by ben@growthstudios.com.au | Jul 12, 2024 |
WINNER OF THE ELWYN HARTLEY-EDWARDS AWARD FOR EQUINE WRITING, 2023.
Tiffany Francis-Baker explores how the relationship between humans and horses has shaped the British landscape and how this connection has become part of our nation’s ecosystems.
Many of us enjoy walking or riding on bridleways. These ancient networks crisscross the British countryside, but we rarely pause to ponder how they came to be.
Tiffany Francis-Baker tells the intriguing history of Britain’s bridleways, revealing how our relationship with horses is deeply woven into the fabric of British culture, from street and pub names to trading routes and coaching inns. She meets the closest living descendants of wild horses and investigates our evolving relationship with horses, exploring equestrian sports, horse fairs, horseback travellers and adventurers, and how humans and horses have worked together for millennia.
Part-domesticated and part-fiercely independent, horses have long captured our imaginations, and in The Bridleway, Francis-Baker reveals how deeply rooted they have been in our culture for thousands of years and how they can help us understand the natural world and our place within it.
Tiffany Francis-Baker is an award-winning writer, artist and environmentalist from the South Downs in Hampshire. With a background in the arts, rural heritage and conservation, her work is fuelled by a love for the natural world and a passion for protecting it. She writes and illustrates for national publications and has appeared on BBC Radio 4 and Channel 4. Her books include Dark Skies, Food You Can Forage, the Concise Foraging Guide and Bees and Beekeeping.
by ben@growthstudios.com.au | Jul 12, 2024 |
A treasure trove of invaluable information for boatowners, designers, builders, surveyors, chandlers and anyone maintaining their own boat.
Thoroughly updated for this eighth edition, this book is packed with tables of lengths, widths, weights and strengths as well as new data on a vast range of equipment from anchors to masts, propellers to gas cylinders, cleat sizes to winch bases, and hatches to bolts, bearings, cabling and piping.
If you want to know what size winch to fit, the breaking strength of stainless steel rigging wire, the recommended size for seacocks or what length and size an anchor chain should be, then this is the book for you. The Boat Data Book is a must-have reference for owners and professionals.
Ian Nicolson started collecting data about boats from his father and grandfather when he was still at school. After his apprenticeship as a naval architect he joined A Mylne & Co, where he has been a senior partner since 1979.
Richard Nicolson has raced in the Whitbread Round the World Race, won at Les Voiles de St Tropez and traversed the Arctic’s North West Passage. He has rebuilt and repaired many yachts, from classics to modern hi-tech flyers.
by ben@growthstudios.com.au | Jul 12, 2024 |
‘Eye-opening. An essential read for any football fan’ Jamie Carragher
A new, expanded and super-charged guide to Expected Goals (xG) analysis from the bestselling author of The Expected Goals Philosophy.
The concept of Expected Goals or xG has changed how we understand football. Every fan will have heard of xG, many will understand what it is, but few will know exactly how it’s being used by football teams to improve their chances of winning matches.
xGenius explores the interplay between analysis, tactics, and decision-making. It seeks to put the sport of football under the microscope with the aim of getting closer to the ultimate truth of what makes players, managers and teams successful. What, ultimately, wins football matches.
Packed with examples from the Premier League and beyond, xGenius shows how xG and other performance analysis tools are helping answer previously unanswerable questions. Were Brighton the unluckiest team in recent history? What is ‘The Timo Werner Paradox’? How many titles did Liverpool deserve to win under J rgen Klopp? Is Son Heung-Min the greatest finisher in the modern era?
xGenius demonstrates how clubs and coaches are using data as a major tool to improve performances on the pitch. It reveals how xG helped Brighton and Brentford transform themselves into established Premier League clubs, and how such analysis was integral to Liverpool and Arsenal’s renaissance in recent years.
As teams have realised the importance of amassing high xG numbers, the average shot distances in Europe’s major leagues have plummeted, dead ball situations have become ever more important, and players who are able to accumulate large xG volumes have become increasingly valuable. Clubs have developed new systems, formations and strategies as they strive for ‘big chance creation’.
xGenius shows how top-level football analysis is being carried out by the very best in the business. The insights explored in this book will change the way you watch football.
James Tippett is a Sports Partnerships Manager at Oddschecker and WhoScored and previously worked as a football analyst at Smartodds, a betting consultancy founded and run by Brentford FC owner Matthew Benham. He is the author of The Expected Goals Philosophy. @xGPhilosophy / @JamesTippett
by ben@growthstudios.com.au | Jul 12, 2024 |
Identifying migrants at dusk or at night night becomes a reality with this book, which contains detailed text on flight and contact calls, along with annotated sonograms and QR codes to the calls themselves.
Every spring and autumn, millions of birds fly over us to en route to their summer or winter quarters, with these migratory flights often being at night. A profusion of sounds then fills the air, making it possible to put a name to these fleeting silhouettes – because the best way to identify these migrants is by sound. Often neglected in traditional identification guides, these calls are described in this book with precision. Annotated sonograms make it possible to visualise, identify and better memorise the flight and contact calls of all European migratory species.
* 450 species described, with detailed text, photographs and sonograms.
* Text covers essential criteria for effective identification of calls in the field.
* Migratory behaviour and where and when to encounter each species is also covered.
* Contains QR codes of more than 1,000 downloadable sounds to listen to at home or on your smartphone.
Stanislas Wroza runs France’s National Biodiversity Observatory, and is a member of the French Avifauna Commission and the editorial board of the journal Ornithos. During a stay in the United States, he discovered the potential of acoustic tools in ornithology, and subsequently founded the soundbirding.org project an acoustic exploration of wildlife. Since then, he has focused on the search for new sounds it is amazing how much there remains to be discovered.
In 2019, Stanislas’s first book Birds by Sound was published, the first practical work to allow the reader to master the recording of bird songs and calls.
by ben@growthstudios.com.au | Jul 12, 2024 |
WINNER OF THE SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2024 CYCLING BOOK OF THE YEAR
A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023- SPORT
NOMINATED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
‘An absorbing mix of historical sleuthing and travel writing’
The Telegraph
‘(a) fascinating and often touching book – Wonderful’
The Times
The story of an obsession. When cycling commentator Ned Boulting bought a length of Pathe news film featuring a stage of the Tour de France from 1923 he set about learning everything he could about it – taking him on an intriguing journey that encompasses travelogue, history and detective story.
In the autumn of 2020 Ned Boulting (ITV head cycling commentator and Tour de France obsessive) bought a length of Pathe news film from a London auction house. All he knew was it was film from the Tour de France, a long time ago. Once restored it became clear it was a short sequence of shots from stage 4 of the 1923 Tour de France. No longer than 2.5 minutes long, it featured half a dozen sequences, including a lone rider crossing a bridge.
Ned set about learning everything he could about the sequence studying each frame, face and building until he had squeezed the meaning from it. It sets him off in fascinating directions, encompassing travelogue, history, mystery story to explain, to go deeper into this moment in time, captured on his little film.
Join him as he explores the history of cycling and France just five years after WWI.
Ned Boulting is the UK’s best known voice of cycling he commentates on the Tour de France for ITV, and all other major cycling races. Ned is the author of five books, including the bestselling How I Won the Yellow Jumper and On the Road Bike. He lives in London with his wife and two children. @nedboulting
