Random House Inc.

From steam engines and suspension bridges to canals, factories and pubs, the Industrial Revolution transformed the society of the late 18th century and changed the material landscape of Britain. Yet how many of us know why our local pub looks the way it does or why our local railway station might be designed like a cathedral? This book reveals how, by 'reading' artefacts, sites or townscapes, we can understand their context and what they meant to the society that created them. Drawing on dozens of famous as well as lesser known examples of British sites and buildings, the author matches the physical remains of the recent past to the story of who we are, explaining why canals were instrumental to the expansion of industry or why affluent suburbs were usually situated at the west end of a town while the slums were at the east end. Chapters are arranged thematically, covering power, manufacture, transport, education and religion. Richly illustrated with fascinating photographs and drawings, this book is a joy for anyone wanting to investigate our industrial heritage and discover the intriguing history behind the characteristics of our material culture.

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Willow and Holly are identical twins. They are everything to each other. Holly calls Willow her rock, her soul mate, her other half. And Willow feels the same about Holly. They are alike in every respect except one — Willow is afraid on the inside. And all because of a secret — one that binds the sisters closely together and yet has meant their adult lives have taken two very different paths. Willow often feels there are large parts of her missing, qualities she only knows she's lacking because she sees them in her sister. For a very long time Willow has felt separated from Holly by one terrible moment in time — a moment that meant Willow's life was never the same again. And when the past catches up with her, Willow realises it's finally time for her to face her fears, and — with Holly's help — learn to laugh out loud once more...

Early one September three friends spend the weekend at a remote cabin by Dead Water Lake. With only a pale moon to light their way, they row across the water in the middle of the night. But only two of them return. When the body of the third friend is discovered, Inspector Sejer is put in charge of the investigation. He is troubled by the apparent suicide and has an overwhelming sense that the surviving pair has something to hide. Weeks pass without further clues and then, in a nearby lake, the body of another teenage boy floats to the surface...

What does it mean to be English? For centuries, Englishness was synonymous with Britishness, informed first by the political dominance of the English monarchs over the British isles — reaching its apogee in the rule of Elizabeth I — and later by the island's imperial might and expansion. But alongside that tradition, reaching back to medieval times, there has also been a vision of England as the rural arcadia celebrated by painters and poets. While the mythology of empire lingers on in the national psyche, Roy Strong argues that it is the rural tradition — combing aestheticism, pastoralism and patriotism — that offers an answer to the present crisis of English identity. National identity essentially resides in the mind: evolving over time it is inevitably selective in how it epitomizes the ideals and aspirations of a people. In this searching and deeply passionate book, Roy Strong reveals an iconography of England rooted in the cultural imagination. Rather than simply depicting reality, art and literature have often ennobled — and immortalised — reality in a way that has directly affected how we see ourselves. Today we view Suffolk through the eyes of Constable, the Lake District comes to life in the poetry of Wordsworth, and the country house seems to emerge from the novels of Evelyn Waugh. Free from nationalism, chauvinism and political bias, Roy Strong offers a vision of England that is inclusive and relevant for everybody living in the country today — an appreciation of the beauty of the English countryside, a love of nature and gardening, and a celebration of the dramas of Shakespeare, the paintings of Turner and the music of Elgar.

These are refreshingly frank, sparely written stories that expose the world of bartenders and 'b-girls', car washers and criminals. John O'Hara dissects the subtleties that bind humans together and the pressures that separate them.

Lee Langley's bewitching story of lost hope and thwarted love opens where Puccini's opera ends; with Madame Butterfly — Cho-Cho-San — handing over her beloved son to his American father before killing herself. In America Joey grows up torn between two cultures, haunted, like his parents, by their memories of what really happened on that fateful day. But just as Joey's fate is inextricably linked with the country of his birth, so too is the fate of America, and both of their paths will ultimately lead to Nagasaki.

My Michael is a beautiful work of great depth and lingers in the mind as a lyric song to his country's people as much as a moving love story. (Arthur Miller). 1950s Jerusalem. Hannah Gonen has just married and is thrilled and pained by her young well-meaning husband, Michael. Haunted by her dreams of two boys who disappeared from Jerusalem after the establishment of the state of Israel, Hannah gradually withdraws from her husband into a private world of fantasy and suppressed desires. A remarkable, precipient picture of the nature of women.

