Ospreys are one of our best known & best loved birds & the name Roy Dennis is not only synonymous with the successful return of the osprey to Scotland but is also renowned for his international work with a variety of species. From the time he saw his first osprey back in 1960 Roy has worked to help this magnificent raptor establish itself once more in a country where it had been hounded & persecuted to near-extinction over hundreds of years. This book tells the story not only of the osprey but of the osprey watcher following the birds fortunes in Scotland seeing its numbers rise from that single pair in the 1950s to close to 200 pairs today. From a look at its history in Scotland & the rest of the UK including the bad old days of egg thieves & the shooting of birds as specimens it moves to the present day with satellite radios allowing us to follow the every move of the osprey on its migration to Africa & back. Roy has pioneered the building of artificial nests for ospreys which had been instrumental in increasing their numbers & range as well as starting the first European trans-location taking chicks from their nests in the Highlands & releasing them at Rutland Water Nature Reserve in the Midlands. The book also covers the ecology of the osprey with many personal anecdotes & insights. Diary entries give a more immediate feel to the chapters & the worldwide distribution of ospreys is enlivened by that sense of immediacy. Roys writings at a time when no one knew whether or not his lifetimes work would succeed add a sense of history to this personal tale. ...

Alchemists sought gold in it. David Bowie refrigerated it to ward off evil. In the trenches of Ypres soldiers used it as a gas mask whereas modern-day terrorists add it to home-made explosives. All the Fullers Tuckers & Walkers in the phonebook owe their names to it & in 1969 four bags for storing it were left on the surface of the moon. Bought & sold traded & transported even carried to work in jugs urine has made bread rise beer foam & given us gunpowder stained glass Robin Hoods tights & Vermeers Girl With A Pearl Earring. & we do produce an awful lot of it. Humans alone make almost enough to replace the entire contents of Loch Lomond every year. Add the incalculable volume contributed by the rest of the animal kingdom & it might soon displace a small ocean. No wonder it gets everywhere. In Life of Pee Sally Magnusson unveils the secret history of civilisations most unsavoury & unsung hero & discovers how our urine footprint is just as indelible as our carbon one. ...

After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The crew of the surviving vessel consists of a hyena a zebra (with a broken leg) a female orang-utan a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger & Pi
- a 16-year-old Indian boy. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary pieces of literary fiction of recent years. Yann Martels Life of Pi" is a transformative novel a dazzling work of imagination that will delight & astound readers in equal measure. It is a triumph of storytelling & a tale that will as one character puts it make you believe in God."
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After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi a hyena a zebra (with a broken leg) a female orang-utan
- & a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary & best-loved works of fiction in recent years.
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One boy one boat one tiger.. . After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen year-old boy named Pi a hyena a zebra (with a broken leg) a female orang-utan & a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary & best-loved works of fiction in recent years. ...

This title is winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2002. After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The crew of the surviving vessel consists of a hyena a zebra (with a broken leg) a female orang-utan a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger & Pi
- a 16-year-old Indian boy. The scene is set for a most extraordinary piece of literary fiction. This recording is unabridged. Typically abridged audiobooks are not more than 60 per cent of the authors work & as low as 30 per cent with characters & plotlines removed.
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A poetic work of fiction on the one hand an autobiography on the other The Life of Rebecca Jones is a powerful meditative work on one familys passage through the twentieth century. In the early years of the last century Rebecca is born into a rural community in the Maesglasau valley in Wales; her family have been working the land for a thousand years but the changes brought about by modernity threaten the survival of her language & her familys way of life. Three of her siblings are afflicted with a genetic blindness & it is they who have the opportunity to be educated elsewhere & to find work while Rebecca & her remaining brother maintain the family farm amidst a gradual influx of new technologies from the waterpipe to the tractor & telephone & ultimately to television. Rebeccas reflections on the century are delivered with haunting dignity & a simple intimacy while her evocation of the changing seasons & a life that is so in tune with its surroundings is rich & poignant. The Life of Rebecca Jones has all the makings of a classic fixing on a vanishing period of rural history & the novels final unexpected revelation remains unforgettable & utterly moving. ...

A group portrait of a brilliant circle at the centre of which Boswell captures the powerful troubled & witty figure of Samuel Johnson. The book is also an intimate picture of domestic life which mingles the greatest talkers of a talkative age with the heros humbler friends. ...

Ayrton Senna was in many peoples' opinions the greatest Formula One driver to have ever raced. Over 2 million people watched his shocking crash on television during the San Marino Grand Prix on Sunday 1st May 1994. The knowing knew he was dead when his car finally came to rest on that fateful day. Although a host of biographies have been published none have fully researched his life & character & exposed his extraordinary driving brain. In this first full & stunningly illustrated account of his life the authors & their collaborators examine every detail of the driving maestro's life. From his earliest days to his first race & on to his world championships to his pole positions & finally to his death & its aftermath. ' He was the one driver so perfect that nobody thought anything could happen to him' Bernie Ecclestone ' Ayrton was the most committed of all. He had an air of invincibility around him. He put his entire body & mind into winning' Sir Frank Williams ' He established his own limits. When he reached those limits he wanted to beat them & establish new ones. I never knew how far he could go. I had an understanding but I didn't know' The only thing that existed was himself
- & he had to be first' Gerhard Berger.
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On Sunday 2st May 1994 Ayrton Senna was leading the San Marino Grand Prix when suddenly his car veered inexplicably off the track at Tamburello bend. His Williams-Renault crossed over both the grass & concrete fun-off strips before finally impacting the concrete wall. It is thought that the front of his head hit the concrete wall forcing his helmet back on to the headrest & crushing the back of his head. Either impact would have been enough to kill him. The greatest racing driver the world had ever seen would be declared dead just over four hours later. This book is about his life his victories & his loves. It is the first proper story of a man the world revered & whose like will never been seen again. ...