Many people have a love of maps. But what lies behind the process of map-making? How have cartographers through the centuries developed their craft and established a language of maps which helps them to better represent our world and users to underst...

There are many things cats can do which children can't, such as lap up milk and use their tongues as combs. There are also a number of things that cats can't do, like sing children to sleep, or get down from trees... Abner Graboff combines the voice...

Pronunciation governs our regional and social identity more powerfully than any other aspect of spoken language. No wonder, then, that it has attracted most attention from satirists. In this intriguing book, David Crystal shows how our feelings about...

Many things in the natural world are round – the moon, the sun, a nest, a bubble. And so are many delicious things to eat – a ball of ice-cream, a doughnut, a pie. And so too are more decorative objects such as a crown, a clock or a bauble on a Chris...

Little Jonny ponders the meaning of colours as he explores the landscape. He dips his toes in a blue brook, picks purple flowers, digs brown earth and finds an enormous orange pumpkin. Finally yellow sunlight and the black night show him when it is t...

Thames aficionado Robert Gibbings once wrote that "the quiet of an age-old river is like the slow turning of the pages of a well-loved book". "Writing the Thames" tells a much-loved river's story through the remarkable prose, poetry and illustration...

When did the British Government become the world's largest drugs pusher? What tree is frequently used to treat cancer? Which everyday condiment is the most widely traded spice on the planet? Plants are an indispensable part of our everyday life. Fro...

Acutely aware of the changes in English usage at the close of the Victorian era, the lexicographer James Redding Ware (1832-1909) decided to record for posterity new and archaic words and phrases from all walks of life, from the curses in common use...

"That is the way of the largest creature on earth. That is the whale's way". The humpback whales journey through polar seas, diving, spouting and leaping. As winter comes they swim through treacherous waters towards the warmer climate of the equator...

Wilfred Owen is the poet of pity, the voice of the soldier maimed, blinded, traumatised and killed, not just in the Great War, but in all wars since, so resonant has his message become. Although he saw only five of his poems published in his lifetime...