Alex Horne loves words. He loves them so much, in fact, that he's gone on a mental safari and invented some of his own... all he needs to do now is get them into the dictionary. But, as Alex discovers, gaining entry into the official lexicon takes more than just a gentle word in the ear of the editor. Evidence is required — Alex needs what the dictionary authorities call a 'corpus' of examples, hard data showing that his new words are in widespread and long-term usage by people other than just him and his mum. So a corpus he resolves to create, no matter what obstacles he might meet on the way. This is the ridiculous story of one man's struggle to break into the dictionary. From covert word-dropping on Countdown to willfully misinforming young schoolchildren, Alex tries it all in his quest for word-based stardom. Does he succeed? Exactly what is a 'mental safari'? And are you already using one of Alex's words without realising it? You won't regret spending your hard-earned honk on this hugely entertaining book.

The first body was found in Europe. She had once been a beautiful young girl, but with exquisite skill someone had carefully teased the skin entirely away from her body, leaving nothing but a flayed and bloody carcass. A full examination of her ruined body reveals an horrific truth: She had been skinned alive. The second blood-raw corpse turned up in New England. Followed soon after by another, this time a victim of extreme decomposition, a mess of flesh convulsing with maggots. When a mysterious, crumbling painting is implicated in the deaths it seems that the investigating team has resorted to madness. But this rotten painting hides a terrifying family secret...

In a book that combines psychology and sociology with an insightful understanding of human interactions, Ori and Rom Brafman have written a compelling narrative that helps us to understand the magic behind those moments when we form an incredible connection with other people, or which cause us to become fully engaged in whatever we are doing. In a page-turning narrative in the fashion of their previous book, Sway, the co-authors explore those peak moments in our lives when people or hobbies or activities fully engage our attention — when they 'click' with us. Drawing from recent research in psychology and sociology, and told through the same kinds of engaging stories that made Sway a New York Times bestseller, Click takes us on a roller coaster journey of discovery into those moments in our lives when we are 'in the zone' — when the rest of the world drops away and everything seems to fall into place.

Fletcher Christian and Isabella Curwen are first cousins who grow up together in the Lake District; kindred spirits who, like Heathcliff and Cathy, are bound to fall in love. But Isabella is promised to another cousin, John, and Fletcher, dashing though he is, comes from the poor side of the family. When Isabella, an only child and heir to the Curwen fortune, inherits and John becomes her guardian, he and her relations conspire to prevent her and Fletcher's union. Isabella marries John; Fletcher joins the Navy and later signs on for the Bounty voyage. And the rest, you might think, is history. In fact, it is only the first act in the drama of Fletcher and Isabella...

In Atlanta, Charlie Cortez MD diagnoses his mistress with an unknown neurodegenerative disease that is inducing violent and bloody psychosis. The apparent cause? Consumption of infected human flesh... In Vienna, Dr. Reeta Kapoor, eminent anthropologist, is forced to travel to a remote Indian archipelago in order to rescue her brother — he has become embroiled in a plot to thwart the colonization of a mysterious and scarcely contacted native tribe and is in grave danger... In Dubai, Kelly Maelzel, in-demand Australian zoologist, is blackmailed into accepting a new job — protecting the visitors to a strange new project. A millionaire philanthropist has created a game reserve where the livestock are particularly violent, unpredictable... and human. The link: Savage Island, a four-day eastward sail from Chennai and home to the most fearsome legend in the Bay of Bengal; a cannibalistic tribe of natives who ritually destroy anyone unfortunate or foolish enough to set foot on their tropical paradise island. But one megalomaniac wants to sell that paradise to the world. Unfortunately, the natives have other ideas.

Four teenagers find the mutilated corpse of a young girl stuffed into a dumpster in an Edinburgh alleyway. Who is she? Where did she come from? Who killed her and why? Above all, where is the baby to which she has obviously recently given birth? Inspector Rob Brennan, recently back from psychiatric leave, is still shocked by the senseless shooting of his only brother. His superiors think that the case of the dumpster girl will be perfect to get him back on track. But Rob Brennan has enemies within the force, stacks of unfinished business and a nose for trouble. What he discovers about the murdered girl blows the case — and his life — wide open.

