Vintage books Dreadnought. Britain,Germany and the Coming of the Great War Massie Robert K

In August 1914 the two greatest navies in the world confronted each other across the North Sea. At first there were skirmishes, then battles off the coasts of England and Germany and in the far corners of the world, including the Falklands. The British attempted to force the Dardanelles with battleships - which led to the Gallipoli catastrophe. As the stalemate on the ground on the Western Front continued, the German Navy released a last strike against the British 'ring of steel'. The result was Jutland, a titanic and brutal battle between dreadnoughts. The knowledge, understanding and literary power Robert K. Massie brings to this story is unparalleled. There will never again be a war like this in which seagoing monsters hurl shells at each other until one side is destroyed

Codenamed 'Orphan' by his Russian recruiter, Maclean was Britain's most gifted traitor. But as he leaked huge amounts of top-secret intelligence, an international code-breaking operation was rapidly closing in on him. Moments before he was unmasked, Maclean escaped to Moscow • Drawing on a wealth of previously classified material, A Spy Named Orphan now tells this story for the first time in full, revealing the character and devastating impact of perhaps the most dangerous Soviet agent of the twentieth century

Сентябрь 1613 года • В замке Бельвуар наследник одной из величайших дворянских семей Англии внезапно и опасно заболевает. Его тело "терзают" сильные конвульсии. В течение нескольких коротких недель он умрет мучительной смертью. Скоро вся семья будет поражена теми же ужасающими симптомами. Второй сын, последний мужчина в роду, не выживет • Говорят, что во всем виноваты ведьмы. И поэтому сыновья графа Ратленда умрут не последними • "Ведьмы" повествуют о драматических событиях, которые развернулись в одном из старейших и самых впечатляющих замков Англии четыреста лет назад. Этот случай относится к числу тех, которые составляют европейское помешательство на ведьмах 15-18 веков, когда подозреваемых в колдовстве сжигали, вешали или пытали тысячами. Как и в других случаях, это история о суевериях, самых мрачных пределах человеческого воображения и, в конечном счете, несправедливости

An enchanting biography of the most resonant – and most necessary – chemical element on Earth • Carbon. It is the building block of every cell that makes up every living thing. It is the essential component of the food we eat, the fuel we burn, the wood we use and the air we breathe. It is worth billions as a luxury and half a trillion as a necessity, but there are still mysteries to be solved about the element that can be both diamond and coal. Where does it come from, what does it do, and why, above all, does life need it? • In Symphony in C, leading carbon scientist Robert M. Hazen takes us on a vibrant journey through the origin and evolution of life’s most widespread element. The story unfolds in four movements – Earth, Air, Fire and Water – and transports us through nearly 14 billion years of cosmic history, explaining how carbon is formed in the hearts of stars and why all life forms – earthbound or alien – use it as the basis of their biology

Они не похожи на других крыс. Они работают по ночам, тайно • Время миссис Фрисби, овдовевшей мышки с четырьмя маленькими детьми, на исходе. Она должна перевезти свою семью до того, как фермер разрушит их дом. Но ее младший сын Тимоти лежит с воспалением легких и слишком болен, чтобы отправляться в такое опасное путешествие • Помощь приходит неожиданно в виде весьма необычной породы сверхразумных крыс. Крысы из NIMH придумывают блестящее решение проблемы миссис Фрисби, но крысы тоже в опасности, и мало-помалу миссис Фрисби обнаруживает их необычное прошлое • "Миссис Фрисби и крысы из NIMH" Роберта О`Брайана - это захватывающее фантастическое приключение с трогательными персонажами и некоторыми необычными грызунами • Книга на английском языке

For Mallory, as for all of his generation, death was but ‘a frail barrier that men crossed, smiling and gallant, every day’. As climbers they accepted a degree of risk unimaginable before the war. What mattered now was how one lived, and the moments of being alive • While the quest for Mount Everest may have begun as a grand imperial gesture, it ended as a mission of revival for a country and a lost generation bled white by war. In a monumental work of history and adventure, Davis asks not whether George Mallory was the first to reach the summit of Everest, but rather why he kept climbing on that fateful day

