Download or read book The Mammoth Book of Great British Humour written by Michael Powell and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2010-10-14 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A doorstopper of a collection of the very best of both contemporary and classic British wit and humour. From Monty Python's 'Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more . . .' to Dan Antopolski's 'Hedgehogs. Why can't they just share the hedge?'. From George Bernard Shaw to Michael McIntyre, from Eric Morecombe to Omid Djalili, and from Oscar Wilde to Jimmy Carr, a side-splitting look at Britain, the British and life in general. Including these gems from Britain's finest comedians: I was delighted to learn that my friend's schadenfreude was not as satisfying as mine. Armando Iannucci. I went on a girls' night out recently. The invitation said 'dress to kill'. I went as Rose West. Zoe Lyons For a while I was the perfect mother. Then the Pethidine wore off. Jenny Eclair. My girlfriend was complaining last night that I never listen to her. Or something like that. Jack Dee. Why do dogs always race to the door when the doorbell rings because it's hardly ever for them? Harry Hill. Arse-gravy of the very worst kind. Stephen Fry on The Da Vinci Code. You have to come up with this shit every year. Last week I just wrote "I still love you, see last year's card for full details." Michael McIntyre on Valentines Day. I went to the doctor and he said, 'You've got hypochondria.' I said, 'Not that as well!'Tim Vine. I have the body of an eighteen year old. I keep it in the fridge. Spike Milligan. When someone close to you dies, move seats. Peter Kay. My neighbour asked if he could use my lawnmower and I told him of course he could, so long as he didn't take it out of my garden. Eric Morecambe. My dad's dying wish was to have his family around him. I can't help thinking he would have been better off with more oxygen. Jimmy Carr. Eighty-two point six per cent of statistics are made up on the spot. Vic Reeves. A bird in the hand invariably shits on your wrist. Billy Connolly. Getting divorced isn't like a bereavement at all, because if he's died, I'd have had me mortgage paid, and I could've danced on his grave. Sarah Millican. My greatest hero is Nelson Mandela: incarcerated for 25 years, he was released in 1990, he's been out about 18 years now and he hasn't re-offended. Ricky Gervais. If you want to confuse a girl, buy her a pair of chocolate shoes. Milton Jones. Phil Collins is losing his hearing, making him the luckiest man at a Phil Collins Concert. Simon Amstell. We'll continue our investigation into the political beliefs of nudists. We've already noticed a definite swing to the left. Ronnie Barker. A guy walks into the psychiatrist wearing only Clingfilm for shorts. The psychiatrist says, "Well, I can clearly see your nuts. Tommy Cooper

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 17 written by Gardner Dozois and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2011-08-04 with total page 1066 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Widely regarded as the essential book for every science-fiction fan, The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 17 continues to uphold its standard of excellence with more than two dozen stories from the previous year. This year's volume includes not just a host of established masters but also many bright, young talents of science fiction. It embraces every aspect of the genre - soft, hard, cyberpunk, cyber noir, anthropological, military and adventure. Plus the usual thorough summations of the year and a recommended reading list.

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of Modern Battles written by Jon E. Lewis and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2011-08-04 with total page 634 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the start of the 20th century to the most recent major offensives, here are fifty accounts of the battles that made the modern world, described in superb detail by historians and writers including John Keegan, Alan Clark, John Strawson, Charles Mey, John Pimlott, and John Laffin. All the major conflicts are covered, from two world wars, through Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Chechnya, to Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the battles featured are: the Somme, Passchendaele, Battle of Britain, Stalingrad, El Alamein, Monte Cassino, Omaha Beach, Iwa Jima, Dien Bien Phu, Ia Drang, Hamburger Hill, Desert Storm, Kabul, Baghdad, and Basra.

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF written by Mike Ashley and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2009-07-30 with total page 722 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many readers are attracted to science fiction for that singular moment when a story expands your imagination, enabling you to see something in a new light. Not all SF works this way! This volume collects the very best of it that does, with 25 of the finest examples of mind-expanding and awe-inspiring science fiction. The storylines range from a discovery on the Moon that opens up vistas across all time to a moment in which distances across the Earth suddenly increase and people vanish. These are tales to take you from the other side of now to the very end of time - from today's top-name contributors including Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds, Robert Silverberg, Gregory Benford and Robert Reed.

