The Fire Came By: The Riddle of the Great Siberian Explosion 1908 lands on the shelves of the remarkable Fact or Fable Book Shop in Peasedown St. John

Latest addition to the bookshelves of the leading book shop in Peasedown St. John!

Category: Science
The Fire Came By: The Riddle of the Great Siberian Explosion 1908 by John Baxter & Thomas Atkins
London: MacDonald & Jane’s, 1977
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Blue boards with Silver titling to Spine
2nd impression. [First Edition: 1976] Illustrated by way of: Appendices [4]; Black & White Photographs; Maps;

From the cover: At 7:17 A. M. on the morning of June 30, 1908, a cylindrical object blazed across the cloudless skies of central Siberia, and the desolate Central Plateau shuddered under the impact of a cataclysmic explosion. The initial thermal blast was followed by primary and secondary shock waves, a hideous firestorm, and a black rain that contaminated hundreds of square miles. The seismic shock was registered in Moscow, Paris, London, even around the world in Washington, D. C.

For nearly seventy years one question has gone unanswered: What caused it?

Here is the riveting story of the Great Siberian Explosion: one of the most intriguing, yet-to-be-solved mysteries of this century. Beginning with accounts of the first expeditions to the area in 1927, when scientists set out looking for a meteor crater that would explain the blast and found none to the nuclear/space age when the realities of atomic warfare and the discoveries of modern astrophysics have led to speculations involving the possibility of black holes and antimatter, the evidence repeatedly supports a theory that only a generation ago would have been unthinkable. That a nuclear-powered, extraterrestrial spacecraft destructed while attempting to land on earth, unleashing irreversible atomic holocaust.

As gripping as a detective story, The Fire Came By is an enthralling investigation into the most powerful unexplained explosion mankind has ever known.
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Spanish Cooking appears in the tremendous Fact or Fable Book Shop in Peasedown St. John

Latest addition to the bookshelves of the leading book shop in Peasedown St. John!

Category: Cookery Spanish
Spanish Cooking by Elizabeth Cass
London: The Cookery Book Club, 1968
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Red boards with Gilt titling to Spine
From the cover: Doctor Cass practised for many years in Gibraltar, from where she made extensive journeys through Spain. Her skill as a cook is combined with an exploratory spirit and a lively enjoyment of good food. She carried home recipes from every region, tested them, compared them, checked and double-checked them, and has now set them out clearly and concisely for English-speaking readers.

She includes for the benefit of travellers in Spain a long chapter on the characteristic dishes of the various regions, with suggestions on what to ask for. She has also had the courage to undertake a classification of the fish to be found off Spanish shores, with descriptive notes on their appearance and eating quali-ties: a much-needed contribution to the full enjoyment of gastronomic opportunities.

Although Doctor Cass writes for the kitchen rather than for the bookshelf, her relish for her subject and her detailed knowledge give her book an atmosphere which makes it enjoyable as well as useful.
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Cloak Without Dagger makes it to the shelves of the breathtaking Fact or Fable Book Shop in Peasedown St. John

Latest addition to the bookshelves of the leading book shop in Peasedown St. John!

Category: Biography
Cloak Without Dagger by Sir Percy Sillitoe
London: Cassell & Co., 1955
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Red boards with Gilt titling to Spine
3rd edition. [First Published: 1955] Illustrated by way of: Black & White Photographs; Portrait to the frontispiece;

From the cover: At a time when the public was being shocked by the revelations of Igor Gouzenko and the trial of Alan Nunn May into the realisation that, though the war was just over, the hidden war of the secret agent was still going on, Sir Percy Sillitoe became Director-General of M. I-5. Ambitious as he had always been, he had never in his wildest day-dreams visualised himself at the head of the Secret Service, but these extraordinary memoirs provide a more than adequate explanation of the rise to so exalted a position of the one-time choirboy of St. Pauls Cathedral.

They tell the story of a fifty-years fight for law and order against the criminals of two nations, first in South Africa and later amid the violence of gang warfare in Sheffield and Glasgow. It was Sillitoe who, as Chief Constable of Sheffield, broke the Mooney and Garvin gangs who had so terrorised the town that no witness would give evidence in court. The story of the defeat of the gangsters reads more like a Hollywood film script than a sober record of events in an English provincial town.
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Best Hunting Stories lands on the shelves of the remarkable Fact or Fable Book Shop in Peasedown St. John

Latest addition to the bookshelves of the leading book shop in Peasedown St. John!

Category: Fiction Author: W
Best Hunting Stories by John Welcome & Vincent Orchard
London: Faber & Faber, 1954
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Red boards with Gilt titling to Spine
From the cover: Best Hunting Stories has between its covers a selection from the works of a brilliant school of writers whose inspiration has been the thrill of the Chase. It ranges over a wide field, now depicting a fell hunt in Wales or presently a pack in the deep South of the United States. In its colourful pages are the excitement of a hunt in High Leicestershire, or all the rapture and romance of Irish hunting, with its sidelights on the complexities of the Irish character.

