A look at 100 inspiring novels that have left a significant mark on the world of literature and popular culture.
Before the novel, the world of books was dominated by scientific tomes, religious tracts and histories of the victorious in war. There had been stories and epic poems from ancient times - Homer's Iliad and Odyssey recounted ancient Greece, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was a chivalric romance in Middle English, but it was not until the seventeenth century, when the European middle classes had money and leisure, that anything so frivolous as a novel could be sold for entertainment.
Colin Salter traces the evolution of the novel from the earliest examples through to the postmodernist best-sellers of the 21st century. Rather than dwelling too long on the technical nuances of innovative writing style he has amassed 100 of the greatest novel writers and chosen their most significant work.
For writers such as Herman Melville, James Joyce or Harper Lee the decision is not a difficult one. For Charles Dickens, Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood, the choice is perhaps more difficult.
Following the style set with previous books in the 100 series, most notably 100 Children's Books and 100 Science Discoveries, each author is given a concise biography and their major novel analysed and then set in context with their other published work.
Readers can become ridiculously well-read in 224 pages.
Authors included: Alexandre Dumas, Daniel Defoe, Victor Hugo, Mary Shelly, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Hilary Mantel, Jane Austen, Robert Louis Stevenson, Walter Scott, Lewis Carroll, JRR Tolkien, Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, Henry James, Harper Lee, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Margaret Atwood, Alice Walker, Jules Verne, HG Wells, Virginia Woolf, Leo Tolstoy, Louisa M. Alcott, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, John Steinbeck, CS Lewis, Chinua Achebe, Jack Kerouac, John Le Carre, Arundhati Roy, Mila Kundera, Joseph Heller, JD Salinger, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Miguel Cervantes, Graham Greene, F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Evelyn Waugh, Robert Graves, Daphne du Maurier, Agatha Christie, PG Wodehouse, Raymond Chandler, Hunter S. Thompson, Khaled Hosseini.
100 Symbols That Changed The World looks at the genesis and adoption of the world's most recognizable symbols.
Universal symbols have been used as a form of communication from the Bronze Age, when the dynasties of ancient Egypt began the evolution of the thousand characters used in Egyptian hieroglyphics. In pre-Columbian America the Mayan civilization set out on a similar course, using pictures as a narrative text.
With the adoption of written languages, symbols have come to represent an illustrated shorthand. The dollar sign in America evolved from colonists' trade with the Spanish, and the widespread acceptance of Spanish currency in deals. Merchants' clerks would shorten the repeated entry of pesos in their accounts ledgers, which needed to be written with a 'p' and an 's'. A single letter 's' with the vertical stroke of the 'p' was much quicker. Historically correct dollar signs have a single stroke through the 'S'.
Symbols are also used to impart quick, recognizable safety advice. The radio activity symbol was designed in Berkley in 1946 to warn of the dangers of radioactive substances - and following the widespread use of gas masks in WWII, the trefoil symbol echoed the shape of the mask.
There are many symbols of affiliation, not only to religious groups, but support of political causes or even brand loyalty. Symbols are used for identification, military markings and recognition of compatibility. They allow users to convey a large amount of information in a short space, such as the iconography of maps or an electrical circuit diagram. Symbols are an essential part of the architecture of mathematics.
And in the case of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics - the first Games to be held in an Asian country - symbols allowed the organizers to create event signage that wouldn't be lost in translation. The set of Olympic sports pictograms for the Games was a novel solution, and one that was added to in Mexico and Munich.
Organized chronologically, 100 Symbols That Changed The World looks at the genesis and adoption of the world's most recognizable symbols.
A charmingly illustrated telling of the remarkable stories behind over 30 of the world's most iconic timepieces.
From the humble digital watch to luxury examples of haute horology from Switzerland, a watch's combination of design, engineering and functionality can captivate a wearer. Iconic Watches presents over 30 timepieces that would sit proudly in any watch enthusiast's collection. From the watch that helped US soldiers win World War II to the first watch on the moon, the most valuable 'lost watch' of all time to the timepiece that almost destroyed the Swiss watchmaking industry, each entry offers an intimate portrait of why each watch deserves its place in history. The remarkable stories cover the globe and beyond, featuring Hollywood royalty, actual royalty, daring adventurers, war heroes, legendary designers and engineers, and much more. It's a beautifully illustrated window into the watch industry and one that readers are sure to love spending time with.
