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Welcome
The Holiday & Travel Directory Bookstore features the best travel guides and other books that you need for your holiday, in association with Amazon.co.uk.
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Bookstore
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The Midland Hotel: Morecambe's White Hope
Barry Guise, Pam Brook
(2008)
Hardcover - 224 pages
Palatine Books
ISBN: 1874181543
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
On a sunny afternoon in July 1933, a remarkable building opened its doors to the public for the first time. The London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company had taken the bold step of replacing its old Victorian hotel on Morecambe's seafront with a sparkling white Modernist structure - quite unlike anything seen before in an English seaside resort. Acclaimed from every quarter for its revolutionary architecture and the quality of its interior, with outstanding works by leading artists of the day, the Midland Hotel was unique. Resplendent on the promenade, its gleaming facade promising a bright future, the Midland was seen as the town's 'white hope'.
This book, with its numerous superb illustrations, tells the fascinating story of the hotel from its inception and 1930s prime, through its role as a hospital in World War Two, its sale into private ownership and fluctuating fortunes up to the present day. Having reached rock-bottom in 2002, this former embodiment of glamour and luxury was a sorry sight. Empty, save for the vagrants and pigeons, with peeling paint, broken windows and a leaking roof, it barely staved off demolition. At the eleventh hour, however, rescue came in the shape of award-winning property developers Urban Splash who purchased the building in 2003. The multi-million pound project to rehabilitate the hotel for the twenty-first century is nearing completion and the building is scheduled to re-open in the spring of 2008. Retaining the elegance and style which made the Midland Hotel so special, this beautifully restored hotel is set once again to be Morecambe's 'gleaming white hope'. This book comes now with a superb brand new extra section bringing the story up to date with the completion and opening of the hotel.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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The British Seaside Holiday
Kathryn Ferry
(2009)
Paperback - 128 pages
Shire Publications
ISBN: 0747807272
Synopsis by publisher:
Old-fashioned seaside holidays inspire a great deal of nostalgic affection among British people. Quintessential elements such as seaside donkeys and sickly sticks of rock are easily identifiable and memorable ingredients of a tradition that most people in this country have experienced.
Focusing on the hundred year period from 1870 to 1970, this volume takes a nostalgic journey through the promenades, deckchairs and sandcastles to discover how ordinary people spent their seaside holidays. Colourful photographs and images are brought to life with light-hearted commentary revealing the history behind these idyllic trips to the seaside - how did we get there, where did we stay, and how did we spend our days? Each captivating chapter explores a different aspect of holiday life to build a complete picture of the social and historical significance of the classic British seaside holiday.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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Eleven Minutes Late: A Train Journey to the Soul of Britain
Matthew Engel
(2010)
Paperback - 336 pages
Pan
ISBN: 0330512374
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
Britain gave railways to the world, yet its own network is the dearest (definitely) and the worst (probably) in Western Europe. Trains are deeply embedded in the national psyche and folklore - yet it is considered uncool to care about them.
For Matthew Engel the railway system is the ultimate expression of Britishness. It represents all the nation's ingenuity, incompetence, nostalgia, corruption, humour, capacity for suffering and even sexual repression. To uncover its mysteries, Engel has travelled the system from Penzance to Thurso, exploring its history and talking to people from politicians to platform staff.
Along the way Engel ('half-John Betjeman, half-Victor Meldrew') finds the most charmingly bizarre train in Britain, the most beautiful branch line, the rudest railwayman, and - after a quest lasting decades - an Individual Pot of Strawberry Jam. Eleven Minutes Late is both a polemic and a paean, and it is also very funny.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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Walking London's Statues and Monuments
Rupert Hill
(2010)
Paperback - 160 pages
New Holland Publishers Ltd
ISBN: 1847735991
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
This is a captivating addition to New Holland's London walks list, focusing on important, memorable or beautiful statues, sculptures and monuments around London. The 13 walks featured take around one to two hours to complete and each take in between 20 and 40 works. The reader is given all the relevant information about both the walk and the work of art, which include themes such as historical, armed forces, theatre and all current sculpture in London from Hyde Park to Greenwich, including Canary Wharf (with a view to the 2012 Olympics). The book is elegantly illustrated with artworks of the statues drawn in pen and ink with a colour wash. With classical and modern sculptures to visit, the book provides a fascinating overview of the people and events the capital has chosen to commemorate and the way different artists have undertaken their commissions.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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Avant Gardeners: 50 Visionaries of the Contemporary Landscape
Tim Richardson
(2009)
Paperback - 352 pages
Thames and Hudson
ISBN: 0500288267
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
The leading edge of recent garden design has not only embraced the latest thinking in science and materials, but also appropriated ideas from related disciplines, such as architecture and product design, redefining and blurring the borders of nature and the man-made in the process.
