The incredible story of Gyles Mackrell and his Burmese, elephant-assisted wartime rescue mission.
In the summer of 1942, Gyles Mackrell – a decorated First World War pilot and tea plantation overseer, performed a series of heroic rescues in the hellish jungles of Japanese-occupied Burma – with the aid of twenty elephants.
At the age of 53, Mackrell went into the ‘green hell’ of the Chaukan Pass on the border of North Burma and Assam. Here, Mackrell and a team of elephant riders rescued Indian army soldiers, British civilians and their Indian servants, from the pursuing Japanese, directing the elephants through jungle passes and raging rivers, and territory infested with sand flies, mosquitoes and innumerable leeches. Those he saved were all on the point of death from starvation or fever: that summer was spent in a fight against time.
Now in Andrew Martin’s hands this never-before-told tale of heroics is given the shape of a suspenseful adventure, a wartime rescue whose facts are the stuff of fiction. ‘Flight By Elephant’ is a gripping chronicle of war and survival, starring everyone’s favourite animal – the powerful, exotic and hugely loveable elephant.

Flight By Elephant: The Untold Story of World War Two’s Most Daring Jungle Rescue

Biographies & Memoirs

MARTIN, Andrew

Leaders & Notable People

Fourth Estate

The incredible story of Gyles Mackrell and his Burmese, elephant-assisted wartime rescue mission.
In the summer of 1942, Gyles Mackrell – a decorated First World War pilot and tea plantation overseer, performed a series of heroic rescues in the hellish jungles of Japanese-occupied Burma – with the aid of twenty elephants.
At the age of 53, Mackrell went into the ‘green hell’ of the Chaukan Pass on the border of North Burma and Assam. Here, Mackrell and a team of elephant riders rescued Indian army soldiers, British civilians and their Indian servants, from the pursuing Japanese, directing the elephants through raging rivers, and territory infested with sand flies, mosquitoes and innumerable leeches. Those he saved were all on the point of death from starvation or fever: that summer was spent in a fight against time.
Now in Andrew Martin’s hands this tale of heroics is given the shape of a suspenseful adventure, a wartime rescue whose facts are the stuff of fiction. ‘Flight By Elephant’ is a gripping chronicle of war and survival, starring everyone’s favourite animal – the powerful, exotic and hugely loveable elephant.

Flight By Elephant: The Untold Story of World War II’s Most Daring Jungle Rescue

Funny You Should Say That: A Compendium of Jokes, Quips and Quotations from Cicero to the Simpsons

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Penguin Uk

'A fool and his words are soon parted' wrote William Shenstone in 1764; one might add that 'A wit and his words are rarely collected'. Here is the antidote: a dazzling survey of the funniest remarks, quips and observations from Ancient Rome, the Bible and Chaucer right up to The Simpsons and Little Britain. Over 5,000 of the very funniest remarks to have appeared on paper since, well, paper was invented. The quotations are arranged thematically and cover all aspects of life: from the world we inhabit to the things we eat, smoke and drink; from the way we move around to what and how we learn - oh, and the pointlessness of football. Within each theme, the quotations are chronologically placed so that the reader gets a real sense of the development of thought about each subject - as well as seeing how jokes evolve over the years and, in some cases, who 'borrowed' from whom. There is a short biography of all of the authors in the book, a brief contextual note for each quotation and an index of keywords to help you find you chosen witticism quickly. But do not be over-hasty when you use this book: it is a browser's delight, and should be enjoyed at leisure.

Funny You Should Say That: Amusing Remarks From Cicero To The Simpsons

Bright and ambitious, young Jim Stringer moves from the English countryside to London deter- mined to become a railway man. It is 1903, the dawn of the Edwardian age, when steam runs the nation and the railways drive progress. Jim can’t believe his luck to have gotten his foot in the door at South East Railway, run out of Waterloo Station. He finds, however, that his duties involve a graveyard shift, literally—a railway line that takes coffins from London morgues to the gigantic new cemeteries being dug in the city’s outskirts. He also learns that his predecessor had disappeared and that his coworkers seem to have formed an instant loathing for him. Forced to live by his wits and to arrive at his own deductions—assisted by his landlady, for whom he falls— he tries to figure out what is going on before he is issued a one-way ticket on the Necropolis Railway.

The Necropolis Railway: A Jim Stringer Mystery (Jim Stringer Mystery Series)

Literature & Fiction

British & Irish

Harper Paperbacks

It is the summer of 1905 and Jim Stringer is copiloting a special train filled with overheated excursionists headed to Blackpool, the seaside resort on the English coast. At the moment when the train picks up speed, a huge rock comes into view farther down the tracks; it lies directly in their path. Full stop of the engine; full steam ahead with the mystery. As he did in The Necropolis Railway, Stringer doffs his railway hat and dons his detective’s derby, assisted once more by "the wife" and her brilliant detecting skills. Capturing the world of railway stations and locomotives during the Edwardian Age, The Blackpool Highflyer carries readers to a place where dark shadows lurk behind innocence and the solution to the mystery waits at the end of the line.

