One of the most iconic incidents of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 was the charge of the Scots Greys, a crack cavalry regiment, into the heart of the French army. It was a moment of supreme daring and horse-riding skill, and Sergeant Ewart of the Greys succeeded in snatching one of Napoleon's coveted eagle standards. However it was also a military blunder. The Greys were quickly surrounded by enemy cavalry and cut to pieces. Of the regiment's 442 officers and men almost half, 198, were killed or injured. In the end the battle was won by the British and their allies and the eagle of the French 45th regiment is now on show in Edinburgh Castle. Iain Gale brings the bare outline of this legendary military exploit to life, giving the stories of the men involved and reconstructing the prelude, the aftermath, life in the Greys and the Battle of Waterloo as a whole. It is a uniquely exciting story of courage and military tactics in the heat of war.
Wonderfully imaginative' Bernard Cornwell, author of The Last Kingdom. The third exciting adventure of maverick spy Captain James Keane. Perfect for fans of Simon Scarrow and Bernard Cornwell. The intrepid band of warriors, led by Captain James Keane, have been given their toughest job yet. The Portuguese university city of Coimbra is in ruins. Infiltrating the streets are untrustworthy Spanish guerrilla fighters, local Portuguese out for revenge and rival spies determined to find the famous book of ciphers, hidden in the city and guarded by a dissident Jesuit group. James Keane and his men must prevent the book falling into enemy hands but also to discover which of the guerrilla groups can be trusted. But this means sometimes following their own instincts over Wellington's orders . . . can Keane capture the book without sacrificing his honour, position and reputation?
Meet James Keane: loveable rogue and unlikely hero. 'Wonderfully imaginative' Bernard Cornwell, author of The Last Kingdom. Perfect for fans of Simon Scarrow and Bernard Cornwell. James Keane - card sharp and ladies' man - is one of the finest soldiers of Wellington's army. Keane - hot-tempered, a maverick, never quite accepted by his fellow officers - is in trouble for killing his man in a duel: an activity forbidden by Wellington. To avoid court martial, he takes on an unwelcome assignment: to form an ill-assorted bunch of reprobates into an elite unit capable of operating behind the lines. A nineteenth-century Dirty Dozen.
Wonderfully imaginative' Bernard Cornwell, author of The Last Kingdom. James Keane strikes again with this thrilling second instalment in the series. Perfect for fans of Simon Scarrow and Bernard Cornwell. French troops led by one of Napoleon's best generals are massing on the border. Wellington's outnumbered force needs to pick off the smaller French units if they are to stand their ground. For that they need information, which is where Captain James Keane and his company of reformed scouting officers come in. But it soon becomes apparent that someone high up in Wellington's headquarters is a spy for the French...and Keane's enemies within the army are quick to point the finger. Keane must defend his crew against their accusers - or root out the traitor himself.
In The Endless Tide, Iain R. Thomson turns his attention to the Hebrides, and the collection of stories that permeate the area. Meeting a vast cast of characters, he ranges from personal anecdotes of country life to political and scientific issues, looking at agricultural politics and ecological debates. North Scotland's brutal Viking origins and the mysterious Pagan practices of its past are explored, yet The Endless Tide's reach extends far beyond this, touching on world events since pre-Biblical times. Varied and compelling, humorous and poetic, space and freedom pour from the pages. Mixing his own personal story with Scotland's history, Iain Thomson presents a myriad of ideas, snapshots and autobiographical accounts which conjure up the vital past and continuing force of the elusive Highland spirit. The Endless Tide is a sweeping, imaginative, provocative work which functions on a micro- and macro-level, examining the continual cycle of humanity, and Scotland's part in the process.
What are non-Christian religions? How is God related to them? How do they relate to Christianity? In this original book, Iain McGee explores five Christian theologians’ answers to these questions. The study spans the history of the church, covering figures from four different continents: Justin Martyr, Augustine, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and Daniel Strange. Focusing on the revelation-religion interface in the writings of these scholars, McGee outlines and analyzes their varied understandings of Logos illumination, the prisca theologia, and the demonic, alongside the relationships between them and their impact on non-Christian religion. McGee forwards an argument that each theology can be considered a biblically informed, contextually reflective, and reactive response to significant religious challenges faced by these Christian thinkers in their attempts to demonstrate the uniqueness of the Christian faith.
