Lindisfarne has captured the imagination of visitors and residents alike for decades. Also know as 'Holy Island', the rich and eventful history of the area is explored in great depth in this fascinating account. The author takes us on a journey to 'the cradle island' - the ancient shrine of Celtic Christianity - to reveal the treasures of the island. He tells the story of people and nature from the beginning to the present day, exploring the natural history and archaeology of the region. While best known for his television career, Magnus Magnusson published a number of books, including The Vikings.

Most people remember the flooding of Cork in 2009 and the tremendous damage that was caused. Less well-known is that this was not the first time this had happened. On 1 November 1853 another flood of immense proportions poured into the city from the west. On that occasion the main bridge in the city, St Patrick's Bridge, was swept away and with it the lives of between fifteen and twenty people. Where Bridges Stand: The River Lee Bridges of Cork City tells the story of how the city grew around, and in harmony with, the bridges that span the twin channels of the River Lee, the people and the historical contexts associated with the building projects that saw Cork grow from a medieval walled town to the thriving commercial port and modern city that it is today.

The ancient Suffolk market town of Beccles has a history of more than a thousand years, which saw it flourish as one of the principal trading communities in the county. Situated on the River Waveney, it is often referred to as the 'Gateway to the Southern Broads'. In Secret Beccles, local author Barry Darch sets out to discover the lesser-known and hidden aspects of the town's heritage. At its heart lie two large marketplaces, the newer one (dating from the fourteenth century) still very much in use for a weekly market and for special events. A number of nearby buildings also have large cellars with interesting architectural features. Many buildings have had several changes of use; for instance, the late Anglo-Saxon St Peter's Church became a tannery and later a restaurant. A Georgian theatre that became a corn hall now lies hidden behind a branch of Lloyds Bank. Part of the town's hidden past rests in the names of its streets and paths, such as Shipwreck Alley and Hungate, the street of the dogs. As well as the places and locations, the book will also uncover stories of those significant townsfolk across the ages, ranging from the heroes to the villains. The author also looks at gravestones and memorials and seeks out what secrets are revealed about the town in publications including books, newspapers, maps and letters. Featuring archive and contemporary images, Secret Beccles includes a wealth of little-known or previously unpublished material, which will be of interest to residents, visitors and anyone with connections to the town.

One hundred years ago in Ireland marked a time of change. The continuous rise of an Irish revival, debates over Home Rule and the idea of Irish identity were continuously negotiated by all classes of society. In Cork City Reflections, authors Kieran McCarthy and Daniel Breen focus on the visual changes that have taken place in the port city on Ireland's south-west coast. Using a collection of historic postcards from Cork Public Museum and merging these with modern images they reveal how the town has changed over the decades. Each of the 180 pictures featured combines a recent colour view with the matching sepia archive scene. The authors have grouped the images under thematic headings such as main streets, public buildings, transport, and industry. Readers will be able to appreciate how Cork City has evolved and grown over the last century but also how invaluable postcards can be in understanding the past. In an age where digital photography and the internet have made capturing and sharing images so effortless, it is easy to forget that in the decades before the camera became popular and affordable, postcards were the only photographic souvenirs available to ordinary people. This book, which vividly contrasts Cork past and present, will evoke many memories and appeal to residents and visitors alike.

Made on the Isle of Wight is a pictorial celebration of the immense contribution to the aviation, automotive and marine industries that this tiny island has given, from the first hovercraft to boats that held the world water speed record and even the only all-British rocket and satellite into space. With a focus on invention, innovation and record-breaking, local author David L. Williams explores the many products of the island's industry, along with designers and engineers, and the workforce that created these fascinating inventions.

Where else but in America could a Jewish kid from Kansas, son of self-made, entrepreneurial parents and a grandson of Russian and Eastern European immigrants, end up as a congressman, secretary of agriculture, and chief lobbyist for Hollywood? In Laughing at Myself: My Education in Congress, on the Farm, and at the Movies Dan Glickman tells his story of a classical family background, religious heritage, and 'Midwestern-nice' roots, and how it led to a long and successful career in public service. Dan combines a steady sense of humor with serious reflection on his rise from the middle of nowhere to becoming a successful US politician and the first Jewish secretary of agriculture since Joseph served pharaoh in biblical times. Dan defines success as a willingness to listen, an ability to communicate ideas, and a yen for compromise. Dan has successfully navigated the worlds of congressional politics, cabinet-level administration, and the entertainment industry and offers readers the many tricks of the trade he has learned over the years, which will inform the understanding of citizens and help aspiring politicians seeking alternatives to the current crisis of partisanship. Dan is convinced that the toxicity seen in our current political culture and public discourse can be mitigated by the principles that have guided his life-a strong sense of humor (specifically an ability to laugh at himself), respect and civility for those who have different points of view, a belief system founded on values based on the Golden Rule, and a steadfast commitment to solve problems rather than create irreconcilable conflicts. While these values form the backbone of Dan Glickman's personal life and professional career, the real key to his success has been resiliency-learning from adversity and creating opportunities where none may have originally existed. Even though you never know what's around the corner, in Laughing at Myself Dan offers a bold affirmation that America is still a nation built on opportunity and optimism. Laughing at Myself affirms readers in their desire to move beyond just surviving to living life with purpose, passion, and optimism.

