Search results for ""unbound""
Unbound Jeremiah Bourne in Time
Jeremiah Bourne is in greater danger than he realises.As Jeremiah is swept from his crumbling home in Blackfriars in 2019, to the same house but in 1910, he suddenly faces two questions: how did he get here, and how can he get back to his own time?On his quest for answers, he encounters a cast of comic characters and situations: a coven of free-thinking spiritualists, a futuristic residents’ association, warring street gangs, eugenic scientists, aggressive domestic servants and a nudist magistrate.But his activities have alerted a community of time travellers from the future, who set out to capture and investigate him. Who can Jeremiah trust to help him? And could there be a link between his time-travelling gift and his mother’s sudden disappearance when he was only nine? Will he inadvertently lead the wrong people to her?This electrifying first instalment of Nigel Planer’s Time Shard Chronicles trilogy takes a new and original look at the possibility of time travel as it catapults you into a thrilling journey across London and through time.
£15.29
Unbound Small Robots: A collection of one hundred (mostly) useful robot friends
Whether you need a robotic companion to remember the names of people you meet at parties, an algorithmic pal to help you stomp on the crispy leaves in autumn, or just a really, really big 'bot for no particular reason at all, Small Robots is your spotter's guide to the wonderful world of robotic friends.They bring tea, complain in restaurants, retrieve lost balloons, but they also tackle more serious problems: mental health, disability, discrimination and grief, and will, when called upon, fiercely defend the marginalised and oppressed.This collection of one hundred of the best and most beloved 'bots delves into the functions, features, dimensions and backstories of these wonderful but often bafflingly obtuse creations. Discover how they perform their all-important tasks in the world of their large human friends, revealing how acts of kindness can be achieved in the littlest and most unexpected ways.
£9.99
Unbound Ending the Pursuit: Asexuality, Aromanticism and Agender Identity
Powerfully persuasive and thought-provoking, Ending the Pursuit asks us to reimagine sexuality, romance and gender without the borders imposed by society.How did asexual identity form? What is aromanticism? How does agender identity function? Researcher and writer Michael Paramo explores these misunderstood experiences, from the complex challenge of coming out to navigating the western lens of attraction. Expertly mapping their history, Paramo traces the emergence of vital online communities to the origins of the Victorian binaries that still restrict us today.With a groundbreaking blend of memoir and poetry, online articles and discussions, Ending the Pursuit is a much-needed addition to the cultural conversation. It encourages us to end the search for ‘normalcy’ and gives voice to an often-misunderstood community.'Important . . . Paramo refuses to take for granted the normalized ideas we are fed around how relationships should work and what they should look like' Dr. Ela Przybyło, Illinois State University
£9.99
Unbound Poguemahone
Dan Fogarty, an Irishman living in England, is looking after his sister Una, now seventy and suffering from dementia in a care home in Margate. From Dan’s anarchic account, we gradually piece together the story of the Fogarty family. How the parents are exiled from a small Irish village and end up living the hard immigrant life in England. How Dots, the mother, becomes a call girl in 1950s Soho. How a young Una finds herself living in a hippie squat haunted by vindictive ghosts in Kilburn in the early 1970s.And, finally, how all that survives now of those sex-and-drug-soaked times are Una’s unspooling memories and Dan himself, whose role in the story becomes stranger and more sinister.Poguemahone is a wild, shape-shifting epic from one of modern Ireland's greatest writers. It is a wild free-verse monologue steeped in music and folklore, crammed with characters, both real and imagined, on a scale Patrick McCabe has never attempted before.
£13.49
Unbound Otter: Accordion Book No 2
An Accordion Book doesn’t open, it unfolds. One side is filled with beautiful watercolour images of an animal: sometimes in motion, sometimes at rest. The other is filled with text – poems, descriptions, invocations – inspired by the same animal.Together they work as spells to summon the animal’s spirit. Jackie Morris has painted them using antique watercolours, some from boxes which hadn't been opened for over 150 years, woken from their slumber with a single drop of water.Fox and Otter are the first two Accordions in a series that will go on to include Hare, Hound, Owl and Cat among many others.
