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The 2013 Winners are In!



Daunt Books Children's Short Story Competition 2013

Northern Europe

• Scandinavia
• Great Britain
• Ireland

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  Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England by Thomas Penn

  Price: £8.99    Add to Basket

  Sure to become the definitive study of Henry VII, Britain's strangest, most mysterious, king. Penn's focus is on the last, fear-filled decade of his reign, but this vigorous, exciting work is both a brilliant and haunting evocation of the Tudor world, and an echo of the age of fear in which we now live.

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  Who Runs Britain? by Robert Peston

  Price: £8.99    Add to Basket

  A clear, compelling and informative book on the British economy.

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  The New Machiavelli by Jonathan Powell

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  An honest - if somewhat reticent - account of Blair's Machiavellian virtues from his long-suffering Chief of Staff. Whilst Powell is never less than fair, his anecdotes make it clear that Blair would never have lasted so long were it not for the prudence of his staff.

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  Great Hatred, Little Room by Jonathan Powell

  Price: £9.99    Add to Basket

  A fascinating insight into the Good Friday agreement from Tony Blair's chief of staff and chief negotiator. Educational, in-depth and nerve-wracking stuff from a man on the political knife edge.

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  Ian Fleming's Commandos by Nicholas Rankin

  Price: £9.99    Add to Basket

  The riveting story of 30 Assault Unit and how their exploits formed the basis of the most popular spy fiction of the 20th century. In 1942, Lieutenant-Commander Ian Fleming had the brilliant idea of setting up a unit of troops to steal enemy intelligence. The information that they gathered and stole was sent back to the British code breakers at Bletchley Park, and was crucial to winning the war.

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  Edgelands by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts

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  Contemporary poets Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts set off to explore the real wilderness of the 21st century English landscape taking in debris-ridden canals, motorways, car lots, disused factories and abandoned mines. These edgelands are now a well-established subject for literary foray and this book follows in the footsteps of iconic revisionist nature writing such as Richard Mabey’s The Unofficial Countryside (1973). Farley and Symmons Roberts, two English poets in the lyric tradition, are part of this new romantic movement, as they discover the sublime within ruin and hope to do for the neglected edgelands what Coleridge and Wordsworth once did for mountains and lakes.

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  Connemara: Listening to the Wind by Tim Robinson

  Price: £8.99    Add to Basket

  In the first of his Connemara trilogy, Tim Robinson describes the history, folklore and geography of this region of Western Ireland. His exquisite turn of phrase and poetic style make reading this a sublime experience. Highly recommended.

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  Stones of Aran by Tim Robinson

  Price: £12.99    Add to Basket

  Applauded by the likes of Robert Macfarlane and George Mackay Brown, it is a dedicated, extensive, passionate exploration of the islands of Aran. From history and myth, to the weather, to the livelihoods of the inhabitants, to descriptions of the landscape and the birdlife, it is hard to find a better description of a place.

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  The Command of the Ocean by N. A. M. Rodger

  Price: £14.99    Add to Basket

  The best naval history of Britain from 1649 until 1815; ambitious, scholarly and deeply enjoyable. If you would like to order the previous volume, The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain, 660-1649, then please let us know.

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  The Man Who Went into the West by Byron Rogers

  Price: £8.99    Add to Basket

  A wildly funny book by a unique writer. Rogers wrestles the enormously complex and contradictory character of R. S. Thomas to the page, by no means an easy task. He has a healthy critical approach to the verse and to Thomas' legendary grumpiness. Brilliant about the vocation of poetry, Welshness, Englishness and what it means to write a biography.

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  Xenophobe's Guide to the Icelanders by Richard Sale

  Price: £3.99    Add to Basket

  Always an entertaining read, these guides offer an irreverent insight into the habits, beliefs and foibles of their subjects.

