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› Find signed collectible books: 'Absolute Friends'
› Find signed collectible books: 'After the Victorians: The Decline of Britain in the World'
In 1924, the British Empire Exhibition--"a huge propaganda exercise"--opened in Wembley to celebrate the stability and permanence of the British Empire, which was at its maximum size at that time. Within 25 years, the British would lose their empire and their place in the world, and be reduced to fighting for their economic survival following World War II. After the Victorians covers the years 1901 through 1953, the year of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. In this absorbing work, A.N. Wilson tells the tale of his parents' generation, who witnessed the rapid, bewildering transformation from supreme world power to broken nation within their lifetimes. In doing so, he explores a wide variety of topics, including cultural changes, the population shift from rural to urban areas, the changing role of the aristocracy, imperialism (especially in India), the Asiatic roots of World War I, the rise of the suffragists, and the complex relationship between Britain and the U.S., which Wilson describes as being "like a lot of outwardly successful marriages, an abusive relationship, in which Britain was quite decidedly the junior partner."
After the Victorians is not a formal history. Rather than cover this era chronologically, Wilson shifts in time, moving smoothly from one subject to another, alternating between wide-angle views and extreme close-ups. He offers broad coverage of military, cultural, political, and economic themes, as well as revealing portraits of politicians, monarchs, generals, journalists, economists, painters, poets, and scientists. Filled with sharp observations and vivid anecdotes, this imaginative and crisply written "portrait of an age" successfully conveys the conflicted emotions of British subjects forced to deal with the loss of their once-mighty empire. --Shawn Carkonen [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland : And, Through the Looking Glass'
That Alice. When she's not traipsing after a rabbit into Wonderland, she's gallivanting off into the topsy-turvy world behind the drawing-room looking glass. In Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll's masterful and zany sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, she makes more eccentric acquaintances, including Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the White Queen, and a somewhat grumpy Humpty Dumpty. Through a giant and elaborate chess game, Alice explores this odd country, where one must eat dry biscuits to quench thirst, and run like the wind to stay in one place. As in life, Alice must stay on her toes to learn the rules of this game. Through the Looking Glass immediately took its rightful place beside its partner on the shelf of eternal classics. And luckily for generations of enraptured children, Carroll was again able to persuade John Tenniel to create the fantastic woodblock engravings that have become so indelibly associated with the Alice stories. For almost 130 years, Alice's curious adventures have amused, perplexed, and delighted readers, young and old. This gorgeous, deluxe boxed set of both volumes contains engravings from Tenniel's original woodblocks that were discovered in a London bank in 1985, and reproduced for the first time here. "'What is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures?'" What indeed? (All ages) [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass, and the Hunting of the Snark'
, 292 pages including Prefatory Notes at rear, illustrated throughout with numerous black and white illustrations within the text [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Another World'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Asterix in Britain'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Attention All Shipping: A Journey Round The Shipping Forecast'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Battle of Britain: The Jubilee History'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The BFG'
Evidently not even Roald Dahl could resist the acronym craze of the early eighties. BFG? Bellowing ferret-faced golfer? Backstabbing fairy godmother? Oh, oh ... Big Friendly Giant! This BFG doesn't seem all that F at first as he creeps down a London street, snatches little Sophie out of her bed, and bounds away with her to giant land. And he's not really all that B when compared with his evil, carnivorous brethren, who bully him for being such an oddball runt. After all, he eats only disgusting snozzcumbers, and while the other Gs are snacking on little boys and girls, he's blowing happy dreams in through their windows. What kind of way is that for a G to behave?
