"Daytrips London: 55 One Day Adventures by Rail or Car, In and Around London and Southern England".
"Daytrips London" detais 55 trips using that city as a base. Each one-day adventure is complete with a do-it-yourself walking tour, a detailed local map, full travel directions, restaurant & pub suggestions, background information, and a concise description of all worthwhile sights. There are also photos, a glossary of British terms and a menu translator, as well as a comprehensive index.
The destinations should appeal to a wide variety of interests. Besides the usual cathedrals, castles, and art galleries there are such attractions as country walks, colorful London neighborhoods, maritime museums, canals, Roman ruins, places where history happened, places of literary association, quaint fishing villages, great seaports, resorts, elegant spas, and even some ever-so British railfan trips.
PS. Daytrips Guides is one of the best travel guides series in my opinion. Enjoy!
Beverley Collins, Inger M. Mees “The Phonetics of English and Dutch" This book provides a complete introductory course on the phonetics of English and Dutch based on an essentially practical approach to the subject. No previous knowledge of phonetics is assumed and all terms are explained in straightforward English as they are introduced. Theoretical and practical aspects of the subject are clarified for the student by means of numerous self-study exercises in articulation and transcription.
Natural Grammar shows you how one hundred important English keywords work, the phrases they generate, and the links they make. The emphasis is on natural-sounding language. Plenty of practice is provided in language building.
Winner of the 2004 British Council ELT Innovation Award
British Political Leaders: A Biographical Dictionary
by Keith Laybourn (Editor)
Laybourn (history, Univ. of Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England) has written many books on modern British political history (e.g., Modern Britain Since 1906). This tightly structured dictionary of political leaders begins with Walpole in 1721 and contains 366 entries, covering all prime ministers, chancellors of the exchequer, foreign and home secretaries up to Tony Blair's administration, and the four secretaries of state for the American Colonies. Family information is kept to a minimum; one learns from which seat the leader was elected and his or her political opinions and party and governmental roles but little family detail beyond the names of parents and spouses. Laybourn is mostly objective. The rise and fall of political parties and of British fortunes are reflected through the (generally) men in charge of the empire on which the sun once never set. Modern leaders get a little more ink than their predecessors. Perhaps too dry for public libraries but recommended for academic libraries, where the relatively short entries would best serve undergraduates. Robert Moore, Parexel, Waltham, MA
This volume offers serious Anglophiles 198 entries covering the British leaders who filled "the top four offices of state and the post of secretary of state for the colonies between 1730 and the present," the four top offices being prime minister, chancellor of the exchequer, foreign secretary, and home secretary. Arrangement of entries is alphabetical, either by name or by title depending on how the individual was best known. For example, Benjamin Disraeli is listed under his given name, not as the Earl of Beaconsfield. In cases where official titles have evolved over the centuries, the editors have, for the sake of consistency, used the modern title. Thus, all prime ministers are listed as such, even though the post was once referred to as First Lord of the Treasury.
Civil Society in British History: Ideas, Identities, Institutions
This book explores the many different strands in the language of civil society from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. Through a series of case-studies it investigates the applicability of the term to a wide range of historical settings. These include 'state interference', voluntary associations, economic decision-making, social and economic planning, the 'bourgeois public sphere', civil society in wartime, the 'inclusion' and 'exclusion' of women, and relations between the state, the voluntary sector, and individual citizens. The contributors suggest that the sharp distinction between civil society and the state, common in much continental thought, was of only limited application in a British context. They show how past understandings of the term were often very different from (even in some respects the exact opposite of) those held today, arguing that it makes more sense to understand civil society as a phenomenon that varies between differenc cultures and periods, rather than a universally applicable set of principles and procedures.
