Popular Reference - Michael O'Mara Books - Independent Publisher UK

The Good Bee

alex — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 03:17:19 +0000

Bees are enigmatic creatures that have long attracted human admiration and fascination. But even more than that, they are a key lynchpin in the workings of the entire natural world. And we’re not just talking about honey bees.

There are over 20,000 species of bees worldwide and only a handful of those actually make honey. Some live in colonies but others are solitary. We can all help protect them – and they desperately need protecting – but you can’t save what you don’t love. And you can’t love what you don’t know.

The Good Bee is a celebration of this most vital and mysterious of nature’s wizards. Here you’ll discover the complexities of bee behaviour – as well as the intriguing bits that continue to baffle us – the part they play in the natural world, their relationship with us throughout history, how they are already under serious threat, and, crucially, what we can all do about it.

Beautifully produced, with hand-made illustrations throughout, this is an essential handbook and a book to treasure.

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The Secret Library

alex — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 03:16:05 +0000

How much do you know about the Victorian novelist who outsold Dickens? Or the woman who became the first published poet in America? Do you know what connects Homer’s Iliad to Aesop’s Fables?

The Secret Library explores these intriguing morsels of lesser-known history, along with the familiar literary heavyweights we know and love. Bringing together an eclectic literary mix of novels, plays, travel books, science books and joke books, author Oliver Tearle explores how the history of the Western World has intersected with all kinds of books over the last 3,000 years.

Delve into this treasure trove of curious literary examples to learn how our history and books are inextricably linked.

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The Weather Book

alex — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 03:11:41 +0000

From exhilarating electrical storms to everyday drizzle, this book is the perfect entertaining guide to our favourite topic of small talk: the weather.

Our moods are affected by it; our plans are ruined by it; our conversations undoubtedly cover it – the weather is integral to our everyday lives. But while we groan at clouds obscuring the sun, rejoice when the rain stops, and gasp at loud cracks of thunder, for many of us the systems behind these weather patterns are a complete mystery.

The Weather Book breaks down all manner of meteorological phenomena with handy diagrams and explanations in simple layman’s terms. From electrical storms and cyclones to the everyday drizzle, and including fascinating anecdotes of weather at its most extreme, this is a practical and engaging guide to understanding all things meteorological.

If you’ve ever wondered which old wives tales you can actually trust (does lightning really only strike once?) or wondered if there is any truth to the phrase ‘raining cats and dogs’ (in reality it’s more likely to be raining frogs), this book will answer all your weather related queries and teach you more about this endlessly fascinating topic.

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The Wild Life of Animals

Publicity — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 02:53:54 +0000

A colourful and comical tour through the animal kingdom from award-winning author Mike Barfield and quirky cartoonist and illustrator Paula Bossio.

Featuring key habitats, including seas, forests, deserts and grasslands, this book uncovers the little-known but amazing adaptations, bonkers behaviour and cunning natural skills of the world’s most interesting animals. Each story is told from the animal’s own perspective. Covering creatures from all over the world, readers will meet flying snakes in the rainforest, vampire squid in the ocean and meerkats in the desert. This hilarious guide, full of fascinating facts, will entrance animal lovers everywhere, and reveal the wild lives of animals like no other.

Winner of the Hampshire Information Book award 2024

Publishing in 2024:
The Wild Life of Prehistoric Animals 9781780559322

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I Used to Know That: History

alex — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 02:52:46 +0000

If your response to a mention of the Wars of the Roses, the Sumerians or the Reformation is, ‘Hmm, I’ve heard of that – what was that again?’, then this is the book for you.

This entertaining yet informative book travels back through time to fill in those embarrassing gaps in your knowledge, from the invasions of Britain, the Renaissance and the Cold War, to the American, French and Russian Revolutions, the World Wars … and everything else you have forgotten from your school history lessons.

In I Used to Know That: History, information is broken down into manageable, bite-sized chunks, refreshing your memory of all those things you once knew but have forgotten, and filling you in on the bits that the school syllabus didn’t include. From building the pyramids in Egypt to the fall of the Berlin Wall, everything you used to know – and much that you didn’t – is here.

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Retro Gaming

alex — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 02:45:52 +0000

‘Superb coffee table book’ – Nintendo Life
‘A fun read’ – Retro Gamer

Take a trip down memory lane with Retro Gaming, and relive the glory days (and not so glory days) of your old retro tech favourites.

Published in paperback to tie-in with 50 years of console gaming, Retro Gaming is packed with all the characters, games, consoles and franchises you used to love – and probably still do. This is a compact, conversational compendium of all-time highs – alongside just a handful of humorous (in hindsight) lows – from decades of arcade, computer, console and handheld hits.

