A secret history of scent memory & desire from the Sunday Times bestselling author of ELEGANCE & THE DEBUTANTE. One letter will turn newly-married Grace Munroes life upside down: Our firm is handling the estate of the deceased Mrs Eva DOrsey & it is our duty to inform you that you are named as the chief beneficiary in her will. We request your presence at our offices at your earliest convenience so that we may go through the details of your inheritance. There is only one problem. Grace has never heard of Eva DOrsey. So begins a journey which leads Grace through the streets of Paris & into the seductive world of perfumers & their muses. An abandoned perfume shop on the Left Bank will lead her to unravel the heartbreaking story of her mysterious benefactor an extraordinary woman who bewitched high society in 1920s New York & Paris. ...

High in the hills of Valencia a forgotten house guards its secrets. Untouched since Franco's forces tore through Spain in 1936 the whitewashed walls have crumbled; the garden laden with orange blossom grown wild. Emma Temple is the first to unlock its doors in seventy years. Guided by a series of letters & a key bequeathed in her mother's will she has left her job as London's leading perfumier to restore this dilapidated villa to its former glory. It is the perfect retreat: a wilderness redolent with strange & exotic scents heavy with the colours & sounds of a foreign time. But for her grandmother Freya a British nurse who stayed here during Spain's devastating civil war Emma's new home evokes terrible memories. As the house begins to give up its secrets Emma is drawn deeper into Freya's story: of crushed idealism of lost love & of families ripped apart by war. She soon realises it is one thing to let go of the past but another when it won't let go of you. ...

The 15th-century Arabian text The Perfumed Garden is one of the greatest of world classic erotic texts along with India's The Karma Sutra. It is primarily a manual for sexual activity of all kinds dealing in some considerable detail with physical attributes foreplay coital positions & advice for how to achieve greater satisfaction for both partners as well as sexual health. In addition it contains some enlivening stories of sexual encounters & sexual needs fulfilled. Richard Burton famously translated it in 1886. Jonathan Keeble reads with aplomb. ...

Agatha Christies ingenious murder mystery reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans & book lovers. Nick Buckley was an unusual name for a pretty young woman. But then she had led an unusual life. First on a treacherous Cornish hillside the brakes on her car failed. Then on a coastal path a falling boulder missed her by inches. Later an oil painting fell & almost crushed her in bed. Upon discovering a bullet-hole in Nicks sun hat Hercule Poirot decides the girl needs his protection. At the same time he begins to unravel the mystery of a murder that hasnt been committed. Yet. ...

A facsmile first edition hardback of the Poirot book published to celebrate 80 years as the nations favourite detective. Nick Buckley was an unusual name for a pretty young woman. But then she had led an unusual life. First on a treacherous Cornish hillside the brakes on her car failed. Then on a coastal path a falling boulder missed her by inches. Later an oil painting fell & almost crushed her in bed. Upon discovering a bullet-hole in Nicks sun hat Hercule Poirot decides the girl needs his protection. At the same time he begins to unravel the mystery of a murder that hasnt been committed. Yet. To mark the 80th anniversary of Hercule Poirots first appearance & to celebrate his renewed fortunes as a primetime television star this title in a collection of facsimile first editions is the perfect way to experience Agatha Christie. Reproducing the original typesetting & format of the first edition from the Christie familys own archive this book sports the original cover which has been painstakingly restored to its original glory. ...

