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This Month's Highlights…
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Another retro quality gift item, a genuine Peacock feather quill pen with a beautiful wide feather, antique silver look decorated in filigree flowers on the barrel and stainless steel nib. The pen measures 21cm from tip to nib. For experts, all beginners in calligraphy and beautiful handwriting, the set includes three extra nibs of different widths and metals - one medium fine golden, one sharp, stainless steel and a third with a double layer for italic writing. The mix of stainless steel and iridium alloy to prevent rust and ensure durability. Simply pull out the nib and replace with one of the width of your choice. The set comprises four nibs pen and a matching pen stand in silver decorated metal measuring 4cm at the circular base diameter and 4cm high with a shaped space to perfectly fit your quill pen. The gift box is decorated with the words in gold 1502 World Map Series and an antique map design.
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£24.99
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Olive, Betsy, Mable - give your new dolly a name as you stroke her very soft plush velveteen skin and sit her upright, long legs extended, on your armchair as you meet and greet your new friend. Beautifully dressed in a lace-trimmed embroidered and patterned fine cotton dress with lacy collar, velvet decorations in their hair, stitches for bootees, the 'hair' is a contrasting textured fabric. She has smiling closed eyes, little tiny pink cheeks and a huge flat round head, floppy arms and legs and big round white bottom! That makes the dolly sit upright very easily. There is no choice of colours, we have available a dolly dressed in blue, pink or yellow. Each measures a generous size 40cm tall and has a little label attached to one arm which must be removed before gifting. CE safety approved.
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£15.00
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From his literary beginnings and the background of the Doyle family, his mentor and model for Holmes Dr Joseph Bell, the doctor who sets up practice that wants to write, here are the literary detectives that came before him. Read about A Study in Scarlet and how Sherlock Holmes was born in Beeton's Christmas Annual 1887, appearance, character and background, numbers and complications, the search for 221b, the follow up novels, the Strand Magazine, the first great illustrator Sidney Paget, big brother Mycroft, the long-suffering landlady Mrs Hudson, Scotland Yard, great quotations, plots, parodies, stage productions, scholarships, spiritualism, mystery stories and the enduring appeal - the life and work of Sherlock Holmes is celebrated in this collection of stories and trivia. With stories of John Watson to James Moriarty, bad habits, baffling powers of deduction, here is everything about the timeless detective celebrated in 144 very well illustrated pages.
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£9.99
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A superb selection of walks which introduces themes and characters that define the beautiful landscape of England. Walk along the coast at Robin Hood's Bay, a medieval walk from Fountains Abbey, out on the tiles at Boltby and Thirlby Bank, along Ullswater's shore to Silver Point, lilies and lakes seen from Loughrigg, Dovedale and ivory spires, scaling the Heights of Abraham, Blakeney Eye's magical marshes, Castle Combe, walking with Rosie in the Slad Valley, Lulworth to Durdle Door, the Dartmouth National Park and Bovey Travey, Wanstead and its royal connections, the New Forest trails and Devil's Dyke and the world's grandest view. These are just some of the highlights including the glorious scenery of the Lake District and majestic views across the South Downs. 20 walks carefully written and compiled by expert local authors, each includes a clear, easy-to-follow route description, map and a gradient and difficulty rating. Very appealing full page colour photographs of some of the most quintessentially English villages, country cottages, churches and coastlines. 112pp, landscape format 27 x 22cm.
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£6.50
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Mentored to stardom by Walt Disney himself, Hayley reveals the truth of her own coming-of-age story in her own words, a story of incredible twists of fate and fortune, but also mismanagement, bankruptcy, family crisis and dislocation. What happens when a girl grows up in a world where everyone wants her to remain a child? Hayley's teenage decade in Hollywood produced some of the greatest family movies, classics like Pollyanna, The Parent Trap and In Search of the Castaways, and in Britain the acclaimed Whistle Down the Wind. Overnight, Hayley became a household name at the tender age of 12. Her memoir touches on growing up in a family of performers and she evokes a lost empire of mid-20th century Hollywood in her warm-hearted peek-behind-the-curtain at filmmaking in the 1960s. Mills won a BAFTA Award for her performance in the British crime drama Tiger Bay and her seven-picture deal with Walt Disney made her an international star and included her dual role as the twins Sharon and Susan in The Parent Trap. She was just 14 when she made Pollyanna and continued to make films and TV and drama among them as Caroline in Wild At Heart on ITV. Never a dull passage, 394pp in paperback, 16 pages of colour and black and white photos including hanging on to the mast of the Swiss Family Robinson shipwreck in Tobago, 1959.