The period of 1920-50 produced some exceptionally clever writers on hunting, among them Henry Williamson (a Hawthornden Prize winner), March Phillips, R. P. Harris and Ernest Lewis, all of whom are represented in the collection. They take their places along with Trollope and his Victorian contemporaries and with the sterner stuff from the evergreen Surtees and the hard-bitten Nimrod. The collection is also graced by stories by Somerville and Ross, and Siegfried Sassoon, and by a delightful story of Irish roguery from the pen of M. J. Farrell, the gifted authoress of Spring Meeting and Treasure Hunt. Conan Doyles immortal Brigadier Gerard slays a fox in true Gallic style, and readers may laugh or cry over an original story, specially contributed, by the one and only Dalesman.
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Old Clocks for Modern Use: With a Guide to Their Mechanism turns up at the glorious Fact or Fable Book Shop in Peasedown St. John

Latest addition to the bookshelves of the leading book shop in Peasedown St. John!

Category: Horology
Old Clocks for Modern Use: With a Guide to Their Mechanism by Edward Wenham
London: Spring Books, 1965
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Red boards with Gilt titling to Spine
Illustrated by: Edgar Holloway
Illustrated by way of: Frontispiece; Black & White Photographs; Black & White Drawings;

From the cover: It is obvious to most people that a clock is more than a mere means of counting off seconds, minutes and hours. What is perhaps not so obvious is that an old timepiece, from the workshop of a master craftsman, is no mere ornament either, and that for precision and accuracy a fine eighteenth century clock may be unexcelled by most modern specimens.

Edward Wenham enjoys clocks he enjoys making them and taking them to pieces, and he finds them relaxing companions. This sense of enjoyment is well conveyed in his book which traces the development of time-pieces from the earliest sundials, water clocks and sandglasses. His explanation of clock mechanism is clear and free of technical jargon and his descriptions of lantern clocks, bracket clocks and grandfather clocks all of them suitable for everyday use in modern homes and of more detailed features such as dials and hands, are far removed from the rather forbidding catalogue style of the museum or auction room.

It is this insistence that old time-pieces are not to be regarded as adornments that gives Mr. Wenhams book its practical value and appeal to the non-specialist reader. Modern reproductions of old clocks are not to be derided and amateur clock-making can be a wonderfully satisfying hobby, even if one cannot begin to emulate the wonderful clocks reproduced in the many line drawings and photographs in Mr. Wenhams book. As he says in his Preface,to the uninformed, any piece of machinery can appear almost alarmingly intricate; but if it is studied bit by bit and the reason for its action and movement followed to the source, its mystery disappears and is replaced by the pleasure which comes from understanding.
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Old Clocks for Modern Use: With a Guide to Their Mechanism turns up at the glorious Fact or Fable Book Shop in Peasedown St. John

Latest addition to the bookshelves of the leading book shop in Peasedown St. John!

Category: Horology
Old Clocks for Modern Use: With a Guide to Their Mechanism by Edward Wenham
London: Spring Books, 1965
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Red boards with Gilt titling to Spine
Illustrated by: Edgar Holloway
Illustrated by way of: Frontispiece; Black & White Photographs; Black & White Drawings;

From the cover: It is obvious to most people that a clock is more than a mere means of counting off seconds, minutes and hours. What is perhaps not so obvious is that an old timepiece, from the workshop of a master craftsman, is no mere ornament either, and that for precision and accuracy a fine eighteenth century clock may be unexcelled by most modern specimens.

Edward Wenham enjoys clocks he enjoys making them and taking them to pieces, and he finds them relaxing companions. This sense of enjoyment is well conveyed in his book which traces the development of time-pieces from the earliest sundials, water clocks and sandglasses. His explanation of clock mechanism is clear and free of technical jargon and his descriptions of lantern clocks, bracket clocks and grandfather clocks all of them suitable for everyday use in modern homes and of more detailed features such as dials and hands, are far removed from the rather forbidding catalogue style of the museum or auction room.

It is this insistence that old time-pieces are not to be regarded as adornments that gives Mr. Wenhams book its practical value and appeal to the non-specialist reader. Modern reproductions of old clocks are not to be derided and amateur clock-making can be a wonderfully satisfying hobby, even if one cannot begin to emulate the wonderful clocks reproduced in the many line drawings and photographs in Mr. Wenhams book. As he says in his Preface,to the uninformed, any piece of machinery can appear almost alarmingly intricate; but if it is studied bit by bit and the reason for its action and movement followed to the source, its mystery disappears and is replaced by the pleasure which comes from understanding.
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Glacier Run shows up at the wonderful Fact or Fable Book Shop in Peasedown St. John

Latest addition to the bookshelves of the leading book shop in Peasedown St. John!

