In 1934, a group of Ashington miners & a dental mechanic hired a professor from Newcastle University to teach an Art Appreciation evening class. Unable to understand each other, they embarked on one of the most unusual experiments in British art as the pitmen learned to become painters. Within a few years the most avant-garde artists became their friends, their work was taken for prestigious collections & they were celebrated throughout the British art world; but every day they worked, as before, down the mine. ” The Pitmen Painters” premiered at Live Theatre, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in September 2007, before transferring to the National Theatre in 2008. ...

” The Pity of It All” is a passionate & poignant history of German Jews, tracing the journey of a people & their culture from the mid eighteenth century to the eve of the Third Reich. As it is usually told, the story of the Jews in Germany starts at the end, overshadowed by their tragic demise in Hitler`s Reich. Now, in this important work of historical restoration, the acclaimed historian & social critic Amos Elon takes us back to the beginning, chronicling a 150-year period of achievement & integration that at its peak produced a golden age second only to the Renaissance. ...

In 2001, Rory Stewart set off from Herat to walk to Kabul via the mountains of Ghor in central Afghanistan. Caught between hostile nations, warring factions & competing ideologies, at the time, Afghanistan was in turmoil following the US invasion. Travelling entirely on foot & following the inaccessible, mountainous route once taken by the Mohgul Emperor, Babur the Great, Stewart was nearly defeated by the extreme, hostile conditions. Only due to the help of an unexpected companion & the generosity of the people he met on the way, did he survive to report back with unique insight on a region closed to the world by twenty-four years of war. This is literary travel writing, but with a greater element of adventure & danger. It is an account of what it is like to travel painfully & slowly on foot in an alien & hostile landscape. Stewart's moving, sparsely poetic account of his walk across Afghanistan has been immediately hailed as a classic. The Places In Between won the Royal Society of Literature Oondatje Award & the Spirit of Scotland Award, & was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize & the Scottish Book of the Year Prize. ...

In 2001, Rory Stewart set off from Herat to walk to Kabul via the mountains of Ghor in central Afghanistan. Caught between hostile nations, warring factions & competing ideologies, at the time, Afghanistan was in turmoil following the US invasion. Travelling entirely on foot & following the inaccessible, mountainous route once taken by the Mohgul Emperor, Babur the Great, Stewart was nearly defeated by the extreme, hostile conditions. Only due to the help of an unexpected companion & the generosity of the people he met on the way, did he survive to report back with unique insight on a region closed to the world by twenty-four years of war. This is literary travel writing, but with a greater element of adventure & danger. It is an account of what it is like to travel painfully & slowly on foot in an alien & hostile landscape. Stewart`s moving, sparsely poetic account of his walk across Afghanistan has been immediately hailed as a classic. The Places In Between won the Royal Society of Literature Oondatje Award & the Spirit of Scotland Award, & was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize & the Scottish Book of the Year Prize. ...

The Plagiarist in the Kitchen is an anti-cookbook. Best known as a provocative novelist, journalist & film-maker, Jonathan Meades has also been called `the best amateur chef in the world` by Marco Pierre White. His contention here is that anyone who claims to have invented a dish is delusional, dishonestly contributing to the myth of culinary originality. Meades delivers a polemical but highly usable collection of 125 of his favourite recipes, each one an example of the fine art of culinary plagiarism. These are dishes & methods he has hijacked, adapted, enhanced upon & made his own. Without assuming any special knowledge or skill, the book is full of excellent advice. He tells us why the British never got the hang of garlic. That a purist would never dream of putting cheese in a Gratin Dauphinois. That cooking brains in brown butter cannot be enhanced upon. & why
- despite the advice of Martin Scorsese`s mother
- he insists on frying his meatballs. Adorned with his own abstract monochrome images (none of which `illustrate` the stolen recipes they accompany), The Plagiarist in the Kitchen is a stylish object, both useful & instructive. In a world dominated by health fads, food vloggers & over-priced kitchen gadgets, it is timely reminder that, when it comes to food, it`s almost always better to borrow than to invent.

...

