` If there is one dominant myth about the world, one huge mistake we all make.. .it is that we all go around assuming the world is much more of a planned place than it is.` From the industrial revolution & the rise of China, to urbanisation & the birth of bitcoin, Matt Ridley demolishes conventional assumptions that the great events & trends of our day are dictated by those on high. On the contrary, our most important achievements develop from the ground up. In this wide-ranging & erudite book, Matt Ridley brilliantly makes the case for evolution as the force that has shaped much of our culture, our minds, & that even now is shaping our future. As compelling as it is controversial, as authoritative as it is ambitious, Ridley`s deeply thought-provoking book will change the way we think about the world & how it works. ...

It is the year 1852, & the origin of species remains a mystery. In a primitive hut in the remote Amazonian jungle, Alfred Wallace, a brilliant young collector of scientific specimens, lies wasted by tropical illness. He does not expect to survive. Healed by a village shaman, Wallace continues his pioneering fieldwork in the Malay archipelago, crystallising his ideas about evolutionary theory, which were to be independently formulated by Charles Darwin. Why wasn`t Wallace given the credit for his momentous discoveries? & how did he end up in conflict with London`s scientific establishment, including Charles Darwin himself? ...

A Sunday Times bestseller Longlisted for the Guardian first book award A Radio 4 Book of the Week. This book is about learning to live. In simple stories of encounter between a psychoanalyst & his patients, The Examined Life reveals how the art of insight can illuminate the most complicated, confounding & human of experiences. These are stories about our everyday lives: they are about the people we love & the lies that we tell; the changes we bear, & the grief. Ultimately, they show us not only how we lose ourselves but how we might find ourselves too. ...

When Zurich multimillionaire & local politician Isaak Kohler shoots a professor to death in broad daylight for no apparent reason, he cheerfully accepts his 20-year prison sentence. Yet, despite the fact that there were witnesses aplenty, he enlists Spat, a down-&-out lawyer, to investigate the crime, ordering him to pretend that someone else, now at large, committed it. Through luck & happenstance, the greenhorn attorney pulls off the impossible: an acquittal. In the process, Spat falls in love with Kohler`s daughter Helene, whom he suspects is an accomplice. He also meets a femme fatale whose auto racer boyfriend beats her, a dwarfish heiress surrounded by muscled bald bodyguards & sundry small-time crooks. Did Kohler shoot the professor as an abstract, fiendish mental game, or was Swiss pistol expert Benno the real culprit, as the newspapers rashly proclaim? The Execution of Justice is a dark, wicked satire on the legal system & a disturbing, if ambivalent, allegory on guilt, justice, violence & morality. ...

The plague raging through London in 1665 has emptied the city. The only people left are those too poor to flee, or those who selflessly struggle to control the contagion & safeguard the capital`s future. Amongst them, though, are those prepared to risk their health for money
- those who sell dubious `cures` & hawk food at wildly inflated prices. Also amongst them are those who hold in their hands the future of the city`s most iconic building
- St Paul`s Cathedral. The handsome edifice is crumbling from decades of neglect & indecision, giving the current custodians a stark choice
- repair or demolish. Both sides have fanatical adherents who have been fighting each other since the Civil Wars. Large sums of money have disappeared, major players have mysteriously vanished, & then a unidentified skeleton is discovered in another man`s grave.A reluctant Chaloner returns to London to investigate, only to discover that someone is determined to thwart him by any means
- by bullet, poison or bludgeon
- & he fears he has very little time to identify the culprits before he becomes yet another victim in the battle for the Cathedral`s future.




...

In the summer of 1976 Gary Gilmore robbed two men. Then he shot them in cold blood. For those murders Gilmore was sent to languish on Death Row
- & could confidently expect his sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment. In America, no one had been executed for ten years. But Gary Gilmore wanted to die, & his ensuing battle with the authorities for the right to do so made him into a world-wide celebrity
- & ensured that his execution turned into the most gruesome media event of the decade.

...

What matters most: marriage or friendship? fidelity or art? the wishes of the living or the talents of the dead? Matt Holmes finds himself considering these questions sooner than he thinks when his friend, the poet Robert Pope, dies unexpectedly. Rob had invited Matt to become his literary executor at their annual boozy lunch, pointing out that, at 60, he was likely to be around for some time yet. & Matt, having played devotee & apprentice to `the bow-tie poet` for so long, hadn`t the heart (or the gumption) to deny him. Now, after a frosty welcome from his widow, Matt sits at Rob`s rosewood desk & ponders his friend`s motives. He has never understood Rob`s conventional life with Jill, who seems to have no interest in her late husband`s work. But he soon finds himself in an ethical minefield, making shocking & scabrous discoveries that overturn everything he thought he knew about his friend. As Jill gets to work in the back garden, Matt is forced to weigh up the merits of art & truth. Should he conceal what he has found or share it? After all, it`s not just Rob`s reputation that could be transformed forever... Bestselling novelist & poet Blake Morrison creates a biting portrait of competitive male friendship, sexual obsession & the fragile transactions of married life. The Executor innovatively interweaves poetry & prose to form a gripping literary detective story. ...

Replogle’s 30cm (12”) Exeter globe is the collector’s choice; inspired by the traditional style of Globe stands this model is one of our most popular. The rich walnut stained hardwood base is complemented by a full numbered antique brass plated semi-meridian with an up-to-date, antique style ocean globe. ...

Murder. Corruption. Dark secrets. A titanic wave of refugees. Can Anna solve a terrifying case that`s become personal? Anna Fekete returns to the Balkan village of her birth for a relaxing summer holiday. But when her purse is stolen & the thief is found dead on the banks of the river, Anna is pulled into a murder case. Her investigation leads straight to her own family, to closely guarded secrets concealing a horrendous travesty of justice that threatens them all. As layer after layer of corruption, deceit & guilt are revealed, Anna is caught up in the refugee crisis spreading like wildfire across Europe. How long will it take before everything explodes? Chilling, taut & relevant, The Exiled is an electrifying, unputdownable thriller from one of Finland`s most celebrated crime writers. ...

At seven years old, the young Brian Armstrong was captivated by the pages of an old, yellow-bordered magazine. It wasn`t just the bare-breasted tribeswomen that attracted his attention. Pictures of far-off jungles, exotic wildlife & intrepid explorers prompted the boy to declare ` That`s what I`m going to do when I grow up.` Twenty- five years later, that dream came true. The boy from Bendigo found himself travelling from one death-defying adventure to another as a seat-of-the-pants expedition filmmaker for the same company that produced those yellow-bordered magazines. Coping with deadly snakes, volcanoes, acid lakes, malaria, armed rebels & even a helicopter crash became part of a day`s work. Time & again Brian asked himself the same three questions: ` How did I get here?` ` How do I get out of here?` &, most importantly, ` What`s to drink?` Against his employer`s strict anti-alcohol policy, this irreverent larrikin started the Exotic Booze Club. Brian exhorted fellow filmmakers & explorers to return to the office to share strange liquors & wild tales of daring exploits. This book gives you the true stories from behind the scenes of Brian`s most dramatic films, framed by the rise & fall of the one & only Exotic Booze Club. ...