Remarkable Treks is a compendium of exhilarating walks from around the planet - some lasting weeks, some lasting just a few days, but all of them set against spectacular backdrops.
Following the same format as the award winning Remarkable Road Trips and Remarkable Bike Rides, Colin Salter has assembled 52 of the world's top-rated trails.
The treks range in length from one-day hikes, to three-day hikes, to walks of almost expeditionary length. Thankfully, some of the longer routes, such as the Pacific Coast Trail in North America, which traverses the Rockies from Mexico to Canada, can be split up into sections.
However for completists there are smaller challengers, such as the Pennine Way in England, which is never too far away from civilization, and by civilization we mean the pub.
For the thrill-seeking backpackers there are the craggy peaks of Corsica (GR20 - which carries the ominous warning 'some scrambling required'), or the hike up to Everest Base Camp.
And for history buffs there is the Inca Trail in Peru or the 5-day hike to the Lost City of Teyuna in Colombia. Treks include: Samaria Gorge - Crete, Lycian Way - Turkey, Camino De Santiago - Spain, Routeburn Track - New Zealand, Laugavegur - Iceland, Torres Del Paine - Chile, Overland Track - Australia, Kungsleden - Sweden, West Highland Way - Scotland, John Muir Trail - USA, Alta Via 1 - Italy, Haute Route Pyrennes- Spain/France, Drakensberg Grand Traverse - South Africa, Western Way - Ireland, Via Dinerica - Albania/Bosnia/Croatia/Kosovo, GR221 Dry Stone Route - Majorca, Chilkoot Trail - USA/Canada, Toukbal Circuit - Morocco, Tour of the Matterhorn - Switzerland, Wadi Rum and Petra - Jordan.
An amazing guide to some of the most beloved, original, inspiring, hysterical, heart-warming, compelling, rude and downright scary books that have enchanted children the world over.
In 100 Children's Books That Inspired Our World, author Colin Salter surveys an exceptional collection of truly groundbreaking children's books - from Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer to the graphic novels of Dr. Seuss. All the classic children's authors are represented with one stand-out book, plus mentions for their best-known works. Ordered chronologically, the book showcases favourite children's books ranging from Victorian classics to modern day bestsellers.
Books featured include: Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island, Charlotte's Web, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Matilda, Watership Down, Tales of Hans Christian Anderson, Grimms Fairy Tales, Peter Pan, A Bear Called Paddington, The Snowman, The Secret Garden, How to Train Your Dragon, Anne of Green Gables, Harry Potter, James and the Giant Peach, The Gruffalo, Mr Men, Coraline, Herge's Adventures of TinTin, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Finn Family Moomintroll, Swiss Family Robinson, Heidi, The Hobbit, The Red Balloon, The Jungle Book, Mary Poppins, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, His Dark Materials, The Railway Children, Noddy, The House at Pooh Corner, The Sheep Pig, Stig of the Dump, Fungus the Bogeyman, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Secret Seven, Famous Five, Black Beauty, The Diary of a Young Girl, The Boy in Striped Pyjamas, Artemis Fowl and many more who lived happily ever after.
Remarkable Bicycle Rides includes a wide variety of cycling challenges from the exhilaration of high alpine trails to more gentler touring routes, such as Hadrian's Cycleway, which crosses from Britain's Solway Firth to the North Sea following the line of Roman monument Hadrian's Wall.
There are the classic mountain climbs beloved of followers of the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia, such as the climb to Mont Ventoux in France and the Stelvio Pass in Italy. Still in Italy, there is the mass participation of L'Eorica, a bike tour in traditional costume on vintage bikes.
For those wishing to push themselves to the very edge (literally) there is the Yungas Road in Bolivia whose alternative name is El Camino de la Muerte (Death Road). Long-distance trails, such as the Great Divide (Canada/USA) and the Great North Trail (England/Scotland) can form an epic trip of a lifetime, or be tackled in smaller sections. On more robust wheels there is the A-Line single track in Whistler, Canada, and The Whole Enchilada in Moab, Utah.
