2022 revised paperback edition of a book which answers the profound question 'Where do we come from?' The story and study of human evolution is one of extraordinary discoveries, daring adventures and often spectacularly vehement arguments, and encompassing a swathe of technical disciplines. The first seven chapters tell the story in chronological order beginning with the earliest primates, the earliest ape-like hominins, and concluding with the rise of modern civilisation. Our distant ancestors most likely evolved in Asia, in a hothouse world newly free of dinosaurs more than 55 million years ago in the lush rainforests. A fossil unveiled in 2013 might give us an idea of what this crucial ancestor looked like when the American palaeontologist Christopher Beard and his colleagues found Archicebus achilles in eastern China. It has the relatively small eyes of an animal active during the day and the sharp molar teeth of an insect-eater. Significantly it also has the hind limbs and flexible foot of a primate gripping with its feet and leaping through branches. Homo sapiens has in the blink of an evolutionary eye spread around the globe, taken control of earth's biological and mineral resources, transformed the environment, discovered the secrets of the universe, and travelled into space. Discover how our ancestors made their first tentative steps, how we lost our fur but gained language, fire and tools, how we strode out of Africa, invented farming and cities and ultimately created modern civilisation - perhaps the only one of its kind in the universe. How did we get to where we are? Where are we going? The astonishing evolution is told in this brief overview. 241pp, paperback with illus. and maps and diagrams.

13 adorable colour images of Donkeys in pairs or solo on mountains and in sunny fields in summer, ears alert, eyes wide an din family groups with babies. With white snouts, brown or grey in colour, mostly looking at the camera, you're sure to be cheered daily with your new friends. There are large grids to write down all your important events, measuring 30 x 60 cm when opened and 12 inches square when closed. 16 months - starting September 2023 and ending December 2024 (the last four months of 2023 are mini-sized). With a monthly view where the week starts on Sundays. Ready to hang wall calendar with plenty of space for notes, To Do and forward planner for an additional four months. Holidays noted, grid design, hanging hole. Large softback, colour. Stock has arrived nice and early! New full price.

13 famous paintings like Sisley's The Lock of Saint-Mammes with every colourful brush stroke mirroring the water and boats, the beautiful close up of Mary Cassatt's Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge, Dance in the City by Renoir, Carnation Lily Lily Rose by Sargent, At the Races by Degas plus Cezanne and Manet and Morisot and Monet's Wheatstacks for December in the freezy field. 16 months - starting September 2023 and ending December 2024 (the last four months of 2023 are mini-sized). With a monthly view where the week starts on Sundays. Ready to hang wall calendar with plenty of space for notes, To Do and forward planner for an additional four months. Holidays noted, grid design, hanging hole. Large softback, colour. Stock has arrived nice and early! New full price.

Rich gold swirls in a marble effect across azure, dark and sky blues with an icy feel if the cover design of Shimmer. Luxury, quality stationery with one with one week to view Monday - Sunday across the double page spread and lined pages, satin pagemarker, space for 2025 forward year planner, names and addresses and telephone numbers and your own notes, this beautifully designed piece of stationery has a slightly padded cover Colour. Would suit ladies or gents. Personal Info, Notable Dates, A5 Padded Diary. 217 x 153 x 20mm. Stock has arrived nice and early! New full price.