The BFG is one of Dahl's most lovable character creations. Whether galloping off with Sophie nestled into the soft skin of his ear to capture dreams as though they were exotic butterflies; speaking his delightful, jumbled, squib-fangled patois; or whizzpopping for the Queen, he leaves an indelible impression of bigheartedness. (Ages 9 to 12) [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Birthday Letters'
Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters--88 tantalizing responses to Sylvia Plath and the furies she left behind--emerge from an echo chamber of art and memory, rage and representation. In the decades following his wife's 1963 suicide, Hughes kept silent, a stance many have seen as guilty, few as dignified. While an industry grew out of Plath's life and art, and even her afterlife, he continued to compose his own dark, unconfessional verses, and edited her Collected Poems, Letters Home: Correspondence 1950-1963, and Journals. But Hughes's conservancy (and his sister Olwyn's power as Plath's executrix) laid him open to yet more blame. Biographers and critics found his cuts to her letters self-interested, and decried his destruction of the journals of her final years--undertaken, he insisted, for the sake of their children.
In Birthday Letters we now have Hughes's response to Plath's white-hot mythologizing. Lost happiness intensifies present pain, but so does old despair: "Your ghost," he acknowledges, "inseparable from my shadow." Ranging from accessible short-story-like verses to tightly wound, allusive lyrics, the poems push forward from initial encounters to key moments long after Plath's death. In "Visit," he writes, "I look up--as if to meet your voice / With all its urgent future / that has burst in on me. Then look back / At the book of the printed words. / You are ten years dead. It is only a story. / Your story. My story." These poems are filled with conditionals and might-have-beens, Hughes never letting us forget forces in motion before their seven-year marriage and final separation. When he first sees Plath, she is both scarred (from her earlier suicide attempt) and radiant: "Your eyes / Squeezed in your face, a crush of diamonds, / Incredibly bright, bright as a crush of tears..." But Fate and Plath's father, Otto, will not let them be. In the very next poem, "The Shot," her trajectory is already plotted. Though Hughes is her victim, her real target is her dead father--"the god with the smoking gun."
Of course, "The Shot" and the accusatory "The Dogs Are Eating Your Mother" are an incitement to those who side (as if there is a side!) with Plath. Newsweek has already chalked up the reaction of poet and feminist Robin Morgan to the book: "My teeth began to grind uncontrollably." But Hughes makes it clear that his poems are written for his dead wife and living children, not her acolytes' bloodsport. He has also, of course, written them for himself and the reader. Pieces such as "Epiphany," "The 59th Bear," and "Life After Death" are masterful mixes of memory and image. In "Epiphany," for instance, the young Hughes, walking in London, suddenly spots a man carrying a fox inside his jacket. Offered the cub for a pound, he hesitates, knowing he and Plath couldn't handle the animal--not with a new baby, not in the city. But in an instant, his potent vision extends beyond the animal, perhaps to his and Plath's children:
Already past the kittenishOther poems are more influenced by Plath's "terrible, hypersensitive fingers," including "The Bee God" and "Dreamers," which is apparently a record of Plath's one encounter with Hughes's mistress: "She fascinated you. Her eyes caressed you, / Melted a weeping glitter at you. / Her German the dark undercurrent / In her Kensington jeweller's elocution / Was your ancestral Black Forest whisper--" This exotic woman, "slightly filthy with erotic mystery," seems a close relation to Plath's own Lady Lazarus, and the poem would be equally powerful without any biographical information. This is the one paradoxical pity of this superb collection. These poems require no prior knowledge--but for better or worse, we possess it. [via]
But the eyes still small,
Round, orphaned-looking, woebegone
As if with weeping. Bereft
Of the blue milk, the toys of feather and fur,
The den life's happy dark. And the huge whisper
Of the constellations
Out of which Mother had always returned.