The Blackpool Highflyer: A Jim Stringer Mystery (Jim Stringer Mysteries)

From the author of The Necropolis Railway and The Blackpool Highflyer comes another ingenious thriller featuring Jim Stringer. It is winter 1906 and Jim has been promoted from sleuth to official railway detective for York station. His first day on the job, the mysterious Lost Luggage Porter, "a human directory to everything in York," tips him off to a group of railway thieves. Jim is instructed by his Inspector to infiltrate their gang and is drawn along into their plot to carry out a robbery and make their getaway across the Channel. Soon Jim finds himself swept off to Paris with the thieves, his plight made even worse when threats are made against his wife. Can Jim get to get to her before the villains do? UK Praise for The Lost Luggage Porter:
"Page-turning, confidently written…" – Guardian
"The atmosphere of neglected streets…dingy saloon bars, supper of boiled bacon and pickles, and dismal, unceasing rain are splendidly evoked." – Telegraph

The Lost Luggage Porter: A Jim Stringer Mystery

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Harvest Original

From the author of The Necropolis Railway, The Blackpool Highflyer, and The Lost Luggage Porter comes another thrilling mystery featuring railway detective Jim Stringer. It is winter 1909, and Jim desperately needs his anticipated New Year’s promotion in order to pay for a nurse for his ailing son. Jumping at any opportunity to impress his supervisor, Jim agrees to investigate a standard assault in a nearby town. But when his train home hits a snowdrift and a body is discovered buried in the snow, Jim finds himself tracking another dangerous killer. Soon he is on a mad chase to find the suspect, trailing him to the furnaces of Ironopolis and across the country on a dangerous ride to the Highlands. As pursuer becomes pursued, Jim begins to doubt he will ever get his promotion— or that he will survive this case at all.

Murder at Deviation Junction: A Jim Stringer Mystery

Expanding the world of his classic-in-the-making debut novelEarly Work, Andrew Martin'sCool for Americais a hilarious collection of overlapping stories that explores the dark zone between artistic ambition and its achievement The collection is bookended by the misadventures of Leslie, a young woman (first introduced inEarly Work) who moves from New York to Missoula, Montana to try to draw herself out of a lingering depression, and, over the course of the book, gains painful insight into herself through a series of intense friendships and relationships. Other stories follow young men and women, alone and in couples, pushing hard against, and often crashing into, the limits of their abilities as writers and partners. In one story, two New Jersey siblings with substance-abuse problems relapse together on Christmas Eve; in another, a young couple tries to make sense of an increasingly unhinged veterinarian who seems to be tapping, deliberately or otherwise, into the unspoken troubles between them. In tales about characters as they age from punk shows and benders to book clubs and art museums, the promise of community acts--at least temporarily--as a stay against despair. Running throughoutCool for Americais the characters' yearning for transcendence through art: the hope that, maybe, the perfect, or even just the good-enough sentence, can finally make things right.

Cool for America: Stories

United States

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

"What a debut! Early Work is one of the wittiest, wisest (sometimes silliest, in the best sense), and bravest novels about wrestling with the early stages of life and love, of creative and destructive urges, I’ve read in a while. The angst of the young and reasonably comfortable isn’t always pretty, but Andrew Martin possesses the prose magic to make it hilarious, illuminating, moving." ―Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask and The Fun Parts
For young writers of a certain temperament―if they haven’t had such notions beaten out of them by MFA programs and the Internet―the delusion persists that great writing must be sought in what W. B. Yeats once called the “foul rag and bone shop of the heart.” That’s where Peter Cunningham has been looking for inspiration for his novel―that is, when he isn’t teaching at the local women’s prison, walking his dog, getting high, and wondering whether it’s time to tie the knot with his college girlfriend, a medical student whose night shifts have become a standing rebuke to his own lack of direction. When Peter meets Leslie, a sexual adventurer taking a break from her fiancé, he gets a glimpse of what he wishes and imagines himself to be: a writer of talent and nerve. Her rag-and-bone shop may be as squalid as his own, but at least she knows her way around the shelves. Over the course of a Virginia summer, their charged, increasingly intimate friendship opens the door to difficult questions about love and literary ambition.
With a keen irony reminiscent of Sam Lipsyte or Lorrie Moore, and a romantic streak as wide as Roberto Bolaño’s, Andrew Martin’s Early Work marks the debut of a writer as funny and attentive as any novelist of his generation.
“Beautifully executed and very funny, Early Work is a sharp-eyed, sharp-voiced debut that I didn’t want to put down.” ―Julia Pierpont, author of Among the Ten Thousand Things and The Little Book of Feminist Saints

Early Work: A Novel

Humor & Satire

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