Famous makes & models dominate motorcycle history but there have been many fascinating designs that never reached the spotlight. In the shadows lesser-known
- & often wacky
- motorcycles have come & gone. Unusual Motorcycles" is a celebration of the bikes scooters side-cars & engines that never quite made it. With insightful text accompanied by around 500 photographs this attractive book is a must-have for all fans of motorbikes & their history."

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Life is so unfair & it sends many things to try Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld author of Portuguese Irregular Verbs & pillar of the Institute of Romance Philology in the proud Bavarian city of Regensburg. There is the undeserved rise of his rival (and owner of a one-legged dachshund) Detlev Amadeus Unterholzer; the interminable ramblings of the librarian Herr Huber; & the condescension of his colleagues with regard to his unmarried state. But when his friend Ophelia Prinzel takes it upon herself to match-make & duly produces a cheerful heiress with her own Schloss it appears that the professors true worth is about to be recognised. Maddening idiotic & hugely entertaining von Igelfeld is an inspired comic creation. ...

In the middle of a rainy Swedish summer a little girl is abducted from a crowded train. Despite hundreds of potential witnesses no one noticed when the girl was taken. Her mother left behind at the previous station alerted the crew immediately. But as the train pulled into Stockholm Central Station the girl was nowhere to be seen. To Inspector Alex Recht of the Stockholm police this looks like a classic custody row. But none of the evidence adds up & young Investigative Analyst Fredrika Bergman is convinced the case is far more complex than her boss is prepared to admit. So when the missing child is found dead in the far north of Sweden with the word UNWANTED scribbled on her forehead the rule book is finally thrown out of the window. Now on the trail of a ruthless murderer with a terrifying agenda will Alex & Fredrika manage to put aside their differences & work together to find the killer before it's too late? ...

Donald Barnard came to England from St Lucia to join the RAF as a bomber pilot. On his second tour of operations he was shot down over northern France in September 1942. He was rewarded with the Distinguished Flying Cross whilst missing in action. Donald evaded capture; assisted to Spain by an escape network & later compiled a detailed diary of his entire evasion exploits. Posted to test fly Spitfires flying in excess of 1 000 individual aircraft. Barnard then moved to the Far East supply dropping in 1945. In Burma disapproving of the delay in recovering the emaciated allied POWs he decided to take an aircraft without authority. 25 prisoners were recovered from Bankok to Rangoon. After a full Court Martial he was dismissed from the RAF. He flew civilian aircraft after the war in Australia & in Britain joining No.2 Civil Anti Aircraft Co-operation Unit in Norfolk 1953. Flying ended for him in 1955 & he died in 1997 at the age of 79. Rarely has the opportunity been available to reproduce from a diary such a personal account of evasion. A bomber & Spitfire pilot Court Martialled for the rescue of Japanese held emaciated allied prisoners of war creates a unique career story supported by French resistance sources original photographs. ...

From the bestselling author of The God Delusion" Richard Dawkins' " Unweaving the Rainbow" explores the most important & compelling topics in modern science & our appetite for wonder. Keats accused Newton of destroying the poetry of the rainbow by explaining the origin of its colours thus dispelling its mystery. In this illuminating & provocative book Richard Dawkins argues that Keats could not have been more mistaken & shows how an understanding of science in fact inspires the human imagination & enhances our wonder of the world. " Beautifully written & full of interesting original ideas. Essential reading". (" The Times"). "A brilliant assertion of the wonder & excitement of real tough grown-up science". (A.S. Byatt). " The way Dawkins writes about science is not just a brain-tonic. It is more like an extended stay on a brain health-farm.. .you come out feeling lean tuned & enormously more intelligent". (" Sunday Times"). " For Dawkins there is more poetry not less in the rainbow because of Newton.. .warming to his theme he weaves rainbows of wonder from other provinces of science & then unleashes his fury on those who accuse scientists like him of being unimaginative for not believing in horoscopes telepathy ghosts & gods". (Matt Ridley). " Brilliantly entertaining & stimulating". (" Observer"). Richard Dawkins is a Fellow of both the Royal Society & the Royal Society of Literature & Vice President of the British Humanist Association. He was first catapulted to fame with The Selfish Gene which he followed with a string of bestselling books: " The Extended Phenotype" " The Blind Watchmaker" " River Out of Eden" " Unweaving the Rainbow" & an impassioned defence of atheism " The God Delusion"." ...