› Find signed collectible books: 'Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr. Johnson'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Britain and the Origins of the First World War'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Britain's Army in the 20th Century'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The British Army in the Twentieth Century'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cause Celeb: Library Edition'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Chatterton'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Civil Contract'
Inheriting his father's title and financial ruin, a lord meets a wealthy stranger who offers a most unusual proposal--the satisfaction of all his debts in exchange for the lord's hand in marriage to his only daughter. Reissue. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Clockwork Orange: Play with Music'
"Penguin Decades" bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain. When they were published, some were bestsellers, some were considered scandalous, and others were simply misunderstood. All represent their time and helped define their generation, while today each is considered a landmark work of storytelling. Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange" was published in 1962 and has been controversial ever since. It tells the story of fifteen-year-old Alex - whose chief preoccupations are Beethoven's Ninth and ultra-violence - as he and his droogs rampage though a dystopian future seeking thrills, until they come under the control of the state's sinister apparatus. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Colditz'
In "Colditz: The Full Story", Major Pat Reid brings together the many dramatic discoveries resulting from research that has covered the five continents. From all walks of life, Belgian, Czech, Dutch, French, German and Polish prisoners - as well as those from the British Commonwealth and USA - were incarcerated in suffocating intimacy for five years in an alien and hostile land. Under these conditions they proved that men could live together and that loyalty and generosity could thrive, transcending the natural prejudices of race, creed, language and intellectual diversity. There were more than 300 escape attempts at Colditz and in this fascinating portrayal, Major Pat Reid vividly describes this unique period in Second World War history. Furthermore, Major Reid reveals the code systems between the War Office and Colditz; shows how he obtained information on Germany's secret weapons; and investigates the existence of traitors and the situation of non-collaborators in the castle. This is a true story, which nonetheless possess the mythical qualities that cause a legend to live forever. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Collected Poems: Yeats'
This anthology of Yeats's work encompasses his 14 books of lyrical poems, as well as his narrative and dramatic poetry. It covers his early symbolist period and the complex, visionary work of his later years. There is also an incorporation of the final revisions Yeats made just before his death. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Complete Short Stories'
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
Evelyn Waugh's short stories are the marvelous, concentrated riffs of his comic genius, revealing in miniaturized perfection all the elements that made him the greatest comic writer of our century. We find in them Waugh's almost superhuman technical skill as a writer and his quicksilver attentiveness to the minutiae of human absurdity, as well as his worldly knowledge, his tenderness, his perceptive compassion, and his sophisticated, disabused, but nevertheless forceful idealism.
The thirty-nine stories collected here include such small masterpieces as "Mr. Loveday's Little Outing" and "Scott-King's Modern Europe"; an alternative ending to Waugh's novel A Handful of Dust; a "missing chapter" in the life of Charles Ryder, the hero of Brideshead Revisited; and two linked stories, remnants of an abandoned novel that Waugh considered his best writing.
This edition contains the original illustrations to "Love Among the Ruins," as well as more than thirty graphics produced by the author as an Oxford undergraduate in the 1920s. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh'
Mordant, mirthful, and unrelenting in their lampoon of aristocratic mischief, Evelyn Waugh's novels have earned him a permanent place in the literary pantheon. But this cantankerous master--the scion, by the way, of a decidedly middle-class family of publishers and writers--was no less adept when it came to the short form. Indeed, Waugh first broke into print in 1926 with "The Balance: A Yarn of the Good Old Days of Broad Trousers and High Necked Jumpers," an early story that suggests a modernized and misanthropic P.G. Wodehouse. And he continued to write short fiction throughout the rest of his career, all of which has now been collected in the delectable Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh.
