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. ...

This is the definitive concise account of our remarkable past. Which battle was fought ' For England Harry & St George'? Who demanded to be painted 'warts & all'? What
- & when
- was the Battle of the Bulge? In A Short History of England" bestselling author Simon Jenkins answers all these questions
- & many more
- as he tells the tumultuous story of a fascinating nation. From the invaders of the dark ages to today's coalition via the Tudors the Stuarts & two world wars Jenkins weaves together a gripping narrative with all the most important & interesting dates in his own inimitable style. Until now there has been no short history of England covering all significant event themes & individuals: this bestselling book published in association with the National Trust will be the standard work for years to come."



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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.

...

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." ...

The Wars of the Roses (c. 1455-1487) are renowned as an infamously savage & tangled slice of English history. A bloody thirty-year struggle between the dynastic houses of Lancaster & York they embraced localised vendetta (such as the bitter northern feud between the Percies & Nevilles) as well as the formal clash of royalist & rebel armies at St Albans Ludford Bridge Mortimer's Cross Towton Tewkesbury & finally Bosworth when the usurping Yorkist king Richard III was crushed by Henry Tudor. Powerful personalities dominate the period: the charismatic & enigmatic Richard III immortalized by Shakespeare; the slippery Warwick the Kingmaker' who finally over-reached ambition to be cut down at the Battle of Barnet; & guileful women like Elizabeth Woodville & Margaret of Anjou who for a time ruled the kingdom in her husband's stead. David Grummitt places the violent events of this complex time in the wider context of fifteenth-century kingship & the development of English political culture. Never losing sight of the traumatic impact of war on the lives of those who either fought in or were touched by battle this captivating new history will make compelling reading for students of the late medieval period & Tudor England as well as for general readers. ...

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" is bestselling author Marina Lewycka's hilarious & award winning debut novel. ' Two years after my mother died my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four & she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade churning up the murky water bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside.' Sisters Vera & Nadezhda must aside a lifetime of feuding to save their emigre engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear & boil-in-the-bag cuisine she will stop at nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth. But the sisters' campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets uncovers fifty years of Europe's darkest history & sends them back to roots they'd much rather forget..." It's rare to find a first novel that gets so much right... Lewycka is a seriously talented comic writer". (" Time Out"). " Hugely enjoyable...yields a golden harvest of family truths". (" Daily Telegraph"). " Delightful funny touching". (" Spectator"). Bestselling author Marina Lewkyca has received great critical acclaim since the publication of her hilarious first novel "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" in 2005 which was the winner of the Bollinger Everyman Prize for Comic Fiction 2005 winner of the Saga Award for Wit 2005 shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2005 & longlisted for the Booker prize 2005. Her other humorous novels " Two Caravans" (published as Strawberry Fields in the USA & Canada) " We Are All made from Glue" & " Various Pets Alive & Dead" are also available from Penguin." ...

The best simply got better. The first edition of this book was already quite simply the best introduction to psychoanalysis ever written & has been appropriately extremely popular with teachers & students alike. The thoroughly updated second edition retains all the powerful features of the first including its remarkable clarity & accessibility. The field will be greatly indebted to these authors for many years." (Professor Peter Fonagy University College London). A Short Introduction to Psychoanalysis offers a user-friendly introduction to arguably the most misunderstood of all the psychological therapies. This fully updated & revised second edition explains what psychoanalysis really is & provides the reader with an overview of its basic concepts historical development critiques & research base. Demonstrating the far reaching influence of psychoanalysis the authors
- all practicing psychoanalysts
- describe how its concepts have been applied beyond the consulting room & examine its place within the spectrum of other psychological theories. The text is enlivened by numerous clinical examples. New to this edition: the book discusses parent infant psychotherapy & mentalization-based therapy (MBT); further investigates psychotherapy in the NHS & the IAPT programme with more on the debate between CBT & analytic approaches;

Includes:: more on dreaming & attachment theory with added examples; &

Includes:: new research studies & addresses the new field of psychosocial studies. This down-to-earth guide provides the ideal 'way-in' to the subject for new trainees. For anyone thinking of becoming a psychoanalyst the book also provides information on the training process & the structure of the profession."





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Collected here for the first time in a deluxe paperback volume are six of John Steinbecks most widely read & beloved novels--Tortilla Flat The Red Pony Of Mice & Men The Moon Is Down Cannery Row " & " The Pearl." From Steinbecks tale of commitment loneliness & hope in " Of Mice & Men " to his tough yet charming portrait of people on the margins of society in " Cannery Row " to " The Pearl"s examination of the fallacy of the American dream Steinbeck created stories that were realistic rugged & imbued with energy & resilience. @IAm With Sam Lennie came back into the cabin with that look on his face & I said Lennie did you kill another woman? He told me he had done it again he thought. Why do I get stuck with the dangerously disabled? Did Forrest Gump ever hurt anyone? From " Twitterature: The Worlds Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less"" ...