Near the end of the nineteenth century, the Gaelic-speaking crofters of the Scottish Highlands rose in revolutionary struggle against their English landlords for the right to live in security on their own ancestral clan lands.
Sparkling…an extraordinary true-adventure story, complete with trials, tribulations and moments of exultation." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review Award-winning cultural historian Iain McCalman tells the stories of Charles Darwin and his staunchest supporters: Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley, and Alfred Wallace. Beginning with the somber morning of April 26, 1882—the day of Darwin's funeral—Darwin's Armada steps back and recounts the lives and scientific discoveries of each of these explorers, who campaigned passionately in the war of ideas over evolution and advanced the scope of Darwin's work.
A thrilling, vivid, and “compelling” (Wall Street Journal) account of the epic siege during one of World War II’s most important battles, told by the brilliant British editor-turned-historian and author of Checkpoint Charlie. To the Soviet Union, the sacrifices that enabled the country to defeat Nazi Germany in World War II were sacrosanct. The foundation of the Soviets’ hard-won victory was laid during the battle for the city of Stalingrad, resting on the banks of the Volga River. To Russians, it is a pivotal landmark of their nation’s losses, with more than two million civilians and combatants either killed, wounded, or captured during the bitter fighting from September 1942 to February 1943. Both sides endured terrible conditions in brutal, relentless house-to-house fighting. Within this life-and-death struggle, Soviet war correspondents lauded the fight for a key strategic building in the heart of the city, “Pavlov’s House,” which was situated on the frontline and codenamed “The Lighthouse.” The legend grew of a small garrison of Russian soldiers from the 13th Guards Rifle Division holding out against the Germans of the Sixth Army, which had battled its way to the very center of Stalingrad. A report about the battle in a local Red Army newspaper would soon grow and be repeated on Moscow radio and in countless national newspapers. By the end of the war, the legend would gather further momentum and inspire Russians to rebuild their destroyed towns and cities. This story has become a pillar of the Stalingrad legend and one that can now be told accurately. Written with “impressive skill and relish” (Sunday Times), The Lighthouse of Stalingrad sheds new light on this iconic battle through the prism of the two units who fought for the very heart of the city itself. Iain MacGregor traveled to both German and Russian archives to unearth previously unpublished testimonies by soldiers on both sides of the conflict. His “utterly riveting” (Alex Kershaw) narrative lays to rest the questions as to the identity of the real heroes of this epic battle for one of the city’s most famous buildings and provides authoritative answers as to how the battle finally ended and influenced the conclusion of the siege of Stalingrad.
In May 2009, the SFA commissioned a review of Scottish football. In December 2010, the second and final part of the review, penned by former first minister Henry McLeish, was unveiled. Iain Hyslop read this review, and felt that it omitted several key points, so he embarked on journey which would take him to 44 football matches, from Peterhead to Berwick and Dingwall to Dumfries, across a single season. His travels have led to the production of this book — the unofficial review of Scottish Football. He covers everything from the weather to the pies, giving comments, criticism and suggestions for improvement as the voice from the terraces. The focus here is on the fans' experience of a football match. Hyslop takes a step back from the political and financial issues which engulf Scottish Football to present his vision of the beautiful game as it should be. REVIEW: In the book, Iain looks at the histroy of Scottish football, falling attendances, crumbling stadiums, the pies, the fans and the changes that need to be made. SUNDAY MAIL Has Iain Hyslop got some news for you: Scottish football is not as broken as many people think it is. It is, though, in need of some urgent love, care and attention. SCOTSMAN BACK COVER: 1 football fan 1 football season 42 football grounds Written by a football fan, for football fans, this is the unofficial review of the state of Scottish football. Spotting sizable gaps in the review by former First Minister Henry McLeish, Iain Hyslop provides a detailed look at the beautiful game in Scotland. Every Scottish league ground is visited in a 44 game tour that samples the football, the stadiums, the finances and the pies! Each chapter covers a game from the 2011 season and portrays the experience in a friendly, casual style that resonates with supporters from all over the country. Does Scottish football have a future or is the baw burst?