If you like your cycling on a flatter incline, many routes follow old railway beds, such as the Hiawatha and the Katy Trails in the USA, P'tit Train Du Nord (Canada) or the Parenzana which crosses from Italy to Slovenia to Croatia, plus many of the European routes follow great rivers.
Also included in over 50 routes; Danube Cycle Path, Ring of Kerry, Iron Curtain Trail, Vasco-Navarro Greenway, Flanders Beer Route, Carretera Austral (Chile), the San Juan Islands, Norway Postal Boat, the Loire Valley, Passau to Vienna, Munda Biddi Trail, Shimanami Kaido (Japan), Route des Grands Crus (Burgundy), Nantes to Orleans, Paris to Mont St.Michel, Great North Trail, Alpine Panorama, Salzach Valley, Otago Peninsular, Route 10 Holland, Garden Route (South Africa), and the Hebridean Way.
Arranged in chronological order from the early Greek mathematicians, Euclid and Archimedes through to present-day Nobel Prize winners, 100 Science Discoveries That Changed the World charts the great breakthroughs in scientific understanding.
Each entry describes the story of the research, the significance of the science and its impact on the scientific world. There is also a resume of each scientist's career along with their other achievements, sometimes - in the case of Isaac Newton - in a completely unrelated field (laws of motion and the component parts of light).
The book covers all branches of science: geometry, number theory, cosmology, the laws of motion, particle physics, electricity, magnetism, the laws of gasses, optical theory, cell biology, conservation of energy, natural selection, radiation, quantum theory, special relativity, superconductivity, thermodynamics, genomes, plate tectonics, and the uncertainty principal.
Scientists include: Albert Einstein, Alessandro Volta, Alexander Fleming, Amedeo Avogrado, Andre Geim, Antoine Lavoisier, Antony van Leeuwenhoek, Archimedes, Benoit Mandelbrot, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Charles Darwin, Christian Doppler, Copernicus, Crick and Watson, Dmitri Mendeleev, Edwin Hubble, Enrico Fermi, Ernest Rutherford, Erwin Schrodinger, Euclid, Fermat, Frederick Sanger, Galileo Galilei, Georg Ohm, Georges Lemaitre, Heike Kamerlingh, Isaac Newton, Jacques Charles, James Clerk Maxwell, James Prescott Joule, Jean Buridan, Johanes Kepler, John Ambrose Fleming, John Dalton, John O'Keefe, Joseph Black, Josiah Gibbs, Lord Kelvin, Lord Rayleigh, Louis Pasteur, Marie Curie, Martinus Beijerinck, Michael Faraday, Murray Gell-Mann & George Zweig, Neils Bohr, Nicholas Steno, Peter Higgs, Pierre Curie, Ptolemy, Robert Boyle, Robert Brown, Robert Hooke, Roger Bacon, Rudolf Clausius, Seleucus, Shen Kuo, Stanley Miller, Tyco Brahe, Werner Heisenberg, William Gilbert, William Harvey, William Herschel, William Rontgen, Wolfgang Pauli.
Uncover remarkable trees from around the world, many of which have borne witness to key moments in history or reached a scale and age that have allowed them to become a part of history themselves.
[A] rich history ... it contains some of the most extraordinary tales of trees through time -- The Sunday Post
First meet 'Methuselah', a bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, believed to be 4,900 years old. Learn about trees which have inspired great events, such as the Isaac Newton apple tree in Lincolnshire, where the famous scientist observed an apple falling from a tree (which still stands in the family garden). Other flora has withstood historic events such as in Japan, where the Hibaku jumoku still grows as a survivor tree from the Hiroshima bombing and the 9/11 Survivor Tree in New York City.
Many trees continue to inspire our world today including the long avenue of beech trees in Northern Ireland known as the Dark Hedges which Game of Thrones fans will instantly recognise as the road to Kings Landing, the Robin Hood's oak in the Sherwood Forest or the J. R. R. Tolkien trees in Avebury, which inspired the Ents in TheLord of the Rings.
Rest a while beside the oldest trunks and witness the enthralling stories nestled within the branches of these gentle giants.