The final part of the Langani Trilogy is a breathtaking story of friendship and love set against the backdrop of 20th-century Kenya Fourteen years after independence, the enduring childhood friendship of three women has carried them through times of violence and loss in Kenya, their chosen homeland. Hannah Olsen and her husband Lars own Langani Farm and Safari Lodge where they struggle to protect their wildlife and land from poachers and corrupt officials — but the developing relationship between their daughter and a young African boy with a terrifying legacy tests the strength of their family. Sarah Singh, wildlife researcher and renowned photographer, is married to an Indian journalist, however, their inability to have children puts Sarah's relationship with her husband and his family under increasing pressure. Camilla Broughton Smith, international model and fashion designer, has given up a dazzling career to work with the charismatic safari guide Anthony Chapman, who has been disabled in a tragic accident — yet his bitterness and fear of commitment threaten to shatter her dreams. Set in the magnificent but unpredictable wilds of Kenya, this is a story of courage and fortitude, of loyalty and murderous deceit, of friendship and betrayal, and redeeming sacrifice.

In a remote, piney wood in Finland stands a convalescent hospital called Suvanto, a curving concrete example of austere Scandinavian design. It is the 1920s, and the patients, all women, seek relief from ailments real and imagined. On the lower floors are the stoic Finnish women; on the upper floors are foreign women of privilege — the «up-patients». They are tended to by head nurse Sunny Taylor, an American who has fled an ill-starred life only to retreat behind a mask of crisp professionalism. On a late-summer day a new patient arrives on Sunny's wardoa faded, irascible former ballroom-dance instructor named Julia Dey. Sunny takes it upon herself to pierce the mystery of Julia's reserve. Soon, Julia's difficulty, her tightly coiled anger, places her at the center of the ward's tangled emotional life. As summer turns to fall, and fall to a long, dark winter, the patients hear rumors about changes being implemented at Suvanto by an American obstetrician, Dr. Peter Weber, who is experimenting with a new surgical stitch. Their familiar routine threatened, the women are not happy (they were not happy before), and the story's escalating menace builds to a terrifying conclusion.

Ten years after her death, Princess Diana remains a mystery. Was she 'the people's princess', who electrified the world with her beauty and humanitarian missions? Or was she a manipulative, media-savvy neurotic who nearly brought down the monarchy? Tina Brown knew Diana personally, knows her world, understands its players, and has far-reaching insight into the royals and the Queen herself. In The Diana Chronicles, you will meet a formidable female cast and get to know the society they inhabit... as you never have before. Diana's sexually charged mother, her subtly scheming grandmother, the stepmother she hated but eventually came to understand, and a terrifying trio of in-laws and relations: Fergie, the force of nature whose life was full of its own unacknowledged pathos; Princess Margaret, the fading glamour girl; and, the implacable Queen Mother and more formidable than all of them, her mother-in-law, the Queen, whose admiration Diana sought till the day she died. Add Camilla Parker-Bowles, the ultimate 'other woman' into this combustible mix, and it's no wonder that Diana felt the need to break out of her royal cage into celebrity culture, where she found her own power and used it to devastating effect.

In Edwardian England a vow of friendship is a thing of innocence. Even when tested by the passionate militancy of the suffragette movement or the rigorous demands of the Season, the bonds between Rory, Eleanor, Jenny and Francesca hold fast. But nothing can withstand the unprecedented onslaught of the First World War — and as the best of an entire generation is extinguished on the battlefields of Europe, a schoolgirl pledge, too, lies broken...