A surprise general election is approaching, but how surprising is its result going to be? Opinion polls and predictions speak clearly but, given the pollsters' recent performances, how much can we still rely on them? Will people vote with their heads or their hearts - or both? With Article 50 triggered and the stage set for Britain's departure from the EU, will voters treat the election as a second Brexit referendum, or as a vote of confidence in Theresa May's leadership? Which Leave seats could the Conservatives gain and which Remain ones could they lose? Will Wales turn Tory for the first time since the 1850s, and will the Lib Dems return to their 2010 glory days? These questions will remain open until the early hours of Friday 9 June. In the meantime, political expert Iain Dale summons statistics, recent polling and, of course, his sharp instincts to give us his prediction for each and every one of the UK's 650 constituencies, seat by seat.
When the breathing got worse he went into the adjacent room and got the copy of Dante. All that night and the night before he had been watching the dying...When a mirror was required to be brought she looked at it, moving her head restlessly this way and that. He knew that the swelling was a portent of some kind, a message from the outer darkness, an omen' - The Dying Although best known as one of Scotland's greatest modern poets, Iain Crichton Smith was also prolific as a writer of short stories. These pieces form a central part of his oeuvre, demonstrating the full range and versatility of his literary talent. From humour to tragedy, from inner monologues to extrovert surrealism, the diversity of his writing indicates the extraordinary range of his own reading and mental world. Crichton Smith wrote short stories throughout his life. Some are fragments, others almost novellas, and the best of them all show him to be an author of unique sensitivity and intelligence. These two collections, comprising the complete English stories, include over 45 stories never before published in book form, as well as others that have been out of print for many years, thus making it possible to judge Crichton Smith's achievement as a writer in full. Incorporates stories from Survival Without Error, The Black and the Red and The Village.
With extensive eyewitness accounts, the author of Killing the Bismarck vividly reconstructs the day British soldiers sank the infamous Nazi battleship. May 26, 1941. After a desperate chase lasting three days and more than seventeen hundred miles, Britain’s Home Fleet would finally close in on the world’s most powerful battleship, the very ship that sank the Royal Navy’s battlecruiser HMS Hood. The German battleship Bismarck was literally in a class by itself, being one of two newly-designed Bismarck-class ships in the German fleet. But it would soon face, and ultimately lose, a brutal fight to the finish involving more than five thousand men of the Royal Navy and twenty-six thousand men of Hitler’s Kriegsmarine. Historian Iain Ballantyne spent years conducting interviews with surviving veterans who had been present on that fateful day. Published here for the first time, alongside a compelling narrative of the final twenty-four hours of the mission to sink the Bismarck, are transcripts of those interviews, offering the unique eyewitness accounts of Royal Navy sailors who participated in one of the most significant sea battles of World War II.
This highly acclaimed study draws on information from spy reports and contemporary literature to look at English popular radicalism during the period between the anti-Jacobin government "Terror" of the 1790s and the beginnings of Chartism. The book traces for the first time the history of theunderground revolutionary-republican grouping founded by the agrarian reformer, Thomas Spence. Challenging conventional distinctions between "high" and "low" culture, McCalman illuminates the darker, more populist sides of Romanticism. Radical Underworld broadens the conventional boundaries ofpopular politics and culture by exploring a political underworld connected with poverty, crime, prophetic religion, and literary culture.
This practical evidence-based guide to running Reflective Practice professional development programmes provides a dynamic and engaging resource for a wide range of coaches. Reflective Practice is a proven learning and development approach that involves consciously and deliberately thinking about experiences to develop insights and apply these within coaching practice. McCormick argues that it is vital that coaches regularly reflect on their work to develop and grow professionally, and this book provides a definitive and rich source of material on how and what to reflect on. Topics include how to reflect as an individual coach; working in pairs and small groups; applying reflective practice in a training context; and how to run advanced group sessions for coaches. The book features a wide range of practical workbook exercises to challenge the reader’s current practice and extend their capability, as well as an evidence-based guide to enhancing skills in recently developed areas such as Unified Protocol Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Internet Supplemented Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Using Schema Therapy with Mindfulness Techniques. Written by a highly experienced executive coach, this book is full of practical and effective ways to become more capable and proficient. It is essential reading for any career, life or executive coach who wishes to enhance their coaching capability through reflective practice, as well as for coaching training organisations, senior executive coaches offering sessions for other coaches, and academic institutions offering coaching qualifications.