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk written by Sean Wallace and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2015-04-02 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dieselpunk: an emerging retro-futuristic sub-genre, similar to steampunk, based on the era between the First World War and the start of the Atomic Age, merging elements of noir, pulp, and the past with today’s technology . . . and sometimes a dash of the occult. Award-winning editor Wallace presents a cutting-edge collection of twenty-five vibrant stories that explore the possibilities of history while sweeping readers into high-powered hydrocarbon-fuelled adventures. Join us in an era when engines were huge, fuel was cheap and plentiful, and steel and chrome blended with the grit and grease of modern machines. Praise for The Mammoth Book of Steampunk: 'World Fantasy Award-winning editor Wallace has compiled an outstanding anthology . . . sure to satisfy even the most jaded steampunk fans and engage newcomers and skeptics. Each story exemplifies steampunk’s knack for critiquing both the past and the present, in a superb anthology that demands rereading.' Publishers Weekly

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of Merlin written by Mike Ashley and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2009-09-24 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A superb collection of stories of magic and adventure from the golden age of Arthurian legend by bestselling writers. Enter into the darker realms of the age of the Knights of the Round Table, when magic held sway and Merlin vied with Arthur's heroic new world. Included are: Jane Yolen on Merlin's youth and coming of age; Marion Zimmer Bradley on Nimuë, Merlin's lover and doom; Charles de Lint on Merlin's influence through the centuries; Darrell Schweitzer on the legends of Merlin's birth; plus stories by Tanith Lee, Peter Tremayne, Phyllis Ann Karr, Jennifer Roberson, and many others. There is also a detailed introduction by Mike Ashley on the mystery and magic of Merlin and his world.

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 16 written by Stephen Jones and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 563 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The latest edition of the world's foremost annual showcase of horror and dark fantasy fiction. Here are some of the very best short stories and novellas by today's finest exponents of horror fiction - including Kim Newman, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, Paul McAuley, Glen Hirshberg, Ramsey Campbell and Tanith Lee. The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 16 also contains the most comprehensive overview of horror around the world during the year, lists of useful contact addresses and a fascinating necrology. It is the one book that is required reading for every fan of macabre fiction.

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes Impossible Mysteries written by Mike Ashley and published by C & R Crime. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 666 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mystery conundrums from crime's finest storytellers Presenting 30 impossible mysteries and bizarre crimes guaranteed to fascinate and intrigue. The delight in these stories is unravelling the puzzle and trying to work out what on earth happened. Stories include: • A man alone in an all-glass phone booth, visible on CCTV and with no one near him, is killed by an ice pick. • a man sitting alone in a room is shot by a bullet fired only once and that was over 200 years ago. • A man enters a cable-car carriage alone and is visible the entire journey but is found dead when he reaches the bottom. • A man vanishes at the top of the Indian rope trick and is found dead miles away. • a dead man continues to receive mail in response to letters apparently written by him after he'd died. The anthology includes several brand new stories never previously published, plus a range of extremely rare stories, many never reprinted since their first appearance in increasingly rare magazines.

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of Cover Ups written by Jon E. Lewis and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2009-06-01 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Assassination of JFK, 9/11, the Da Vinci Code, The Death of Diana, Men in Black, Pearl Harbor, The Illuminati, Protocols of Zion,Hess, The Bilderberg Group, New World Order, ElvisFluoridization, Martin Luther King's murder, Opus Dei, The Gemstone Files, John Paul I, Dead Sea Scrolls, Lockerbie bombing, Black helicopters... In other words everything 'they' never wanted you to know and were afraid you might ask! Jon E. Lewis explores the 100 most terrifying cover-ups of all time, from the invention of Jesus' divinity (pace the Da Vinci Code) to Bush's and Blair's real agenda in invading Iraq. Entertainingly written and closely documented, the book provides each cover-up with a plausibility rating. Uncover why the Titanic sank, ponder the sinister Vatican/Mafia network that plotted the assassination of liberal John Paul, find out why NASA 'lost' its files on Mars, read why no-one enters Area 51, and consider why medical supplies were already on site at Edgware Road before the 7/7 bombs detonated. Just because you are paranoid, it doesn't mean that they aren't out to conspire against you.

