Richly decorated with antique maps, a spacecraft image of the moon, 1548 image of Ptolemy Prince of astronomy from the book Geography, dozens of antique collectible maps through to satellite imagery, the Atlantic Ocean in a physiographic diagram, this is a beautifully illustrated full-colour history of mapmaking across centuries, using the visual representation of the world through time to tell a new story about world history and the men who made it. Chapters cover prehistoric maps, stories of creation, and Sumerian, Babylonian and Egyptian maps; world made for humans by God in which the clerics and cartographers of the Middle Ages depict the holy story of creation and the first atlases of Ortelius and Mercator. We are taken all the way from the mysterious symbols of the Stone Age to Google Earth, exploring how the ability to envision what the world looked like developed hand in hand with worldwide exploration and meet visionary geographers and heroic explorers along with other unknown heroes of the map-making world, both ancient and modern. Dutch nautical charts and the battle for the biggest Atlas, more about Mercator and all he never managed to complete; France, Denmark and Norway learn to survey large areas; Konsvinger gets a prime meridian in 1779, and maps play a role in central government and administration; the second Fram expedition sets out in 1898 in the wake of the many others that had previously tried to map the northern regions; the First World War paves the way for aerial surveys which in turn pave the way for a Norwegian economic map series and the appearance of maps in most areas of society. Lear about the 7/10 of our planet that are covered by water and Marie Thorpe's attempts to understand what the ocean floor looks like and why; and lastly we look at satellites and computers which provide and manage vast amounts of information and give us maps that are able to speak to us. Big glossy, glamorous colour pages, remainder mark. 18.73 x 24.13cm. 367 pages.

Sub-titled 'The Past, Present and Future of Our Quest to Go Deeper Underwater', here is a journey to the bottom of the ocean and the future of our planet. The first divers to venture into the sea held their breath and splashed beneath the surface. Over the centuries they invented wooden diving bells, clumsy diving suits, and unwieldy contraptions in attempts to go deeper and stay longer under water and push the boundaries of human endurance. Each advance was fraught with danger as people had to survive the crushing weight of water and the deadly physiological effects of breathing compressed air. Plunging into the narrow trenches between the tectonic plates of the Earth's crust, they eventually reached the bottom of the ocean in the same decade that men first walked on the moon. It would be 52 years before anyone returned to these depths, but today many countries are developing drones and submersibles capable of reaching the ocean's deepest point. Once a mission for its own sake, now there are more tangible rewards - the ocean economy with ocean-based industries combined with the assets and resources provided by marine ecosystems - is set to double in size in the coming decades and there is much to be gained from what lies beneath. We meet inventors such as Sir Edmund Halley, Auguste Piccard and Jacques Cousteau who popularised recreational Scuba diving. And of course so recently we have seen the tragic loss of the OceanGate Titan submersible. It was Otis Barton who in 1928 designed the first diving tank that would go to depths suspended by a cable who explained why a steel sphere rather than a cylindrical shape would be ideal. He set a record of over 3,000 feet in his sphere in 1934. These superb facts are woven into a fascinating story, so plunge in. 298pp, 16 pages of colour images.

Bibliophile is thrilled to find copies remaining to discount of this huge and beautiful book of the work of England's most famous topographer, Thomas Moule. The series of country and city maps he produced in the 1830s are 65 engraved maps of great refinement and quality and their protracted life is evidence of their popularity. His work is celebrated as the very last decorative series of county maps to be published and have become highly collectable as single-sheet frameable pieces. This volume presents the author's original county text descriptions for the first time since original publication and his original Introduction. In some cases a city map is included and descriptions explore Moule's work alongside the rapidly changing cartographic production methods and the consequent explosion in mapmaking, and at the same time railway mania which was taking place. Influenced by mapmaker John Speed, with extensive heraldry and vignette views of buildings and monuments, Moule's deep interest in, and stylistic application of, Gothic architectural elements was part of the wider appeal. Original place names, churches, monasteries, roads and parishes, rivers and inland navigation are extensively listed, and the hills of England with districts of red sandstone and red marl, and low water beaches. England has four points of strength, he observes - two are her coal and her iron, two of them are moral - freedom of the press and trial by jury. Beginning with Bedfordshire, turn the volume on its side to admire the glorious graphic design, borders, exquisite handwritten place names before moving to glorious Cambridgeshire and a map of the town and University of Cambridge. Cornwall, Cumberland, Plymouth and Devonport, Durham, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Boston, the Plague and the Fire of London, the City of Westminster, Monmouthshire, Northumberland, Shropshire, Staffordshire, West Moreland, Wiltshire and ending with the Yorkshire East Riding, 55 county and city maps included with full text in lavish colour publication. 15" wide 12" tall.