Following Theresa May's shock general election announcement, the UK political landscape looks set to change dramatically. Will predictions of a Tory landslide come to pass, or will the pollsters be surprised again? Whatever the result, the latest edition of the bestselling Politicos Guide to the New House of Commons will have all the info. Public affairs consultant Tim Carr and political experts Iain Dale and Robert Waller are rolling up their sleeves to put together a complete guide to the new personalities occupying the House of Commons benches in 2017. Who are they, what's their background and where will they lead the country? The Politicos Guide to the New House of Commons 2017 is a must-read for anyone eager to know the details of the election result and to understand its consequences. This essential, accessible and comprehensive volume provides, amongst much else: - Biographies of the class of 2017, alongside details of their majorities and constituencies; - Demographic analysis by age, gender, ethnic origin, education and background; - Lists of new marginal constituencies, possible target seats, defeated MPs and more; - Expert commentary from political journalists and pollsters, exploring the role of the media and the possible ways in which the new parliament will shape the future of Britain and redefine its relationship with Europe.
As Tom Tin nears Australia, where he’s to serve a lengthy sentence for a murder he didn’t commit, he and his fellow convict, Midgely, plot their escape. No matter that the ship carrying them and the other juvenile criminals is captained by Tom’s father. Tom knows his father can’t help him clear his name and regain his freedom–not as long as Mr. Goodfellow, a man who wants the ruin of the Tin family, wields power back in London. So Tom and Midgely decide to go overboard! So do other boys who seize their chance at liberty–boys who aren’t so innocent, and who have it in for Tom. To make things worse, the islands in the Pacific look inviting, but Tom remembers his father’s warnings: headhunters and cannibals lurk there! The boys go anyway. And as conflict among them mounts, as they encounter the very dangers Captain Tin spoke of, Tom must fight to keep himself and Midgely alive.
On 21st March 1918, 29th and 3rd Casualty Clearing Stations RAMC were encamped at Grévillers, just behind the front line, when Germany launched its final, massive offensive.These Field Hospitals were the lifeline to the rear for the unabated deluge of wounded which soon overwhelmed both units; all wards were full and operating theatres were working round the clock to deal with the endless queues for amputations and major surgery. In the words of Major-General von Bertele in his foreword: ‘that casualty care should be managed on such a scale and at such a pace leaves the reader open mouthed.’LIFELINE is a touching record of the care provided by an often exhausted but dedicated medical and nursing staff and the bravery and spirit of their patients as the hospitals, always under intense pressure, moved back and forth with the changing positions of the line during the last months of the war.Publisher territorial rights
As a child Iain Crichton Smith was raised speaking Gaelic on the island of Lewis. At school in Stornoway he spoke English. Like many islanders before and since, his culture was divided: two languages and two histories entailing exile. His divided perspective delineated the tyranny of history and religion, of the cramped life of small communities, and gave him a compassionate eye for the struggle of women and men in a world defined by denials. After the Dance proves that big themes – love, history, power, submission, death – can be addressed without the foil of irony and acquire resonance when given a local habitation and a voice that risks pure, humane, impassioned speech. This updated edition includes the story 'Home
“An excellent account . . . A suspenseful narrative that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.” —WWII History Magazine In May 1941, the German battleship Bismarck, accompanied by heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, broke out into the Atlantic to attack Allied shipping. The Royal Navy’s pursuit and subsequent destruction of Bismarck was an epic of naval warfare. In this new account of those dramatic events at the height of the Second World War, Iain Ballantyne draws extensively on the graphic eyewitness testimony of veterans, to construct a thrilling story, mainly from the point of view of the British battleships, cruisers, and destroyers involved. He describes the tense atmosphere as cruisers play a lethal cat and mouse game, shadowing Bismarck in the icy Denmark Strait. We witness the shocking destruction of the British battle cruiser Hood, in which all but three of her ship’s complement were killed—an event that filled pursuing Royal Navy warships, including the battered battleship Prince of Wales, with a thirst for revenge. While Swordfish torpedo-bombers try desperately to cripple the Bismarck, we sail in destroyers on their own daring torpedo attacks, battling mountainous seas. Finally, the author takes us into the final showdown, as battleships Rodney and King George V, supported by cruisers Norfolk and Dorsetshire, destroy the pride of Hitler’s fleet. This vivid, superbly researched account portrays this epic saga through the eyes of so-called “ordinary sailors” caught up in extraordinary events—conveying the horror and majesty of war at sea in all its cold brutality and awesome power.