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits Volume 3 written by Mike Ashley and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2015-02-27 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third new collection of historical murder and mystery stories A brilliant new collection of thirty stories of mystery and intrigue spread over three thousand years, from Ancient Egypt to spies on the Titanic. Selected by bestselling editor Mike Ashley, the stories include brand new contributions as well as rare reprints, from writers such as Ian Rankin, Lynda Robinson, Sharan Newman, Gail Frazer, Gillian Linscott and Peter Tremayne. Among the characters featured are the Queen of Sheba, Attila the Hun, Hildegarde of Bingen, Geoffrey Chaucer, Henry the Navigator and Benjamin Franklin. And with settings as far-ranging as Botany Bay and ancient Pisa, New Amsterdam and old Edinburgh, ancient Greece and the court of Kublai Khan.

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of King Arthur written by Mike Ashley and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most complete guide ever to the real Arthurian world and the legends that surround it He defeated the Saxons so decisively at the Battle of Badon that he held the Saxon invasion of Britain at bay for at least a generation. He has inspired more stories, books and films than any other historical or legendary figure. But who was the real King Arthur? Here is the most comprehensive guide to the real Arthurian world and the legends that surround and often obscure it. Sifting fact from fancy, Mike Ashley reveals the originals not only of King Arthur but also of Merlin. Guinevere, Lancelot and the knights of the Round Table - as well as all the major Arthurian sites. He traces each of the legends as they developed and brilliantly shows how they were later used to inspire major works of art, poetry, fiction and film. There is clear evidence that. The Arthurian legends arose from the exploits of not just one man, but at least three originating in Wales, Scotland and Brittany The true historical Arthur really existed and is distantly related to the present royal family The real Arthur and the real Merlin never knew each other The real Lancelot was not British but was closer to a sixth-century asylum-seeker The Holy Grail legend probably grew out of a cosmic catastrophe that could have destroyed most of civilization

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of New Terror written by Stephen Jones and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2011-08-04 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 20 terrifying stories and short novels by the masters of gore, including Graham Masterton, Ramsay Campbell, R. Chetwyn-Hayes and Neil Gaiman. This sequel to the classic Mammoth horror anthology features five new and unpublished stories from some of the biggest and brightest names on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as gems from acknowledged masters. All veins of the genre are represented including suspense, visceral horror and sheer razor-slashing terror. From Brian Lumley's disturbing 'Fruiting Bodies' and Basil Copper's 'The Candle in the Skull' to Christopher Fowler's 'Turbo-Satan' and Kim Newman's 'Amerikanski Bed at the Moscow Morgue', this is a spine-chilling collection guaranteed to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck!

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of On The Edge written by Jon E. Lewis and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No one sees clearer than an individual whose life is hanging by the finger tips on the edge of an abyss. Probing the furthest reaches of human daring and endurance, here are 28 of the great first-hand accounts of extreme mountaineering, from legendary names. Written by the bestselling author of Meadowland and The Running Hare, Featuring: ·Heinrich Harrer - first conqueror of the notorious Eigerwand. ·Robert Bates - the classic account of the ill-fated American 1953 expedition to K2. ·Maurice Herzog - his unstoppable ascent of Annapurna at the cost of frostbite. ·Walter Bonatti - tragedy on the Central Pillar of Freney on Mont Blanc. ·George Leigh Mallory - surviving an avalanche on the 1922 Everest expedition. ·René Desmaison - his epic story of 14 days stuck on The Grandes Jorasses in winter. ·Jon Krakauer - recalling his solo ascent of The Devil's Thumb in Alaska. The price of the summit is often measured in human suffering, yet for those who succeed the rewards can be incalculable. Nerve-wracking and unputdownable.

