` Full of tension & love & danger. This is a beautifully told, magical novel about journeys & finding your way home.` STYLISTNour has lost her father. She has also lost the place she was born in & now lives in the Syrian town of Homs, along with her sisters & mother. & so, by the fig tree in the garden, Nour whispers the stories her Baba once told her, so that the roots of the tree will carry those stories back to where her father is buried & he won`t feel so alone. Her favourite is the story of Rawiya, a young girl from the twelfth century who left her home in search of adventure, dressed as a boy. But Syria is changing & it isn`t long before protests & shelling destroy the peace of the quiet city. As Nour begins her own journey as a refugee, she draws strength & inspiration from the voyage of Rawiya, who became apprenticed to the famous mapmaker, Al Idrisi, & who battled mythical creatures & endured epic battles in the attempt to compile the most accurate map of the world ever made.THE MAP OF SALT & STARS is a breathtakingly beautiful novel that illuminates the story of a country in turmoil, a tale of human resilience & the power of stories to transform. JUST some of the praise from readers of THE MAP OF SALT & STARS:` You know that wonderful feeling when you read the last page of a truly great story & then you clutch the book to your chest as if to hug the world within those pages? That`s how I`m feeling right now.` Goodreads 4 star review`A complex & multi-layered novel told in a rich atmospheric voice destined to be one of the most important works of 2018.` Goodreads 5 star review` This stunningly written, heartbreakingly beautiful (but ultimately, hopeful) story is a rich, multilayered + sweeping saga... A beautiful melding of myth, grief, hope & persistence- I just loved this one.` Goodreads 4 star review`A beautifully written debut novel about stories & storytelling that you won`t soon forget. ” Stories map the soul, in the guise of words.” Goodreads 4 star review`I seriously cannot recommend this book enough. I see fireworks: red, blue, violet, green, with a shower of golden stars. The Map of Salt & Stars is amazing. Please read this book.` Goodreads 5 star review` The Map Of Salt & Stars is really such a fantastic read & once you have started it is impossible to stop.` Goodreads 4 star review` There are parts that will make your heart stop & parts that will make it beat again.` Goodreads 5 star review `I believe this book is to Syrian heritage what the Kite Runner is to Afghanistan. All in all, a great read.` Goodreads 5 star review` Beautifully written with lush detail....stories will give you have a deeper understanding & appreciation that we are all maps & stories. It will also show you what home is & what home means.` Goodreads 5 star review ...

An epic, ambitious & page-turning mystery that will appeal to fans of The Shadow of the Wind, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & The Time Traveller`s Wife London, 1896. Andrew Harrington is young, wealthy & heartbroken. His lover Marie Kelly was murdered by Jack the Ripper & he longs to turn back the clock & save her. Meanwhile, Claire Haggerty rails against the position of women in Victorian society. Forever being matched with men her family consider suitable, she yearns for a time when she can be free to love whom she choses. But hidden in the attic of popular author
- & noted scientific speculator
- H.G. Wells is a machine that will change everything. As their quests converge, it becomes clear that time is the problem
- to escape it, to change it, might offer them the hope they need...


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The Map That Changed the World, by Simon Winchester, begins in 1815, when an extraordinary hand painted map was published in London. The first of its kind, this geological map outlined the layers of rock beneath our feet through a mixture of unfamiliar lines & patches. It was the result of the nearly twenty years` work of William Smith
- an Oxfordshire blacksmith`s son, who journeyed across Britain investigating & naming the layers of rock. Born in 1769 his life was beset by troubles: he was imprisoned for debt, turned out of his home, his work was plagiarised, his wife went insane & the scientific establishment shunned him. It was not until 1829, when a Yorkshire aristocrat recognised his genius that he was returned to London in triumph. This book tells the story of this remarkable achievement, all the more astonishing for having been completed single-handedly & without professional or financial support.
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` It is said the Bintheyr Map to Everywhere will take its possessor wherever he or she needs to go...` Master thief, Fin, is unusual
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The Map Tour is an exquisite collection of maps tracing the evolution of tourism from the late 1600s to the elite realms of the Grand Tour & then beyond the boundaries of the known world. Produced with the Royal Geographical Society, with access to their archives of rare maps, it charts a course across the globe on the first steam voyages, captures the romance of the golden age of train travel & navigates to the heart of why we travel. Arranged chronologically & including personal anecdotes, diary extracts & photographs of intrepid early travellers, The Map Tour looks at the ways in which maps facilitated & directed the travel industry. It reveals the progress in mapmaking techniques & shows how people used maps to navigate & understand the world. It considers the shape of global tourism today, reflecting on just how accessible the world has become. ...

