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Books > Fiction > True stories > Discovery / historical / scientific
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A Small Place
(Paperback)
Jamaica Kincaid; Preface by Jamaica Kincaid
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R303
R245
Discovery Miles 2 450
Save R58 (19%)
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Antigua--a ten-by-twelve-mile island in the British West Indies and the author's birthplace--is the setting of a lyrical, sardonic, and forthright essay that offers an insider's eye-opening view of the lives and ways of her people.
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Hinterland Summer 2019
(Paperback)
Richard Beard, Bart van Es; Edited by Andrew Kenrick, Freya Dean; Cover design or artwork by Richard Horne; Illustrated by …
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R262
Discovery Miles 2 620
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Spring 1958: a mysterious individual believed to be high up in the
Polish secret service began passing Soviet secrets to the West. His
name was Michal Goleniewski and he remains one of the most
important, yet least known and most misunderstood spies of the Cold
War. Even his death is shrouded in mystery and he has been written
out of the history of Cold War espionage - until now. Tim Tate
draws on a wealth of previously-unpublished primary source
documents to tell the dramatic true story of the best spy the west
ever lost - of how Goleniewski exposed hundreds of KGB agents
operating undercover in the West; from George Blake and the
'Portland Spy Ring', to a senior Swedish Air Force and NATO officer
and a traitor inside the Israeli government. The information he
produced devastated intelligence services on both sides of the Iron
Curtain. Bringing together love and loyalty, courage and treachery,
betrayal, greed and, ultimately, insanity, here is the
extraordinary true story of one of the most significant but little
known spies of the Cold War. Acclaim for The Spy Who Was Left Out
in the Cold: 'Totally gripping . . . a masterpiece. Tate lifts the
lid on one of the most important and complex spies of the Cold War,
who passed secrets to the West and finally unmasked traitor George
Blake.' HELEN FRY, author of MI9: A History of the Secret Service
for Escape and Evasion in World War Two 'A wonderful and at times
mind-boggling account of a bizarre and almost forgotten spy - right
up to the time when he's living undercover in Queens, New York and
claiming to be the last of the Romanoffs.' SIMON KUPER, author of
The Happy Traitor 'A highly readable and thoroughly researched
account of one of the Cold War's most intriguing and tragic spy
stories.' OWEN MATTHEWS, author of An Impeccable Spy
'For most men, as Epicurus has remarked, rest is stagnation and
activity madness. Mad or not, the activity that I have been
pursuing for the last twenty years takes the form of voyages to
remote, mountainous regions.' H.W. 'Bill' Tilman's fourteenth book
Ice with Everything describes three more of those voyages, 'the
first comparatively humdrum, the second totally disastrous, and the
third exceedingly troublesome'. The first voyage describes Tilman's
1971 attempt to reach East Greenland's remote and ice-bound
Scoresby Sound. The largest fjord system in the world was named
after the father of Whitby whaling captain, William Scoresby, who
first charted the coastline in 1822. Scoresby's two-volume Account
of the Arctic Regions provided much of the historical inspiration
for Tilman's northern voyages and fuelled his fascination with
Scoresby Sound and the unclimbed mountains at its head. Tilman's
first attempt to reach the fjord had already cost him his first
boat, Mischief, in 1968. The following year, a 'polite mutiny'
aboard Sea Breeze had forced him to turn back within sight of the
entrance, so with a good crew aboard in 1971, it was particularly
frustrating for Tilman to find the fjord blocked once more, this
time by impenetrable sea ice at the entrance. Refusing to give up,
Tilman's obsession with Scoresby Sound continued in 1972 when a
series of unfortunate events led to the loss of Sea Breeze, crushed
between a rock and an ice floe. Safely back home in Wales, the
inevitable search for a new boat began. 'One cannot buy a biggish
boat as if buying a piece of soap. The act is almost as irrevocable
as marriage and should be given as much thought'. The 1902 pilot
cutter Baroque was acquired and after not inconsiderable expense,
proved equal to the challenge. Tilman's first troublesome voyage
aboard her to West Greenland in 1973 completes this collection.