£12.99
Unbound Casting the Runes: The Letters of M. R. James
The much-loved author Montague Rhodes James is best known today for his ghost stories. Their popularity has kept them in print since the first collection was issued in 1931, and they've earned a cult following. But for all this literary success, his lifetime's correspondence has remained inaccessible in a Cambridge University archive – until now.This first ever collection of his personal letters has been meticulously curated, transcribed and annotated by Jamesian scholar Jane Mainley-Piddock to offer an unprecedented and overdue insight into a great and singular mind. Through notoriously illegible handwriting, we learn of James's fear of spiders and his love of cats; his musings on the work of other contemporary authors; and a whole life's thoughts on a host of subjects – which shed light on the man himself: his family, his work, his relationships and preoccupations.Essential reading for any fan, Casting the Runes brings at last to the fore a writer adored for his fiction who himself has long remained in the shadows.
£27.00
Unbound Paint My Name in Black and Gold: The Rise of the Sisters of Mercy
Leeds, 1980. Amid the violence and decay, the city was home to an extraordinarily vibrant post-punk scene. Out of that swamp crawled the Sisters of Mercy. Over the next five years, they would rise from local heroes to leading alternative band, before blowing apart on the verge of major rock stardom. Their path was strewn with brilliant singles, astonishing EPs, exceptional album tracks and legendary live shows. Two classic line-ups were created and destroyed: Andrew Eldritch on vocals, Craig Adams on bass, Gary Marx and Ben Gunn – later replaced by Wayne Hussey – on guitars, and a drum machine called Doktor Avalanche.Drawing on dozens of interviews with band members and key figures in the Sisters' journey, Paint My Name in Black and Gold is the most complete account yet of how – against the odds and all reasonable expectation – these young men came to make transcendent and life-changing music.
£12.99
Unbound The Incomplete Framley Examiner
In 2001, fans of the internet were introduced to scanned pages from spoof local newspaper The Framley Examiner. Packed with humdrum and preposterous news stories, classified ads, local business features and headlines that seemed to have been typed while asleep, it skewered the banal madness of small-town existence, perfectly encapsulating the British national character.Framley’s strange yet familiar community – stuffed with its own cast, insane geography and rich local history – struck a chord with those who recognised their own home towns in its reflection. The website was loved and shared by an eager public as well as famous fans from Little Britain, The Simpsons and the Cambridge Centre for Theoretical Cosmology (Professor Stephen Hawking was a Framley enthusiast).Marking the twentieth anniversary of the website's first appearance The Incomplete Framley Examiner combines the pages of the original book, published in 2002, with all the pages published online in the years since and brand new material for a bigger, more luxurious, toilet-proof compendium for the annals of history.
£15.29
Unbound Damnable Tales: A Folk Horror Anthology
'Wicked witches, bad fairies, and the restless dead be damned, for those who are looking to fill up their folk horror fiction shelves, Damnable Tales is a must-have' Andy Paciorek, Horrified Magazine'I had to keep pulling myself away from it so I didn’t finish it in one sitting . . . An incredible book' Annie Kapur, Vocal Media This richly illustrated anthology gathers together classic short stories from masters of supernatural fiction including M. R. James, Sheridan Le Fanu and Arthur Machen, alongside lesser-known voices in the field including Eleanor Scott and Margery Lawrence, and popular writers less bound to the horror genre, such as Thomas Hardy and E. F. Benson.These are damnable tales, selected and beautifully illustrated by Richard Wells. They stalk the moors at night, the deep forests, cornered fields and dusky churchyards, the narrow lanes and old ways of these ancient places, drawing upon the haunted landscapes of folk-horror – a now widely used term first applied to a series of British films from the late 1960s and 1970s: Witchfinder General (1968), Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971), and The Wicker Man (1973).But as this collection shows, writers of uncanny fiction were dabbling in the dark side of folklore long before. These twenty-two stories take the reader beyond the safety and familiarity of the town into the isolated and untamed wilderness. Unholy rites, witches’ curses, sinister village traditions and ancient horrors that lurk within the landscape all combine to remind us that the shiny modern, urban world might not have all the answers…
£12.99
Unbound The Music: An Album in Words
In the last hundred years – between the invention of the microphone and the computer – music has undergone a profound revolution. No longer confined to specifically designed instruments, we can now make music out of anything. Why use a guitar when you can use a lawnmower? Why use a lawnmower when you can use an explosion in Libya? The Music evokes a shifting sonic landscape in precise detail: Chinese concrete slowly hardening, overlaid by a splintering cassette tape in the stereo of a car mid-crash. The noise of 73,984 insects hitting number plates followed by that of a drill striking oil deep beneath the earth’s surface. Or just the silence of two unfamiliar people as they look up at the night sky. As well as being a description of an imagined album, this book is a manifesto for sound, challenging how we hear the world itself, while listening to stories about humanity and our place in that world.
