6 Collectables 70290 HIDDEN STAIRCASE: Nancy Drew


Mystery Stories Vol. 2 by Carolyn Keene For cliff-hanging suspense and thrilling action, here is a second volume in this collectable hardcover series from the original 1930 publication. The 20 chapters begin with The Haunted House, A Mysterious Mishap, A Stolen Necklace and Strange Music and ends with The Hidden Staircase and Nancy’s Victory. 182pp. £7.99 NOW £2.75


69823 THE FROG PRINCE by Hinkler Books


The classic Brothers Grimm fairytale has been reworked for beginner readers aged 4+. There is a dedication page, a padded cover and big Disney-style illustrations, all in colour, on every page. The Frog Price is thought to date back to the 14th century, yet earlier variations of the tale have the frog requesting that his head be cut off by the


heroine, only to turn into a prince. In the Grimms’ version, the princess does not allow the frog to sleep on her pillow but angrily throws him against the wall! 32pp. £4.99 NOW £1


69551 BOOM! by Mark Haddon Mark Haddon is well known as the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, one of most surprising bestsellers of recent years. Jimbo and his best friend Charlie are normal, mischievous schoolboys. One day, for a prank, they attach a walkie-talkie under their teacher’s desk in order to hear what they say about the kids behind their backs. What they do hear is something much worse than a few snidey comments - they speak an alien language, and further investigation reveals that they are, indeed, aliens. It is up to Jimbo and Charlie to save the Earth from going BOOM! For the 10-15 age group. 195pp. $15.99 NOW £3.50


69304 NORBY THE MIXED-UP ROBOT by Janet and Isaac Asimov


Written by the author of I, Robot and many other robot stories, here is a great way to introduce young readers aged 8+ to the thrills of science fiction. Meet Norby. He wants to help, but he is one mixed up robot. When Space Academy cadet Jeff Wells needs tutoring for his course in Martian Swahili, he goes looking for a robot teacher. Norby possesses not only the usual robot skills, but also an extraordinary array of powers, including antigravity and hyperspace capabilities. 96pp in paperback.


£5.99 NOW £1.75 COLLECTABLES


Gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal.


- Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby


71012 CONFESSIONS OF A COLLECTOR by Hunter Davies


In this personal celebration of the strangely compelling world of collecting, a compulsive collector of items as diverse as comics, coronation mugs, British prime ministerial autographs and football memorabilia confesses to about 15 collections he has built up over the


years. These range from first issues of magazines and newspapers to anything connected with the Beatles and from China and pottery to Lakelandiana. In his inimitably enthusiastic style, which will already be familiar to readers of the Guardian and the Sunday Times, he describes how his collections came into being, tells some intriguing stories behind the items in them, and recounts his triumphs and disasters. He also discusses the nature of the urge to collect, and examines why Antiques Roadshow and Bargain Hunt are enduringly popular, and why it is that there are more male collectors than female ones. Although he touches anecdotally on the economics of collecting, this is not a price guide. It is a book to be read and savoured, rich in vignette and reminiscence drawn from the deep well of its author’s multi-faceted enthusiasms. As he says, collecting is ‘a social and economic history’. It is also exciting and irresistible! 207 pages 19cm by 25cm lavishly illustrated in colour.


£20 NOW £8 70729 CARRY ME! 1950s Lucite


Handbags by Janice Berkson When Will Hardy joined his father’s firm Handbag (Metals) Specialities, he really had his work cut out for him. Towards the end of World War Two he was able to get his hands on damaged aeroplane noses which were made of Lucite. He enjoyed working with this new acrylic material and designed a Lucite jewellery box and brought it to the buyers at Saks Fifth Avenue, the famous New York department store. They loved it and told him that if he put a handle on it they would sell it as a handbag. The hat box, accordion, tortoiseshell with rhinestone trim, translucent topaz with topaz rhinestones, black diamond-carved bucket covered in rhinestone with the signature clear handles, crushed seashell, confetti and threads, the translucent tortoiseshell body with translucent amber carved sides and clear carved lid are among the ornamental, transcending fashion, high quality designs to pore over again and again in this exquisitely photographed collection.


Hundreds more extraordinary shapes, beautiful designs and ornamentation. 208 large pages, full page colour photos. Carry me home! 170 colour photos.


