With 19 spells at various clubs in the Football League, Jon Parkin has cut an instantly recognisable figure in English football for the past 20 years. At 6'4 and weighing in as one of football's heavyweights, Parkin has played more than 600 games during his time with Barnsley, Hartlepool, York, Macclesfield Town, Hull City, Stoke City, Preston, Cardiff, Doncaster, Huddersfield, Scunthorpe, Fleetwood, Forest Green, Newport County and back to York where he is currently top scorer. This is hi...

A riotous peek into the off-beat world of one of football’s most recognisablecharacters, Jon Parkin.The much-travelled journeyman striker played for more than 20 clubs during acareer that stretched over two decades, and he has since become a co-host of thehugely popular Undr The Cosh podcast.Known as ‘The Beast’ due to his height and weight, this gentle giant has amischievous and irrepressible sense of humour that has won him thousands of fans.

Thomas Hobbes is widely acknowledged as the most important political philosopher to have written in English. Originally published in 2007, Taming the Leviathan is a wide-ranging study of the English reception of Hobbes's ideas. In the first book-length treatment of the topic for over forty years, Jon Parkin follows the fate of Hobbes's texts (particularly Leviathan) and the development of his controversial reputation during the seventeenth century, revealing the stakes in the critical disc...

This book explores the reasons for difficulties in making cycling mainstream in many cultures, despite its claims for being one of the most sustainable forms of transport. In conditions of relatively low use, cycle users become more closely identified with their means of transport than users of other modes. Such personality-based considerations led to the need initially for the book to explore the cultural development of cycling in countries with high use and the differences in use between...

Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Non-FictionWinner of the 2011 National Book Award for Non-FictionOne of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it.Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late...

In Either/Or, using the voices of two characters - the aesthetic young man of part one, called simply 'A', and the ethical Judge Vilhelm of the second section - Kierkegaard reflects upon the search for a meaningful existence, contemplating subjects as diverse as Mozart, drama, boredom, and, in the famous Seducer's Diary, the cynical seduction and ultimate rejection of a young, beautiful woman. A masterpiece of duality, Either/Or is a brilliant exploration of the conflict between the aesthe...

'And yes, I was a sixty-year-old man who wanted to be young again, and that’s laughable for there is no turning back the years, but I didn’t think it was funny. I wasn’t going to try and win the Tour de France. But I was going to try to do what I had been able to do at thirty. I was going to cycle whole days, successive days, along Irish coasts in the west, over the drumlins of County Down, and I was going to ride the horrendously steep Torr Road in north Antrim. I was going to be a boy ag...

"Philosophy's the 'love of wisdom', can be approached in two ways: by doing it, or by studying how it has been done," so writes the eminent philosopher Roger Scruton. In this user-friendly book, he chooses to introduce philosophy by doing it. Taking the discipline beyond theory and "intellectualism," he presents it in an empirical, accessible, and practical light. The result is not a history of the field but a vivid, energetic, and personal account to guide the reader making his or her own...

This book offers a comprehensive thousand-year history of the land, people, society, culture and economy of Hungary, from its nebulous origins in the Ural Mountains to the elections of 1988. It tells above all the thrilling story of a people which became a great power in the region and then fought against - and was invaded by - Ottomans, Germans and Soviets. The Hungarian people preserved nevertheless a continuous individuality through its Ural-born language and a specifically Hungaro-Euro...

Mostly dirt roads, a little pavement, some single track, and 100% adventure await on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route from Canada to Mexico. Cyclists dream of and plan for this life-list trip that starts in Banff, Alberta and rolls through 2,745 miles of wild mountainous beauty all the way to Antelope Wells, New Mexico. Michael McCoy and the Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) provide a segmented route guide for you to follow in its entirety or section ride to suit your schedule and st...

Peter Walker—reporter at the Guardian and curator of its popular bike blog—shows how the future of humanity depends on the bicycle.Car culture has ensnared much of the world—and it's no wonder. Convenience and comfort (as well as some clever lobbying) have made the car the transportation method of choice for generations. But as the world evolves, the high cost of the automobile is made clearer—with its dramatic effects on ...

Under the patronage of the Medici family, Marsilio Ficino translated into Latin and commentated on the meaning and implications of key works by Plat-including 25 of Plat's dialogues and 12 letters ascribed to the philosopher. The 40 concise articles in this collection comprise the first English translation of Ficin's works and provide an insightful glimpse into the philosophy that contributed to the Renaissance.