For more than 40 years, Georg Gerster has been travelling the world photographing archaeological sites from the air. In The Past from Above, archaeologist Charlotte Trumpler introduces 250 of his photographs, taken in more than 50 countries in Europe, North & South America, Asia, Australia, & Africa. Each is accompanied by a detailed explanatory description. Gerster's subjects range from the temple complex at Karnak to the Great Wall of China, from the Acropolis in Athens to the temples of Abu Simbel, from Aztec cult places in Mexico to monumental designs in the Californian desert. These colour photographs are not only precise, technical achievements
- often produced under hair-raising circumstances
- but also fascinating, unique views of our world. The result is a spectacular photographic book & a visual history of mankind that stretches back to the very beginnings of civilization.

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Tibet has suffered extreme political turmoil & upheaval over the last 50 odd years. Occupied in 1950, Red Guards destroyed thousands of official buildings & holy places during the Cultural Revolution, & religious freedom & traditional education are still severely under threat. Due to the strength of Tibetan faith in Buddha, in the Dalai Lama, & against the odds, many buildings have been reconstructed, their devotion & belief remain extraordinarily strong. Buddhism permeates every aspect of a Tibetan`s life, whether living in Tibet or in exile in Nepal, India or the United States. A magnificent & time-stopping work, The Path to Buddha is divided into five parts, in which we see the monks in animated discussion, meditation & prayer; & we follow the devout believers on their arduous journeys to prayer. The two main chapters are interspersed with sections of portraits of this proud & dignified people whose own innate sense of their own being can be seen in the simplest of things, such as the way they dress & adorn themselves. ...

Italo Calvino`s ” The Path to the Spiders` Nest” looks at Pin, a bawdy & adolescent cobbler`s assistant, both arrogant & insecure who
- while the Second World War rages
- sings songs & tells jokes to endear himself to the grown-ups of his town
- particularly jokes about his sister, who they all know as the town`s `mattress`. Among those his sister sleeps with is a German sailor, & Pin dares to steal his pistol, hiding it among the spiders` nests in an act of rebellion that entangles him in the adults` war.


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Chief Inspector Montalbano is on enforced sick leave. But when a local girl goes mysteriously missing, the whole community takes an interest in the case. Why are the kidnappers so sure that the girl`s impoverished father & dying mother will be able to find a fortune? The ever-inquisitive Montalbano steps in, to get to the heart of the matter in his own inimitable style. ...

A young woman prays at her husband`s bedside as he lies in a coma with a bullet in his neck. From outside come the sounds of tanks, gunshots, screaming &, most terrifying of all, silence. Inside, her two frightened daughters call to her from the hallway. As she tries to keep her husband alive, the woman rages against men, war, culture, God. Even as her mind appears to unravel, she becomes intensely clear-sighted. Now is her chance
- her first ever
- to speak without being censored. Her husband`s body reminds her of the legend of the patience stone, a stone that hears all confessions until it explodes, & finally, spurred to new heights of daring, she spills out her most explosive secret.

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Churchill`s wise words about the love of country have rallied nations & made Churchill our greatest national hero. The Patriot`s Churchill shows Sir Winston`s view of the British way by emphasizing his precepts of collegiality & friendship toward political opponents, magnanimity in victories, & wry reflections after defeats. This is a selection of the best Churchill"ations about Britain gleaned from books, articles, speeches, private papers & conversations, compiled with the assistance or scholars, family members & those who knew him. His belief in the strength, courage & moral fibre of the British was always reflected in the poetic cadence of his rousing words. ` Never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty-never give in except to convictions of honour & good sense.` ` We shall defend our isl&, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields & in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender` ` Today we may say aloud before an awe-struck world, ” We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls.` In a long & varied life I have constantly watched & tried to measure the moods & inspirations of the British people. There is no foe they will not face. There is no hardship they cannot endure.` ...

In 1948, shortly after settling with his family in the village of Blaxhall, Suffolk, George Ewart Evans started recording the conversations he had with neighbours, many of whom were born in the nineteenth century & had worked on farms before the arrival of mechanisation. He soon realised that below the surface of their stories were the remnants of an ancient, rural culture previously ignored by historians. In the detail of village architecture, the of superstitions of tree-planting & rituals house-building, in the esoteric practices of horse cults or the pagan habit of `telling the bees`, The Pattern Under the Plough unearths the rich seam of customs & beliefs that this old culture has brought to our communities. Even in modern societies, governed by science & technology, there are still traces of a civilisation whose beliefs were bound to the soil & whose reliance on the seasons was a matter of life or death. ...

Since 2005, well over one million prospective immigrants have attempted to cement permanent residency in the UK by taking the Home Office-devised ` Life in the UK` test. With questions such as ` What is the name of the admiral who died in a sea battle in 1805 & has a monument in Trafalgar Square, London?`, it`s as dull as ditchwater & a hopelessly inadequate preparation for life as a fully functioning Brit. After all, there`s simply no point in knowing the exact span of the Hundred Years War if you don`t know about Alan Sugar, Nando`s, the rise of UKIP & the dangers of ordering half a pint. In this hilarious yet factual guide to the ins & outs of British life, popular st&-up comedian, ITV quiz show villain & fiercely proud Brit Paul Sinha guides you through the minefield. With sections on how to negotiate a pub, the joys of chicken tikka masala (and other British non-British dishes), the finer points of football fandom, British cities that hate each other, whether anyone really cares about religion, &
- of course
- how to behave in a queue, this chortlesome book is all you need if you want to call yourself a British citizen, whether you were born here or not.

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Jim & his family have halted by Dundray & the education people have been round mouthing the law. In school the Traveller kids suffer at the hands of teachers & other pupils alike, called `tinker-stinkers`, `dirty gyps` & worse. Then the punches start. The only friendly face is Kit, a settled girl who takes Jim under her wing & teaches him to read in the great cathedral chamber of the cave below the town. With Kit & the reading, Jim seems to have found a way to exist in Dundray, but everyday prejudice & a shocking act of violence see his life uprooted once again. ...

` There came the splash of water & the rub of heels as Mrs Barber stepped into the tub. After that there was a silence, broken only by the occasional echoey plink of drips from the tap...` Frances had been picturing her lodgers in purely mercenary terms
- as something like two great waddling shillings. But this, she thought, was what it really meant to have paying guests: this odd, unintimate proximity, this rather peeled-back moment, where the only thing between herself & a naked Mrs Barber was a few feet of kitchen & a thin scullery door. An image sprang into her head: that round flesh, crimsoning in the heat.` It is 1922, & London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned, the out-of-work & the hungry are demanding change. & in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa, a large silent house now bereft of brothers, husband & even servants, life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs Wray & her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers. For with the arrival of Lilian & Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the `clerk class`, the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. And as passions mount & frustration gathers, no one can foresee just how far-reaching, & how devastating, the disturbances will be. This is vintage Sarah Waters: beautifully described with excruciating tension, real tenderness, believable characters, & surprises. It is above all a wonderful, compelling story.
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