” From the secret archives of the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny & Survey Summer 1914: Europe is on the brink. As Britain`s enemies grow stronger, the Comptroller-General must confront the man with whom he has struggled for a generation
- a man he knows only as the Spider. In a desperate gamble, he sends four agents out across the continent, on a mission they do not underst&... The future of British intelligence
- of the British Empire
- is in their hands. Not all of them will return. Unique & resourceful, hunted & deceived, they have embarked on a journey that will climax in the town of Sarajevo on the 28th of June 1914.”


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The bloodshed perpetrated in the name of religion in the world today is nowhere more obvious than in the Middle East. Whether we are talking about hardcore Zionist settlers still fighting ancient Biblical battles in the hills of the West Bank or Shiite death squads roaming the lawless streets of Iraq in the aftermath of Saddam; whether it`s the misappropriation & martyrdom of Mickey Mouse by Gaza`s Islamists, or a US president acting on God`s orders, James Hider sees the hallucinatory effect of what he calls the `crack cocaine of fanatical fundamentalism` all around him. As James Hider travels around the Middle East, from Israel to Gaza, to Iraq
- & then back to Jerusalem, he takes his doubts about religious beliefs to the very heart of the world`s holy wars. He meets terrorists & their victims, soldiers & clerics, ordinary people & extraordinary people. The question in the back of his mind is: how can people not only believe in all this madness, but die & kill for it too? This timely book casts an unflinching yet compassionate eye on the very worst & most violent crimes committed in the name of religion & asks questions that the world needs to answer if we are to stand a chance of facing our own worst demons.
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Fez, 1954, & American ex-pat Stenham reluctantly accepts a guide for his night-time walk home through the streets of the Medina. A nationalist uprising is transforming the country, much to the annoyance of Stenham, who enjoys the trappings of the old city. His path soon crosses with the young, illiterate son of a healer, another outsider to the newly politicised life of Morocco, in this brutally honest novel of life in the midst of terrorism, violence & the ugly opportunism that accompanies both. Bowles` most masterly novel combines his classic themes: the conflict of Eastern & Western cultures & the trials of otherness. ...

On a cool October evening in 1937, German engineer & secret agent Herr Edvard Uhl arrives in Warsaw. He suppresses a chill of fear. Tonight, he will be with his mistress; tomorrow, he will be at a bar, where he will meet with a French military attache. Information will be exchanged for money. War is coming to Europe. & although bombs & bullets have yet to fly, French & German operatives are already caught in a deadly espionage battle. In a war of intelligence & subterfuge, no spy can help being drawn into the murky world of abduction, betrayal & intrigue. ...

An Autumn evening in 1937. A German engineer arrives at the Warsaw railway station. Tonight, he will be with his Polish mistress; tomorrow, at a workers` bar in the city`s factory district, he will meet with the military attache from the French embassy. Information will be exchanged for money. So begins THE SPIES OF WARSAW, with war coming to Europe, & French & German operatives locked in a life-&-death struggle on the espionage battlefield. At the French embassy, the new military attache, Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier, a decorated hero of the 1914 war, is drawn in to a world of abduction, betrayal & intrigue in the diplomatic salons & back alleys of Warsaw. At the same time, the handsome aristocrat finds himself in a passionate love affair with a Parisian woman of Polish heritage, a lawyer for the League of Nations. Colonel Mercier must work in the shadows, amidst an extraordinary cast of venal & dangerous characters
- Colonel Anton Vyborg of Polish military intelligence, last seen in Furst`s THE POLISH OFFICER; the mysterious & sophisticated Doctor Lapp, senior German Abwehr officer in Warsaw; Malka & Viktor Rozen, at work for the Russian secret service; & Mercier`s brutal & vindictive opponent, Major August Voss of SS counterintelligence. & there are many more, some known to Mercier as spies, some never to be revealed.
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The Bangkok police have a confession from a nineteen-year-old drug addict admitting to the murder of the British computer geek (though judging from the bruises on the suspect`s face at the press conference, it appears they may have used more than a little gentle persuasion to get it). Case closed? Apparently so: only there are some loose ends that the police & just about everyone else is happy to overlook. Everyone except Vincent Calvino. Calvino`s investigations into Hoadly`s murder pitch him into Bangkok`s darkest heart. From the red-light district of Patpong to the slums of Klong Toey, Vincent must navigate a world of gangsters, godfathers & crooked police, & try to outwit
- & outrun
- the professional hit men who have orders to stop him. It seems that this former public schoolboy kept some very dubious company. Featuring drug addicts, dope dealers, fortune tellers, & high-class call girls, The Spirit House is a hard-boiled page-turner that brings the contradictions of Bangkok to disturbing, exhilarating, life.

