When Ulrik Troll invites Grumpa for Trollmas (trollish Christmas) he thinks he is doing a good thing. Little does he know his parents have spun a few white lies about life in Biddlesden - its forests, mountains and healthy troll population. Fresh from Norway Grumpa is looking forward to seeing their wonderful new home. He isn't prepared for suburbia, or worse still - people. But most distressing of all, with no real forest where will they catch the goat for their traditional festive goat pie? They decide to steal a goat from the local farm, but when they bring the goat home, Grumpa doesn't react in quite the way they expected - is that fear in his eyes . . . ?Another adventure with the wonderful and hilarious troll family and their long-suffering neighbours the Priddles. Views: 52
The world's grubbiest trouble-magnet strikes again! In Yuck!, Bertie devises a new scheme for making filthy lucre, has a sickly time at the fairground and manages to teach a toddler her first word: Bum! Views: 52
In this now classic book, internationally famed journalist Ian Buruma examines how Germany and Japan have attempted to come to terms with their conduct during World War II--a war that they aggressively began and humiliatingly lost, and in the course of which they committed monstrous war crimes. As he travels through both countries, to Berlin and Tokyo, Hiroshima and Auschwitz, he encounters people who are remarkably honest in confronting the past and others who astonish by their evasions of responsibility, some who wish to forget the past and others who wish to use it as a warning against the resurgence of militarism. Buruma explores these contrasting responses to the war and the two countries' very different ways of memorializing its atrocities, as well as the ways in which political movements, government policies, literature, and art have been shaped by its shadow. Today, seventy years after the end of the war, he finds that while the Germans have for the most part coped... Views: 52
Out of 193 countries currently recognised by the UN, we've invaded 158. That's an amazing 82%! Azerbaijan won this year's Eurovision. Don't know where it is? You should, because we invaded it for its oil almost a hundred years ago. Every Summer, hordes of British tourists now invade Corfu and the other Ionian islands. Find out how we first invaded them armed with cannon instead of cameras and set up the United States of the Ionian Islands. A Scottish invasion of Central America helped bankrupt Scotland and drive it into union with England. You'll have heard of the American war in Vietnam, and maybe even the French war, but what do you know about the British invasion of Vietnam? This book illustrates what a truly awe-inspiring power, for bad and for good, our country has been right across the world. A lot of people are vaguely aware that a quarter of the globe was once pink, but that's not even half the story. We're a stroppy, dynamic, irrepressible nation and this is how we... Views: 52
Once upon a time, Uncle John set his ghouls on a task to create three new For Kids Only! books: Strange & Scary, Wild & Woolly, and Under the Slimy Sea. But then a giant green creature oozed out of the muck and gobbled them all up! And what did that horrible thing spit out? This book--Creature Feature! It’s bubbling over with more than 400 pages of blood-curdling facts, gut-wrenching activities, cringe-inducing jokes, and head-spinning true stories--all made even more icky by all the freaky photographs and illustrations. Whether it walks, limps, gallops, flies, crawls, swims, or just sits there and makes fart noises--chances are you’ll encounter it in Creature Feature. So have a spooky good time checking out . . .- The World's Smelliest Sneaker- Dog-sized horses and horse-sized dogs- The great ball of snot- An armadillo invasion and a turtle traffic jam- Zombies, Bigfoot, and the mothman”- How to make... Views: 52
Toward the middle of the sixteenth century, as the Ashikaga shogunate crumbled, Japan came to resemble one huge battlefield. Rival warlords vied for dominance, but from among them three great figures emerged, like meteors streaking against the night sky. These three men, alike in their passion to control and unify Japan, were strikingly different in personality: Nobunaga, rash, decisive, brutal; Hideyoshi, unassuming, subtle, complex; Ieyasu, calm, patient, calculating. Their divergent philosophies have long been recalled by the Japanese in a verse known to every schoolchild: What if the bird will not sing? Nobunaga answers, "Kill it!" Hideyoshi answers, "Make it want to sing." Ieyasu answers, "Wait." This book, Taiko (the title by which Hideyoshi is still known in Japan), is the story of the man who made the bird want to sing. Views: 52
'THE BEST TRUE SPY STORY I HAVE EVER READ' JOHN LE CARRÉ A thrilling Cold War story about a KGB double agent, by one of Britain's greatest historians On a warm July evening in 1985, a middle-aged man stood on the pavement of a busy avenue in the heart of Moscow, holding a plastic carrier bag. In his grey suit and tie, he looked like any other Soviet citizen. The bag alone was mildly conspicuous, printed with the red logo of Safeway, the British supermarket. The man was a spy. A senior KGB officer, for more than a decade he had supplied his British spymasters with a stream of priceless secrets from deep within the Soviet intelligence machine. No spy had done more to damage the KGB. The Safeway bag was a signal: to activate his escape plan to be smuggled out of Soviet Russia. So began one of the boldest and most extraordinary episodes in the history of spying. Ben Macintyre reveals a tale of espionage, betrayal and raw courage that changed the course of the Cold War forever...
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Adam Nicolson tells the story of England through the history of fourteen gentry families – from the 15th century to the present day. This sparkling work of history reads like a real-life Downton Abbey, as the loves, hatreds and many times of grief of his chosen cast illuminate the grand events of history. We may well be 'a nation of shopkeepers', but for generations England was a country dominated by its middling families, rooted on their land, in their locality, with a healthy interest in turning a profit from their property and a deep distrust of the centralised state. The virtues we may all believe to be part of the English culture – honesty, affability, courtesy, liberality – each of these has their source in gentry life cultivated over five hundred years. These folk were the backbone of England. Adam Nicolson's riveting new book concentrates on fourteen families, from 1400 to the present day. From the medieval gung-ho of the Plumpton family to the high-seas adventures of the... Views: 52
The unforgettable true story of two married journalists on an island-hopping run for their lives across the Pacific after the Fall of Manila during World War II—a saga of love, adventure, and danger.On New Year's Eve, 1941, just three weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were bombing the Philippine capital of Manila, where journalists Mel and Annalee Jacoby had married just a month earlier. The couple had worked in China as members of a tight community of foreign correspondents with close ties to Chinese leaders; if captured by invading Japanese troops, they were certain to be executed. Racing to the docks just before midnight, they barely escaped on a freighter—the beginning of a tumultuous journey that would take them from one island outpost to another. While keeping ahead of the approaching Japanese, Mel and Annalee covered the harrowing war in the Pacific Theater—two of only a handful of valiant and dedicated journalists reporting... Views: 52
