Martin Gray

Perfect for lovers of travel, art, cultural wonder and the natural world, The Endurance of Things is a rich and accessible collection of short, affectionate essays, chiefly about the life and culture of Italy. Each essay illuminates a different aspect of the country and stems from the author’s experience of places, paintings and people during half a century’s genial explorations. Autobiographical moments develop into reflections on the nature of history, perception, artistic representation, and the passing of time. Inevitably, literature often underlies these discussions. Fragments of Wordsworth and Wallace Stevens and Philip Larkin find a home here, alongside comments on paintings by Piero della Francesca, Titian and Tiepolo amongst many other artists, together with descriptions of Tuscan village life. Indeed, there is almost nothing that might not find a place in these essays. They revel in the pleasures of miscellany: the portrait and the altarpiece; the ragbag and the jewel box.

Secret Sacred Sites uncovers 100 hidden holy places from around the world. Sacred sites are among the world’s most visited and venerated places. They offer another level of experience to its visitors and pilgrims, full of intensity, presence and, for some, higher vibration levels and consciousness. The drawback is often overcrowded places, full of tourists whose presence will ruin this privileged moment. Secret Sacred Sites uncovers 100 lesser-known sacred sites often only known to locals, guaranteeing a fully authentic visit. In his forty years of pilgrimage, renowned National Geographic photographer Martin Gray has visited 160 countries and photographed hundreds of these lesser known sacred sites. Here he has selected his favourite hidden holy places, the result of a lifetime's quest.

Mother India at Westminster Terrace in Glasgow, has been an institution since 1996 and specialises in dishes such as ginger and green chilli fish pakora, seasoned Scottish haddock with Puy lentils, and Delhi-style Scottish lamb, all cooked fresh to order, reflecting Mother India owner Monir Mohammed’s commitment to cooking quality Indian food without pandering to the British taste for inauthentic korma or masala. The strategy has been hugely popular, allowing expansion to five outlets, including tapas, take- aways and a Mother India Cafe in Edinburgh. Mother India is regularly ranked in Herald restaurant critic Ron MacKenna’s top 10 Scottish restaurants. The book will incorporate a first person account of Monir’s personal culinary journey, with a photo essay of the life of one of the world's great Indian restaurants as an integral cog in the cultural melting pot of a modern British city. Alongside this will be a collection of recipes, some of which are signature Mother India dishes, and others designed specifically for home cooking. Each recipe will draw upon Monir's story: his beginnings as a boy from a British Asian family who started working in restaurants at 14 and his pivotal stay in the Punjab in his late teens where he learned the ancient principles of Indian home cooking from scratch. The book will tell the story of the risks he took to build a personal, authentic style of Indian cooking. There are human stories running through the recipes as well: Hajra Bibi's Salmon was inspired by a dish his mother (Hajra Bibi) used to make them as children.

A stunning one-of-a-kind biography of Charlie Parker. Written entirely in trimeter, the epic biogrpahical poem dances nimbly along in a way that echoes Bird's blazing, fast-fingered solos. Gray's marvelous use of language reflects the rhythms of jazz and the beat that lies at the heart of bebop. Indeed, Blues for Bird is like a piece of jazz itself: exciting, innovative and constantly surprising.

Updated and expanded, this dictionary explains concepts and topics that range from the familiar to the comparatively esoteric. It covers fields such as literary movements, technical language, genres and sub-genres and schools of literary theory. It contains 1300 entries.