Reference

From Hank Aaron (b.1934), an American baseball star, to the Chilean poet Raul Zurita (b. 1951), this book contains 25,000 quotations by more than 6,200 authors. International in scope, the listings are also up to date, with about half the quotations taken from the last 100 years. The clearly laid-out entries give authors' dates, sources for the quotations and contextual notes; and the keyword and thematic indexes make it easy to find the quotation you want.

This first volume of a comprehensive guide to the British Library's renowned collection of Greek manuscripts describes over 600 manuscripts from the Arundel, Burney, Harley, King's, Landsowne, Royal, Stowe and Yates Thompson collections, plus additions to the Additional and Egerton MSS since 1925. Cellophane jacket.

For 'Customary' in Linacre's subtitle, read 'Imperial': his guide is a compelling argument for the natural supremacy of the duodecimal system and also covers topics such as the megalithic yard, cosmic numerology and the number 42.

Comprising more than 1,100 signed biographical-critical entries, the Continuum Encyclopedia serves as both guide and companion to American literature, surveying its growth and development from Puritan writers of colonial times to the best-selling authors writing today. The volume also contains 70 substantial articles on topics and genres, from abolitionism to young adult literature, all cross-referenced to the biographical entries. Most articles include bibliographic information and there is an index of authors.

In the seventh century a yard was as much a reckoning of the worth of some land as a set measure of its dimensions and, although the term came to mean a unit of distance, the 36-inch standard was not settled until 1855. This light-hearted compendium explores the origins of our weighing, measuring and timing systems from the Babylonian calendar to the metric system.

Handpicked to ‘make you sound clever, or sympathetic, or worldly wise’, this selection of short quotations, with commentaries, is arranged in broad topics, beginning with the meaning of life and ending with useless knowledge (‘There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge’ – Bertrand Russell), and draws on sources of wisdom from the Bible to Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Off-mint.