The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

Blessin Adams (Author)

Great and Horrible News: Murder and Mayhem in Early Modern Britain

'Grimly fascinating ... engrossing' Daily Mail NINE HISTORIC CRIMES. ONE FAMILIAR OBSESSION. In early modern England, murder truly was most foul. Trials were gossipy events packed to the rafters with noisome spectators. Executions were public proceedings which promised not only gore, but desperate confessions and the grandest, most righteous human drama. Bookshops saw grisly stories of crime and death sell like hot cakes.This history unfolds the true stories of murder, criminal investigation, early forensic techniques, high court trials and so much more.In thrilling narrative, we follow a fugitive killer through the streets of London, citizen detectives clamouring to help officials close the net. We untangle the mystery of a suspected staged suicide through the newly emerging science of forensic pathology. We see a mother trying to clear her dead daughter's name while other women faced the accusations - sometimes true and sometimes not - of murdering their own children.These stories are pieced together from original research using coroner's inquests, court records, parish archives, letters, diaries and the cheap street pamphlets that proliferated to satisfy a voracious ...

Hadfield, Chris

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me about Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything

7,Travel to space and back with astronaut Chris Hadfield's "enthralling" bestseller as your eye-opening guide (Slate). Colonel Chris Hadfield has spent decades training as an astronaut and has logged nearly 4000 hours in space. During this time he has broken into a Space Station with a Swiss army knife, disposed of a live snake while piloting a plane, and been temporarily blinded while clinging to the exterior of an orbiting spacecraft. The secret to Col. Hadfield's success-and survival-is an unconventional philosophy he learned at NASA: prepare for the worst- and enjoy every moment of it. In An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, Col. Hadfield takes readers deep into his years of training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible. Through eye-opening, entertaining stories filled with the adrenaline of launch, the mesmerizing wonder of spacewalks, and the measured, calm responses mandated by crises, he explains how conventional wisdom can get in the way of achievement -- and happiness. His own extraordinary education in space has taught him some counterintuitive lessons: don't visualize success, do care what others think, and always sweat the small stuff. ...

Nicola Moorby (Author)

Turner and Constable: Art, Life, Landscape

0, Born just fourteen months apart, one in London and the other in rural Suffolk, J. M. W. Turner and John Constable went on to change the face of British art The two men have routinely been seen as polar opposites, not least by their peers. Differing in temperament, background, beliefs, and vision, they created images as dissimilar as their personalities. Yet in many ways they were fellow travellers. As children of the late eighteenth century, both faced the same challenges and opportunities. Above all, they shared common cause as champions of a distinctively British art. Through their work, they fought for the recognition and appreciation of landscape painting--and in doing so ensured their reputations were forever intertwined and interlinked. Nicola Moorby offers us a fresh perspective on two extraordinary artists, uncovering the layers of fiction that have embellished and disguised their greatest achievements. For Turner & Constable is not just a tale of two artists; it is also the story of the triumph of landscape painting.