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£6.00
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Native Americans make up less than one per cent of the total US population, but represent half the nation's languages and cultures. Here in one grand sweep is the full story of America's indigenous peoples, their society, culture and religion, everything from the land-based spirituality of their early creation myths, and the late rise of Indian Pride, to the 88 uses to which the Sioux put the flesh and bones of the buffalo, and the practice of berdache (men adopted as women). The book offers a chronological history of Native Americans and their emergence out of the now submerged continent of Beringia, the 'forgotten wars' of the 16th and 17th centuries which wiped many tribes from the East Coast. It finally describes to the last struggles of the Cheyenne and the Comanche. Celebrating these peoples' way of life rather than focusing on the manner of their genocide, it does not ignore uncomfortable facts of the Amerindian past including suspected cannibalism and their part in the decimation of North America's buffalo herds. Some remarkable success stories are now emerging. A compelling account of the truth, tragedy and magic of America's original inhabitants. 571pp in mammoth paperback.
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£7.00
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A magnificent Thames & Hudson heavyweight quality 496 page softback packed with 273 colour illustrations, a personal selection of paintings admired from public collections during the course of Christopher Lloyd's career in art, here are highlights and unexpected treasures. If you find yourself in Hull, Cork or Dundee, what paintings should you go and look at? Many masterpieces are waiting for you, sometimes neglected, in our galleries and museums and here the distinguished broadcaster and critic Lloyd identifies over 265 masterpieces from the National Gallery to The Burrell Collection in Glasgow around England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Admire The Dice Players from 1650 at Preston Hall Museum Stockton-on-Tees, children using pebbles to play Knucklebones on the beach in Philip Wilson Steer's canvas found in Ipswich, masterpieces by Sir Alfred Munnings depicting his wife and horse and himself from 1935 in Dedham, Vuillard, Augustus John, Alma-Tadema, Titian all found at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, the strikingly graphic The Butcher's Shop of 1583 by Carracci and a Virgin and Child and Three Angels from 1475, a Lady with Book and a Pissarro landscape, Holman Hunt all found at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Mother and Child by the Sea is a particularly atmospheric, dark and brooding image of a calm and peaceful night with the moon half hidden by clouds over the sea, the child pointing expectantly suggesting his father is onboard the sailing ship in the near distance. This is on page 267 and immediately before the colourful Jockeys Before the Race by Degas, both of which together with Gainsborough and the Travelling Companions by Egg, the Music Lesson and The Rest on the Flight to Egypt by Orazio Gentileschi all to be seen at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Page after page of well and lesser known masterpieces, beautifully curated with an unobtrusively erudite detailed text, a model of art-historical writing and a sustained pleasure to read. 496pp, 273 colour illus. 21 x 16cm, softback.
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£11.00
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Posthumously discovered in Highsmith's linen cupboard and edited down from 56 thick spiral notebooks by her devoted editor, this one-volume over 1,000 page assemblage of her diaries and notebooks traces the mesmerising double life of one of the 20th century's most conflicted and fascinating novelists. The famously secretive Highsmith refused to authorise a biography during her lifetime but left behind these 8,000 pages of diaries which reveal at last the inscrutable figure behind the pen. They show her unwavering literary ambitions, coming often at huge personal sacrifice, as she reflects on good and evil, loneliness and intimacy, sexuality and sacrifice, love and murder. We feel her euphoria writing 'The Price of Salt' (later adapted into the film Carol) one of the first mainstream novels to depict two women in love, and we watch her in Positano, gleefully conjuring Mr Ripley, the psychopathic and anti-hero that would cement her reputation. She describes her tumultuous romantic relationships alongside her sometimes dizzying social life involving Jane Bowles, Peggy Guggenheim, Carson McCullers, Arthur Koestler and W. H. Auden. In her skewering of McCarthy-era America, her prickly disparagement of contemporary art, and ever-percolating prejudices, we see Highsmith revealing the roots of her psychological angst and acuity. Written in her inimitable and dazzling prose and offering all the pleasure of her novels, these are one of the most compulsively readable literary diaries to be published in generations - unfiltered and an unforgettable picture of this enigmatic trailblazing author. They comprise one of the most observant and ecstatic accounts by one of the finest writers in the English language who died in 1995. 1000 page paperback, 15 x 23cm.
