Buy from our bookstore and 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice to buy more books. *15% of eBooks.
Audiobooks Narrated by Martyn Swain
Browse audiobooks narrated by Martyn Swain, listen to samples and when you're ready head over to Audiobooks.com where you can get 3 FREE audiobooks on us
"John Wanamaker famously observed that 'half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half.' Indeed, though advertising is pervasive in our society, how it works (if and when it works) is not a question most of us can answer. In this Very Short Introduction, Winston Fletcher, a seasoned advertising veteran with extensive inside knowledge, offers an illuminating look at this billion-dollar business, dispelling some of the myths and misunderstandings surrounding the industry. Fletcher offers a short history of advertising and explains how the industry works and how each of the parties—the advertisers, the media, and the agencies—contribute to the process. He also looks at the financial side of advertising and asks how today's Wanamakers know if they have been successful, or whether their money has in fact been wasted. The book concludes with a discussion of controversial and unacceptable areas of advertising, such as advertising aimed at children and the promotion of products such as cigarettes and alcohol."
"A Groundbreaking Analysis of Dallas Willard's Theology of Spiritual Formation
Dallas Willard's formational theology begins with the claim that the aim of God in human history is the formation of a community of loving persons apprenticed to Jesus―and ends with the promise that such apprenticeship prepares us to share in God's governance of the cosmos.
This apprenticeship to Jesus is the path to human flourishing, the renewal of the church, and the healing of the world.
In Kingdom Apprenticeship, Keas Keasler offers the first comprehensive study of Willard's theology of spiritual formation. He argues that while the three D's of disciples, discipleship, and disciplines made Willard famous, his formational theology is much deeper than that. Willard's unique grammar of transformation is grounded in ordinary life, for it is in our present reality that we are trained to participate in God's eternal purposes.
Against the drift of modern theology into abstraction, Willard calls the church back to a clinical theology―one aimed at the transformation of character through an interactive life with God. Formation and mission, contemplation and action, inner renewal and outward vocation―all are inseparably linked in Willard's vision.
Kingdom Apprenticeship offers a fresh and urgent call: to recover apprenticeship to Jesus as the heart of the Christian life―and the hope of the world."
"A major reassessment of the British government's communication of the goals of the Second World War, and how its propaganda undermined the people's faith in the reliability of war news and the credibility of political leaders.
While waging war against enemies overseas, governments also need to win the hearts and minds of their own citizens. The media is critical to delivering the official message, raising public support for war, maintaining morale, spelling out goals, downplaying setbacks, and presenting a bright vision of the postwar future. In public memory, the British people were united in their support for the Second World War. Yet this popular image of the People's War neglects the fact that the war had to be sold. In this work, historian Steven Casey examines how media, government, and armed forces worked to convince the British public to support the war, and how the British home front often questioned and challenged the official line. Casey stresses how the British military forged a relationship with reporters, how this relationship shaped news coverage of the fighting, and how this coverage exerted a profound impact on every other dimension of the government's private and public actions. Officials, Casey argues, failed to communicate effectively with the British people, undermined public trust, and called into question the credibility of the political leadership. Remarkably, the BBC and Fleet Street sometimes relayed German communiqués to the public because the British government failed to release timely reports of its own. The Sceptic Isle provides a bold reassessment of how the British government sold the Second World War to the British public. It powerfully showcases the major credibility gap that cast a long shadow over the British government's efforts to sell the different dimensions of the Second World War to the home front."
"An authoritative biography of Thomas Arundel, the English archbishop who overthrew a king
Thomas Arundel was a pivotal figure in English politics at the turn of the fifteenth century. His career began in 1373 when, at the age of just twenty, he was ordained as bishop of Ely. By 1396, he had become archbishop of Canterbury, but after being exiled for his opposition to Richard II he orchestrated a revolution in which he and Henry Bolingbroke overthrew the king. By the end of his life, he had begun the task of suppressing Lollardy and served as Chancellor of England on five separate occasions.
In this definitive biography, renowned historian Chris Given-Wilson traces Arundel's life and career from his exile in 1397 to his death in 1414. Given-Wilson reveals Arundel's immense contribution to political life—particularly during the reign of Henry IV—and the dilemmas he faced in balancing his duties to the king and to the church."
"From May 1941 to the end of night raids in 1943, Luftwaffe bombers attacked provincial cities across England, Scotland, and Wales. However, these air raids are not considered part of the Blitz—at least, not according to the British Official History. The official historiography maintains that the Blitz on the United Kingdom ended when aircraft were redeployed to support the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, after the final major raid against London that May.
In After the Blitz: The Luftwaffe Bombing of Britain, 1941–1943, author Stephen Moore argues that official histories minimize the impact of bombing on cities like Newcastle, Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham because they use attacks on London to define the Blitz's chronological boundaries. By excavating British and German archives and cross-referencing government documentation with memoirs and secondary sources, Moore demonstrates that Britain suffered from Luftwaffe assaults well after the official end date of the Blitz and rescues the history of post-Blitz bombings from obscurity.
After the Blitz cements itself in the historical record by confronting the official scholarship that has been foundational to the field and affirms the traumatic experiences of people who lived outside of London during this period."
"When Sylvain Tesson left the colorful yellow houses of the French Riveria for a ski trek across the Alps with his friend Daniel du Lac, a high-altitude mountain guide, he didn't know what exactly would await him. Over the course of four years, from 2018 to 2021, they ascended high into the Alps in winter, following the curve of the mountains from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, entering into a white world entirely of snow, bitterly cold, and overlooked by an empty sky; only the effort of moving forward, one stride at a time, separated the days from one another. He thought he was venturing into beauty but he was immersing himself in a substance. In the white of the high Alps all is canceled out—hopes, fears, memories, and regrets. What did he stand to gain by inflicting this ordeal on himself? This was no ordinary mountain trek: it was communion with a substance. Perhaps his longtime dream of transforming travel into prayer would come true at last."
