Topographic survey of France at 1:25, 000 in IGN`s excellent TOP25 / Série Bleue series. All the maps are GPS compatible, with a 1km UTM grid plus latitude & longitude lines at 5’ intervals. Contours are at 5m intervals except for mountainous areas where the maps have contours at 10m intervals, vividly enhanced by hill shading & graphics for rocky terrain. Colouring with graphics indicates different types of vegetation or land use (deciduous or coniferous forests, moors, orchards, vineyards, etc). PLEASE NOTE: coverage of France at this scale is currently being revised – the format & the presentation of each title are indicated by the letters at the end of its Sheet Reference number (e.g. 0416ET, 3531ETR, 1923SB, etc.)MAPS WITH FULL TOURIST OVERPRINT & AN ENGLISH MAP LEGEND: all TOP25 maps & the SB editions of Série Bleue have an overprint highlighting waymarked walking trails including long-distance GR routes &, where appropriate, ski routes. Symbols indicate campsites, gîtes d’etape, refuges, equestrian centres & other recreational facilities or sites, tourist information centres, cultural heritage, etc. Towns & locations of particular interest are highlighted.- ET or OT = single-sided TOP25 map covering approx. 29x 21 km / 18x 13 miles.- ETR or OTR = waterproof & tear resistant TOP25 map covering the same area as the corresponding ET or OT number, but double-sided, printed on a smaller size sheet with a good overlap between the sides.- SB = Série Bleue map with full tourist overprint; these maps, first introduced in summer 2014, each cover approx. 29x 24km / 18x 15 miles.SÉRIE BLEUE maps with numbers ending in E (Est) or O (Ouest): most editions now indicate the GR routes, but do not show any other tourist information. Map legend is in French only. Each map covers approx. 14x 20km / 9x 12 miles. ...

The world is blowing up. Every day a new blaze seems to ignite: the bloody implosion of Iraq & Syria; the East-West standoff in Ukraine; abducted schoolgirls in northern Nigeria. Is there some thread tying these frightening international security crises together? In a riveting account that weaves history with fast-moving reportage & insider accounts from the Afghanistan war, Sarah Chayes identifies the unexpected link: corruption. Since the late 1990s, corruption has reached such an extent that some governments resemble glorified criminal gangs, bent solely on their own enrichment. These kleptocrats drive indignant populations to extremes-ranging from revolution to militant puritanical religion. Chayes plunges readers into some of the most venal environments on earth & examines what emerges: Afghans returning to the Taliban, Egyptians overthrowing the Mubarak government (but also redesigning Al-Qaeda), & Nigerians embracing both radical evangelical Christianity & the Islamist terror group Boko Haram. In many such places, rigid moral codes are put forth as an antidote to the collapse of public integrity. The pattern, moreover, pervades history. Through deep archival research, Chayes reveals that canonical political thinkers such as John Locke & Machiavelli, as well as the great medieval Islamic statesman Nizam al-Mulk, all named corruption as a threat to the realm. In a thrilling argument connecting the Protestant Reformation to the Arab Spring, Thieves of State presents a powerful new way to understand global extremism. & it makes a compelling case that we must confront corruption, for it is a cause-not a result-of global instability. ...

Above an eerie realm of endless snow covered spires... Each step appears increasingly impossible. Disorientation & fatigue make the climber's head swim & the body threaten to collapse. For Greg Child it happened at 8, 000 meters on an all-out alpine-style climb marked by tragic loss.

In this spellbinding chronicle, Greg Child takes us step by nerve-shattering step through the world's most remote regions
- as he cracks the death zone above 26, 000 feet, & attacks by fair means the world's most perilous pinnacles. From Child's assault on Gasherbrum IV to a season of tragedy & carnage on K2, Thin Air is more than one man's story
- it is an intimate portrait of mountains & those who climb them: what bonds clients together & what separates them, & what the mountains teach us all about life -- & death...

...

Shortlisted for the 2011 Costa Biography Award & the 2012 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize Julia Blackburn & her husband moved to a little house in the mountains of northern Italy in 1999. She arrived as a stranger but a series of events brought her close to the old people of the village & they began to tell her their stories. Of how their village had been trapped in an archaic feudal system & owned by a local padrone who demanded his share of all they had, of the eruption of the Second World War, of the conflict between the fascists & the partisans, of death & fear & hunger of how they hid like like foxes in the mountains. ` Write it down for us, ` they said, `because otherwise it will all be lost.` Thin Paths is a celebration of the songlines of one place that could be many places & a celebration of the humour & determination of the human spirit. ...