Guernsey is a beautiful Channel Island with a fascinating history and breathtaking scenery. With an area of just 24 square miles, visitors are astonished at just how much there is to see and do. The island's varied landscape ranges from beautiful beaches, stunning cliffs and lush countryside to the quirky, cobbled streets of the harbour town of St Peter Port. In this book, accredited tour guide Soo Wellfair takes us on a journey around the island to discover fifty of its cherished places. Guernsey's many visitors find themselves immersed in the delights of this quaint and charming island and the author leads us to some of her favourite hidden treasures. Seek out the tiny chapel decorated in broken pieces of pottery and the clifftop woodland that comes alive every year when it is swathed in a blanket of bluebells. Explore Guernsey's historic sites from throughout the island's history. From Neolithic times through to the medieval and Tudor periods, and even to the more contemporary structures built during the occupation of Guernsey in the Second World War, this is an island that is small in size but immense in history and beauty. Illustrated throughout, 50 Gems of Guernsey will appeal to residents, visitors and all those interested in the island's history.

Very little is known of the first workhouse in Birmingham, which was located in Lichfield Street. Even the assumed date of its building, given as 1733 by William Hutton, Birmingham's first historian, is wrong. This book is the first attempt to write a history of the workhouse and the ancillary welfare provision for Birmingham, frequently referred to as the `Old Poor Law'. The first workhouse remained in operation until 1852 when a new building with its infamous `arch of tears' was constructed in Winson Green and the original building's history has been overlooked as a result of the association of the word `workhouse' with Nassau Senior and Edwin Chadwick's `New' Poor Law, implemented in 1834. This study of welfare in Birmingham in the century before the Poor Law Amendment Act reveals some surprising facts which fly in the face of the scholarly consensus that the old system was incompetently administered and inadequately organised. A workhouse infirmary opened in the 1740s, long before the General Infirmary in Summer Lane. The Overseers of the Poor built a well organised `Asylum for the Infant Poor' before the end of the eighteenth century. Work was found for the able-bodied. The insane were housed separately in specialist facilities. Food, although dreary, was certainly adequate. The records of the Overseers and the Poor Law Guardians reveal a complex balancing act between maintaining standards of care and controlling spending. Although there was mismanagement, most famously in 1818 when George Edmonds exposed embezzlement by workhouse officials, the picture which emerges will be familiar to our age when welfare services struggle to meet public needs with limited budgets.

Throughout the twentieth century, New Mexico's LGBTQ+ residents inhabited a wide spectrum of spaces, from Santa Fe's nascent bohemian art scene to the secretive military developments at Los Alamos. Shifting focus away from the urban gay meccas that many out queer people called home, Wide-Open Desert brings to life a vibrant milieu of two-spirit, Chicana lesbian, and white queer cultural producers in the heart of the US Southwest. Jordan Biro Walters draws on oral histories, documentaries, poetry, and archival sources to demonstrate how geographic migration and creative expression enabled LGBTQ+ people to resist marginalization and forge spaces of belonging. Significant figures profiled include two-spirit Dine artist Hastiin Klah, literary magazine editor Spud Johnson, ranchera singer Genoveva Chavez, and Cherokee writer Rollie Lynn Riggs. Biro Walters explores how land communes, art circles, and university classrooms helped create communities that supported queer cultural expression and launched gay civil rights activism in New Mexico. Throughout, Wide-Open Desert highlights queer mobility and queer creative production as paths to political, cultural, and sexual freedom for LGBTQ+ people.

Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.

The Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. In this book the smoke, romance, and mystery of the Gilded Age come alive as never before.

Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.

To find out more about this book, go to http://www.DevilInTheWhiteCity.com.

