This book is the perfect antidote to the stress of life in the 21st Century. It portrays the idyll of life in an 1850s village, "far from the sound of the train's whistle". The identity of the village was lost to the world for 150 years, and only by a miracle does this magical set of stereoscopic views survive, brought together for the very first time by Brian May and his co-author, photohistorian Elena Vidal. Their research is amazingly in-depth, but the book is utterly readable, and the pictures leap into glorious 3-D, viewed in the new focussing stereoscope which May has designed and produced, to bring the stereos to life, and then fold neatly into the slip-case of the book. The book gives an extraordinary insight into everyday village life at the time - with a woman at her spinning wheel, the blacksmith outside his smithy, three men at the grind stone sharpening a tool, the villagers in the fields, bringing in the harvest as well as often taking time to enjoy a good gossip. In every case the original verse which accompanied the view is reproduced. In addition, May and Vidal have researched and annotated all the views, revealing another layer of meaning, by exploring the history of these real characters, this idyllic village and its links with the present day. The result is a powerfully atmospheric and touching set of photographs." A Village Lost and Found brings master pioneering stereographer T. R. Williams's passionate life-work Scenes in Our Village to a new audience - in glorious 3-D, as never before. For an Electronic Press Kit for A Village Lost and Found click here

Take your seats for the greatest tour ever - one that encompasses the whole of the Universe. En route, we stop off to gaze at 100 amazing sights - from asteroids to zodiacal dust and from orbit around the Earth to beyond the most distant galaxies. We start right here on Earth, and your tour guides are cosmic voyagers Patrick Moore, Brian May and Chris Lintott: Patrick is a lifelong lunar specialist; Brian is the leading authority on dust in our solar system, and Chris researches the formation of stars and galaxies.

"Exploring for the very first time the hidden relationship between paintings and stereoscopic cards in Victorian times." The advent of a new painting by a great artist was big news in the 1850s, but few were able to access and enjoy directly the new works of art. Stereo cards, created by enterprising photographers of the day, reconstructed the scenes and gave an opportunity for the man in the street to enjoy these scenes, in magical life-like 3D. The Poor Man's Picture Gallery contains high-definition printed reproductions of well-known Victorian paintings in the Tate Gallery, and compares them with related stereo cards - photographs of scenes featuring real actors and models, staged to tell the same story as the corresponding paintings, all of which are the subject of an exhibition in the Tate Gallery in 2014.

In Brian May's Red Special you will discover everything about Brian May's unique, home-made guitar. Brian reveals all, from the guitar's origins to playing on the roof of Buckingham Palace, from Live Aid to the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, from the set of Bohemian Rhapsody to opening the Academy Awards in 2019 where the film scooped four Oscars. All of this is accompanied by original diagrams, sketches and notes from the building of the guitar, as well as a selection of classic photographs including Brian on stage with his guitar, close-ups and even an X-ray. Rare images are included throughout, as the entire guitar was dismantled and photographed for the book.

Our culture attempts to separate competing ideological factions by denying relationships between multiple perspectives and influences outside of one's own narrow interpretive community. The distinguished essayists in this volume find Daniel R. Schwarz's pluralistic, self-questioning approach to what he calls "reading texts and reading lives" quite relevant to the current historical moment and political situation. A legendary scholar of modernist literature, Schwarz's critical principles are a healthy corrective to cultural hubris. The essayists treat works ranging from fictions by Joyce, Conrad, Morrison, and Woolf to the poetry of Yeats, to Holocaust literature, to the environmental writings of Wendell Berry, to the photographs of Lee Friedlander. The authors focus on different works, but they follow Schwarz in stressing formal elements most often associated with traditional realism while keeping an eye on historical and author-centered approaches. The essayists also follow Schwarz in their emphasis on narrative cohesion and in how they look for signs of agency among characters who possess the will to alter their fate, even in a seemingly random universe such as the one depicted by Conrad. Readers with eyes to ethics and aesthetics, they follow Schwarz in encouraging a values-centered approach that leaves room for the reader to address the ways in which reading a text correlates to the reader's ability to find meaning and value in experience outside the text. Like Schwarz, the essays look for intentionality of authorial meaning (rather than something called an "author function") as well as for the relationship between lived experience and the imagined world of the literary work (rather than the endless semiotic play of an ultimately indecipherable text).

In 2004 a rock star, a TV astronomer and a young research astronomer sat down to write the story of the Universe in the order in which it happened, from its birth at the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, through to its ultimate demise in the infinitely far future. The aim of this book is to explain the Big Bang and everything that followed in a way that made sense, in the strict order in which events occurred, and without using maths, so it would be understandable to everyone, regardless of educational background. The original edition of Bang! was a bestseller, and a go-to for anyone wanting to understand the story of the origins and evolution of our Universe that did not duck the science. Since the first edition, thousands of planets have been discovered, the 'habitable zone' has expanded and a flotilla of new satellites has explored our own solar system, bringing back fresh images and new science. In this book all the latest findings about the evolution of stars and galaxies are included, and the current thinking about our ultimate origins. The latest ideas about Dark Matter and Dark Energy are explained, all illustrated with new images from the world's largest telescopes and space missions. This is the new, updated, popular guide to 'Life, the Universe, and Everything' - The Complete History of the Universe.

"Without a doubt, Eddie Van Halen is the greatest guitar player who has ever lived." -Zakk Wylde Van Halen is as American as apple pie, Ford Mustangs, and fake breasts. However, underneath all the fun and flash is one of the most important and influential, soulful and successful bands in history. With their explosive 1978 debut, they changed the face of rock. As of 2005, they have earned a dozen consecutive multi-Platinum albums with sales reaching in excess of 75 million copies worldwide. Pound for pound, they also happen to be one of the most devastating live bands in history. With thirteen tours and more than 1,300 gigs under their belt, they consistently packed sheds from L.A. to Tokyo. The cast of characters is legendary. "Diamond" David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar and Gary Cherone - three very dynamic but very different frontmen. Alex Van Halen and Michael Anthony - one of the most powerful and consistent rhythm sections in rock. Edward Van Halen - the only rock guitarist in history other than the great Jimi Hendrix to reinvent the electric guitar. "I liked what I read a lot. This book is a labor of love and all true VH fans will love it." -Alan Paul, Guitar World Van Halen 101 is a comprehensive guide to the amazing history, music, impact, and influence of the Mighty VH. No hype, no b.s., just the facts. Includes a Foreword by Brian May and a tribute to Edward Van Halen by over 100 of the world's greatest musicians From Allan Holdsworth and Steve Vai to James Hetfield and Zakk Wylde, all the greats came forward to personally share their thoughts, memories and stories about the man simply known as "King Edward."

Rock legend and experienced amateur astronomer Brian May joins the legendary expert Sir Patrick Moore to tell the story of the Universe from the moment time and space came into existence at the Big Bang, through to the infinite future and the ultimate fate that awaits us. Many of the pictures of the Universe obtained by instruments such as the Hubble Space Telescope or the Very Large Telescope in Chile are beautiful enough to be considered works of art in their own right. This book presents them in context, and uses extraordinary new artworks to explain the mind-blowing theories from the cutting edge of astronomy in a way that everyone can understand.