Rosarita, Anita Desai ( hardback July 2024)
£12.99
From three times Booker-shortlisted author Anita Desai, Rosarita is a beautiful, haunting novel that explores memory, grief, and a young woman’s determination to forge her own path. A young student sits on a bench in a park in San Miguel, Mexico. Bonita is away from her home in India to learn Spanish.
She is alone, somewhere she has no connection to. It is bliss. And then a woman approaches her. The woman claims to recognize Bonita because she is the spitting image of her mother, who made the same journey from India to Mexico as a young artist. No, says Bonita, my mother didn’t paint. She never travelled to Mexico.
But this strange woman insists, and so Bonita follows her. Into a story where Bonita and her mother will move apart and come together, and where the past threatens to flood the present, or re-write it.
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Secret Belfast, Kathy Curran ( paperback, reissue Jan 2024)
£14.99
Small enough to pop in a bag, but bursting with history and mystery. Discover how the city stood up against the evils of the slave trade, admire its stunning art deco facades, unearth beautiful stained-glass windows by an accomplished yet little-known female artist, take to the windy coastal paths just out of town and peak into caves where smugglers once hid their loot, visit the humble cottage of an American president, uncover the mysteries of Bronze Age burial grounds and Stone Age forts, squeeze down a secret underground tunnel or take a boat ride to see the city's seal colony, visit the place where Marconi sent his first wireless signal across the waves, go to a cinema shaped like a ship... Small, yet bursting with history and mystery, Belfast, far from the crowds and the usual cliches, is a reserve of well-concealed treasures that only reveal themselves to those who know how to wander off the beaten track, whether residents or visitors. An indispensable guide for those who thought they knew Belfast well, or who would like to discover the hidden face of the city.
History of the world in 25 cities, British Museum (hardback)
£16.99
A stunningly illustrated book of extraordinary city maps, telling the story of human civilisation throughout history. A gorgeous, large-format gift hardback with a stunning neon cover, A History of the World in 25 Cities features 25 beautifully illustrated city maps from all over the world, from ancient history to the present day. Co-authored by award-winning children's authors Tracey Turner and Andrew Donkin in consultation with specialist curators at the British Museum, readers can visit cities from every inhabited continent on Earth, from the walled city of Jericho built over 10,000 years ago, to the modern-day metropolis of Tokyo, the most-densely populated city in the world today.
Featuring vibrant, beautifully detailed artwork from Libby VanderPloeg, each carefully researched map takes readers on a city tour at a unique moment in time - from exploring Athens in ancient Greece during the birth of democracy, to walking the beautiful lamplit streets of medieval Benin, deep in the West African rainforest. Readers can even visit China's long-lost capital city of Xianyang - a city for which no original map exists, which was brought to life with support from the British Museum's fantastic team of experts. Each map is followed by two gorgeously illustrated pages of fascinating information about what life was (or is) like for the inhabitants of each city, including a bite-sized look at each city in numbers.
Packed with countless facts for curious readers to return to again and again, this is a perfect gift for children who want to explore history from around the world.
France. An Adventure History, Graham Robb ( paperback March 2023)
£10.99
Original, knowledgeable and endlessly entertaining, France: An Adventure History is an unforgettable journey through France from the first century BC to the present day. Drawn from countless new discoveries and thirty years of exploring France on foot, in the library and across 30,000 miles on the author's beloved bike, it begins with Gaulish and Roman times and ends in the age of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, the Gilets Jaunes and Covid-19. From the plains of Provence to the slums and boulevards of Paris, events and themes of French history may be familiar - Louis XIV, the French Revolution, the French Resistance, the Tour de France - but all are presented in a shining new light.Frequently hilarious, always surprising, this is a sweeping panorama, teeming with characters, stories and coincidences, and offering a thrilling sense of discovery and enlightenment.
Big Trails : GB & Ireland - the best long distance trails.
£17.99
Big Trails: Great Britain & Ireland is an inspirational guide to the most iconic, spectacular and popular long-distance trails in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Ireland and the Isle of Man. The twenty-five featured routes will take you across the best of the British Isles. From the South Downs Way in South-East England and across Wales's mountains in the Cambrian Way, the book delves into the heart of Scotland on the West Highland Way, along the Causeway Coast Way on Northern Ireland's coast, and into southern Ireland on the Beara Way.The book is designed to inspire big adventures. Rather than being carried along the route, this guide provides everything you need to plan and explore further, including a general overview of the trails, specific technical information, overview mapping, key information and stunning photography. As well as this, each route specifies approximate timings devised using the Jones-Ross formula, which allows for custom itineraries to be generated depending upon the speed of the user.
