Kate Sheridan is at Blenheim Palace to research King Henry's mistress Rosamund, said to have been poisoned there by Eleanor of Aquitaine. But her visit takes a strange turn when her hosts unwittingly begin to relive the legend.

Death at Blenheim Palace: A Victorian Mystery (11)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Robin Paige

Mystery

Oldcastle Books

But who were the Anglo-Saxons, and where did they come from? A Short History of the Anglo-Saxons traces the fascinating history of this era and its people, from the early European migrants from tribes such as Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who traveled mainly to Britain after the end of Roman rule in 410, to the dramatic end of the Anglo-Saxon period following the victory of William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings. It covers their various kingdoms, such as Wessex and Mercia, as well as the numerous attacks on the prosperity and successes of the Anglo-Saxons by peoples such as the Vikings. From popular fiction such as The Hobbit to Game of Thrones to the world language of English, the continuing influence of the Anglo-Saxons can be found in many modern societies today. This Pocket Essential guide provides an indispensable introduction to everything you need to know about the Anglo-Saxon period.

A Pocket Essentials Short History of the Anglo-Saxons (Pocket Essential series)

History

Morgan, Giles

Europe

During this time of conflict and suspicion, it is perhaps more important than ever to understand the beliefs and philosophies of other cultures. This book provides a useful guide to the world’s most popular religions—Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Hinduism—describing their origins and history, beliefs, worship and sacred writings, but also investigates many of the smaller and lesser known religions as well as newer movements such as Scientology, Wicca and Raëlism.

Short Introduction to Religion (Short History)

Kerr, Gordon

World

Beginning in the 1830s and ending with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, the Victorian Era saw the British Empire—the largest the world had seen—dominate the world. British ingenuity in the fields of technological development and the heavy industry of its Industrial Revolution led to Britain being dubbed "the workshop of the world" while its Royal Navy policed the world’s oceans helping to create what has become known as a "Pax Britannica." This book details the sweeping social and economic changes that took place during this period but also examines the events of the time and the lives of the eminent Victorians who contributed so much to British success—men and women such as Florence Nightingale, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Charles Darwin. This is the story of the greatest period in British history, a period that still resonates in today’s Britain.

Short History of the Victorian Era (Pocket Essential series)

In recent years the term "psychogeography" has been used to illustrate a bewildering array of ideas from ley lines and the occult, to urban walking and political radicalism. But where does it come from and what exactly does it mean? This book examines the origins of psychogeography in the Paris of the 1950s, exploring the theoretical background and its political application in the work of Guy Debord and the Situationists. Psychogeography continues to find retrospective validation in much earlier traditions, from the visionary writing of William Blake and Thomas De Quincey to the rise of the flâneur and the avant-garde experimentation of the Surrealists. These precursors to psychogeography are discussed here alongside their modern counterparts, for today these ideas hold greater currency than ever through the popularity of writers and filmmakers such as Iain Sinclair, Will Self and Patrick Keiller. From the urban wanderer to the armchair traveller, psychogeography provides us with new ways of experiencing our environment, transforming the familiar streets of our everyday experience into something new and unexpected. Merlin Coverley conducts the reader through this process, providing an explanation of the terms involved and an analysis of the key figures and their works.

Psychogeography

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Coverley, Merlin

Mental Health

Review\nPraise for Sally Cline's previous works:\n“Wrapped up in a thorough biography, a strong case for why the unfortunate Zelda Fitzgerald should be remembered as an artist foremost, not merely as a victim of mental illness.” (Kirkus Reviews) on Zelda Fitzgerald\n“Cline imbues her scenes with revelatory detail.” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) on Zelda Fitzgerald\n“Sally Cline succeeds in breathing fresh life into this jazz-age icon in her meticulously documented and eminently readable biography.” (The Washington Post Book World) on Zelda Fitzgerald\n“Man of Mystery delivers the goods on Hammett. . . . An entertaining and informative read.”—Library Journalon Dashiell Hammett\n"In Dashiell Hammett: Man of Mystery, Cline brilliantly captures the life and times of this often private, enigmatic, and talented man. . . . Five out of five stars for her first-rate, well-researched, and compelling biography on Dashiell Hammett. It is a gem of a book, very entertaining, and it belongs in the library of all lovers of American literature.” —Baltimore Post-Examineron Dashiell Hammett\n"Apart from its valuable contribution to the study of lesbian literature per se, this biography dramatizes through Hall's life the complex and still often surprising sexual politics of the early century." —Kirkus Reviews on Radclyffe Hall\nAfter Agatha: Women Write Crime is the first book to examine how British, American, and Canadian female crime writers pursue their craft and what they think about crime writing. Hundreds of women who identified as lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual, able-bodied, disabled, feminist, left or right wing, who were black or white, who had experienced violence, sexism, homophobia or racism, and who came from big cities or small country villages had one thing in common: they read crime novels. 
The book explores why so many women who face fear and violence in their daily lives, should be so addicted to crime fiction, many of which feature extreme violence. The book analyzes why criminal justice professionals including police officers, forensic scientists, probation officers, and lawyers have joined traditional detective writers in writing crime. It examines the explosions of crime writing by women between 1930 and today. It highlights the UK Golden Age women writers, the 1950s American women novelists, the 80s experimental trio, Marcia Muller, Sara Paretsky, and Sue Grafton, who created the first female American private Investigators, and the important emergence of female police protagonists, as well as those central characters who for the first time were lesbian, disabled, black, or ethnic minority. After Agatha also examines the significant explosions of domestic noir thrillers and forensic science writers. 
Most have taken to crime in order to reflect and comment on the social and political landscape around them. Many are creatively exploring the significant issues facing women today.

