‘100 Cars Britain Can Be Proud Of by Giles Chapman’ £9.99
Great Britain has one of the world’s truly astounding records for producing exciting, groundbreaking and popular cars. This island nation has given life to more great marques per head of driver population than anywhere else, with names that conjure up the most distinctive vehicles on the road. There is still nothing else with comparable character and heritage to match an Aston Martin, Bentley, Bristol, Jaguar, Lotus, Land Rover, Mini, Morgan or, of course, a Rolls-Royce.
Even the cars we don’t make any more – such as Jensens, Morrises, Rovers, Triumphs and TVRs – inspire extraordinary desire and affection worldwide. But we Brits do have a bewildering tendency to think our motor industry has gone to the dogs, and that the ‘Great British Motor Car’ is a thing of the increasingly distant past.
This book sets out to redress the balance. In it you’ll find 100 cars that Britain should be resolutely proud to celebrate – one hundred stories of vividly contrasting road-going machines that will blip the throttle of the sourest car curmudgeon. Not just those magnificent pioneer, vintage and classic machines of the glorious past, either, but also the new cars that, today, are keeping British designers, engineers and car factories humming with activity.
‘Slippery Tipples’ by Joseph Piercy £9.99
From European favourites such as Mastichato Chios, which saved 2,000 Greeks from a bloody massacre at the hands of vengeful Turks, to legendary drinks such as Amarula, invented by African elephants; from classic cocktail ingredients like Midori, the bright green Japanese melon drink launched at the wrap party for Saturday Night Fever at Studio 54, to student stalwart Jagermeister, dreamt up by a confidant of Herman Goring and hugely popular among senior Nazis, Sippery Tipples tells the stories behind the word’s most extraordinary drinks. Alongside a country-by-country guide to murky and mysterious booze and dozens of cocktail recipes is a series of easy to follow recipes for making your own liqueurs and spirits. If you would like to concoct your own fruit brandies or make a drop of traditional full-strength Pimms then this is the book for you.
Submariners’ News by Keith Hall £12.99
For many years submariners produced ‘local newspapers’, reporting from the deep with a unique take on their unusual lifestyle. Held in much affection by submarine crews, they enjoyed a long period of popularity from the 1970s-1990s for their irreverent and decidedly un-PC approach to underwater living. In this entertaining book, author Keith Hall examines the development of this strange branch of ‘underwater journalism’, collating the articles and anecdotes, jokes cartoons and stories that have been published over the years to brighten up the lives of submariners far from home, providing an insight into the bizarre self-contained world of the submariner.
During the Second World War over 400,000 Germans and Italians were held in prison camps in Britain. These men played a vital part in the life of war-torn Britain, from working in the fields to repairing bomb-damaged homes. Yet despite the role they played, today it is almost forgotten that Britain once held POWs at all.
For those who worked, played or fell in love with the enemies in their midst, despite restrictions and the opinions of their peers, those times remain vivid. Whether they took tea on the lawn with Italians or invited a German for Christmas dinner, the POWs were a large part of their lives. This book is the story of those men who were detained here as unexpected guests.
It is about their lives within the camps and afterwards, when some chose to stay and others returned to a country that in parts had become a hell on earth.
