The Cut Out Girl: A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found by Bart van Es

$28.00 NZD

Category: Biography / Memoir

The last time Lien saw her parents was in the Hague when she was collected at the door by a stranger and taken to a city far away to be hidden from the Nazis. She was raised by her foster family as one of their own, but a falling out well after the war meant they were no longer in touch. What was her s ide of the story, Bart van Es - a grandson of the couple who looked after Lien - wondered? What really happened during the war, and after? So began an investigation that would consume and transform both Bart van Es's life and Lien's. Lien was now in her 80s and living in Amsterdam. Reluctantly, she agreed to meet him, and eventually they struck up a remarkable friendship. The Cut Out Girl braids together a powerful recreation of Lien's intensely harrowing childhood story with the present-day account of Bart's efforts to piece that story together. And it embraces the wider picture, too, for Holland was more cooperative in rounding up its Jews for the Nazis than any other Western European country; that is part of Lien's story too. This is an astonishing, moving reckoning with a young girl's struggle for survival during war. It is a story about the powerful love and challenges of foster families, and about the ways our most painful experiences - so crucial in defining us - can also be redefined.  ...Show more

Out of Our Minds by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

$26.00 NZD

Category: Psychology / Self Help

'Immensely learned and ambitious -seam-bursting eclecticism and polymathic brio - This is by any standards a significant book and its author deserves high praise.' Literary Review To imagine to see that which is not there is the startling ability that has fuelled human development and innovation throug h the centuries. As a species we stand alone in our remarkable capacity to refashion the world after the pictures in our minds. Traversing the realms of science, politics, religion, culture, philosophy and history, Felipe Fern indez-Armesto reveals the thrilling and disquieting tales of our imaginative leaps. Through groundbreaking insights in cognitive science, he explores how and why we have ideas in the first place, providing a tantalising glimpse into who we are and what we might yet accomplish. Fern indez-Armesto shows that bad ideas are often more influential than good ones; that the oldest recoverable thoughts include some of the best; that ideas of Western origin often issued from exchanges with the wider world; and that the pace of innovative thinking is under threat. ...Show more

Guns Germs and Steel: (Patterns of Life) by Jared Diamond

$30.00 NZD

Category: History | Series: Patterns of Life Ser.

Read this specially designed new edition of Jared Diamond's Pulitzer-prize winning exploration of what makes us human. Why has human history unfolded so differently across the globe? In this Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Jared Diamond puts the case that geography and biogeography, not race, moulded the c ontrasting fates of Europeans, Asians, Native Americans, sub-Saharan Africans, and aboriginal Australians. An ambitious synthesis of history, biology, ecology and linguistics, Guns, Germs and Steel remains a groundbreaking and humane work of popular science. PATTERNS OF LIFE- SPECIAL EDITIONS OF GROUNDBREAKING SCIENCE BOOKS ...Show more

Reprehensible: Polite Histories of Bad Behaviour by Mikey Robins

$38.00 NZD

Category: History | Reading Level: 4 Non Fiction

Rollicking and informative, Reprehensible: Polite Histories of Bad Behaviour is your guide through some of the most shameful behaviour indulged in by humanity's most celebrated figures, as told by Mikey Robins, one of Australia's most beloved comedians. It is often said that we live in era of constant o utrage, but we are definitely not the inventors of outrageousness. Let's be honest, human beings have always been appalling. Not everyone and not all the time, but our history is littered with those whose work and deeds have rendered them . . . reprehensible. Sometimes it's our most esteemed luminaries who behave the worst. In Reprehensible: Polite Histories of Bad Behaviour, Mikey Robins holds the mirror up to everyone, from Popes to politicians, from certified artistic geniuses to scientific and mathematical minds without peer - few emerge without blush or blemish. For instance, what are we to make of Catherine the Great's extensive collection of pornographic furniture, Hans Christian Anderson's too-much-information diary and Karl Marx's epic pub crawls? Or hall-of-fame huckster William McCloundy, who in 1901 actually 'sold' the Brooklyn Bridge to an unsuspecting tourist, and the Pharaoh who covered his slaves in honey to keep flies off his meal? Did you know about the royal ticklers of the Romanov court, and the bizarre coronation rituals of early Welsh kings? (Let's just say that eating a white horse wasn't the weirdest part of the ceremony.) And who else but Mikey could uncover the story of Chrysippus, the Stoic philosopher who laughed himself to death at the sight of a drunk donkey? So sit back and rest your conscience: there will be a host of scoundrels, bounders and reprobates, tales of lust and power aplenty, as we indulge in that sweet spot where history meets outrage, with just a bit of old-school TMZ thrown in for good measure.   ...Show more

The Vagabonds - The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip by Jeff Guinn

