How do high mountain ranges form on the face of the Earth? This question has intrigued some of the greatest philosophers & scientists, going back as far as the ancient Greeks. Devil in the Mountain is the story of one scientist, author Simon Lamb, & his quest for the key to this great geological mystery. Lamb & a small team of geologists have spent much of the last decade exploring the rugged Bolivian Andes, the second highest mountain range on Earth
- a region rocked by earthquakes & violent volcanic eruptions. The author's account is both travelogue & detective story, describing how he & his colleagues have pursued a trail of clues in the mountains, hidden beneath the rocky landscape. Here, the local silver miners strive to appease the spirit they call Tio
- the devil in the mountain. Traveling through Bolivia's back roads, the team has to cope with the extremes of the environment, & survive in a country on the verge of civil war. But the backdrop to all these adventures is the bigger story of the Earth & how geologists have gone about uncovering its secrets. We follow the tracks of the dinosaurs, who never saw the Andes but left their mark on the shores of a vast inland sea that covered this part of South America more than sixty-five million years ago, long before the mountains existed. & we learn how to find long lost rivers that once flowed through the landscape, how continents are twisted & torn apart, & where volcanoes come from. By the end of their journey, Lamb & his team turn up extraordinary evidence pointing not only to the fundamental instability of the Earth's surface, but also to unexpected & profound links in the workings of our planet.

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The Chicago World`s Fair of 1893 & its amazing ` White City` was one of the wonders of the world. This is the incredible story of its realization, & of the two men whose fates it linked: one was an architect, the other a serial killer. The architect was Daniel H. Burnham, the driving force behind the White City, the massive, visionary landscape of white buildings set in a wonderland of canals & gardens. The killer was H. H. Holmes, a handsome doctor with striking blue eyes. He used the attraction of the great fair
- & his own devilish charms
- to lure scores of young women to their deaths. While Burnham overcame politics, infighting, personality clashes & Chicago`s infamous weather to transform the swamps of Jackson Park into the greatest show on Earther, Holmes built his own edifice just west of the fairground. He called it the World`s Fair Hotel. In reality it was a torture palace, a gas chamber, a crematorium. These two disparate but driven men toegther with a remarkable supporting cast of colourful characters, including as Buffalo Bill, George Ferris, Thomas Edison & some of the 27 million others who converged on the dazzling spectacle of the White City, are brought to life in this mesmerizing, murderous tale of the legendary Fair that transformed America & set it on course for the twentieth century.

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It is 1792 & a group of English gentlemen is recruiting settlers for a new world. Anti-slavers, they foresee the shining vision of a free colony in Africa where all races & classes can live together in harmony. More than a hundred men, women & children set sail from London bound for Muranda, an island off the west coat of Africa. To lead them, they have Sir George Whitcroft; to sail their ship, the gallant Captain Coupland; Dr Owen to treat their ills; the Reverend Tolchard to guide their spiritual lives; & Caspar Jeavons, a young aristocratic poet, to record their exploits. When they l&, Muranda seems a paradise. Fruit hangs from the trees, the waters swarm with fish, the local king is friendly. Some begin to work. Others prefer to laze & swim, to drink & dance at night. But then the tropical rains begin & beat relentlessly down, fever strikes arbitrarily, & violence reveals itself in this brave new world... ...

An intimate & moving portrait of a family combined with an account of the events which swept through Africa in the post-independence period. Aminatta Forna`s intensely personal history is a passionate & vivid account of an African childhood
- of an idyll that became a nightmare. As a child she witnessed the upheavals of post-colonial Africa, the bitterness of exile in Britain & the terrible consequences of her dissident father`s stand against tyranny. Mohamed Forna, a man of unimpeachable integrity & great charisma, was a new star in the political firmament Sierra Leone as the country faced its future as a fledgling democracy. Always a political firebr&, he was one of the first black students to come to Britain after the war. In Aberdeen he stole the heart of Aminatta`s mother, to the dismay of her Presbyterian parents, & returned with her to Sierra Leone. But the new ways of Western parliamentary democracy were tearing old Africa apart, giving rise only to dictatorships & corruption of hitherto undreamed-of magnitude. It was not long before Aminatta`s father languished in jail as a prisoner of conscience, & there was worse to come. Aminatta`s search for the truth that shaped both her childhood & the nation`s destiny begins among the country`s elite & takes her into the heart of rebel territory. Determined to break the silence surrounding her father`s fate, she ultimately uncovered a conspiracy that penetrated the highest reaches of government & forced the nation`s politicians & judiciary to confront their guilt.
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In 1979, journalist Zuhair al-Jezairy fled Iraq & certain death after openly defying Saddam`s regime. Twenty-five years later he is back, & cautiously celebrating. He joins ”al Mada”, & is Editor-in-Chief when the newspaper breaks the Oil-for-Food scandal. He leaves to start his own documentary film company & travels throughout Iraq, from the Marshlands of the South, to Tikrit, Najaf, & the Northern region of Kurdistan. He sees the country emerge from thirty-five years of totalitarianism & documents the violence & bloodshed, as well as the many brave & extraordinary people he meets. Giving first-hand accounts of the looting of Baghdad & his encounters with ordinary Iraqis all over the country, this is an elegiac & inspirational account of Iraq after Saddam. ...