£29.95 NOW £15


= Gift Idea where you see this symbol


63021 THE FAN MUSEUM by Hélène Adda Alexander The fans illustrated here range from early Chinese, through the 15th to the 20th century. The variations range through the articulated and telescopic, with in-built spectacles, even an ear trumpet, and from


scenes of chinoiserie, biblical, political and mythological origin to the downright erotic. Materials may be paper, wood, bone, ivory, mother-of-pearl or tortoiseshell, and the decorations are exquisite. Our favourite is fashioned from bird of paradise feathers, complete with stuffed head! 88 softback pages illustrated in gorgeous colour. £7.95 NOW £3


70060 101 EXTRAORDINARY INVESTMENTS: Curious, Unusual and Bizarre Ways to Make Money - A Handbook for the Adventurous Collector by Toby Walne


Investing need not be a bore and, with the help of this innovative book, you too can join in the fun, learn essential trading tips, gain contact info and enjoy cash returns. Here is a compelling and practical exploration of curious and unusual ways to make money. From corkscrews to cocktail shakers, feudal titles to fishing tackle and seaside sauce to ski posters, there is hidden money just waiting to jump into your pocket. Excuse us while we rush to dust off our old vinyl records. 306 pages, line drawings, gold-tooled cover. £12.99 NOW £5


69984 HANNA-BARBERA TREASURY: From Boo Boo to Bamm Bamm The Ultimate


Cartoon Scrapbook by Jerry Beck and Fred Seibert A treasury of rare art and mementos, postcards in wallets, collectors card cartoons to collect, tiny booklets, a tiny Yogi Bear


colouring book, big Flintstones cards, many teeny booklets of Lippy the Lion, Hardy Har Har and much more. Here is Fred Flintstone with his irrepressible ‘Yabba-Dabba-Doo!’ and there is the lovable Yogi Bear boasting ‘I’m smarter than the average bear!’ while Penelope Pitstop shouts ‘Hayulp, Hayulp’ at the top of her voice - characters of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. The duo won a well-deserved seven Academy Awards and eight Emmys. Hooray for Atom Ant, Scooby-Doo, Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, Wacky Races, Quick Draw McGraw, Top Cat, The Jetsons, Jonny Quest, Magilla Gorilla, Space Ghost, Secret Squirrel and a host of others. Apologies if dust jacket has stuck. 157 pages 29mm x 26mm in brilliant colour, packed with 24 pull-out mementoes protected in polythene, with timeline. Sketches, comic book covers, product packages, archival newspaper and magazine ads, £30 NOW £15


70123 BRITISH DOLLS OF THE 1950s by Susan Brewer


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The frilly little charmer on the cover will steal your heart, as will the rest of the endearing collectable characters in this book. As well as the history of the most important doll manufacturers, you will discover more about accessories, such as shoe sizes, how to spot fakes, and warnings about hard plastic disease. The volume covers all types of dolls, including plush, composite and plastic. The decade’s important events, such as the Coronation and the Festival of Britain were commemorated by dolls, and the plastic form enabled more animation than ever before, so the Festival doll could walk, talk and even dance. 186 pages with bright colour photos, 1950s timeline, lists of where to see dolls in the UK, and doll hospitals. All copies are SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR. £19.99 NOW £8.50


70124 BRITISH DOLLS OF THE 1960s by Susan Brewer


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The sixties saw the advent of the Beatles, the Great Train Robbery, the first supermodel Twiggy and England’s World Cup win. Vinyl had replaced the hard plastic of the fifties and American Barbie dolls moved the market on towards “teen dolls”, role models with a style that young girls could aspire to. Dolls were almost all white with blonde hair. The British Mattel Twiggy doll, based on Barbie’s friend Casey, had short, straight hair and heavy eye make-up. Other trade-marks were Pedigree, Palitoy, Faerie Glen, Roddy and Rosebud. The Rosebud teen doll was a dainty model with strappy high heels, but soon Pedigree’s 12-inch Sindy doll swept the market. British girls liked a tomboy, and Palitoy also introduced the first Action Man in 1966. Meanwhile the baby doll market was expanding with models like Palitoy’s Tiny Tears who could cry when pressed. The final chapter includes advice on collecting and preserving your vintage dolls. 239pp, colour and archive photos. All copies are SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR. £25 NOW £8.50


70822 VINTAGE SWIMWEAR by Sarah Kennedy The swimsuit is a fascinating barometer of changing social attitudes. When Louis Reard “invented” the bikini in 1946, celebrating a new post-war emphasis on having fun, he was not in fact first in the field, and young


models like Marilyn Monroe were already posing in the swimwear two-piece. Reard’s first bikini was so minimal that people were reluctant to wear it, and it took Bardot’s glamour in the 1950s to bring it into the mainstream, a position cemented by Ursula Andress’s spectacular rise from the waves as a Bond girl in 1962. Jantzen was the designer of 1940s structured one-piece swimsuits worn by stars such as Betty Grable and Jayne Mansfield eager to display their assets. The 60s and 70s celebrated a much skinnier figure, now enhanced by a deep tan, while the health conscious 80s and 90s moved fashion towards a well-muscled body, though the voluptuous look never really went out, as shown in a 1997 shot of Eva Herzigova modelling Alexander McQueen. 304pp, softback, colour photos, list of designers and brands. £16.99 NOW £5.50