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  Night Haunts: A Journey Through the London Night by Sukhdev Sandhu

  Price: £7.99    Add to Basket

  A truly wonderful, evocative little book about exploring London at night. Sukhdev Sandhu roams the streets meeting security guards, zookeepers, marine patrols and pirate DJs. Short works of reportage where his elegant, lyrical prose elevates each piece to the level of a short story.

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  A History of Britain Volume 1 by Simon Schama

  Price: £14.99    Add to Basket

  A vivid, accessible history of the British Isles from 3000 BC to the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. The following two volumes are also available at Daunt, please get in touch if you would like to order them.

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  Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald

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  Ostensibly a walking tour of Suffolk undertaken by the astonishingly well-informed W. G. Sebald in 1992, Rings of Saturn became an intense, dream-like narrative populated by figures both past and present, Sebald's own memories, his traveller's tales and melancholy musings on the passing of time. Highly recommended.

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  Two Lives by Vikram Seth

  Price: £10.99    Add to Basket

  Vikram Seth's masterly biography of his great-uncle and great-aunt spans some of the key events of the twentieth century, yet maintains the intimate touch of a family memoir. She was a German Jew who fled Berlin before 1939, he an Indian who was wounded in the battle of Montecassino. In examining their place in the world, Seth invites us to consider the nature of identity, of family and of our own connections to those we love.

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  To Sea and Back by Richard Shelton

  Price: £18.99    Add to Basket

  Not only is Richard Shelton's book an informed and absorbing account of the migration of the salmon from its birth place, to the Atlantic Ocean and back again, but it is gloriously produced and beautifully illustrated to boot.

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  London Orbital by Iain Sinclair

  Price: £9.99    Add to Basket

  An eccentric literary masterpiece, Iain Sinclair describes a series of journeys he made walking around the M25 beginning and ending at Waltham Abbey. Filled with fascinating historical and literary characters and entertaining, contemporary anecdotes.

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  Hackney, That Rose-red Empire by Iain Sinclair

  Price: £10.99    Add to Basket

  In an impassioned cry intended for the ears of the Olympic committee, Iain Sinclair has written an ode to the borough in which he has lived and roamed for 40 years. A lively combination of his own musings and interviews with local artists, musicians, writers and anarchists.

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  Ghost Milk by Iain Sinclair

  Price: £9.99    Add to Basket

  An ambitious exploration of the derelict, clinical and unloved borderlands of big cities and an impassioned plea to today's architects to consider viable alternatives for the future. Sinclair's jolly digressions may not be for everyone, but who can argue with his claim that Manchester's Trafford Centre 'smells like dead television', and the Millennium Dome is like a 'wind-propelled spacecraft abandoned on a lifeless planet'?

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  A Short History of Finland by Fred Singleton

  Price: £16.99    Add to Basket

  This is the second, updated edition of Singleton's readable and authoritative introduction to the Finns and their history. To be read before Kirby's recent addition to the shelves.

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  God's Executioner by Micheal O Siochru

  Price: £9.99    Add to Basket

  A passionate yet bloody foray into Oliver Cromwell's violent ethnic cleansing of Ireland in the 17th century. An informative book about an atrocity in Anglo-Irish history.

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  Sweden: An Illustrated History by Martina Sprague

  Price: £11.99    Add to Basket

  'Illustrated' is perhaps a grand term, but there are certainly a few photographs littering Sprague's delightfully readable introduction to the history and customs of her native land.

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  Elizabeth by David Starkey

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  A lively biography of the first 25 years of the life of Elizabeth I. David Starkey's infectious enthusiasm brings to life the tumultuous religious and political environment of the 16th century.

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  Henry by David Starkey

  Price: £8.99    Add to Basket

  David Starkey's refreshing new biography of a much maligned ruler argues that Henry VIII was in fact a clever, generous, religious and athletic man who was corrupted by a spectacular ego.

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  Monarchy by David Starkey

  Price: £8.99    Add to Basket

  The charismatic and energetic David Starkey maps the course of the British crown from the Middle Ages to the present day. A succinct biography of the monarchs as well as a cultural, political and social history of Great Britain.