Product Description: “Spufford cunningly maps out a literary genre of his own . . . Freewheeling and fabulous.” —The Times (London) Strange as it may seem, the gray, oppressive USSR was founded on a fairy tale. It was built on the twentieth-century magic called “the planned economy,” which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that the lands of capitalism could never match...read more

The author offers a sensitive, loving tribute to reading, arguing that his favorite books have created his identity, from The Wind in the Willows to the Narnia Chronicles and The Little House on the Prairie. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

The author offers a sensitive, loving tribute to reading, arguing that his favorite books have created his identity, from The Wind in the Willows to the Narnia Chronicles. 12,500 first printing. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Travel is no longer a luxury and not always an entertainment. Many journeys need to be made‹to get home or away from an enemy, to work, to find a last resting place, or because someone has told you to go. This issue of Granta is about such journeys; you might call it necessary travel writing, with Decca Aitkenhead: looking for cheap sex and drugs; Manuel Bauer: a child¹s escape over the Himalayas; Isabel Hilton: what have they done to Beijing?; Ian Jack: the train crash that stopped Britain; Ryszrd Kapuscinski: in the forests of Cameroon; Ian McEwan: on the retreat to Dunkirk, 1940; John Ryle: the last Emperor makes his last journey; Dayanita Singh: inside a sanctuary for girls in Benares; Simon Winchester: how Britain and the US made a people homeless; plus the untold story of how the FBI pursued James Baldwin at home, revealed by James Campbell...read more

Examines the British obsession with polar exploration, details the danger and mystery that surrounded these distant, unconquered places, and looks into the minds of various explorers as they headed to the North and South Poles

Product Description: With contributions from both sides of the science/humanities divide, this is a quirky collection of essays on science and the imagination. It springs from the Science Museum's construction of Charles Babbage's "difference engine", the mechanical computer which he designed in the 1830s but never built...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)