BOOKS BRIEFS
Atlas Obscura is a glittering array of more than 600 of the most curious and unusual destinations around the globe. Each page has amazing and almost unbelievable facts and figures, with hundreds of great photos. (Workman, 470pp, hardback, £25)
ISBN 9780-7611-69086 Telling Tails (from hopeless hounds to tryrannical tortoises) is a highly amusing collection of animal letters sent to The Daily Telegraph. The pocket book is also superbly enhanced by many wonderful Matt cartoons (see above). (Aurum, 184pp, hardback, £8.99)
ISBN 9781-7813-15927 Telling Tales is available by post from This England.
Are you a quizmaster? Then you will welcome both The Excellent Pub Quiz Book and The Biggest British Quiz Book, each containing 10,000 questions. (Carlton, 512pp, paperback, £9.99) ISBN 9781-7809-78895 & ISBN 9781-7809-78833
In Yorkshire Stridings, Ian Mcmillan’s poems and Ian Beesley’s photos give a fine account of our largest county’s urban and rural landscapes. (Souvenir, 96pp, hardback, £15)
ISBN 9780-2856-43444
Military historians will welcome the reissue of Kitchener’s New Army by Edgar Wallace. First published in 1915, it is wellwritten and illustrated with a huge number of contemporary photos, explaining how the country was mobilised and trained for the First World War conflict. (Amberley, 190pp, paperback, £17.99)
ISBN 9781-4456-22927
Heathrow Airport, an Illustrated History is a personal account of our main air transport hub by Kevan James, containing many black and white images. (Fonthill, 236pp, paperback, £18.99)
ISBN 9781-7815-55118
Botanists will be enchanted by Wild Flowers of Britain, Month by Month. Margaret Wilson began painting them for a friend more than 70 years ago and they were eventually donated to the Kendal Natural History Society who recently offered them for publication. Packed with images similar to the one (below), this little book is pure magic and a great guide to our annual flora. (Merlin Unwin, 164pp, hardback, £8.99)
ISBN 9781-9107-23319
Wild Flowers of Britain is available by post from This England. For further details see page 89.
If you are looking for a bedside book to dip into then Everything You Know About London is Wrong by Matt Brown is just the ticket. Crammed full of quirky facts, it is hard to put it down. Did you know Clapham Junction is in Battersea (not Clapham) or that Abbey Road station on the Docklands Light Railway is nowhere near where The Beatles recorded, so much so that the station now displays a poster to that effect? (Batsford, 190pp, hardback, £9.99)
ISBN 9781-8499-43604
Do you know how to look after or fix a bike, maybe for your children or even your grandchildren? If not then help is at hand because Mel Allwood’s The Total Bike Maintenance Book (DIY repairs made easy), has all the answers. (Carlton, 300pp, hardback, £16.99)
ISBN 9781-7809-77850
Ronald Searle was a famous cartoon illustrator and Searle’s Cats is a short but witty compilation of some of them. (Souvenir, 40pp, hardback, £9.99)
ISBN 9780-2856-43482
Has modern photography left you behind? If so then try Digital Camera School by Ben Hawkins, which tells you how to adapt. (Carlton, 208pp, hardback, £20)
ISBN 9781-7809-78819
The Mitford sisters were wellknown but their wider family is not. This has now been rectified and in The Mitford Family — nearly a thousand years of history, Hugh Mitford Raymond goes back in time as far as the Normans, in fact slightly longer. This will interest social historians. (Zymurgy, 240pp, hardback, £16.99)
ISBN 9781-9035-06448
Cookery a la Carte by David Steadman and Melvyn Tarran, is not quite what you think because it is linked to the D’oyly Carte Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company from which 100 stars down the years have each contributed a recipe. Well presented and informative, all G& S fans will love it. (Choir Press, 218pp, hardback, £24.99)
ISBN 9781-9108-64043
There is something strange yet compelling about a preserved battlefield and none has been better kept than the Somme. In The First Day of the Somme, a Visitors’ Guide by Jon Cooksey and Jerry Murland, you can easily follow the maps and places as you discover who did what and where. (Pen & Sword, 230pp, paperback, £14.99)
ISBN 9781-4738-38031
Shire continue to turn out an excellent selection of small books which, despite their diminutive size, manage to summarise their topics both interestingly and remarkably comprehensively.
Social historians and transport enthusiasts will therefore welcome both the following new titles: Coal Mining in Britain by Richard Hayman, and British Diesel Locomotives of the 1950s and 1960s (Shire, 65pp, paperback, £7.99) ISBN 9781-7844-21205 ISBN 9781-7844-20338
Beautifully illustrated in colour the Field Guide to the Amphibians and Reptiles of Europe will delight all interested in this vast array of snakes, frogs, toads, lizards and the like. Helpful maps and fascinating text make this an invaluable natural history reference book. Highly recommended.( Bloomsbury, 432pp, paperback, £19.99)
ISBN 9781-4081-54595