Bryn Thomas – författare

New 10th edition - all routes have been retravelled and fully updated. This 10th edition features extra colour sections and even more maps.A trip across Siberia on the longest continuous railway track in the world is undoubtedly the journey of a lifetime. It's also a convenient way to reach China, Mongolia or Japan. Tickets are not expensive or difficult to arrange. This acclaimed guide shows you how to organise a trip, where to get tickets, where to stay and what to see.Practical information - planning your trip; what to take; getting to Russia from Europe, North America and AustralasiaKilometre-by-kilometre route guides covering the entire routes of the Trans-Siberian, Trans-Manchurian, Trans-Mongolian and Siberian BAM railways with 49 strip maps in English, Russian and Chinese: see where you are as you travel.City guides and maps - the best sights, places to stay and restaurants for all budgets: Moscow, St Petersburg, Ulaan Baatar, Beijing and 32 towns in Siberia; plus Lake Baikal guideSiberia and the railway - the detailed history of Siberia, the construction and the running of the railway today are of great interest not only to visitors but also to armchair travellers.With 92 maps - plus timetables, fares, Russian & Chinese phrasesNew 10th edition - a new 16pp colour introduction and trip planner.

A haunting journey into the strange, brutal, and unforgettable deaths that shaped Catholic history.For two thousand years, the stories of saints have filled churches, paintings, relic shrines, pilgrim routes, and whispered legend. But behind the golden halos and stained glass lies a darker history: bodies broken in arenas, bones divided among cathedrals, severed heads carried through folklore, incorrupt corpses examined by science, and martyrdoms transformed into some of the most powerful images in Western culture.Saints and Their Strange Deaths explores the macabre side of Catholic tradition with a careful eye for history, devotion, legend, and doubt.Inside, you will discover:• The martyr who survived arrows, only to be beaten to death later• The young woman whose prison diary became one of Christianity's most extraordinary ancient texts• The deacon remembered for joking while being roasted on a gridiron• The saints whose severed body parts became sacred symbols• The bishop said to have carried his own head while preaching• The relics stolen, traded, divided, forged, and worshipped across Europe• The strange history of incorrupt bodies and the uneasy meeting point between faith and forensic scienceThis is not a simple devotional account, and it is not a sneering debunking of belief. It is a vivid, intelligent, and atmospheric history of what can be documented, what was added later, and why certain deaths became impossible for the world to forget.For readers of dark history, Catholic history, relic lore, martyrdom, medieval legend, religious mystery, and the strange places where faith and the macabre meet.

The women were never missing from the story.They were simply pushed to the edges of it.In The Women Who Walked With Jesus, Bryn Thomas returns to the world of the Gospels to recover the women who followed, questioned, funded, served, witnessed, and carried the message of Jesus when others stepped back.Mary Magdalene was not the fallen woman later tradition imagined, but a devoted follower, financial supporter, and first witness of the resurrection. Martha of Bethany was more than the busy sister in the kitchen. She was a woman of faith, courage, and theological depth. Mary of Bethany sat at the feet of Jesus as a student, claiming a place usually reserved for men. The Samaritan woman at the well held the longest recorded theological conversation Jesus has with any individual in the Gospels. Joanna, Susanna, Salome, the woman with the flow of blood, the Syrophoenician mother, the widow with two coins, and the women at the cross all appear with startling force when their stories are read closely.Blending Gospel text, historical context, archaeology, first-century Jewish life, and careful attention to later Christian tradition, this book explores the women who stood at the heart of Jesus's ministry.Inside you will discover:• The real Mary Magdalene beyond centuries of myth• Why the Samaritan woman's conversation with Jesus was so radical• How women helped fund and sustain Jesus's ministry• The courage of the women who remained at the cross• Why women were trusted as the first witnesses of the empty tomb• How forgotten women shaped the earliest Christian movementRespectful, vivid, and deeply researched, The Women Who Walked With Jesus is a powerful journey into the overlooked lives of the women who were present from Galilee to Jerusalem, from the road to the cross, and from the tomb to the beginning of a faith that would change the world.They were not background figures.They were witnesses.

Fourteen remote islands. Fourteen histories of disappearance, death, isolation, folklore, and the strange things the sea refuses to forget.Haunted Islands is a chilling journey into the remote places where history and ghost story meet: storm-battered lighthouse rocks, abandoned villages, quarantine islands, sacred ruins, shipwreck coasts, prison fortresses, cursed shorelines, and murder-haunted places cut off by water.From the vanished lighthouse keepers of the Flannan Isles to the empty village of St Kilda, from the plague dead of Grosse Île to the ruined isolation of North Brother Island, this book explores real places where documented tragedy gave rise to enduring legend.These are not simple ghost stories. They are histories of human fear, grief, survival, exile, sickness, faith, violence, and memory - told through islands that still feel occupied long after the living have gone.Inside, you will discover:• Vanishing lighthouse keepers and maritime mysteries• Abandoned island communities and lost ways of life• Quarantine islands, plague graves, and forgotten patients• Sacred ruins, monk islands, saints, curses, and old folklore• Shipwrecks, murders, prison rocks, and places of exile• The real history behind some of the world's most atmospheric haunted islandsWritten with a careful balance of documented history and local legend, Haunted Islands does not demand belief in ghosts. Instead, it asks a deeper question:What happens to a place when the people are gone, but the story remains?For readers of haunted history, maritime mystery, dark travel, folklore, ghost lore, abandoned places, and the strange dead of remote lands, this is a haunting voyage into the islands where the past still answers the shore.

What happens when faith, fear, sickness, fraud, and ritual all collide?The World's Strangest Exorcisms is a chilling, deeply researched journey through the disturbing history of possession and the rituals used to cast out spirits.From ancient Mesopotamian demon lore and biblical exorcisms to the Roman Ritual, the possession panics of early modern France, the terrifying case of Loudun, dybbuks, jinn, Protestant deliverance ministries, modern media hysteria, failed rituals, courtroom scandals, and deaths carried out in the name of salvation, this book follows exorcism across centuries and cultures.These are not simple ghost stories. They are accounts of belief, power, suffering, spectacle, and human vulnerability. Some cases were treated as miracles. Some became public theatre. Some exposed fraud. Some ended in tragedy.With a careful eye on history, religion, medicine, psychology, folklore, and law, Bryn Thomas explores the uneasy question at the heart of every possession case:Was something supernatural happening, or were people watching fear take human form?Dark, intelligent, unsettling, and responsible, The World's Strangest Exorcisms is perfect for readers fascinated by paranormal history, religious mysteries, occult studies, true-life horror, demonology, and the dangerous borderland between faith and madness.