Böcker av Max Leonard

Taking us from the beginning of our story to the present day, A Cold Spell examines how ice has shaped our thoughts, actions and societies - and what it means for us that it is rapidly disappearing from our planet'Bracingly original . . . As the earth warms threateningly, there could hardly be a more pertinent time for a story like this' MICHAEL PALIN'A book of limitless fascinations' OLIVIA LAINGIce has confounded, delighted and fascinated us since the first sparks of art and culture in Europe and it now underpins the modern world. Without ice, we would not feed ourselves or heal our sick as we do, and our towns and cities, countryside and oceans would look very different. Science would not have progressed along the avenues it did and our galleries and libraries would be missing many masterpieces.A Cold Spell uses this vital link to understanding our past to tell a surprising story of obsession, invention and adventure - how we have lived and dreamed, celebrated and traded, innovated, loved and fought over thousands of years. It brings together a sacrificial Incan mummy, Winston Churchill's secret plans for unusual aircraft carriers, strange bones that shook Victorian beliefs about the world and a macabre journey into the depths of the human body. It is an original and unique way of looking at something that is literally all around us, whose loss confronts us daily in the news, but whose impact on our lives has never been fully explored.

High above the pleasure palaces of the French Riviera is the Alpine Extension of the Maginot Line. These little-known bunkers were built in the 1930s to protect against Mussolini. But things didn't quite turn out as the French expected...

Why do road cyclists go to the mountains? Blending adventure and travel writing with the rich narrative of pro racing, Max Leonard takes the reader from the battles that created the Alpine roads to the shepherds tending their flocks on the peaks, and to a Grand Tour climax on the `highest road in Europe'.

If you complete a bike race, overcoming mountain ranges and merciless weather conditions while enduring physical and psychological agony, in the slowest time, should you be branded the loser? This title flips the Tour de France on its head and tells the forgotten, often inspirational and occasionally absurd stories of the last-placed rider.