$35.00 NZD

Category: Biography / Memoir

A "fascinating slice of rarely considered American history" (Booklist)--the story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison--whose annual summer sojourns introduced the road trip to our culture and made the automobile an essential part of modern life.   In 1914 Henry Ford and naturalist John Burroughs visited T homas Edison in Florida and toured the Everglades. The following year Ford, Edison, and tire maker Harvey Firestone joined together on a summer camping trip and decided to call themselves the Vagabonds. They would continue their summer road trips until 1925, when they announced that their fame made it too difficult for them to carry on.   Although the Vagabonds traveled with an entourage of chefs, butlers, and others, this elite fraternity also had a serious purpose: to examine the conditions of America's roadways and improve the practicality of automobile travel. Cars were unreliable and the roads were even worse. But newspaper coverage of these trips was extensive, and as cars and roads improved, the summer trip by automobile soon became a desired element of American life.   The Vagabonds is "a portrait of America's burgeoning love affair with the automobile" (NPR) but it also sheds light on the important relationship between the older Edison and the younger Ford, who once worked for the famous inventor. The road trips made the automobile ubiquitous and magnified Ford's reputation, even as Edison's diminished. The automobile would transform the American landscape, the American economy, and the American way of life and Guinn brings this seminal moment in history to vivid life. ...Show more

Maiden Voyages - Women and the Golden Age of Transatlantic Travel by Siân Evans

$38.00 NZD

Category: History

A VIVID PORTRAIT OF WOMEN'S LIVES DURING THE GOLDEN AGE OF TRANSATLANTIC TRAVEL Before convenient air travel, transatlantic travel was the province of the great ocean liners and never more so than in the glory days of the interwar years. It was an extraordinary undertaking made by many women. Some trav elled for leisure, some for work; others to find a new life, marriage, to reinvent themselves or find new opportunities. Their stories have remained largely untold - until now. Maiden Voyages is a fascinating portrait of these women, and their lives on board magnificent ocean liners as they sailed between the old and the new worlds. The ocean liner was a microcosm of contemporary society, divided by class: from the luxury of the upper deck, playground for the rich and famous, to the cramped conditions of steerage or third class travel. These iconic liners were filled with women of all ages, classes and backgrounds: celebrities and refugees, migrants and millionairesses, aristocrats and crew members. Full of incredible gossip, stories and intrigue, Maiden Voyages has a diverse cast of inspiring women - from A-listers like Josephine Baker, a dancer from St Louis who found fame in Paris, Marlene Dietrich and Wallis Simpson, Violet 'the unsinkable' Jessop, a crew member who survived the sinking of the Titanic, and entrepreneur Sibyl Colefax, a pioneering interior designer. Whichever direction they were travelling, whatever hopes they entertained, they were all under the spell of life at sea, a spell which would only break when they went ashore. Maiden Voyages is a compelling and highly entertaining account of life on board: part dream factory, part place of work, independence and escape - always moving. ...Show more

The Persecution of the Templars: Scandal, Torture, Trial by Alain Demurger; Teresa Lavender Fagan (Translator)

$28.00 NZD

Category: History

The trial of the Knights Templar is one of the most infamous in history. Accused of heresy by the king of France, the Templars were arrested and imprisoned, had their goods seized and their monasteries ransacked. Under brutal interrogation and torture, many made shocking confessions: denial of Christ, d esecration of the Cross, sex acts and more. This book follows the everyday reality of the trial, from the early days of scandal and scheming in 1305, via torture, imprisonment and the dissolution of the order, to 1314, when leaders Jacques de Molay and Geoffroy de Charnay were burned at the stake. Through first-hand testimony and written records of the interrogations of 231 French Templars, this book illuminates the stories of hundreds of ordinary members, some of whom testified at the trial, as well as the many others who denied the charges or retracted their confessions. A deeply researched and immersive account that gives a striking vision of the relentless persecution, and the oft-underestimated resistance, of the once-mighty Knights Templar. ...Show more

Eight Days at Yalta - How Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin Shaped the Post-War World by Diana Preston

$35.00 NZD

Category: History

Meticulously researched and vividly written, Eight Days at Yalta is a remarkable work of intense historical drama. In the last winter of the Second World War, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin arrived in the Crimean resort of Yalta. Over eight days of bargaining, bombast and in termittent bonhomie they decided on the conduct of the final stages of the war against Germany, on how a defeated and occupied Germany should be governed, on the constitution of the nascent United Nations and on spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Greece. Only three months later, less than a week after the German surrender, Roosevelt was dead and Churchill was writing to the new President, Harry S. Truman, of 'an iron curtain' that was now 'drawn down upon [the Soviets'] front'. Diana Preston chronicles eight days that created the post-war world, revealing Roosevelt's determination to bring about the dissolution of the British Empire and Churchill's conviction that he and the dying President would run rings round the Soviet premier. But Stalin monitored everything they said and made only paper concessions, while his territorial ambitions would soon result in the imposition of Communism throughout Eastern Europe. ...Show more

The Fall of the House of Byron - Scandal and Seduction in Georgian England by Emily Brand