From Atari’s early arcade classics and home games consoles of the 1970s, through to classics that keep on giving, such as Halo and Tomb Raider, this book summarizes the significant releases, research and revolutions that have made video games a £100 billion (and rising) industry.

Evergreen favourites from Nintendo, SEGA and Sony are present and correct – no collection would be complete without entries for Mario and Sonic, Tetris and Crash Bandicoot. But we also give credit to the less-celebrated but utterly vital titles, characters, controllers and systems that have helped the world of gaming expand and evolve.

A guide, a companion and a window onto a joyous past, Retro Gaming is a perfect book to dip in and out of, as mood and your current gaming habits dictate.

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365 Cool Ways to Remember Stuff

Publicity — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 02:37:51 +0000

365 Cool Ways to Remember Stuff is packed with tips, tricks, rhymes and mnemonics to help with memorizing everything, from grammar, spelling and punctuation to maths, science and history.

Can you remember how many days there are in each month? Or the names of the planets in the solar system? How about the difference between a noun and a verb?

365 Cool Ways to Remember Stuff will show you how to memorize the key facts in almost every school subject. With the help of the book’s simple pointers, even the trickiest of facts will become memorable. The fun illustrations and engaging, educational text are sure to inspire and empower kids to confidently learn, remember and use new knowledge, both in and out of school.

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Dog Speak

Publicity — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 02:35:11 +0000

This beautifully illustrated little book of canine communication explains the creative ways that our dogs talk to us, whether it’s tilting their head, chasing their tail or sitting on your feet.

Dogs are the most common household pets throughout the world – for some, it’s an excitable Yorkshire terrier, for others an attentive Labrador retriever. But we can deepen that bond by accurately understanding what they’re trying to communicate. While we humans mostly rely on words to express how we feel, dogs mainly talk to us, and each other, through a series of facial expressions, body language and other doggy behaviour. If we want to really bond with our much-loved pets, we need to understand what they’re trying to tell us with that tail wag, hard stare, or when they’re destroying our favourite pair of shoes.

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Old Wives' Lore for Gardeners

Publicity — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 02:15:36 +0000

Packed full of the age-old wisdom and expertise of generations of gardeners, who used their down-to-earth and practical experience to create beautiful, productive and useful gardens without spending a fortune.

Behind every beautiful garden is the skill and experience of the gardener who tends it. How do you know which plants will thrive in your patch, given the bewildering array on offer? How do you know what soil and location they will like? And what do you do about all those pests just waiting to tuck in, not to mention the fungal diseases that suddenly turn your rose leaves from glossy green to blotchy yellow and coat other leaves with a powdery white dust? Just how do you tackle these gardening challenges, while being eco friendly at the same time?

This is where Old Wives’ Lore for Gardeners comes in. Packed within its pages is all the age-old wisdom of generations of gardeners, people who knew a thing or two about plants. They lived before the days of chemical pesticides and concocted kitchen-cupboard remedies to treat pests and diseases. They gardened organically – although they wouldn’t have called it that – because there was no other choice on offer.

With a wealth of savvy and cost-effective tips and advice, intriguing facts, snippets of history and quotes, Old Wives’ Lore for Gardeners is not only a fascinating read but also an invaluable guide to the gardening practices of old, which are as relevant today as they have ever been.

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Sherlock Unlocked

alex — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 01:39:24 +0000

Daniel Smith looks behind what we think we know about the well-known sleuth and reveals little-known facts of which every Sherlock aficionado should be aware.

Consulting detective Sherlock Holmes has been fascinating generations of readers, watchers and listeners for over 130 years, since he first appeared in print in 1887. Now an internationally renowned cultural icon, his name appears on books, films, television dramas, radio plays, stage adaptations and the rest right across the world and he is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as ‘the most portrayed movie character’ in history.

With all this material readily available, one might think there’s not much to find out about Sherlock, but in Sherlock Unlocked, Daniel Smith looks behind what we think we know about the well-known sleuth and reveals little-known facts of which every Sherlock aficionado should be aware. From the eccentric and odd characters to the bizarre plot twists, and from Conan Doyle to Moriarty, this book will appeal to Holmes’ fans old and new.

Full of fascinating facts, such as:

– The shameful addiction of Watson’s that Holmes kept secret – a dark gambling habit.
– The part the legendary Langham Hotel played, in both Conan Doyle’s literary friendships – including with Oscar Wilde – and in the storylines he created for Holmes and Watson.
– The Real Moriarty? The true-life London underworld thief-taker, Jonathan Wild, was a model for Professor Moriarty
– Holmes's retirement passion was bee-keeping.
– One of Conan Doyle’s childhood teachers, Eugene Chantrelle, became a notorious murderer.

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