Mike O'Connor

Cornwall's storytelling tradition stretches back a thousand years. Before TV and radio, stories were told among the flickering shadows at the fireside. They whiled away the travellers’ miles, long hours in the fields, and days at sea. They gladdened brief moments of relaxation for miners and bal-maidens. Travelling storytellers wandered from village to village swapping words for supper, and a rich local dialect brought the tales to life. Classic Cornish tales such as the Mermaid of Zennor and Jan Tregeagle are wonderfully entertaining, and collectively tell us much about Cornwall, its people, and its history. Join accomplished storyteller, scholar and writer Mike O'Connor as he explores the ‘when, where, and why’ of Cornish folk tales and celebrates the rich traditions and cultural legacy of hwedhlow.

Before schooling was widely available, for most people the classroom was at the fireside, the field and the country lane, where the bards told their tales. Many such folk tales exist to convey life-lessons in an entertaining way. These stories are not the pontifications of ancient philosophers: they are the gleanings of countless storytellers, everyday men and women with hard-won life experiences and pockets full of folklore. The tales reflect the times and places of their origin, but have been handed down from generation to generation, evolving to meet changing times. Some are amusing; some are thought-provoking; all have been polished and honed for so long that their message slips, almost imperceptibly, into the mind. Fools and Wise Men retells these stories for new generations – repaying our debts to the bards of old.

In the steep woods above the Helford River in West Cornwall lives a family of hedgehogs, this is their story. A beautifully written evocation of time and place, imaginative but lifelike, heart-warming but not over-sentimental, with a light sprinkling of folklore and history. This little tale reaches out and draws you into its world, and even creates its own mythology. Ideal for the 9 to 12 year-old reader, but enjoyed by all our adult test readership.

Scilly has been its own unique land for centuries, separate from England and cut off from Cornwall by twenty-five miles of rough sea – yet until now its folk tales have been poorly documented. Let Anthony the droll-teller and his companions guide you on this voyage around the wonderful Isles of Scilly: a place of smugglers and shipwrecks, pirates and privateers, legends and long lost tales.

Join Jamie, the son of a travelling droll teller, as he journeys across Cornwall, a land steeped in myth and legend. Along the way you will hear mysterious and exciting tales like what happened when Bodrugan took his soldiers to capture Richard Edgcumbe, why the ghost of Lady Emma was never seen again, what proper job King Arthur gave the Giant and how St Piran came to settle in Cornwall. These stories – specially chosen to be enjoyed by 7- to 11-year-old readers – sparkle with magic and explode with adventure. As old as the moors and as wild as the sea, they have been freshly re-told for today’s readers by storyteller Mike O’Connor.

As recently as 2008, when Presidents Bush and Obama acted to bail out the nation’s crashing banks and failing auto companies, the perennial objection erupted anew: government has no business in . . . business. Mike O’Connor argues in this book: Those who cite history to decry government economic intervention are invoking a tradition that simply does not exist. In a cogent and timely take on this ongoing and increasingly contentious debate, O’Connor uses deftly drawn historical analyses of major political and economic developments to puncture the abiding myth that business once operated apart from government. From its founding to the present day, our commercial republic has always mixed - and battled over the proper balance of - politics and economics. Contesting the claim that the modern-day libertarian conception of U. S. political economy represents the “natural” American economic philosophy, O’Connor demonstrates that this perspective has served historically as only one among many. Beginning with the early national debate over the economic plans proposed by Alexander Hamilton, continuing through the legal construction of the corporation in the Gilded Age and the New Deal commitment to full employment and concluding with contemporary concerns over lowering taxes, this book demonstrates how the debate over government intervention in the economy has illuminated the possibilities and limits of American democratic capitalism.

A collection of humorous Q&As about everything you've always wanted to ask about birds and birding Mike O'Connor knows bird watchers as well as he knows birds. He knows that if you're even slightly interested in identifying birds or attracting them to your backyard with a feeder, then you've also had your share of strange and silly questions about birds and their baffling behavior. In "Why Do Bluebirds Hate Me?," O'Connor applies his deep knowledge of all things avian-- and his hilarious sense of humor--to answer the burning and bizarre questions that every bird enthusiast and amateur bird watcher has wondered at one time or another but might be too embarrassed to ask: Do woodpeckers take baths? Is there such a thing as a wild parakeet? Do Northern Cardinals have anything to do with Catholic cardinals? Questions range from the practical (Should I rotate the seed in my feeder?) to the quirky (Why are vultures eating my vinyl screen door?) to the adorable (Are those birds kissing or feeding each other?).

The ancient land of Cornwall is steeped in mysterious tradition, proud heritage and age-old folklore. Before books were widely available, wandering ‘droll tellers’ used to spread Cornish insight and humour to all parts of the Duchy – exchanging their tales for food and shelter. Anthony James was one such droll teller, and this collection follows him as he makes his way around Cornwall one glorious summer. Richly illustrated with hand-drawn images and woodcuts, Cornish Folk Tales will appeal to anyone captivated by this beautiful land and its resident kindly giants, mischievous piskeys, seductive mermaids, bold knights and barnacle-encrusted sea captains.

The latest volume in the Airfields and Airmen series covers the Arras area. It includes a visit to the grave of Albert Ball VC and the graves of Waterfall and Bayly, the first British fliers killed in action. There is a visit to the aerodrome from which Alan McLeod took off from to earn his VC and to the grave of Viscount Glentworth, killed while flying with 32 Squadron. The German side is well covered with visits to their cemeteries and aerodromes. This well researched book relives the deadly thrills of war in the air over the battlefields of the Western Front.

Manfred von Richthofen became a fighter pilot on the Western Front in August 1916. By January 1917, Richthofen had shot down fifteen aircraft had been appointed commander of his own unit. He painted the fuselage of his Albatros D-III bright red and was nicknamed the Red Baron. This book is divided into three sectors of the WWI front line in which von Richthofen operated. Airfield sites, memorials and the graves of Manfred's famous victims are described with directions for the battlefield walker.

This is the first book in the Battleground Europe Series discovering the airfields and airmen of the Great War. It is sometimes forgotten that the Wright Brother's first flight took place only in 1903; yet fifteen years later the Royal Air Force had over 20,000 aircraft of all types including night bombers. This book takes the reader to the sites of the airfields used by the Royal Flying Corps in the vicinity of the Ypres Salient. These fields were basic in the extreme compared with airbases of WW2 and today; flattish ground hitherto used for agriculture purposes trampled down by men and vehicles. It was here that the primitive aircraft were based, surrounded by a tented camp and temporary buildings. Yet out of such places the great legendary air aces of the war operated. The book also reveals the locations of many killed whilst engaged in combat flying. Pilots from other countries (French, German etc) are also covered.