There's more to Reading than traffic, concrete and busy people. Wildlife flourishes amidst the urban hustle and with a couple of hundred open spaces, some ancient woodlands and two great rivers, Reading rewards the appreciative naturalist. Wander from town centre to suburbs exploring the parks and meadows, following the rivers and the wooded ridges, watching the seasons change. You'll be surprised at what you find. Over 25 years Adrian Lawson chronicled the wildlife he encountered in his days working in the parks, walking his dogs in the woods and riding his bike around the town. This book takes us through the calendar year with a selection of articles from his long-running newspaper column, Rural Reading, plus some new and previously unpublished pieces. Accompanied by perceptive and very personal illustrations from Geoff Sawers, equally devoted to the natural history of Reading, this exquisite collection will open your eyes to the wild side of town.

Founded in 1905, the High River Times served a community of small town advertisers and an extensive hinterland of ranchers and farmers in southern Alberta. Under the ownership of the Charles Clark family for over 60 years, the Times established itself as the epitome of the rural weekly press in Alberta. Even Joe Clark, the future prime minister, worked for the family business. While historians rely heavily on local newspapers to write about rural and small town life, Paul Voisey has studied the influence of the Times on shaping the community of High River. Originally, the Times boostered High River as 'bustling and modern', and then later as 'small and friendly'. After World War II, with the help of the Times, High River constructed a mythical image as a ranching district with a wild and colourful past.

This enchanting collection of stories gathers together legends from across Scotland in one special volume. Drawn from The History Press' popular Folk Tales series, herein lies a treasure trove of tales from a wealth of talented storytellers. From the Spaeman's peculiar advice and a laird who is transformed into a frog, to a fugitive hiding in a dark cave and the stoor worm battling with Assipattle, this book celebrates the distinct character of Scotland's different customs, beliefs and dialects, and is a treat for all who enjoy a well-told story.

Experience 100 key dates that shaped Sunderland's history, highlighted its people's genius (or silliness) and embraced the unexpected. Featuring an amazing mix of social, criminal and sporting events, this book reveals a past that will fascinate, delight and even shock both residents and visitors of the city.

From a volcanic eruption that created the deepest lake in North America to a freighter wreck that took nine years to clean up, It Happened in Oregon looks at intriguing people and episodes from the history of the Beaver State. Meet Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the affluent leader of an eastern religious sect that attempted to take over a small town in Oregon to establish a spiritual corporate headquarters. Relive the Lewis and Clark Expedition's "Showerey wet and disagreeable" Christmas at Fort Clatsop. And find out what caused the tragic, excruciating deaths of dozens of patients at Oregon State Hospital during one night in 1942.

This book contains hundreds of 'strange but true' stories about Scottish history. Arranged into a miniature history of Scotland, and with bizarre and hilarious true tales for every era, it will delight anyone with an interest in Scotland's past.

From an out-of-control wildfire that nearly destroyed a town to a serial spouse killer in Estes Park, It Happened in Rocky Mountain National Park looks at intriguing people and episodes from the history of Colorado's largest national park. Learn how two teens' attempt to scale the Diamond-a sheer granite cliff so dangerous that climbing it used to be outlawed-resulted in one of the most complicated rescues in the park's history. Read about the life and untimely demise of Rocky Mountain Jim, who was badly scarred by a grizzly bear attack and earned a reputation as an eccentric but highly skilled wilderness guide. And meet Harriet Peters, an unusually tenacious girl who summited 14,259-foot-tall Longs Peak at the tender age of eight.

Victorian Chelsea was a thriving commercial and residential development, known for its grand houses and pleasant garden squares. Violent crime was unheard of in this leafy suburb. The double murder of an elderly man of God and his faithful housekeeper in two ferocious, bloody attacks in May of 1870 therefore shook the residents of Chelsea to the core. This volume examines the extraordinary case, one which could have leapt straight from the pen of Agatha Christie herself: the solving of the crime relied on the discovery of a packing box dripping with blood, and the capture of a mysterious French nephew. Compiled by a former detective, it looks at the facts: no direct evidence to place the suspect at either of the crime scenes; no weapon recovered; no motive substantiated. It lets you, the reader, decide: would you, on the evidence presented, have sent the same man to the gallows?

Shirley Baker started to photograph the streets of Manchester and Salford in the early 1960s when homes were being demolished and communities were being uprooted. 'Whole streets were disappearing and I hoped to capture some trace of everyday life of the people who lived there. I was particularly interested in the more mundane, even trivial, aspects of life that were not being recorded by anyone else.' Shirley's powerful images, sparked by her curiosity, recorded people and communities involved in fundamental change. People's homes were demolished as part of a huge 'slum' clearance programme, however Shirley was able to capture some of the street life as it had been for generations before the change. The areas have been redeveloped to form a new and totally different environment. As Shirley once said, 'I hope by bridging time through the magic of photography, a connection has been made with a past that should not be forgotten'.

