This book combines good quality artwork & contemporary illustrations with simple well-written text. Young readers will discover how the fire started what devastation it caused & will be able to compare fire-fighting in 1666 to the present day. Photos of artefacts & original illustrations help bring the topic to life. ...

Ways into History: The Great Fire of London looks at what happened that fateful night in 1666 & how it gave birth to a brand new London. In the Ways into History series original illustrations & simple text bring the past alive while questions & activities encourage historical research & build up confidence & enthusiasm. ...

The Great Galloon is an enormous airship built by Captain Meredith Anstruther & manned by his crew who might seem like a bit of a motley bunch but who are able to fight off invading marauders whilst drinking tea & sweeping floors! Captain Anstruther is preparing to marry the beautiful Lady Isabella but disaster strikes when his evil younger brother comes aboard for the wedding & steals Isabella away onto his underwater Sumbaroon. Stanley a clever boy with a small horn & Rasmussen a reluctant countess-to-be are busy waiting for an adventure to begin. Instead they have to fight off Behe Moths avoid enormous Seagles encounter the terrifying (but nice really) Brunt & save the Galloon from sinking. How will they ever find the Captains bride when nothings happening? THE GREAT GALLOON is a humorous CAPTAIN PUGWASH meets MONTY PYTHON adventure perfect for reading aloud & for growing readers looking for a silly funny book. ...

For nearly a century the two most powerful nations on earth Victorian Britain & Tsarist Russia fought a secret war in the lonely passes & deserts of Central Asia. Those engaged in this shadowy struggle called it ' The Great Game' a phrase immortalized by Kipling. When play first began the two rival empires lay nearly 2 000 miles apart. By the end some Russian outposts were within 20 miles of India. This classic book tells the story of the Great Game through the exploits of the young officers both British & Russian who risked their lives playing it. Disguised as holy men or native horse-traders they mapped secret passes gathered intelligence & sought the allegiance of powerful khans. Some never returned. The violent repercussions of the Great Game are still convulsing Central Asia today. ...

For ages 7 to 14 years. Bring the gang together for some old-time fun with 128 pages of carefully selected games organised by type of game: board ball card & more. Plus ten ways to choose who goes first 5 new word games skipping rope rhymes hand jives multicultural games & many new variations on old favourites. ...

The gardens of Italy rank amongst the great treasures of the world. They have influenced & inspired almost every landscape designer & architect since the Renaissance yet they are not isolated historical artifacts. A garden is always a living evolving entity that tells a thousand stories about the people that made it as well as the plants that occupy it. Above all great gardens become a celebration of man's creative need to work with nature. This book is a personal exploration of Italy's legendary gardens. Over thirty are featured including some that are very well known as well as others that might not be on many people's obvious list. Few people have travelled more widely & have a more passionately practical engagement with gardening than Monty Don. Through captivating text & outstanding photography Monty & Derry invite the reader to accompany them on their tour around Italy. Their underlying message is that to appreciate a garden fully you must also know something of the food grown & eaten in the area of the politics religion & weather of the region & of the dreams for the garden's future as well as the glories of its past. Each garden is placed in the context of its surrounding landscape & the lives of those who made it & who tend it today. Far more than an inventory of interesting plants or classical designs this book leads the reader through a truly stunning odyssey of the breadth & magnificence of Italian gardens always engaging occasionally provocative & utterly mesmerising. ...

Now the subject of a major new film from director Baz Luhrmann (Romeo+ Juliet" " Moulin Rouge!") starring Leonardo Di Caprio & Carey Mulligan " The Great Gatsby" is F. Scott Fitzgerald's brilliant fable of the hedonistic excess & tragic reality of 1920s America. This " Penguin Classics" edition is edited with an introduction & notes by Tony Tanner. Young handsome & fabulously rich Jay Gatsby is the bright star of the Jazz Age but as writer Nick Carraway is drawn into the decadent orbit of his Long Island mansion where the party never seems to end he finds himself faced by the mystery of Gatsby's origins & desires. Beneath the shimmering surface of his life Gatsby is hiding a secret: a silent longing that can never be fulfilled. & soon this destructive obsession will force his world to unravel. In " The Great Gatsby" Fitzgerald brilliantly captures both the disillusionment of post-war America & the moral failure of a society obsessed with wealth & status. But he does more than render the essence of a particular time & place for
- in chronicling Gatsby's tragic pursuit of his dream
- Fitzgerald re-creates the universal conflict between illusion & reality. Like Jay Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) has acquired a mythical status in American literary history & his masterwork. " The Great Gatsby" is considered by many to be the 'great American novel'. In 1920 he married Zelda Sayre dubbed 'the first American Flapper' & their traumatic marriage & Zelda's gradual descent into insanity became the leading influence on his writing. As well as many short stories Fitzgerald wrote five novels " This Side of Paradise" " The Great Gatsby" " The Beautiful & the Damned" " Tender is the Night" & incomplete at the time of his death " The Last Tycoon". After his death " The New York Times" said of him that 'in fact & in the literary sense he created a "generation"'. "A classic perhaps the supreme American novel". (John Carey " Sunday Times" Books of the Century)."

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Generally considered to be F. Scott Fitzgerald's finest novel The Great Gatsby is a consummate summary of the roaring twenties" & a devastating expose of the " Jazz Age". Through the narration of Nick Carraway the reader is taken into the superficially glittering world of the mansions which lined the Long Island shore in the 1920s to encounter Nick's cousin Daisy her brash but wealthy husband Tom Buchanan Jay Gatsby & the mystery that surrounds him." ...

Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything. But one thing will always be out of his reach.. . Everybody who is anybody is seen at his glittering parties. Day & night his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young things drinking dancing & debating his mysterious character. For Gatsby
- young handsome fabulously rich
- always seems alone in the crowd watching & waiting though no one knows what for. Beneath the shimmering surface of his life he is hiding a secret: a silent longing that can never be fulfilled. & soon this destructive obsession will force his world to unravel.

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The Great American Novel of love & betrayal in the Jazz Age is now a major film. Considered one of the all-time great American works of fiction Fitzgerald's glorious yet ultimately tragic social satire on the Jazz Age encapsulates the exuberance energy & decadence of an era. After the war the mysterious Jay Gatsby a self-made millionaire pursues wealth riches & the lady he lost to another man with stoic determination. He buys a mansion across from her house & throws lavish parties to try & entice her. When Gatsby finally does reunite with Daisy Buchanan tragic events are set in motion. Told through the eyes of his detached & omnipresent neighbour & friend Nick Carraway Fitzgerald's succinct & powerful prose hints at the destruction & tragedy that awaits. ...