Emily watched, in a trance of astonishment, as the bear opened the picnic basket, took out a tartan rug & spread it on Holly`s bed. & then the penguin spoke. Actually spoke. ` What`s going on? This isn`t Pointed End!` The bear said, ` It looks like a human bedroom. We must`ve come through the wrong door.` But there aren`t any doors to the hard world in Deep Smockeroon! & we don`t have a human bedroom any more. We`re in a box in the attic.` What if there exists a world powered by imagination?A world of silliness, where humans & their toys live on long after they`ve left the Hard World... & what if the door between that world & this one was broken? Welcome to the Land of Neverendings. Moving, raw & funny in all the right ways, The Land of Neverendings is a rip-roaring adventure, but it also gives an honest portrayal of grief for young readers, & shows us that whilst sadness does exist in the world, it doesn`t have to cancel out happiness, or silliness, even when you lose someone you love. ...

A classic tale from Enid Blyton`s magical Faraway Tree series with exciting new full-colour illustrations from Alex Paterson
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Shortlisted for a 2018 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award.A thrilling & dangerous adventure through Arunachal Pradesh, one of the world`s least explored places. Remote, mountainous & forbidding, here shamans still fly through the night, hidden valleys conceal portals to other worlds, yetis leave footprints in the snow, spirits & demons abound, & the gods are appeased by the blood of sacrificed beasts. A mountainous state clinging to the far north-eastern corner of India, Arunachal Pradesh
- meaning `land of the dawn-lit mountains`
- has remained uniquely isolated. Steeped in myth & mystery, not since pith-helmeted explorers went in search of the fabled ` Falls of the Brahmaputra` has an outsider dared to traverse it. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent sets out to chronicle this forgotten corner of Asia. Travelling some 2, 000 miles she encounters shamans, lamas, hunters, opium farmers, fantastic tribal festivals & little-known stories from the Second World War. In the process, she discovers a world & a way of living that are on the cusp of changing forever.

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Beyond its housing estates & identikit high streets there is another Britain. This is the Britain of mist-drenched forests & unpredictable sea-frets: of wraith-like fog banks, druidic mistletoe & peculiar creatures that lurk, half-unseen, in the undergrowth, tantalising & teasing just at the periphery of human vision. How have the remarkably persistent folkloric traditions of the British Isles formed & been formed by the identities & psyches of those who inhabit them? In her sparkling new history, Carolyne Larrington explores the diverse ways in which a myriad of imaginary & fantastical beings has moulded the cultural history of the nation. Fairies, elves & goblins here tread purposefully, sometimes malignly, over an eerie, preternatural landscape that also conceals brownies, selkies, trows, knockers, boggarts, l&-wights, Jack o` Lanterns, Barguests, the sinister Nuckleavee, or water-horse, & even Black Shuck: terrifying hell-hound of the Norfolk coast with eyes of burning coal. Focusing on liminal points where the boundaries between this world & that of the supernatural grow thin those marginal tide-banks, saltmarshes, floodplains, moors & rock-pools wherein mystery lies the author shows how mythologies of Mermen, Green men & Wild-men have helped & continue to help human beings deal with such ubiquitous concerns as love & lust, loss & death & continuity & change. Evoking the Wild Hunt, the ghostly bells of Lyonesse & the dread fenlands haunted by Grendel, & ranging the while from Shetland to Jersey & from Ireland to East Anglia, this is a book that will captivate all those who long for the wild places: the mountains & chasms where Gog, Magog & their fellow giants lie in wait.” ...

The perfect gift for Blyton fans & new readers! A classic short tale from Enid Blyton`s Magic Faraway Tree series with fun & stunning ...

