Bark The Herald Angels Sing

Magical portraits of a photographer’s dog, in elaborate Christmas compositions Bark! The Herald Angels Sing will bring a smile to even the most devoted Scrooge. Decked out in the finest of holiday garb, strutting against backgrounds that evoke locales as varied as Charles Dickens’ London and the ice floes of Antarctica, an adorable dog strikes a pose. Another Christmas card in the bag. But the scenes weren't always so ornate. Photographer Peter Thorpe's first dog holiday shoot went more like this: dog, pair of antlers, red Rudolph nose, done. That card went out to family and friends—and the rest, as they say, is history. From Rudolph in 1990 to Santa in 2015, Paddy and Raggles, donned in festive costumes, adorned cards every December without fail. Collected here, the photographs—and the outtakes—include Paddy as tree-topper and Raggles dressed as a sheep in a stable, Robin Red Breast, and, of course, Ebenezer Scrooge. In prose that accompanies each image, Thorpe describes his inspiration for a given card. He kept to photographic traditions of yesteryear, making his own sets and props—no digital retouching here. With sly humor and faux how-to directions, he suggests how readers might attempt to capture the same scenes with their pups. (Spoiler alert: Dog models must be able to balance on top of a Christmas tree and their owners will need woodworking skills to build giant mousetraps.) This book is sure to become a tradition of its very own.

With Christmas and a holiday wedding fast approaching, there's happy chaos in the air at Waterford Farm. However, not everyone in the Kilcannon clan is caught up in the magic of the moment. Matriarch, octogenarian, and beloved blogger Gramma Finnie hears the clock of her long life ticking far to fast, while her great-granddaughter, teenager Pru, feels squeezed out of planning her mother's nuptials. But when this unlikely duo is tasked with the project of producing the "somethings" for the wedding and only have Christmas Eve to get the job done-Gramma Finnie and Pru have a purpose and a plan. They set off to find the perfect old, new and blue treasures, but it doesn't take long for things to spin out of control faster than Gramma's Toyota in a snowstorm. Detoured by a stray border collie, thwarted by nature and an elf parade, and trapped by a rifle-toting mountain man, it will take more than the power of the Kilcannon clan to save these two from a Christmas catastrophe. It will take the luck of the Irish, a love story from long ago, and a whole lot of help from the angels to make this holiday merry and bright.

Magical portraits of a photographer’s dog, in elaborate Christmas compositions Bark! The Herald Angels Sing will bring a smile to even the most devoted Scrooge. Decked out in the finest of holiday garb, strutting against backgrounds that evoke locales as varied as Charles Dickens’ London and the ice floes of Antarctica, an adorable dog strikes a pose. Another Christmas card in the bag. But the scenes weren't always so ornate. Photographer Peter Thorpe's first dog holiday shoot went more like this: dog, pair of antlers, red Rudolph nose, done. That card went out to family and friends—and the rest, as they say, is history. From Rudolph in 1990 to Santa in 2015, Paddy and Raggles, donned in festive costumes, adorned cards every December without fail. Collected here, the photographs—and the outtakes—include Paddy as tree-topper and Raggles dressed as a sheep in a stable, Robin Red Breast, and, of course, Ebenezer Scrooge. In prose that accompanies each image, Thorpe describes his inspiration for a given card. He kept to photographic traditions of yesteryear, making his own sets and props—no digital retouching here. With sly humor and faux how-to directions, he suggests how readers might attempt to capture the same scenes with their pups. (Spoiler alert: Dog models must be able to balance on top of a Christmas tree and their owners will need woodworking skills to build giant mousetraps.) This book is sure to become a tradition of its very own.

The British Army’s losses on the opening day of the Battle of the Somme - 1 July 1916 - amounted to some 57,000 men killed, wounded or missing. Few units, however, suffered as terribly as the famous ‘Pals’ battalions, raised from volunteers who had flocked to answer Lord Kitchener’s ‘Call to Arms’. In the North of England particularly, whole cities and towns went into mourning as news of that awful first day’s casualties came through. What is less well-known is that some of these battalions were brought up to strength with reinforcements - often from the cities in which they had been raised - and sent back into action again and again This is the story of one such battalion, the Leeds Pals, which by the war’s end in 1918, was described as having been ‘four times wiped out but fighting to the end’. It is a story which traces, in great and fascinating detail, the raising and training of the battalion in and around Leeds, their service in Egypt before being sent to France in December 1915, their heavy losses in their baptism of fire on the Somme, 1916, in the Battle of Arras a year later, and during the German offensives of March and April 1918. Based upon the accounts of survivors, private diaries, letters and papers, official archives, contemporary newspaper accounts, and a wealth of unpublished photographs, it is a story of patriotism, enthusiasm, humor, and great courage. Ultimately, however, it is a tale of great tragedy, for though the Leeds Pals took part in the final advance to victory, their three years in France had cost them 733 men killed, 1,861 wounded and 776 missing or captured.