England's most controversial King was Richard III. Forever associated with the murder of his nephews, the Princes in the Tower, he divides the nation. As spectacular as his death at Bosworth in August 1485, the last King of England to die in battle, the astonishing discovery of his bones under a Leicester car park five centuries later renewed interest in him and re-opened old debates. Is he the world's most wicked uncle or is he in the words of the man who most smeared him 'a prince more sinned again than sinning'? Richard was not born in the north and neither did he die there, but this detailed look at his life retraces his steps over the 33 years that he lived, and focusses on the area that he loved and made his own. He had castles at Middleham and Sheriff Hutton, Penrith and Sandal; he fought the Scots along the northern border and on their own territory; his son was born at Middleham and was invested as Prince of Wales at York Minster where Richard planned to set up a college of 100 priests. His white boar device can be found in obscure corners of churches and castles; his laws, framed in the single parliament of his short reign, gave rights to the people who served him and loved him north of the Trent. And when he felt threatened or outnumbered by his enemies during those turbulent years of the Wars of the Roses, it was to the men of the North that Richard turned for support and advice. They became his Knights of the Body; members of the Council of the North which outlived Richard by 150 years. They died with him at Bosworth. The story is not divorced from the violent politics of the day or from events that happened far to the south, but the North was Richard's home and the place he loved. Best known for his true crime and crime fiction works, M. J. Trow was educated as a military historian at King's College, London. 176pp, gazetteer, battle maps, castle plans and photographs this is a full re-examination of the Tudor bias, culminating in Shakespeare's play which continues to distort the truth until today.

How do crabs understand the tides? What does a prawn know? How do sandhoppers inherit an inbuilt compass from their parents? How can the depth of one winkle guarantee the lives of its companions? Nicholson explores the natural wonders of the intertidal and our long human relationship with it. The physics of the seas, the biology of anemone and limpet, the long history of the Earth, and the stories we tell of those who have lived here all interconnecting this zone where philosopher, scientist and poet can meet and find meaning. What do our buried beliefs about the tidal sea reflect about our relationship to nature? The sea is not made of water. Creatures are its genes. Look down as you crouch over the shallows and you will find a periwinkle or a prawn, a claw-displaying crab or a cluster of anemones ready to meet you. We have all fallen in love with the seaside and the rockpool became the heart of a kind of nature worship, 'these unruffled wells' of goodness and even happiness and we have inherited some of that Victorian longing for calm. In this world of flux 'hermit crabs are suddenly busy on the sea floor in their winkles and whelks like porters with trolleys at a station... some of those shells are encrusted with patches of the limy, self-hardening seaweed, the pink coralline. One has a sprig of wrack growing from its shell.' 'Effortlessly, in deft, sure and delightful prose, he segues through species, science and art to present tidal nature as a microcosm.' - Philip Hoare. There is a section of colour photographs, plus black and white images, diagrams, and figures and maps and also a fascinating look at planetary connections, tides and rocks, sacrifice, survival, belief and a look to the future and the world's uncertainty, its fierce interfolding of opportunity and threat which makes the sea one of the most revelatory and beguiling habitats on earth. Look beyond your own reflection in this wonderful historian's philosophy that the sea is not made of water. 370pp.

1. Annabelle Lee - Henrey Lesley, 2. Kashmiri Song - Amy Woodford Finden, 3. My Little Welsh Home - W. S. Glyn Williams. Valerie Masterson performs, 4. When You Come to the End of a Perfect Day - Bond, 5. Now Sleeps The Crimson Petal - Quilter, 6. Bird Songs At Eventide - Anon. Thomas Allen performs, 7. Linden Leg - Vaughan Williams, 8. Silent Worship - Attrib. Handel, 9. Silent Noon - Vaughan Williams Sarah Walker performs, 10. Music for a While - Purcell, 11. O Mistress Mine - Parry, 12. Blow The wind Southerly - Anon. Peter Jeffes performs, 13. To Mary - Maud Valery White, 14. The Cherry Tree - Armstrong Gibb, 15. Is She Not Passing Fair - Elgar Raimund Herincx performs, 16. The Vagabond (Songs of Travel) - Vaughan Williams, 17. Sea Fever - Ireland, 18. Do Not Go My Love - Richard Hageman Patricia White - Jonathan Rees (Violin) perform, 19. Phillis on the New Made Hay Patricia White, 20. The Tailor and his Mouse, 21. I Know My Love, 22. I Know Where I'm Going and 23. As I was Goin' to Ballynure all by Rebecca Clarke. CD.