The acclaimed author of 'The Invention of Paris' leads us by the hand in this walk from Ivry to Saint-Denis, roughly following the meridian that divides Paris into east and west, and passing such familiar landmarks as the Luxembourg Gardens, the Pompidou Centre, the Gare du Nord and Montmartre, as well as little-known alleyways and arcades. Filled with historical anecdotes, geographical observations and literary references, Eric Hazan's walk guides us through an unknown Paris, showing us how, through planning and modernisation, the city's revolutionary past has been erased in order to enforce a reactionary future. But by walking and observation he shows us how we can regain our knowledge of the radical past of the city of Robespierre, the Commune, Sartre and the May-68 Uprising. The book begins and ends in a bookshop, the Envie de Lire, a place of 'browsing and discovery'. With lovely little hand drawn maps and dozens of photos throughout the text, 198pp in paperback.

Drawn from the Francis Frith Collection photographic archive, this volume of over 400 photographs from the period 1865 to 1928 shows urban and rural Britain, people at work and play and tourist attractions such as Stonehenge and Bodiam Castle. Quaint cottages with rose bedecked walls, old stone-built pubs, ancient buttressed abbeys, ruined Franciscan priories, strange rock formations and tree-lined lanes - all sights we can still see today, but here the people bring the photos to life. Here are children paddling in the sea at Weymouth in 1909 with the girls in wide-brimmed hats, their white dresses tucked into their drawers. Other photos include solemn-faced boys packed onto an elephant in 1913 at London Zoo, ladies in straight shifts and cloche hats walking along a low bridge at Newquay in 1925 and a bowler-hatted young man posing with his horse-drawn delivery cart outside the shop. Though the pace of life was slower and the surroundings more picturesque, people still enjoyed visiting the beach, rummaging around a street market strolling on the pier, peering in shop windows or relaxing in a deckchair just watching the world go by, exactly like us. Covers family, church, military, school, parks, traffic and trains, high streets and shops, town halls, beauty spots and lakes, trade and attractions like donkey rides, paddling at Barry Island and Redcar, The Yorkshire Pierrots on Clacton-on-Sea 1912 with newly discovered leisure time for the masses. Goodwood races, golfing and boat races have changed very little. Wonderful snapshots of a bygone era, many 1880s-1910s all around Britain. The photos are from the Francis Frith and Archie Miles collections. Large, square format 11½", 400 full page mono very nostalgic photos, a real glimpse of past lives and times. Text in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Dutch. 320 pages, 27.8 x 29cm.
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The capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1900 Vienna consisted of some 15 nations and drew in many artists and intellectuals in a creative melting pot. In rapid succession Historicism, Art Nouveau and Expressionism developed as the dominant art styles and these emerged from typical Viennese themes. One of the first images in this sumptuous volume is of Gustav Klimt's Auditorium of the Opera House and Theatre followed by colour photographs of modern Viennese architecture, sepia postcards before this magnificent gallery of portraits by artists like Hans Makart of a beautiful female pianist and singer, a Caught Ball, idyllic family scenes with children, Leopold Carl Müller's Camel Market in Cairo, the sensuous Woman in Yellow by Max Kurzweil and his romantic A Walk in the Garden, the stunning gold iconography of Klimt, his Yearning for Happiness, poster art, Garden with Sunflowers, A Church in Cassone, his graphic Sitting Male nude and Two Girlfriends, self-portraits and nudes by Egon Schiele, nude male studies by Koloman Moser and much more architectural legacies photographed in colour, plus interiors and design, greetings cards, fashion and more. The turn of the 20th century was a fascinating period in Vienna, as Austria-Hungary's capital on the Danube became a leading centre of modernism, defined by styles of Art Nouveau, historicism and Expressionism, all with a touch of typical Viennese morbidity. Artists like Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann dreamed of forging a Gesamtkunstwerk, or total artistic expression, in which not just design, architecture and crafts were combined, but also art and life itself. In this sumptuously illustrated album, art historian Janina Nentwig explores such major movements in Vienna as the Vienna Secession, themes of sex and Eros and death in painting, the construction of the Ring Road, ornamentation and architecture, and objects of everyday beauty from the Wiener Werkstätte. Oozing with hundreds of colour photos. 320 pages, softback, 21 x 24cm.
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The academic, TV personality and foreign correspondent Roger Willemsen admits more often than not his quest is driven by 'a predilection for unlovely things.' He traverses five continents in a series of 22 engaging essays reflecting on a lifetime of travel to the far and forgotten corners of our planet. He offers remarkable encounters and mysterious entanglements in locations as diverse as a Kamchatkan volcano, a Burmese railway station, an Arctic icebreaker, the dimly lit corridor of a Mumbai brothel, a hospital ward in Minsk, a fresco of the Judgement Day in Orvieto. From this remarkable series of psychogeographic sketches, there emerges another kind of end, cathartic and healing, an end to love and lust, to illusions, to order and understanding as he traces unexpected connections among places, times and peoples. Chapter headings include Eiffel, Gibraltar, the Himalayas, Isafjördur, Patagonia, Timbuktu, Mandalay, Hong Kong, Tonga and the North Pole among them. 490pp in glamorous heavyweight hardback.

