Glass and Metalware makes an entrance at the magnificent Fact or Fable Book Shop in Peasedown St. John (1)

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

Category: Antiques & Collecting Glass
Glass and Metalware by Dorothea Hall
London: Bracken Books, 1992
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Matching Pictorial boards with titling to
Illustrated by way of: Black & White Photographs; Colour Photographs;

From the cover: The range of collectable items in glass and metal is truly phenomenal. Both materials were originally used in purely functional forms; and both developed into media with which skilled craftsmen could create works of exquisite beauty.

Collectors are almost spoiled for choice. It is possible to specialize in a particular period, or on a particular maker; or to concentrate on one type of object. Expenditure need not be great; half the fun is in hunting out bargains or unexpected finds.

In this very popular series, Collecting for Pleasure GLASS AND METALWARE covers a particularly attractive range of 24 collectable categories, from essentials such as tableware and cutlery to highly covetable dressing table silver, art metalware, cut glass and art glass. In the process, it affords insights into many lifestyles, from the Georgian period through to the Art Nouveau movement.

Invaluable buying advice is also given what to look for and what to avoid, how to check quality and makers marks, how to distinguish between originals and reproductions; and there are indispensable price guides for each category to aid the would-be purchaser.

This beautifully illustrated and informative book will be a delight to established collectors and to those new to the field of glass and metal collecting.
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The Encyclopedia of Herbs and Herbalism 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: Health Alternative
The Encyclopedia of Herbs and Herbalism by Malcolm Stuart
Enderby: Black Cat, 1994
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Matching Pictorial boards with titling to
Illustrated by way of: Glossary; Colour Photographs; Black & White Drawings; Tables; Illustrated endpapers and blanks; Plans;

From the cover: Many thoughtful people, disenchanted with pre-packaged and synthetic foods and medicines, are looking again to the traditional lore of the countryside. Herbs are no longer consigned to the realms of quackery, but are widely recognised as useful natural aids to a healthier life.

In The Encyclopaedia of Herbs and Herbalism an enthusiastic team headed by Dr Malcolm Stuart have produced a practical and detailed guide. Ranging from the history of herbalism and the biology and chemistry of plants, to aspects of herb cultivation, collection and preservation, they also provide an alphabetical section listing 420 herbs in detail, their habitats and methods of cultivation, their many and varied uses.

The 350 superb colour photographs and over 190 drawings and diagrams make this a handsome, as well as comprehensive, work of reference on an increasingly popular subject.
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When the Wind Changed: The Life and Death of Tony Hancock 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: Biography
When the Wind Changed: The Life and Death of Tony Hancock by Cliff Goodwin
London: Century, 1999
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Black boards with Gilt titling to Spine
Illustrated by way of: Black & White Photographs; Facsimiles; Chronological Tables;

From the cover: He was the funniest man in Britain. Yet Tony Hancock was racked by doubt and insecurity, temperamental to the point of collapse, haunted by irrational obsessions and psychic intuition, and a chronic alcoholic. He had an extravagant effect on those who knew and worked with him, leaving them very often in quick succession -beguiled, besotted, bruised or bitter.

For fourteen years he reigned as the undisputed king of British comedy; a quarter of the nation would stay in to watch Hancocks Half Hour. Publicans and chip-shop owners complained takings plunged during his radio and television shows and for the first time a British star was paid £1,000 a show.

Yet almost from the start he felt his own identity was being swallowed by the fictional persona of Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock, the pompous buffoon of 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam. He once described the set of his comedy show as a bloody death cell with an execution once a week.

When Hancock turned his back on television and attempted to realise his ambition of international film stardom, he found he was held prisoner by the character he created.

Tony Hancock committed suicide in his rented apartment in Sydney in June 1968. He was forty-four years old, twice divorced, with no children, and few close friends.

When the Wind Changed is the first authoritative and detailed biography, exploring Hancocks tortured life and obsessive comic genius. Revealing the brutality of his marriages and affairs, and the depths to which his alcoholism took him, this, like all true tragedy, is the story of the decline of a great man.
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Civilized Magic: An Interpretive Guide to Australian Paintings 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: Art
Civilized Magic: An Interpretive Guide to Australian Paintings by Ronald Millar
London: Thames & Hudson, 1975
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Blue boards with Gilt titling to Spine
Illustrated by way of: Colour Plates; Black & White Plates;

From the cover: If paintings could always be explained, nobody would bother to paint any. Civilized Magic is not a set of explanations, therefore, but simply an interpretive guide for those people who need to look at, think about and live with paintings. It is a collection of good pictures, with words. The author takes a searching look at each painting, gives each its own detailed commentary, involves the reader with many different points of view, suggests alternatives. He writes about the emotional direction of each work, about the object itself, its effect and its scope; about its quality. Such direct comment about specific pictures is too seldom attempted in art books.

