`I am still unable to leave the burnt-out ruins` Akiyuki Nosaka, 2014 In 1945, Akiyuki Nosaka watched the Allied firebombing of Kobe kill his adoptive parents, & then witnessed his sister starving to death. The shocking & blisteringly memorable stories of The Cake Tree in the Ruins are based on his own experiences as a child in Japan during the Second World War. They are stories of a lonely whale searching the oceans for a mate, who sacrifices himself for love; of a mother desperately trying to save her son with her tears; of a huge, magnificent tree which grows amid the ruins of a burnt-out town, its branches made from the sweetest cake imaginable. Profound, heartbreaking & aglow with a piercing beauty, they express the chaos & terror of conflict, yet also how love can illuminate even the darkest moment. ...

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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A definitive collection of stories from the unrivaled master of twentieth-century horror in a Penguin Classics Deluxe edition with cover art by Travis Louie. Frequently imitated & widely influential, Howard Philips Lovecraft reinvented the horror genre in the 1920s, discarding ghosts & witches & instead envisioning mankind as a tiny outpost of dwindling sanity in a chaotic & malevolent universe. S. T. Joshi, Lovecraft`s preeminent interpreter, presents a selection of the master`s fiction, from the early tales of nightmares & madness such as ” The Outsider” to the overpowering cosmic terror of ” The Call of Cthulhu.” More than just a collection of terrifying tales, this volume reveals the development of Lovecraft`s mesmerizing narrative style & establishes him as a canonical- & visionary-American writer. ...

Collecting uniquely uncanny tales from the master of American horror, H.P. Lovecraft`s The Call of Cthulhu & Other Weird Stories is edited with an introduction & notes by S.T. Joshi in Penguin Modern Classics. Credited with inventing the modern horror tradition, H.P. Lovecraft remade the genre in the early twentieth century. Discarding ghosts & witches, & instead envisaging mankind at the mercy of a chaotic & malevolent universe, Lovecraft`s unique works would prove to be a huge influence on modern horror writers such as Stephen King. This selection of short stories ranges from early tales of nightmares & insanity such as ` The Outsider` & ` The Rats in the Walls` through the grotesquely comic ` Herbert West
- Reanimator` & ` The Hound`, to the extraterrestrial terror of ` The Call of Cthulhu`, which fuses traditional supernaturalism with science fiction. Including the definitive corrected texts, this collection reveals the development of Lovecraft`s mesmerising narrative style & establishes him as a hugely influential
- & visionary
- American writer. Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937), born in Providence, Rhode Island was self-educated & lived in his birthplace all his life, working as a freelance writer, journalist, & ghostwriter. Using many pen names, he contributed his supernatural/horror & science fiction/fantasy stories to various pulp magazines but his reputation as a writer rests mainly on the 60 or so stories he published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales starting in 1923. If you enjoyed The Call of Cthulhu, you might also like Arthur Machen`s The White People & Other Weird Stories, available in Penguin Classics. ` The twentieth century horror story`s dark & baroque prince` Stephen King


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An adventure across a thousand miles of Scotland`s mountains. In this personal guide to the triumphs, hardships & perils of scaling the Munros, Landsberg brings the joys & pitfalls of hill-climbing to life. Landsberg`s adventures are presented in vivid detail, with insights ranging from encompassing the wonder of unique experiences like seeing the birth of a deer to the mundane delight of the flavour of sandwich he had on a given day. Throughout his account, Landsberg provides an in-depth insight into his growing obsession with climbing the Munroes & its effect on his physical, emotional & spiritual development. With insights on the history, culture, ecology & geology of Scotland`s mountains & guides to Gaelic place names, mountain safety & an analysis the science of walking, this book provides a complete guide for anyone looking for adventure in the Highlands, & is sure to inspire anyone who reads it to go climb a rock! ...

Eddy Merckx. Fausto Coppi. Jacques Anquetil. Bernard Hinault. Beryl Burton. Marianne Vos. A sole cyclist battling over a pass high in the mountains is one of the most romantic of sporting images. In the past 150 years road cycling has been dominated by a series of iconic people who have redefined endurance & fortitude. Every decade has pushed human limits, until limits were extended by inhuman pharmacology. & these battles have not been fought over just one race, but an annual series beginning with the Spring Classics & then culminating in the three great tours
- the Giro d` Italia, Vuelta d` Espagne & the Tour de France
- before the cyclists retire to lick their wounds & start on another winter of training. The Call of the Road is the definitive story of cycle road racing, from the first race in 1868 to the present day. It is a story that has never been told as the professionals experience it
- as a whole energy-sapping year. It looks at the beginning & development of the sport, it explains the tactics & looks at the different physical types that succeed. It explains why some nations have dominated this sport & why, until recently, British riders have underperformed. It also looks at the way the great races were founded & developed, & how the great riders stamped their authority on them through the ages. Sidwells doesn`t shy away from controversy: dissecting the vexed & seemingly ever-present question of doping. The final chapter brings the story of road racing completely up to date with insight into jiffy bags & salbutamol levels. Truly international in scope, looking at road racing in North & Latin America, Australia, Africa & Asia, as well as continental Europe, The Call of the Road is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the history, tactics or personalities of cycle road racing.


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