Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Home & Garden

Beth Fraser has spent the last few years growing her business from scratch. She's turned the walled garden at Applemore House from an overgrown jungle into a beautiful and productive flower farm. A sudden change of circumstances means she has to find a way to make it pay more - and fast. 

How do you get rid of unwanted guests? What do you do if there's a racket in the quiet carriage? How should you eat peas, and behave in queues? How to behave, like how to punctuate, is an aspect of life that many are no longer taught. Thankfully, Sandi Toksvig has come to the rescue with her entertaining guide to modern manners, with characteristic wit and perceptiveness.

A Fenland Garden is the story of the creation of a garden in a complex and fragile English landscape—the Fens of southern Lincolnshire—by a writer who has a very particular relationship with landscape and the soil, thanks to his distinguished career as an archaeologist and discoverer of some of England's earliest field systems. It describes the imagining, planning and building of a garden in an unfamiliar and sometimes hostile place, and the challenges, setbacks and joys these processes entail. 

What should I wear? More than ever, we are told it should be something new. Today, the clothing industry churns out 80 billion garments a year and employs every sixth person on Earth. Historically, the apparel trade has exploited labour, the environment and intellectual property. Best-selling journalist Dana Thomas has travelled the globe to discover the visionary designers and companies who are reclaiming traditional craft and launching cutting-edge sustainable technologies to produce better fashion. 

In times of plenty, we stuff ourselves. When the food runs out, we're stuffed too. How have people in the British Isles shared the riches from our fields, dairies, kitchens and seas, as well as those from around the world? And when the cupboard is bare, who steps up to the plate to feed the nation's hungry children, soldiers at war or families in crisis? Stuffed tells the stories of the food and drink at the center of social upheavals from prehistory to the present.

Kerra Shaw's happiness should be complete when the love of her life moves into her cottage. But there is trouble in her beloved Penvennan Cove and Kerra knows she won't be able to enjoy her new start with Ross until she's put things right. Two struggling businesses threaten to change the beach at Penvennan Cove forever. The Lark and Lantern, an inn at the heart of the community, is struggling and a corporate chain is trying to redevelop the site. Meanwhile, The Salvager's Yard nearby is becoming an eyesore that brings down the area.

When Jess Newman married the love of her life Ben she was sure they had what it took to stay together forever. So when Ben falls out of love with her only to promptly fall in the arms of new girlfriend, Naomi, she really doesn't know how to come to terms with their divorce.

From an amateur affair made by retirees to a multi-million-pound industry with quality to rival Champagne, the rise of English wine has been one of the more unexpected wine stories of the past 30 years. In this illuminating and accessible account, award-winning drinks writer Henry Jeffreys takes you behind the scenes of the English wine revolution. It's a story about changing climate and technology but most of all it's about men and women with vision, determination and more than a little bloody-mindedness.

This definitive biography of Anna Wintour chronicles the steep climb of an ambitious young woman who would, with singular and legendary focus, become the most powerful woman in media.

How we live is shaped by how we eat. You can see this in the vastly different approaches to growing, preparing and eating food around the world, such as the hunter-gatherer Hadza in Tanzania whose sustainable lifestyle is under threat in a crowded planet, or Western societies whose food is farmed or bred in vast intensive enterprises. And most of us now rely on a complex global food web of production, distribution, consumption and disposal, which is now contending with unprecedented challenges. The need for a better understanding of how we feed ourselves has never been more urgent. 

Penelope Lively has always been a keen gardener. This audiobook is partly a memoir of her own life in gardens: the large garden at home in Cairo where she spent most of her childhood, her grandmother's garden in a sloping Somerset field, then two successive Oxfordshire gardens of her own and the smaller urban garden in the North London home she lives in today. It's also a wise, engaging exploration of gardens in literature, from Paradise Lost to Alice in Wonderland.

For once, things are going well for 30-year-old Kerra Shaw. She has a fulfilling job helping small businesses in the local community, she is within a few minutes' walk of all the people she loves best and, most importantly, she has finally got together with her childhood sweetheart, Ross. It's not all plain sailing, though, because they have to keep their relationship a secret. The feud between their families still rages on, and Kerra doesn't want to pour fuel on its flame and risk losing everything. 

Faced with an increasing body count, our feline detectives sharpen their claws and set out to catch a serial killer. Did Pomadora Moseley really murder her family on the rollercoaster at Butlins? Is Clara Toddlebury's Country Dance Class under threat? And why does Mr Whisker lock himself in his headmaster's study?

Hettie and Tilly book themselves into the Sandscratchers Villa for a seaside holiday. The feline duo find themselves plunged into a spate of alarming fairground murders as a carefree vacation turns into a holiday nightmare. As the deckchairs unfold and the ice creams melt, they face their most baffling case yet, but first they must find the bodies!

When Kerra left the quiet Cornish town of Penvennan Cove for the bright lights of London, she didn't look back. But after the death of her mother, she's decided it's time to face her past and return to the place she called home. Her father needs her, and perhaps she needs him more than she's willing to admit? Tackling town gossip, home renovations and a flame from her past, it's not quite smooth sailing for Kerra. Ross is the bad boy she was meant to forget, not a man who still sets her heart aflutter. 

From a duck who loses her quack to a black lab who bounces off a cliff, a Siamese cat with delusions of grandeur to an African bullfrog with eye trouble, there is no end to the variety of a vet's caseload. The highs and lows of animal care are hilariously captured in this sparkling collection of short stories for young listeners, interspersed with fun, practical and relatable advice for pet-owners of every description.

As a material, wood has no equal in strength, resilience, adaptability and availability. It has been our partner in the cultural evolution from woodland foragers to engineers of our own destiny. Tracing that partnership through tools, devices, construction and artistic expression, Max Adams explores the role that wood has played in our own history as an imaginative, curious and resourceful species.

This classic collection of animal stories follows the adventures of a local vet and the various animals who need his help and care. From a poorly cow who needs urgent treatment, a lost pony who needs rescuing or even a cheeky cat who keeps getting into mischief, this heartwarming collection of animal tales, set against the beautiful, snowy backdrop of the stunning Yorkshire landscape, is perfect to be shared together at this special time of year.

In this fascinating social history of food in Britain, Pen Vogler examines the origins of our eating habits and reveals how they are loaded with centuries of class prejudice. Covering such topics as fish and chips, roast beef, avocados, tripe, fish knives and the surprising origins of breakfast, Scoff reveals how in Britain we have become experts at using eating habits to make judgements about social background.

In The Meaning of Beer, award-winning beer writer Jonny Garrett tells the stories of incredible human moments and inventions, taking listeners to some of the best-known beer destinations in the world–Munich and Oktoberfest, Carlsberg Brewery's historic laboratory, St Louis and the home of Budweiser–as well as those lesser-known, from a 5,000 year old brewery in the Egyptian desert to Arctic Svalbard, home to the world's most northerly pub.