Whitakers Concise Almanack 2012 is the definitive reference guide to the UK. A softback shorter version of its big sister Whitakers Almanack the Concise edition is a UK-centric goldmine of information with enormous breadth of coverage. The Concise edition doesnt contain any international coverage but at less than half the price of the standard edition the reader with an interest in UK facts & figures is really getting value for your money. Areas of coverage include: government & politics communications private & state education religion environment cultural heritage the UK legal system royalty & peerage social welfare IT mobile phone industry environment heritage astronomy & much more
- quite simply the UK in one volume! If you want to know it...its here John Humphrys
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An authoritative quirky trivia book divided into themed chapters. Whitakers Little Book of Knowledge contains thousands of general knowledge gems: from everything you learned at school to fascinating lists of contemporary top-tens mini-biographies of famous artists & writers plus condensed guides to films & works of art & literature. In addition there is a light-hearted journey down memory lane featuring humorous entries on forgotten treasures from different decades & a st&-alone sport chapter with guides to both well-known & obscure sports key rules a glossary of terms & short biographies of the worlds greatest sporting heroes. Facts are both newly researched & drawn from the rich treasure-trove of the Whitakers Almanack archive which dates back to 1868. Whitakers Little Book of Knowledge is a truly unique ready-reference containing fascinating facts for every trivia buff while providing a unique insight into the world from the 19th century through to the present day. ...

Perfect for day trips & short breaks the OS Landranger Map series covers Great Britain with 204 detailed maps. Each map provides all the information you need to get to know your local area &

Includes:: places of interest tourist information picnic areas & camp sites plus Rights of Way information for England & Wales.

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Dominating the seaport of Whitby from its headland site the imposing & brooding ruins of Whitby Abbey date from the seventh century. The renowned & wise St Hilda ruled over the first monastery & witnessed one of the defining moments in the establishment of the Church
- the Synod of Whitby in AD 664. Sacked by the Vikings it lay in ruins until the Norman Conquest when it was re-established & grew into one of the most powerful & richest Abbeys in Yorkshire. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII the site was sold & the lord of the manor built himself a grand private residence using some of the stone from the Abbey. Over time the abbey ruins came into the guardianship of English Heritage who have in the last fifty years conserved the ruins for posterity & transformed the headland into a major tourist area.
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To visit Whitby's ' Yards' is to step back in time. Hardly changed from the Middle Ages this is where one can still meet old Whitby
- a secret Whitby
- unspoilt & untroubled by the holiday visitor. The yards alleyways & ghauts are fascinating places to explore. Though often private there are enough remaining to catch a glimpse of what this small seaport must have been like two or three hundred years ago. Today over eighty named yards still exist out of more than one hundred & there are in addition another thirty or so places of similar character but perhaps called 'steps' 'lane' 'square' or 'place'. The origins of the yards lay in the days of medieval Whitby & its development. Join Alan Whitworth on this affectionate & lavishly illustrated account which will surprise & delight anyone who knows the area.

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When Muddy Waters came to London at the start of the 60s a kid from Boston called Joe Boyd was his tour manager; when Dylan went electric at the Newport Festival Joe Boyd was plugging in his guitar; when the summer of love got going Joe Boyd was running the coolest club in London the UFO; when a bunch of club regulars called Pink Floyd recorded their first single Joe Boyd was the producer; when a young songwriter named Nick Drake wanted to give his demo tape to someone he chose Joe Boyd. More than any previous 60s music autobiography Joe Boyds White Bicycles" offers the real story of what it was like to be there at the time. His greatest coup is bringing to life the famously elusive figure of Nick Drake
- the first time hes been written about by anyone who knew him well. As well as the 60s heavy-hitters this book also offers wonderfully vivid portraits of a whole host of other musicians: everyone from the great jazzman Coleman Hawkins to the folk diva Sandy Denny Lonnie Johnson to Eric Clapton The Incredible String Band to Fairport Convention."
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One wet November morning a field on Meagher's Farm gives up the dismembered bones of eleven women. In this part of Ireland unmarked graves are common. But these bones date to 1915 long before the Troubles. What's more these bones bear the marks of a meticulous executioner. These women were almost certainly skinned alive. Detective Katie Maguire of the Cork Garda is used to dead bodies. But this is wholesale butchery. Her team think these long-dead women are a waste of police time. Katie is determined to give them justice. & then a young American tourist goes missing & her bones carefully stripped of flesh are discovered on the same farm. With the crimes of the past echoing in the present Katie must solve a decades-old ritualistic murder before this terrifying killer strikes again. Published in America under the title A Terrible Beauty White Bones marks Katie Maguire's UK debut. ...

Harriet must choose between her friend Lalla & her new-found love of ice-skating! If you pass your inter-silver Ill tell Aunt Claudia that I dont want to work with you any more." Harriet is told that she must take up ice-skating in order to improve her health. She isnt much good at it until she meets Lalla Moore a young skating star. Now Harriet is getting better & better on the ice & Lalla doesnt like it. Does Harriet want to save their friendship more than she wants to skate?" ...

In this new anecdotal book the unstoppable Dickie Bird takes one County Cricket Club at a time & revisits each with the aid of memorabilia statistics books & videos. A mass of new hilarious stories flow from Dickie as he flexes his memory: he describes the cricketers the matches & the character of these clubs. Dickie also relives his journeys as a umpire to clubs & Test match arenas overseas & recalls the humorous times that have filled his unique career. This is a must have for cricket enthusiasts everywhere. ...

In the seventeenth & eighteenth centuries 300 000 people or more became slaves there in all but name. Urchins were swept up from London's streets to labour in the tobacco fields brothels were raided to provide 'breeders' for Virginia & hopeful migrants were duped into signing as indentured servants unaware they would become chattels who could be bought sold & gambled away. Drawing on letters diaries & court & government archives the authors demonstrate that the brutalities associated with black slavery alone were perpetrated on whites throughout British rule. The trade ended with American independence but the British still tried to sell convicts in their former colonies which prompted one of the most audacious plots in Anglo-American history. This is a saga of exploitation & cruelty spanning 170 years that has been submerged under the overwhelming memory of black slavery. White Cargo" brings the brutal uncomfortable story to the surface." ...