Just over a decade into the new millennium America is beset by a sense of crisis. The seismic shifts that occurred in the space of a generation have created a country of winners & losers leaving the social contract in pieces. In The Unwinding" George Packer narrates the story of America over the past three decades bringing to the task his empathy with people facing difficult challenges his sharp eye for detail & a gift for weaving together engaging narratives. " The Unwinding" moves deftly back & forth through the lives of half a dozen characters including Dean Price the son of tobacco farmers who becomes an evangelist for a new economy in the rural South; Tammy Thomas a factory worker in the industrial Midwest trying to survive the collapse of her city; Jeff Connaughton a Washington careerist; & Peter Thiel a Silicon Valley billionaire. The narrative alternates these intimately told stories with biographical sketches of the era's leading public figures from Oprah Winfrey to Steve Jobs capturing the year-by-year flow of events. " The Unwinding" portrays a superpower coming apart at the seams its elites & institutions no longer working leaving ordinary people to improvise their own schemes for salvation." ...

In this much-anticipated sequel to the internationally best-selling picture book Lost & Found we revisit the boy & the penguin after their trip to the South Pole... The boy & the penguin still enjoy spending all their time together... That is until the penguin starts to dream of flying ignoring the boys advice that it is impossible. Running away the penguin visits place after place searching for a chance to get his feet off the ground. But will flying be everything he had hoped? & is the boy missing him as much as he is missing the boy? A heart-warming story about friendship love & reaching for your dreams from highly-regarded multi-award-winning author-illustrator Oliver Jeffers. ...

From the Sunday Times" bestselling author Gervase Phinn comes a fourth book of reminiscences about life as a Yorkshire Dales school inspector that will continue to delight & charm fans across the globe. Life for the Gervase Phinn is about to become not unlike the rambling hills of the Dales themselves
- up & down & all over the place. After a routine school inspection
- & a rather brutal report
- culminates with a teacher being forced into early retirement Gervase is left feeling his year hasnt exactly begun on the right foot. Then the news that his local school is closing down the accidental demolishment of an historical church (disguised as a disused barn in his backyard) & an injured knee which puts him into hospital. & still Gervase manages to gallantly retain his sense of humour throughout making this a delightful charming & thoroughly entertaining read."


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Country houses were reliant on an intricate hierarchy of servants each of whom provided an essential skill. Up & Down Stairs brings to life this hierarchy & shows how large numbers of people lived together under strict segregation & how sometimes this segregation was broken as with the famous marriage of a squire to his dairymaid at Uppark. Jeremy Musson captures the voices of the servants who ran these vast houses & made them work. From unpublished memoirs to letters wages newspaper articles he pieces together their daily lives from the Middle Ages through to the twentieth century. The story of domestic servants is inseparable from the story of the country house as an icon of power civilisation & luxury. This is particularly true with the great estates such as Chatsworth Hatfield Burghley & Wilton. Jeremy Musson looks at how these grand houses were for centuries admired & imitated around the world. ...

Mike Pannett once of the Metropolitan Police is back in Yorkshire policing one of the largest rural beats in Engl&. Mike is called to investigate a series of burglaries which are sending shock waves through the area. Remote farmhouses appear to be the targets which stretches Mike's small team to the limits. Then as winter sets in two dogs are found running loose
- Mike fears the owner has gone missing in the dreadful weather & is forced to call on a full-scale search. Throw in a night-time operation in an empty museum & the harrowing business of taking three children into care against their mother's wishes & it's quite a case-load for the author of Now Then Lad You're Coming With Me Lad Not On My Patch Lad & Just the Job Lad.
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