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Coming Soon

100 Cars Britain Can Be Proud Of - Giles Chapman

This book celebrates everything that’s great about British cars, from the boneshaking Lanchester of the 1890s to the mouthwatering Aston Martin V8 Vantage of today. Britain’s engineers, designers and entrepreneurs have for decades been the creators of cars with unique style and charm, as well as ground-breaking technology. Inside, you’ll encounter an eclectic cross-section – from the ‘Blower’ Bentley and Morris Minor Traveller to the original Mini, the Range Rover, and the Lotus Esprit. We’ve tended to produce some splendid underdogs too, which is why you’ll find the Reliant Robin and Austin Maxi between these covers as well, not to mention truly unique vehicles like the Land Rover, the London taxi and, of course, the evergreen Morgan. Meanwhile, although many great marques are now little more than golden memories, Britain’s car industry is holding its own
. . . building some of the finest Hondas, Nissans and Toyotas you can get your hands on!

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Portsmouth: Then & Now - John Sadden & Mark Wingham

The major port and popular tourist city of Portsmouth has a rich heritage which is uniquely reflected in this fascinating new compilation, carefully selected from private collections. Contrasting a selection of over eighty archive images alongside full-colour modern photographs, this book delves into the changing faces, buildings and streets of Portsmouth and Southsea. The photographs in this absorbing collection enable the reader to explore the differences that passing time, wartime bombing, the rise in car use and redevelopment has wrought on the streets, neighbourhoods, businesses, houses and, not least, the people of Portsmouth.

Archive images, including rare Victorian views and some remarkable Edwardian street scenes by the Barkshire Brothers, are compared and contrasted with similar views taken today or, in some cases, in the interim, placing often unrecognisable scenes in their context of place and time. Inspiring fond memories in some and revealing the Portsmouth of yesteryear to others, this volume will appeal to all who know this ever-changing city.

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Dante's Invention - James Burge

The young Dante was a love-sick poet who composed rarefied, intellectual verse about Beatrice, the girl he had loved since they were both children. As mediaeval Florence descended into turmoil that bordered on civil war, he seemed entirely uninterested by anything other than her. Fate had to work very hard to make him write his greatest work, the Divine Comedy. This is the story of how it did so.

As the factional power-struggles that dominated Florentine life became increasingly violent, Dante finally found himself plunged headlong into a world of feuds, corruption and betrayal. Eventually exiled and forbidden to return on pain of death, he could no longer ignore the real world. The scope of his vision broadened by his painful personal experiences, he devoted the rest of his life to writing the epic three-part fantasy which has ensured his enduring fame. Interweaving the imaginary Dante’s journey through the cosmos in the Divine Comedy with the story of the real Dante’s life, James Burge reveals how a love-struck Florentine teenager became il Sommo Poeta (the Supreme Poet).

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Embed: With the World's Armies in Afghanistan - Nick Allen

Between 2006 and 2010 journalist Nick Allen travelled to Afghanistan to ‘embed’ himself with soldiers on the front line in the war against the Taliban. He was posted with military units from many countries, including Britain, America, Finland, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Denmark and Estonia, and spent time with the Royal Gurkha Rifles, the US Marine Corps, the 39th Combat Engineer Regiment and the 506th Airborne of Band of Brothers fame.

Embed is an unrivalled first-hand account of military operations from the battlefields of Helmand and Kandahar, to the so-called ‘backwaters’ of the Afghan conflict. It explores the daily existence of ordinary soldiers from around the world as they face a cunning and fanatical enemy, and their endurance of the drama, tragedy, boredom and farce that characterises war. This eyewitness portrayal of combat operations, reconstruction and daily soldiering life faithfully reflects the reality of life on the frontline of a war that has no defined frontline. It also surely helps to answer the question: what is the West doing there?

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Churchill's Unexpected Guests: Prisoners of War in Britain in World War II - Sophie Jackson

During World War II over 400,000 Germans and Italians were held in prison camps in Britain. These men played a vital part in the life of war-torn Britain, from working in the fields to repairing bomb-damaged homes. Yet despite the role they played, today it is almost forgotten that Britain once held PoWs. For those who worked, played or fell in love with the enemies in their midst, those times remain vivid. Whether they took tea on the lawn with Italians or invited a German for Christmas dinner, the PoWs were a large part of their lives. This book is the story of those men who were detained here as unexpected guests. It is about their lives within the camps and afterwards, when some chose to stay and others returned to a country that in parts had become a hell on earth.

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Scottish Bodysnatchers: A Gazetteer - Geoff Holder

Graverobbing was a dark but profitable industry in pre-Victorian Scotland – criminals, gravediggers and middle-class medical students alike abstracted newly-buried corpses to send to the anatomy schools. Only after the trials of the infamous murderers Burke and Hare and the passing of the Anatomy Act of 1832 did the grisly trade end.

From burial grounds in the heart of Glasgow, Dundee and Edinburgh to quiet country graveyards in the Scottish Borders and Aberdeenshire, this book takes you to every cemetery ever raided, and reveals where you can find extant pieces of anti-resurrectionist graveyard furniture, from mortsafes, coffin cages and underground vaults to watchtowers and morthouses.

Richly illustrated, filled with hundreds of stories of ‘reanimated’ corpses, daring thefts, black-hearted murders and children sold to the slaughter by their own mothers, and with Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic short story The Body Snatcher at the end, this macabre guide will delight residents and visitors alike.

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