You come across the shell of a ruined house. It could be anywhere in southern Europe where people once lived & then moved away because there was no work to hold them there. You might find things scattered in the empty rooms: a bread oven, a broken spade, earthenware jars that still hold the pungent scent of olive oil; even clothes left hanging in a cupboard, a silent clock on a shelf, a picture cut from a newspaper pinned on a wall. The house is remote, but it is surrounded by a tracery of thin paths. One path goes steeply down to a village; others zigzag their way to scattered huts & stone shelters, to caves where you could hide in times of danger & to unexpected lookout points from where you could watch the approach of animals or human intruders. Julia Blackburn & her husband moved to a little house in the mountains of northern Italy in 1999. She arrived as a stranger speaking no Italian, but a series of events brought her close to the old people of the village. They began to tell her stories that made the landscape come alive, repopulating it with their vivid memories. Until quite recently most of them had been mezzadri, half-people who were trapped in an archaic feudal system & owned by a local padrone who demanded his share of all they had
- even a pretty wife or daughter. They were eager to talk about the old way of life & about how everything changed with the eruption of the Second World War. This village was at the heart of the conflict between the fascists & the partisans, so they learnt a lot about death & fear & hunger & how men & women could hide like foxes in the mountains. ` Write it down for us, ` they said, `because otherwise it will all be lost.` Thin Paths is a celebration of the songlines of one place that could be many places; it is also a celebration of the humour & determination of the human spirit.
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Thin White Line is the sequel to Learning to Breathe, Andy Cave's bestselling debut & winner of both the prestigious Boardman Tasker Prize & the Adventure Travel Award at the Banff International Festival. In 1997, Andy Cave returned from the Himalayas, having climbed the stupendous north face of Changabang but losing his friend & climbing partner in the process. Traumatized by the savage ordeal, he must examine his relationship with the mountains that have defined his life so far. Will he have the courage to undertake such a challenge again? Does he want to? Thin White Line charts his struggle towards finding an answer. It is as much a journey into the mind of an extreme mountaineer as it is into the wild landscapes through which he travels. In a nail-biting narrative set in Patagonia, Norway & Alaska, Cave tackles the severest challenges modern Alpinism can pose. Juxtaposed with the stark beauty of the environment are the colourful characters populating his stories, from the adventurers around him, past & present, to the pioneer aviators who get him & his kind to those impossibly remote places. He vividly recreates the joy & despair of climbing, building the book to a desperate finale that lays bare the fragility of our carefully constructed convictions. ...

From the No. 1 bestselling author of What If?
- the man who created xkcd & explained the laws of science with cartoons
- comes

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From the No. 1 bestselling author of What If?
- the man who created xkcd & explained the laws of science with cartoons
- comes

...

Through rallies & marches, in polite drawing rooms & freezing prison cells & the poverty-stricken slums of the East End, three courageous young women join the fight for the vote. Evelyn is seventeen, & though she is rich & clever, she may never be allowed to follow her older brother to university. Enraged that she is expected to marry her childhood sweetheart rather than be educated, she joins the Suffragettes, & vows to pay the ultimate price for women`s freedom. May is fifteen, & already sworn to the cause, though she & her fellow Suffragists refuse violence. When she meets Nell, a girl who`s grown up in hardship, she sees a kindred spirit. Together & in love, the two girls start to dream of a world where all kinds of women have their place. But the fight for freedom will challenge Evelyn, May & Nell more than they ever could believe. As war looms, just how much are they willing to sacrifice? ...

Through rallies & marches, in polite drawing rooms & freezing prison cells & the poverty-stricken slums of the East End, three courageous young women join the fight for the vote. Evelyn is seventeen, & though she is rich & clever, she may never be allowed to follow her older brother to university. Enraged that she is expected to marry her childhood sweetheart rather than be educated, she joins the Suffragettes, & vows to pay the ultimate price for women`s freedom. May is fifteen, & already sworn to the cause, though she & her fellow Suffragists refuse violence. When she meets Nell, a girl who`s grown up in hardship, she sees a kindred spirit. Together & in love, the two girls start to dream of a world where all kinds of women have their place. But the fight for freedom will challenge Evelyn, May & Nell more than they ever could believe. As war looms, just how much are they willing to sacrifice? ...