The first few entries in the collection capture a kinder, gentler author, not yet red at the verbal tooth and claw. But by 1932, when he wrote "Love in the Slump," Waugh's eye for the black-comic detail was firmly in place:
It rained heavily on the day of the wedding, and only the last-ditchers among the St. Margaret's crowd turned out to watch the melancholy succession of guests popping out of their dripping cars and plunging up the covered way into the church.... A doctor was summoned to attend the bridegroom's small nephew, who, after attracting considerable attention as a page at the ceremony by his outspoken comments, developed a high temperature and numerous disquieting symptoms of food poisoning.Waugh's wit only sharpened throughout the succeeding decades, and the very texture of his prose thickened (although it never took on much in the way of modernist adipose tissue). In "Compassion," a 1949 tale that belies the author's vaunted anti-Semitism, a mere glimpse of some Yugoslavian partisans leads to this superabundant sentence: "He passed ragged, swaggering partisans, all young, some scarcely more than children; girls in battle dress, bandaged, bemedalled, girdled with grenades, squat, chaste, cheerful, sexless, barely human, who had grown up in mountain bivouacs, singing patriotic songs, arm-in-arm along the pavements where a few years earlier rheumatics had crept with parasols and light, romantic novels." Nobody can accuse Waugh of squishy sentimentality--remember, romantic prose is strictly for convalescents. Still, The Complete Stories offers an accurate and stupendously entertaining vision of human folly, no less effective for being administered in smaller doses. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Credo'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Crucible of War : The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766'
Histories of the American Revolution tend to start in 1763, the end of the Seven Year's War, a worldwide struggle for empire that pitted France against England in North America, Europe, and Asia. Fred Anderson, who teaches history at the University of Colorado, takes the story back a decade and explains the significance of the conflict in American history. Demonstrating that independence was not inevitable or even at first desired by the colonists, he shows how removal of the threat from France was essential before Americans could develop their own concepts of democratic government and defy their imperial British protectors. Of great interest is the importance of Native Americans in the conflict. Both the French and English had Indian allies; France's defeat ended a diplomatic system in which Indian nations, especially the 300-year-old Iroquois League, held the balance between the colonial powers. In a fast-paced narrative, Anderson moves with confidence and ease from the forests of Ohio and battlefields along the St. Lawrence to London's House of Commons and the palaces of Europe. He makes complex economic, social, and diplomatic patterns accessible and easy to understand. Using a vast body of research, he takes the time to paint the players as living personalities, from George III and George Washington to a host of supporting characters. The book's usefulness and clarity are enhanced by a hundred landscapes, portraits, maps, and charts taken from contemporary sources. Crucible of War is political and military history at its best; it never flags and is a pleasure to read. --John Stevenson [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Dead Man's Ransom'
A Brother Cadfael mediaeval whodunnit. It is 1141 and civil war continues to rage. The Sheriff of Shropshire and the king are taken prisoner by his enemies. An exchange of valuable prisoners is arranged, but before the exchange is completed, a murder takes place. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Decline and Fall'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Devil's Novice'
In the autumn of 1140 the Benedictine monastery at Shrewsbury finds its new novice Meriet Aspley a disturbing presence. Meek and biddable by day, his sleep is rent with nightmares so violent as to earn him the nickname of "Devil's Novice". [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens'
Jane Dunns Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens offers a blend of history and biography that traces the "dynamic interaction" between two of the most powerful women in Western history. Dunn remains ever aware of the uniqueness of her two central figures: both women ruled as divinely ordained monarchs in a male dominated power structure; and both women were from the same family (Elizabeth I was the granddaughter of Henry VII, and Mary Queen of Scots the great-granddaughter of King Henry).
By focusing not on pure biography but instead on relationships, Dunn is able to narrow her book (still mammoth in scope) to the most salient and interesting events in the two queens lives. The book begins in 1558, the year in which Mary first wed and Elizabeth assumed the throne of England. Almost immediately the cousins were embroiled in a conflict that would endure for the remainder of Marys life. A restless, sexually-active Catholic, and leader of the Scottish people in alliance with France, Mary was ever a conduit for rumors of rebellion. The "Virgin Queen" Elizabeth used Mary as a dark reflection to underline her own celibate constancy as a ruler of law and order.