As the publisher for Time Out, Peter Fiennes nurtured a lifelong obsession with old guide books, walking books and city guides and titles about Britain's countryside and seaside. Here he turns his attention to the golden age of Greek myths and how they crop up in novels, films and popular culture. But what's the modern relevance of Theseus, Hera and Pandora? Were these stories ever meant for children and what's to be seen now at the places where heroes fought and gods once quarrelled? Fiennes travels to the sites of some of the most famous Greek myths on the trail of hope, beauty and a new way of seeing what we have done to our world. He walks through landscapes both stunning and spoiled on the trail of dancing activists and Arcadian shepherds, finds the 'most beautiful beach in Greece', consults the Oracle, and loses himself in cities, villages and ruins of this storied land. 'A classical education for those of us who are bereft of one.' - Patrick Barkham. 294pp, line art and map.

Following a successful career as an award-winning, best-selling novelist, in 2004 Lisa St Aubin de Terán retreated to a remote village in northern Mozambique. There she found her own African roots, founded a charity, and confronted new challenges. Much has been written about her life and escapades with a trio of Venezuelan exiles, life on an Andean hacienda, her return to literary fame, and two decades living in a crumbling Umbrian palace. But despite all the media hype about her, she managed to hide much of her actual life. Now, like the Japanese art of kintsugi, in this new memoir Lisa puts the shattered pieces of her life back together, filling in many of the dramatic, and often scandalous, gaps. While her life has been said to be stranger than fiction, it is fiction that has kept her afloat. This autobiography sets the record straight and shows a writer who for over half a century has enjoyed following her dreams, even when those dreams outdistanced her reach. Lisa St Aubin de Terán is the prize-winning Anglo-Guyanese London-born author of 20 books, including novels, short stories and nonfiction. Much of her writing draws on her varied life experiences. And time warps, rural communities, isolation and grace under pressure are still the dominant themes in both her life and work. It has been featured in the Times and the Sunday Times also she is appearing on BBC Radio 4 Woman?s Hour and reviews will be in The Daily Telegraph, Lady Magazine and featured heavily on social media. Famous along with Salman Rushdie and Rose Tremain in the 1980s, wild child Lisa disappeared from the London literary scene for over 20 years. She has now returned with a suitcase full of her writing - this hugely enjoybable and curious autbiography, and a bunch of novels! She was neighbours with Eric Newby and a voracious reader, described by a school teacher as a "fatherless half-caste", she adored her charismatic father. Publication date 24th January. 326pp, 234 x 153mm. New Full price hardback.

This collection of early colour photographs of the Scottish coastline comes from the heyday of the picture postcard, driven by the explosion in railway travel and the popularity of Scottish scenery inspired by Queen Victoria's love of the Highlands. These postcards provide a route back into long-vanished townscapes, while the costumes and millinery give us a real insight into fashion and the social life of the time. Starting on the west coast we visit the charming town of Kirkcudbright, a magnet for artists, whose picturesque harbour and sailing ships have long disappeared. Nearby Stranraer is the home of the ferry to Ireland, shown here in 1909 with the last of two paddle steamers to serve the route. Further north, McBrayne's paddle steamer is shown in 1908 entering the canal system at Fort William. In the 19th century Girvan was the embarkation point for emigrants to Canada, and its beaches became a tourist attraction with the arrival of the railway. Campbeltown at the base of the Kintyre peninsula had over 30 distilleries and 600 fishing boats at the start of the 20th century. In 1853, angry locals in Garelochhead blockaded the town's pleasure steamer from an invasion of tourists, while nowadays the town repels invasion as Britain's submarine base. Port Glasgow and Clydebank prospered because of the ships of awesome size built in the docks. On the east coast, Aberdeen has been transformed from a fishing town into a powerhouse of energy supplies. A photo from 1880 shows the partially collapsed Tay Bridge, while further down the east coast, a magnificent photo foregrounds the ferry Forfarshire on the South Queensferry slipway. 132pp, softback, handcoloured postcards on every page.