This is a guide to all British birds whose sounds are likely to be encountered by the average birdwatcher. A total of 175 species are heard ranging from the familiar tawny owl to the very rare call of the bittern. This is an authorititive guide and an ideal gift for anyone wishing to learn the sounds of the great variety of birds that can be seen and heard throughout the season. A perennial bestseller. Includes an introductory booklet.

British Bird Sounds on CD (British Library - British Library Sound Archive)

Science & Math

Kettle, Ron

Ranft, Richard

Nature & Ecology

British Library Publishing

Atkins and the London 2012 Games - Our seven-year journey

Atkins Ltd

So many things are at work in our relationship with sport. Partisanship at the most visceral level, amazement at the display of the human body operating at the extremes of power, speed and strength, appreciation of grace, cunning, timing, spatial awareness, drama, forethought. Decades of rivalry are balanced by moments of sweet skill. This major new anthology of great sports writing captures the drama, the moments of speed and strength, as portrayed by great writers about many sports across the centuries. Stories and excerpts include Doris Lessing's "Through the Tunnel," Enid Bagnold's National Velvet, CLR James's A Majestic Innings, Ring Lardner's "The Champion," Nick Hornby's "Fever Pitch," Garrison Keillor's "Attitude," Joyce Carol Oates's On Boxing, Ernest Hemingway's Islands in the Stream, P.G. Wodehouse's The Heart of a Goof, and Homer's The Iliad.

The Roar of the Crowd: A Sporting Anthology

Sports & Outdoors

Over the course of the long 18th century (1700–1850), Britain’s ruined medieval or "Gothic" abbeys, castles and towers became the objects of intense cultural interest. Turning their attention away from Classical to local and national sites of architectural ruin, antiquaries and topographers began to scrutinize and sketch, record and describe the material remains of the British past, an expression of interest in domestic antiquity that was shared by many contemporary painters, poets, writers, politicians and tourists. This new, highly illustrated book traces the ways in which a selection of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish ruins served as the objects of continuous cultural reflection between 1700 and 1850, drawing together essays on the antiquarian, poetic, visual, oral, fictional, dramatic, political, legal and touristic responses that they engendered. Thoroughly interdisciplinary in its approach, Writing Britain’s Ruins provides an accessible and engaging account of the ways in which Britain’s ruins inspired writers, artists and thinkers during a period of extraordinary cultural richness.

Writing Britain's Ruins

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Conan Doyle’s name is synonymous with The Strand magazine, chiefly because of the Sherlock Holmes stories but also due to many of his other contributions, such as the Professor Challenger stories, his articles on spiritualism and fairies, and his coverage of the major battles of World War I. From 1891 until his death in 1930, almost 300 contributions by Doyle were published in The Strand, including 120 stories, 9 serialized novels, and dozens of other items including poetry and interviews. It is impossible fully to appreciate Conan Doyle’s artistic development without considering the context of The Strand, as it published almost all of his most memorable and important stories, but it also published essays, commentary and other works that have become unjustly forgotten. Doyle’s contributions highlight, for example, his abilities as a sportsman, an interest which frequently found its way into his fiction. This study charts his outlook and views, examines his shifting reputation during his lifetime, and assesses how Doyle’s contributions to The Strand fit into his overall output as a writer. Ashley uncovers hidden aspects of Doyle’s writings that reveal him to be a more broadly talented writer than he is often given credit for.

Adventures in The Strand: Arthur Conan Doyle & The Strand Magazine

Literature & Fiction

ASHLEY, Mike

British & Irish

Bible Manuscripts Engagement Diary 2000: Treasures of Christianity in the British Library

Scot McKendrick

Religion & Spirituality

Illuminated manuscripts are an excellent source of information about the interiors inhabited by people in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Artists regularly depicted the castles and palaces of the ruling classes, as well as the houses of ordinary people—merchants, craftsmen and peasants. This attractive new book is the first to study the subject in such depth, and it uncovers a wealth of little-known illuminations that help us to learn more about life at home, in workshops and elsewhere. The author presents manuscript miniatures as illustrations to an account of house interiors which includes their architectural features (such as windows, doors or fireplaces), furniture and other household objects. She concentrates on the social, cultural and stylistic aspects of Gothic domestic settings and presents them in the context of their Romanesque antecedents and Renaissance successors.

Medieval & Renaissance Interiors

History

Oledzka, Eva

Europe

In the years after World War II, the BBC invited some of the leading British and Irish writers of short stories to read selected works of their own on the radio. For the first time this unrivaled archive of recordings is now being made available for wider distribution. This 3-CD set includes a wide range of stories from the elegantly-turned miniatures of Somerset Maugham to the eerie supernatural tales of Algernon Blackwood. The writers featured are Phyllis Bentley, Algernon Blackwood, Angela Carter, Frank O'Connor, Sean O'Faolain, Somerset Maugham, Harold Pinter, VS Pritchett, Kingsley Amis, Edna O Brien, A E Coppard, William Trevor, and Lord Dunsany. The set offers a unique opportunity to hear some of the most highly-regarded masters of the craft in their own voices.

English and Irish Short Stories (The Spoken Word)

British Library

Short Stories & Anthologies

"If then, there is to be a festival, why should it not be the festival of Christmas?" asked Arnold Bennett. For as long as Christmas has been celebrated, poets and writers have sought to explore every aspect of it, whether the story of the nativity, or the festive traditions that have grown up over the centuries. A Literary Christmas is a seasonal compendium that collects together poems, short stories, and prose extracts by some of the greatest poets and writers in the English language. Like Charles Dickens's ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, they are representative of times old and new—from John Donne's Elizabethan hymn over the baby Jesus to Benjamin Zephaniah's "Talking Turkeys," from Thomas Tusser counting the cost of a Tudor feast to P G Wodehouse's wry short story about Christmas on a diet. Enjoy a convivial Christmas Day as described by Samuel Pepys, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, or Nancy Mitford. Venture out into the snow in the company of Jane Austen, Henry James, and Dickens's ever-popular Mr Pickwick. Entertain the children with the seasonal tales of Dylan Thomas, Kenneth Grahame, and Oscar Wilde. For any lover of great literature, A Literary Christmas is the perfect gift. As a companion to the book, A Literary Christmas is also being released as a 2CD set at the same time. The audio recordings on the two discs feature readings of many of the same poems and prose extracts from the book.

Literary Christmas: An Anthology

Literary

Before the invention of photography, the fashion-conscious public relied on illustrations in magazines to follow the latest developments in style, and ensure they were dressed for High Society in every season. These illustrations became an art form in themselves, as key publications—and their taste-making illustrators—defined the looks of each era. This lavishly illustrated book charts the history of fashion and the social calendar in Britain through the fashion plates of the most important periodicals. It offers a visually stunning record of fashion illustration in Britain over two centuries.

Fashion Illustration in Britain: Society & the Seasons

Butchart, Amber Jane

Graphic Design

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

Books by British Library Publishing