Résultats de recherche de titre
Articles 121 à 140 sur 231
Clarkson on Cars
Par Jeremy Clarkson. 1996
Jeremy Clarkson gets under the bonnet in Clarkson on Cars - a collection of his motoring journalism.Jeremy Clarkson has been…
driving cars, writing about them and occasionally voicing his opinions on the BBC's Top Gear for twenty years.No one in the business is taller.In this collection of classic Clarkson, stretching back to the mid-1980s, he's pulled together the car columns and stories with which he made his name. As coal mines closed and house prices exploded to a soundtrack of men in make-up playing synthesizers, Jeremy was already waxing lyrical on topics as useful and diverse as:* The perils of bicycle ownership * Why Australians - not Brits - need bull bars* Why soon only geriatrics will be driving BMWs* The difficultly of deciding on the best car for your wedding * Why Jesus's dad would have owned a Nissan Bluebird * And why it is that bus lanes cause traffic jamsIrreverent, damn funny and offensive to almost everyone, this is writing with its foot to the floor, the brake lines cut and the speed limit smashed to smithereens. Sit back and enjoy the ride. Praise for Jeremy Clarkson:'Brilliant . . . laugh-out-loud' Daily Telegraph'Outrageously funny . . . will have you in stitches' Time Out'Very funny . . . I cracked up laughing on the tube' Evening StandardCoast: A Journey of Discovery Around Britain's Coastline
Par Nicholas Crane. 2012
Along our shores, towering cliffs from the age of the dinosaurs rise beside wide estuaries teeming with wildlife, while Victorian…
ports share waterfronts with imposing fortifications.And the people who have lived, worked and played on this spectacular coast - from Stone Age fishermen to seafarers, chart-makers and surfers - have an incredible tale to tell.Coast: Our Island Story is an enthralling account, sparkling with geography, history, adventure and eccentric characters, told with Nick Crane's trademark charisma and wit.Cleopatra's Needle: Two Wheels by the Water to Cairo
Par Anne Mustoe. 2003
It was a blustery April morning on the Thames Embankment in London when Anne Mustoe set out on a phenomenal…
lone cycle ride - to the original site of Cleopatra's Needle at Heliopolis in Egypt. Leaving behind home comforts, she set herself the challenge of travelling close to water wherever possible - via the Seine and the Rhone, then alongside the Burgundy canal, the Po and the Venetian Lagoon. Before she would reach her final waterway - the evocative Nile - Ms Mustoe would encounter the dusty yet beguiling Near East: Turkey, Syria, the Lebanon and finally Egypt itself. Anne Mustoe weaves a story of exquisite detail laced with the understated humour that has become her hallmark.China Rises: How China's Astonishing Growth Will Change the World
Par John Farndon. 2008
With a population of 1¼ billion people and the world's second largest economy, China is fast becoming one of the…
most powerful and important countries in the world. But while it is one of the world's oldest civilisations, China refuses to conform to expectations. The country's controversial policies, ranging from the one child policy to the repression of opposition groups, have placed it at odds with other world powers, and yet its influence in the world is growing ever stronger. We all need to know more about this fascinating country. John Farndon explores the changing face of modern China and its fundamental contradictions, as a communist state where business is booming, as a nation that continues to support North Korea even as it develops its relationships with the West. Getting to the heart of these and other inconsistencies, Farndon gives a fascinating introduction to the country as it is now and as it will be in the future, revealing how China's changing face will affect us all.Che Guevara and the Mountain of Silver: By bicycle and train through South America
Par Anne Mustoe. 2011
In her brand-new travelogue, intrepid ex-headmistress and bestselling author Anne Mustoe dusts off the bicycle clips once more and embarks…
on a remarkable journey through South America. Following in the bike tracks of Che Guevara, Anne retraces the route this iconic revolutionary figure once tread, as documented in the famous Motorcycle Diaries. A second route takes her to Potosi, the highest city in the world, as she travels to the Mountain of Silver. Beautifully written and wonderfully evocative, Che Guevara and the Mountain of Silver charts an epic journey by bike and train through South America's most colourful and historically interesting areas.Castaway
Par Lucy Irvine. 1983
THE SHOCKING STORY OF A DESERT ISLAND DREAM THAT WENT SOUR'Writer seeks "wife" for a year on tropical island.' The…
opportunity to escape from it all was irresistible. Lucy Irvine answered the advertisement - and found herself alone on a remote desert island with a 'husband' she hardly knew.Lucy Irvine fell in love with the seductive, if cruel, beauty of that untouched Eden, whose power to enslave and enchant her never slackened throughout the whole of her amazing adventure.Uncompromisingly candid and sometimes shocking, Castaway is her compulsively readable account of a desert island dream which threatened to turn into a nightmare of illness, thirst and personal antipathy.Now a film by Nicholas Roeg starring Amanda Donohoe and Oliver Reed,Can You Make This Thing Go Faster?