Since it was founded in 1810 by Lewis Tregonwell, the Dorset resort of Bournemouth has developed to become a favourite destination for holidaymakers across the decades. Many people have happy recollections of summers spent there, but although the memories remain constant, the town has witnessed many changes, some good and some bad. In Lost Bournemouth, local author John Needham brings together 160 colour, black-and-white and sepia photographs from throughout last century to show what has changed and how the way of life has altered through the generations. The book will focus on certain areas of the town such as the seafront and the pier, and the cinemas, theatres and the Winter Gardens that entertained the many visitors and residents of the town that have now vanished. Even everyday street scenes show how Bournemouth has developed, while pictures of the magnificent Victoria Gardens, with its once great fountains that have been replaced with flower beds, reveal what has been consigned to the history books. There are countless changes to the town that have taken place and this book will bring back many memories, using images from the past and some from the present day. Lost Bournemouth shows the reader what has been forgotten and what has disappeared through time. It is an engrossing visual chronicle, providing a wealth of history and recollections for residents and visitors alike.

Poole is the second largest natural harbour in the world and the largest in Europe, resulting in a trading history which dates back to Roman times. In the Middle Ages, commodities for export, particularly wool, were funnelled into Poole and it became a place where merchants could dock, store their goods and display their wares. The port grew in importance during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the boom years of trade with Newfoundland, but suffered from an economic slump throughout most of the nineteenth century and into the 1920s and '30s. However, in the decades after the Second World War, many major national companies were attracted to the town, resulting in 10,000 more homes being built in Poole between 1946 and 1966. A major slum clearance scheme also took place during the same period, as over 1,000 condemned homes were demolished, many in the labyrinth of narrow backstreets and alleyways leading from the Eastern Quay into the Old Town. Poole is still a working port, particularly on the Hamworthy side, where Sunseeker yachts off the production line can be seen adjacent to industrial cargo ships moored nearby and the ferry terminal. On the Poole side, the Fishermen's Dock nestles incongruously adjacent to a yachting marina. The Quay and Old Town has preserved many cobbled streets and alleyways containing historic buildings, some dating back to the fourteenth century, once a haunt of Newfoundland merchants, pirates, smugglers and press gangs. This fascinating A-Z tour of Poole, its interesting people, places and historic events, is fully illustrated with photography and will appeal to all those with an interest in this Dorset coastal town.

Situated on the Wirral Peninsula, across the River Mersey from Liverpool, is the town of Birkenhead. It can trace its origins back to the twelfth century when a Benedictine priory and Mersey ferry were established here. Later, as a result of the Industrial Revolution, it expanded and prospered with the shipbuilders Cammell Laird, the docks and the Mersey Railway connecting Birkenhead and Liverpool. The town was the location for Britain's first street tramway and the world's first publicly funded civic park, which was designed by Joseph Paxton and is now a Grade I listed landscape. Birkenhead's other architectural highlights are to be found in Hamilton Square with its many Georgian residences. In Birkenhead Reflections, local author Ian Collard has brought together a fascinating collection of historic and modern pictures that are individually merged to reveal how the town has changed over the decades. Each of the 180 pictures combines a recent colour view with the matching archive scene. Through the merged-image effect, readers can see how streets, buildings, industries, the port and aspects of everyday life have transformed with the passing of time. This evocative visual chronicle, which ingeniously reflects Birkenhead past and present, will appeal to residents and everyone with links to the town.

Kansas Boy: The Memoir of A. J. Bolinger offers the twenty-first-century reader delightful and revealing insights on life during an era of dramatic change in American history. Bolinger describes those years as 'bursting with energy, wild with ambition.' The Kansas of his childhood and young adulthood was a place where life was lived at a rapid pace: investors pursued fortunes as town developers, settlers sought to establish prosperous farms and ranches, and reformers tried to create an ideal society. A. J. opens his account with a vividly detailed description of the prairie itself, including how the frontier settlements of Kansas were in the process of becoming established communities. Born and raised in Elk County, Kansas, he tells stories of ranching and cattle drives. Retelling some of the legends of early Kansas, he debunks more than a few frontier myths. As he moves toward adulthood his accounts of farming and small-town life grow increasingly aware of the agricultural crisis of the 1880s and 1890s faced by farmers and small-town businesses as they struggled with the growing power of corporations, in particular the railroads. In doing so he offers ground-level insights into the appeal of the Populist movement and the rise of the People' Party. The challenges result in the Bolinger family's move to the city of Topeka where A. J. attends Washburn College. As a college student he helps temperance activist Carry Nation wage her antisaloon campaign and goes to Washburn's new law school. His first step in pursuing what would be a lifelong career in the law is to replicate his family's and his era's pattern of moving to where new opportunities lay: the Oklahoma territory. A. J. Bolinger (1881-1977) offers today's reader a deeply felt memoir with keen insights and thoughtful commentary that is by turns startlingly progressive and deeply conservative. He offers us a richer understanding of life on the prairies and plains of the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century.