Al Venter has been free-diving (without cages) with sharks for 40
years and has had three of his friends killed by them. The
international author known for his war writing now turns his
efforts on highlighting their importance to the world s ocean
ecosytems.He regards the shark as one our greatest oceanic assets:
remove the shark from the maritime environment and an ecological
disaster will follow. For decades, the waters around South Africa
have had more sharks and a greater variety of these predators than
any other coastline in the world. There are several reasons, one
being the annual sardine run up the east coast. The sharks draw
many South Africans and others from around the world, among them
Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and King Abdullah of Jordan. Working
with specialist divers and friends, as well as world-class
photographers, Venter has created a book on sharks that is not only
instructive but also breathtakingly beautiful and fascinating.
Photographers who submitted work for publication include Fiona
Ayerst, Morne Hardenberg and the diminutive shark warrior Lesley
Rochat."
RHS Staff Pick of the Year 2021 Spectator Gardening Book of the
year 2021 'A refreshingly insightful history of plant
introductions.' - Roy Lancaster Travel the world with extraordinary
tales of the botanical discoveries that have shaped empires, built
(and destroyed) economies, revolutionised medicine and advanced our
understanding of science. Circling the globe from Australia's
Botany Bay to the Tibetan plateau, from the deserts of Southern
Africa to the jungles of Brazil, this book presents an incredible
cast of characters - dedicated researchers and reckless
adventurers, physicians, lovers and thieves. Meet dauntless Scots
explorer David Douglas and visionary Prussian thinker Alexander von
Humboldt, the 'Green Samurai' Mikinori Ogisu and the intrepid 17th
century entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian - the first woman known
to have made a living from science. Beautifully illustrated with
over 100 botanical artworks from the archives of the Royal Botanic
Gardens, Kew, this absorbing book tells the stories of how plants
have travelled across the world - from the missions of the Pharaohs
right up to 21st century seed-banks and the many new and endangered
species being named every year. *** THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW
is a world-famous research organisation and a major international
visitor attraction. It harnesses the power of its science, the rich
diversity of its gardens and collections to unearth why plants and
fungi matter to everyone. Its aspiration is to end the extinction
crisis and help create a world where nature and biodiversity are
protected, valued and managed sustainably.
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The Travels
(Hardcover)
Marco Polo; Translated by Nigel Cliff
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R605
R497
Discovery Miles 4 970
Save R108 (18%)
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A sparkling new translation of one of the greatest travel books
ever written: Marco Polo's seminal account of his journeys in the
east, in a collectible clothbound edition. Marco Polo was the most
famous traveller of his time. His voyages began in 1271 with a
visit to China, after which he served the Kublai Khan on numerous
diplomatic missions. On his return to the West he was made a
prisoner of war and met Rustichello of Pisa, with whom he
collaborated on this book. His account of his travels offers a
fascinating glimpse of what he encountered abroad: unfamiliar
religions, customs and societies; the spices and silks of the East;
the precious gems, exotic vegetation and wild beasts of faraway
lands. Evoking a remote and long-vanished world with colour and
immediacy, Marco's book revolutionized western ideas about the then
unknown East and is still one of the greatest travel accounts of
all time. For this edition - the first completely new English
translation of the Travels in over fifty years - Nigel Cliff has
gone back to the original manuscript sources to produce a fresh,
authoritative new version. The volume also contains invaluable
editorial materials, including an introduction describing the world
as it stood on the eve of Polo's departure, and examining the
fantastical notions the West had developed of the East. Marco Polo
was born in 1254, joining his father on a journey to China in 1271.
He spent the next twenty years travelling in the service of Kublai
Khan. There is evidence that Marco travelled extensively in the
Mongol Empire and it is fairly certain he visited India. He wrote
his famous Travels whilst a prisoner in Genoa. Nigel Cliff was
previously a theatre and film critic for The Times and a regular
writer for The Economist, among other publications, and now writes
historical nonfiction books. His first book, The Shakespeare Riots,
was published in 2007 and shortlisted for the Washington-based
National Award for Arts Writing. His second book, The Last Crusade:
Vasco da Gama and the Birth of the Modern World appeared in 2011
and was shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize.
