The V&A Book Jackets by That Company Called ‘IF’, featuring a variety of colourful & elegant prints from artists & designers of the nineteenth & twentieth century, sourced from the archives of the Victoria & Albert Museum, the world’s greatest museum of art & design. These elegant fabric covers are ideal to protect & style the book you read & carry around daily. Traditionally roll printed onto 100% cotton twill with soft inner lining in complimentary colours, the covers are especially designed to fit over all paperbacks up to 20cm tall. The fully open width of the covers measure Approx. 38-40cm. On one side the jackets feature a sleeve that envelopes the book cover & on the other side a loop wraps around the other end of the book & secures any fabric left over. These book jackets are perfect to protect your books & add colour & style to your daily commute & reads. Please check individual entries for more information on a specific item. ...

Profound, lyrical, shocking, wise: the short story is capable of almost anything. This collection of 100 of the finest stories ever written ranges from the essential to the unexpected, the traditional to the surreal. Wide in scope, both beautiful & vast, this is the perfect companion for any fiction lover. Here are childhood favourites & neglected masters, twenty-first century wits & national treasures, Man Booker Prize winners & Nobel Laureates. Featuring an all-star cast of authors, including Kate Atkinson, Julian Barnes, Angela Carter, Anton Chekhov, Richmal Crompton, Charles Dickens, Roald Dahl, Penelope Fitzgerald, Gustave Flaubert, Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham, Ian Mc Ewan, Alice Munro, V.S. Pritchett, Thomas Pynchon, Muriel Spark & Colm Toibin, THAT GLIMPSE OF TRUTH is the biggest, most handsome collection of short fiction in print today. ...

In 1802 William Wordsworth, the great Romantic poet, gazed over London & claimed ” Earth has not anything to show more fair”. Two centuries after his famous sonnet ” Upon Westminster Bridge”, That Mighty Heart offers a visual & poetic tribute to a city that today has even stronger claims to be one of the greatest in the world. Designed in the form of seven walks across & around London, & radiating out in all directions from the heart of the city, this book portrays in paint & verse the buildings, parks & sights, both famous & less well-known, that have shaped its history, & contribute to its continuing fascination. The first sequence of poems & paintings focuses on Westminster, taking the reader (and walker) from Westminster Bridge via the Houses of Parliament to Buckingham Palace. The second follows a route through the Kensington area, including Harrods, the Royal Albert Hall & Kensington Palace. The third takes in the British Museum & Covent Garden. The fourth threads its way through the heart of London, from Piccadilly Circus to The Old Bailey, via Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery & Cleopatra`s Needle. The fifth crosses the City of London, finishing at the Tower of London & Tower Bridge. The sixth follows the towpath westwards along the south bank of the Thames: Southwark Cathedral & the Shard, the Globe Theatre & the Festival Hall, the Imperial War Museum & the London Eye. The final sequence takes in memorable outlying sites like Hampton Court, Kew Gardens Highgate Cemetery Canary Wharf, Brick Lane, the EIIR Olympic Park & Greenwich. The Introduction provides a concise description of London today & brief history of this remarkable city. Simple & clear maps make it easy for visitors to follow the walks & find their way around London. In words & images That Mighty Heart evokes a place which has gradually changed over the centuries, & yet remains timeless in its beauty & interest. ...

From Kate Greenaway Medal winner, Lauren Child, creator of the BAFTA-winning, multi-million-selling Charlie & Lola, comes the latest edition of the award-winning, bestselling story of how one little street rat finds a home of his own. Rat lives in dustbin number 3, Grubby Alley. At night, when he`s tucked up in his crisp packet, Rat looks up at the cosy windows & wonders what it would be like to belong to somebody. To be an actual pet. To have a home of his own. Another little masterpiece from Lauren Child, whose stories & quirky pictures leave you helpless with laughter
- Mail on Sunday Clever, rewarding & hugely enjoyable
- Guardian At least 10% of the purchase price of every copy of That Pesky Rat sold will be donated to St Mungo`s Broadway, a charity providing help, support & advice to people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

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Some summer holiday experiences are impressed upon the memory in a way that can be instantly & vividly recalled, given the right trigger, owing to their life changing, profoundly illuminating nature. Love, hardships, errors, triumphs, culture shock, nettle soup... all these things can lead the soul to profound & unforgettable moments of revelation. In this eclectic collection of 54 stories compiled by Simon Calder from the Independent`s ” That Summer” column, such formative tales are entertainingly revealed. ...