Category: Fiction Author: B
Glacier Run by Phyllida Barstow
London: Century, 1983
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Blue boards with Gilt titling to Spine
From the cover: It wasnt much to ask a friend, as Rowan put it. Just to join her in an Alpine skiing holiday, and discreetly provide an alibi while she visited her lover. But beautiful, wilful Rowan, heiress to the Henschel millions, had a knack of twisting facts to suit herself. When she vanished from the ski-slopes one afternoon, Catta Chiltern found that covering up for her wasnt going to be easy.

Too many people were interested in Rowans whereabouts. Robin Labouchere, the brilliant, temperamental slalom champion, and his tough, cynical brother, Richard, refused to believe the carefully-concocted cover story. Her jet-setting friends, living it up in Frances smartest ski-resort, suspected Catta had something to hide. Worst of all was the accusation from Rowans husband, Charles, that Catta had plotted her friends abduction. Convinced that Rowan was in danger, Catta set off on a terrifying path of investigation.
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Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance makes it to the shelves of the breathtaking Fact or Fable Book Shop in Peasedown St. John

Latest addition to the bookshelves of the leading book shop in Peasedown St. John!

Category: History
Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance by Lisa Jardine
New York, London, Toronto, Sydney & Auckland: Nan A Talese, 1996
Hardback with Dust Jacket over boards with titling to
Illustrated by way of: Black & White Photographs; Facsimiles; Colour Photographs; Black & White Drawings; Illustrated endpapers and blanks;

From the cover: Worldly Goods provides a radical interpretation of the Golden Age of European culture. During the Renaissance, Jardine argues, vicious commercial battles were being fought over silks and spices, and who should control international trade.

The flowering of civilization, the rebirth of classical scholarship and the serendipitous coming together of some of the greatest artists the world has ever known: this is the traditional view of the Renaissance. This work provides an interpretation of that age of European culture. In it, the author argues that while aristocrats and newly prosperous merchants commissioned works of art from the leading artists of the day, vicious commercial battles were being fought over silks and spices, and who should control international trade. As humanism and the new learning spread out of Italy across Europe, the prodigious output of the printing presses which sprang up soon dictated by accident as much as by design what was to become the European intellectual tradition.
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Strength of the Hills: An Autobiography breezes into the marvellous Fact or Fable Book Shop in Peasedown St. John

Latest addition to the bookshelves of the leading book shop in Peasedown St. John!

Category: Biography
Strength of the Hills: An Autobiography by George Ewart Evans
London & Boston: Faber & Faber, 1983
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Faun boards with Gilt titling to Spine
Illustrated by: David Gentleman
Illustrated by way of: Black & White Drawings;

From the cover: The reputation of George Ewart Evans has been achieved with a sequence of remarkable works of rural history, starting with the classic Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay in 1956. In the course of these books Mr Evans recorded the oral testimony of farm workers, horsemen and fishermen to the ancient folk culture of East Anglia, which he showed with particular skill and sympathy to have survived virtually down to the present day.

As attentive readers of his books know, Mr Evans is a Welshman who cares passionately for his cultural birthright in which rugby football features as powerfully as politics, poetry, music and religion. In The Strength of the Hills he reflects on his own life and career, from the child in the coal mining valley of the Cynon in Glamorgan, with white-washed hill farms in sight of grim colliery workings, to the classicist and former teacher whose friendship with an old Suffolk shepherd led him to his vocation as an historian.

The Strength of the Hills is a tribute to his resilience, his undying love of Wales and his warm-hearted response to the experiences and memories of his fellow men and women.
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The Irish Country House: A Social History appears in the tremendous Fact or Fable Book Shop in Peasedown St. John

Latest addition to the bookshelves of the leading book shop in Peasedown St. John!

Category: History Ireland
The Irish Country House: A Social History by Peter Somerville-Large
London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1996
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Green boards with Gilt titling to Spine
Illustrated by: Mark Fiennes (Photos.)
2nd printing. [First Published: 1995] Illustrated by way of: Black & White Photographs; Ribbon Markers [1]; Colour Photographs; Maps [1]; Gazeteer;

From the cover: For 700 years the Ascendancy dominated Ireland: landlords built their great houses, landscaped their parks and spent wealth gathered from rents, before disappearing in the 20th century.

Making use of letters, diaries, memoirs, estate documents, inventories, travellers tales and family reminiscences, Peter Somerville-Large examines the lifestyle of the so-called rural sovereigns , describing the elegance, discomfort, and danger associated with castle and mansion, and the lives of many famous figures who created or inhabited the great houses.
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