£12.99
Unbound Notebook
Sure, sex is great, but have you ever cracked open a new notebook and written something on the first page with a really nice pen?The story behind Notebook starts with a minor crime: the theft of Tom Cox's rucksack from a Bristol pub in 2018. In that rucksack was a journal containing ten months' worth of notes, one of the many Tom has used to record his thoughts and observations over the past twelve years. It wasn't the best he had ever kept – his handwriting was messier than in his previous notebook, his entries more sporadic – but he still grieved for every one of the hundred or so lost pages.This incident made Tom appreciate how much notebook-keeping means to him: the act of putting pen to paper has always led him to write with an unvarnished, spur-of-the-moment honesty that he wouldn’t achieve on-screen.Here, Tom has assembled his favourite stories, fragments, moments and ideas from those notebooks, ranging from memories of his childhood to the revelation that 'There are two types of people in the world. People who fucking love maps, and people who don't.'The result is a book redolent of the real stuff of life, shot through with Cox’s trademark warmth and wit.
£9.99
Unbound Children of Las Vegas: True stories about growing up in the world's playground
Over forty million people a year travel to Vegas, more than to Mecca. It is a global celebrity, an improbable oasis, a place offering bank-breaking fortunes and instant gratification, 24/7, with no moral debits. Award-winning writer Timothy O’Grady lived in Vegas for two years. He finally began to understand it when he talked to people who had grown up there, the children of the card dealers and cocktail shakers, the jugglers and the dancers – young people who had been bearing witness to this strange city all their lives. One had her student loans and credit card limits stolen by her father. Another fled a sequence of exploiters until she found herself living in the storm drains under the casinos. There is the boy whose father entered him into a drinking contest when he was eight, the casino owner’s son, the erudite contortionist turned stripper. Each tells their own tale.In Children of Las Vegas, O’Grady renews his partnership with renowned photographer Steve Pyke. Through short essays, Pyke’s portraits and ten witness testimonies, he pierces the city’s glittering façade to reveal the darker reality that lies beneath.
£9.99
Unbound Unfortunate Ends: On Murder and Misadventure in Medieval England
Thomas, son of Henry Robekyn, died 1286 after cutting off his left foot and then his left hand in a frenzy.Henry Debordesle, died 1343. Long sick with diseases, smote himself in the belly with a knife worth one penny.On 11 August 1267, Henry Constentin is driving a horse-drawn cart of wheat through the field of Tweedscroft. His feet slip and he falls upon ‘a certain pole’ of his cart ‘so that it penetrates into his fundament’. From the creator of Twitter's Medieval Death Bot comes Unfortunate Ends, an illuminating collection of in-depth looks at some of the most interesting cases from medieval coroners’ rolls.From the bizarre to the mundane, each death tells a tale from a dangerous time to be alive, and even to die. Coroners’ rolls list every inquest held for a death by misadventure – or accident – as well as grisly murders, some witnessed by others, some only coming to light when the hidden body was found.A handful of these deaths rise to the top, their tales too ridiculous or heartbreaking to not be spun again for the modern ear. Through death, Unfortunate Ends gives us a rare, first-hand look into everyday life for the common people of medieval England.