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£11.00
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The third and final real stereophonic LP from Columbia with a part three booklet. The tracks are You're No Good, Talkin' New York, In My Time of Dyin', Man of Constant Sorrow, Fixin' To Die, Pretty Peggy-O, Highway 51, Gospel Plow, Baby Let Me Follow You Down, House of The Risin' Sun, Freight Train Blues, Song To Woody and See That My Grave Is Kept Clean. Originally released 1962 and with the iconic young Dylan in the photograph by Don Hunstein holding his acoustic guitar and wearing a sheepskin jacket and trademark black corduroy baker boy cap. Terrific value for money and a companion to 94044 The Freewheelin' 12" Vinyl Album and 94423 The Times They Are A-Changin' 12" Vinyl Album.
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£20.00
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Mariella Novotny was found dead with her face in a bowl of milk pudding in February 1983. She was in the process of writing her memoirs. 'It's dynamite!' Christine Keeler said, 'I think it was murder...most probably by the CIA.' In 1961, Mariella was an underage hooker engaging in sexual relations with President John F. Kennedy, the most powerful man in the world. She was believed to be part of a vice ring set up by an alleged Communist agent who was also a well-known British film producer. FBI officers called their investigation 'The Bow-Tie Case'. Two years later the young 'Monroe lookalike' played a major part in another sex scandal with implications for national security - the Profumo Affair. Mariella was the hostess of the Man in the Mask party. She was a close friend of Stephen Ward, the osteopath and pander to high society, another putative whistle-blower who died in suspicious circumstances. In the late 1960s, she gave birth to the illegitimate child of Eddie Chapman (Agent Zigzag), England's most successful wartime double agent. Between 1975 and 1978 she was working undercover for Operation Countryman, an investigation into police corruption in the Flying Squad. Her chief target was the author's grandfather, Charlie Taylor, a London conman who had high-ranking officers in his deep pockets. Mariella brought them all down. An excerpt from the chapter entitled Black Power and Rotting Hill: 'Michael came to London. He worked his way into the veins of criminal society. In Notting Hill, he managed prostitutes, ran gambling houses, sold drugs and collected rent for the property racketeer Peter Rachman, who had already had a go at bedding Mariella and blackmailing Hod.' Includes colour photos including Soho in the early 60s and Mariella on her wedding day to Hod Dibben. 253 pages.
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£6.50
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The book quite literally opens with a triple gatefold, a beautiful artwork with short text telling an ancient tale where underneath a river lives a beautiful goddess using ancient stylised Chinese depictions, the noble train of horses and porters approached the mountain of Jing. In pale greens for lush grass, the mermaid figure has a green fish-scale back, an alluring goddess. "She's a light as a swallow in flight and as supple as a flying dragon. Her face is even more radiant than the chrysanthemums that bloom in autumn..." Another five page gatefold then unfurls in an exquisite Chinese artwork foldout showing the beautiful goddess decorated with fine jade and gold, she skips as she walks here and there picking flowers and magically plucks out reishi mushrooms. We are told that these were used for medicinal purposes throughout China. There are stylised carp fish with beautifully decorated scales, waterlilies peeping up with eyes at the surface, tendrils of flowers and swirling water. "My heart was filled with love, but at the same time I was afraid of being tricked." This ancient Chinese poem was created by Caoz Zhi in the period 220-280CE. He is returning from the capital to his own land when he stops at the Luo River for a rest where he instantly falls in love with the goddess. He sees a nymph of peerless beauty and is swept away by her ethereal beauty. We follow the dreamlike journey and even more four-page gatefold pullout pages in a truly entrancing tale. There are more gatefolds with six dragons in a procession and whales and the magic continues over all 78 very large colourful pages, 29.2 x 29.4cm. Designed for ages 9-12, this is more likely to be collected by interested adults. There is an explanation of all the mythical creatures at the end such as Nüwa and Bluefish and Yanzi. Colour.