In Civilized Magic Ronald Millar stimulates, interprets, probes and provokes. He makes it clear that seeing a painting means more than merely glancing at it from time to time. He introduces the work of artists whose work, though sometimes familiar, may yet be unknown; and also prepares the reader for the more complete but often disconcerting experience offered only by originals. He shows also how a verbal response to images may enlarge and enrich our total experience of the work of art itself. These commentaries were begun in front of the originals in the various State and private collections.
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Life in Russia Under Catherine the Great rolls into the fabulous 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 Russia
Life in Russia Under Catherine the Great by Miriam Kochan
London: B. T. Batsford, 1969
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Green boards with Gilt titling to Spine
Illustrated by way of: Black & White Photographs; Black & White Plates; Black & White Drawings; Maps;

From the cover: Russia in the eighteenth century was still, despite the efforts of Peter the Great, an Asiatic empire covered with only the thinnest veneer of European culture. The strains and divisions which Peters policies had created were intensified during Catherines reign. Slavish imitation of French fashions and culture reached such heights that there was a reaction in favour of the ancient Muscovite traditions. St Petersburg achieved a splendour to rival that of Paris and Vienna, but the intelligentsia began to look to the old capital of Moscow. Catherines reign was the golden age of the nobility, but it also saw the first stirrings of the conscience-stricken gentry, uneasily aware that their privileges rested on the enslavement of the peasantry.

Miriam Kochan gives a vivid account of the whole range of Russian society from the fabulous affluence of the great nobles to the harsh poverty of the serfs, who worked on their lords estates, in the Empress factories and the ironworks of the Urals to support this new magnificence. Drawing on the lively memoirs of those tourists who visited Russia in increasing numbers and on many contemporary illustrations, the book vigorously describes life in Imperial Russia, both its squalor and its magnificence.
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Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail: War At Sea 1756-1815 makes an entrance at the magnificent Fact or Fable Book Shop in Peasedown St. John

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

Category: Military Naval
Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail: War At Sea 1756-1815 by Bernard Ireland
St. Helens: Ted Smart, 2000
Hardback with Dust Jacket over boards with titling to
Illustrated by way of: Facsimiles; Black & White Drawings; Colour Drawings;

From the cover: The long reign of King George III extended from 1760 to 1820, an era of almost continuous war during which the Royal Navy was to achieve the highest reputation in its history. Successive wars snapped up colonies from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean, all of which had to be defended in the next conflict. Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail reveals how ships were built, sailed and fought in the era made popular today by the novels of Patrick OBrian, C. S. Forester, Alexander Kent, Dudley Pope and others. Naval fiction sustains the legend that the seamen were impressed against their will and, for a pittance, sent to serve in damp and unhealthy conditions, subjected to discipline verging on the inhuman until, incapacitated or with health broken, they were cast ashore and forgotten. It is no credit to the nation that this was, all too often, the case. But then we have the paradox. How was such a body of men, apparently bereft of education, status or prospects, motivated to form a service respected the world around? Much credit must lay with their officers, themselves recruited almost casually at an age when todays lads are still at school. Some from the aristocracy, some from the professional classes, they were virtually apprenticed to their captains and learned their trade from the bottom up. This was the age when the man counted, rather than technology.
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Britain’s Historic Ships: A Complete Guide to the Ships That Shaped the Nation reaches the shelves of the mind-boggling Fact or Fable Book Shop in Peasedown St. John

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

Category: Transport Nautical
Britain’s Historic Ships: A Complete Guide to the Ships That Shaped the Nation by Paul Brown
London: Conway, 2009
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Black boards with Gilt titling to Spine
There are those that have taken part in great naval battles and campaigns Trafalgar, Jutland and Gallipoli, D-Day and Dunkirk, Korea, the Falklands and the Gulf War. Others represent supreme feats of engineering such as the steamship Great Britain, and great leaps in ship technology such as HMS Warrior. Some, such as the clipper ship Cutty Sark, took part in the legendary tea races, or were involved in exploration, such as Scotts polar research ship Discovery. Then there are the innumerable little vessels that plied their trade in and around the coasts of Britain sailing barges, ketches and coasters and the paddle steamers which brought holiday-makers to the sea-side and which are still available for excursions today on the Scottish lochs arid English rivers. Together they represent the very best of our maritime heritage, to be enjoyed by all. Their histories and preservation are all faithfully documented and a list of web addresses is provided for opening times and further details. In addition to the featured ships and boats, an appendix lists a further 50 vessels (of 60 feet or more) in the Core and Designated Lists of the National Historic Ships Register with their location.
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Great Architecture of the World 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: Architecture
Great Architecture of the World by John Julius Norwich
London: Mitchell Beazley, 1975
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Brown boards with Gilt titling to Spine
Illustrated by way of: Cutaways; Glossary; Black & White Photographs; Colour Photographs; Gazeteer; Plans;

From the cover: With architecture, more than with other arts, the key to enjoyment is understanding. Great Architecture of the World tells the fascinating story of mans inventiveness with a clarity of style and freshness of approach that is entirely new. This grand survey is presented in an original way: never before have such informative cutaway drawings been matched with explanatory texts and photography to tell this important story so understandably and in such detail.