A ground-breaking new study brings us a very different picture of
the Second World War, asking fundamental questions about ethical
commitments Accounts of the Second World War usually involve tales
of bravery in battle, or stoicism on the home front, as the British
public stood together against Fascism. However, the war looks very
different when seen through the eyes of the 60,000 conscientious
objectors who refused to take up arms and whose stories, unlike
those of the First World War, have been almost entirely forgotten.
Tobias Kelly invites us to spend the war five of these individuals:
Roy Ridgway, a factory clerk from Liverpool; Tom Burns, a teacher
from east London; Stella St John, who trained as a vet and ended up
in jail; Ronald Duncan, who set up a collective farm; and Fred
Urquhart, a working-class Scottish socialist and writer. We meet
many more objectors along the way -- people both determined and
torn -- and travel from Finland to Syria, India to rural England,
Edinburgh to Trinidad. Although conscientious objectors were often
criticised and scorned, figures such as Winston Churchill and the
Archbishop of Canterbury supported their right to object, at least
in principle, suggesting that liberty of conscience was one of the
freedoms the nation was fighting for. And their rich cultural and
moral legacy -- of humanitarianism and human rights, from Amnesty
International and Oxfam to the US civil rights movement -- can
still be felt all around us. The personal and political struggles
carefully and vividly collected in this book tell us a great deal
about personal and collective freedom, conviction and faith, war
and peace, and pose questions just as relevant today: Does
conscience make us free? Where does it take us? And what are the
costs of going there? '[An] excellent book' - DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A
moving tribute' - SPECTATOR
On the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook's successful navigation to
the coast of Australia, this is Alistair MacLean's absorbing story
of one of Britain's great national heroes, from his obscure
beginnings to his sudden and violent death at the age of fifty-one.
When James Cook was hacked to death by Hawaiian islanders on 14
February 1779, he was already considered the greatest explorer of
his age. Born in obscurity but gripped by a boundless passion for
new horizons, he became the greatest combination of seaman,
explorer, navigator, and cartographer that the world had ever
known. He still is. He had driven himself mercilessly, and his men
likewise, and yet the surgeon's mate on the Resolution was able to
write: 'In every situation he stood unrivalled and alone; on him
all eyes were turned; he was our leading star, which at its setting
left us involved in darkness and despair'. Between 1768 and 1779,
Captain Cook circumnavigated the globe three times in voyages of
discovery that broke record after record of exploration, endurance,
and personal achievement. He explored and charted the coasts of New
Zealand, landed in Botany Bay, explored the Pacific, mapped its
islands, and travelled further south than any man before him; he
explored the Great Barrier Reef and travelled thousands of miles
north to tackle the North-West Passage. He excelled in all aspects
of his craft and inspired in his men an affection for him and an
enthusiasm for his undertakings that provoked constant loyalty and
unfailing endeavour in frequently savage conditions. Alistair
MacLean presents a graphic and lively account of this great
explorer, his three amazing voyages and the adventures that befell
him, his crews, and his ships in lands that until he sailed were in
many cases unknown. Cook's life was a resounding success and the
story of it is a thrilling exemplification of his own description
of himself as a man 'who had ambition not only to go farther than
anyone had done before, but as far as it was possible for man to
go'.
On Christmas day in 1956, a woman gave birth to a baby girl without
ears. She was the first living victim of the notorious Thalidomide
epidemic, of which there would go on to be over 10,000 more in
forty-six countries across the world. By the time Frances Kelsey
received the New Drug Application at the Food and Drug
Administration, pregnant women had been taking Thalidomide for
almost three years to cure nausea and insomnia, and sales had
soared into the millions. Yet Kelsey was sceptical about the
potential toxicity of this this 'wonder drug,' and so began a
fastidious nineteen-month-long battle to block its approval. A tale
of recklessness and greed, courage and heroism, The Gatekeeper is
as timely now as it was sensational then. It documents a dramatic
moment in history when countless lives were saved - not by
governing bodies and elected officials, but by a lone female
scientist who fought against powerful interests to expose the truth
and prevent such a tragedy from ever recurring. The story of
Thalidomide marks a key turning point in the $1 trillion industry
that still underpins our lives today and is emblematic of the
seemingly endless battle between corporation and consumer
protection.
