One of the two most powerful states in the world, China continues to be seen as a mystery even after decades of an open door. How does China work, what does it want, why does it want it, and what does its rise to global power mean for the rest of the world? As the twenty-first century looks set to be the stage for a battle about competing geopolitical ideals, these are urgent questions for everyone with an interest in what the future might bring. 
Despite decades of a relatively open door relationship with the rest of the world, China is still a mystery to many outside it. A world of its own, China is both a microcosm and an amplification of questions and events in the wider world. China's story offers us an opportunity to hold a mirror to ourselves: to our own assumptions, to our values, and to our ideas about the most important question of all: what it means to be human in the world of the state.
Epic in scope, this is the story of how China became the state it is today and how its worldview is based on what has gone before. Weaving together inspirations, ideas, wars and dreams to reveal the heart of what it means to be Chinese and how the past impacts on the present.

Becoming China: The Story Behind the State

History

Gescher, Jeanne-Marie

Asia

Bloomsbury Caravel

Train to Nowhere: One Woman's World War II, Ambulance Driver, Reporter, Liberator

A World War II memoir following the adventures of a female ambulance driver as she serves across four fronts witnesses the best and worst of humanity, and navigates the barriers imposed by sexism in the British Army.
Train to Nowhere is a war memoir seen through the sardonic eyes of Anita Leslie, a funny and vivacious young woman who reports on her experiences with a dry humor, finding the absurd alongside the tragic.
Daughter of a Baronet and first cousin once removed of Winston Churchill, Anita joined the Mechanized Transport Corps as a fully trained mechanic and ambulance driver during WWII, serving in Libya, Syria, Palestine, Italy, France, and Germany. Ahead of her time, Anita bemoans "first-rate women subordinate to second-rate men," and, since the English army forbade women from serving at the front, joined the Free French Forces in order to do what she felt was her duty.
Writing letters in Hitler’s recently vacated office and marching in the Victory parade contrast with observations of watching friends murdered and a mother avenging her son by coldly shooting a prisoner of war. Unflinching and unsentimental, Train to Nowhere is a memoir of Anita’s war, one that, long after it was written, remains poignant and relevant.
With a new introduction by Penny Perrick.

Biographies & Memoirs

LESLIE, Anita

Community & Culture

Anyone But England is a detailed exploration into the origins of cricket; the romance, cultural identity, hypocrisy, flaws of governance and glory of the game. Mike Marqusee, an American who fell in love with cricket when he moved to the UK in the 1970s, looks at the history of elitism and empire, and how race and class have always been issues in the game. Scrutinising the long saga of South Africa's exclusion from world cricket, Marqusee charts England's collusion with apartheid, and also details an eye-opening account of Pakistan's controversial 'ball-tampering' tour of England, which provoked intense debate amongst cricket fans about the role of both the media and racism in the modern game. Showing that supporting the game does not mean you need be blind to its flaws, Marqusee's passion and enthusiasm for cricket is threaded through every element of Anyone But England.Winner of the Aberdare Literary Prize, awarded by the British Society of Sports History, 1994Shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, 1994

Anyone but England: Cricket, Race and Class

Sports & Outdoors

Marqusee, Mike

Miscellaneous

'A compelling, mind-bending future that's finally come home to the present' - Becky Chambers, author of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet When Commander Rallya of the patrol ship Bhattya hires Rafe as their new Web officer, she knows she is taking a risk. As an oath breaker, Rafe has suffered the ultimate punishment – identity wipe – but luckily for him, there's no one else around qualified for the job. Shunned by his previous shipmates, Rafe is ready to keep his head down and do his job, but his competence quickly earns him respect, admiration, and, in one particular case, love. It's difficult to maintain the glow of acceptance however, when his past is chasing him across the galaxy in the shape of an assassin, intent on dealing once and for all with Rafe, whatever the cost. Originally published in 1988, A Matter of Oaths is a space opera with heart, intergalactic intrigue and epic space battles. With a new introduction by Becky Chambers, author of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. 'Fast paced and inventive . . . it held my attention to the end' - C. J. Cherryh

A Matter of Oaths

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Wright, Helen S.

Science Fiction

Can you build your ideal queen? Select fabulous dresses, wigs and shoes? Is she chunky yet funky or a 7ft glamazon? Including stickers and colouring, a Drag Name calculator and fabulous facts, quirky quotes and stunning figures about all things drag. 
Drag has always influenced mainstream pop culture, but because of its underground roots, many aspects bled through into popular, mainstream culture without credit. Things have improved for this next generation of young queens, RuPaul's Drag Race has taken drag culture beyond its radical roots. Originally a staple of gay bars drag has now extended from its LGBTQ fan base into the mainstream. Regularly cited as the smartest reality show on TV, the latest season moved to VH1 in the US and Netflix in the UK (and taking 8 Emmy nominations/3 wins for the latest series) drag has never been bigger or more popular. 
Fun, fabulous, funny gift book.