Great Architecture of the World has been warmly welcomed by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the most respected and perceptive of architectural historians, as a valuable contribution to the understanding of architecture.

This is the story of the greatest monuments created by man, told by fourteen of the most distinguished architectural historians and abundantly illustrated with more than 800 original diagrams, annotated drawings and superb photographs. Beginning with the ancient civilizations of the East and the Americas, the book goes on to tell of the spectacular developments which took place in Europe and the Western World, from the earliest temples of Mesopotamia to the most advanced structures of the 20th century. This book is a tribute to the great buildings themselves, to the people who created them, to the patrons who financed them and to the artists and craftsmen who embellished them.

Here is a major and lasting reference work which is also a thing of beauty to be treasured. For the student its style of illustration is explicit and informative; for the traveller a gazetteer is added, giving a country by country listing of the worlds greatest buildings; for all of us there is the exciting persuasiveness of writers, artists and photographers who care about our architectural heritage.
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Fauna Britannica: The Practical Guide to Wild & Domestic Creatures of Britain: The Practical Guide to Wild and Domestic Creatures of Britain rolls into the fabulous Fact or Fable Book Shop in Peasedown St. John

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

Category: Natural History
Fauna Britannica: The Practical Guide to Wild & Domestic Creatures of Britain: The Practical Guide to Wild and Domestic Creatures of Britain by Duff Hart-Davis
St. Helens: The Book People, 2002
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Matching Pictorial boards with titling to
Illustrated by way of: Colour Photographs;

FROM THE COVER: MAN HAS LIVED AMONG ANIMALS for the whole of his existence on earth, first competing with them, then using, and all too often abusing them. But in the past fifty years or so people in Britain have become overwhelmingly urban, and in consequence have lost contact with nature and the country. Most children have little direct experience of animals and birds: they see them on television but rarely meet them in the flesh. Yet the popularity of farms open to the public demonstrates the affection that people have for animals, and also the beneficial effects that contact with animals can produce.

Fauna Britannica is a work of reference for people whose interest in animals has been awakened by passing acquaintance. This book is essentially a practical encyclopedia of creatures, wild and domesticated, that have lived and now live in the British Isles. Without seeking to be exhaustive, it concentrates on the creatures that people are most likely to come across or to have read about. As well as being an authoritative guide, Fauna Britannica aims to show how attitudes to animals have changed over the centuries, and to demonstrate how our exploitation of them has had far-reaching consequences for the environment.

The author surveys those creatures such as the Steppe Mammoth and the Giant Irish Elk whose presence in Britain is revealed in the fossil records, and describes the exotic imports and menageries of historical times. He profiles many species of wild mammals, horses, farm animals, dogs and cats, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians and insects. Interspersed throughout the book are essays on various aspects of the countryside, including the reintroduction of the European Beaver, poaching, fox hunting, horse healers and the Scottish drovers. Social history, folklore and legend combine with scientific authority to make Fauna Britannica an enthralling survey of Britains creatures, then and now.
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The Nature of Britain 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: Natural History
The Nature of Britain by Alan Titchmarsh
London: BBC Books, 2007
Hardback with Dust Jacket over Green boards with Gilt titling to Spine
Illustrated by way of: Colour Photographs;

From the cover: In The Nature of Britain Alan Titchmarsh turns wildlife detective, taking us on a journey of discovery through the habitats of the British Isles.

For its size, Britain has an enormously diverse range of natural environments, from the mountains, forests and lakes of the north, to the fenland and chalk downs of the south. Thousands of rivers and streams flow through moorland and woodland, heath and meadow to its 10,000 miles of coastline. And in even the largest, most built-up cities, a surprisingly wide variety of urban wildlife thrives under the noses of their often oblivious human inhabitants.

In this book Alan surveys each of Britains landscapes, chapter by chapter, to provide a detailed picture of the plants and animals that live there. Fascinating essays on each habitat are followed by detailed descriptions and field notes of the species that can be found in them.

Accompanying a major BBC television series, and illustrated with more than 900 colour photographs, The Nature of Britain is both an inspirational celebration of British flora and fauna, and a practical guide that will help you to identify the myriad native species with which we share these islands.
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