Twenty years ago, the search for planets outside the Solar System was a job restricted to science-fiction writers. Now it`s one of the fastest-growing fields in astronomy with thousands of exoplanets discovered to date, & the number is rising fast. These new-found worlds are more alien than anything in fiction. Planets larger than Jupiter with years lasting a week; others with two suns lighting their skies, or with no sun at all. Planets with diamond mantles supporting oceans of tar; possible Earth-sized worlds with split hemispheres of perpetual day & night; waterworlds drowning under global oceans & volcanic lava planets awash with seas of magma. The discovery of this diversity is just the beginning. There is a whole galaxy of possibilities. The Planet Factory tells the story of these exoplanets. Each planetary system is different, but in the beginning most if not all young stars are circled by clouds of dust, specks that come together in a violent building project that can form colossal worlds hundreds of times the size of the Earth. The changing orbits of young planets risk dooming any life evolving on neighbouring worlds or, alternatively, can deliver the key ingredients needed to seed its beginnings. Planet formation is one of the greatest construction schemes in the Universe, & it occurred around nearly every star you see. Each results in an alien landscape, but is it possible that one of these could be like our own home world? ...

In the last 40 years the planets have been revealed in their full glory, unmasked by a fleet of satellites & interplanetary probes. & the closer we look, the more astonishing they are: Mars` deserts were once home to rivers & oceans; on Jupiter wind speeds reach 10, 000 kph (6, 000 mph) & storms rage for centuries; Saturn is surrounded by a swarm of 34 moons; & diamonds are believed to rain from Neptune`s blue skies. Moving out from the Sun, every planet & moon is visited in a journey that takes us a full light year into space, out to the fringes of the solar system where the Sun is no longer the brightest star in the sky. With 200 spectacular images, The Planets follows the tracks of robotic rovers over Mars, plunges through Titan`s atmosphere on the back of the Hugyens probe, smashes into a comet with Deep Impact, & voyages to the edge of our solar system to discover the frozen planets that lurk beyond the orbit of Pluto. ...

See the Solar System like never before The Planets is an awe-inspiring & informative journey through the Solar System, with all-new 3D globes & models built using the latest data gathered by NASA & the European Space Agency that can be viewed from any angle & layer by layer. You can even move in for a closer look with 3D terrain models that take you on a trip to the surfaces of the rocky planets. As well as covering the Sun, the planets, hundreds of moons & thousands of asteroids & comets, The Planets

Includes:: all the major Solar System missions, right up to the latest Mars rovers. Timelines explore our relationship with each planet & infographics present fascinating Solar System facts & planet facts. The Planets is ideal for anyone interested in space exploration & all armchair astronauts or astronomers.

...

James is exactly what you`d expect from one of London`s most promising, young town planners. He`s cautious, respected by colleagues & performs well in team meetings. But while James understands the glitter & grime of the city better than almost anyone, he hasn`t actually experienced much of it. &, as he watches his university friends blossom bewilderingly into rich & successful adults, he has the nagging sense that he has somehow fallen by the wayside. That is, until he meets Felix, who navigates the glamorous & cynical capital with sophisticated ease. Felix introduces James to a London that he has never known, & which doesn`t feature in the planning manuals: a world of private clubs & executive football boxes; of book launches, contemporary art galleries, suburban drug dealers & dates with women even more exotic than the peculiar vodka shots they drink. But London is an expensive city in many ways, & the world Felix has opened up comes at a cost. James may know how to design housing estates & high streets, but is it really possible to redraw the masterplan for his own life? & what will he lose along the way? ...

James is exactly what you`d expect from one of London`s most promising, young town planners. He`s cautious, respected by colleagues & performs well in team meetings. But while James understands the glitter & grime of the city better than almost anyone, he hasn`t actually experienced much of it. &, as he watches his university friends blossom bewilderingly into rich & successful adults, he has the nagging sense that he has somehow fallen by the wayside. That is, until he meets Felix, who navigates the glamorous & cynical capital with sophisticated ease. Felix introduces James to a London that he has never known, & which doesn`t feature in the planning manuals: a world of private clubs & executive football boxes; of book launches, contemporary art galleries, suburban drug dealers & dates with women even more exotic than the peculiar vodka shots they drink. But London is an expensive city in many ways, & the world Felix has opened up comes at a cost. James may know how to design housing estates & high streets, but is it really possible to redraw the masterplan for his own life? & what will he lose along the way? ...