Par Jeremy Clarkson. 2020
The hilarious new collection of stories and observations from Jeremy Clarkson - setting our off-kilter world to rights with thigh-slapping…
wit once again.Who is that tractor-driving Gentleman Farmer?Has Jeremy turned into a horny-handed son of the soil?These and other perplexing questions may or may not be answered in the latest volume of Clarkson's utterly unbiased musings on life, the universe and everything in between (except cars - this isn't one of his four-wheel drive books).Inside you'll also discover why:· Bathing in crude oil isn't for everyone· People who go fishing hate their kids· Noise-cancelling headphones will never silence James May· The rambler who stole his marrow is in for itFull of fact-checked opinions and ideas so good they're no longer following the science but chasing it up a tree, Can You Make This Thing Go Faster? is one hundred per cent guaranteed Clarkson . . .Praise for Clarkson:'Brilliant . . . laugh-out-loud' Daily Telegraph'Outrageously funny . . . will have you in stitches' Time Out'Very funny . . . I cracked up laughing on the tube' Evening StandardCan-Cans, Cats and Cities of Ash
Par Mark Twain. 2007
One of the great derisive monuments to the imbecilities of the tourist experience, Mark Twain's (1835-1910) account of his tour…
with a group of fellow Americans around the sights of Europe is both hilarious and touching, Twain's exasperation and dismay at the phoney and exploitative being matched by his excitement and pleasure in the genuinely beautiful.Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries – but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.British As A Second Language
Par David Bennun. 2005
David Bennun had lived in Africa his whole life. At the age of 18 he came to Britain, the mother…
country. The country he had read about in Punch magazine or seen in films like Chariots of Fire. He was in for a shock. A very big shock indeed: 'I could not have been less prepared had I spent my life up to that point listening to 30-year-old broadcasts of the Light Programme.'In this timely follow-up to the critically acclaimed Tick Bite Fever, David Bennun shows us our own country through the eyes of an alien. With his brilliantly witty turn of phrase we follow his life as a student, his brushes with Bohemia, his troubles renting and buying property, his discovery of British food and his horrors at entering the world of work. From DIY to architecture, sport to alcohol, transport to music and entertainment, David Bennun brilliantly and with ruthless wit deconstructs all these subjects, many of them so dear to the British heart.Brother Mendel's Perfect Horse: Man and beast in an age of human warfare
Par Frank Westerman. 2012
' "When you touch a Lipizzaner, you're touching history," Westerman was once told. His elegant book offers fascinating proof' Financial…
Times Frank Westerman explores the history of Lipizzaners, an extraordinary troop of pedigree horses bred as personal mounts for the Emperor of Austria-Hungary. Following the bloodlines of the stud book, he reconstructs the story of four generations of imperial steed as they survive the fall of the Habsburg Empire, two world wars and the insane breeding experiments conducted under Hitler, Stalin and Ceausescu. But what begins as a fairytale becomes a chronicle of the quest for racial purity. Carrying the reader across Europe, from imperial stables and stud farms to the controversial gene labs of today, Westerman asks, if animal breeders are so good at genetic engineering, why do attempts to perfect the human strain always end in tragedy?Born to be Riled
Par Jeremy Clarkson. 1999
Born to be Riled is a collection of hilarious vintage journalism from Jeremy Clarkson. Jeremy Clarkson, it has to said,…
sometimes finds the world a maddening place. And nowhere more so than from behind the wheel of a car, where you can see any number of people acting like lunatics while in control (or not) of a ton of metal.In this collection of classic columns, first published in 1999, Jeremy takes a look at the world through his windscreen, shakes his head at what he sees - and then puts the boot in. Among other things, he explains:• Why Surrey is worse than Wales• How crossing your legs in America can lead to arrest• The reason cable TV salesmen must be punched • That divorce can be blamed on the birth of JesusRaving politicians, pointless celebrities, ridiculous 'personalities' and the Germans all get it in the neck, together with the stupid, the daft and the ludicrous, in a tour de force of comic writing guaranteed to have Jeremy's postman wheezing under sackfuls of letters from the easily offended. Praise for Jeremy Clarkson:'Brilliant . . . laugh-out-loud' Daily Telegraph'Outrageously funny . . . will have you in stitches' Time OutNumber-one bestseller Jeremy Clarkson writes on cars, current affairs and anything else that annoys him in his sharp and funny collections. Clarkson On Cars, Don't Stop Me Now, Driven To Distraction, Round the Bend, Motorworld and I Know You Got Soul are also available as Penguin paperbacks; the Penguin App iClarkson: The Book of Cars can be downloaded on the App Store.Jeremy Clarkson because his writing career on the Rotherham Advertiser. Since then he has written for the Sun and the Sunday Times. Today he is the tallest person working in British television, and is the presenter of the hugely popular Top Gear.Borneo, Celebes, Aru
Par Alfred Russel Wallace. 2007
Racked with fever, virtually broke and earning a precarious living through sending back to London the plumes of beautiful birds,…