The pair never met face to face, but as Dunn reveals, their lives were closely intertwined. After holding Mary in Fotheringhay prison for nearly two decades, Elizabeth ordered her cousin executed in 1587. Mary had chosen martyrdom in favor of a confession to complicity in the Babington assassination plot. In court, she declared: "I would never make Shipwreck of my Soul by conspiring the Destruction of my dearest Sister." Though the ostensible victor, Elizabeth (who had struggled to find a way to release her cousin while still upholding her own power as queen) confessed, "I am not free, but a captive." In Elizabeth and Mary, Dunn has built a rich world that underlines the tragic struggle between private emotions and the public faces history puts on them. --Patrick OKelley [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The End of the Battle'

› Find signed collectible books: 'England As You Like It : An Independent Traveler's Companion'
The author of My Love Affair with England explores London and the English countryside, offering advice and personal experience on such matters as planning an itinerary, being one's own travel agent, using maps, packing, and more. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Enlightenment'

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Evolution of the British Welfare State: A History of Social Policy Since the Industrial Revolution'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Executioner, Pierrepoint'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Falls the Shadow'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Folklore, Myths, and Legends of Britain'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Game of the Foxes: British and German Intelligence Operations and Personalities Which Changed the Course of the Second World War'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Good-Bye to All That'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Histories'
Since the release of the film version of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, there has been renewed interest in the Histories of Herodotus--the book the dying patient treasures so much.
The writings of Herodotus are the ground zero of Western history. He lived during the fifth century B.C.E, and his Histories chronicle the events of the Persian Wars, which were within living memory when he wrote. He was the first writer to examine real, rather than mythical history, and although his work lacks the rigor of later histories, it has a breathtaking scope. Herodotus is a wonderful storyteller, and in recalling the wars with Persian invaders, he ranges across the ancient world, mixing politics with natural history and anthropology. These are traveler's tales, and a great deal of their appeal to a modern audience lies in the way Herodotus describes the cultures that influence his story. The societies of Scythians, Arabs, and Egyptians are depicted in detail, from their political structures to their dining habits. Herodotus created a sense of history for his people, and he gives us a picture of a distant past that reminds us of the vast continuum of civilization. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'
Seconds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.
Together, this dynamic pair began a journey through space aided by a galaxyful of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed, ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian (formerly Tricia McMillan), Zaphods girlfriend, whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; and Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens hes bought over the years.
Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? For all the answers, stick your thumb to the stars! [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Honorary Consul'
When the alcoholic British 'Honorary Consul' in an Argentinian town is kidnapped by a band of revolutionaries, a local doctor negotiates with his captors and with the authorities for the man's release, but the corruption of both soon comes to the fore. From the author of OUR MAN IN HAVANA and THE HUMAN FACTOR. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner'
The narrative talents of English stage actor Derek Jacobi are put to excellent use in this intriguing mystery of a double murder most foul. Author Elizabeth George presents her popular detectives Thomas Lynley and Barbara Havers with one of their most grisly and difficult cases ever as they search for clues to a bloody crime while struggling to repair their own strained partnership. George's mystery bobs, weaves, twists, and turns from a packed West End theater through the sumptuous halls of a country manor and into the desolate reaches of the high country moors before revealing its delightfully wicked and suspenseful conclusion. Jacobi tackles the complex plot and diverse cast of characters with relish, working his theatrical skills into an outstanding performance. (Running time: 6 hours, 4 cassettes) --George Laney [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Iron Lady: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'J.R.R. Tolkien'
Four book set includes the Hobbit and Complete Lord of the Rings; the Fellowship of the Ring; The Two Towers; The Return of The King. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'King Richard II: The Life and Death of King Richard the Second the First Folio of 1623 and a Parallel Modern Edition'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Letters from London: 1990-1995'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Longman Anthology Of British Literature: Romantics To 20th Century'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Longman Anthology of British Literature: The Victorian Age'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Looking Glass War'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lord of the Rings Trilogy'