Originally published in 1920, this volume provides information on the historical background of place-names in County Durham and Northumberland. The text was compiled by Allen Mawer (1879-1942), who was instrumental in the foundation of the English Place-Name Society. Entries are listed in alphabetical order and vary in length, depending on historical interest or the complexity of their development. Notes are provided on elements found as the second part of place-names or used by themselves, and personal names found as the first element in place-names. Additionally, the text contains an introduction, bibliography and information relating to phonology. This is a fascinating volume that will be of value to anyone with an interest in British history and the development of toponymy.

This is the charming story, based on fact, of the love of a Skye terrier called Bobby for his master in nineteenth-century Edinburgh. Bobby and his master 'Auld Jock', a Pentland Hills farmer, were inseparable and for fourteen years after Auld Jock's death little Bobby made his home near the old man's grave in the cemetery in Greyfriars Kirkyard. He was loved and cared for by the local people who were touched by the bond between the dog and his master. A life-size statue of Bobby still stands in Edinburgh, commemorating his devotion and loyalty near Greyfriars.

In this book he records a world of local legend, folklore and superstition, and charts the changes he saw in his lifetime in agriculture, education, the Church and, of course, emigration. He recounts the history of the leading families of Skye and also the lives and experiences of the crofters, for whose rights he actively campaigned in the 1880s. Old Skye Tales is a unique and valuable record, written by a man of intelligence and sensitivity, whose life spanned both the traditional and the modern world. As well as containing a large amount of information of the geography of the island (particularly the north), there are also important sections on crofting, the Church, as well as local superstitions, sayings, second sight and even local characters of his time. An entertaining and witty book, Old Skye Tales is a marvellous resource for the historian, as well as a fascinating compendium for all those who love one of Scotland's most famous islands. It is one of the most important sources for the history of the island.

When Peter Hessler went to China in the late 1990s, he expected to spend a couple of peaceful years teaching English in the town of Fuling on the Yangtze River. But what he experienced - the natural beauty, cultural tension, and complex process of understanding that takes place when one is thrust into a radically different society - surpassed anything he could have imagined. Hessler observes firsthand how major events such as the death of Deng Xiaoping, the return of Hong Kong to the mainland, and the controversial consturction of the Three Gorges Dam have affected even the people of a remote town like Fuling. Poignant, thoughtful and utterly compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a place caught mid-river in time, much like China itself - a country seeking to understand both what it was and what it will one day become.

Take a walk around 1920s Berlin with one of its greatest luminaries.

In this timeless guide, originally published in Germany in 1929, Franz Hessel invites his readers to join him on a stroll through Weimar-era Berlin, taking in some of the most fascinating sights the city has to offer, many of which still exist in some form today.

From the Alexanderplatz to Kreuzberg, his record of them has become priceless; as has his fascinating commentary on the seismic shifts shaking German culture at the time.

Superbly written, and as fresh today as when it first appeared, this is a book to be savoured.

When the British wrested New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664, the truth about its thriving, polyglot society began to disappear into myths about an island purchased for 24 dollars and a cartoonish peg-legged governor. But the story of the Dutch colony of New Netherland was merely lost, not destroyed: 12,000 pages of its records-recently declared a national treasure-are now being translated. Drawing on this remarkable archive, Russell Shorto has created a gripping narrative-a story of global sweep centered on a wilderness called Manhattan-that transforms our understanding of early America.
The Dutch colony pre-dated the "original" thirteen colonies, yet it seems strikingly familiar. Its capital was cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic, and its citizens valued free trade, individual rights, and religious freedom. Their champion was a progressive, young lawyer named Adriaen van der Donck, who emerges in these pages as a forgotten American patriot and whose political vision brought him into conflict with Peter Stuyvesant, the autocratic director of the Dutch colony. The struggle between these two strong-willed men laid the foundation for New York City and helped shape American culture. The Island at the Center of the World uncovers a lost world and offers a surprising new perspective on our own.

'Carefully compiled' in 1867 'from prison documents, ancient papers, and other authentic sources,' this extremely rare book contains the full details of the crimes, trials and executions of every murderer, highwayman, rogue and rebel ever to swing from the York Tyburn. From nobles such as Lord Hussey, Sir Robert Aske and the Earl of Northumberland (who mounted the scaffold 'with a firm step'), to notorious villains such as William Nevinson, Dick Turpin (whose right leg started to shake as he awaited the drop) and Knaresborough schoolteacher-turned-murderer Eugene Aram, it is an enthralling tour through the executions of the North. Including the last words and prison letters of many of the condemned, and laced with a grim humour (as seen in the case of the murderer who begged the hangman to check the rope carefully lest it break and leave him 'a cripple for life'), it will fascinate anyone with an interest in criminal history.