HUNTER KILLER: a submarine designed to pursue and attack enemy submarines and surface ships using torpedoes. HUNTER KILLERS will follow the careers of four daring British submarine captains who risked their lives to keep the rest of us safe, their exploits consigned to the shadows until now. Their experiences encompass the span of the Cold War, from voyages in WW2-era submarines under Arctic ice to nuclear-powered espionage missions in Soviet-dominated seas. There are dangerous encounters with Russian spy ships in UK waters and finally, as the communist facade begins to crack, they hold the line against the Kremlin's oceanic might, playing a leading role in bringing down the Berlin Wall. It is the first time they have spoken out about their covert lives in the submarine service. This is the dramatic untold story of Britain's most-secret service.
The Long Horizon is an extraordinary book. Much more than simply the chronicle of a life spent farming in the Scottish Highlands, it is also a wonderful collection of stories, both factual and fictional, which reflect the changes that have revolutionised Highland life and dramatically affected the natural environment over the centuries. Using the colourful background to the Fraser clan chiefs as a central theme, from the cunning Red Fox through to the sudden death of the Master of Lovat, which set in train the sale of the Fraser empire around Beaufort Castle, Iain Thomson weaves an entertaining narrative that shows how historical events have such a profound effect on what happens today. Throughout the book shines the writer's deep love of the countryside and a respect for the generations before him who have carved their living from the harsh environment of the Highlands. It is a marvellous celebration both of the farming way of life and one of the most beautiful parts of Scotland.
After the dazzling achievement of his bestsellers An Instance of the Fingerpost (“May well be the best historical mystery ever written.” —The Boston Globe) and The Dream of Scipio (“A virtuoso display of craftsmanship.” —Maclean’s), Iain Pears returns with a stunning novel of suspense and revenge. An influential art critic in the early years of the twentieth century journeys from London to the remote island of Houat, off France’s northwest coast, to sit for a portrait painted by an old friend, a gifted, once acclaimed artist living in self-imposed exile. Over the course of the sitting, the painter recalls their years of friendship, the double-edged gift of the critic’s patronage, the power he wielded over aspiring artists, and his apparent callousness in anointing the careers of some and devastating the lives of others. The balance of power between the two men shifts dramatically—and ominously—as the critic becomes a passive subject; and as the painter slowly captures the character of the man on canvas, we discover why he left London suddenly and mysteriously at the height of his success and why now, with dark determination, he has taken on this unusual commission. Set against the dramatic, untamed landscape of Brittany, during one of the most explosive periods in art history, The Portrait is rich with atmosphere and suggestion, and psychological complexity. With the marvellous detail of a miniature, it brings to the fore the great artistic figures of the late nineteenth century, and their ambitions and desires. And it is a novel you will want to begin again immediately after turning the last chilling page, to read once more with a watchful eye and appreciate the hand of an ingenious storyteller at work.
Takes us back to that moment between the fifties and the sixties when a new music called free jazz took root in the coffeehouses and nightclubs of New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles."—John Szwed, author of So What: The Life of Miles Davis
ADRIFT AT SEA, Tom Tin and his four convict companions are only too glad when they come upon a deserted ship. The boys clamber aboard, not knowing whether they've been saved or set on a course toward doom. But after rescuing two men stranded on a melting iceberg, Tom begins to suspect that these unsavory sailors are dangerous castaways from this very vessel. The more Tom questions the men, the more they dislike him. So, when Tom overhears them plotting to get rid of him, he knows they mean it. But the other boys don't feel threatened - at least not until the sailors attempt to sell them as slaves, a decision that ends with death for some . . . and with Tom sailing the ship home to England. Soon Tom discovers that he has to cast away every ill-intentioned companion from his voyage home before he can truly be free.
