Tay BridgeOn the night of Sunday December 28, 1879, the unthinkable happened. Battered by a ferocious storm, the Tay Bridge collapsed. Tay Bridge tells the poignant and unexpected stories of the suddenly interrupted passengers making the journey that night. Who were they? Where were they going? A powerful ensemble piece, Tay Bridge gives a whole new perspective on this famous bridge disaster.The SignalmanWinter 1919. Thomas Barclay is transported back in time by his memories of the night when he was the Signalman who sent the Edinburgh/Burntisland train onto the Tay Rail Bridge forty years before. Who is responsible when accidents occur? Why do we need somebody to blame...even if it's ourselves?

A beautiful and heart-warming collection of stories, this landmark publication tells, for the first time ever, the rich history of the NHS through the ordinary people who have experienced it. Founded on the concept of providing healthcare to rich and poor alike, the National Health Service (NHS) has been at the heart of our everyday experiences of life and death since 1948. From Joan Meredith, who stood on street corners in the freezing winter to campaign for a new health system, to one of the first patients diagnosed with HIV/Aids, Jonathan Blake, and Klarissa Velasco, who comforted and held the hands of people suffering from Covid-19, Our NHS follows our health service from its conception to today, and tells the many incredible stories that have happened throughout its lifetime. Filled with tales of every part of life, this beautiful book tells, for the first time ever, the moving history of our world-leading health service through the voices of the patients, nurses, doctors, porters and ordinary people who have turned it into the beating heart of our country. It is a heart-warming account of an amazing institution.

'I hope the slave trade may be abolished. I pray it may be an event at hand.' Published a few days before the British parliament first debated the abolition of the slave trade in 1789, Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative gives the author's account of his enslavement after his childhood kidnapping in Africa, and his journey from slavery to freedom. Equiano was slave to a captain in the Royal Navy, and later to a Quaker merchant, and he vividly depicts the appalling treatment of enslaved people at sea and on land. He takes part in naval engagements, is shipwrecked, and has other exciting adventures on his travels to the Caribbean, America, and the Arctic. Equiano claimed his own freedom and became an important abolitionist, but his Narrative is much more than merely a political pamphlet. The most important African autobiography of the eighteenth century, it has achieved an increasingly central position among the century's great works of literature. The introduction to this edition surveys recent debates about Equiano's birthplace and identity, and considers his campaigning role and literary achievements.

A legendary lawman, buffalo hunter, Indian fighter, and newspaper columnist, Bat Masterson served as sheriff of Ford County, Kansas, ruled Dodge City, and became an eyewitness to the heyday of the Old West's most notorious outlaws. His thrilling collection of mini-biographies reveals fascinating details about a host of legendary gunslingers, painting a vivid portrait of a world of sharpshooters, cattle rustlers, and frontier justice. First published as a series of magazine articles in 1907, these life-and-death dramas introduce you to some of the most famous gunfighters America has ever known.
The roundup includes Wyatt Earp, who had a reputation for courage and calm, but went on the warpath when one of his five brothers was killed by stagecoach robbers; Doc Holliday, a mean-tempered dentist who loved poker and moonshine -- and found trouble wherever he traveled; Ben Thompson, a fearless gunman who served in the Civil War and was determined to continue fighting after the last battle ended; Luke Short, a slightly built man with nerves of steel, who started out as a gambler and ended up a Shakespeare-quoting gentleman; and Bill Tilghman, who captured some of the West's most desperate criminals. Illustrated with forty-eight rare 19th-century photos, these colorful accounts will appeal to anyone with a love of Western lore.

Since "Jaws" scared a nation of moviegoers out of the water three decades ago, great white sharks have attained a mythical status as the most frightening and mysterious monsters to still live among us. Each fall, just twenty-seven miles off the San Francisco coast, in the waters surrounding a desolate rocky island chain, the world's largest congregation of these fearsome predators gathers to feed. Journalist Susan Casey first saw the great whites of the Farallones in a television documentary. Within months, she was sitting with the program's two scientists in a small motorboat as the sharks - some as long as twenty feet, as wide as a semitrailer - circled around them. From this first encounter, Casey became obsessed with these awe-inspiring creatures, and a plan was hatched for her to join the scientists and follow their research. "The Devil's Teeth" is the riveting account of that one fateful shark season. An exhilarating adventure story, "The Devil's Teeth" offers a glimpse into a violent, uncivilized world ruled by nature's most powerful and mysterious predators, a world where man is neither wanted nor needed.

Ernest Coleman has led or participated in four expeditions to find out the fate of the Franklin expedition. 129 men were lost from the two ships the Erebus and the Terror, looking for the North-West Passage. Many theories have been put forward - and some of them, in the author's opinion, have been shaped by political bias. 'The whole subject has been taken over by academics and politicians, both for questions of Canadian sovereignty and academic advancement - all at the cost of Franklin's (and the Royal Navy's) reputation.' In this work, Coleman is determined to set the record straight: 'I have provided answers to all their machinations (including the "lead poisoning" tripe, and the "cannibalism" nonsense), cracked the code in the writings of Petty Officer Peglar (bones found and wallet recovered), and given new answers to all the many smaller mysteries that continue to be reproduced by others. I have also revealed the possible site of Franklin's grave, the biggest mystery of all.' No Earthly Pole is an adventure set within an adventure. Ernest Coleman's lifetime quest for the truth at the ends of the earth is an extraordinary tale of determination in itself. The story of Franklin's expedition remains one of the greatest and most tragic events of the age of exploration.

