In just four months in 2009, Sri Lanka`s 26 year-old desperate civil war came to a brutal & bloody end on a desolate stretch of beach in the island`s north east. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed when the government decimated the guerilla organisation, the Tamil Tigers. Gordon Weiss witnessed the conflict at first hand as a UN spokesman in Colombo. His devastating account unravels the compelling history that led up to that final horrific episode, peeling back the Sri Lankan government`s cloak of silence to reveal the truth of those tragic events. ...

Now entering its fifteenth year, the Caine Prize for African Writing is Africa`s leading literary prize, & is awarded to a short story by an African writer published in English, whether in Africa or elsewhere. This collection brings together the five 2014 shortlisted stories, along with stories written at the Caine Prize Writers` Workshop, taking place in Spring 2014. ...

The Cairngorms is a guide to the quality rock & ice climbing to be found in the range, covering both summer & winter routes & challenges. The title

Includes:: the Northern Corries, Shelter Stone, Hell’s Lum, Braeriach, Ben Macdui, Beinn a’ Bhuird, Lochnagar, Creag an Dubh Loch & Glen Cova. Produced by the Scottish Mountaineering Club, the guide is divided into substantial sections on the Cairngorms North & the Cairngorms South, with very in-depth sections on localised climbing areas written by different experts. Each climb is featured on an accompanying map or diagram & graded according to the British grading system. The book comes with an attached page marker ribbon & also features an introductory history of climbing in the Cairngorms, a basic geology grounding, & useful environmental & safety notes.

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An illustrated history from the Scottish Mountaineering Trust of the first 100 years of mountaineering in The Cairngorms
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Secret Histories of the Cairngorms is a series of journeys exploring barely known human & natural stories of the Cairngorm Mountains. It looks at a unique British landscape, its last great wilderness, with new eyes. History combines with travelogue in a vivid account of this elemental scenery. There have been rare human incursions into the Cairngorm plateau, & Patrick Baker tracks them down. He traces elusive wildlife & relives ghostly sightings on the summit of Ben Macdui. From the search for a long-forgotten climbing shelter & the locating of ancient gem mines, to the discovery of skeletal aircraft remains & the hunt for a mysterious nineteenth-century aristocratic settlement, he seeks out the unlikeliest & most interesting of features in places far off the beaten track. The cultural & human impact of this stunning landscape & reflections on the history of mountaineering are the threads which bind this compelling narrative together. ...

Windows, mirrors & chandeliers are spontaneously shattering & Tintin is flummoxed! After a shooting & a break in, Tintin knows Calculus is in danger, but has only one clue: an unusual packet of cigarettes. Tintin must solve the mystery before a terrible weapon falls into the wrong hands... ...

The 5, 000-year struggle to align the heavens with the clock & what happened to the missing ten days. Measuring the daily & yearly cycle of the cosmos has never been entirely straightforward. The year 2000 is alternatively the year 2544 (Buddhist), 6236 (Ancient Egyptian), 5761 (Jewish) or simply the year of the Dragon (Chinese). The story of the creation of the Western calendar is a story of emperors & popes, mathematicians & monks, & the growth of scientific calculation to the point where, bizarrely, our measurement of time by atomic pulses is now more acurate than Time itself: the Earth is an elderly lady & slightly eccentric
- she loses half a second a century. Days have been invented (Julius Caesar needed an extra 80 days in 46BC), lost (Pope Gregory XIII ditched ten days in 1582) & moved (because Julius Caesar had thirty-one in his month, Augustus determined that he should have the same, so he pinched one from February). The Calendar links politics & religion, astronomy & mathematics, Cleopatra & Stephen Hawking. & it is published as millions of computer users wonder what will happen when, after 31 December 1999, their dates run out...
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What is a caliphate? What is the history of the idea? How is the term used & abused today? In the first modern account of a subject of critical importance today, acclaimed historian Hugh Kennedy answers these questions by chronicling the rich history of the caliphate, from the death of Muhammad to the present. At its height, the caliphate stretched from Spain to the borders of China & was the most powerful political entity in western Eurasia. In an era when Paris & London boasted a few thousand inhabitants, Baghdad & Cairo were sophisticated centres of trade & culture, & the Umayyad & Abbasid caliphates were distinguished by major advances in science, medicine & architecture. By ending with the recent re-emergence of caliphal ideology within fundamentalist Islam, The Caliphate underscores why it is crucial that we know about this form of Islamic government to understand the political ideas of the so-called Islamic State & other Islamist groups in the twenty first century. ...

Writer & film maker Tahir Shah moved his family away from draining British life to start again in Casablanca
- a place of colour,
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` What has risen may sink, & what has sunk may rise...` Mad, macabre tales of demonic spirits, hideous rites, ancient curses & alien entities lurking beneath the surface of rural New Engl&, from the man who created the modern horror story. This is a new series of twenty distinctive, unforgettable Penguin Classics in a beautiful new design & pocket-sized format, with coloured jackets echoing Penguin`s original covers. ...