Gillian Darley Book order

IN PRAISE OF ENGLAND'S MOST MISUNDERSTOOD COUNTY It's time we talked about Essex. It's the county everyone's heard of; the place few of us know. Gillian Darley takes us on a vivid, personal tour, from the seaside piers to the empty marshes and the New Town tower blocks, revealing a landscape and a story like no other. Alongside Essex Man and TOWIE, there's the Essex that nurtured the first Puritan settlers in America, welcomed refugees from Europe, fugitives from the underworld and bombed-out East Enders. Where dreamers and makers, punk poets, anarchist sects and inventors all found inspiration. A Colchester nurseryman was the first to trade with a secretive Eastern Kingdom. Braintree's only earthquake inspired an innovative building system. In Epping, a spat over firewood led to an historic victory for the common people. In Essex, the clash between city and countryside, capital and province, created a shower of sparks that ultimately set the world on fire. Drawing on everything from ancient maps to reality tv, EXCELLENT ESSEX is no guide book, but a wonderful guide to England's most misunderstood county.

The cataclysm that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum in AD 79 continues to fascinate nearly two thousand years later. Darley's meditation on a powerful natural wonder touches on pagan beliefs, vulcanology, and travel writing, as it sifts through the ashes of Vesuvius to expose changes in our understanding of cultural and natural environments.

All over Britain and Ireland there are planned villages: for aesthetic, philanthropic or political reasons, for convenience and for ideals - the best known including Port Sunlight, New Lanark and Bournville. This gazetteer shows, county by county, where such villages can be seen.