Dragtastic: The legendary book of fun, facts and fabulosity

Humor & Entertainment

Rasmussen, Crystal

Humor

Anita Leslie (1914-85), best known for the popular biographies of her extraordinary relatives, including Jennie Churchill (Winston's mother) and sculptor Clare Sheridan, was also a most unlikely war heroine. In 1940 Anita volunteered for active service, and by the end of the war she had been awarded the Croix de Guerre for outstanding bravery on the battlefield in France.
While Anita always insisted that everything was "delightful and amusing," her life after the war was clouded by destructive love affairs, depression, and domestic and financial chaos.
This revealing biography describes the complex character behind the sunny facade she was at pains to project. Drawing on copious correspondence, Penny Perrick brings to life Anita's true anguished self: the intense joy she took in her children, her passionate love of Ireland, her career as a writer and the dramatic family squabbling that resulted from the muddled management of the Castle Leslie. Telling Tales is a scintillating and poignant account of this flamboyant woman.

Telling Tales: The Fabulous Lives of Anita Leslie

Perrick, Penny

'A daring blend of romance, crime and history, and an intelligent exposé of the inherent injustice and consequences of all forms of oppression' Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions
Opening with the shooting of Lady Virginia 'Ginie' Courtauld in her tranquil garden in 1950s Rhodesia, The Dragon Lady tells Ginie's extraordinary story, so called for the exotic tattoo snaking up her leg. From the glamorous Italian Riviera before the Great War to the Art Deco glory of Eltham Palace in the thirties, and from the secluded Scottish Highlands to segregated Rhodesia in the fifties, the narrative spans enormous cultural and social change. Lady Virginia Courtauld was a boundary-breaking, colourful and unconventional person who rejected the submissive role women were expected to play. 
Ostracised by society for being a foreign divorcée at the time of Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson, Ginie and her second husband ,Stephen Courtauld, leave the confines of post-war Britain to forge a new life in Rhodesia, only to find that being progressive liberals during segregation proves mortally dangerous. Many people had reason to dislike Ginie, but who had reason enough to pull the trigger?
Deeply evocative of time and place, The Dragon Lady subtly blends fact and fiction to paint the portrait of an extraordinary woman in an era of great social and cultural change.

The Dragon Lady

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Treger, Louisa

Mystery

The Private Chef: The Food of Martin Price from the kitchen of HRH Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Price, Martin

Main Courses & Side Dishes

In a period of civil unrest before the War of Liberation, a wealthy and influential couple leave Britain to make a new life in 1950s Rhodesia.\nFrom the glamorous Italian Riviera in the roaring twenties to the Art Deco glory of Eltham Palace in the thirties, from the secluded Scottish Highlands to sultry, segregated Rhodesia in the fifties, The Dragon Lady tells the story of the extraordinary life of Lady Virginia Courtauld, so-called for the exotic tattoo snaking up her leg.\nOstracized by society for being a foreign divorcée at the time of Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson, Ginie and her second husband Stephen Courtauld leave the confines of post-war Britain to forge a new life in Rhodesia, only to find that being progressive liberals during segregation proves mortally dangerous.\nSubtly blending fact and fiction, deeply evocative of time and place in an era of great social change and threaded throughout with intrigue, the novel keeps the reader guessing from the outset who shot the Dragon Lady and why.

Rebel Writers: The Accidental Feminists: Shelagh Delaney • Edna O’Brien • Lynne Reid Banks • Charlotte Bingham • Nell Dunn • Virginia Ironside • Margaret Forster

'Make this your next inspirational read. Trust us, it's Oprah's Book Club worthy'Vice In London in 1958, a play by a 19-year-old redefined women's writing in Britain. It also began a movement that would change women's lives forever. The play wasA Taste of Honeyand the author, Shelagh Delaney, was the first in a succession of young women who wrote about their lives with an honesty that dazzled the world. They rebelled against sexism, inequality and prejudice and in doing so challenged the existing definitions of what writing and writers should be. Bypassing the London cultural elite, their work reached audiences of millions around the world, paved the way for profound social changes and laid the foundations of second-wave feminism. After Delaney came Edna O'Brien, Lynne Reid-Banks, Charlotte Bingham, Nell Dunn, Virginia Ironside and Margaret Forster; an extraordinarily disparate group who were united in their determination to shake the traditional concepts of womanhood in novels, films, television, essays and journalism. They were as angry as the Angry Young Men, but were also more constructive and proposed new ways to live and love in the future. They did not intend to become a literary movement but they did, inspiring other writers to follow. Not since the Brontës have a group of young women been so determined to tell the truth about what it is like to be a girl. In this biographical study, the acclaimed author, Celia Brayfield, tells their story for the first time.

BRAYFIELD, Celia

Arts & Literature

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Bloomsbury Caravel publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Bloomsbury Caravel