After Agatha: Women Write Crime

Literature & Fiction

CLINE, Sally

History & Criticism

Catharism was the most successful heresy of the Middle Ages. The Cathars taught that the world is evil and must be transcended through a simple life of prayer, work, fasting, and non-violence. They completely rejected the Catholic Church and all its trappings; Cathar services and ceremonies, by contrast, were held in fields, barns, and in people's homes. Finding support from the nobility in the fractious political situation in southern France, the Cathars also found widespread popularity among peasants and artisans. And again unlike the Church, the Cathars respected women, and women played a major role in the movement. Alarmed at the success of Catharism, the Church founded the Inquisition and launched the Albigensian Crusade to exterminate the heresy. While previous Crusades had been directed against Muslims in the Middle East, the Albigensian Crusade was the first Crusade to be directed against fellow Christians, and was also the first European genocide. With the fall of the Cathar fortress of Montsegur in 1244, Catharism was largely obliterated, although the faith survived into the early 14th century. Today, the mystique surrounding the Cathars is as strong as ever, and Sean Martin recounts their story and the myths associated with them in this lively and gripping book.

History of the Cathars (Pocket Essential series)

Martin, Sean

'You hold in your hand a miracle. A book about a passion, and the hipsters, oddballs and old heads who share it, written by one of their number, albeit a ludicrously erudite one’ - Danny Kelly A revival of interest in vinyl music has taken place in recent years – but for many of those from the ‘baby boomer’ generation, it never went away. Graham Sharpe’s vinyl love affair began in the 1960s and since then he has amassed over 3000 LPs and spent countless hours visiting record shops worldwide along with record fairs, car boot sales, online and real life auctions. Vinyl Countdown follows his journey to over a hundred shops across the globe - from New York to New Zealand, Walsall to Warsaw, Oslo to Ozstralia, (old) Jersey to New Jersey - and describes the many characters he has encountered and the adventures he accrued along the way. Vinyl Countdown seeks to reawaken the often dormant desire which first promoted the gathering of records, and to confirm the belief of those who still indulge in it, that they happily belong to, and should celebrate the undervalued, misunderstood significant group of music-obsessed vinylholics, who always want – need – to buy… just one more record. A mesmerising blend of memoir, travel, music and social history, Vinyl Countdown will appeal to anyone who vividly recalls the first LP they bought and any music fan who derives pleasure from the capacity that records have for transporting you back in time.

Vinyl Countdown

Arts & Photography

Sharpe, Graham

Music

Robin Hood is England's greatest folk hero. Everyone knows the story of the outlaw who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. Nick Rennison's highly entertaining book begins with the search for the historical Robin. Was there ever a real Robin Hood? Rennison looks at the candidates who have been proposed over the years, from petty thieves to Knights Templar, before moving on to examine the many ways in which Robin Hood has been portrayed in literature and on the screen. He began as the hero of dozens of late medieval ballads. He appeared in plays by contemporaries of Shakespeare. In the Romantic era Robin was reinvented by Walter Scott as a Saxon champion in the struggle against the Normans. During the nineteenth century, he emerged as a hero in children's literature. More recently he has been portrayed as everything from proto-socialist man of the people to anarchist thug. In the cinema he put in an appearance as early as 1908 and Douglas Fairbanks and then Errol Flynn turned him into the typical hero of Hollywood swashbucklers. In the last twenty years, Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe have provided their own very different interpretations of the character. On the small screen, Robin has been the hero of half-a-dozen TV shows from the 1950s series starring Richard Greene, which used many writers blacklisted by Hollywood, via the well-remembered Robin of Sherwood in the 1980s to the recent BBC series. As the twenty-first century nears the end of its second decade, Robin Hood is still very much with us. He is the subject of graphic novels and computer games and films, including the new Lionsgate release in November 2018.

Short History of Robin Hood

Rennison, Nick

There are few contemporary guides that cover everything from the golden age to current bestselling writers from America, Britain and all across the world, but the award-winning Barry Forshaw, one of the UK's leading experts in the field, has provided a truly comprehensive survey with definitive coverage. Every major writer is included, long with many other more esoteric choices.

Crime Fiction: A Reader's Guide

Forshaw, Barry

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

Books by Oldcastle Books