This novel is the second in a projected five-part series called The Second British Protectorate – a series of high-concept, story-driven commercial fictions from the viewpoint of alternate history, supposing a sovietised post-war Britain modelled on Cromwell's 17th century Protectorate. The themes are both historical and modern. For instance – what shape would a popular rising against such a state have taken? Who would have collaborated with the regime – who might have resisted – and who might have loafed on the leathered benches of least resistance? What would the state's religious policy have been? Might that policy have forced the merger of the churches of Scotland and England? Might the religious and messianic mania of the 17th century have returned? Might it have been believed that Jesus had come (back) to England? Might George VI have gone to the scaffold as Charles I had – dead by winter axe in London's Whitehall? What role would the great lawyers of the land and their sacred notions of constitutionality and amour-propre (not to mention the school-fees) have had in all of this? What about civil liberties, and clear and present dangers to the state? What about the asymmetric distribution of lethal capacities for oppression and resistance? What about the nature of religious identity as the ideology of that resistance? What role might cocaine have played in a ruined command-economy with a worthless currency? Might the Americans have smuggled it into Britain in huge quantities as a way of funding democratic terrorism? The Glenfinnan Manuscript (the lass with the siller buckle) - as the churches of Scotland and England are forced to merge, a band of outlaw Daniels murder the Archbishop of Canterbury in the very centre of Edinburgh, and escape with six tons of English (or British) gold. But – where is that gold now?
This novel is the first in a projected five-part series called The Second British Protectorate – a series of high-concept, story-driven commercial fictions from the viewpoint of alternate history, supposing a sovietised post-war Britain formally modelled on Cromwell's 17th century Protectorate. The themes are both historical and modern. For instance – what shape would a popular rising against such a state have taken? Who would have collaborated with the regime – who might have resisted – and who might have loafed on the leathered benches of least resistance? What would the state's religious policy have been? Might that policy have forced the merger of the churches of Scotland and England? Might the religious and messianic mania of the 17th century have returned? Might it have been believed that Jesus had come (back) to England? Might George VI have gone to the scaffold as Charles I had – dead by winter axe in London's Whitehall? What role would the great lawyers of the land and their sacred notions of constitutionality and amour-propre (not to mention the school-fees) have had in all of this? What about civil liberties, and clear and present dangers to the state? What about the asymmetric distribution of lethal capacities for oppression and resistance? What about the nature of religious identity as the ideology of that resistance? What role might cocaine have played in a ruined command-economy with a worthless currency? Might the Americans have smuggled it into Britain in huge quantities as a way of funding democratic terrorism? The Trial and Execution of George VI - as a popular rising is savagely crushed and the Messiah comes (back?) to Britain, a shipment of best American cocaine is swapped in the ruins of Perth for the lives of the King, his Queen and their kids. But what happened next – to the coke?
More than one third of the human brain is devoted to the processes of seeing - vision is after all the main way in which we gather information about the world. But human vision is a dynamic process during which the eyes continually sample the environment. Where most books on vision consider it as a passive activity, this book is unique in focusing on vision as an 'active' process. It goes beyond most accounts of vision where the focus is on seeing, to provide an integrated account of seeing AND looking. The book starts by pointing out the weaknesses in our traditional approaches to vision and the reason we need this new approach. It then gives a thorough description of basic details of the visual and oculomotor systems necessary to understand active vision. The book goes on to show how this approach can give a new perspective on visual attention, and how the approach has progressed in the areas of visual orienting, reading, visual search, scene perception and neuropsychology. Finally, the book summarises progress by showing how this approach sheds new light on the old problem of how we maintain perception of a stable visual world. Written by two leading vision scientists, this book will be valuable for vision researchers and psychology students, from undergraduate level upwards.