Let's face it--even some adults find Tolkien's mammoth fantasy a daunting mouthful but children now have this special seven-book box set of The Lord of The Rings to make the epic tale just that bit easier to chew on. Split into its seven constituent parts, these slim volumes tell the ageless tale of young Frodo's quest to destroy The Ring and defeat the forces of evil. It's beautifully presented in a black presentation box with the movie logo and an illustration on the side and the spines of the books also form the movie logo. A contemporary look and plenty of "cool appeal" will grab kids' interest and ensure they don't miss out on reading this classic of the genre. --Jonathan Weir [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lost In A Good Book'
Thursday Next, literary detective and newlywed is back to embark on an adventure that begins, quite literally on her own doorstep. It seems that Landen, her husband of four weeks, actually drowned in an accident when he was two years old. Someone, somewhere, sometime, is responsible. The sinister Goliath Corporation wants its operative Jack Schitt out of the poem in which Thursday trapped him, and it will do almost anything to achieve this - but bribing the ChronoGuard? Is that possible? Having barely caught her breath after The Eyre Affair, Thursday must battle corrupt politicians, try to save the world from extinction, and help the Neanderthals to species self-determination. Mastadon migrations, journeys into Just William, a chance meeting with the Flopsy Bunnies, and violent life-and-death struggles in the summer sales are all part of a greater plan. But whose? and why? [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World'
In the late 1700s, five gifted inventors and amateur scholars in Birmingham, England, came together for what one of them, Erasmus Darwin, called "a little philosophical laughing." They also helped kick-start the industrial revolution, as Jenny Uglow relates in the lively The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World. Their "Lunar Society" included Joseph Priestley, the chemist who isolated oxygen; James Watt, the Scottish inventor of the steam engine; and Josiah Wedgwood, whose manufacture of pottery created the industrial model for the next century. Joined by other "toymakers" and scholarly tinkerers, they concocted schemes for building great canals and harnessing the power of electricity, coined words such as "hydrogen" and "iridescent," shared theories and bank accounts, fended off embezzlers and industrial spies, and forged a fine "democracy of knowledge." And they had a fine time doing so, proving that scholars need not be dullards or eccentrics asocial.
Uglow's spirited look at this group of remarkable "lunaticks" captures a critical, short-lived moment of early modern history. Readers who share their conviction that knowledge brings power will find this book a rewarding adventure. --Gregory McNamee [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mastering Modern British History'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Men at Arms'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Monk's Hood'
A reissue of the third chronicle of Brother Cadfael. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Morbid Taste for Bones'
A delightful detective makes his appearance in the person of Brother Cadfael, in charge of the herb-gardens in the Benedictine Monastery of Shrewsbury. Cadfael is not very unwordly, since he entered the cloister late in life. But his role becomes a very vital one when his superiors become obsessed with the notion of acquiring the bones of an obscure saint from a remote Welsh village. Miraculous powers had been attributed to this saint, and it is thought the possession of her remains will add much to the prestige of the Shrewsbury Foundation - and of its prior. The ambitious prior leads a delegation into Wales to acquire these relics. They encounter many obstacles - the worst of them murder. Dissention, the tangled affairs of two pairs of lovers, a surfeit of unwelcome miracles and visitations plague them. But in the end Brother Cadfael gets all the bones and all the bodies into the most appropriate places and makes all the survivors happy. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'One of Us'
Written to coincide with Channel 4 series on Thatcher, this biography is based on intimate conversations between the Prime Minister and the major politicians of the period and Hugo Young. It traces her life from being an apprentice under Harold Macmillan and her participation in the government of Edward Heath, to her unquestioning destruction of the Conservatism of the 1950s and 1960s and her emergence as the senior statesperson of the western world. In 1980, 1983 and 1985, Hugo Young was the British Press Awards Columnist of the Year and in 1985 he won a "What the Papers Say" award. He has written and presented several series, including "No Minister", "But Chancellor" and "The Thatcher Phenomenon", all of which have been published as books. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Pair of Blue Eyes'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Put Out More Flags'
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Set in Edwardian England, this book has been a popular story for 90 years. It tells the heartwarming adventures of a resourceful family - mother and her three children: sensible Roberta, the eldest, scientific Peter and dreamy Phyllis. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Railway Children'
A classic tale featuring four children who must live away from their father, and who in their loneliness forge new friendships with the people who live and work near a local railway staion. Part of the ANDRE DEUTSCH CLASSICS series, and with an introduction by Trevor McDonald. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Reckoning'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Restaurant at the End of the Universe'
Facing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons? Time for a cup of tea! Join the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his uncommon comrades in arms in their desperate search for a place to eat, as they hurtle across space powered by pure improbability.