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of CSI written by Roger Wilkes and published by C & R Crime. This book was released on 2007-02-22 with total page 734 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the latest modern technology available to forensic science, crime scene investigators answer questions others never even thought to ask. This book contains more than thirty fascinating modern cases of forensic detective work. Genetic fingerprinting, blood splatter analysis, laser ablation, toxicology, ballistics analysis - the whole range of forensic techniques is featured. The investigators trust only the evidence to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves: the victims. The cases featured include: - Tommie Lee Andrews, the first person to be convicted as a result of DNA evidence, for raping a woman during a burglary; - Jeffrey Gafoor, convicted of murder in 2003 when crime scene evidence collected twelve years previously resulted in a match with his nephew; - Richard W. Rogers, convicted of the murder of two of his numerous gay male victims, through vacuum metal deposition, technology which saves fingerprints from plastic bags; - Dr. Sam Sheppard, the murder trial based on blood evidence that inspired the TV series The Fugitive; - Edwin Bush, the first murderer in Britain to be brought to book thanks to an identikit picture; - Derrick Todd Lee, the Baton Rouge Serial Killer, only nailed by DNA evidence after a flawed FBI profile led big-shot investigators astray. These cases - usually successful, but also sometimes dangerously flawed - offer a remarkable insight into real-life scene-of-crime investigation.

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of Golden Age written by Isaac Asimov and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ten classic stories from the birth of modern science fiction writing The Golden Age of Science Fiction, from the early 1940s through the 1950s, saw an explosion of talent in SF writing including authors such as Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke. Their writing helped science fiction gained wide public attention, and left a lasting impression upon society. The same writers formed the mould for the next three decades of science fiction, and much of their writing remains as fresh today as it was then. Collected in one giant volume, here is the very best of the golden era. The stories include: A.E. van Vogt, 'The Weapons Shop' Isaac Asimov, 'The Big and the Little' Lester del Rey, 'Nerves' Fredric Brown, 'Daymare' Theodore Sturgeon, 'Killdozer!' C.L. Moore, 'No Woman Born' A. Bertram Chandler, 'Giant Killer'

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disaster written by Richard Russell Lawrence and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the words of those who trod the void and those at mission control, here are over 50 of the greatest true stories of suborbital, orbital and deep-space exploration. From Apollo 8's first view of a fractured, tortured landscape of craters on the 'dark side' of the Moon to the series of cliff-hanger crises aboard space station Mir, they include moments of extraordinary heroic achievement as well as episodes of terrible human cost. Among the astronauts and cosmonauts featured are John Glenn, Pavel Beyayev, Jim Lovell, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Valery Korzun, Vasily Tsibliyev and Michael Foale. Includes • First walk in space by Sergei Leonov and his traumatic return to Earth • Apollo 13's problem - the classic, nail-biting account of abandoning ship on the way to the Moon • Docking with the frozen, empty Salyut 7 space station that had drifted without power for eight months • Progress crashes into Mir - the astronauts survive death by a hair's breadth • Jerry Linenger's panic attack during a space walk, 'just out there dangling'.

Download or read book The Mammoth Book of the Mafia written by Nigel Cawthorne and published by C & R Crime. This book was released on 2009-06-25 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 30 inside stories of the American Mafia, Sicilian Cosa Nostra, Camorra and 'Ndrangheta Images of life in the Mob pervade our film and TV screens, some glamorous, some horrific - what is the reality? Investigative journalist Roger Wilkes has put together the largest ever collection of insider stories from prominent ex-mafiosi, infiltrators and award-winning writers. It contains tell-all accounts by the likes of: Richard 'The Iceman' Kuklinski, the contract killer who claimed to have murdered over 200 people in a career lasting 43 years. Frankie Saggio, who 'freelanced' for all five of New York's Mafia families, narrowly escaping assassination before being busted for a major scam. Joey Black, the Hitman, chillingly professional murderer of 38 victims and regarded by many as the 'original Soprano'. Albert DeMeo, the son of a gangster, who later became a lawyer. 'Donnie Brasco', real name Joseph Pistone, the FBI agent, who worked undercover in the Bonanno and Colombo crime families in New York for six years. Tommaso Buscetta, the Sicilian mafioso, the first pentito, or informant, of real significance to break omertà. The two judges with whom he worked, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, were both later killed by the Mafia. This is the reality of the world of men you wouldn't want to cross.