A glittering, magical fable, the follow-up to the bestselling Haroun and the Sea of Stories • On a beautiful starry night in the city of Kahani in the land of Alifbay a terrible thing happened: twelve-year-old Luka's storyteller father, Rashid, fell suddenly and inexplicably into a sleep so deep that nothing and no one could rouse him. To save him from slipping away entirely, Luka must embark on a journey through the Magic World, encountering a slew of phantasmagorical obstacles along the way, to steal the Fire of Life, a seemingly impossible and exceedingly dangerous task • With Haroun and the Sea of Stories Salman Rushdie proved that he is one of the best contemporary writers of fables, and it proved to be one of his most popular books with readers of all ages

Discover Charles Darwin's most important ideas • When the eminent naturalist Charles Darwin returned from South America on board the H.M.S Beagle in 1836, he brought notes and evidence that would form the basis of his landmark theory: that species evolve by a process of natural selection • This theory, published as The Origin of Species in 1859, is the basis of modern biology and the concept of biodiversity. It also sparked a fierce scientific, religious and philosophical debate that still rages today

The definitive, chilling account of Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan and the first book to document the entire conflict, from the leading academic expert on the subject • Afghanistan was an unwinnable war. As British and American troops withdraw, discover this definitive account that explains why • It could have been a very different story. British forces could have successfully withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2002, having done the job they set out to do: to defeat al-Qaeda. Instead, in the years that followed, Britain paid a devastating price for their presence in Helmand province • So why did Britain enter, and remain, in an ill-fated war? Why did it fail so dramatically, and was this expedition doomed from the beginning? Drawing on unprecedented access to military reports, government documents and senior individuals, Professor Theo Farrell provides an extraordinary work of scholarship

The truth behind Richard the Lionheart and Bad King John - brilliantly readable, scrupulously researched and full of powerful story-telling • Anyone who has seen The Lion in Winter will remember the vicious, compelling world of the Plantagenets and readers of the romance of Robin Hood will be familiar with the typecasting of Good King Richard, defending Christendom in the Holy Land, and Bad King John who usurps the kingdom in his absence. But do these popular stereotypes correspond with reality? • In this sweeping narrative, celebrated historian Frank McLynn turns the tables on modern revisionist historians and shows these larger-than-life characters as they really were - crusading, fighting vicious wars in France, negotiating with the papacy, engaging in ruthless dynastic intrigue, often against each other: in Richard's case, even holding the kingdom together when fighting in the Holy Land; and in John's, losing Normandy, catastrophically agonising the barons over Magna Carta and losing the Crown Jewels in the Wash

The remarkable story of Bess of Hardwick, her ascent through Elizabethan society and the houses she built that shaped British architectural history • Born in 1521, Bess of Hardwick, businesswoman, money-lender and property tycoon, lived an astonishing eighty-seven years. Through canny choices, four husbands and a will of steel she rose from country squire's daughter to Dowager Countess, establishing herself as one of the richest and most powerful women in England, second only to Queen Elizabeth • Bess forged her way not merely by judicious marriage, but by shrewd exploitation of whatever assets each marriage brought. Wealth took concrete form in her passion for building and she oversaw every stage of the construction of her four houses including Hardwick New Hall, her sole surviving building, which stands as a celebration of one woman's triumphant progress through Elizabethan England

The full inside story of the detection of gravitational waves at LIGO, one of the most ambitious feats in scientific history • 'This is empirical poetry. A fascinating tale of human curiosity beautifully told, and with black holes and lasers too' Robin Ince • In 1916 Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves: miniscule ripples in the very fabric of spacetime generated by unfathomably powerful events. If such vibrations could somehow be recorded, we could observe our universe for the first time through sound: the hissing of the Big Bang, the low tones of merging galaxies, the drumbeat of two black holes collapsing into one… • In 2016 a team of hundreds of scientists at work on a billion-dollar experiment made history when they announced the first ever detection of a gravitational wave, confirming Einstein’s prediction a century ago