Witchcraft, astrology, divination & every kind of popular magic flourished in England during the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries. This analysis of beliefs held on different levels of English society begins with the collapse of the medieval Church & ends with the changing intellectual atmosphere around 1700. ...

Rejects the supernatural claims of religion & points out just how many good ideas they sometimes have about how we should live. This book shows us a range of ideas on a range of topics, including relationships, work, culture, love & death
- & that could be of use to all of us, irrespective of whether we do or don't believe.
...

The Santo Daime religion is a synthesis of Christianity & Amazonian spirituality whose practices include the sacred use of ayahuasca. The Religion of Ayahuasca is a first-hand account of the genesis & spread of this important religious tradition. ...

This DK eyewitness companion examines all of the world's major faiths, as well as the lesser-known beliefs of Africa & the Americas. With a comprehensive who's who profiling the deities & holy figures of each faith. Explore the origin & history of each religion as it is traced back to the moment of its founding to its spread across today. This book has 352 pages & is 22.2cm x 13cm x 1.8cm ...

Prue Leith describes herself as greedy in all senses of the word. Cook, caterer, restaurateur, food writer, journalist, novelist, businesswoman, teacher, television presenter, charity worker, lover, wife & mother, she has certainly been greedy for life. Born in South Africa, the daughter of a well-known actress, Prue came to London in the early 1960s, set up a successful catering company, & later opened Leith's Restaurant, a food lovers' oasis in London's then gastronomic desert. By the mid-seventies she was a regular food columnist on the Daily Mail, had published several cookbooks & opened Leith's School of Food & Wine. But it wasn't all work. For thirteen years she had a secret affair with the married man who was to be her husband for another twenty-five years. She writes movingly of the anguish for both families; of her longing for children; the birth of her son, Daniel, & the adoption of her daughter, Li-Da. Prue writes with relish, humour & honesty. Whether she is running her own businesses or sitting on the boards of public companies; founding charities or leading institutions, her down-to-earth attitude to triumph & disaster is an inspiration. She is forthright about her love life; her mother's senility; her husband's smoking himself to death; the theft of her savings, & falling in love at sixty-six with a manic-depressive. Above all, Relish reflects one lucky woman's incredible zest for life. ...

This book charts elbow's long journey from humble roots through modest success to international recognition. Elbow started out at a time when great songs & evocative lyrics were not generally recognised. Their music transcended genre, age & image, eventually finding its own distinctive global audience as Guy Garvey evolved into one of the most brilliant & intriguing lyricists of recent times. ...

The Calder valley, west of Halifax, was the last ditch of Elmet, the last British Celtic kingdom to fall to the Angles. For centuries it was considered a more or less uninhabitable wilderness, a notorious refuge for criminals, a hide-out for refugees. This title celebrates this area where the author spent his early childhood. ...

Offering a bridge between the short story & the novel, this book is made up of eight stories with each one portraying a character for a single day. The stories range from a transsexual coping with her new body, prejudice & literary agents, to a cheating husband finding everything catching him up too quickly for comfort. ...

Offers a bridge between the short story & the novel, combining the qualities of both. This title

Includes::

...

It has been said that " The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awake'. This nightmare was particularly evident on the streets of Victorian London when society was going through a massive & tumultuous change. In the nineteenth century, the population in Britain trebled from 10 million to 32 million bringing with it numerous social problems, principally poverty & attendant ill-health. Many of the victims of this upheaval were children who made up 40 per cent of the population (compared to 20 per cent now). This led to an increased focus on the role children played in society seen most famously in the writings of Charles Dickens. Indeed Charles Dickens became one of the chief supporters of the new children's hospital founded at Great Ormond St to alleviate infant suffering & death. The ensuing history of the hospital is no less intriguing & this book charts its rise to become a world famous institution, surviving the blitz, pioneering many medical procedures & saving many lives. Wonderful pictures accompany the fascinating text along with celebrity anecdotes & stories from the children themselves. ...