Great Britain and Ireland are particularly well endowed with cathedrals and abbeys and it is estimated that there were almost 1,000 built during the Middle Ages. When Cromwell closed the majority of them during the dissolution of the monasteries, many were left in ruins, plundered or survived because their local communities adopted them as parish churches. The outstanding example is St Albans which begins this beautifully illustrated collection. We go to Bath Abbey, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Canterbury, Chelmsford, Chester, Chichester, Coventry, St Davids, Durham, Ely, Exeter, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Glastonbury, Gloucester, Hereford, Leicester, Lincoln, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Oxford, St Patrick's Dublin, St Paul's, Peterborough, Rochester, Salisbury, Southwark, Southwell Minster, Tewkesbury Abbey, Truro, Wells, Westminster Abbey, Winchester, Worcester to York Minster with a bolt of lightning and walls of glass and it rebellious Yorkshireman. Discover tales of an English pope, a martyred archbishop, secrets and troublesome spies, stained glass wonders and castle-cathedrals, famous memorials and spectacular architectural feats in a rich heritage and fascinating collection. 144 well illustrated pages.

Ambitious engineering, brilliant colour from new forms of stained glass, murals and sculpture, the architects whose work is included here range from Basil Spence and Edward Maufe, designers of major cathedrals, to the radical Gillespie, Kidd and Coia whose brutalist seminary lies abandoned near Dumbarton. This superbly well produced Batsford publication has one or more colour photographs on every page together with architect, location, year completed, denomination and whether grade 1, 2 or A listed. Each church or chapel has been built in the UK since 1914, in a period in which concrete and steel gave a new freedom to construction while new ideas about congregations changed assumptions about traditional layouts, bringing celebrants and people closer together. The book provides biographies of major designers, articles on glass, fittings, and on the synagogues, mosques and temples that play an intrinsic part in worship in Britain today. Leading architectural historians give a fine brief description for each such as the 'massive brick piers supporting the ring beam, light spilling down a flared concrete funnel from a lantern into a regular space...as a result of divine laws of geometry, mechanics and proportion, timeless laws' about Abbey Church of Our Lady Help of Christians in Worth, Sussex. Clifton Cathedral in Bristol is a hexagonal space, superbly lit by roof lights and rising to the three-part thrusting spire, presumably symbolic of the Trinity. It was built in 1973 to a remarkably low budget of £600,000. Organised by date 1914-29, 1930-45, 1946-59, 1960-69 and 1970 and after and with special chapters on stained glass, art and artefacts. With useful glossary, 208pp, 19.6 x 25.5cm, packed with colour photos.

'Incredible True Stories of Heavenly Encounters and the Afterlife', the book is co-written with the medium Claire Broad. Together they share fascinating true stories of ordinary people who have experienced direct communication from the spirit world, and those who have received proof of survival through a reading with Claire. As well as examining the ways in which messages can come to us from the other side, the book outlines the latest scientific research on the afterlife and mediumship and answers important questions about what happens after we die. It shares practical steps we can all take to become more attuned to the medium that lies within us and recognise the signs that heaven is calling. The book outlines the many different ways that heaven may answer our prayers, offer us comfort and provide proof of survival. It includes the top ten afterlife signs, what near-death experiences can tell us, the meaning of visions and dreams, the importance of intuition and coincidence and advice on visiting a medium. 331pp with an appendix of interesting podcasts and YouTube videos. Paperback.

Arranged by Ancient including Confucious, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurius and Augustine of Hippo, Medieval including St Anselm, Hildegard of Bingen, and Ibn Rushd, Early Modern including Erasmus, Machiavelli, Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke and Voltaire; Modern including David Hume, Adam Smith, Kant, Mary Wollstonecraft, Goethe, Schopenhauer, John Stuart Mill, Kierkegaard, Marx and Nietzsche; and into the 20th century with Edmund Husserl, George Santayana, Bertrand Russell, Ortega y Gasset, Wittgenstein, Sartre, Simone Weil, Barthes, Iris Murdoch, Phillipa Foot, Michel Foucault, Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag. 'The only thing I know is that I know nothing.' (Socrates). Illuminating more than 80 of the world's most important thinkers, this magnificent large fully illustrated publication by Dorling Kindersley explores the fascinating stories of their lives, loves and pioneering ideas. Thus the book provides us the means to understand ourselves and our world with wisdom from the earliest writings onwards that we now recognise as philosophical works. We are invited to revisit and interrogate their blueprints for living because Confucious, the Buddha and Plato answered that call in different ways and with different emphases. Each of the 100 constructive systems of thought, some of which endure and all share the conviction in the importance of philosophical understanding, is lavishly illustrated with photographs and paintings of philosophers, their homes, friends, studies and personal belongings together with pages from original manuscripts, first editions and correspondence. 360 large quality pages, 22 x 25.8cm.