Dr Forle is a scientist on a river station deep in the heart of the South American jungle: the last inhabited point before the impassable interior. He is studying the eerie forest glades that the local tribes call 'devil's gardens'. Who or what has created these cursed & poisoned places? The answer, he hopes, will change the way we think about life itself. But as The Devil's Garden opens, work on the station is thrown into chaos by the arrival of a ruthless Colonel & a sinister Judge. They claim to be registering the indigenous peoples to vote & yet that night Forle witnesses an act of torture that he cannot ignore. From that moment on, he is drawn deeper & deeper into a world of brutality & corruption until he finds himself in the midst of a small war involving remote tribes, renegade soldiers, cocaine growers & the woman he has come to love. When one of his assistants is murdered, Forle is forced to abandon his life's work & take sides. What kind of a man is he? ...

For nearly two years the two most infamous dictators in history actively collaborated with one another. The Nazi-Soviet Pact stunned the world when it was announced, the Second World War was launched under its auspices with the invasion & division of Pol&, & its eventual collapse led to the war`s defining & deciding clash. It is a chapter too often skimmed over by popular histories of the Second World War, & in The Devils` Alliance Roger Moorhouse tells the full story of the pact between Hitler & Stalin for the first time, from the motivation for its inception to its dramatic & abrupt end in 1941 as Germany declared war against its former partner. Using first-hand & eye-witness testimony, this is not just an account of the turbulent, febrile politics underlying the unlikely collaboration between these two totalitarian regimes, but of the human costs of the pact, as millions of eastern Europeans fell victim to the nefarious ambitions of Hitler & Stalin. ...

A novel of intrigue, violence & conflicted loyalties from the author of The Street Philosopher. What price to take hold of the devil`s right hand? Spring, 1853. After a triumphant display at the Great Exhibition in London, the legendary American entrepreneur & inventor Colonel Samuel Colt expands his gun-making business into Engl&. He acquires a riverside warehouse in Pimlico & sets about converting it into a pistol works capable of mass producing his patented revolvers on an unprecedented scale
- aware that the prospect of war with Russia means huge profits. The young, ambitious Edward Lowry is hired by Colt to act as his London secretary. Although initially impressed by the Colonel`s dynamic approach to his trade, Edward comes to suspect that the American`s intentions in the Metropolis are not all they appear. Meanwhile, the secretary becomes romantically involved with Caroline Knox, a headstrong woman from the machine floor
- who he discovers is caught up in a plot to steal revolvers from the factory`s stores. Among the workforce Colt has gathered from the seething mass of London`s poor are a gang of desperate Irish immigrants, embittered refugees from the potato famine, who intend to use these stolen six-shooters for a political assassination in the name of revenge. As pistols start to go missing, divided loyalties & hidden agendas make the gun-maker`s factory the setting for a tense story of intrigue, betrayal & murder.

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A darkly humorous & brilliantly observed teen drama about the intensity of teenage friendships & disaffected youth. When Dean first appears at school, Jack knows right away that there`s something different about him. The two form a fast bond & dream of starting a band together, but underneath all the usual teenage posturing of drinking, drugs & rebellion against authority, there`s a darker side to Dean that needs more
- more wildness, more violence. Particularly suitable for struggling, reluctant & dyslexic readers aged 12+
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DIPLOMACY, n. The patriotic art of lying for one`s country In 1881 Ambrose Bierce, journalist & former soldier for the Union army in the Civil War, began writing satirical definitions for the San Francisco Wasp, & then for William Randolph Hearst`s San Francisco Examiner. Bierce was launched on a journalistic career that would see him liked & loathed in equal measure
- & earn him the title of `the wickedest man in San Francisco`. In his column, Bierce, a contemporary of Mark Twain, brought his biting black humour to bear on spoof definitions of everyday words, writing deliberate mistranslations of the vocabulary of the establishment, the Church & the politics of his day, & shining a sardonic light on hypocrisy & deception. These columns formed the beginnings of a dictionary, first published in 1906 as The Cynic`s Word Book. Over 100 years later, Bierce`s redefinitions still give us pause for thought
- REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth & dispels it with a tempest of words; UN-AMERICAN, adj. Wicked, intolerable, heathenish; POLITICS, n. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage
- making for a timely new edition of this irreverent & provocative satire.


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