"The last shot of world war two has been fired and a boy is born, destined for life in a beautiful fishing village in South West Cornwall. He is surrounded, there, by friends and a loving family and his is a childhood that dreams are made of. But in this village they chain up the swings on Sundays, and as he grows, he finds that puberty and its consequences are hushed up and must never be spoken of. This novel is an album of a boy's early years, a mosaic of stories, some funny, some harrowing, that trace his journey from birth to the brink of manhood.
John Kitchen was born and grew up in south Cornwall. His early life is the basis for this book.
Since retiring from teaching to write stories for children, John has published three major books. The first, Nicola's Ghost, won the Writer's Digest Prize for best young adults' novel in 2011, and the NGP Publishing Award in the same year. His second book, A Spectre in the Stones, was published in 2013, and the third, Jax' House, came out in 2016. Fragments of Springtime is his first novel for adults.John lives in a four-hundred-year-old cottage in Oxfordshire and writes his books in a bright yellow study at the back of the house. He is widowed, but has two wonderful children and four lovely grandchildren."
"It is said that a surgeon must have ‘the eyes of a hawk, the heart of a lion, and the hands of a lady,’ but have you ever wondered how a surgeon learns to operate, how he ‘cuts his teeth’ progressing from naive newly-qualified doctor to competent surgeon?
In this collection of medical tales, the training of one slightly naive young trainee is viewed through the experiences of the patients he treats as he embarks on this most challenging of careers. We share his joy when things go well, his anguish when they don’t and learn that, at the end of the day, compassion and a sense of humour make wonderful medicine."
"Pristine lawns, tennis whites, strawberries and cream, tennis is synonymous with the upper echelons of society, but scratch beneath the surface and you'll quickly discover a different history, one of untold struggles on and off the courts.
From the birth of modern tennis in Victorian Britain to the present day, we bear witness to struggles around sexuality, gender, race, and class that have transformed the nature of tennis and sport itself. A People's History of Tennis is populated by diverse voices, recounting the sport's gay origins, 'Workers' Wimbledon,' battles for gender equality, and more.
Going beyond center court, this book reveals the hidden history of the game, providing a rich account of the challenges faced and victories won."
"The year is 1940, and Great Britain's forces struggle against the Nazi war machine. France has fallen to Adolf Hitler's army and England is next. A British secret agent pays the ultimate price to deliver early warning to harness the power of the occult to conquer Great Britain by launching a supernatural assault that no defending military force could possibly deflect.
British Intelligence operative Col. John 'Gray' Graham of MI6 is not only a valuable player in the great game of wartime espionage, he is also a practitioner of the ancient occult arts. Gray's destiny has been firmly intertwined with that of his close friend Prince William. Now, with the future of Britain at stake, these two men, the spy and the royal, must rally the hidden adherents of the Old Religion, hoping to unite the British covens in defense of their endangered island homeland. But it will take more than combined Wiccan sorcery to repel the Reich's black magic on Lammas Night—and the sacrifice required might be greater than imagined and truly terrible to endure.
Lammas Night is a spectacular feat of creative imagination from the author of the acclaimed Deryni fantasy series. Smart, affecting, and brilliantly conceived, it is an enthralling combination of historical fiction, war novel, and the occult that will appeal to fans of all fantastic literature."
"A gripping tale of family secrets, betrayal, and the haunting grip of the past.
When elderly Walter Shoebridge hires Hester Rose to guide his family through his final days, he hopes to ease their grief. But as old wounds and hidden truths come to light, Hester finds herself entangled in a web of betrayal and deception.
A furious son disinherited from his legacy. A daughter haunted by the possibility that she hastened her father’s death. And a shadowy name in the will all lead to a shocking revelation that threatens to destroy what’s left of the family.
Amidst it all, Hester’s own past resurfaces.
But Walter isn’t gone entirely. He watches from the other side helplessly as the family he sought to protect unravels.
As tensions escalate and secrets spiral out of control, Hester must navigate this fractured family’s darkest truths before they implode completely. Can she bring them together, or will the Shoebridge legacy be shattered forever?
Perfect for fans of Imogen Clark, Letting Go is a suspenseful and deeply emotional story of love, grief, and the devastating power of secrets."
"In 1961 John F. Kennedy pledged to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Nine years later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. Ten years later, Richard Nixon echoed this pledge by declaring a 'war' on cancer. More than thirty years later, however, cancer remains one of the largest causes of death worldwide, with around one in three developing the disease. Curing cancer is not 'rocket science,' but the question is, why has cancer proved to be harder to tackle than the moon landings turned out to be?
Cancer research is a major economic activity. There are constant improvements in treatment techniques that result in better cure rates and increased quality and quantity of life for those with the disease, yet stories of breakthroughs in a cure for cancer are often in the media.
In this Very Short Introduction Nick James, founder of the CancerHelp UK website, examines the trends in diagnosis and treatment of the disease, as well as its economic consequences. Asking what cancer is and what causes it, he considers issues surrounding expensive drug development, what can be done to reduce the risk of developing cancer, and the use of complementary and alternative therapies."
Join our community for the latest bookish news, reading recommendations, exclusive opening extracts, author events and competitions. It\'s all free. And enter a monthly draw to win a £50 Gift Card. See past winners here
