Put your feet up and escape from it all with The Chambers Book of Quick Crosswords featuring 100 puzzles to test your general knowledge.

The puzzles occupy the “challenging”, mid-range territory, striking a balance between the accessible and the unattainable. Each includes a handful of clues from both ends of the spectrum: relatively easy ones, allowing solvers a way in, and toughies, that stretch the cerebral powers much more.

You will find a mix of music, flora and fauna, TV, cinema, geography, literature, the Classics and sport; orthodox general knowledge to help you extract maximum enjoyment and satisfaction from every 15 x 15 word square. Entertaining, fun and challenging enough to tax even the most seasoned crossword aficionado, you’ll need quick wits to go head-to-head with Chambers.

• Chambers is used by all the key crossword setters, including Azed, Araucaria and Bradman
• 100 crosswords previously only available online
• Set by setters whose work appears in The Guardian, Private Eye, The Independent, The FT and The Telegraph

Put your feet up and escape from it all with The Chambers Book of Cryptic Crosswords featuring a ‘ton’ of cryptic challenges to give your brain a workout.

In each puzzle there are one or two easy clues to provide a way in, and all the solutions, bar the odd exception, can be found in the Chambers Dictionary. No specialist knowledge is required: if you have a good grasp of the English language and an interest in words, you should be able to crack the clues. This collection is designed to provide a fair challenge for seasoned experts, but also give ‘average solvers’ a decent chance of completing the puzzles. Entertaining, fun and challenging enough to tax even the most seasoned crossword aficionado, you’ll need quick wits to go head-to-head with Chambers.

• Chambers is used by all the key crossword setters, including Azed, Araucaria and Bradman
• 100 crosswords previously only available online
• Set by setters whose work appears in The Guardian, Private Eye, The Independent, The FT and The Telegraph

The essential one-stop factfinder.

14 Thematic Sections: Space – Earth – Climate and Environment – Natural History- Human Body, Health and Nutrition – Science and Technology- History – Arts and Culture – Thought and Belief – Sports and Games- Time – Communication – Social Structure – Nations of the World.

Covering everything from music to mythology and the human body to history, Chambers Facts, Facts, Facts is packed with a remarkable collection of information in a single quick-reference volume. All the essential facts and figures are clearly presented, together with extra features such as mini-biographies and glossaries. The full index and detailed contents listings make it easy to find specific information.

• Nearly 1,000 pages of facts and figures, fully updated for this new edition
• Clearly presented in an attractive colour layout
• With diagrams, tables, lists and maps

An engaging introduction to traditional knowledge and forgotten wisdom cooking with a range – counting sheep – curing drunkenness finding water – signalling with semaphore – identifying plants and trees making and taking tea – natural first aid – using an abacus navigating by nature – preparing antidotes to poisoning predicting the sex of a baby – repairing clothes curing warts – weather forecasting.

Lost Wisdom is a celebration of the time-honoured wisdom upon which we all once relied. It draws on folklore, tradition and superstition, and is packed with amusing anecdotes and historical extracts which illuminate the beliefs and knowledge of our ancestors. It brings to life the wisdom and practical skills that helped generation after generation, only becoming lost with the advent of mechanization and the technological age.

Following in the footsteps of Lost Crafts, Lost Wisdom is a beautiful book that will once more immerse you in the pleasures of the past.

Celebrating curiosity and adventure, The Odditorium explores the obsessions, achievements and failures of lesser-known but utterly remarkable individuals who exemplify the human spirit through their stories of invention, trickery, subversion and survival.

Throughout its pages you’ll learn about the antics and adventures of tricksters, eccentrics, deviants and inventors. While their stories range from heroic failures to great hoaxes, one thing unites them – they all carved their own path through life. Each protagonist exemplifies the human spirit through their dogged determination, willingness to take risks, their unflinching obsession and, often, a good dollop of eccentricity.

Learn about Reginald Bray (1879–1939), a Victorian accountant who sent over 30,000 singular objects through the mail, including himself; Cyril Hoskin (1910–1981), a Cornish plumber who reinvented himself as a Tibetan lama and went on to sell over a million books; and Elaine Morgan (1920–2013), a journalist who battled a tirade of prejudice to pursue an aquatic-based theory of human evolution, which is today being championed by David Attenborough.

