This extraordinary and breathtakingly beautiful book celebrates a lifetime of collecting passion. Oliver Hoare, one of London's most distinguished dealers, originally learnt his craft in the company of Bruce Chatwin. His love of the rare, the evocative, the seductive shines out from every stunning object in this collection and the stories that he teases out from them. No one could fail to be drawn into this gorgeous labyrinth. Published to coincide with an exhibition held in the magnificent settings of the Lavery Room in Sir John Millais's studio house in South Kensington, the book includes antiquities from the ancient and classical worlds; objects connected to shamanism, magic and alchemy; engravings by D rer, Hollar and Rembrandt; unusual paintings and textiles; and many curiosities Highlights include: the silver libation cup of M ngke Khan, grandson of Genghis and ruler of an empire that stretched from modern Bucharest to Peking, and Karachi to Novgorod; the apple from the Garden of Eden - a silver pomander belonging to the Stuart Kings, with bite marks, opening to reveal a silver skull; a Scythian (6-7th centuries BC) jade pendant of the endangered Saiga antelope, as finely carved as anything by Faberg ; a bronze Bacchus head from a tripod table belonging to the Emperor Augustus; a limestone bear carved in 3rd millenium BC Bactria. "The point of the exhibition, as its title announces, is to celebrate the fascinating, and often peculiar stories attached to works of art. The criterion for what is presented has little to do with the value of objects and therefore it differs from the more conventional 'Cabinet of Curiosities'. Nor does it reflect the current canon of what is seen as beautiful or culturally significant, although there are significant and beautiful works of art by anyone's standards. The catalogue is, hopefully, the work of a storyteller's art." Oliver Hoare

Why were so many religious images and objects broken and damaged in the course of the Reformation? Margaret Aston's magisterial new book charts the conflicting imperatives of destruction and rebuilding throughout the English Reformation from the desecration of images, rails and screens to bells, organs and stained glass windows. She explores the motivations of those who smashed images of the crucifixion in stained glass windows and who pulled down crosses and defaced symbols of the Trinity. She shows that destruction was part of a methodology of religious revolution designed to change people as well as places and to forge in the long term new generations of new believers. Beyond blanked walls and whited windows were beliefs and minds impregnated by new modes of religious learning. Idol-breaking with its emphasis on the treacheries of images fundamentally transformed not only Anglican ways of worship but also of seeing, hearing and remembering.