LONGLISTED FOR THE ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION 'One of the
mysteries I've long been fascinated by, and I am so grateful that
Ravi Somaiya has cracked it open so brilliantly' David Grann,
author of Killers of the Flower Moon A PLANE CRASH IN THE JUNGLE. A
LEGENDARY STATESMAN DEAD. A TRAGIC ACCIDENT... OR THE ULTIMATE
CONSPIRACY? In 1961, a Douglas DC-6B aeroplane transporting the
Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjoeld,
disappeared over the Congolese jungle at the height of the Cold
War. Soon afterward, Hammarskjoeld was discovered in the smoking
wreckage, an Ace of Spades playing card placed on his body. He had
been heralded as the Congo's best hope for peace and independence.
Now he was dead. The circumstances of that night have remained one
of the Cold War's most tightly guarded secrets for decades. Now,
with exclusive evidence, investigative journalist Ravi Somaiya
finally uncovers the truth, with dark implications for governments
and corporations alike.
'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
This fascinating, meticulously researched book is an affectionate
account of an English country home, Higham Hall in Kent. When you
live in a historic house, you are always conscious of your
predecessors. 'Gunpowder, Apples and Cement' brings the previous
occupants of one such house to life. Detailing a continuous thread
of occupation from the mid-seventeenth century to today, tells the
story of an English country home and the families who lived there.
Full of engrossing details about the social and economic history of
Kent, it provides an engaging history of middle-class English life
over a period of 450 years. In the process, this captivating story
looks at the links between intensely local history and national
events - and reminds us that history is made up of individuals and
their stories.
New Yorker magazine staff writer Paige Williams delves into the
surprisingly perilous world of fossil collectors in this riveting
true tale. In 2012, a New York auction catalogue boasted an unusual
offering: 'a superb Tyrannosaurus skeleton'. In fact, Lot 49135
consisted of a nearly complete T. bataar - a close cousin to the
more-famous T. rex - that had been unearthed in Mongolia. At 2.4
metres high and 7.3 metres long, the specimen was spectacular, and
the winning bid was over $1 million. Eric Prokopi, a 38-year-old
Floridian, had brought this extraordinary skeleton to market. A
one-time swimmer who'd spent his teenage years diving for shark
teeth, Prokopi's singular obsession with fossils fuelled a thriving
business, hunting for, preparing, and selling specimens to clients
ranging from natural-history museums to avid private collectors
like Leonardo DiCaprio. But had Prokopi gone too far this time? As
the T. bataar went to auction, a network of paleontologists alerted
the government of Mongolia to the eye-catching lot. An
international custody battle ensued, with Prokopi watching as his
own world unravelled. The Dinosaur Artist is a stunning work of
narrative journalism about humans' relationship with natural
history, and about a seemingly intractable conflict between science
and commerce. A story that stretches from Florida's Land O' Lakes
to the Gobi Desert, The Dinosaur Artist illuminates the history of
fossil collecting - a murky, sometimes risky business, populated by
eccentrics and obsessives, where the lines between poacher and
hunter, collector and smuggler, and enthusiast and opportunist can
easily blur.
In the seventy years since the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and
her navigator Fred Noonan during a flight over the Central Pacific,
their fate has remained one of history's most debated mysteries
despite dozens of books offering solutions. This book is different.
It draws on thousands of never before published primary source
documents to present a narrative that corrects decades of
misconception. Ric Gillespie offers a very realistic picture of
Earhart, her attempted world flight, the events surrounding her
disappearance, and the U.S. government's failed attempt to find
her. Scrupulously accurate yet thrilling to read, the book is based
on information uncovered by the International Group for Historic
Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR). Gillespie, TIGHAR's executive director
and a former aviation accident investigator, notes that he does not
argue for a particular theory but supports the hypothesis that
Earhart and Noonan died as castaways on a remote Pacific atoll.
About the Author Ric Gillespie, a recognized authority on Earhart's
disappearance, has led eight archaeological search expeditions to
the Pacific. A resident of Wilmington, DE, he has written about the
subject for Life and Naval History.
'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.
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