Peter Clark was a romantic. He did not want to be sent to Abu Dhabi in 1988 to run the British Council in the United Arab Emirates, a country which he felt was brash, consumerist and lacking in history. He preferred established countries, steeped in history with ruins and antique architecture. Cover illustration by Chess Heward .
In ebook and paperback.
This delightful board book follows the journey of a germ using unique heat-sensitive pages and combining interaction, play and learning, showing pre-schoolers the importance of clean hands. A board book.
This special edition of When the World Came to the Isle of Wight comprises Stealing Dylan From Woodstock and The Last Great Event, shrink-wrapped and packaged in a psychedelic bellyband. When the World Came to the Isle of Wight records festival organiser Ray Foulk’s experience of the 1968, 1969 and 1970 Isle of Wight Festivals which featured musical legends including Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and the Who.
“Ray Foulk and his brothers, Ronnie and Bill – it is incredible what they did – it is incredible”
Sid Griffin, BBC Radio 6
The 1970 Festival was a record-breaking event. It spanned five days and nights with an audience widely reported to have reached 600,000. For the first time, Ray Foulk delves into contemporary reports, revealing the arguments that raged at both local and national level. His inside story concludes with the parliamentary battle to stop the Island event and the attempt to ban all open air festivals nationwide.
“If you were one of the half a million music fans who made their way like raggle-taggle gypsies to the Isle of Wight 1970 then you will absolutely love this backstage look at a great moment in rock history.”
Ray Connolly, Daily Mail
In hardback.
A Soldier in Arabia reveals the behind-the-scenes story of the events which led up to and followed the creation of the present-day United Arab Emirates in December 1971 followed, a few months later, with Ras Al Khaimah joining the Federation. Soldier and adventurer David Neild was the youngest officer to serve in the legendary Trucial Oman Scouts when he joined them at the age of only 20 in 1959.
In 1968 Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, the Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, with whom Neild had formed a good working relationship, called on Neild to set up and command a national defence force for the Sheikhdom, with the rank of Lt Colonel. In hardback.
Ubuntu: Summer of the Rhino is brilliantly told and beautifully illustrated and will delight children from the age of eight years upwards. All royalties will be donated to the Rhino Rehabilitation Centre of Rhino Revolution, to help rescue and rehabilitate orphaned rhinos. Merely by buying this book you are making a difference – but do join the Revolution and help make the world a kinder place: visit rhinorevolution.org
In hardback.
This delightful story, carefully researched from oral and written sources – some dating from more than 150 years ago – offers an insight into the way of life that sustained the Arabian Gulf right up until the discovery of oil.
The winning charm of Patricia Al Fakhri’s watercolours combine with Julia Johnson’s narrative to make The Pearl Diver a perennial favourite with children aged 8 to 12.
Buy in the United Arab Emirates.
For a time, the Isle of Wight Festivals transformed a sleepy English island into the rock‘n’roll capital of the world. What started in 1968 as a parochial one-nighter in a stubble field to raise funds for a local swimming pool, a year later ballooned into a massive outdoor gathering. Numbers sky-rocketed as devotees flocked to the Island from mainland Britain, Europe, the Americas and as far away as Australia, to pay homage to rock’s poet laureate, Bob Dylan.
“… like rock n roll meets Ealing comedy, a great tale, lovingly told”
Classic Rock Magazine
Shabab Oman is the only tall ship to win the coveted Cutty Sark Trophy six times. Over a period of 20 years, Chris Biggins, the English captain of the Shabab Oman, and her Omani crew took the Sultanate’s famous tall ship around the world, spreading the spirit of international goodwill as unofficial ambassadors of Oman.
Visit Al Roya’s website (Arabic)
In hardback
This compelling memoir of a young boy’s struggle for survival in the heartland of the Mafia is a story of tragic young love and centuries-old hatreds told with wry humour and brutal honesty.
No-one from that region with the author’s connections or perspective has ever written about what it was really like. For obvious reasons, names, times and places have been changed (to protect the innocent and, in many cases, the guilty), as the author has a family and a life – but these events and experiences really happened.
“This is no sentimental homage to the past.” Francesco Scannella
In paperback. Hardback out of stock.