Avant Gardeners presents the fifty most exciting and innovative contemporary garden- and landscape-design practices from around the world. The work of each designer is profiled through informative texts and projects shown in photographs and plans.
Throughout the book, essays explore the underlying principles of these highly individual approaches to creating outdoor spaces and show how a rising generation has rejected the naturalistic tradition of Western garden design, favouring instead the influences of Modernism, Postmodernism, Pop Art and Land Art.
With over 100 projects, the book is an encyclopaedic look at the most advanced contemporary thinking in garden design and offers a rich and inspirational archive for practitioners and enthusiasts – indeed for anyone who delights in the great outdoors.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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The Most Amazing Places to Visit in Britain
Reader's Digest
(2006)
Paperback - 319 pages
Reader's Digest
ISBN: 0276441761
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
Discover Britain as you've never known it before, with "Amazing Places to Visit in Britain". Reader's Digest and a team of experienced travel writers, whose credits include the Sunday Times, Holiday Which? and the Daily Telegraph among many others, have specially chosen the 1,000 most amazing places in Britain to feature in this book. From castles, cathedrals, stately homes and natural wonders to power stations, bellfoundries and even a water tower, this book reflects the diversity of fascinating places that Britain has to offer.
Read about some of the world's best early medieval stained glass, found in Canterbury Cathedral, and then turn to an entry on the ossuary at St Leonard's church in Hythe housing 2,000 human skulls, or the Donnington Grand Prix collection at Donnington Park. "Amazing Places in Britain" is a modern guidebook to Britain, and as such includes entries you won't find in most UK guidebooks. From the Umbrella Shop on New Oxford Street in London to the Oldbury Power Station on the River Severn and a Soviet submarine in Folkestone harbour, this unique reference guide will ensure that you'll never see Britain in the same way again. The book is arranged by county and region for easy reference and includes a regional map for each section pinpointing the places featured as well as giving all the information you need to help you plan your visit. In addition, there are 54 special features, providing extra information about a particular topic relevant to the section in which it appears. Learn the history of the Somerset Levels, what prehistoric Uffington was like, or discover more about the diversity of ethnic Leicester. You'll also find walks, with accompanying maps, in Bath, along the Birmingham canals and in Constable's country. Whether you're looking for a place to visit or simply wanting to find out more about a region, you'll find plenty of inspiration in "The Most Amazing Places to Visit in Britain".
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North
Stuart Maconie
(2008)
Paperback - 354 pages
Ebury Press
ISBN: 0091910234
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
A Northerner in exile, Stuart Maconie goes on a journey in search of the North, attempting to discover where the cliches end and the truth begins. He travels from Wigan Pier to Blackpool Tower and Newcastle's Bigg Market to the Lake District to find his own Northern Soul, encountering along the way an exotic cast of chippy Scousers, pie-eating woollybacks, topless Geordies, mad-for-it Mancs, Yorkshire nationalists and brothers in southern exile.
