Kirjahaku

Corgi Toys proved an immediate success in the 1950s and over the next 30 years hundreds of miniatures would be modelled on contemporary vehicles. Life-long collector David Cooke explores the history of Corgi Toys, describing the various models and illustrating how these simple children's toys became valuable collectables. He also charts the recent financial problems faced by the company, and their resurgence based upon limited edition collectors models sold direct to an adult market.

A Slow Blues, Poems 1972-2012, brings together poems from David Cooke's three previous collections alongside A Virtual Tour, a sequence of more recent poems. In the words of William Bedford, writing in Agenda: 'The ghosts of a West of Ireland family haunt these poems, but Cooke is not treading ground already made familiar by others. Growing up in England, he is a poet whose 'making strange' grows naturally out of his exile between two countries. After a long silence, David Cooke has burst back into life, in a welcome and gifted performance.

A Slow Blues contains work from David Cooke's three previous collections alongside A Virtual Tour, a sequence of more recent poems. Here is the assessment of William Bedford in Agenda: 'The ghosts of a West of Ireland family haunt these poems, but Cooke is not treading ground already made familiar by others. Growing up in England, he is a poet whose 'making strange' grows naturally out of his exile between two countries. After a long silence, David Cooke has burst back into life, in a welcome and gifted performance.'

Yorkshire's past is replete with bloody battles and sieges. From the earliest times armies have marched across the Yorkshire countryside and have fought for control of the land, the towns and the cities. Roman, Viking, Norman and the Scottish invaders have all contributed ruthless episodes to the story. Christian fought pagan, Englishman fought foreign invader, and loyalist fought rebel, in some of the most destructive battles of British history. And bitter internal conflicts, which set neighbour against neighbour, created an equally violent heritage as rival lords and landowners contended for power and influence in the north. David Cooke gives a vivid description of the outbreaks of warfare that have punctuated the county's history. Using graphic contemporary accounts and numerous illustrations and maps, he creates a vivid narrative of a county that was a battleground until modern times.

Jesus has promised: "I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."And yet many churches are struggling, shrinking, and shutting their doors. What is going on?Is Christ building His church still today? Can the coronavirus stop it? Should the culture change it?Four Pillars: Building the Church in an Age of Decline is a book for every Christian on what it means to "be the church". Through a fascinating tour of some surprising events in the Book of Acts, we discover the four essential pillars that Christ uses to build His church in every generation. Several personal stories from the pastoral trenches of Canada, along with some intriguing statistics, illustrate Christ's unconquerable "building plans" for His church.Renew your hope for the future of Christ's church

"The law is an ass." Those are the words of Charles Dickens' Mr. Bumble. However, they also serve as an apt description of the state of Canadian law since the advent of MAiD - Medical Assistance in Dying, which was enacted by the government of Justin Trudeau in 2016 and expanded in 2021. Canada has opened up a deadly Pandora's box of euthanasia; and it will take an act of God to shut it MAiD legalizes murder-by-consent under certain conditions. It started with those who are terminally ill. Now those who are disabled can qualify. In 2023, those who are depressed may be included. It is not hard to imagine, in time, a regime of euthanasia-on-demand for anyone and any reason, or for no reason at all We must also consider the possibility of a government mandate for euthanasia should some unforeseen crisis arise. In this concise booklet, Trudeau's euthanasia program is explained and critiqued. Its faults and dangers are exposed to serve as a warning to Canada and the world. When a country decides to remove the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," no one is truly safe

Throughout recorded history Yorkshire has been a setting for warfare of all kinds - marches, skirmishes and raids, pitched battles and sieges. And it is the sieges of the Civil War period - which often receive less attention than other forms of combat - that are the focus of David Cooke's new history. Hull, York, Pontefract, Knaresborough, Sandal, Scarborough, Helmsley, Bolton, Skipton - all witnessed notable sieges during the bloody uncertain years of the Civil Wars. His vivid reconstructions allow the reader to visit the castles and towns where sieges took place and stand on the ground where blood was spilt for the cause - for king or Parliament. Using contemporary accounts and a wealth of maps and illustrations, his book allows the reader to follow the course of each siege and sets each operation in the context of the Civil Wars in the North.

In previous volumes David Cooke has explored his family origins in the West of Ireland and his upbringing in an Irish family in Berkshire. Grounded in experience, his poems have frequently explored questions of belief and identity in a wide-ranging historical context. In A Murmuration, his fourth collection, there are further poems evoking his Catholic adolescence: dancing at a teenage disco or listening to the blues in the ruins of a medieval abbey. There are poems too that look back to the early days of his marriage. Yet from the outset we find a new concern to go beyond appearances, to read landscapes, and explore the blurred frontiers where nature and civilisation merge. A late masterpiece by Bruegel or a wildlife documentary hint at how superficial the veneer of civilisation may be. A sequence of poems exploring the landscape and history of Malta is informed by both his own lost faith and his daughter's conversion to Islam. Frequently praised for the clarity and musicality of his verse, Cooke is an accessible yet nonetheless ambitious poet who does not shy before intractable themes.

In the title poem to Sicilian Elephants, his most wide-ranging and ambitious collection to date, David Cooke imagines the short-lived paradise achieved by those miniature elephants whose bones have been found on the island. In poems gathered here he explores notions of home and the way humans aspire to define their space and achieve a life of ease.