The beginning of the twenty-first century will be remembered Friedman argues not for military conflicts or political events but for a whole new age of globalization
- a flattening of the world. The explosion of advanced technologies now means that suddenly knowledge pools & resources have connected all over the planet levelling the playing field as never before so that each of us is potentially an equal
- & competitor
- of the other. The rules of the game have changed forever
- but does this death of distance which requires us all to run faster in order to stay in the same place mean the world has got too small & too flat too fast for us to adjust? Friedman brilliantly demystifies the exciting often bewildering global scene unfolding before our eyes one which we sense but barely yet underst&. The World is Flat" is the most timely & essential update on globalization its successes & its discontents powerfully illuminated by a world-class writer. In his new chapters: If Its Not Happening Its Because Youre Not Doing It & What Happens When We All Have Dogs Hearing? the author explores both the benefits & disadvantages of the very latest developments in global communication. The emergent popularity of blogging pod-casting " You Tube & My Space" enable the modern world citizen to broadcast their views to a potential audience of billions & the proliferation of Internet access to even the poorest communities gives everyone who wants to the tools to address issues of social injustice & inequality. On the other hand the technology that seems to improve communication on a global scale causes it to deteriorate on a local scale. Identifying ours as The Age of Interruption Friedman discusses the annoyance & dangers of Black Berrys in meeting rooms hands-free kits in conversation & using a phone or iPod whilst driving. In an age when we are always connected via email or mobile phone how can we hope to concentrate on one thing without interruption? As expected the author has revitalised this new edition of " The World is Flat" with timely insights into the nature of our flat world."



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David Cooper cheats on his wife. She doesn't cheat
- & that suits him fine. Until the young & beautiful Claudia appears & David
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World Kitchen Italy explores the ways in which geography climate culture & tradition have shaped one of the worlds most popular cuisines. It takes a look at the behind-the-scenes world of growers artisans chefs & home cooks whose passion for produce helps maintain & reinterpret the regional styles & flavours of Italys rich & varied food. More than 100 recipes including pasta rice & polenta dishes soups salads seafood specialties pizzas breads vegetable dishes & desserts."" ...

World Kitchen Morocco explores the ways in which geography climate culture & tradition have shaped one of the worlds most popular cuisines. It takes a look at the behind-the-scenes world of growers artisans chefs & home cooks whose passion for produce helps maintain & reinterpret the regional styles & flavours of Moroccos rich & varied food. More than 100 recipes including street food festive food seafood specialties tagines breads vegetable dishes & pastries. "" ...

World Kitchen Spain explores the ways in which geography climate culture & tradition have shaped one of the worlds most popular cuisines. It takes a look at the behind-the-scenes world of growers artisans chefs & home cooks whose passion for produce helps maintain & reinterpret the regional styles & flavours of Spains rich & varied food. More than 100 recipes including tapas soups & stews seafood specialties egg & vegetable dishes & sweets & desserts."" ...

In 1921 a publishing phenomenon began with the publication of The Mysterious Affair at Styles" a sophisticated murder mystery with a protagonist by the name of Hercule Poirot. It was the first of more than 60 crime novels by Agatha Christie & heralded the career of an author who went on to outsell even Shakespeare. Agatha Christies works remain a literary phenomenon & many of her mysteries have been immortalized through sumptuous television & cinema adaptations. Christie herself was a discreet private & ladylike person. Yet her life was far from dull: she travelled widely & in 1926 she hit the headlines when she disappeared creating a mystery around her life as intriguing as any plot she had ever written. " The World of Agatha Christie" looks at this & other factors that have shaped her life providing a colourful & informative look at the originator of the ingeniously constructed "whodunits". Revised & updated for 2012 & highly illustrated " The World of Agatha Christie" is the perfect companion to the work of this most popular of mystery writers." ...

Arthur Ransome is most famous as the author of Swallows & Amazons but he was also a literary critic a foreign correspondent a fisherman & a sailor. The World of Arthur Ransome explores the places that shaped the writer. It tells the story of his childhood his friendships his two wives & daughter. It also describes how & where he wrote each of his twelve classic children's books & the people & books that inspired them. There is no doubt that Ransome's spiritual home was the ' Lake in the North' where he set five of his twelve iconic books for children. He holidayed on the banks of Coniston Water as a boy & camped there as a young man but his most important & longest-lasting home was Low Ludderburn on the slopes of Cartmel Fell & close to Lake Windermere. There he wrote Swallows & Amazons & three of its sequels. Another four of his books were set in East Anglia where he moved so that he could sail on the Norfolk Broads & the east coast rivers around Pin Mill. Here shipboard domestic arrangements came to the fore: all the cabins of his boats were equipped with writing desks & a bookcase. He was never happier than when writing while afloat in his favourite little yacht the Nancy Blackett immortalized as Goblin in We Didn't Mean to Go To Sea. With a keen & affectionate eye Christina Hardyment places this most loved of English authors in the settings which so richly define his work. ...

A Blandings Omnibus. In this wonderfully fat omnibus which seems to span the

Dimensions of the Empress of Blandings

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David Riggs evokes the atmosphere & texture of Marlowes life from the stench & poverty of a childhood spent near Canterburys abattoirs to the fanatical pursuit of classical learning at school. Marlowe won a place at Cambridge University where he entered its world of 18-hour working days religious intrigue & twilight homosexuality tolerated but unspoken. The gifted student was not immune to the passions & fears of the wider society & Riggs describes the mood of England in those years when Elizabeths crown was anything but secure & Spain & the Papacy were determined to overthrow her regime. Looming above everything is the Elizabethan state & its spy rings with which Marlowe was already involved by the time he left Cambridge. His undercover missions brought him into contact with Catholic conspirators who were plotting to kill the Queen; yet as a playwright & thinker he was attracted to the most unorthodox & threatening idea of all
- atheism. Marlowes brief life was enigmatic contradictory & glorious
- & this magisterial work of reconstruction & scholarship illuminates it with immense richness.

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Gabrielle Coco Chanel is an icon of fashion & can lay claim to having invented the look of the 20th century. At the height of the Belle Epoque she stripped women of their corsets & feathers bobbed their hair put them in bathing suits & sent them out to get tanned in the sun. She introduced the little black dress; trousers for women; costume jewelry; the exquisitely comfortable suit that became her trademark. Early in the Roaring Twenties Chanel made the first ever couture perfume
- No. 5
- presenting it in the famous little square-cut flagon that inspired by Picasso & Cubism became the arch symbol of the Art Deco style. No. 5 remains the most popular scent ever created. Chanel knew instinctively that the road to success lay in being absolutely at one with her own time. & what a time! The era of Picasso Diaghilev Stravinsky Cocteau Jean Renoir Visconti
- all of whom Coco knew & collaborated with even as she matched their modernist innovations by liberating women from the prison of 19th-century fashion & creating a whole new concept of elegance. Chanel went everywhere & knew everyone & as this sumptuously illustrated volume clearly shows her life & accomplishment
- even her chronic failure in love
- constitute one of the great stories of the modern age. Her life is eminently suited to the lavish visual treatment of this handsome volume which features more than 600 illustrations from an extraordinary collection amassed over the years by Edmonde Charles-Roux Chanels official biographer & close friend. An authoritative & practised writer Charles-Roux has used careful research & vivid eyewitness accounts to set the pictures in their context of time & place. She makes Chanel live again!




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