In 1865 the Victorian poet Matthew Arnold rejoiced in the charm of Oxford, `that sweet City with her dreaming spires`. A century & a half later, That Sweet City offers a visual & poetic tribute to what is still one of the fairest & most enthralling places in the world. Designed in the form of seven walks across & around Oxford, & radiating out into the surrounding countryside, this book evokes the buildings & landscapes, both famous & less well-known, that have witnessed & shaped the city`s history. The first sequence of pictures & poems, Seven Sights of Oxford, leads the reader (and walker) from Christ Church Meadow across the High Street to the Radcliffe Camera; thence down Broad Street to St. Giles, the University Parks & Port Meadow. The second, Seven Secret Sights, offers a circular tour of lesser-known landmarks from the Town Hall to Folly Bridge, the Old Railway Bridge & Isis Lock, the re-emergent Radcliffe Campus, Mesopotamia & The Plain. Seven Ages of Oxford, starting with the Saxon Tower of St. Michael`s Church in the Cornmarket, & finishing in the University s science area in South Parks Road (via the Castle, Worcester College, Christ Church, the Sheldonian Theatre & the University Museum), provides a short & eclectic history of the city & its ancient University. Other sequences of poems & paintings include Seven Treasures of Oxford (with the Alfred Jewel & the Bodleian Library), Seven Sights around Oxford (with Otmoor, Kelmscott & Blenheim Palace) & Seven Products of Oxford (including marmalade, books & Oxfam). A final walk, Seven Gardens of Oxford, celebrates the diversity of the city s many green spaces. An introduction provides a concise history of Oxford & explains the choice of sights, the structure of the poetry & the inspiration behind the illustrations. Maps make it easy for visitors to follow the walks & find their way around the city. In words & images, That Sweet City evokes a place constantly changing yet timeless in its beauty. ...

From Blenheim & Waterloo to ` Up Yours, Delors` & ` Hop Off You Frogs`, the cross-Channel relationship has been one of rivalry, misapprehension & suspicion. But it has also been a relationship of envy, admiration & affection. In the nearly two centuries since the final defeat of Napoleon, France & Britain have spent much of that time as allies
- an alliance that has been almost as uneasy, as competitive & as ambivalent as the generations of warfare. Their rivalry both on peace & war, for good & ill, has shaped the modern world, from North America to India in the eighteenth century, in Africa, the Middle East & South East Asia during the nineteenth & twentieth centuries, & it is still shaping Europe today. This magisterial book, by turns provocative & delightful, always fascinating, tells the rich & complex story of the relationship over three centuries, from the beginning of the great struggle for mastery during the reign of Louis XIV to the second Iraq War & the latest enlargement of the EU. It tells of wars & battles, ententes & alliances, but also of food, fashion, sport, literature, sex & music. Its cast ranges from William & Mary to Tony Blair, from Voltaire to Eric Cantona; its sources from ambassadorial dispatches to police reports, from works of philosophy to tabloid newspapers, from guidebooks to cartoons & films. It`s a book which brings both British humour & Gallic panache to the story of these two countries, in sickness & in health, for richer for poorer, in victory & in defeat, in dominance & in decline.
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” That They May Face the Rising Sun” was the last novel from John Mc Gahern, one of Ireland`s greatest novelists. Joe & Kate Ruttledge have come to Ireland from London in search of a different life. In passages of beauty & truth, the drama of a year in their lives & those of the memorable characters that move about them unfolds through the action, the rituals of work, religious observances & play. We are introduced, with deceptive simplicity, to a complete representation of existence
- an enclosed world has been transformed into an Everywhere.
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This book is a new festive addition to the best-selling & award-winning touchy-feely series. The enduring appeal of Rachel Wells' illustrations & the opportunity to touch a variety of textures make these books baby & pre-school classics. Very young children will enjoy the bright & colourful illustrations while the different texture patches help develop sensory awareness. ...

The history of Britain in the last thirty years, under both Conservative & Labour governments, has been dominated by one figure
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