Elsewhere, we uncover the lesser-known obsessions of such historical giants as Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1726), whose beloved alchemy led to a lifetime’s search for the philosopher’s stone and elixir of life; and philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650), whose obsession with cross-eyed ladies led him to seek a ‘cure’ through the first recorded case of CBT.

While many of us are content to lead a conventional life, with all of its comfort and security, The Odditorium reminds us of the characters who felt compelled to carve their own path, despite risking ostracism, failure, ridicule and madness. While history wouldn’t be the same without the likes of Shakespeare, Caesar and Einstein, it is when curiosity and compulsion meet that conventions are challenged, culture is re-invigorated and we find new ways to understand ourselves and the world around us.

This beautifully-designed book, brought to you by the team behind the award-winning Ernest Journal, is a celebration of eccentricity, invention and obsession and is a must for curious and adventurous souls.

A collection of 50 of the most significant speeches from around the globe that demonstrably changed the modern world and analysis into the impact they had.

Throughout history, great speeches have produced great change. From inciting violence and asserting control to restoring peace and securing freedom, nothing has the raw emotional power of a speech delivered at the right moment, in the right place, with the right content, and the right delivery.

50 Speeches That Made The Modern World is a celebration of the most influential and thought-provoking speeches that have shaped the world we live in. With comprehensive, chronological coverage of speeches from the 20th and 21st centuries, taken from all corners of the globe, it covers Emmeline Pankhurst’s patiently reasoned condemnation of men’s failure to improve ordinary women’s lives in 1908 through speeches by Vladimir Lenin, Mahatma Gandhi, David Ben-Gurion, Albert Einstein, Fidel Castro, Nikita Khrushchev, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Benazir Bhutto, Osama Bin Laden and Aung San Suu Kyi, right up to the most compelling oratory surrounding the 2016 US Presidential elections.

Through the rallying propaganda speeches during World War II to the cautious rhetoric of the Cold War period, through challenging the status quo on issues of race, gender and politics to public addresses to the masses on the issues of AIDS and terrorism, through apologies, complaints, warmongering, scaremongering and passionate pleas, this book delivers the most important speeches of the modern era and why they still remain so significant.

Speeches are printed in full and chronologically arranged in a smart, open design. Featuring photo headshots of the speakers, each speech has an introduction explaining the background behind every speech and biographical details of each of the speakers as well as analysis of each speech throughout including buzzwords, memorable phrases and marginal notes.

This new edition of Chambers Adult Learners’ Guide to Numeracy is aimed at adults who lack confidence in their numeracy skills. The book provides users with an understanding of the key concepts and methods, then applies them in real-world situations such as calculating distances or working out interest payments. The text is clearly and spaciously laid out, and plentiful examples, diagrams, and exercises reinforce all the learning points.

The book is based around the ‘Skills for Life’ numeracy curriculum created by the Department for Education and Skills and its author, Geoff Mainwaring, is a highly experienced teacher and lecturer in numeracy.

Containing over 155,000 alternatives for 9,000 common words, The Chambers Mini Thesaurus is the ideal easy-to-use guide to finding the right alternative word every time. Cleary structured entries include numbered alternative meanings as well as antonyms – opposite words – to give you extra context in choosing and using the right word. ‘Types of’ panels give extra depth in a range of fields from song and dance to food and flowers. New good writing supplement informs and entertains with tips on effective words, commonly confused words, words to impress and foreign words in English.

Chambers Adult Learners’ Guide to Spelling presents a practical routine that teaches learners strategies to conquer any word they find difficult and learn it for life.

This edition comes in a handy, accessible format. The two-colour text is clearly and spaciously laid out, and plentiful examples, activities and illustrations reinforce the skills being learned.

The author, Anne Betteridge, is an adult literacy and dyslexia specialist. The book’s practical and reassuring approach is a testament to her wealth of experience in working with adult learners.

Containing alternatives for 9,000 common words, The Chambers Paperback Thesaurus is the ideal easy-to-use guide to finding the right alternative word every time. Cleary structured entries include numbered alternative meanings as well as antonyms – opposite words – to give you extra context in choosing and using the right word. ‘Types of’ panels give extra depth in a range of fields from song and dance to food and flowers.

New good writing supplement informs and entertains with tips on effective words, commonly confused words, words to impress and foreign words in English.