70532 BRITAINS TOY MODELS CATALOGUES


1970 TO 1979 compiled by David Pullen The toys and models produced by the famous firm Britains have always been known for their realism and play value, and here they are in all their glory. Since releasing its first toy soldiers in 1893 using a new hollow casting process, Britains has produced thousands of dramatic military and civil models, including the popular


Home Farm series. In the 1970s the annual catalogues contained between 340 and 370 items, such as motorcycles, farm vehicles, farm animals, soldiers, guns, garden miniatures and zoo animals. The decade also saw Britains release over 400 new products, including figures that replaced the Eye Right and Swoppets lines, new metal models, and a helicopter. This book includes reprints of the annual consumer toy models catalogues from the 1970s. 303 pages 21cm by 14.5 cm in very bright colour. Index by catalogue number. £24.99 NOW £9


CRIME


Christmas is a poor excuse every 25th of December to pick a man’s pockets.


- Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol


71263 FOUL DEEDS AND SUSPICIOUS DEATHS IN


LONDON’S WEST END by Geoffrey Howse


With quotations from trial transcripts, headlines of the day, newspaper cartoons and pen and ink sketches from contemporary press reports plus dozens of photographs from the author’s own collection, here is the dark side of London’s glamorous West End. Read of the foul murder


of the famous actor William Terriss by a madman in 1897, the horrific wartime murders of Gordon Cummins and the strange disappearances of the socialite MP Victor Grayson and Lord Lucan among many true cases. 192pp in large softback. £10.99 NOW £3.50


70819 STREETWISE


SPYCRAFT by Barry Davies Streetwise Spycraft shows you exactly what spies and other agents, acting both legally, illegally or in that shadowy grey area in between, do, and how they do it. Handling other agents, coding, tracking, escape, evasion, surveillance, identity theft, document forgery, recording


information, methods of entry, sabotage of vehicles, self- defence techniques, infiltration of gangs, cyberspying and much more are explained in detail, skills that the general public would not have dreamt of using, or even knowing about a few years ago. 176pp pocket softback, line illus. £9.99 NOW £3.50


70543 IL DOTTORE: The Double Life of a Mafia Doctor by Ron Felber


Here is a tense, real-life tale of a doctor torn between his loyalty to La Cosa Nostra and his devotion to the Hippocratic Oath. Through a series of circumstances, he had become a mafia insider, and physician to top New York Mafia Dons such as John Gotti, Carlo Gambino, Paul Castellano and Joe


Bonanno. By day he was a well respected surgeon and socialite but by night he turned into a gambler and sex addict. He was welcomed into an exciting and often glamorous underworld of drugs and beautiful women while at the same time becoming one of the nation’s leading cardiac surgeons. His world came crashing down in the mid-1980s, when the heads of the five New York Mafia families were imprisoned. The pivotal point of the doctor’s career came when the government’s star witness, Ralph Scopo, lay on his operating table and he was asked to perform bypass heart surgery. 278 pages. £17.99 NOW £5


69323 OFFICIAL CIA MANUAL OF TRICKERY AND DECEPTION


by H. Keith Melton and Robert Wallace Electronic cloaks for invisibility, ‘dope’ coins, pickpocketing, facial expressions, the surreptitious removal of objects, special aspects of deception for women, practicing actions so as to do them naturally and remain unnoticed are the art of the spy. Magic or spy craft? Only a single copy survived from CIA files, now reprinted. 250pp with line art and photos. £9.99 NOW £3.50


70821 ILLUSTRATED


HISTORY OF TORTURE: From the Roman Empire to the War on Terror by Jack Vernon


This comprehensive book deals with 26 different forms of torture, from Roman gladiatorial combat to the contemporary practice of waterboarding. Numerous reproductions and facsimiles of original documents explain the


judicial, physical and personal angles. The strappado was a favourite torture of the Inquisition, inflicting similar effects to crucifixion. A facsimile wallet includes this authorisation together with Torquemada’s Instructions, Guy Fawkes’s confession and a poem by the French writer Villon who was water-tortured in 1462. Human experimentation was used during World War II not only by the Nazis but also in the notorious Japanese Unit 731, and other modern tortures include drugs and psycho- chemicals, which according to Dr Frank Olson have been employed by the US military. 60pp, numerous reproductions, facsimile documents and four inserts in document wallets, bibliography. £20 NOW £6.50