We are proud to sell this wonderful book, as The Mapmakers is quite literally, all about us. One of London’s best known specialist shops, we have been trading, in Charing Cross & now Covent Garden, for more than 150 years & we are famous all over the world as a premier supplier of maps & geographical books. This book celebrates the history of our company, charting its role as a publisher of worldwide maps in the era when the British Empire was at the height of its power, & as a sales agent for the Ordnance Survey for more than a century. It tells the story of the company’s Victorian founders & some of their distinguished customers
- real & fictitious
- including John Ruskin, Florence Nightingale, Captain Scott, General Gordon & Sherlock Holmes. The specialist family business was almost destroyed by the wars & economic crises of the 20th century, but we survived to become once again unrivalled as a supplier of maps & guidebooks to a new generation of world travellers. In order to succeed, any business must mirror in some important way the society around it; this fascinating book shows how Stanfords reflected many of the forces which shaped the 19th & 20th century worlds.

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In the tradition of Allende, this is a magical novel, written in the form of an opera, & set in Seville & Mexico in the late 1800s. Act I opens in Seville. Emilio has been forced by his overbearing mother into the priesthood. Monica is a governess in a wealthy household who falls pregnant by the head of the house. A chance meeting in Seville cathedral suggests a solution to both their predicaments -- they decide to marry, though it is not a love match. Emilio raises Monica`s son Diego as his own, & they form a close bond over their mutual love of language, books, maps & birds. When Emilio dies, Monica reveals that he was not Diego`s father. She grows ever more embittered & eventually dies, leaving Diego to pursue his true calling
- his love of birds. Act 2 follows Diego`s life in Mexico
- his apprenticeship to an American who is mapping the birds of Mexico; his love for Sofia, the beautiful, independent daughter of a Mexican farmer; & his obsession with saving the Passenger Pigeon from extinction. The cities of Seville & Merida are so central to the narrative, & evoked so beautifully, that they are almost characters themselves. Taking in many of the stock characters that appear in the best operas -- the philanderer, the wronged wife, the harassed servant, the star-crossed lovers -- The Mapmaker`s Opera is an original & magical novel which will appeal to lovers of Gabriel Garcia Marquez & Isabel Allende.

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In 1735 a team of French scientists set out on a daring expedition into the South American wilderness to resolve one of the great scientific challenges of the time: the precise size & shape of the Earth. Scaling the Andes & journeying along the Amazon, the mapmakers faced all manner of danger, while madness, disease & violent death each took their toll. However one, Jean Godin, fell in love with a local girl called Isabel Grameson. When the time came for the expedition to return to France, Godin travelled ahead to ensure the way was safe for his new family. But on reaching French Guiana, disaster struck: Spain & Portugal closed their borders & he was stranded, unable to return to Isabel. What followed lies at the core of this extraordinary tale
- a heartbreaking 20-year separation that ended when Isabel, believing she might never see her husband again, decided to make her own way across the continent: a journey that began in hope but became hell on earth... Drawing on his own experience retracing Isabel`s epic trek as well as contemporary records, Robert Whitaker recounts a captivating true story of love & survival set against the backdrop of what many still regard as `the greatest expedition the world has ever known`.
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In the early years of the 18th century, a band of French scientists set off on a daring, decade-long expedition to South America in a race to measure the precise shape of the earth. Like Lewis & Clark`s exploration of the American West, their incredible mission revealed the mysteries of a little-known continent to a world hungry for discovery. Scaling 16, 000foot mountains in the Peruvian Andes, & braving jaguars, pumas, insects, & vampire bats in the jungle, the scientists barely completed their mission. One was murdered, another perished from fever, & a third-Jean Godin-nearly died of heartbreak. At the expedition`s end, Jean & his Peruvian wife, Isabel Grameson, became stranded at opposite ends of the Amazon, victims of a tangled web of international politics. Isabel`s solo journey to reunite with Jean after their calamitous twenty-year separation was so dramatic that it left all of 18th-century Europe spellbound. Her survival-unprecedented in the annals of Amazon exploration-was a testament to human endurance, female resourcefulness, & the power of devotion. Drawing on the original writings of the French mapmakers, as well as his own experience retracing Isabel`s journey, acclaimed writer Robert Whitaker weaves a riveting tale rich in adventure, intrigue, & scientific achievement. Never before told, The Mapmaker`s Wife is an epic love story that unfolds against the backdrop of ”the greatest expedition the world has ever known.” ...

This is the visual story of life in Maasai Mara, Kenya, wild home of African big game & one of the world s most famous wildlife reserves. Anup Shah s distinctive style of photography propels the reader into the middle of this evocative land & its resident animals, immediately & intimately. ” The Mara ”reveals a magnificent stage for the performance of life. The drama is driven by the rhythm of the seasons, from the start of new life at the end of the rainy season, through to the hardships endured during the long, dry season. The images capture anger, death, hope, arrivals, & departures, & provide a startlingly fresh & rarely seen view of life in this popular reserve. The images are accompanied by thought-provoking captions which describe the breathtaking land that Anup experienced first-hand during trips to the Mara between 2011 & 2015. Now the reader can experience the essence & wonder of Mara life with this astounding volume.” ...