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A collection of essays charting five critical decades in the history of Czechoslovakia, including events such as: the Nazi occupation; the Stalinist regimes of the fifties; the celebrations of the Prague Spring; the 1968 Soviet invasion; Charter 77; & the Velvet Revolution of 1989. ...

The Spirit of the Mountains` presents the best photographs submitted to the International Mountain Summit (IMS) photography contest from 2011 to 2016. More than 130 stunning images display mountains around the world in their many manifestations from the violent spectacle of a volcanic eruption to a flower-painted valley. Above them all lies the eternal universe, now clouds, now stars, in darkness & light, embellished with northern lights, rainbows, slashes of lightning. But more than all of that, ` The Spirit of the Mountains` is a heart-stopping reminder that we humans are absurdly insignificant in nature`s design. The photographs are organized into the contest`s four categories: Mountain Nature, Mountain Action, Mountain Faces, & Mountain Aerial, which in 2016 allowed the use of drones for the first time. There are mountains in the book from every continent
- Half Dome, Yosemite; K2, second only to Everest; Kangchendzonga, Nepal-India; Kirkjufell, Iceland; Mitre Peak, New Zealand; Koryaksky, Russia; Sassolungo, Italy; the very active volcano, Mount Slamet, Indonesia; Tepuy Roraima, Venezuela
- & many more.` The Spirit of the Mountains` is the English edition of the German-language ` Der Atem der Berge`, which in 2016 won the ITB Book Award as `best illustrated travel book of the year` at the ITB Berlin Travel Trade Show, the world`s largest tourism convention. The International Mountain Summit (IMS) is an independent & international festival of mountaineers, alpinists, climbers & other mountain enthusiasts & photographers established in 2009 by Markus Gaiser & Alex Ploner. The annual IMS Photo Contest draws participation from more than 12, 000 photographers in nearly 100 countries.

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The Republic of Venice was the first great economic & naval power of the modern Western world. After winning the struggle for ascendency against its bitter Genoese rivals in the late 13th century, the Republic enjoyed centuries of unprecedented glory & a trading empire which at its apogee reached as far afield as China, Syria & West Africa. This golden period was only to draw to the end with the slow decline of Venetian power in the 18th century & the Republic's eventual surrender to Napoleon. The Spirit of Venice aims to define the character of the Republic during these illustrious years. Whilst investigating the vital events of the period, Paul Strathern pays particular attention to the lives of individuals who embodied the spirit of the Republic, or on occasions helped to even redefine it, be they Venetians, visitors or those who were helplessly bound up in the history of the Republic. This cast

Includes:: some of the most celebrated figures of European history
- Petrarch, Marco Polo, Galileo, Titian, Vivaldi, Casanova
- alongside less famous but equally extraordinary characters, such as Caterina, 'the Tragic Queen of Cyprus', & John Law, the Scots gambler who in the 18th century invented paper money & bankrupted France in the process. Frequently, though, these emblems of the city found themselves at odds with the Venetian authorities. The oligarchy of wealthy merchant families who dominated the Republic prized stability above all else, & were notoriously suspicious of any 'cult of personality'. Was this very tension perhaps the engine for the Republic's unprecedented rise? Rich with biographies of some of the most exalted characters to have ever lived, The Spirit of Venice constitutes a refreshing & authoritative new way into the history of the most evocative of city states.



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The Spirit of Venice is a history of the first great economic & naval power of the modern western world, from its struggle to ascendancy, through the arc of its glory
- when its trading empire reached as far afield as China, Syria & West Africa
- to the beginning of its long & fascinating decline. Told through the lives of the brilliant & often wayward individuals who are inextricably bound to the Republic, this is the story of the Venice of Marco Polo, Titian, Tintoretto, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Casanova, & a scintillating array of equally captivating heroes & villains. It reveals a vibrant city of invention, which pioneered banking, presided over the first bond-market crash, & whose renowned Arsenal became the world`s first assembly line. & while Venice had no Statue of Liberty or mother of parliaments, it was for many years the nearest the modern western world came to a liberal democracy. Gloriously rich with detail & intrigue, The Spirit of Venice constitutes a refreshing & authoritative new way into the history of the most evocative of cities.

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