Other books that might interest you

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  Voyages from the Past - A...

  Simon Wills

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  From the days of sail to the majestic ocean liners of the twentieth century, this is a history of British sea travel from a passenger's point of view. Each chapter narrates one traveller's voyage based on their first-hand description, and the day-to-day details of their experience. Their stories, some previously unpublished, illustrate the evolution of journeys by sea, exploring three and a half centuries of maritime travel. Simon Wills transports readers from Elizabethan times to the eve of the Second World War, on voyages to destinations all over the world. The passengers featured in this book came from all walks of life, and travelled for many different reasons. There were emigrants seeking a new life abroad, such as the pilgrims on the Mayflower, and others hoping to be reunited with their families like Phoebe Amory on the ill-fated Lusitania in 1915. The author Henry Fielding travelled to improve his health, whilst the wealthy George Moore crossed the Atlantic on Brunel's Great Western to do business. Yet, whether travelling in steerage or first class, every passenger could experience trials and tribulations at sea – from delayed sailing schedules and poor diet, to the greater hazards of disease, enemy action, and shipwreck. This engaging collection of stories illustrates the excitements, frustrations, and dangers of sea travel for our forebears. Family historians will perhaps identify with a voyage taken by an ancestor, while those with an interest in maritime or social history can explore how passenger pursuits, facilities, and experiences at sea have developed over time.

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  Rembrandt

  Klaus Carl

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  Rembrandt is completely mysterious in his spirit, his character, his life, his work and his method of painting. What we can divine of his essential nature comes through his painting and the trivial or tragic incidents of his unfortunate life; his penchant for ostentatious living forced him to declare bankruptcy. His misfortunes are not entirely explicable, and his oeuvre reflects disturbing notions and contradictory impulses emerging from the depths of his being, like the light and shade of his pictures. In spite of this, nothing perhaps in the history of art gives a more profound impression of unity than his paintings, composed though they are of such different elements, full of complex significations. One feels as if his intellect, that genial, great, free mind, bold and ignorant of all servitude and which led him to the loftiest meditations and the most sublime reveries, derived from the same source as his emotions. From this comes the tragic element he imprinted on everything he painted, irrespective of subject; there was inequality in his work as well as the sublime, which may be seen as the inevitable consequence of such a tumultuous existence. 
  It seems as though this singular, strange, attractive and almost enigmatic personality was slow in developing, or at least in attaining its complete expansion. Rembrandt showed talent and an original vision of the world early, as evidenced in his youthful etchings and his first self-portraits of about 1630. In painting, however, he did not immediately find the method he needed to express the still incomprehensible things he had to say, that audacious, broad and personal method which we admire in the masterpieces of his maturity and old age. In spite of its subtlety, it was adjudged brutal in his day and certainly contributed to alienate his public.
  From the time of his beginnings and of his successes, however, lighting played a major part in his conception of painting and he made it the principal instrument of his investigations into the arcana of interior life. It already revealed to him the poetry of human physiognomy when he painted The Philosopher in Meditation or the Holy Family, so deliciously absorbed in its modest intimacy, or, for example, in The Angel Raphael leaving Tobias. Soon he asked for something more. The Night Watch marks at once the apotheosis of his reputation. He had a universal curiosity and he lived, meditated, dreamed and painted thrown back on himself. He thought of the great Venetians, borrowing their subjects and making of them an art out of the inner life of profound emotion. Mythological and religious subjects were treated as he treated his portraits. For all that he took from reality and even from the works of others, he transmuted it instantly into his own substance.

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  Best of British Tractors

  Liam McCann

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  Best of British Tractors is a celebration of the pioneers and innovators of British farming machinery whose names have become synonymous with our most famous tractors: David Brown, Ferguson, Leyland, Marshall and Nuffield.
  This colourful ebook charts the history of these British companies and the machines they have produced, tractors that are loved the world over for their quality and longevity.
  Author Liam McCann profiles the greatest models from the likes of Allis-Chalmers, Ivel, JCB, Muir-Hill, Bristol and Saunderson. Each entry includes a brief history of each tractor and a box with all their specifications, helping us to understand what makes them so special.
  Most of all, this affectionate tribute shows how these tractors have changed the landscape of British farming and become part of the fabric of country life.

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  This is Europe - The Way We Live...

  Ben Judah

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  A Times, Financial Times and Telegraph Book of the Year 2023'Illuminates some of the great trends of our time' - Gideon Rachman, Financial Times'Vivid, urgent and unsettling' - Tom Holland, author of Dominion_____What does it now mean to call yourself European? Who makes up this population of some 750 million, sprawled from Ireland to Ukraine, from Sweden to Turkey? Who has always called it home, and who has newly arrived from elsewhere? Who are the people who drive our long-distance lorries, steward our criss-crossing planes, lovingly craft our legacy wines, fish our depleted waters, and risk life itself in search of safety and a new start?In a series of vivid but always empathetic portraits of other people’s lives, journalist Ben Judah invites us to meet them. Drawn from hours of painstaking interviews, these vital stories reveal a vibrant continent which has been transformed by diversity, migration, the internet, climate change, Covid, war and the quest for freedom.Laid dramatically bare, it may not always be a Europe we recognize – but this is Europe._____'An astonishing achievement' - Evening Standard'Brilliantly told . . . highly readable' - The Times

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  Inspired by

  Kathryn M. Ireland

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  Kathryn M. Ireland shows journeys she has taken and the places and people that inspire her creativity, from rural England to Southwest France, from the East Coast U.S. to the West Coast. Mixing textiles and fabrics with furnishings gathered on trips to Morocco, France, London and other international destinations, Kathryn creates sophisticated but welcoming room designs in the States and abroad, from city apartments to ranch homes and French farm houses.

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  Creating A Home

  Kathryn M. Ireland

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  Kathryn M. Ireland is a maven of materials. In addition to having her  own fabric line, she freely and deftly mixes other designers’ fabrics as  well as international market “finds.” Blending those with quality  ironwork, wood, tile, and furniture pieces, Ireland pulls together a  magnificent home of unpretentious grandeur.

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