Maya Angelous five volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents & resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world she also knows its cruelty. As a black woman she has known discrimination & extreme poverty but also hope joy achievement & celebration. In the fifth volume Maya Angelou emigrates to Ghana only to discover that you cant go home again but she comes to a new awareness of love & friendship civil rights & slavery
- & the myth of mother Africa.
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Brian Lavery the pre-eminent historian of the Royal Navy returns with the third volume of his engaging social history of the Royal Navys lower deck
- the world of the seamen as distinct from the officers of the quarterdeck. He examines the world of the sailor from the outbreak of war in 1939 through 70 years of change up to his place in the modern Royal Navy. The author illuminates the inherent adaptability of the professional sailor as new technologies demanded increased professionalism specialization & training. He also focuses on the changing social structure of the Navy & the periods of expansion as the service coped with great demands made through two World Wars & innumerable other conflicts across the globe.
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All He Really Needs Griffin Cain makes love better than any man. Night after night his decadent sensual acts turn conservative Sydney Edwards into a wanton woman. But all that stops when Griffin is made CEO of his family company...and becomes Sydney's boss. Now Griffin needs his forbidden lover's help
- in the boardroom...A Tricky Proposition Ming Campbell is no longer in the market for love; however starting a family is at the top of her todo list. There's no one better to assist than her best friend Jason Sinclair. Only Jason has a proposal of his own: conceive their child the oldfashioned way.
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A magisterial history of the greatest & most terrible event in history from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. A book which shows the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world- soldiers sailors & airmen; housewives farm workers & children. Reflecting Max Hastingss thirty-five years of research on World War II All Hell Let Loose describes the course of events but focuses chiefly upon human experience which varied immensely from campaign to campaign continent to continent. The author emphasises the Russian front where more than 90% of all German soldiers who perished met their fate. He argues that while Hitlers army often fought its battles brilliantly well the Nazis conducted their war effort with stunning incompetence. He suggests that the Royal Navy & US Navy were their countries outstanding fighting services while the industrial contribution of the United States was much more important to allied victory than that of the US Army. The book ranges across a vast canvas from the agony of Poland amid the September 1939 Nazi invasion to the 1943 Bengal famine in which at least a million people died under British rule- & British neglect. Among many vignettes there are the RAFs legendary raid on the Ruhr dams the horrors of Arctic convoys desert tank combat jungle clashes. Some of Hastingss insights & judgements will surprise students of the conflict while there are vivid descriptions of the tragedies & triumphs of a host of ordinary people in uniform & out of it. The cliche is profoundly true he says. The world between 1939 & 1945 saw some human beings plumb the depths of baseness while others scaled the heights of courage & nobility. This is everymans story an attempt to answer the question: What was the Second World War like ? & also an overview of the big picture. Max Hastings employs the technique which has made many of his previous books best-sellers combining top-down analysis & bottom-up testimony to explore the meaning of this vast conflict both for its participants & for posterity. ...

A magisterial history of the greatest & most terrible event in history from one of the finest historians of the Second World War. A book which shows the impact of war upon hundreds of millions of people around the world- soldiers sailors & airmen; housewives farm workers & children. Reflecting Max Hastings's thirty-five years of research on World War II All Hell Let Loose describes the course of events but focuses chiefly upon human experience which varied immensely from campaign to campaign continent to continent. The author emphasises the Russian front where more than 90% of all German soldiers who perished met their fate. He argues that while Hitler's army often fought its battles brilliantly well the Nazis conducted their war effort with 'stunning incompetence'. He suggests that the Royal Navy & US Navy were their countries' outstanding fighting services while the industrial contribution of the United States was much more important to allied victory than that of the US Army. The book ranges across a vast canvas from the agony of Poland amid the September 1939 Nazi invasion to the 1943 Bengal famine in which at least a million people died under British rule- & British neglect. Among many vignettes there are the RAF's legendary raid on the Ruhr dams the horrors of Arctic convoys desert tank combat jungle clashes. Some of Hastings's insights & judgements will surprise students of the conflict while there are vivid descriptions of the tragedies & triumphs of a host of ordinary people in uniform & out of it. ' The cliche is profoundly true' he says. ' The world between 1939 & 1945 saw some human beings plumb the depths of baseness while others scaled the heights of courage & nobility'. This is 'everyman's story' an attempt to answer the question: ' What was the Second World War like ?' & also an overview of the big picture. Max Hastings employs the technique which has made many of his previous books best-sellers combining top-down analysis & bottom-up testimony to explore the meaning of this vast conflict both for its participants & for posterity. ...

When asked what he does Robert Fulghum usually replies that he is a philosopher & explains that what he likes to do is to think about everyday things & then to express what he thinks by writing speaking or painting. This is a collection of his favourite observations written over the years that reveal simple truths about small lives with big meanings. ...

All in Good Time is the remarkable story of George Daniels (1926-2011) the master craftsman who was born into poverty but raised himself to become the greatest watchmaker of the twentieth century. Daniels stands alone in modern times as the inventor of the revolutionary co-axial escapement the first substantial advance in portable mechanical timekeeping over the lever escapement which has dominated ever since its invention in 1759. Danielss love of mechanics embraced not only the minute however
- he was also a passionate collector & driver of historic motorcars. This revised & expanded edition of his autobiography also contains a new section that illustrates & discusses over thirty of the pocket & wrist-watches Daniels himself made over the years. Witness here the triumph of intelligence ingenuity matchless skill & singularity of purpose over the most unpromising of beginnings.
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Entertaining instructive thought-provoking & hilarious the unmistakeable voice of Deborah Devonshire rings out of this volume which combines her two collections of 'occasional' writings
- Home to Roost & Counting my Chickens. The pieces are broad & eclectic in their subjects ranging from treasures unearthed while the kitchen was being redecorated musings about the reason for the reworded town sign tourism at Chatsworth a ringside view of both John F. Kennedy's inauguration & funeral & the value of deportment. No matter what she's writing about she is always affectionate shrewd & uproariously funny.
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This is a modern picture-book classic
- theres never a dull moment with the Large family! Mr & Mrs Large are getting ready for
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Television past as LP Hartley might have once said is another country. & in the early 1980s it certainly was a different beast. There were still only three channels to watch; the evenings programmes finished with the playing of the national anthem; & the biggest prize on TV was not Chris Tarrants million pounds but a speedboat on Bullseye.. . But as Tom Bromley suggests in this funny & warming memoir all that was about to change: The 1980s saw the end of the original golden era of television & the beginnings of TV as we know it today. In 1982 Channel 4 became the first new terrestrial channel for almost twenty years & by the end of the decade Rupert Murdochs Sky Television was vying to become Britains first multi-channel provider. The result of all this was that slowly but surely British viewers had more choice than ever before & the cost of this choice was the erosion of television as a shared national event. & no-one felt this change more deeply than Tom Bromley. Television played a large part in Toms childhood. His first word was two as in BBC Two & his earliest childhood memory is seeing Johnny Ball at a church fete. With great humour & affection Tom Bromley tells the story of a childhood spent with his three siblings & that other all-important family member; the television set. ...