Vintage books Thames. Sacred River Ackroyd Peter

In his eightieth year, Colin Thubron takes a dramatic and often treacherous journey from the Amur's secret source to its giant mouth, covering almost 3,000 miles • Rising in the Mongolian mountains and flowing through Siberia to the Pacific, the Amur River forms the tense border between Russia and China. This is the most densely fortified frontier on Earth • Harassed by injury and by arrest from the local police, Thubron makes his way along both the Russian and Chinese shores. By the time he reaches the river's desolate end, a whole, pivotal world has come alive

If you loved BBC4's Hemingway, rediscover this poignant story of the inability to capture lost youth, by the Nobel Prize-winning author of A Farewell to Arms • Richard Cantrell is an American colonel living in Venice just after the Second World War. The fighting has left him scarred and embittered, a middle-aged man with a heart condition. It seems that only the love of Renata, a nineteen-year-old countess can save him. But Cantrell is living in the shadow of war, every move he makes dictated by old battle instincts, and it is possible that for him the longed-for peace may have come too late • 'The most important author since Shakespeare' New York Times

Peter Fortune is a boy who likes to daydream. He dreams about swapping bodies with his cat and with his baby cousin, but he gets so lost he’s unsure where one fantasy finishes and the next begins. Cartwheeling through these transformations, Peter eventually finds himself in an adult body experiencing the adventure of falling in love

Highly original and magnificent in scope, Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination discovers the roots of English cultural history in the Anglo-Saxon period, and traces it through the centuries • What does it mean to be English? This dazzling book demonstrates that a quintessentially English quality can be discovered in all forms of English culture, not only in literature but also in painting, music, architecture, philosophy and science • Just as London: The Biography guided the reader through the capital city with a mixture of narrative and theme, so Albion, employing the same techniques, engages the reader with stories and surprises - From Beowulf to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, via Chaucer and Shakespeare, to the Bronte sisters, Alice through the Looking Glass and Lord of the Rings • Witty, provocative and anecdotal, this is Peter Ackroyd at his most brilliant and exuberant

Thomas More is one of the great figures in English history. Pre-eminent as a courtier and as a humanist, a friend to Henry VIII and the author of Utopia, More's life and career epitomise the great transformation of England in the space of 35 years • In this illuminating book, Peter Ackroyd investigates the paradox of this 'man for all seasons': the man of the world who travelled across Europe to negotiate on behalf of his king, and the unworldly man who's careful silence on the matter of Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn would lead to his disgrace and execution • A magnificent achievement, The Life of Thomas More gives us a rich portrait of the man and the social and cultural world in which he lived

He was the very first icon of the silver screen, and is one of the most recognisable faces in Hollywood, even a hundred years on from his first film. But what of the man behind the moustache? The director holding the camera as well as acting in front of it? • Peter Ackroyd's new biography turns the spotlight on Chaplin's life as well as his work, from his humble theatrical beginnings in music halls to winning an honorary Academy Award. Everything is here, from the glamour of his golden age to the murky scandals of the 1940s and eventual exile to Switzerland. This masterful brief life offers fresh revelations about one of the most familiar faces of the last century and brings the Little Tramp into vivid colour

Alfred Hitchcock was a strange child. Fat, lonely, burning with fear and ambition, his childhood was an isolated one, scented with fish from his father's shop. Afraid to leave his bedroom, he would plan great voyages, using railway timetables to plot an exact imaginary route across Europe. So how did this fearful figure become the one of the most respected film directors of the twentieth century? • As an adult, Hitch rigorously controlled the press's portrait of himself, drawing certain carefully selected childhood anecdotes into full focus and blurring all others out. In this quick-witted portrait, Ackroyd reveals something more: a lugubriously jolly man fond of practical jokes, who smashes a once-used tea cup every morning to remind himself of the frailty of life

'One of Dickens's most neglected, but most rewarding, novels' Peter Ackroyd • Dickens's first historical novel is a thrilling tale of murder, treachery and forbidden love with rioting mob scenes to make your hair stand on end • Barnaby Rudge is a young innocent simpleton who is devoted to his talkative raven, Grip. When he gets caught up in the mayhem of the Gordon riots and a mysterious unsolved murder, his life is put in jeopardy. Barnaby Rudge is a powerful historical tale of treachery, forbidden love, abduction and the dangerous power of the mob

Short and oddly built, with a head too big for his body, extremely short-sighted, unable to stay still, dressed in colourful clothes, Wilkie Collins looked distinctly strange. But he was none the less a charmer, befriended by the great, loved by children, irresistibly attractive to women – and avidly read by generations of readers • Peter Ackroyd follows his hero, ‘the sweetest-tempered of all the Victorian novelists’, from his childhood as the son of a well-known artist to his struggling beginnings as a writer, his years of fame and his life-long friendship with the other great London chronicler, Charles Dickens. As well as his enduring masterpieces, The Moonstone – often called the first true detective novel – and the sensational The Woman in White, he produced an intriguing array of lesser-known works

Знали ли вы, что деревья могут влиять на вращение Земли? • Или что волки могут изменять русла рек? • Или что дождевые черви контролируют популяции диких кабанов? • Мир природы - это паутина сложных связей, многие из которых остаются незамеченными человеком. Но именно эти связи поддерживают тонко сбалансированное равновесие природы • Опираясь на последние научные открытия и многолетний опыт лесовода, в книге "Тайная сеть природы" Питер Воллебен показывает нам, как взаимодействуют различные животные, растения, реки, скалы и погодные системы, и что поставлено на карту, когда эти хрупкие системы выходят из равновесия • Книга на английском языке • An exploration of the invisible connections sustaining the entire natural world from the bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Trees • Did you know that trees can influence the rotation of the earth? • Or that wolves can alter the course of a river? • Or that earthworms control wild boar populations? • The natural world is a web of intricate connections, many of which go unnoticed by humans

In this hugely powerful book, Karen Armstrong argues that it isn't enough to change our behaviour to avert environmental catastrophe - we must rekindle our spiritual bond with the natural world. From gratitude and compassion to sacrifice and non-violence, Armstrong draws themes from the world's religious traditions to offer practical steps to reconnect you with nature • Speaking to anyone interested in our relationship with nature, worried about environmental destruction, or searching for new actions to save our planet, Sacred Nature will uncover the most profound connections between humans and the natural world

‘Why do they call him Black Jake? Is it because of his hair?’ Titty asked • ‘Because of his heart’ said Peter Duck • The Swallows and Amazons, as well as Captain Flint and the ancient able seaman Peter Duck, set sail on the Wild Cat bound for the Channel. But they are shadowed by the Viper, manned by none other than Black Jake - a beastly pirate with a dark plan. Can the children race ahead and uncover the buried treasure before the pirate? Can they survive storms, earthquakes, crabs and even a waterspout and make it home?