Gost is surrounded by mountains & fields of wild flowers. The summer sun burns. The Croatian winter brings freezing winds. Beyond the boundaries of the town an old house which has lain empty for years is showing signs of life. One of the windows, glass darkened with dirt, today stands open, & the lively chatter of English voices carries across the fallow fields. Laura & her teenage children have arrived. A short distance away lies the hut of Duro Kolak who lives alone with his two hunting dogs. As he helps Laura with repairs to the old house, they uncover a mosaic beneath the ruined plaster &, in the rising heat of summer, painstakingly restore it. But Gost is not all it seems; conflicts long past still suppurate beneath the scars. ...

The Thames lies at the very heart of London & the south of England
- both physically & metaphorically
- & this engaging & personal

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In a series of 54 stunning full-colour maps covering 3, 000 years & spanning the whole of Europe, this book, newly available ...

' The two sides rained arrows down upon one another from a distance; then, when all their missiles were spent, they clashed & grappled together in close combat, stabbing with spears, fighting hand to hand with daggers.' The Histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus is considered the first work of non-fiction & the first work of history. Written about 440 BC, The Histories tells (among much else) the story of the war between the Persian Empire & the Greek city-states in the 5th century BC. It is full of bizarre stories, hearsay & pieces of information gathered
- & is the way we know much of what we know about the ancient world. Tom Holland presents Herodotus in a fresh modern translation, showing how curious & quirky he was, & often how funny. It makes this great storyteller compelling reading once more.
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Tom Holland`s `stirring new translation` (Telegraph) of Herodotus` Histories, one of the great books in Western history
- now
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With an introduction by James Naughtie Take a Valium. Have a party. Go on a demo. Shoot a soldier. Make a bang. Bed a friend. That`s your problem-solving system.. . But haven`t we tried all that? Howard Kirk, product of the Swinging Sixties, radical university lecturer, & one half of a very modern marriage, is throwing a party. The night will have all sorts of repercussions: for Henry Beamish, Howard`s desperate & easily neglected friend, & for Howard`s wife Barbara, promiscuous `70s liberal & exhausted victim of motherhood. The History Man is Malcolm Bradbury`s masterpiece, the definitive campus novel & one of the most influential novels of the 1970s. Funny, disconcerting & provocative, Bradbury brilliantly satirizes a world of academic power struggles as his anti-hero seduces his away around campus. But beneath the surface is an altogether more affecting portrait: it reveals a marriage in crisis & demonstrates the fragility of the human heart. ...

The town governors...all flogged the inhabitants, but the first flogged them pure & simple, the second explained their zeal by referring to the needs of civilization, & the third asked only that in all matters the inhabitants should trust in their valour. One of the major satirical novels of the 19th century, Shchedrin`s farcical history of Glupov (or Stupid Town) follows the bewildered & stoical Russian inhabitants for hundreds of years as they endure the violence & lunacy of their tyrannical rulers. ...

***THE NUMBER ONE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER*** In the spirit of Station Eleven & Never Let Me Go, this dazzling & ambitious literary debut follows three generations of beekeepers from the past, present, & future, weaving a spellbinding story of their relationship to the bees
- & to their children & one another
- against the backdrop of an urgent, global crisis. Engl&, 1851. William is a biologist & seed merchant, who sets out to build a new type of beehive-one that will give both him & his children honour & fame. United States, 2007. George is a beekeeper & fights an uphill battle against modern farming, but hopes that his son can be their salvation. China, 2098. Tao hand paints pollen onto the fruit trees now that the bees have long since disappeared. When Tao`s young son is taken away by the authorities after a tragic accident-and is kept in the dark about his whereabouts & condition-she sets out on a grueling journey to find out what happened to him. Haunting, illuminating, & deftly written, The History of Bees joins these three very different narratives into one gripping & thought provoking story that is just as much about the powerful relationships between children & parents as it is about our very relationship to nature & humanity.

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In the spirit of Station Eleven & Never Let Me Go, this dazzling & ambitious literary debut follows three generations of beekeepers from the past, present, & future, weaving a spellbinding story of their relationship to the bees – & to their children & one another – against the backdrop of an urgent, global crisis. Engl&, 1851. William is a biologist & seed merchant, who sets out to build a new type of beehive—one that will give both him & his children honour & fame. United States, 2007. George is a beekeeper & fights an uphill battle against modern farming, but hopes that his son can be their salvation. China, 2098. Tao hand paints pollen onto the fruit trees now that the bees have long since disappeared. When Tao’s young son is taken away by the authorities after a tragic accident—and is kept in the dark about his whereabouts & condition—she sets out on a grueling journey to find out what happened to him. Haunting, illuminating, & deftly written, The History of Bees joins these three very different narratives into one gripping & thought provoking story that is just as much about the powerful relationships between children & parents as it is about our very relationship to nature & humanity.‘ Spectacular & deeply moving. Lunde has elegantly woven together a tale of science & science fiction, dystopia & hope, & the trials of the individual & the strengths of family’ Lisa See, New York Times bestselling author‘ Such is the genius of debut novelist Maja Lunde that her tale of three eras—the long past, the tenuous present & the biologically damned future—is strung on the fragile hope of the survival of bees’ Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times bestselling author‘ As a lover of honeybees & a fan of speculative fiction, I was doubly smitten by The History of Bees. Maja Lunde’s novel is an urgent reminder of how much our survival depends on those remarkable insects. It is also a gripping account of how—despite the cruelest losses—humanity may abide & individual families can heal’ Jean Hegl&, author of Into the Forest‘ By turns devastating & hopeful, The History of Beesresonates powerfully with our most pressing environmental concerns. Following three separate but interconnected timelines, Lunde shows us the past, the present, & a terrifying future in a riveting story as complex as a honeycomb’ Bryn Greenwood, New York Times bestselling author‘ Here is a story that is sweeping in scope but intimate in detail’ Laura Mc Bride, author of We Are Called to Rise ...

This is a truly original blistering attack on the standard history of Britain & the origins of the English language. Think you know where the English language came from? Think again. In gloriously corrosive prose, M.J. Harper destroys the cherished national myths of the English, the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish &
- to demonstrate his lack of national bias
- the French. He shows that: most of the entries in the Oxford English Dictionary are wrong; the whole of British place-name theory is misconceived; Latin is not what it seems; the Anglo-Saxons played no major part in our history or language; & middle English is a wholly imaginary language created by well-meaning but deluded academics. Iconoclastic, unsentimental & truly original, ” The History of Britain Revealed” will change the way you think about the history of the United Kingdom, the origin of the English language
- & much else besides. It is an essential but rarely comforting read for anyone who believes that history matters.


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