Among Arthurs motley shipmates are Ford Prefect, a long-time friend and expert contributer to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the three-armed, two-headed ex-president of the galaxy; Tricia McMillan, a fellow Earth refugee whos gone native (her name is Trillian now); and Marvin, the moody android. Their destination? The ultimate hot spot for an evening of apocalyptic entertainment and fine dining, where the food speaks for itself (literally).
Will they make it? The answer: hard to say. But bear in mind that The Hitchhikers Guide deleted the term Future Perfect from its pages, since it was discovered not to be! [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Right of the Line: The Royal Air Force in the European War 1939-1945'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Rotters' Club'
At a time when people are looking back on the 1970s with nostalgia, Jonathan Coe's The Rotters' Club is a timely reminder of how ghastly that benighted decade was in Britain. Set in the "industrial" heartland of the West Midlands, it chronicles the growing pains of four Brummie schoolboys--Philip, Sean, Doug, and Benjamin--who must come to terms not only with the normal pangs of adolescence but with terrible knitwear, ludicrous pop music, nightmarish food, and insidious racism, all set against the awful, surreal, and tragicomic reality of a postimperial nation.
The book suffers in its programmatic attempts to make the four boys and their families symbolize, or represent, something important to do with British life. Doug, for instance, symbolizes Industrial Decline--his dad is a shop steward at the doomed British Leyland Longbridge plant. Sean symbolizes Sexual Liberation--at least he's the one who seems most likely to get his rocks off. And young Ben Trotter would appear to represent A Young Jonathan Coe. But if this aspect of the novel seems contrived, then the author's capricious, deft, wryly comedic, and touchingly empathetic style keeps things chugging along, as he knits together the troubles and tragedies of some fairly ordinary people living through fairly extraordinary years. --Sean Thomas, Amazon.co.uk [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Scoop'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Secret Pilgrim'
Fiction [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Sentimental Murder: Love And Madness In The Eighteenth Century'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Seven Ages Of Britain'
Accompanying the Channel Four series "The Seven Ages of Britain", this is an exploration of the lives of the ordinary inhabitants of Britain, starting when Britain first became an island at the close of the last Ice Age and ending at the beginning of the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Beneath the names and dates of schoolbook history there is another, often overlooked story - the history of the people as a whole and their experience of life through the ages. This book explores the lives and times of the ordinary people of Britain who rarely emerge into the light of written history but nonetheless were witness to its every twist and turn. This is a journey to meet history's silent majority and catch a glimpse of their experience of life in each age against the backdrop of the grander events of that time. It is the story of those who never had the privilege of making history but to whom it happened nonetheless - who lived with it and survived its consequences. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Silmarillion'
part of lord of the rings story [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Silver Branch'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'
About this book - One of the greatest works of the Middle Ages, in a marvelous translation Composed in the fourteenth century, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is as beloved as it is venerable, combining the hallmarks of medieval romancepageantry, chivalry, and courtly lovewith the charm of fairy tales and heroic sagas. When a mysterious green knight rides on horseback into King Arthurs court, interrupting a New Years feast, he issues a challenge: if any of King Arthurs men can behead him and he survives, then a year later he is entitled to return the strike. Sir Gawain takes up the challenge and decapitates the green knight, only to see him pick up his severed head and ride away, leaving Gawain to seek him out to fulfill their pact. Blending Celtic myth and Christian faith, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a Middle English masterpiece of magic, chivalry, and seduction. Translated by J. R. R. Tolkien Reviews 'The introduction to Gawain is a little masterpiece.' Times Higher Educational Supplement 'This magnificent Arthurian tale of love, sex, honour, social tact, personal integrity and folk-magic is one of the greatest and most approachable narrative poems in the language. Tolkien's version makes it come triumphantly alive, a moving and consoling elegy.' Birmingham Post "Quite simply the best edition there is!"--Nancy P. Stork, Stanford University [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Splendid Isolation: Britain, the Balance of Power, and the Origins of the First World War'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Stopping-Train Britain: A Railway Odyssey'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Taming of the Shrew'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Time and Chance'
The Sunne in Splendour confirmed Sharon Kay Penman's place in the upper echelons of historical fiction, combining a breathtaking panoply of the past with an acute psychological observation of her characters. Time and Chance is the second part of her planned trilogy about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, beginning in the glory years of their reign. Penman conjures for us an astonishing era in which Henry battles with the Welsh and the French king, appoints Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury, and, by taking a mistress, makes a bitter enemy of his wife.
