Books
Lizard and Toad
Lizard and Toad are friends. They live in a wadi in the mountains of Arabia.
Toad’s curiosity often leads him into trouble, but clever Lizard always has a bright idea to help his friend out of a sticky situation.
Follow Lizard and Toad in four exciting adventures – There’s No Place Like Home, Toad’s Painting, Toad Takes a Ride and The Discovery.
Includes a colouring spread and an introduction to the creatures who live in a UAE Wadi.
Alphabet Souq
The follow-up to A is for Arabia, this is a perfect gift for any child between the ages of four and eight, or for younger children learning the alphabet for the first time.
Million Dollar Bash T-Shirt
We attended the Million Dollar Bash music Festival in August 2019 – celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Bob Dylan playing the island in 1969.
As well as our many books about Dylan and the Isle of Wight Festivals, we created this commemorative t-shirt. Yours for £20 with free UK P&P, available in S,M,L and XL.
Picasso’s Revenge
The explosive phenomenon of ‘modern art’ bursts out of the blue, from the brush of a riotous, yet sometimes timid, immigrant painter. How, and particularly why, this happened is explored in this historical novel, revealing a great story in art previously neglected.
Picasso’s Revenge concerns a painting – Les Demoiselles d’Avignon – and Jacques Doucet who horrifies his wife by buying the artist’s outrageous Brothel picture. Doucet is a couturier, tortured and fastidious to the point of ludicrousness. He struggles to overcome the scandal of owning a painting so difficult that even its author had hidden it away for ten years.
In an arduous quest to uncover the painting’s origins the art patron finds keeping it more painful than he could ever have realised. The answer to his appalling dilemma is wrapped up in Les Demoiselles and concerns Picasso’s greatest and most powerful secret.
A Plan to Hatch
The Southern coast of Cornwall is a very special place, with magic in the seaweed and a smile on every face.
Each pebble is a wish, and covered cleverly by the tide, there are caves in secret places, where the smugglers used to hide.
Meet Megan the singing Cornish Sea Piskie who lives at Polpeor Cove, right at the very tip of The Lizard Point as she and her friends hatch a plan to protect three rare chough eggs from some meanies.
Bob Dylan at the Isle of Wight Festival 1969
2019 marks the golden anniversary of the mass musical gatherings that saw the hippie generation at their 1969 zenith. Two events stand out, staged with days of each other that magical August: in the United States, there was Woodstock, and in the UK the Isle of Wight Festival of Music. Woodstock drew 400,000 fans and a quality bill that was a ‘Who’s Who’ of contemporary talent – all bar Bob Dylan – whom the organisers hoped to lure on the doorstep of his home.
Instead, Dylan opted to headline at the Isle of Wight, in front of close to 200,000 adoring fans.
In ‘Bob Dylan at the Isle of Wight Festival 1969’ Bill Bradshaw, in association with Ray Foulk, celebrates the events of that summer 50 years on…and remembers how the Isle of Wight, off England’s southern coast, staged the huge coup of pulling off what was then the nation’s biggest festival.
It features almost 200 pages packed with first-hand accounts of the “Dylan” festival from organisers, performers and the fans who flocked to the event, bringing alive that gilded summer and exploring how it influenced both Dylan and the rock festival movement for generations to come.
It includes many photographs published for the first time, and a revealing foreword from Julie Felix.
‘There were people as far as the eye could see, it was surrealistic to just look out and not be able to see where the crowd ended. Dylan was waiting to go on outside his caravan and we talked for a long time. I consider that one of the little islands of memory I will always cherish.’ – Julie Felix, 1969 IoW Festival co-star.
Shari’ah, Democracy and the Kuwaiti Constitution
The compelling study explores the relationship between the moral purposes of Islamic Shari’ah and the organisation of the ideal Muslim Society.
Ebraheem Duaij Al-Ebraheem Al-Sabah looks in detail at the origins of Shari’ah law and its similarities with Western legal thinking.
Captain Shakespear: Desert exploration, Arabian intrigue and the rise of Ibn Sa‘ud
Captain William Shakespear was one of the first British officers to explore the Nejdi desert of the Arabian Peninsula. He provided London with valuable intelligence and cultivated a personal relationship with the Emir of Riyadh Ibn Sa’ud, laying the foundations for diplomatic relations with the emir, and later the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Audiobooks
The Pearl Diver Audiobook read by author Julia Johnson
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 the book in the United Kingdom.
Diana: I’m Going to be Me: Audiobook
Diana: I’m Going to be Me, tells the remarkable story of Princess Diana’s life through her own words.
It is now 20 years since this iconic royal figure died at the tragically young age of 36 in a Paris car crash. Her powerful legacy lives on through her sons, Princes William and Harry, and a new generation is becoming aware her extraordinary life for the first time.
This audiobook is narrated by Roger Harrison.
Blue Jackal and other tales from Islamic lands: Audiobook (Arabic)
The Blue Jackal and other tales are stories that children would hear from their parents and grandparents, each storyteller relating his or her own version. In this beautifully illustrated hardback book, these fables are re-told in a simple language that children can understand and enjoy.
First written down more than 2,500 years ago in an ancient Indian language called Sanskrit, these and other stories were included in a book called the Panchatantram fables. From India, travellers carried the stories to Iran, and then on to the Arabic-speaking world, where they formed part of a book called Kalila and Dimna.
This audiobook is narrated by Timothy Knapman.
Blue Jackal and other tales from Islamic lands: Audiobook
The Blue Jackal and other tales are stories that children would hear from their parents and grandparents, each storyteller relating his or her own version. In this beautifully illustrated hardback book, these fables are re-told in a simple language that children can understand and enjoy.
First written down more than 2,500 years ago in an ancient Indian language called Sanskrit, these and other stories were included in a book called the Panchatantram fables. From India, travellers carried the stories to Iran, and then on to the Arabic-speaking world, where they formed part of a book called Kalila and Dimna.
This audiobook is narrated by Timothy Knapman.
Merchandise
The Writing in the Stone Badges
The Writing in the Stone badges x 2. One black, one white, featuring artwork by Angharad Crossley.
The Writing in the Stone Postcard
Postcard of Irving Finkel’s The Writing in the Stone, featuring artwork by Angharad Crossley.
The Writing in the Stone Print
The Writing in the Stone limited edition artwork prints signed by the illustrator Angharad Crossley.
The Writing in the Stone T-Shirt
Limited Edition The Writing in the Stone T-Shirt
The front display the title in cuneiform, written by Irving Finkel himself.