The 'Square Mile', London's financial powerhouse, rose to prominence with the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. David Kynaston's vibrant history brings this world to life, taking us from the railway boom of the 1830s to the 'Golden Age', when the legendary gold standard reigned supreme. Between the two World Wars the City was affected by the Wall Street Crash, pressured by politicians, trade unions and industrialists, but by the end of the twentieth century it had regained a precarious global might. Woven throughout are the stories of four individuals who shaped the City in different ways — Nathan Rothschild, Ernest Cassel, Montagu Norman and Siegmund Warburg. But the realm of great bankers and brokers is also the workplace of young clerks throwing paper darts, typists bringing in their sandwiches, and sad racketeers watching aghast as the markets fall. Above all, we see what it was like to work in the City — the dress codes, eating habits, work hours, pay, humour, changing architecture and language that forged the unique culture of the Square Mile. Richly entertaining, full of vivid anecdotes, this is a story of booms, busts and bankruptcies — from the Kaffir boom to the Marconi scandal, the 'Big Bang' deregulation of 1986, and the Barings crash in 1995 — bringing us to the brink of the modern age. David Knayston's groundbreaking history of the «City of London», published in four volumes between 1994 and 2001, is a modern classic. Skillfully edited into a single volume by David Milner, it tells a story as dramatic as any novel, while explaining the mysteries of the financial world in a way that we can all understand.

A Book of Secrets is a masterfully atmospheric treasure-trove of hidden lives, uncelebrated achievements and family mysteries. Acclaimed biographer Michael Holroyd peers into dusty corners to bring a company of unknown women into the light: Alice Keppel was the mistress of both the second Lord Grimthorpe and the Prince of Wales; Eve Fairfax was Lord Grimthorpe's abandoned fiancee and sometime muse of Auguste Rodin; and, the novelist Violet Trefusis was the lover of Vita Sackville-West. Taking the reader on a journey of discovery from Ravello to Paris, from Kirkstall Grange in Yorkshire to Vita Sackville-West's home at Knole, A Book of Secrets lucidly gives voice to fragile human connections.

Either you kill the bull, or the bull kills you — traditional proverb. Chief Inspector Max Camara hates bullfighting but one hot afternoon in Valencia he has to replace his boss, judging a festival corrida that stars Spain's most famous young matador. That night, he is summoned back to the bullring where the young matador's dead body now lies, naked and mutilated. As the city prepares for the Fallas, the five day festival of fireworks and celebrations, and the politicians work feverishly towards an election, Camara hunts down his prey through the city's streets and bars. But as he follows the trail of death, money, corruption and sex in search of the killer, he must also battle his own demons and desires...

In a frozen wilderness steeped in darkness, the lines between good and evil, lover and enemy, are never black or white but drawn in Shades of Midnight. Something inhuman is stalking the frigid Alaskan wilds, leaving unspeakable carnage in its wake. For bush pilot Alexandra Maguire, the killings stir memories of a horrific event she witnessed as a child and evoke in her the inexplicable sense of otherness she has long felt within herself but never fully understood... until a darkly seductive stranger with secrets of his own enters her world. Sent from Boston on a mission to investigate the savage attacks and stop the slaughter, vampire warrior Kade has his own reasons for returning to the frigid, forbidding place of his birth. Haunted by a secret shame, Kade soon realizes the stunning truth of the threat he faces-a threat that will jeopardize the fragile bond he has formed with the courageous, determined young woman who arouses his deepest passions and most primal hungers. But in bringing Alex into his world of blood and darkness, Kade must confront both his own personal demons and the even greater evil that could destroy all he holds dear.

When Special Agent Will Trent arrives in Grant County, he finds a police department determined to protect its own. Officer Lena Adams is hiding secrets from him, and while her role in the death of the county's popular police chief is unclear, that man's widow, Dr. Sara Linton, desperately needs Trent's help to crack the case of a prisoner's death. While the police force investigates the murder of a young woman pulled from a frigid lake, Trent investigates the police force. Caught between two complicated and determined women, trying to understand the facts surrounding Chief Tolliver's death, Trent will uncover explosive secrets — and confront a thin blue line that could be murderous if crossed.

On a Midwestern campus in the 1960s, a charismatic guru and his young acolytes perform a secret ritual in a local meadow. What happens is a mystery — all that remains is a gruesomely dismembered body and the shattered souls of all who were present. Forty years later, one man seeks to learn about that horrifying night, and to do so he'll have to force those involved to examine the unspeakable events that have haunted them ever since. Unfolding through their individual stories, «A Dark Matter» is an electric, chilling, and unpredictable novel that proves Peter Straub to be the master of modern horror.