$28.00 NZD

Category: History

THE SUNDAY TIMES LITERATURE BOOKS OF THE YEAR MAIL ON SUNDAY BOOK OF THE YEAR BBC HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR THE RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK 'Delectable ... a ravishing family saga' Sunday Times 'Brings to life the colourful characters of the Georgian era's most notorious families with all the verve and skill of the era's finest novelists ... A powdered and pomaded, sordid and silk-swathed adventure' Hallie Rubenhold 'A chocolate box full of delicious gothic delights - jump in' Lucy Worsley 'Brand is a great historian, equal to the huge challenge of telling the story of history's most turbulent and colourful lives' Dan Snow 'A hauntingly beautiful portrait of the Byron dynasty' Rebecca Rideal In the early eighteenth century, Newstead Abbey was among the most admired aristocratic homes in England. It was the abode of William, 4th Baron Byron - a popular amateur composer and artist - and his teenage wife Frances. But by the end of the century, the building had become a crumbling and ill-cared-for ruin. Surrounded by wreckage of his inheritance, the 4th Baron's dissipated son and heir William, 5th Baron Byron - known to history as the 'Wicked Lord' - lay on his deathbed alongside a handful of remaining servants and amidst a thriving population of crickets. This was the home that a small, pudgy boy of ten from Aberdeen - who the world would later come to know as Lord Byron, the Romantic poet, soldier, and adventurer - would inherit in 1798. His family, he would come to learn, had in recent decades become known for almost unfathomable levels of scandal and impropriety, from elopement, murder, and kidnapping to adultery, coercion, and thrilling near-death experiences at sea. Just as it had shocked the society of Georgian London, the outlandish and scandalous story of the Byrons - and the myths that began to rise around it - would his influence his life and poetry for posterity. The Fall of the House of Byron follows the fates of Lord Byron's ancestors over three generations in a drama that begins in rural Nottinghamshire and plays out in the gentlemen's clubs of Georgian London, amid tempests on far-flung seas, and in the glamour of pre-revolutionary France. A compelling story of a prominent and controversial characters, it is a sumptuous family portrait and an electrifying work of social history. ...Show more

Burning the Books: A history of knowledge under attack by Richard Ovenden

$38.00 NZD

Category: History

Opening with the notorious bonfires of 'un-German' and Jewish literature in 1933 that offered such a clear signal of Nazi intentions, Burning the Books takes us on a 3000-year journey through the destruction of knowledge and the fight against all the odds to preserve it. Richard Ovenden, director of th e world-famous Bodleian Library, explains how attacks on libraries and archives have been a feature of history since ancient times but have increased in frequency and intensity during the modern era. Libraries are far more than stores of literature, through preserving the legal documents such as Magna Carta and records of citizenship, they also support the rule of law and the rights of citizens. Today, the knowledge they hold on behalf of society is under attack as never before. In this fascinating book, he explores everything from what really happened to the Great Library of Alexandria to the Windrush papers, from Donald Trump's deleting embarrassing tweets to John Murray's burning of Byron's memoirs in the name of censorship. At once a powerful history of civilisation and a manifesto for the vital importance of physical libraries in our increasingly digital age, Burning the Books is also a very human story animated by an unlikely cast of adventurers, self-taught archaeologists, poets, freedom-fighters -- and, of course, librarians and the heroic lengths they will go to preserve and rescue knowledge, ensuring that civilisation survives. From the rediscovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the desert, hidden from the Romans and lost for almost 2000 years to the medieval manuscript that inspired William Morris, the knowledge of the past still has so many valuable lessons to teach us and we ignore it at our peril. ...Show more

The Spy Toolkit by Stephen Twigge

$20.00 NZD

Category: History

The Cathedrals of England by Harry Batsford; Charles Fry; Simon Jenkins (Foreword by)

$23.00 NZD

Category: Travel - Guides

A new edition of Batsford's classic 1930s guide to England's cathedrals. This classic guide from 1934 gives a brief account and pictorial review of every cathedral in England that existed at the time. Simply and concisely written to be read by anyone with an interest in the subject, the book features c athedrals from the mighty York Minster, Durham and Canterbury through St Albans to Ripon and Southwark.  The full list of cathedrals covered are: Bristol, Canterbury, Carlisle, Chester, Chichester, Durham, Ely, Exeter, Gloucester, Hereford, Lichfield, Lincoln, London, Norwich, Oxford, Peterborough, Ripon, Rochester, St Albans, Salisbury, Southwark, Southwell, Wells, Winchester, Worcester, York. Also the Parish church cathedrals of Birmingham, Blackburn, Bradford, Chelmsford, Coventry (pre-war building), Derby, Leicester, Manchester, Newcastle, Portsmouth, St Edmundsbury, Sheffield and Wakefield. The book features an iconic book jacket by Brian Cook of Gloucester Cathedral as well as several of Brian's line drawings. A beautiful book to have on any shelf, this is also a practical guide that still works as a reference guide today. ...Show more