In the spirit of Al Dente, The Land That Thyme Forgot will describe the intrepid gastronome's search for the heart & soul of Britain through the food we eat. William Black talks to producers, restaurateurs, visits the great & the awful, & seeks out the country's disappearing specialities
- tripe, Singing Hinnies, solomongundy, Hindle wakes, Sussex Pond pudding & flummery. Great names, but who on earth still eats, let alone cooks, them? Britain has a very rich culinary tradition though it is only now that we seem ready to reclaim it. Our meat can be among the best, & the worst. The quality of our cheeses has enhanced exponentially over the past few years. Farmer's markets are thriving. Our restaurant culture is burgeoning, & we have almost got over those ancient Puritan diktats that pleasure is somehow just not what life is all about. So, perhaps even if we have been a little forgotten in the league of culinary greats, times really are a-changing. William goes in search of lobscouse in Liverpool, finds salmon in the Severn & cheddar in, well, Cheddar. This journey through the lost traditions of British cuisine is never less than fascinating. Prepare to be amazed.. .
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Shortlisted for the 2015 Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year. This is a delightful book about Italy`s unexpected history, told through its citrus fruits. The story of citrus runs through the history of Italy like a golden thread, & by combining travel writing with history, recipes, horticulture & art, Helena Attlee takes the reader on a unique & rich journey through Italy`s cultural, moral, culinary & political past. ”4 stars. Attlee, who knows & loves Italy & the Italians, takes the reader through the country`s scented gardens with her sharp descriptions, pertinent stories "es & intriguing recipes. I was there with her”. (Anna del Conte, Sunday Telegraph). ” Fascinating.. .A distinguished garden writer, Attlee fell under the spell of citrus over ten years ago & the book, like the eleventh labour of Hercules to steal the golden fruit of the Hesperides, is the result. She writes with great lucidity, charm & gentle humour, & wears her considerable learning lightly.. . Helena Attlee`s elegant, absorbing prose & sure-footed ability to combine the academic with the anecdotal, make The Land Where Lemons Grow a welcome addition to the library of citrologists & Italophiles alike”. (The Times Literary Supplement).”A paradise of citrus is how I always think of Italy too: a place where ice-cold limoncello is sipped from tiny glasses on piazzas, & everything from ricotta cake to osso bucco is enlivened with zest. What a joy, therefore, to read Helena Attlee`s The Land Where Lemons Grow, which tells the story of Italy through its citrus fruit”. (Bee Wilson, Telegraph). Helena Attlee is the author of four books about Italian gardens, & others on the cultural history of gardens around the world. Helena is a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund & has worked in Italy for nearly 30 years. ...

Right now, an unprecedented land grab is taking place around the world. Every day, parcels of land
- the size of Wales & larger
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What do City speculators, Gulf oil sheikhs, Chinese entrepreneurs, big-name financiers like George Soros & industry titans like Richard Branson buy when they go shopping? L&. Parcels the size of Wales are being snapped up across the plains of Africa, the paddy fields of Southeast Asia, the jungles of the Amazon & the prairies of Eastern Europe. Why? The money men will tell you that their investments will bring an end to world famine. But is this more about fat profits & food security for the few? The race is on to grab the world`s most precious & irreplaceable resource. In this brilliant piece of investigative journalism Fred Pearce moves from boardroom & trading floor to goat-herder`s hut & flooded forest. The result is an eye-opening, extraordinarily important examination of the most profound ethical & economic issue in the world today. ...

In the 5th century BC an adventurous Ionian Greek, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, journeyed extensively through the lands of the eastern Mediterranean, from Egypt to Asia Minor, collecting tales of the upheavals that had afflicted the region in the earlier part of the century. The fruits of his wanderings were The Histories, in which he used his narrative gifts not only to chronicle the rise of the Achaemenid Persian Empire & its war with the Greek city-states, but also to recount his experiences with the varied peoples & cultures he had encountered during his journey. Herodotus earned the nickname 'the father of history' for this, the first authentic work of historical writing in the Western literary canon. In it he explored such universal themes as the nature of freedom, the role of religion, the human costs of war, & the dangers of absolute power. But in addition to his narrative of the Greek-Persian conflict, he included in The Histories rich seams of anthropology, ethnography, geology, & geography, pioneering these fields of study. Successful navigation of this sprawling, monumental work requires an understanding of ancient geography & events that will often be unfamiliar to the modern reader. Ten years in the making, Robert Strassler's magisterial new edition of The Histories is amplified by a veritable battery of editorial features
- illustrations, maps, annotations, explanatory synopses, & state-of-the-art appendices on such critical themes as Athenian government, Egypt, Persian weaponry & tactics, oracles, religion tyranny & the position of women
- that makes Herodotus' masterpiece more comprehensible, more accessible, even more enjoyable than ever before. The Landmark Herodotus is the definitive edition of a Western cultural milestone. It belongs on the bookshelf of every literate individual.

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