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1000 Things for Kids to Do in the Holidays
Time Out Guides
(2009)
Paperback - 320 pages
Time Out Group Ltd
ISBN: 1846700906
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
"1000 Things for Kids to Do in the Holidays" offers inspirational and exciting ideas for children of all ages, from toddlers to teens. Crammed with sights, excursions and events throughout Britain, as well as activities to do at home, it covers all categories, from the adventurous to the educational, from the eco-friendly to just plain fun. How about swimming in Loch Ness? Or watching monkeys in Dorset? Build a hedgehog shelter, sleep in a windmill, join the circus, make sushi, hunt for dinosaurs, learn to drive off-road: whether you're looking for special-occasion experiences or everyday pleasures, you'll never run out of ways to entertain the children again.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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Around The World In 80 Gardens
Monty Don
(2008)
Hardcover - 288 pages
Weidenfeld & Nicolson General
ISBN: 0297844504
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
'If I have learned only one thing from my travels around the world it is that no garden is an island. Context is everything.' Monty Don visits each continent in this landmark series on gardens of the world. We are introduced to the unique floating gardens of the Amazon and the colourful alpine flower meadows of Norway, modest domestic gardens in Havana and Bali, Monet's world-famous Giverny and the Dutch tour-de-force Het Loo, the formal magnificence of Renaissance Italian water gardens, the tropical planting traditions of Thailand, and the intriguing fusion of indigenous and colonial garden cultures in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Each garden is placed in context, horticultural preconceptions are abandoned and Monty is constantly surprised by the unexpected locations where gardens thrive. A vivid account of travel, adventure, beauty and the pursuit of knowledge.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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St Pancras Station
Simon Bradley
(2007)
Paperback - 224 pages
Profile Books Ltd
ISBN: 1861979517
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
An iconic London landmark of Gothic dream palace and futuristic train shed - built in the 1860s for the new Midland Railway line into London, St. Pancras is soon to be reincarnated as the main international gateway from London to the Continent. In 1866, the ancient churchyard of St. Pancras was excavated for the new Midlands Railway line into London. Both the train shed and the Midland Grand hotel, the constituent parts of the new station, are outstanding structures: the train shed for its structural daring and drama, the hotel for its heroic attempt to adapt Gothic architecture for the requirements of modernity. In 2002, more of the churchyard was excavated as part of the station's transformation for the Channel Tunnel terminus. The work, to be finished in 2007, will reinvent St. Pancras as the main hub for rail travellers between the UK and Europe. In the years between, the station has flourished, but has also come close to being demolished. Simon Bradley examines this fascinating story of changes in taste and of our understanding of the past. It is a reminder of the revolutionary effects of the railway and of how the innovations of the Industrial Revolution have weathered subsequent technological change. St. Pancras demands to be understood for the continuing thrall in which great urban monuments can hold us.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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Historic Gardens of Cornwall
Timothy Mowl
(2005)
Paperback - 208 pages
Tempus Publishing
ISBN: 0752434365
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
This is the fourth volume in Timothy Mowl's ground-breaking county series on historic English gardens, now sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust. Cornwall is particularly strong on nineteenth- and twentieth-century gardens, in which the mild climate allows many exotic species to flourish. The 'Lost' Gardens of Heligan and the Eden Project have made the county a particular favourite among garden-lovers. As in Dr Mowl's previous volumes there is nothing bland about either his selection of important gardens or his comments about them, which are as incisive as they are informed
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Great British Bus Journeys: Travels Through Unfamous Places
David McKie
(2006)
Hardcover - 352 pages
Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1843541327
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
Great British Bus Journeys travels to Britain's most unfashionable towns (using the least reliable method of transport) to uncover the nation's secret history. Starting on a green bus in Leeds, the city of his birth, and culminating atop the number 94 as it swooshes past Trafalgar Square in London, David McKie reclaims British towns from the embarrassment and neglect for which they are famed. From Frinton-on-Sea to Bradwell-juxta-Mare, McKie rescues cities and villages from the condescension of snobbish urbanites.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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Gardens of the National Trust
Stephen Lacey
(2005)
Hardcover - 400 pages
National Trust Books
ISBN: 1905400004
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
When the National Trust decided to take on the care of gardens, the aim was that these would be the very best of their kind in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust now has the finest collection of gardens ever assembled under one ownership - the greatest in number, diversity, historic importance and quality. Taken together they contain the world's most important collection of cultivated plants, distinguished for their beauty, rarity, historical interest and scientific value. First published in 1996, this new edition has been substantially revised to showcase superb new photography, and to introduce recently acquired properties such as Greenway in Devon and the gardens of houses such as Red House in Kent and Tyntesfield in Somerset. Stephen Lacey paints a vivid picture of individual Trust gardens through historical and horticultural perspectives. He gives his personal take, describing the present state of each and placing it firmly within the context of gardening history in Britain. All the major periods are represented: a knot garden from a 1640 design at Moseley Old Hall in Staffordshire; magnificent eighteenth-century landscapes such as 'Capability' Brown's at Petworth in Sussex; Victorian Gardens like Biddulph Grange in Staffordshire, with its wealth of new plants introduced from all over the world; and the famous plantsmen's gardens of the last century, such as Nymans in Sussex, Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, and Hidcote in Gloucestershire.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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A Picture of Britain
David Dimbleby
(2005)
Hardcover - 224 pages
Tate Publishing
ISBN: 1854375660
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
David Dimbleby says: "I have always loved painting and scenery. The connection between the British landscape seen by all of us with the naked eye and the same landscape seen through the eyes of artists, musicians and writers is fascinating. In 'A Picture of Britain' I will be exploring these links and looking at their impact on our national character, seeking out the countryside we admire and the reasons we cherish it."
