Search Results for: Environment

Discover the fascinating world of mushrooms with this beautiful pocket guide, featuring trivia, history, identification tips, delicious recipes and more

One of nature’s most extraordinary organisms can be found right under your feet: the mushroom. For thousands of years these fungi have intrigued humankind, providing food, inspiring folklore and proving to be both poison and cure.

The Little Book of Mushrooms will allow you to uncover this mysterious kingdom for yourself. Learn the difference between a giant puffball and a scarlet elf cup and discover how mushrooms and the fungal network help plant life to communicate. You will also find:

– Fascinating facts about the fungi kingdom
– Mushroom folklore from around the world
– A beginner’s guide to identifying common wild mushrooms
– A collection of delicious mushroom-based recipes
Mushrooms are vital to life on earth, and this book will be your guide to these spectacular organisms that have influenced our past and could shape our future.

THE LAST TIME JOHN HARRISON VENTURED INTO THE JUNGLE A MEMBER OF HIS GROUP DIED.

THIS TIME HE BROUGHT HIS WIFE.

The Tumucumaque Hills on Brazil’s northern frontier are one of the few remaining unexplored regions on earth. Back in 1950, a young French explorer set off into the deepest jungle of that region and was never seen again.

Inspired by that explorer’s diary, John and Heather Harrison paddled their canoe into some of the remotest tributaries of the Amazon, with no TV cameras, sponsors or the slightest chance of being rescued if things went wrong. Lost, and threatened by malaria, snakes, jaguars, piranhas, aggressive wild pigs and flesh-burrowing insects, they slashed a precipitous path over the mountains. 

This is travel at its rawest: the incredible story of the Harrison’s struggle to keep their deteriorating sanity and relationship intact in one of the most hostile and unforgiving places in the world.

Mont Blanc, or ‘Il Bianco’ as it is sometimes known as in Italy; The White One. It sits, regally, upon pleated glacial folds gathered together around a timeless, grey-rock body, high above the French town of Chamonix, lord of all that it surveys. It beguiles, bewitches and charms the lesser folk who seek to frolic and play amongst the buttressed foothills of its ancient frame, but exudes also a sense of foreboding; a warning to the one hundred or so climbers that die each year attempting to reach the gleaming, domed summit of this great snow-encrusted mountain.

Framed by the cobalt blue sky and golden alpine sun, Western Europe’s highest mountain has held a certain allure over explorers and hikers for centuries, playing host to the likes of Hannibal, Napoleon and the early pioneers of alpine exploration.

In a muddy field somewhere in Cornwall on New Year’s Day, two men make a pact to tackle it. Call it a mid-life crisis, with not only his daughter about to leave for university but also the rapidly approaching prospect of his fiftieth birthday to consider: walking 170 kilometres across a mountain range seems the perfect antidote. Humorous, reflective and poignant, this is the story of a journey around one of the world’s most iconic mountains, through an area that is full to bursting with stories to remember.

If you want to know your ichthyosaur from your iguanodon, and your belemnites from your brachiopods, strap in for this whirlwind tour of the highlights of palaeontology

Life as we know it now has a long history, buried beneath the ground. Palaeontology is the science of fossilized animals and plants, using discoveries of ancient lifeforms to uncover secrets of the past. From giant dinosaurs, to ammonites, to the first ever humans, explore the greatest findings in palaeontology in this pocket-sized introduction.

The Little Book of Palaeontology includes:
– The key palaeontological discoveries over the past 400 years, including the dinosaur found complete with intricate scales, and the largest fossil ever uncovered
– Profiles of influential palaeontologists such as Jack Horner, Dong Zhiming and Mary Anning
– What we have learnt about the lives of ancient creatures and how they became extinct
– The big questions about the prehistoric world that palaeontologists are trying to answer today

This illuminating little book will introduce you to the key thinkers, themes and theories you need to know to understand how life evolved. Look through this window to the past and learn about our prehistoric ancestors and the creatures of a bygone age.

Have you ever wanted to know…




Which junction to take for Gibraltar?


How to save £35,040 a year on Dartford Crossing tolls?


How many assassins were buried within the concrete of the M25? (at least one)


Why it’s important that North Ockendon declares itself independent from Greater London at the earliest opportunity?




This indispensable biography of a road profiles the 117 miles of Britain’s most infamous motorway, from its controversial origins to its present-day status as backdrop to the lives and commutes of millions. Told with Ray Hamilton’s trademark powers of observation and off-the-wall humour, it is an eye-opening account of the stuff you didn’t know about the M25 – including the action, sightseeing or nature-loving fun you can have coming off at any junction – and a very different view of the stuff you did know.