These unique fascinating discs bring you original performances from original piano rolls in full digital sound. These are not acoustic or electric recordings re-mastered, but actual performances recorded for mechanical reproducing pianos (Ampico, Duo-Art and Welte Mignon) by the great composers and interpreters between 1904 and 1935. The recordings were made recently on a new concert-grand piano. Cortot, Paderewski, Zeisler, Friedman, Paderewski, Rubenstein, De Pachmann, Godowsky, Novaes, Gabrilowitsch, D?Albert. CD 1: 1. Etude in Cm Op.25 No.12 - Ocean, 2. Ballade in Ab Op.47, 3. Piano Sonata No.2 Op.35 in Bbm (3rd Mmt) - Funeral March, 4. Waltz in Db Op.64 No. 1 - Minute, 5. Scherzo in C#m Op.39, 6. Bacarolle in F#m Op.60, 7. Nocturne in F# Op.15 No.2, 8. Nocturne in Bm Op.32 No.1, 9. Mazurka in Am Op.67 No.4, 10. Ballad in G Minor Opus, 23, 11. Prelude in C Op.57 Nos. 1, 4, 10, 21 and 24, 12. Waltz in F Op.34 No.3, 13. Berceuse in Db Op.57. CD 2: 1. Waltz in E flat Op.18 - Grande Valse Brillante, 2. Mazurka in A flat Op50 No 2, 3. Scherzo in Bbm Op.31, 4. Nocturne in Db Op.27 No.2, 5. Etude in Gb Op. 10 No. 5 - Black Key, 6. Fantasy Impromptu in C. Minor, Opus, 66, 7. Prelude In B flat Op 28 No 15 Raindrop, 8. Ballade in F Op.38 No.2, 9. Mazurka in C Op.56 No.2, 10. Nocturne in Eb Op.9 No.2, 11. Nocturne in Cm Op.48 No.1, 12. Nocturne in B Op.9 No.3, 13. Impromptu in F# 0p.36, 14. Nocturne in C#m Op.27 No.1. Total running time: CD 1 - 67:47 CD2 - 72:13. The piano rolls date from 1906 to 1928. Two CDs.

England is surrounded by a fringe of mud and pearls - tidal flats and marshes, holiday parks and petrochemical works, jagged cliffs and silver beaches. It has the isles of Canvey, Sheppey, Foulness, Wight and Dogs. Mersea, Wallasea, Two Tree and Rat. And the wild and rockier places of Lundy, the Scillies, Hilbre, the Farnes. Then there's the deserted wartime forts, oil platforms, lost lands of Doggerland and Lyonesse and off-shore wind turbines. These islands and their inhabitants not only cast varied lights on the mainland, they also possess their own peculiar stories, from the Barbary slavers who once occupied Lundy, to the ex-major who seized a wartime fort in the North Sea and declared himself Prince of Sealand. Ian Crofton embarks on a personal journey to a number of the islands encircling England, exploring some that were once places of refuge or holiness, and others that have become locations for prisons, rubbish dumps and military installations. He shows the ways in which England's islands have been formed and how they are constantly changing and his book is filled with excellent natural description, comic encounters, history and culture and he is the most engaging travelling companion. 286pp, 16 pages of colour photos, maps.

From the clever witty and popular Lawless series, this is first-rate Victorian crime fiction. It is 1863, and as a reluctant Inspector of Vice, Campbell Lawless undertakes a reckoning of London's houses of ill repute, a shadowy netherworld of frayed glamour and double standards, mesmerising and unspeakable by turns. From the erotic booksellers of Holywell Street to the alleys of Haymarket, he discovers backstreet cast-offs and casualties of the society bordellos, and becomes fascinated by a musician who has established a foundation for fallen women. But his inquiries draw the attention of powerful men who can be merciless in defending their reputations. Lawless must unlock the heart of a clandestine network before he too is silenced. With cast of characters in addition to the doxies, dollymops, fourpennies, zuches, jawbreakers, lushy betts, dirty salls, pineapple jacks, pimps, socialites, lords, dukes and parliamentarians. 360pp, paperback.