner of Engl&, Carol weaves her own story of alienation with those who have made the marshes their home. Along the way she never shies from confronting the issues of cultural conflict so relevant today, between marsh dwellers & corporate Engl&, between private ownership & conservation, between two ways of living. ...

When Oliver Sacks was twelve years old, a perceptive schoolmaster wrote in his report: ` Sacks will go far, if he does not go too far`. It is now abundantly clear that Sacks has never stopped going. From its opening pages on his youthful obsession with motorcycles & speed, On the Move is infused with his restless energy. As he recounts his experiences as a young neurologist in the early 1960s, first in California & then in New York, where he discovered a long-forgotten illness in the back wards of a chronic hospital, as well as with a group of patients who would define his life, it becomes clear that Sacks`s earnest desire for engagement has occasioned unexpected encounters & travels
- sending him through bars & alleys, over oceans, & across continents.
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For humans the sea is, & always has been, an alien environment. Ever moving & ever changing in mood, it is a place without time, in contrast to the land which is fixed & scarred by human activity giving it a visible history. While the land is familiar, even reassuring, the sea is unknown & threatening. By taking to the sea humans put themselves at its mercy. It has often been perceived to be an alien power teasing & cajoling. The sea may give but it takes. Why, then, did humans become seafarers? Part of the answer is that we are conditioned by our genetics to be acquisitive animals: we like to acquire rare materials & we are eager for esoteric knowledge, & society rewards us well for both. Looking out to sea most will be curious as to what is out there
- a mysterious island perhaps but what lies beyond? Our innate inquisitiveness drives us to explore. Barry Cunliffe looks at the development of seafaring on the Mediterranean & the Atlantic, two contrasting seas
- the Mediterranean without a significant tide, enclosed & soon to become familiar, the Atlantic with its frightening tidal ranges, an ocean without end. We begin with the Middle Palaeolithic hunter gatherers in the eastern Mediterranean building simple vessels to make their remarkable crossing to Crete & we end in the early years of the sixteenth century with sailors from Spain, Portugal & England establishing the limits of the ocean from Labrador to Patagonia. The message is that the contest between humans & the sea has been a driving force, perhaps the driving force, in human history.

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Watch a plane get ready for take-off with this beautifully illustrated interactive book! By simply holding the book up to the light, or shining a torch behind each page, young readers will be able to discover the hidden secrets of an airport, how pilots prepare a plane for flight, & how cabin crew help passengers to enjoy their journey. The innovative see-through feature fulfils a similar function to lift-the-flap books, but has the added interactive dimension of the child being able to see both the surface & the hidden picture at the same time. ...

SCHOLASTIC ACTIVITIES
- a br&-new range of full-colour sticker-activity books for ages 3+, 5+ & 7. Collect them all! A fun-filled
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If you have ever dreamed about growing & cooking your own food, living the good life & getting close to nature, then this is the book for you! Gardening & natural history enthusiast Joe Hashman (alias ` Dirty Nails` of the Blackmore Vale Magazine) serves up another absorbing helping of practical tips, advice, observations & recipes from his vegetable plot & kitchen. In this week-by-week account of the fruit & vegetable gardener`s year, you are invited to join Joe on the plot & get stuck in to the important jobs of the day. The finer points of crop husbandry are beautifully & clearly presented using simple step-by-step colour photographs. With poetic licence in his writing, the author takes readers on a wonderful journey of discovery through the changing seasons. A wealth of easy to follow but unusual recipes will keep the chef in you busy & satisfied too! ...

Regarded as the quintessential work of the Beat Generation’s literary output, Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road in a marathon peyote-fuelled writing session on one long piece of paper, prompting Truman Capote to remark ” That’s not writing, that’s typing”. Even today though, whichever view you take of this influential generation, On The Road remains a vivid, blood-thumping & at times lucid account of this most experimental group of writers. On the Road swings to the rhythms of 1950s underground America, jazz, sex, generosity, chill dawns & drugs, with Sal Paradise & his hero Dean Moriarty, traveller & mystic, the living epitome of Beat. Now recognized as a modern classic, its American Dream is nearer that of Walt Whitman than Scott Fitzgerald, & it goes racing towards the sunset with unforgettable exuberance, poignancy & autobiographical passion. Kerouac’s face-paced method of writing evokes the bebop jazz of the time, a sharp contrast to the methodical, constructing lyricism of the jazz-age greats that preceded him. ...

With an exciting new format that

Includes:: graduated pages, whimsical art, & sturdy, shaped pages, STEPLets`

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Ned Boulting has noticed something. It's to do with bikes. They're everywhere. & so are their riders. Some of these riders seem to be sporting sideburns & a few of them are winning things. Big things. Now Ned wants to know how on earth it came to this. & what, exactly is 'this'. In On the Road Bike, Ned Boulting asks how Britain became so obsessed with cycling. Ned's search puts him in contact with some of the wonderful & wonderfully idiosyncratic people who have contributed to this nation's two-wheeled history. It's a journey that takes him from the velodrome at Herne Hill to the Tour of Britain at Stoke-on-Trent via Bradley Wiggins, Chris Boardman, David Millar (and David's mum), Ken Livingstone, both Tommy Godwins, Gary Kemp (yes, him from Spandau Ballet) & many, many more. The result is an amusing & personal exploration of the austere, nutty soul of British cycling. ...

` British cyclist. It used to be an oxymoron, a sort of silliness. Like French Cricket.` Ned Boulting has noticed something. It`s to do with bikes. They`re everywhere. & so are their riders. Some of these riders seem to be sporting sideburns & a few of them are winning things. Big things. Now Ned wants to know how on earth it came to this. & what, exactly is `this`. In On the Road Bike, Ned Boulting asks how Britain became so obsessed with cycling. His journey takes him from the velodrome at Herne Hill to the Tour of Britain at Stoke-on-Trent via Bradley Wiggins, Chris Boardman, David Millar (and David`s mum), Ken Livingstone, both Tommy Godwins, Gary Kemp (yes, him from Spandau Ballet) & many, many more. The result is an amusing & personal exploration of the austere, nutty soul of British cycling. ...