Karen Jones

The remarkable history of Britain and its animals, told through ten iconic species   Have you ever wondered why we count sheep to get to sleep? Or where the phrase “red herring” comes from? Across British history, animals have been written about in poetry, painted in oils, and even recorded in law. Loved or feared, familiar or endangered, animals are everywhere to be seen.   In this enchanting, beautifully illustrated study, Karen R. Jones takes a journey through the history of ten animals to show the extraordinary story of “beastly” Britain. Jones looks at animals including foxes and hedgehogs, newts and beetles, ghostly hounds and even the Loch Ness Monster. She reveals the place of animals in British cultural identity and sheds new light on the most iconic moments of British history, from the Black Death to World War II.   The story of these isles may be told by human voices, but it is fully brought to life by listening to the squawks, bellows, and howls that make Britain what it is.

A fascinating new account of the life and legend of the Wild West's most notorious woman: Calamity Jane Martha Jane Canary, popularly known as Calamity Jane, was the pistol-packing, rootin' tootin' "lady wildcat" of the American West. Brave and resourceful, she held her own with the men of America's most colorful era and became a celebrity both in her own right and through her association with the likes of Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody. In this engaging account, Karen Jones takes a fresh look at the story of this iconic frontierswoman. She pieces together what is known of Canary's life and shows how a rough and itinerant lifestyle paved the way for the scattergun, alcohol-fueled heroics that dominated Canary's career. Spanning Canary's rise from humble origins to her role as "heroine of the plains" and the embellishment of her image over subsequent decades, Jones shows her to be feisty, eccentric, transgressive-and very much complicit in the making of the myth that was Calamity Jane.