Wallace (1823-1913) ultimately became one of the most heroic and admirable of all scientist-explorers. Whether living with Hill Dyaks or hunting Orang-Utans or sailing on a junk to the unbelievably remote Aru islands, Wallace opens our eyes to a now long vanished world.Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries – but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.Blue River, Black Sea
Par Andrew Eames. 2009
The Danube is Europe's Amazon. It flows through more countries than any other river on Earth - from the Black…
Forest in Germany to Europe's farthest fringes, where it joins the Black Sea in Romania. Andrew Eames' journey along its length brings us face to face with the Continent's bloodiest history and its most pressing issues of race and identity.As he travels - by bicycle, horse, boat and on foot - Eames finds himself seeking a bed for the night with minor royalty, hitching a ride on a Serbian barge captained by a man called Attila and getting up close and personal with a bull in rural Romania. He meets would-be kings and walks with gypsies, and finally rows his way beyond the borders of Europe entirely...Blizzard - Race to the Pole
Par Jasper Rees. 2006
In late 1911, the final year of the Edwardian age, a British naval captain and a Norwegian conqueror of the…
North-West Passage embarked on the most gruelling race ever run. Their aim was not only to lead the first expedition to the South Pole, but also to live to tell the tale. Six months later, Robert Falcon Scott and four of his party were dead, while Roald Amundsens victory had been wired around the world. A century on, the debate still rages. Was Scott unfortunate or incompetent? Was Amundsen a genius or lucky? In a unique television experiment, two teams led by the Norwegian explorer Rune Gjeldnes and the television anthropologist Bruce Parry, star of the BBC2 series Tribe, set out to recreate the famous race. Wearing the same type of clothing as their predecessors, surviving on the same diet, using the same equipment and travelling over the same distance, they seek to answer some of the burning questions. Blizzard is a dramatic chronicle of both the original epic, and its reconstruction. Jasper Reess narrative skilfully intertwines past and present as he brings to life an extraordinary cast of characters. They may be separated from their predecessors by nearly a hundred years, but the modern race teams soon discover that, in polar travel, nothing changes. Among the hardships they face are uncontrollable dogs, inedible food, invisible crevasses, unimaginable cold, all in an unending prairie of snow. Incorporating the gripping diaries of Parry and Gjeldnes, Blizzard paints an astonishing picture of comradeship in the face of physical danger and psychological torment in the most life-threatening habitat on earth.Prairie Spring: A Journey Into the Heart of a Season
Par Pete Dunne. 2009
A grasslands nature trek that &“weaves together spiritual insight, plant biology, geology lessons and American history—and a plethora of bird…
sightings&” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). A nature writer and avid birder offers a portrait of a season in the heartland of North America as he and his wife travel through the country and share stories of all that they encounter: people putting their lives back in place after a tornado, volunteers giving their time to conservation efforts, and the drive of all species to move their genes to the next generation, which manifests itself so abundantly in spring. &“Their journey begins in New Jersey and continues to Nebraska, their arrival timed to witness the annual migration of half a million northbound sandhill cranes. Next come Colorado and a primer on how homesteading sodbusters transformed an ocean of vibrant prairie grasses into a devastating dustbowl; New Mexico and the Sixth Annual High Plains Lesser Prairie-Chicken Festival; back through Colorado and the Pawnee National Grasslands for a glimpse of the threatened prairie dog, once (along with bison) among the environmental engineers of the 19th century Western plains; and into South Dakota, home to between 800 and 1,400 free-ranging bison. Dunne&’s melodic prose and rhapsodic connection with the natural world brilliantly entice an estranged audience to explore a . . . now alien environment.&” —Publishers Weekly, starred review &“Although a theme of humanity&’s effects on the prairie runs as an undercurrent throughout the narrative, it never overwhelms the sense of awe and wonder at the natural beauty of the grasslands and their inhabitants.&” —BooklistI'll Never Be French: Living in a Small Village in Brittany
Par Mark Greenside. 2009
This memoir of moving to a tiny Breton village is “a charming story about growing wiser, humbler and more human…
