With the help of a Maratha nobleman, Mark Shand buys an elephant named Tara and rides her over six hundred miles across India to the Sonepur Mela, the world's oldest elephant market. From Bhim, a drink-racked mahout, Shand learned to ride and care for her. From his friend Aditya Patankar he learned Indian ways. And with Tara, his new companion, he fell in love. "Travels on my Elephant" is the story of their epic journey across India, from packed highways to dusty back roads where communities were unchanged for millennia. It is also a memorable, touching account of Tara's transformation from scrawny beggar elephant to star attraction, and of the romance that developed between her and her owner Mark Shand. For what began as an adventurous whim has developed, decades later, into a life of campaigning to provide vital migratory corridors for these magnificent creatures whose habitat is under constant assault from man.

With portland cement and cementitious building products (currently used in over 95% of cement applications) consuming vast quantities of natural resources, constitutse a large proportion of industrial waste and currently represent about 5% of anthropogenic global CO2 emissions, there is an urgent need for innovative, creative, cost-effective and sustainable approaches to reduce the tremendous environmental impact of conventional cement-based technology and applications.

Magnesia cements offer one alternative, witha unique set of properties that set them apart from the conventional Portland based cements, such as superior strength, fire resistance, and exceptional ability to bond to a wide range of aggregates. Sorel cement as well as some magnesium compounds and minerals also have the ability to react with atmospheric carbon dioxide and effectively sequester it via carbonation. This will have obvious appeal as carbon dioxide sequestration is currently center stage as an environmental concern.

This reference handbook provides detailed analysis of the chemistry, properties, manufacture and the classical and new uses for magnesia cements. The focus is on Sorel cement (magnesium oxychloride), magnesium oxysulfate and magnesium phosphate cements. The work is ideally suited for materials scientists, cement chemists and ceramicists researching related subjects at academic institutions, and beyond materials research, for any academic working with construction and remediation, cement clinker, novel cement systems (sustainability), hydration and durability, thermodynamic modeling, waste management, and hydrate characterization. Research engineers working on any aspect of cement systems with environmental impacts will also be highly interested.
Formulary information aids research into more environmentally-friendly cement systems

Property chemistry discussion aids chemical phase analysis and improves impact of formulation

Applications analysis and history of global uses provides support for future environmentally stable industrial, building, and non-building applications "

David Attenborough, Dion Leonard (Finding Gobi), Dervla Murphy and Brian Jackman are just four of the authors whose work features in this new anthology from Bradt focusing on true stories about travelling with animals. In Beastly Journeys, there are 46 tales of extraordinary animal travel experiences, from hilarious holidays with pets to journeys on which wild animals somehow came along for the ride, including: David Attenborough tries to get an armadillo through Paraguayan customs; adventurer Ash Dykes takes a white cockerel to Maromokotro to ward off evil spirits; Mike Gerrard shares a car journey from Belsize Park to Canvey Island with a python; Brian Jackman rides, walks and swims with Abu the elephant; Bradt New Travel Writer of the Year Dom Tulett rows with a kingfisher; and John Rendall travels to Africa with Christian, the lion he bought at Harrods and raised in west London. Also included is a brand new piece of writing from ultramarathon runner Dion Leonard about his experience with Gobi, the stray dog who accompanied him for 80 miles over the treacherous Tian Shian mountains. A mix of new, previously unpublished writers and old favourites are included, with extracts from writers such as Mark Shand (Travels on my Elephant), Dervla Murphy (Eight Feet in the Andes) and Robert Louis Stevenson (Travels with a Donkey), not to mention Gerald Durrell, 19th-century explorer Isabella Bird and renowned publisher Michael Joseph. Compelling, engaging, surprising, humorous and entertaining. if this book proves one thing it's that travel with animals is every bit as unpredictable as you would expect it to be.

The Brahmaputra is one of the world’s great rivers. Beginning as a tiny glacial stream in Western Tibet it flows through India and Bangladesh before gushing out into the Bay
of Bengal.

Unable to reach the northern part of the river due to Chinese intransigence, Mark Shand nonetheless set out to attempt what no foreigner had ever done: complete the huge journey from the unexplored jungles of the Indo-Tibet border to the largest river delta in the world.
RIVER DOG is a chronicle of that journey, a remarkable story encompassing sublime landscapes – in Assam where the River begins to broaden into its full majesty – and rather odd encounters – including a bizarre group of identical-looking monks in Majuli (the largest river island in the world). But it is also a celebration -- of a river that flows with mystery and legend, the men who have set out to discover it and a rather charming canine travelling companion called Bhaiti.