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The team behind the The Book of General Ignorance turns conventional biography on its head. Following their Herculean - or is it Sisyphean?- efforts to save the living from ignorance, the two wittiest Johns in the English language turn their attention to the dead. As the authors themselves say, “The first thing that strikes you about the Dead is just how many of them there are.” Helpfully, Lloyd and Mitchinson have employed a simple but ruthless criterion for inclusion: the dead person has to be interesting. Here, then, is a dictionary of the dead, an encyclopedia of the embalmed. Ludicrous in scope, whimsical in its arrangement, this wildly entertaining tome presents pithy and provocative biographies of the no-longer-living from the famous to the undeservedly and - until now - permanently obscure. Spades in hand, Lloyd and Mitchinson have dug up everything embarrassing, fascinating and downright weird about their subjects’ lives and added their own uniquely irreverent observations. Organized by capricious categories such as dead people who died virgins, who kept pet monkeys, who lost limbs, those whose corpses refused to stay put - the dearly departed, from the inventor of the stove to a cross-dressing, bear-baiting female gangster finally receive the epitaphs they truly deserve. Discover: Why Freud had a lifelong fear of trains; the one thing that really made Isaac Newton laugh; how Catherine the Great really died (no horse was involved) and much more. -
Reveals the secrets of the magicians, those techniques that are simple yet seem so complex. Here are the basic principles of magic using ordinary household items: a deck of cards, rubber bands and even a potato. You can learn to: control the order of cards through any number of shuffles; move a straw through a potato; make coins pass through a handkerchief; make knots evaporate; predicting the sum of a five-digit number and much, much more. -
Six adventures with Simon Templar - The Saint. This volume includes: The Helpful Pirate; The Bigger Game; The Cleaner Cure; The Intemperate Reformer; The Uncured Ham; The Convenient Monster. -
Here the greats of English seafaring - and probably a little pirating on the side - come to life through their letters. This volume includes letters from Drake to Queen Elizabeth; Hawkyns; Walsingham; Admiral Vernon; Nelson; Lord Howe;Captain Hardy and so many more. This is live history, as it happened. -
Erich von Daniken undertakes to prove that in prehistoric and early historic times the Earth was visited by unknown beings from the Cosmos; that these extra-terrestrials created human intelligence by a deliberate genetic mutation; that the extra-terrestrials ennobled hominids 'in their own image'; that these visitors to Earth were recorded and handed down in various religions, mythologies and popular legends; and that in some places, the extra-terrestrials left physical evidence of their presence on Earth. He draws his evidence from all over the world: from the Turkish mountains where carved monoliths and giant stone heads mysteriously survive the centuries; to the secret caves of Ecuador, where treasured remnants of a bygone era remain hidden; to equatorial Africa, where the 'primitive' Dogon have been familiar for centuries with the complex movements of Sirius, a star only discovered by western astronomers since the invention of the radio telescope. He searches the ancient documents of the Hindus, the Jews and the Christians; examines religions, mythologies and legends and fins a recurring theme of 'human' gods, heavenly chariots, 'space suits', floods and disasters. The evidence is largely circumstantial - but he challenges all comers to produce an interpretation that better fits the facts. Illustrated with black and white photographs. -
A real curio for history buffs and those who collect bank memorabilia. Remember when banks did give away all sorts of great things? Really good money boxes that you couldn't break into, and recordings of the Skippy theme song? The National Bank of Australasia Limited with its wholly-owned subsidiary the National Bank Savings Bank Limited offered this little volume covering all things resource and development: the Industrial Pattern of the rural, mineral, manufacturing and basic industries in each state making a special note of each state's particular strengths as well as Papua New Guinea; Water Resource, Transport and Power are also covered. -
Those were eventful years for King George V and the world at large; the Great War that should have ended all wars was fought and won by the Allies; the motorcar took over the streets; the stock market rose and fell with a resounding crash; Viscountess Astor became the first woman MP in England; hemlines rose above the knee and plane travel became passè. A fabulous pictorial history of 25 years that really did change the world. -
Or Why I Don't Steal Towels from Great Hotels Anymore. This is not a travel book, exactly, and it's not a book about hotels. It's a book about obsessions and the need to let our obsessions guide us to discoveries...Travel can be the supreme pleasure in life but only if we undertake an interior journey along with our exterior voyage.Among other topics, Dale covers: Why men want to read maps and women want to ask the way; how to stop a taxi driver from talking to you; where to find the guidebook that suits your personality; the how, what and why of souveniring from Great Hotels; whether you should be in love with your travelling companion; where to go star-spotting for dead celebrities; how to enjoy fake travel and pseudo nostalgia; the best and worst waiters, streets, train dining cars, restaurants and small museums in the world; and why shopping is a waste of good siesta time. With amusing sketches by Matthew Martin.
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Includes such Aussie gems as: Picking Out the Melon Pips; The Bush Wedding; The Old Bark Hut; Ya' Stupid Galah!; Much Ado About a 'Roo; Anzac Day and many more unique true-blue poems. The Apex Club of Kyabram issued the first 'Dinkum Aussie Award' for Bush Verse in 1988 and were so pleased at the response, they went for it and 'had another go' in 1989. Who knows - some of the coves in here might be famous writers by now!