through home owning in a foreign land” (Publishers Weekly).When Mark Greenside—a native New Yorker living in California, political lefty, writer, and lifelong skeptic—is dragged by his girlfriend to a tiny Celtic village in Brittany at the westernmost edge of France in Finistère, or what he describes as “the end of the world,” his life begins to change.In a playful, headlong style, and with enormous affection for the Bretons, Greenside shares how he makes a life for himself in a country where he doesn’t speak the language or understand the culture. He gradually places his trust in the villagers he encounters—neighbors, workers, acquaintances—and he’s consistently won over and surprised as he manages to survive day-to-day trials. From opening a bank account and buying a house to removing a beehive from the chimney, he begins to learn the cultural ropes, live among his neighbors, and make new friends.Until he came to this town, Greenside was lost, moving through life without a plan, already in his forties with little money and no house. He lived as a skeptic who seldom trusted others and had an inclination to be alone. So when he settles into the rhythm of this new culture—against the backdrop of Brittany’s gorgeous architecture and breathtaking landscapes—not only does he find a home and meaningful relationships in this French countryside, he finds himself.I’ll Never Be French (no matter what I do) is both a new beginning and a homecoming for Greenside. It is a memoir about fitting in, not standing out; being part of something larger, not being separate from it; following, not leading. He has never regretted his journey and, as he advises those searching for their next adventure, neither will you.“Funny, insightful, and winningly self-deprecatory.” —Lydia Davis, author of the National Book Award finalist Varieties of Disturbance“Heartwarming.” —San Francisco Chronicle“One of the nicest of the trillions of books about France.” —Diane Johnson, New York Times–bestselling author of Lorna Mott Comes Home“A funny, funny book.” —Detroit Free PressThe Mango Orchard: The extraordinary true story of a family lost and found
Par Robin Bayley. 2011
As a child, Robin Bayley was enchanted by his grandmother's stories of Mexican adventures: of bandits, wild jungle journeys, hidden…
bags of silver and a narrow escape from the bloody Mexican Revolution. But Robin sensed there was more to these stories than anyone knew, and so he set out to follow in the footsteps of his great-grandfather. The Mango Orchard is the story of parallel journeys, a hundred years apart, into the heart of Latin America. Undaunted by the passage of time and a paucity of information, Robin seeks out the places where his great-grandfather Arthur 'Arturo' Greenhalgh travelled and lived, determined to uncover his legacy. Along the road Robin encounters witches, drug dealers, a gun-toting Tasmanian Devil and an ex-Nazi diamond trader. He is threatened with deportation, offered the protection of Colombian guerrilla fighters and is comforted by the blessings of los santos. He falls in love with a beautiful Guatemalan girl with mystical powers and almost gives up his quest, until a sense of destiny drives him on to western Mexico and the discovery of much, much more than he had bargained for.The Last Flannelled Fool: My small part in English cricket's demise and its large part in mine
Par Michael Simkins. 2011
Michael Simkins is the ultimate Sunday cricketer - passionate, obsessive, technically inept, and hopelessly deluded. When an injury rules him…
out of an entire season, not only might it spell the end of his long career, he is faced more immediately with a summer aimlessly wandering garden centres and listening to The Archers. He decides instead to set off on an odyssey across the counties of England in search of that golden time in his youth when his passion for the game was first kindled. It's a journey that begins in May in light drizzle at the birthplace of cricket, takes in the burial site of his favourite ground (now a Marks & Spencer) and even stops along the way to flirt with the love child of WG Grace and Kerry Katona that is Twenty20. It ends with the ultimate cricketing zenith - returning to the field of play to bowl an over to Freddie Flintoff in fading light in front of a capacity crowd. So can cricket still bring comfort and meaning to his life or is Old Father Time about to call for Michael's bails?Little Angels: The Real Life Stories of Thai Novice Monks
Par Phra Peter Pannapadipo. 2001
The real-life stories of the novice monks in Little Angels reflect the lives of many youths in rural Thailand who…
are trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty, broken homes, illiteracy and drug abuse. When all else fails, Buddhism becomes their last resort: providing them with physical shelter and spiritual refuge. It heals their childhood traumas and gives them a moral framework for living and a better outlook on life. Each individual story, heartrending as it may be, subtly shows what Phra Peter sees and hopes to show to others: the 'human face' of Thai Buddhism.The Man Who Cycled the Americas
Par Mark Beaumont. 2011
In 2008, Mark Beaumont smashed the world record for cycling around the world, by an astonishing 81 days. His race…
against the clock took him through the toughest terrain and the most demanding of conditions. In 2009, Mark set out on his second ultra-endurance challenge. And this one would involve some very big mountains.The Man Who Cycled the Americas tells the story of a 15,000 mile expedition that once again broke the barriers of human achievement. To pedal the longest mountain range on the planet, solo and unsupported, presented its own unique difficulties. But no man had ever previously summited the continents' two highest peaks, Mt McKinley in Alaska and Aconcagua in Argentina, in the same climbing season, let alone cycling between them. Oh, and Mark had never even been up Ben Nevis before.Full of his trademark charm, warmth and fascination with seeing the world at the pace of a bicycle, Mark Beaumont's second book is a testament to his love of adventure, his joy of taking on tough mental and physical feats, and offers a thrilling trip through the diverse cultures of the Americas.