What skills does one really need to be a modern man?After being given yet another pointless 'man manual' that told him 50 ways to tie a bow tie in under 30 seconds, James May was certain there was a need for another kind of book. This book, in fact.He reckons there are nine vital things that a chap should be able to do. Not stuff you can download from the Internet, but really important things. You never know when you might need to land an A330 Airbus, or de...

Top Gear presenter and columnist for the Daily Telegraph James May brings together another brilliant collection of his most controversial and humorous writing.From tales of motoring adventures through India, Russia and Iceland, to classic articles on essential subjects such as driving songs and haunted car parks, these gems from the number one car connoisseur will take readers on a motoring journey that will amuse and entertain in equal measure.

Why does a man with a Ferrari and a Porsche drive a Fiat Panda? Is going fast really necessary? Is it your fault if you get run over? Why will electric cars really save the planet (possibly)?In Carbolics the UK's favourite petrol head (after Clarkson and Hammond) James May answers these questions and more.Across 80 essays, James gives his quirky, entertaining take on cars, motorbikes, trucks - and explains why the bicycle might just be the best inv...

Our world has been transformed beyond recognition, particularly in the twentieth century, and so were our lives and our aspirations.Throughout James May's Magnificent Machines, our Top Gear guide explores the iconic themes of the past hundred years: flight, space travel, television, mechanised war, medicine, computers, electronic music, skyscrapers, electronic espionage and much more.But he also reveals the hidden story behind why some inv...

For at least two decades now modern man has been on the brink of a crisis.Persuaded by both the post-feminist political landscape and his representation in the popular media to remodel himself as an endearingly hopeless halfwit, he now exists only as an object of pity.James and his happy band of brothers (plus a few women, but we try to edit them out) are engaged on a quest to lead maledom to a broad sunlit upland strewn with slim books of English verse and...

Solovetsky occupies the island site of a former monastery in the White Sea. Here, hundreds of miles from civilization and with a skeleton crew of secret-policemen in charge, some prisoners are consigned to all kinds of forced labor while others sit at comfortable desks in administrative or cultural positions. With the brutal winter fast approaching, Tolya Bogomolov, a young mathematician serving a three-year sentence, hopes an acquaintance he’s been cultivating will lead to a less brutal w...

Top Gear's James May is back with his hilarious and controversial opinions on . . . just about everything.As well as writing about his first love, cars, James has a go at political correctness, the endless rules and regulations of daily life, the internal combustion engine and traffic wardens. He discusses gastropubs, Jeremy Clarkson and other trials of modern life.His highly entertaining observations from behind the wheel will have you laughing out loud, w...

Man was created in God's image, but evolution has changed us. Our genetic code has been ripped, torn and reshaped through the generations. Now, these changes plague a small town with grizzly corpses and mysteries as old as man himself. This bizarre series of deaths exposes the secrets of man's creation and powers carefully guarded throughout the centuries that will ensure man's survival.

Oh Cook! is a foolproof manual packed with practical information and delicious recipes for even the most basic of home cooks. If, like James May, the sight of the kitchen strikes fear into your very heart and you can’t identify a spatula from a fish slice – this is the book for you.‘The silent millions of reluctant home chefs have been waiting for decades for Oh Cook! – the cookbook that, finally, drives a blunt meat skewer through the burgeoning pseudo-intellectu...

Reassembly is merely a form of therapy; something that stimulates a part of my brain that is left wanting in my daily life. When I rebuild a bicycle, I re-order my head. So might you...I'm delighted that you will be holding in your hands a book about putting things back together. It's a subject that fascinates me but which I assumed was a lonely passion that I would take to the grave, unconsummated by the normal channels of human interaction.Welcome! You and I, we are not a...

Best known as the third presenter in the unholy trinity that is Clarkson, Hammond and May on Top Gear, James May has lived, breathed and dreamt about cars his entire life.There is something about cars that stirs up intense feelings in people - how it makes them look to the outside world, how it makes them feel about themselves, how it looks to their girlfriends or their mates, or their neighbours. These feelings are humorously described in May on Motors, as James t...

An inspiring introduction to French wine with a unique travel angle, tied in to a primetime 6-part BBC2 series, Oz and James's Big Wine Adventure brings us French wine made simple.Oz Clarke - award-winning writer, critic and committed Francophile - is one of the world's leading authorities on French wine. James May - overgrown boy racer , Top Gear presenter and journalist - knows nothing about wine and loathes what he calls 'wine ponces'. In Sideways style, they t...