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£15.00
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With the big swirly typeface 1970s lettering for their band name, utopian lyrics, dreamy artworks by Roger Dean on albums like Tales from Topographic Oceans, many music lovers have been moved by classic albums like Fragile, Close to the Edge, Relayer, Going for the One, or more recent offerings like Fly From Here and Heaven & Earth. This magical book perfectly captures the spirit of progressive rock's first, biggest and best band with original interviews from Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, the late and great bassist Chris Squire and many others. The tales unfold via an exhaustive chronology designed to satisfy the most knowledgeable of Yes fans. You just might learn what 'Close to the Edge' actually means or why Alan White and Jon Anderson might be seen prowling the junkyard for car parts! Using a timeline format, the superb biographer Popoff disentangles the convoluted tale of the band's hirings and firings, their inside creations, live shows and triumphs, and studio victories as well as the occasional controversial failure such as when Anderson wanted to record 'Tales from Topographic Oceans' in the countryside so a cut-out cow was brought in. Popoff also gets the views of contemporaries such as Steve Hackett (Genesis), Bill Ward (Black Sabbath) and John Wetton (King Crimson, Asia et al) to provide a rounded view of the prog movement. Colour photos, 205pp, large softback.
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£7.50
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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.
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£14.00
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The sound of silence - even the Heckler & Koch 'sound dampened' is not completely silent because when a gun is fired there are actually two noises - the explosion of the cartridge, and the high-velocity crack of the bullet if it breaks the sound barrier. This authoritative illustrated historical reference guide to military, law enforcement and antique firearms from around the globe contains the world's most important small guns. From the medieval hand cannon and the matchlock handgun to the Luger P08 and today's FN P90, here are famous small arms including the Colt .45, the Browning High-Power M1935, the Smith & Wesson and the Sten Machine Gun. This magnificent volume has 180 specially commissioned photographs and artworks including cutaway diagrams to show internal components and gun operation and is expertly written by leading professionals in their field. Old weapons are often objects of beautiful craftsmanship both in their workings and their ornate inlay, carvings and metalwork. Just as impressive are the sleek, light and efficient modern designs. Grouped according to country of origin, the entries focus on the salient features of each gun with a full specification, manufacturer, calibre, magazine, action, total length, barrel length, and weight unloaded together with a close-up colour photograph. 256 large pages, 22 x 28cm.
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£12.50
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With a big heavy bottom and squidgy round belly so that he sits upright very easily, or lolls in a laidback way, with incredibly soft tactile fur, little padded feet, brown nose, shiny brown eyes, little ears and floppy arms, we adore this brand new product from friends of ours at Ashridge. They are the people at #66books, the TikTok phenomenon. Measures approximately 36cm or 15" top to toe and a companion to our super-sized Teddy from the same supplier code 90662.
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£17.50
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Understand your genetic code and a lot more about evolution, ancestry, health, genomics and epigenetics with a leading consultant from Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital who specialises in rare diseases and conditions with a genetic cause. In the big colour graphic layout Haynes Publishing is renowned for, explained simplistically but accurately is the history of DNA discovery, the law of dominance, segregation and independent assortment, inheritance patterns, gametes and zygosity. The DNA molecule is a double helix made up of two strands each containing a backbone of sugar and phosphate. Chromosomes are structures found inside the cell nucleus, tightly coiled strands of DNA, twisted around special proteins called histones. We should each have 46 chromosomes in total, 23 from our mother and 23 from our father. Females have two X chromosomes and males have one X and one Y chromosome. The X chromosome contains about 800 genes and in comparison the Y has only about 70 including the so-called sex-determining genes that makes someone with a Y male. There are sections on sequencing the human genome, genetic disorders, gene editing and outstanding breakthroughs in archaeology and science which are informing us about our past and defining our future. The book tracks DNA's fates in defining many aspects of our lives today, includes practical experiments, DNA in crime investigation, human evolution and medical science and the latest debates on cloning, commercial genetic testing and the microbiome. In this way the book brings together all the fascinating strands of genetic science and how DNA is being mapped, classified, utilised and understood. 160 very large pages, 21.6 x 28cm approx. Hundreds of colour illus. and diagrams and flow charts.