Accompanying a major new BBC One series presented by David Dimbleby and an important exhibition at Tate Britain, A Picture of Britain is a celebration of the British landscape and the art that it has inspired, from Constable to Lowry, from Turner to Nash. Written by David Dimbleby and leading experts on British art from Tate, it is beautifully illustrated with landscape photography and great works of art. From the slopes of Snowdonia to the industrial Black Country. from the grandeur of the Scottish Highlands to the meadows of Suffolk, the British landscape has inspired artists and writers for generations. But the authors show that it is only in the last two hundred years, stirred by art and poetry, that large numbers of people have sought out and visited wilder and more rugged vistas. In paintings, photographs and words, this remarkable book captures our rich cultural heritage, creating for the reader A Picture of Britain.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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Great City Parks
Alan Tate
(2004)
Paperback - 224 pages
Spon Press
ISBN: 0415306361
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
Great City Parks is a comparative study of twenty significant public parks in a number of major cities in Western Europe and North America. As a collection they give a clear picture of why parks have been created, how they have been designed, how they are managed, and what plans are being made for them at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The examination of each park looks at the size and condition of the sites at the time of designation, and looks at the reason for their designation and at the key figures behind the decisions to build them. The principal designers are profiled in terms of their backgrounds and the values that they brought to the projects. Each park is then examined in terms of its planning and design - looking at its location in the city, and the shape, size and existing landform of the site. The original design concept is reviewed in terms of spatial structure, circulation systems and intended character. The examinations then review the current status of the parks, looking at the organisations which manage them - how they are appointed; how they canvass their users' views; how the parks are funded - and at the patterns of use. The final sections of each park study looks at current plans for each of the parks. The study concludes by considering whether there are clear planning, design and management criteria for 'successful' city parks. Great City Parks is a celebration and rationale for some of the finest achievements of landscape architecture in the public realm. Based on unique research including extensive site visits and interviews with the managing organisations, the text is amplified by clear plans and professional photographs for each park. This book reflects a belief that well-planned, well-designed and well-managed parks remain invaluable components of liveable and hospitable cities. This fascinating book will appeal to Landscape Architects, Architects, Urban Planners, Park Managers, and anyone who appreciates the special role of parks in our urban environment.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett
(1998)
Paperback - 311 pages
University of California Press
ISBN: 0520209664
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
This volume takes the reader on a journey from ethnological artifacts to kitsch. Posing the question, "What does it mean to show?", the author explores the agency of display in a variety of settings: museums, festivals, world's fairs, historical re-creations, memorials and tourist attractions. She talks about how objects - and people - are made to "perform" their meaning for us by the very fact of being collected and exhibited and about how specific techniques of display, not just the things shown, convey powerful messages. The analysis shows how museums compete with tourism in the production of "heritage." To make themselves profitable, museums are marketing themselves as tourist attractions. To make locations into destinations, tourism is staging the world as a museum of itself. Both promise to deliver heritage. Although heritage is marketeted as something old, she argues that heritage is actually a new mode of cultural production that gives a second life to dying ways of life, economies and places. The book concludes with a commentary on the "good taste/bad taste" debate in the ephemeral "museum of the life world," where everyone is a curator of sorts and the process of converting life into heritage begins.
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Antonio Gaudi
Juan Bassegoda Nonell, Melba Levick (Photographer)
(2001 - New Edition)
Hardcover - 285 pages
Abbeville Press
ISBN: 0789206900
Synopsis by Amazon.co.uk:
Antonio Gaudi (1852-1926) is one of the best-known architects of the 20th century. Even today, some 75 years after Gaudi's death, his playful, exuberant buildings continue to influence architects, sculptors, and designers. Perhaps most identified with the dynamic, sculptural facades found on his structures, Gaudi is respected as much for his technological innovations as for his daring style. In this enlightening, portable volume, a concise, knowledgeable text by the director of the Catedra Gaudi at the University of Barcelona is brilliantly illustrated with 200 images by a gifted architectural photographer to provide a new perspective on Gaudi's remarkable career. The author traces the influences that led to the architect's definitive style, from his fascination with the Orient and Neogothicism to his love of naturalism and geometric forms. Here is the full range of his oeuvre, including the innovative residences for the Guell family; the daring new structural solutions at Bellesguard; architecture inspired by nature in the Park Guell; and finally his unfinished masterpiece, the Church of the Sagrada Familia, which occupied him until his death. This handsome overview of Gaudi's visionary work is ideal for those who delight in his architecture, as well as those who look forward to traveling to Spain to see his monumental legacy.
Check Amazon.co.uk for pricing and availability
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