A “constantly captivating…well-researched and often moving” (The Wall Street Journal) history of Checkpoint Charlie, the famous military gate on the border of East and West Berlin where the United States confronted the USSR during the Cold War. In the early 1960s, East Germany committed a billion dollars to the creation of the Berlin Wall, an eleven-foot-high barrier that consisted of seventy-nine miles of fencing, 300 watchtowers, 250 guard dog runs, twenty bunkers, and was operated around the clock by guards who shot to kill. Over the next twenty-eight years, at least five thousand people attempt to smash through it, swim across it, tunnel under it, or fly over it. In 1989, the East German leadership buckled in the face of a civil revolt that culminated in half a million East Berliners demanding an end to the ban on free movement. The world’s media flocked to capture the moment which, perhaps more than any other, signaled the end of the Cold War. Checkpoint Charlie had been the epicenter of global conflict for nearly three decades. Now, “in capturing the essence of the old Cold War [MacGregor] may just have helped us to understand a bit more about the new one” (The Times, London)—the mistrust, oppression, paranoia, and fear that gripped the world throughout this period. Checkpoint Charlie is about the nerve-wracking confrontation between the West and USSR, highlighting such important global figures as Eisenhower, Stalin, JFK, Nikita Khrushchev, Mao Zedung, Nixon, Reagan, and other politicians of the period. He also includes never-before-heard interviews with the men who built and dismantled the Wall; children who crossed it; relatives and friends who lost loved ones trying to escape over it; military policemen and soldiers who guarded the checkpoints; CIA, MI6, and Stasi operatives who oversaw operations across its borders; politicians whose ambitions shaped it; journalists who recorded its story; and many more whose living memories contributed to the full story of Checkpoint Charlie.
One of the most brilliant first novels I have come across' Telegraph 'One of the top 100 novels of the century' Independent 'Brilliant...irresistible...compelling' New York Times 'Macabre, bizarre, and impossible to put down' Financial Times 'Read it if you dare' Daily Express The Wasp Factory is a bizarre, imaginative, disturbing, and darkly comic look into the mind of a child psychopath - one of the most infamous of contemporary Scottish novels. 'Two years after I killed Blyth I murdered my young brother Paul, for quite different reasons than I'd disposed of Blyth, and then a year after that I did for my young cousin Esmerelda, more or less on a whim. That's my score to date. Three. I haven't killed anybody for years, and don't intend to ever again. It was just a stage I was going through.' Enter - if you can bear it - the extraordinary private world of Frank, just sixteen, and unconventional, to say the least.
In this classic memoir of rural life in the Scottish Highlands, a shepherd chronicles his years in a remote glen before the introduction of electricity. In August 1956, Iain Thomson and his wife Betty, along with their two-year-old daughter and ten-day-old son, sat huddled in a small boat on Loch Monar in Ross-shire as a storm raged around them. They were bound for a tiny, remote cottage at the western end of the loch which was to be their home for the next four years. Isolation Shepherd is the moving story of those years. Set against the awesome splendor of some of Scotland's most spectacular scenery, Thomson's classic memoir provides a sensitive, richly detailed account of the shepherd's life through the seasons. In vivid, poetic prose, he recreates the events that shaped his family's life in Glen Strathfarrar before the area was flooded as part of a huge hydro-electric project.
Skateboarding is both a sport and a way of life. Creative, physical, graphic, urban and controversial, it is full of contradictions – a billion-dollar global industry which still retains its vibrant, counter-cultural heart. Skateboarding and the City presents the only complete history of the sport, exploring the story of skate culture from the surf-beaches of '60s California to the latest developments in street-skating today. Written by a life-long skater who also happens to be an architectural historian, and packed through with full-colour images – of skaters, boards, moves, graphics, and film-stills – this passionate, readable and rigorously-researched book explores the history of skateboarding and reveals a vivid understanding of how skateboarders, through their actions, experience the city and its architecture in a unique way.