It is widely believed that people living in the Middle Ages seldom traveled. But, as Medieval Travel and Travelers reveals, many medieval people - and not only Marco Polo - were on the move for a variety of different reasons. Assuming no previous knowledge of medieval civilizations, this volume allows readers to experience the excitement of men and women who ventured into new lands. By addressing cross-cultural interaction, religion, and travel literature, the collection sheds light on how travel shaped the way we perceive the world, while also connecting history to the contemporary era of globalization. Including a mix of complete sources, excerpts, and images, Medieval Travel and Travelers provides readers with opportunities for further reflection on what medieval people expected to find in foreign locales, while sparking curiosity about undiscovered spaces and cultures.

'Asne Seierstad is the supreme non-fiction writer of her generation ... Two Sisters isn't only the story of how a pair of teenage girls became radicalised but an unsparing portrait of our own society - of its failings and its joys' Luke Harding On 17 October 2013, teenage sisters Ayan and Leila Juma left their family home near Oslo, seemingly as usual. Later that day they sent an email to their unsuspecting parents, confessing they were on their way to Syria. They had been planning the trip for months in secret. Asne Seierstad - working closely with the family - followed the story through its many dramatic twists and turns. This is, in part, a story about Syria. But most of all it is a story of what happens to apparently ordinary people when their lives are turned upside down by conflict and tragedy. 'A masterpiece and a masterclass in investigative journalism' Christina Lamb, Sunday Times 'Meticulously documented, full of drama ... this is a tale fluently told, and a thriller as well' Kate Adie, Literary Review 'A masterwork. Brilliantly conceived, scrupulously reported and beautifully written, this book is compulsive reading' Jon Lee Anderson

On 14th April 1912 the Titanic struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sank. Fifteen hundred passengers and crew lost their lives. As the order to abandon ship was given, the orchestra took their instruments on deck and continued to play. They were still playing when the ship went down. The violinist, 21 year-old Jock Hume, knew that his fiancee, Mary, was expecting their first child, the author's mother. One hundred years later, Christopher Ward reveals a dramatic story of love, loss and betrayal, and the catastrophic impact of Jock's death on two very different Scottish families. He paints a vivid portrait of an age in which class determined the way you lived - and died. An outstanding piece of historical detective work, AND THE BAND PLAYED ON is also a moving account of how the author's quest to learn more about his grandfather revealed the shocking truth about a family he thought he knew, a truth that had been hidden for nearly a hundred years.

Curious to find out what it means to be an Anglo-Indian? Join Andrea Malam BEM as she shares the story of her journey from Bombay to London, and the search for her ancestry and identity. Along with her contributors, Andrea reveals the Anglo-Indian experience in different countries as she investigates what it means to be a modern-day Anglo-Indian. Discovering changing perceptions along the way, they explore the rich memories, culture, and successes of their community. Along with stories of positive thinking, passion, and determination, Andrea reveals the Anglo-Indian experience in different countries.

This is the first comprehensive study of the life and work of Andrew Fernando Holmes, famous for his work on congenital heart disease. Physician, surgeon, natural historian, educator, Protestant evangelical. Andrew Fernando Holmes's name is synonymous with the McGill medical faculty and with the discovery of a congenital heart malformation known as the "Holmes heart." Born in captivity at Cadiz, Spain, Holmes immigrated to Lower Canada in the first decade of the nineteenth century. He arrived in a province that was experiencing profound social, economic, and cultural change as the result of a long process of integration into the British Atlantic world. A transatlantic perspective, therefore, undergirds this biography, from an exploration of how Holmes's family members were participants in an Atlantic world of trade and consumption, to explaining how his educational experiences at Edinburgh and Paris informed his approach to the practice of medicine, medical education, and medical politics.

'Another dark parable of society's vilification of women. Intelligent ... A tantalizing investigation' Kate Colquhoun.

On the night of 3 October 1922, in the quiet suburb of Ilford, Edith Thompson and her husband Percy were walking home after an evening spent at a London theatre, when a man sprang out of the darkness and stabbed Percy to death. The assailant was Frederick Bywaters, a twenty-year-old merchant seaman who had been Edith's lover. When the police learned of his relationship with Edith, she was arrested as his accomplice, despite protesting her innocence. The remarkably intense love letters Edith wrote to Freddy – some of them couched in ambiguous language – were read out at their trial for murder at the Old Bailey. They would seal her fate: Edith and Freddy were hanged for the murder of Percy Thompson in January 1923. Freddy was demonstrably guilty; but was Edith truly so?

In shattering detail and with masterful emotional insight, Laura Thompson charts the course of a liaison with thrice-fatal consequences, and investigates what the trial and execution of Edith Thompson tell us about perceptions of women in early twentieth-century Britain.

Featured in New Scientist's Best Books of 2021 'Filled with wonderment and awe ... Greene's eloquent memoir is equal parts escape and comfort.' Publishers Weekly A powerful reflection on life in isolation, in pursuit of the dream of Mars. In 2013 Kate Greene moved to Mars. On NASA's first HI-SEAS simulated Mars mission in Hawaii, she lived for four months in an isolated geodesic dome with her crewmates, gaining incredible insight into human behaviour in tight quarters, as well as the nature of boredom, dreams and isolation that arise amidst the promise of scientific progress and glory. Greene draws on her experience to contemplate what makes an astronaut, the challenges of freeze-dried eggs and time-lagged correspondence, the cost of shooting for a Planet B. The result is a story of space and life, of the slippage between dreams and reality, of bodies in space, and of humanity's incredible impulse to explore. From trying out life on Mars, Greene examines what it is to live on Earth. 'In her thoughtful, well-written account of the mission, Greene reflects on what this and other space missions can teach us about ourselves and life on Earth.' Physics Today