What does it take for a volcanic eruption to really shake the world? Did volcanic eruptions extinguish the dinosaurs or help humans to evolve only to decimate their populations with a super-eruption 73 000 years ago? Did they contribute to the ebb & flow of ancient empires the French Revolution & the rise of fascism in Europe in the 19th century? These are some of the claims made for volcanic cataclysm. Volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer explores rich geological historical archaeological & palaeoenvironmental records (such as ice cores & tree rings) to tell the stories behind some of the greatest volcanic events of the past quarter of a billion years. He shows how a forensic approach to volcanology reveals the richness & complexity behind cause & effect & argues that important lessons for future catastrophe risk management can be drawn from understanding events that took place even at the dawn of human origins. ...

Nicknamed The Desert Fox for his cunning command of the Afrika Korps Erwin Rommel remains one of the most popular & studied of Germanys World War II commanders. He got his first taste of combat in World War I where his daring command earned him the Blue Max Germanys highest decoration for bravery. He followed this up with numerous successes early in World War II in both Europe & Africa before facing his biggest challenge
- organizing the defence of France. Implicated in the plot to kill Hitler Rommel chose suicide over a public trial. This book looks at the life of this daring soldier focusing on his style of command & the tactical decisions that earned him his fearsome reputation.
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Erwin Schrodinger was an Austrian physicist famous for his contribution to quantum physics. He won the Nobel Prize in 1933 & is best known for his thought experiment of a cat in a box both alive & dead at the same time which revealed the seemingly paradoxical nature of quantum mechanics. Schrodinger was working at one of the most fertile & creative moments in the whole history of science. By the time he was starting university in 1906 Einstein had already published his revolutionary papers on relativity. Now the baton of scientific progress was being passed to a new generation: Werner Heisenberg Paul Dirac Niels Bohr & of course Schrodinger himself. In this riveting biography John Gribbin takes us into the heart of the quantum revolution. He tells the story of Schrodingers surprisingly colourful life (he arrived for a position at Oxford University with both his wife & mistress). & with his trade mark accessible style & popular touch explains the fascinating world of quantum mechanics which underpins all of modern science. ...

Have you ever wanted to walk out on your life? One Friday morning Emily realises that somewhere in life she has chosen the wrong path. Shes stifled by her job as a New York lawyer she barely sees her husband James & their attempts to start a family have proven unsuccessful. So Emily escapes. She walks out of the office turns her phone off packs a bag & leaves New York. She doesnt even tell James shes leaving... But when a new path leads back to her past & an old lover new problems arise. As Emily begins to carve out a new life where does that leave everything & everyone she left behind? Praise for Barbara Delinksy: Fans of Jodi Picoult will love this.. .a poignant family story". (" Daily Express"). " Delinskys writing is fluid & makes for a hard-to-put-down book as she deftly blends tense family drama with heavy political issues". (" Glamour"). "...a sensitive exploration of the prejudices that many hold but few express.. .a page turner that asks serious questions about Americas relationship with its past". (" The Times"). "A really interesting & sometimes harrowing tale that makes for compelling reading". (" Sun")." ...

Summer 1940. Hitler's army is advancing towards Paris & millions of French civilians are on the run. Amidst the chaos two British children are being hunted by German agents. British spy Charles Henderson tries to reach them first but he can only do it with the help of a twelve-year-old French orphan. The British secret service is about to discover that kids working undercover will help to win the war. For official purposes these children do not exist. ...

Peter Stevens was a German-Jewish refugee who escaped Nazi persecution as a teenager in 1933. He joined the RAF in 1939 & after eighteen months of pilot training he started flying bombing missions against his own country. He completed twenty-two missions before being shot down & taken prisoner by the Nazis in September 1941. To escape became his raison detre & his great advantage was that he was in his native country. He was recaptured after each of his several escapes but the Nazis never realised his true identity. He took part in the logistics & planning of several major breakouts including The Great Escape but was never successful in getting back to Engl&. After liberation when the true nature of his exploits came to light he was awarded the Military Cross. He then served as a British spy at the beginning of the Cold War before emigrating to Canada to resume a normal life. This is the story of a heavily conflicted young man alone in a world that is in the midst of destruction. He is afforded an opportunity to help his persecuted people to obtain a small measure of revenge. It is at once a sad yet uplifting tale of thankless & unheralded heroism. ...

Matt Seatons critically acclaimed memoir about his obsession for cycling & how that obsession was tamed. For a time there were four bikes in Matt Seatons life. His evenings were spent doing the miles on the roads out of south London & into the hills of the North Downs & Kent Weald. Weekends were taken up with track meets time trials & road races
- rides that took him from cold village halls at dawn & onto the empty bypasses of southern Engl&. With its rituals its code of honour & its comradeship cycling became a passion that bordered on possession. It was at once a world apart private to its initiates & through the races he rode in Belgium Mallorca & Ireland a passport to an international fraternity. But then marriage children & his wifes illness forced a reckoning with real life & ultimately a reappraisal of why cycling had become so compelling in the first place. Today those bikes are scattered sold or gathering dust in an attic. Wry frank & elegiac The Escape Artist is a celebration of an amateur sport & the simple beauty of cycling. It is also a story about the passage from youth to adulthood about what it means to give up something fiercely loved in return for a kind of wisdom.
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JOHN THOMAS STRAFFEN
- Britain's longest-serving prisoner
- was the first patient to escape from Broadmoor Hospital & be prosecuted

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Twenty-six years ago Shin Dong-hyuk was born inside Camp 14 one of five sprawling political prisons in the mountains of North Korea. Located about 55 miles north of Pyongyang the labor camp is a complete control district a no-exit prison where the only sentence is life. No one born in Camp 14 or in any North Korean political prison camp has escaped. No one except Shin. This is his story. A gripping terrifying memoir with a searing sense of place ESCAPE FROM CAMP 14 will unlock through Shin a dark & secret nation taking readers to a place they have never before been allowed to go. This is a story unlike any other Barbara Demick author of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea ...

Twenty-seven years ago Shin Dong-hyuk was born inside Camp 14 one of five sprawling political prisons in the mountains of North Korea. Located about 55 miles north of Pyongyang the labor camp is a 'complete control district ' a no-exit prison where the only sentence is life. No one born in Camp 14 or in any North Korean political prison camp has escaped. No one except Shin. This is his story. A gripping terrifying memoir with a searing sense of place ESCAPE FROM CAMP 14 will unlock through Shin a dark & secret nation taking readers to a place they have never before been allowed to go. ' This is a story unlike any other' Barbara Demick author of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea THIS EDITION

Includes:: NEW UP TO DATE CONTENT

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