Just 28 when he found Nineveh, Layard later witnessed the Charge of the Light Brigade and reported on the Indian Mutiny: his life was action-packed. This new biog argues that he was deeply r... read more
Parini really did travel around Scotland with Borges in an old Morris Minor, his ears flapping, heart opening and mind sharpening all the way. The result is a wonderful work of autofiction -... read more
A rollicking account of the pursuit of love among the Good, the Bad and the Beautiful; abridged from 3 large volumes of memoirs that he left on his death in 2011.
The buildings that are falling into disuse and ruin all around the UK were once essential in their communities. This study - from the Anglo-Saxons to the mid-C16th shows how they worked.
Especially from the mountainous region of Northern Macedonia. Nitsou is Macedonian-Canadian, and grew up cooking with three generations of her family before Cordon Bleu training etc.
An exploration of our shores, the land between the tides, the littoral realm of the shrimp and the anemone... Nicolson is observant, patient, inquisitive, immune to soaking, buoyed by poet... read more
C20th experimental and idealistic collectives, including Santiniketan in Delhi, England's Dartington, Germany's Bruderhof. Their leaders were charismatics too - Tagore, Gurdjieff, et al - ... read more
New edition of these wonderful, open-eyed letters by the wife of the British ambassador to the Sublime Porte; fascinating glimpses of the world of Ottoman women, not least their practice of ... read more
Soon after her husband leaves her, Pru goes to a friend's funeral - but it's the wrong one. She has such fun that she buys a black dress and starts attending strangers' funerals quite delibe... read more
Draws on his own family's experience of emigrating from India to Britain and America to show how the West is being destroyed not by immigrants but by its fear of immigrants.
DA's 'Diary of a Young Naturalist' won last year's Wainright Prize; he is extraordinarily young too - now just 17. Here he invites young readers on a practical exploration of the world aroun... read more
First published in 1901, Mawson's book was hugely influential for decades, both for garden designers and landscape gardeners. Large format, handsomely produced in dark green cloth, many ill... read more