Other books that might interest you

• 

  The Essential Sampler Quilt Book...

  Lynne Edwards

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Two bestselling books—The Sampler Quilt Book and The New Sampler Quilt Book—in one volume, from the award-winning expert. Master a range of patchwork and quilting techniques while sewing classic block designs, such as Mariner’s Compass, Rail Fence, Monkey Wrench, Celtic Knot, Attic Windows, Tumbling Blocks, Drunkard’s Path, Seminole, Bargello, Maple Leaf, Dresden Plate and Courthouse Steps.Hand and machine techniques—Make the quilt blocks using a range of techniques, including hand piecing, machine piecing, applique, strip patchwork, hand stitching, English patchwork, American patchwork and paper piecing. Color illustrations guide you through each step, making even the most complicated techniques easy to follow.Using fabrics—There are forty-five quilt designs included to inspire you as you choose your own fabric patterns and handy tips for choosing the best colors for each block design. Select the best wadding (batting) for your quilt and prepare the fabrics for sewing by washing and ironing them first.Making your quilt—Learn how to finish the blocks with framing and sashing to adjust the size. Discover hand quilting and machine quilting techniques, including quilting in the ditch and free machine quilting. Then join the blocks together to create a gorgeous quilt, adding borders and binding.

  Show book

• 

  T-54 55 - The Most-Produced Tank...

  Robert Jackson

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A guide that blends the history behind this Soviet, Cold War-era battle tank with resources for military vehicle modeling enthusiasts.   During the Cold War, the T-54/55 series of tanks represented the most serious threat to NATO land forces in Europe. Available in huge quantities, it formed the core of the Warsaw Pact armored warfare doctrine, which envisaged massed tank attacks against the weakest point in NATO’s front-line defenses.   Yet the T-54/55 could be stopped by smaller numbers of tanks which had the benefit of better technology and training, as was demonstrated during the Yom Kippur War of 1973 when Israeli tanks dealt out appalling punishment to T-55s of the Syrian army. Despite these limitations, the T-54/55 was one of the most successful tanks ever produced, and this volume in the TankCraft series by Robert Jackson is the ideal introduction to it.   As well as tracing the history of the T-54/55, his book is an excellent source of reference for the modeler, providing details of available kits and photographs of award-winning models, together with artworks showing the color schemes applied to these tanks. Each section of the book is supported by a wealth of archive photographs.

  Show book

• 

  Balloons and Airships - A Tale...

  Anthony Burton

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  “Looks at the brave (and sometimes foolish) men and women who were responsible for . . . the development of manned flight” (History of War).   This book tells the often dramatic and always fascinating story of flight in lighter than air machines. For centuries man had dreamed of flying, but all attempts failed, until in 1782 the Montgolfier brothers constructed the world’s first hot air balloon. The following year saw the first ascent with aeronauts—not human beings but a sheep, a duck and a cockerel. But it was not long before men and women too took to the air and became ever more adventurous.   In the 19th century, balloons found a new role in the military. But their use was always limited by the fact that they were at the mercy of the wind. There were numerous attempts at steering balloons, and various attempts were made to power them but it was the arrival of the internal combustion engine that saw the balloon transformed into the airship. The most famous developer of airships was Graf von Zeppelin, and the book tells the story of the use of his airships in both peacetime and at war. There were epic adventures including flights over the poles and for a time, commercial airships flourished—then came the disaster of the Hindenburg. Airships still fly today and ballooning has become a hugely popular pastime.   “Entertaining and informative . . . a series of interesting snapshots, giving a flavor of these challenging and daring exploits.” —Flying in Ireland   “Absolutely enthralling.” —Books Monthly

  Show book

• 

  Distant Snows

  John Harding

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  In Distant Snows, mountaineer John Harding recollects his worldwide adventures spanning sixty years across Europe, Iran, East Africa, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Arctic. He climbed many classic peaks including Mont Blanc, Mount Kenya, and Mount Cook, explored obscure ranges, and pioneered ski mountaineering expeditions in Turkey, Spain and Greece.
  Written with candour, a sharp eye for the tragicomic and with a sympathetic insight into the history and culture of indigenous mountain peoples, Harding's compelling narrative proclaims the power of nature, the glory of landscape and the spirit of the mountains. Distant Snows is a window into the mind and passions of a mountaineer while faithfully preserving the memory of the many characters who accompanied him on his mountain odyssey.
  With a foreword by the celebrated explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison, Distant Snows offers tales of serious undertakings as well as more leisurely exploits, complemented by Harding's personal photographs and hand-drawn maps. This is a must-read for mountaineers, lovers of the natural world and those with aspirations of adventure.