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£10.00
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Magic, religion and science are intertwined, and archaeology teaches us as much about ancient settlements and cultures and the history of magic in the human and spiritual world. 'From the steppes of Mongolia to the palaces of London and Paris, from prehistory to today, told through the lens of magic that has always existed alongside and within religion itself, here is a gripping ride of astonishing span. There are colourful characters, shaman, witches, kings, esoteric rites and revelatory research in this highly entertaining historical treasure trove' says Simon Sebag Montefiore. With his own magical touch, Gosden brilliantly reveals the place of magic in human societies from the Ice Age to the present day and this is of increasing relevance as we witness the growth of extreme cults in the post-truth era. Chapters include Magic in Mesopotamia and Egypt 4,000-1,000BCE, Chinese Magic 20,000BCE to the Present, Jewish, Greek and Roman Magic, The Magics of Africa, Australia and the Americas and Modern and Future Magic among them. There is a timeline of the global history of magic and many maps and illustrations including tomb artefacts throughout the text. Penguin paperback, 482pp.
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£7.50
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SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR it is an enthralling journey around the Britain we have created since 1980. Wimpey homes, Millennium monuments, riverside flats, wind farms, spectacular skyscrapers, city centre apartments, out-of-town malls. Here are the horrors and delights, triumphs and failures from space age tower blocks to suburban business parks, and from postmodernist exuberance to Passivhaus eco-efficiency. Iconicon is at once a revelatory architectural grand tour, and an endlessly witty and engaging piece of social history. Encyclopaedic, funny and often cutting, Grindrod has written a love letter to contemporary buildings in his punchy polemic about our accidental urban landscape. Thrown together entirely for financial or political gain without any thought for aesthetic or social value, here are the visions of a few top architects, and a larger generation of young architects who wish to improve life for whole communities, not just the rich and powerful. It really makes us look at those big shiny funny shaped public buildings with a new eye and Grindrod's chirpy prose style is full of pop references as he chronicles the accelerating decline of the UK since 1980, the sprawl and the disaster of the Grenfell fire. The book is perfectly aimed at those in power. 486 big chunky pages, some illus. Signed by the Author and stickered.
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£10.00
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With gold embossed linen cover and magnificent design and presentation as befitting a Thames & Hudson publication and with marbled endpapers, Martin Rees Astronomer Royal introduces us to the starry sky, the 'Vault of Heaven' which has been viewed with awe throughout human history. Over the centuries geocentric cosmology was 'improved' to take account of successively more accurate data as proposed by the great Tycho Brahe and Nicolaus Copernicus with his heliocentric system which eventually triumphed, losing some of its complicity after Kepler (1571-1630) discovered planetary orbits to be ellipses rather than circles. In Atlas Coelestis, Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr (1677-1750) masterfully presents a panorama of what was believed about the cosmos in the early 18th century. The splendid ornamentation of his illustrations reflect the cultural breadth and intelligence of his intended readers. His sky maps portray the most prominent stars, the tracks of comets, and the orbits of Saturn's and Jupiter's moons, themselves 'cosmic clocks', observable in principle by navigators. Some of Doppelmayr's most remarkable illustrations depict how the solar system would appear if viewed not from Earth but from another planet. Today we are sending probes to these other worlds. Across 30 remarkable colour plates published by a great cartographic house in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1742, this spectacular outsized guide showcases the 1742 Map of the Cosmos and is a superb introduction to the fundamentals and history of astronomy. Charting constellations, planets, comets and moons, the Atlas presents the ideas of all the famous influential astronomers including Copernicus, Riccioli, Kepler, Newton and Halley. The intricate colour plates interweave annotated diagrams and tables with figurative drawings and ornamental features. At this size we can appreciate the beauty of these exquisite plates which are also presented in a step-by-step deconstructed form by astronomer Giles Sparrow who elucidates the scientific ideas inherent in each plate. He expertly decodes and analyses the complex information in them in this spectacular, revelatory celestial compendium of the cosmos. All in colour, 256 massive pages, 37.5 x 27cm.
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£32.50
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