This is the true story of an unusual hero. Tall, dark and handsome and often surrounded by an admiring crowd, this is no film star but an eight-year-old bay gelding from the Mounted Branch of the Metropolitan Police.From the Royal Wedding to the London riots to entertaining visitors outside Buckingham Palace, Merlin's career as a top police horse has been full of drama and unexpected challenges and his brave and loyal efforts have earned him celebrity status.Horses such as Merlin go through a challenging training process to prepare them for a life in the force. There are three stages of training: red, amber and green. Reports show that the young Merlin was sometimes naughty and spirited - but once his training was complete he was disciplined enough to maintain order at some of the toughest and most high profile events in London.This book looks at Merlin's daily life and duties and his fascinating partnership with his mounted police constable, Karen Howell. When Karen first met Merlin during his training it was love at first sight and over the years she has developed an intriguing bond with this brave, eccentric and deeply individual character.Including extracts from 'Merlin's Diary' and in-depth interviews with the officers who trained and work with Merlin day-to-day this book examines the extraordinary partnership between humans and horses in the modern police service. The author also delves into the surprising history of police horses in Britain and looks at how horses are a key part of law enforcement around the world.

If you want to develop the best relationship with your horse, understanding its needs and behaviour is the key. Based on well-proven principles of horse psychology, this comprehensive book gives you practical advice on: buying, training, nutrition, first aid, floating, behavioural problems, stable management.Whether you're new to horses or have a lifetime of experience, your partnership with them is always evolving. "The Happy Horse" is ideal for horse lovers, riders and handlers at every level, including: experienced horse owners, pony club members, recreational riders, people on the land.Achieving a new and more rewarding level of understanding with this extraordinary animal begins here.

The Mandel family is rich, powerful and superstitious. Twenty years ago things were very different when they arrived in Calcutta, starving and penniless, intent on making their fortune. Now, Papa Mandel, ruthless architect of the Mandel success story, is dead but his spirit lives on in his unwitting daughter Jayanthi. Jayanthi is an avid reader of romantic magazines, and the plans for her marriage -a marriage of convenience which will further extend the Mandel influence -seem depressingly loveless to her; the more so as the wedding day approaches and increasingly bloody events surround the Mandel clan as they jostle for power. Observing the gathering pandemonium and providing a bemused commentary on events is Police Deputy Babu, a sycophant by nature, whose attempts to gain promotion are continually thwarted, and whose efforts to keep in with the Mandels are largely self-defeating. The violence and scheming and confusion come to a head on the day of Jayanthis wedding - but no one, not even the spirit of Papa Mandel, has predicted the extraordinary course the day is to take. The Wedding of Jayanthi Mandel is an original and powerful work. The authentic feel of India is caught - its extremes, its mysticism, its beauty, the voices of its people. And underlying the drama is a detached and ironic humour which both illuminates and enriches this remarkable novel.

In the late 1950s, Ted Geisel took on the challenge of creating a book using only 250 unique first-grade words, something that aspiring readers would have both the ability and the desire to read. The result was an unlikely children’s classic, The Cat in the Hat. But Geisel didn’t stop there. Using The Cat in the Hat as a template, he teamed with Helen Geisel and Phyllis Cerf to create Beginner Books, a whole new category of readers that combined research-based literacy practices with the logical insanity of Dr. Seuss. The books were an enormous success, giving the world such authors and illustrators as P. D. Eastman, Roy McKie, and Stan and Jan Berenstain, and beloved bestsellers such as Are You My Mother?; Go, Dog. Go!; Put Me in the Zoo; and Green Eggs and Ham. The story of Beginner Books—and Ted Geisel’s role as “president, policymaker, and editor” of the line for thirty years—has been told briefly in various biographies of Dr. Seuss, but I Can Read It All by Myself: The Beginner Books Story presents it in full detail for the first time. Drawn from archival research and dozens of brand-new interviews, I Can Read It All by Myself explores the origins, philosophies, and operations of Beginner Books from The Cat in the Hat in 1957 to 2019’s A Skunk in My Bunk, and reveals the often-fascinating lives of the writers and illustrators who created them.

Written in the style of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s pulp fiction novels, a rollicking collection of novellas, including Miss Barnard's Unit in which a country bumpkin finds love with a classy debutante, captures the passion that erupts between women who love women--and the horses they ride. Original. 15,000 first printing.