A fascinating and lively account of the lives of British warships named London, looking at history from the perspective of the men who were there. There is no current warship in the Royal Navy called HMS London, but vessels carrying the name have featured in some of the most controversial episodes of British naval history. For example, the wooden wall battleship HMS London of the late 18th century could be called “the ship that lost America” while the heavy cruiser of WW2 was command vessel for the escort force that failed to safeguard the controversial convoy PQ17. Examining the stories of HMS Londons all the way from the English Civil War, through the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801—where Nelson famously ignored signals to break off the action displayed by HMS London—we also learn of the pre-dreadnought London’s participation in the ill-fated Dardanelles campaign of WW1. Among the people Iain Ballantyne interviewed for this book were veterans of the Arctic convoys of WW2, the Yangtse Incident and warriors of the Cold War and 1991 Gulf War. It all adds up to a thoroughly researched and exciting narrative of naval history. Adding to the authenticity of the tale, Iain even sailed to Russia in the last HMS London, a Type 22 guided-missile frigate, in August 1991. During a WW2 convoy re-enactment the ship was almost hit by a practice torpedo launched from a Soviet submarine and had to take evasive action.
There’s pirates in the West Indies. Cannibals. They cook you alive," says Mr. Spencer to his son. These words will come to haunt 17-year-old John as he embarks on his first voyage to foreign lands. Carrying cargo destined for Jamaica, John and his crew of the Dragon set off for waters few of them have sailed before. So when they come upon a lifeboat adrift at sea, some are wary of the sailor aboard. Something about his story doesn’t quite make sense. Still, John respects the stranger’s awe-inspiring seamanship. With Horn on deck, he feels the Dragon is in the best of hands. But is Horn to be trusted? The answer becomes muddled as the Dragon encounters a very real — and very dangerous — pirate ship. Now John starts to believe his father’s warnings, especially after he becomes stranded on an island reputed to have buried treasure. A place teeming with buccaneers!
As complex, turbulent and spectacular as the gas giant on which it is set, this novel from Iain M. Banks is space opera on a truly epic scale. “An enormously enjoyable book, full of wonderful aliens, a sense of wonder and subtle political commentary on current events.” –Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year. The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilization. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formal wars. Seconded to a military-religious order he's barely heard of - part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactic hegemony - Fassin Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He is in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. But with each day that passes a war draws closer - a war that threatens to overwhelm everything and everyone he's ever known. “Banks is a phenomenon...writing pure science fiction of a peculiarly gnarly energy and elegance.” –William Gibson “Banks writes with a sophistication that will surprise anyone unfamiliar with modern science fiction.” –The New York Times For More from Iain M. Banks, check out: The Culture series: Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata
In this chilling novel by the author of the Domain of the Dead series, one man is on his own in a desperate struggle to survive the end of the world. Even though he knew something was coming, even though he tried to prepare his family, even though he had bought survival equipment and food stores—when it happened, he wasn’t ready. Now he is slowly starving to death in a desolated apocalyptic wilderness. He tries to find food and stay warm. He is hounded by his fear of being discovered and haunted by the loss of his family. As the sunless days grow colder and as he grows weaker, he is forced to risk more and more for less and less. To survive he must risk dying—or even worse—getting caught.
A tour de force in the tradition of Iain Pears’ international bestseller, An Instance of the Fingerpost, Stone’s Fall weaves a story of love and high finance into the fabric of a page-turning thriller. A novel to stand alongside Atonement and The Remains of the Day. A panoramic novel with a riveting mystery at its heart, Stone’s Fall is a quest, a love story, and a tale of murder—richly satisfying and completely engaging on many levels. It centres on the career of a very wealthy financier and the mysterious circumstances of his death, cast against the backdrop of WWI and Europe’ s first great age of espionage, the evolution of high-stakes international finance and the beginning of the twentieth century’s arms race. Stone’s Fall is a major return to the thriller form that first launched Iain Pears onto bestseller lists around the world and that earned him acclaim as a mesmerizing storyteller.
Dark family secrets and a long-lost love affair lie at the heart of Iain Banks's fabulous new novel. The Wopuld family built its fortune on a board game called Empire! - now a hugely successful computer game. So successful, the American Spraint Corp wants to buy the firm out. Young renegade Alban, who has been evading the family clutches for years, is run to ground and persuded to attend the forthcoming family gathering - part birthday party, part Extraordinary General Meeting - convened by Win, Wopuld matriarch and most powerful member of the board, at Garbadale, the family's highland castle. Being drawn back into the bosom of the clan brings a disconcerting confrontation with Alban's past. What drove his mother to take her own life? And is he ready to see Sophie, his beautiful cousin and teenage love? Grandmother Win's revelations wll radically alter Alban's perspective for ever.
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