When 38-year-old Conner O’Rourke returns to Ireland, he’s running from his past. His advertising agency in Sydney is going broke, the bank is foreclosing on his mortgage, and he’s hearing voices in his mind urging him to return to Inis Mór. His grandmother, whom he hasn’t seen in years, has contacted him saying she's critically ill and must speak with him, but when he arrives on Inis Mór, a wild, windswept, rocky little island some 30 miles off the West Coast of Ireland, she’s already passed, leaving him a cottage and a dilapidated sailing boat.

Covering the Ice Age to the recent Scottish Referendum, the acclaimed historian and author explores the history of the Scottish nation. Focusing on key moments such as the Battle of Bannockburn and the Jacobite risings, Moffat also features other episodes in history that are perhaps less well documented. From prehistoric timber halls to inventions and literature, Moffat's epic explores the drama of battle, change, loss, and innovation interspersed with the lives of ordinary Scottish folk, the men and women who defined a nation.

An almost limitless archive of our history lies hidden inside our bodies, and this book traces the ancient story of Scotland from that scientific viewpoint. The mushrooming of genetic studies, of DNA analysis, is rewriting history in spectacular fashion. In Scotland: A Genetic Journey, Alistair Moffat explores the history that is printed on our genes, and in a remarkable new approach, uncovers the detail of where Scots are from, where they have journeyed, and who they are - and in so doing, vividly colors in a DNA map of Scotland.

Emma Gray was just 23 when she moved to an isolated farm in Northumberland, becoming Britain's youngest solo shepherdess. In the seasons that followed, Emma fell in love with its rolling fields, sycamore trees and sturdy farmhouse, where she tended her sheep and trained her dogs - and even found romance along the way. But when Emma finds herself suddenly alone again, heartbroken, mourning the loss of loved ones and recovering from a serious accident, she can't help but wonder if her isolated existence is still such a sensible idea.

In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration commissioned an oral history of the remaining former slaves. Bullwhip Days is a remarkable compendium of selections from these extraordinary interviews, providing an unflinching portrait of the world of government-sanctioned slavery of Africans in America. Here are 29 full narrations, as well as nine sections of excerpts related to particular aspects of slave life, from religion to plantation life to the Reconstruction era.

Everybody knew Velma Barfield as the perfect wife and a loving grandmother. But there was something about her that nobody knew.... Velma Barfield had a secret life and a sick urge to kill.

George Orwell's classic satire of the Russian Revolution is an intimate part of our contemporary culture, quoted so often that we tend to forget who wrote the original words! This must-read is also a must-listen!

When 23-year-old shepherdess Emma Gray breaks off her engagement, the chance to take over an isolated Northumberland farm seems just the fresh start she needs. But while the beautiful scenery certainly offers plenty of scope for contemplation, a night out with an eligible bachelor soon seems more remote than the farm itself. And once you add fugitive sheep and freak blizzards into the mix, Emma's dreams of a happy future at Fallowlees Farm quickly begin to fade.

Too personal for an almanac, too sophisticated for a domestic history, and too funny and self-doubting for a literary journal, One Man's Meat can best be described as a primer of a countryman's lessons and a timeless recounting of experience that will never go out of style.

Thoreau's classic account of the solitary life, describing his attempts to simplify his life and sort out his priorities by living alone in a cabin beside Walden Pond for nearly two years, is one of the most influential books ever written. The bible of the environmental movement, Walden vividly portrays Thoreau's reverence for nature, and his understanding of the idea that nature is made up of crucially interrelated parts.

The 23 tales in this set have never lost their popularity and sell in their millions all over the world. Meet again the famous characters that children love and adore...Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, the Flopsy Bunnies, Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, Tom Kitten, Jeremy Fisher, Jemima Puddle-Duck and many more.

From lavish palace for Elizabethan nobles to dreary jailhouse for 18th-century prisoners of war, from well-manicured country house for a string of landed families to weed-choked ruin, Sissinghurst, in Kent, has become one of the most illustrious estates in England - and its future may prove to be just as intriguing as its past. In the 1930s, English poet Vita Sackville-West and her husband, Harold Nicolson, acquired land that had once been owned by Vita's ancestors.

One grey dismal day, Janine Marsh was on a trip to northern France to pick up some cheap wine. She returned to England a few hours later having put in an offer on a rundown old barn in the rural Seven Valleys area of Pas de Calais. This was not something she'd expected or planned for. Janine eventually gave up her job in London to move with her husband to live the good life in France. Or so she hoped. While getting to grips with the locals and la vie Française, and renovating her dilapidated new house, a building lacking the comforts of mains drainage, heating, or proper rooms.

From one of the finest scientists and writers of our time comes an engaging record of a life spent in close observation of the natural world, one that has yielded marvelous, mind-altering insight and discoveries. In essays that span several decades, Bernd Heinrich finds himself at his beloved camp in Maine, plays host to annoying visitors from Europe (the cluster fly) and more helpful guests from Asia (ladybugs), and unravels the far-reaching ecological consequences of elephants in Botswana bruising mopane trees.

Canadian botanist, biochemist, and visionary Diana Beresford-Kroeger's startling insights into the hidden life of trees have already sparked a quiet revolution in how we understand our relationship to forests. Now, in a captivating account of how her life led her to these illuminating and crucial ideas, she shows us how forests can not only heal us but save the planet.