New Mexico comes alive in these fascinating stories about events that helped make New Mexico what it is today. From the life and times of Folsom Man (9,000 BC) to the Great Prison Riot of Santa Fe County (1980 AD), It Happened in New Mexico tells the stories of intriguing people and events from the history of one of America's most captivating states. Find out how Pancho Villa's deadly raid on Columbus in March 1916 led to a $130 million-unsuccessful-mission to hunt down America's arch enemy. Go back to July 16, 1945, when a busload of spectators pulled up to a scenic overlook to witness the explosion of the world's first atomic bomb. Find out how Smokey the Bear began life as an imaginary symbol and ended up as the nation's most beloved cub. Did the U.S. Army steal Doc Noss's gold? Join the military cavalcade to Victorio Peak in 1977 and decide for yourself.

A fascinating account from award-winning author Adam Nicolson on the history of Nicolson's own national treasure, his family home: Sissinghurst.
Sissinghurst is world famous as a place of calm and beauty, a garden slipped into the ruins of a rose-pink Elizabethan palace. But is it entirely what its creators intended? Has its success over the last thirty years come at a price? Is Sissinghurst everything it could be? The story of this piece of land, an estate in the Weald of Kent, is told here for the first time from the very beginning. Adam Nicolson, who now lives there, has uncovered remarkable new findings about its history as a medieval manor and great sixteenth-century house, from the days of its decline as an eighteenth-century prison to a flourishing Victorian farm and on to the creation, by his grandparents Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, of a garden in a weed-strewn wreck. Alongside his recovery of the past, Adam Nicolson wanted something else: for the land at Sissinghurst to live again, to become the landscape of orchards, cattle, fruit and sheep he remembered from his boyhood.Could that living frame of a mixed farm be brought back to what had turned into monochrome fields of chemicalised wheat and oilseed rape? Against the odds, he was going to try. Adam Nicolson has always been a passionate writer about landscape and buildings, but this is different. This is the place he wanted to make good again, reconnecting garden, farm and land. More than just a personal biography of a place, this book is the story of taking an inheritance and steering it in a new direction, just as an entrepreneur might take hold of a company, or just as all of us might want to take our dreams and make them real.

"From the Hardcover edition."

Bringing Chicago circa 1893 to vivid life, Erik Larson's spellbinding bestseller intertwines the true tale of two men--the brilliant architect behind the legendary 1893 World's Fair, striving to secure America's place in the world; and the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death. Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction.

It Happened in Connecticut tells twenty-seven true tales of famous--and infamous--people and events from the state's past, ranging from witchcraft trials to the Wiffle ball, from mass murder for profit to the modern game of football.

Do you think that legends are all about princes and princesses, knights and heroes, giants and monsters? Well, they aren't always. The stories in this book are about girls like you and girls you might know: clever, strong, brave and resourceful. Here you can read the story of Vasilisa, who wasn't afraid of the deep dark forest; Mollie Whuppie, who knew how to trick a giant; Tipingi, who was able to call on her friends to help her get out of trouble; Seren, who used her love of singing to help others; and many more fearless characters. Storyteller Fiona Collins has chosen the best of the old tales from all around the world and reworked them into new and exciting versions to be enjoyed by everyone, accompanied by magical illustrations by talented artist Ed Fisher.

Storyteller Sheila Kinninmonth brings together stories from the coastal fishing villages, rushing rivers, magical green farmland and rolling hills of Fife. In this treasure trove of tales you will meet Scottish Kings and Queens, saints and sinners, witches and wizards, ghosts and giants, broonies, fools and tricksters - all as fantastical and powerful as the landscape they inhabit. Retold in an engaging style, and richly illustrated with unique line drawings, these humorous, clever and enchanting folk tales are sure to be enjoyed and shared time and again.

More than 10,000 known caves lie beneath the state of Tennessee according to the Tennessee Cave Survey, a nonprofit organization that catalogs and maps them. In Hidden Nature: Wild Southern Caves, Taylor tells the story of this vast underground wilderness. Besides describing the sheer physical majesty of the region's wild caverns and the concurrent joys and dangers of exploring them, he examines their rich natural history and scientific import, their relationship to clean water and a healthy surface environment, and their uncertain future. As a long-time caver and the author of three popular books related to caving - Cave Passages (1996), Dark Life (1998), and Caves (2000) - Taylor enjoys (for a journalist) unusual access to their secretive world. He is personally acquainted with many of the region's most accomplished cave explorers and scientists, and they in turn are familiar with his popular writing on caves in books; in magazines such as Audubon, Outside, and Sports Illustrated; and on websites such as those of the Discovery Channel and the PBS science series Nova. Hidden Nature: Wild Southern Caves is structured as a comprehensive work of well-researched fact that reads like a personal narrative of the author's long attraction to these caves and the people who dare enter their hidden chambers.