Readers know the scalpel-like precision of Penman's character building from her earlier work, and the emotional lives of Henry and the troubled Eleanor are powerfully realized. As in the first book of the sequence, When Christ and His Saints Slept, conflict is ever the driving force. Henry and Eleanor's remarkable partnership was proving highly fecund, both politically, and physically, as Eleanor gave birth to five sons and three daughters, laying to rest her reputation as a barren queen and founding a dynasty that was to last three centuries. But auguries of trouble ahead were apparent: war with the Welsh; acrimonious battles with Eleanor's first husband, King Louis VII of France. But the truly destabilizing factor was Henry's decision to appoint his friend and confidant Thomas Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry had assumed that the worldly, ambitious Becket would be the perfect ally, and was devastated when the new archbishop cast off his own worldly past as he embraced his role as Defender of the Faith, swapping dissolution for piety.
As Penman vividly demonstrates, Henry saw Becket's action as a humiliating betrayal. One of the most famous murders in history followed, with further conflict in the kingdom caused by Henry's liaison with the daughter of a baron. In bedding Rosamund Clifford, Henry put his marriage and even his kingship at risk. As always, Penman handles her research lightly; the personal drama is the engine of her narrative, with each fresh scandal and intrigue delivered with a beguiling combination of relish and restraint. She is assured in her detailing of the political and ecclesiastical clashes of the court, but it is Henry II who strides her novel like a colossus--just as he did the kingdom he ruled. --Barry Forshaw, Amazon.co.uk [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'
At last in paperback in one complete volume, here are the five classic novels from Douglas Adamss beloved Hitchiker series.
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Facing annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat.
Life, the Universe and Everything
The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew.
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription conspires to thrust him back to reality. So to speak.
Mostly Harmless
Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself? [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Underground London: Travels Beneath The City Streets'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Unfinished Tales'
Mythic lore and forgotten legends are unveiled in stories of the three ages of Middle-earth unearthed by Christopher Tolkien from his father's archives. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Unknown Ajax'
The family of the irascible Lord Darracott are unprepared for the arrival of the weavers brat and heir apparent to Darracott Place. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Vile Bodies'
Evelyn Waugh's second novel, "Vile Bodies" is his tribute to London's smart set. It introduces us to society as it used to be but that now is gone forever, and probably for good. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'When Christ and His Saints Slept'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Women, Religion and Feminism in Britain, 1750-1900'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight : A New Verse Translation'
A splendid new translation of the classic Arthurian tale of enchantment, adventure, and romance, presented alongside the original Middle English text.
It is the height of Christmas and New Years revelry when an enormous knight with brilliant green clothes and skin descends upon King Arthurs court. He presents a sinister challenge: he will endure a blow of the axe to his neck without offering any resistance, but whoever gives the blow must promise to take the same in exactly a year and a days time. The young Sir Gawain quickly rises to the challenge, and the poem tells of the adventures he findsan almost irresistible seduction, shockingly brutal hunts, and terrifyingly powerful villainsas he endeavors to fulfill his promise.
Capturing the pace, impact, and richly alliterative language of the original text, W. S. Merwin has imparted a new immediacy to a spellbinding narrative, written centuries ago by a poet whose name is now unknown, lost to time. Of the Green Knight, Merwin notes in his foreword: We seem to recognize himhis splendor, the awe that surrounds him, his menace and his gracewithout being able to place him . . . We will never know who the Green Knight is except in our own response to him. [via]
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