After spending his childhood & school years in Albania imagining that the mini-skirts & quiz-shows of Italian state TV were the reality of life in the West & fantasizing accordingly about living on the other side of the border the death of Hoxha at last enables Gazmend Kapllani to make his escape. However on arriving in the Promised Land he finds neither lots of willing leggy lovelies nor a warm welcome from his long-lost Greek cousins. Instead he gets banged up in a detention centre in a small border town. As Gazi & his fellow immigrants try to find jobs they begin to plan their future lives in Greece imagining riches & successes which always remain just beyond their grasp. The sheer absurdity of both their plans & their new lives is overwhelming. Both detached & involved ironic & emotional Kapllani interweaves the story of his experience with meditations upon border syndrome
- a mental state as much as a geographical experience
- to create a brilliantly observed amusing & perceptive debut.

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I look at all of Carvers work as just one story for his stories are all occurences all about things that just happen to people & cause their lives to take a turn... In formulating the mosaic of the film Short Cuts which is based on these nine stories & a poem Lemonade Ive tried to do the same thing- to give the audience one look... But it all began here. I was a reader turning these pages. Trying on these lives
- Robert Altman in his introduction.
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A Short History of Byzantium" is renowned historian & author of "A History of Venice" John Julius Norwich's classic history of Byzantium. Constantine the Great moved the seat of Roman power to Constantinople in AD 330 & for eleven brutal bloody centuries the Byzantine Empire became a beacon of grand magnificence & depraved decadence... Here then are the centuries dominated by ferocious arguments over the nature of Christ & his Church. By knowledge where scholars & scribes preserved the heritage of the ancient world. By emperors like Justinian the Great & Basil the Bulgar-Slayer
- men pious heroic or monstrous. By creativity as art & architecture soared to new heights. In this abridgement of his celebrated trilogy John Julius Norwich provides the definitive introduction to the savage scintillating world of Byzantium. " Norwich has the gift of historical perspective as well as clarity & wit. Few can tell a good story better than he". (" Spectator"). "A real-life epic of love & war accessible to anyone". (" Independent on Sunday"). " Norwich tells a remarkable story with boundless zest. He offers character sketches of the appalling personages who infest his narrative.. .with the assurance of a Macauley or a Gibbon". (" Daily Telegraph"). John Julius Norwich was born in 1929. He was educated at Upper Canada College Toronto at Eton at the University of Strasbourg & after a spell of National Service in the Navy at New College Oxford where he took a degree in French & Russian. In 1952 he joined the Foreign Service where he remained for twelve years serving at the embassies in Belgrade & Beirut. In 1964 he resigned from the service to write. He is the author of histories of Norman Sicily the Republic of Venice & the Byzantine Empire. He has written & presented some thirty historical documentaries on television & is a regular lecturer on Venice & numerous other subjects."
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Richard Hammond has had a longstanding love affair bordering on the obsessive some might say with caravans. He has researched their origins & history celebrity owners the uses to which they have been put their place in history names jargon games with things to do in recipes to cook in & future of. He also gives sound practical advice on how to use them to best advantage race them (ensuring first they are of the non-static variety) & how to destroy them in interesting ways (of which he has much experience
- 80 or so at the last count). An essential guide for any owner or prospective owner or indeed anyone with even a passing interest in caravans of whatever sex or age or race or inclination. Or even perhaps someone with apparently no interest in caravans who might have a previously latent interest aroused. Some even talk in hushed tones of a parallel universe though he has no personal experience of this yet. Anything is possible.
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This is a definitive concise account of our remarkable past. From the Battle of Catterick (AD 598) to the premiership of Tony Blair one of Britains most respected journalists Simon Jenkins weaves together a strong narrative with all the most important & interesting dates in a book that characteristically is as stylish as it is authoritative. There have been long synoptic histories of England but until now there has been no standard short work covering all significant events themes & individuals. Published with the support of the National Trust & beautifully illustrated this magisterial history will be the standard work for years to come. ...

Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller: but even when he stays safely in his own study at home he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything is his quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization
- how we got from there being nothing at all to here being us. Bill Bryson's challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us like geology chemistry & particle physics & see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. It's not so much about what we know as about how we know what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the Earth or what a black hole is or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out? On his travels through time & space he encounters a splendid collection of astonishingly eccentric competitive obsessive & foolish scientists like the painfully shy Henry Cavendish who worked out many conundrums like how much the Earth weighed but never bothered to tell anybody about many of his findings. In the company of such extraordinary people Bill Bryson takes us with him on the ultimate eye-opening journey & reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.
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In the bestselling prize-winning A Short History of Nearly Everything" Bill Bryson achieved the seemingly impossible by making the world of science both understandable & entertaining to millions of people around the globe. Now in this glorious new illustrated edition everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization is even more vividly brought to life with stunning full-colour photographs drawings portraits & cartoons." ...

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Brysons quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization
- how we got from there being nothing at all to here being us. His challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us & see if there isnt some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. Its not so much about what we know as about how we know what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the Earth or what a black hole is or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out? On his travels through time & space Bill Bryson takes us with him on the ultimate eye-opening journey & reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before. -A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Brysons quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization
- how we got from there being nothing at all to here being us. His challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us & see if there isnt some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. Its not so much about what we know as about how we know what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the Earth or what a black hole is or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out? On his travels through time & space Bill Bryson takes us with him on the ultimate eye-opening journey & reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.

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Palaeolithic hunters who learnt how to kill two mammoths instead of one had made progress. Those who learnt how to kill 200
- by
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The years of the Spanish Civil War filled twentieth-century Spain with hope frustration & drama. Not only did it pit countryman against countryman & neighbour against neighbour but from 1936-39 this bitterly contended struggle sucked in competing & seemingly atavistic forces that were soon to rage across the face of Europe & then the rest of the world: nationalism & republicanism; communism & fascism; anarchism & monarchism; anti-clerical reformism & aristocratic Catholic conservatism. The Guerra Civil" is of enduring interest precisely because it represents much more than just a regional contest for power & governmental legitimacy. It has come to be seen as a seedbed for the titanic political struggles & larger social upheavals that scarred the entire twentieth century. In elegant & accessible prose Julian Casanova tells the gripping story of these years of anguish & trauma which hit the country with a force hitherto unknown at any time in Spains history. Charting the most significant events & battles alongside the main players in the tragedy he provides answers to some of the pressing questions (such as the roots & extent of anti-clerical violence) that have been asked in the seventy years that have passed since the painful defeat of the Second Republic." ...