The indispensable guide to everything we knew and loved before modern life got in the way. This gorgeous and beautifully illustrated countryside miscellany is the perfect purchase for anyone wanting to go back to their roots and rediscover a lost world... 'Beautiful book' -- ***** Reader review 'A delightful book with some lovely illustrations' -- ***** Reader review 'A heart-warming read, I love this book' -- ***** Reader review 'Magical' -- ***** Reader review 'Lovely book to just DELVE into' -- ***** Reader review 'A little gem!' -- ***** Reader review 'Sheer delight!' -- ***** Reader review **************************************************************************************************** Ever wondered how to predict the weather just by looking at the sky? Or wanted to attract butterflies to your garden? Is there a knack to building the perfect bonfire? And how exactly do you race a ferret? In this world of traffic tailbacks, supermarket shopping and 24-hour internet access, it's easy to feel disconnected from the beauty and rhythms of the natural world. If you have ever gazed in awe at stars in the night's sky, tried to catch a perfect snowflake or longed for the comfort of a roaring log fire, then this is the book for you. From spotting Britain's five kinds of owl to gardening by the phases of the moon, from curing a cold to brewing your own ale, and from navigating by the stars to making sloe gin, Red Sky at Night is packed with instructions and lists, ancient customs and old wives tales, making it an indispensable guide to countryside lore.

A memorable collection of weather sayings, beautifully arranged in story form and illustrated by renowned paper artist Elly MacKay. Red sky at night, sailor's delight. And, the next morning, when the dew is on the grass, no rain will come to pass. These are the perfect conditions for a grandfather to take his grandchildren out on a fishing trip. Especially since, as the saying goes, when the wind is from the West, then the fishes bite the best. The family takes a boat out on the lake, fishing and swimming and eventually camping out on a nearby island, taking full advantage of the gorgeous weather. But the next day . . . red sky in the morning, sailors take warning! The family ventures back home just in time to avoid a rainstorm. But not to worry -- the more rain, the more rest. Fair weather's not always best. Acclaimed paper artist Elly MacKay illustrates a lovely family narrative through the use of weather aphorisms, creating a beautiful and informational story which will appeal to children's timeless fascination with the natural world.

It's time for Layla to recapture the magic of her childhood... A sparkling, feel-good short story from the bestselling author of The Oyster Catcher, The Olive Branch, and The Honey Farm on the Hill available exclusively in ebook. When Layla arrives in the Welsh coastal village of Swn-y-Mor with new fiancé Rob in tow, she plans to carry out her dad's final wishes, then return to Cardiff quickly, before too many unwanted memories surface. But the longer Layla remains, the harder it is to resist the lure of the autumn skies and memories of family holidays gone by. With fishing trips and firesides to enjoy, is Rob really Layla's future, and is Swn-y-Mor going to remain in her past for ever? What readers are saying about Red Sky at Night: 'Fabulous as always! Jo makes you feel like you are right there with the characters. This book took us to beautiful West Wales and you can almost smell the sea air as you are reading' 'A lovely believable story. Hard to put down' 'Another heart-warming short story from Jo Thomas. You won't be disappointed'

Presents Thorn, a fiercely independent fishing guide from Key Largo, in a desperate fight against obsessive revenge and brilliance gone mad.

“Red Sky at Morning is a minor marvel: it is a novel of paradox, of identity, of an overwhelming YES to life that embraces with wonder what we are pleased to call the human condition. In short, a work of art.” — Harper Lee Hailed by the Washington Post Book World as “a sort of Catcher in the Rye out West,” Richard Bradford’s Red Sky at Morning is the classic coming-of-age story set during World War II about the enduring spirit of youth and the values in life that count. In the summer of 1944, Frank Arnold, a wealthy shipbuilder in Mobile, Alabama, receives his volunteer commission in the U.S. Navy and moves his wife, Ann, and seventeen-year-old son, Josh, to the family’s summer home in the village of Corazon Sagrado, high in the New Mexico mountains. A true daughter of the Confederacy, Ann finds it impossible to cope with the quality of life in the largely Hispanic village and, in the company of Jimbob Buel—an insufferable, South-proud, professional houseguest—takes to bridge and sherry. Josh, on the other hand, becomes an integral member of the Sagrado community, forging friendships with his new classmates, with the town’s disreputable resident artist, and with Amadeo and Excilda Montoya, the couple hired by his father to care for their house. Josh narrates the story of his fateful year in Sagrado and, with irresistibly deadpan, irreverent humor, describes the events and people who influence his progress to maturity. Unhindered by his mother's disdain for these "tacky, dusty little Westerners," Josh comes into his own and into a young man's finely formed understanding of duty, responsibility, and love.

An anthology of British socialist poetry. It starts with William Blake, John Clare, Charles Dickens and Shelley, and ends with Carol Ann Duffy, Benjamin Zephaniah, Jackie Kay and Mr Social Control. Here we have the poetry of the first world war (Isaac Rosenberg, Ivor Gurney); the celebration of revolution (Hugh McDiarmid, D H Lawrence); the hungry thirties (Auden, C Day Lewis and Louis MacNiece); the second world war years (Alun Lewis, Hamish Henderson); new post-war voices (Alex Comfort, Roger McGough); the years of colonial liberation (Adrian Mitchell, James Berry); new voices of black writing (Grace Nichols, Jean Binta Breeze) and the women's movement (Liz Lochhead, Alison Fell); the Thatcher years (Sean O'Brien, Anne Stevenson) and modern times (Kathleen Jamie, Linda France). In all - 153 poems from 117 poets. Many of the poets will be well-known to poetry readers....a few will be forgotten voices. Red Sky At Night tells the story of the movement of an idea from the margins of British life to the center, and then out again to its disreputable edges. It tells the story of the engagement by British poets with contemporary political events. And it provides a sustained political footnote to the literary history of the last century.

Eva Zimmermann is eight years old, and she has just discovered she is Jewish. Such is the life of an only child living in postwar Bucharest, a city that is changing in ever more frightening ways. Eva's family, full of eccentric and opinionated adults, will do absolutely anything to keep her safe—even if it means hiding her identity from her. With razor-sharp depictions of her animated relatives, Haya Leah Molnar's memoir of her childhood captures with touching precocity the very adult realities of living behind the iron curtain. Under a Red Sky is a 2011 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.