70806 INSIDE THE KRAY FAMILY by Joe Lee and Rita Smith


Cousins of Reg and Ronnie Kray, Joe actually lived under the same roof as his cousins with their brother Charlie and their tempestuous parents. Private and loyal, the cousins have never spoken before about their family in public and here have collaborated with the bestselling author of The Guv’nor Peter Gerrard to share their thoughts and personal memories. Joe was introduced to his first cousins when they were just one hour old and remained close to them all their lives. Now in his 80s, he lives near Southend. Family photos, some in colour. 256pp in paperback. £8.99 NOW £3.50


70794 CRIME ARCHIVES: Inside the Minds of Today’s Deadliest Criminals by Damon Wilson


Some of the 28 criminals who feature here got away with their crimes over a long period, for instance Fred and Rose West are known to have killed at least 10 victims and possibly many more. Suspicions were raised when they were heard threatening to put their children “under the patio”. After Fred committed suicide it was clear that Rose had been his accomplice, but Harold Shipman’s wife Primrose is considered innocent of suspicion. Shipman killed to feed his godlike self-esteem whereas the Wests had a sexual motive. The Austrian kidnappers Josef Fritzl and Wolfgang Priklopil wanted both power and sex, and their victims have suggested that they were able to escape detection for so long because the ideology of the Nazi years had not been sufficiently outlawed from Austrian society. School shootings such as the Virginia and Columbine massacres are often perpetrated by disaffected students, but the Dunblane primary school massacre by Thomas Hamilton was a revenge killing following his dismissal as a scoutmaster. 62pp, fully illustrated with photos on every page, four


document wallets with inserts of evidence and material.


£19.99 NOW £5


70067 THE WOMAN WHO SHOT


MUSSOLINI by Frances Stonor Saunders Ask anyone if they know the Honourable Violet Gibson and they will probably say they have never heard of her. Yet, of all Mussolini’s would-be assassins, she was the one who came closest to changing the course of history. Her bullet narrowly missed the Italian dictator’s head and instead hit him on the nose. She was pronounced mad and condemned without trial to a whole life sentence, without parole, in a lunatic asylum. This book unravels the mystery. Violet was the daughter of an important Anglo-Irish peer, born to a life of privilege and ease. But she was a thoughtful, serious-minded young woman who had fallen in love with Italy and who watched as Mussolini’s thugs took the country into what she judged to be the moral cesspit of Fascism. She felt compelled to act. 375 compulsively readable paperback pages. Illus. £12.99 NOW £4.50


! CRIME FICTION


As a sleuth you are poor. You couldn’t detect a bass-drum in a telephone-booth.


- P. G. Wodehouse, The Man with Two Left Feet


71229 GENESIS by Karin Slaughter


Three and a half years ago, former Grant County Medical Examiner Sara Linton moved to Atlanta hoping to leave her tragic past behind her. Now working as a doctor, she is starting to piece her life together, but when a severely wounded young woman is brought into the Emergency Room, she finds herself drawn back into a world of violence and terror. The


woman has been hit by a car but, naked and brutalised, it is clear that she has been the prey of a twisted mind. The Criminal Investigation Team returns to the scene of the accident and stumbles on a torture chamber buried deep beneath the earth, a hidden house of horrors. Sara’s patient is just the first victim of a sick, sadistic killer. From the author who specialises in forensic medicine and terror. 550pp in paperback. £7.99 NOW £3


71230 SKIN PRIVILEGE by Karin Slaughter Lena Adams has spent her life struggling to forget her childhood in Reece, the small town which nearly destroyed her. She has made a new life for herself as a police detective in Heartsdale, a hundred miles away, but nothing could prepare her for the violence which explodes when she is forced to return. A vicious murder leaves a young woman incinerated beyond


recognition and Lena is the only suspect. Her boss receives word that his detective has been arrested and has no choice but to go to his aid, taking with him his wife, medical examiner Sara Linton. Soon after their arrival, a second victim is found and the town closes ranks. No one does American small town evil more chillingly than this bestselling author. 549pp in paperback. £7.99 NOW £3.50


71231 FOX EVIL by Minette Walters


When elderly Ailsa Lockyer-Fox is found dead in her garden, the finger of suspicion points at her wealthy, land-owning husband Colonel James Lockyer-Fox. A Coroner’s inquest gives a verdict of ‘natural causes’, but the gossip surrounding James refuses to go away. Is he guilty or is it because Shenstead Village is a place of too few people and too many secrets? Why have James and Ailsa cut their children


out of their wills and what happened in the past to create such animosity within the family? And why is James so desperate to find his illegitimate grandchild? Friendless and alone, his reclusive behaviour begins to alarm his London-based solicitor who discovers that James has become the victim of a relentless campaign accusing him of far worse than the death of his wife. ‘Violence meets domestic gossip.’ - Daily Mail. 557pp in paperback. £6.99 NOW £3.50


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