Internationally bestselling historian Antonia Fraser's new book brilliantly evokes a key period of pre-Victorian political & social history
- the passing of the Great Reform Bill of 1832. For our inconclusive times there is an attractive resonance with 1832 with its 'rotten boroughs' of Old Sarum & the disappearing village of Dunwich & its lines of most resistance to reform. This book is character-driven
- on the one hand the reforming heroes are the Whig aristocrats Lord Grey Lord Althorp & Lord John Russell & the Irish orator Daniel O' Connell. They included members of the richest & most landed Cabinet in history yet they were determined to bring liberty which whittled away their own power to the country. The all-too-conservative opposition comprised Lord Londonderry the Duke of Wellington the intransigent Duchess of Kent & the consort of the Tory King William IV Queen Adelaide. Finally there were 'revolutionaries' & reformers like William Cobbett the author of RURAL RIDES. This is a book that features one eventful year much of it violent. There were riots in Bristol Manchester & Nottingham & wider themes of Irish & 'negro emancipation' underscore the narrative. The time-span of the book is from Wellington's intractable declaration in November 1830 that ' The beginning of reform is the beginning of revolution' to 7th June 1832 the date of the extremely reluctant royal assent by William IV to the Great Reform Bill under the double threat of the creation of 60 new peers in the House of Lords & the threat of revolution throughout the country. These events led to a total change in the way Britain was governed a two-year revolution that Antonia Fraser brings to vivid dramatic life.

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England has a wealth of surviving houses from past centuries be they country mansions or rustic framed cottages & the circumstances of the age are often reflected in the interiors. Linda Hall charts the development of the fixtures & fittings we still see today
- from medieval & Tudor times to Georgian & Victorian. Each chapter deals with a different component & is supplemented by photographs & line drawings. This book will be useful for anyone with an interest in period features
- as a reference book for restoration or a guide to visits.

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Britain has a wonderfully rich stock of period houses
- everything from medieval cottages to Georgian townhouses & Edwardian mansions.
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Primo Levis The Periodic Table" is a collection of short stories that elegantly interlace the authors experiences in Fascist Italy & later in Auschwitz with his passion for scientific knowledge & discovery. This " Penguin Modern Classics" edition of is translated by Raymond Rosenthal with an essay on Primo Levi by Philip Roth. A chemist by training Primo Levi became one of the supreme witnesses to twentieth-century atrocity. In these haunting reflections inspired by the elements of the periodic table he ranges from young love to political savagery; from the inert gas argon
- & inert relatives like the uncle who stayed in bed for twenty-two years
- to life-giving carbon. Iron honours the mountain-climbing resistance hero who put iron in Levis student soul Cerium recalls the improvised cigarette lighters which saved his life in Auschwitz while Vanadium describes an eerie post-war correspondence with the man who had been his boss there. In his essay Philip Roth reproduces a conversation with Primo Levi delving into the process of Levis authorial technique his sense of identity & distinctiveness & the relationship between science writing & survival. Primo Levi (1919-87) an Italian Jew did not come to the wide attention of the English-reading audience until the last years of his life. A survivor of the Holocaust & imprisonment in Auschwitz Levi is considered to be one of the centurys most compelling voices & " The Periodic Table" is his most famous book. Levi is the author of " Moments of Reprieve" & " If Not Now When?" also available in " Penguin Modern Classics". Philip Roth is the author of " Nemesis" & " The Plot Against America" & winner of the both the Pulitzer prize & the Man Booker International prize. If you enjoyed " The Periodic Table" you might like Levis " If Not Now When?" also available in " Penguin Modern Classics". "A book it is necessary to read". (Saul Bellow author of " Herzog"). " One of the finest writers in post-war Ital". (" The Times")."

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Here Eric Scerri looks at the trends in properties of elements that led to the construction of the periodic table & how the deeper meaning of its structure gradually became apparent with the development of atomic theory & quantum mechanics so that as Scerri puts it one science physics arguably came to colonize another chemistry although such a view is resisted by chemists. Scerri shows that quantum mechanics is absolutely central to chemistry as it underlies the behaviour of all of the elements & their compounds & therefore underpins the structure of the periodic table. Concluding with an overview of the huge variety of periodic tables that have been proposed in the print media & on the Internet he explores the debated question of whether there is an optimal periodic table & what form it might take. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts analysis perspective new ideas & enthusiasm to make interesting & challenging topics highly readable. ...