  Show book

• 

  Cat Book - The Ultimate Guide To...

  Mark J. Bowen

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Do you own a cat or are you thinking about getting one?Are you worried that you won’t be able to properly care for it once it arrives?You need an audiobook that will provide all the answers!Sharing your life with an animal can have a lot of positives. We get a lot from them and they give plenty back, but when it comes to looking after them properly, we need to know exactly what to do.A cat is no different to any other pet. When it comes down to basics it relies mainly on you to feed and care for it if it becomes ill, and with Cat Book: The Ultimate Guide to Caring for Your Feline Friend, you can learn about:Cat Care BasicsVisiting the VetWhat You Need to Know about VaccinationsProvide the Correct FoodProvide the Correct GroomingProvide the Correct Toys and AffectionThe Downfall of Not training Your CatWith Cat Book to help, you can make sure that you are well prepared to properly look after your new pet in the way you should so that you can both enjoy many years of happiness together.

  Show book

• 

  Paul Cézanne 1839–1906

  Anna Barskaya, Yevgenia...

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Since his death 100 years ago, Cézanne has become the most famous painter of the nineteenth century. He was born in Aix-en-Provence in 1839 and the happiest period of his life was his early youth in Provence, in company with Emile Zolá, another Italian. Following Zolá’s example, Cézanne went to Paris in his twenty-first year. 
      During the Franco-Prussian war he deserted the military, dividing his time between open-air painting and the studio. He said to Vollard, an art dealer, “I’m only a painter. Parisian wit gives me a pain. Painting nudes on the banks of the Arc [a river near Aix] is all I could ask for.” Encouraged by Renoir, one of the first to appreciate him, he exhibited with the impressionists in 1874 and in 1877. He was received with derision, which deeply hurt him.
       Cézanne’s ambition, in his own words, was “to make out of Impressionism something as solid and durable as the paintings of the museums.” His aim was to achieve the monumental in a modern language of glowing, vibrating tones. Cézanne wanted to retain the natural colour of an object and to harmonise it with the various influences of light and shade trying to destroy it; to work out a scale of tones expressing the mass and character of the form.
       Cézanne loved to paint fruit because it afforded him obedient models and he was a slow worker. He did not intend to simply copy an apple. He kept the dominant colour and the character of the fruit, but heightened the emotional appeal of the form by a scheme of rich and concordant tones. In his paintings of still-life he is a master. His fruit and vegetable compositions are truly dramatic; they have the weight, the nobility, the style of immortal forms. No other painter ever brought to a red apple a conviction so heated, sympathy so genuinely spiritual, or an observation so protracted. No other painter of equal ability ever reserved for still-life his strongest impulses. Cézanne restored to painting the pre-eminence of knowledge, the most essential quality to all creative effort.
      The death of his father in 1886 made him a rich man, but he made no change in his abstemious mode of living. Soon afterwards, Cézanne retired permanently to his estate in Provence. He was probably the loneliest of painters of his day. At times a curious melancholy attacked him, a black hopelessness. He grew more savage and exacting, destroying canvases, throwing them out of his studio into the trees, abandoning them in the fields, and giving them to his son to cut into puzzles, or to the people of Aix.
       At the beginning of the century, when Vollard arrived in Provence with intentions of buying on speculation all the Cézannes he could get hold of, the peasantry, hearing that a fool from Paris was actually handing out money for old linen, produced from barns a considerable number of still-lifes and landscapes. The old master of Aix was overcome with joy, but recognition came too late. In 1906 he died from a fever contracted while painting in a downpour of rain.

  Show book