Showing results by publisher "Isis Publishing Ltd" in Sports & Outdoors

An inspiring insight into one of the oldest extreme sports, this is the definitive story of fell-running. This is a complete portrait of one of the few sports to have remained utterly true to its roots. Richard Askwith’s journey takes him into a world of forbidding rockscapes, horizontal rain, fear, exhaustion and stunning natural beauty, as well as his own attempt at one of the toughest challenges imaginable: the Bob Graham Round, the sport’s traditional test of 42 Lake District peaks in 24 hours.

Richard Askwith wanted more. Not convinced running had to be all about pounding pavements, buying fancy kit and racking up extreme challenges, he looked for ways to liberate himself. His solution: running through muddy fields and up rocky fells, running with his dog at dawn, running because he's being (voluntarily) chased by a pack of bloodhounds, running to get hopelessly, enjoyably lost, running fast for the sheer thrill of it. Running as nature intended.

In The Genius of Birds, acclaimed author Jennifer Ackerman explores the newly discovered brilliance of birds and how it came about. Consider, as Ackerman does, the Clark's nutcracker, a bird that can hide as many as 30,000 seeds over dozens of square miles and remember where it put them several months later; the mockingbirds and thrashers, species that can store 200 to 2,000 different songs in a brain a thousand times smaller than ours; and the well-known pigeon, which knows where it's going, even thousands of miles from familiar territory.

From prehistoric cave paintings to the prints and etchings of Picasso, owls have captivated and inspired us for millennia. Whether they appear as ancient Athenian symbols of wisdom, ghostly harbingers of death, or the cuddly sidekicks of Harry Potter and Winnie the Pooh, these birds have continued to fascinate and disturb us in equal measure. Through revelatory new behavioural research, Jennifer Ackerman provides an intimate glimpse into these magnificent creatures' lives.

Acclaimed nature writer Neil Ansell has suffered from progressive hearing loss his whole life. As his world is becoming ever more silent, he suddenly hears something quite unexpected — the haunting call of the great northern diver. It is this extraordinary experience which makes him realise that there might still be remarkable sounds in nature within his reach — if he can only find himself in the right place at the right time. This moving book charts Neil's mission to hear rare and elusive creatures that he had not previously encountered.

The wren is a paradox of a bird. On the one hand wrens are ubiquitous. They are Britain’s most common bird, with eight-and-a-half million breeding pairs and have by far the loudest song in proportion to their size. They also thrive up and down Britain and Ireland: from the smallest city garden to remote offshore islands. Yet many people are not sure if they have ever seen a wren. Perhaps because the wren is so tiny, and so busy, always on the move.

It seemed a simple enough idea at the outset: to assemble a team of eleven men to play cricket on each of the seven continents of the globe. Except…that's not a simple idea at all. And when you throw in incompetent airline officials, cunning Bajan drug dealers, overzealous American anti-terrorist police, idiotic Welshmen dressed as Santa Claus and whole armies of pitch-invading penguins, you quickly arrive at a lot more than you bargained for.

Emil Zátopek won five Olympic medals, set 18 world records and went undefeated over 10,000 metres for six years. He redefined the boundaries of endurance, but his toughness was matched by a spirit of friendship and a joie de vivre that transcended the darkest days of the Cold War. His triumphs put his country on the map, yet when Soviet tanks moved in to crush Czechoslovakia's new freedoms in 1968, Zátopek paid a heavy price for his defence of 'socialism with a human face'. Rehabilitated two decades later, the world had all but forgotten him.

In The Robin, Stephen Moss records a year of observing the robin both close to home and in the field to shed light on the hidden life of this apparently familiar bird. We follow its lifecycle from the time it enters the world as an egg, through its time as a nestling and juvenile, to the adult bird and ultimately, death.

In The Swallow, Stephen Moss documents a year of observing the swallow close to home and in the field to shed light on the secret life of this extraordinary bird. We trace the swallow's life cycle and journey, and the key part the swallow plays in our traditional and popular culture.

Czechoslovakia, October 1937. Vast crowds have gathered to watch the threatened nation's most prestigious sporting contest: the Grand Pardubice steeplechase. Notoriously dangerous, the race is considered the ultimate test of manhood and fighting spirit. The Nazis have sent their paramilitary elite-SS officers on a mission to crush the 'subhuman Slavs'. The local cavalry officers have no hope of stopping them. But there is one other contestant: a countess riding a little golden mare.

Jockeys who earn a living race riding on racehorses are a remarkable group. They are fiercely competitive on the racecourse but enjoy a tribal kinship in the weighing room. This book celebrates these warriors on horseback, both old and new. The book takes a tour of Aintree's weighing room, tracks a day in the life of a Derby-winning jockey and investigates the twin challenges faced by jockeys: inevitable injuries and 24/7 weight management.

Depressed and suicidal, Helen was admitted to a psychiatric ward and sectioned under the Mental Health Act. At her lowest, she almost succeeded in taking her own life. But somehow, she endured and later, she recovered. love lay down beside me and we wept sprang from these emotionally shattering experiences.

On the 18th of June 1994, weeks before the end of the massacres in which hundreds of thousands of her fellow Tutsi, Rwanda's Bantu-speaking ethnic group, were slaughtered by the Hutu, Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse and her mother were fortunate to find a safe passage out of Rwanda with a convoy of children organised by a Swiss humanitarian organisation. Fifteen years later, after rebuilding her life and becoming a successful novelist, Mairesse is ready to begin the long process of reconstructing her incomplete memories of the escape.

The majority of Vernon Lee’s work was essays and studies on art and history, but this little-known essay’s sense of places lends itself more to poetry than nonfiction. As Lee guides us through an enchanted wood, it gives us an insight into the inspiration behind Lee’s supernatural stories.

Once upon a time, a burnt-out Claire Dunn spent a year living off the grid in a wilderness survival program. Yet love and the possibilities of human connection drew her back to the city, where she soon found herself as overscheduled, addicted to her phone and lost in IKEA as everyone else. Given all the city offered - comfort, convenience, community and opportunity - she wanted to stay. But to do so, she'd have to learn how to rewild her own urban soul. Now, Claire swims in city rivers, forages in the suburbs and explores many other practices to connect to the world around her.

Born and raised in the South Yorkshire mining village of Hoyland Common, it seemed all too likely that Richard Hines would end up working in the pits, especially when, unlike his older brother Barry, he failed the 11+. Crushed by this, and persecuted by the cruelty of his teachers, Richard spent his time in the fields. One morning, he came across a nest of kestrels. Instantly captivated, he sought out ancient falconry texts from the local library.

Ignited by a lightning strike in a remote forest, the Currowan fire was one of the most terrifying episodes of Australia's Black Summer. It burnt for 74 days, consuming nearly 5,000 square kilometres of land, destroying well over 500 homes and leaving many people shattered. In the aftermath, there were questions. Why were resources so few that many faced the flames alone? Why was there back-burning on a day of extreme fire danger? Why weren’t they better prepared?

From prehistoric cave paintings to the prints and etchings of Picasso, owls have captivated and inspired us for millennia. Whether they appear as ancient Athenian symbols of wisdom, ghostly harbingers of death, or the cuddly sidekicks of Harry Potter and Winnie the Pooh, these birds have continued to fascinate and disturb us in equal measure. Through revelatory new behavioural research, Jennifer Ackerman provides an intimate glimpse into these magnificent creatures' lives.