£10.99
Unbound The Diary of Losing Dad
The Diary of Losing Dad is the true story of a heartbroken woman trying to keep it together, and an intimate insight into what it is like to slowly, painfully lose someone you love.Actor and writer Emily Bevan recalls the surreal months leading up to her father’s untimely death, during which she was filming a zombie series for television. Told from the perspective of a family who are stress-eating Percy Pigs, scrabbling around for change for the parking machine, and breaking down in the chemist because the pharmacist won’t sell them two packets of cream, this moving account is interspersed with diary entries, poems and her daily scribblings. Here Emily renders scenes of hospital life – both devastating and life-affirming – together with anecdotes of her family rallying around this much-loved man, and the poignant memories of his constant and enduring presence.The book looks at how we each have our own unique response to tragedy: we all know that we are going to have to face death, yet we are so ill-equipped to deal with it.
£16.99
Unbound Underdogs: Acceleration
War is raging. Numbers are dwindling. It's a dangerous world for an underdog. The Underdogs of Spitfire’s Rise are falling apart. In the series’ penultimate novel, the remnants of Britain’s last army are called into battle again – this time to avert the violent deaths of tens of thousands of prisoners. The neurodiverse skills and defiant bravery of the Underdogs are pitched against the might of military science and the terrifying Acceleration project.Meanwhile, Oliver Roth has been offered a promotion that would make him the second most powerful person in Britain. But it’s conditional on the success of his next mission: the discovery and annihilation of Spitfire’s Rise.The Underdogs fight for the safety of countless prisoners, clueless that their home is being hunted. As each side launches their respective attacks, it’s only a matter of time until one triumphs decisively over the other.
£15.95
Unbound Mud, Maul, Mascara: When fighting for a dream can make you and break you
Longlisted for William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2020'This pioneering memoir . . . engagingly balances the highs of captaincy and grand slams with striking emotional honesty as to herregrets' Guardian Books of the Year'Her struggle is that of women’s rugby and it is told here with great honesty' Sunday Times Books of the YearCatherine Spencer was the captain of the England women’s rugby team for three years. She scored eighteen tries for England, won six of the eight Six Nations competitions she took part in, and captained her team to three championship titles, a European cup, two Nations Cup tournament victories and the World Cup final held on home soil in 2010, which thrust women’s rugby into the limelight. All of this while holding down a full time job, because the women’s team, unlike the men’s, did not get paid for their sport. Mud, Maul, Mascara is an effort to reconcile alleged opposites, to show the woman behind the international sporting success. Painfully honest about the mental struggles Catherine faced during, and after, her career as an elite athlete, it is also warm, funny and inspirational – a book for anyone who has ever had a dream, or self-doubt, or a yearning for a really good, mud-proof mascara.
£10.99
Unbound The Women's Prize for Fiction Journal
Part journal, part keepsake commemorating twenty-five years of the Women's Prize for Fiction, this beautiful book is intended to inspire you to pick up your pen. It’s also a compendium of the history of the Prize, spotlighting each of the phenomenal winners from the past quarter of a century – from Ali Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Madeline Miller and Naomi Alderman. The journal features gorgeous colour illustrations as well as an appendix listing all the brilliant women who’ve judged the Prize and the books they've shortlisted throughout the years.Alongside an introduction by Founder-Director Kate Mosse, there are inspirational quotes and exclusive writing tips from previous winners, and space for notes to help you find your own voice.
£13.49
Unbound Eileen: The Making of George Orwell
This is the never-before-told story of George Orwell's first wife, Eileen, a woman who shaped, supported, and even saved the life of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers.In 1934, Eileen O'Shaughnessy's futuristic poem, 'End of the Century, 1984', was published. The next year, she would meet George Orwell, then known as Eric Blair, at a party. 'Now that is the kind of girl I would like to marry!' he remarked that night. Years later, Orwell would name his greatest work, Nineteen Eighty-Four, in homage to the memory of Eileen, the woman who shaped his life and his art in ways that have never been acknowledged by history, until now.From the time they spent in a tiny village tending goats and chickens, through the Spanish Civil War, to the couple's narrow escape from the destruction of their London flat during a German bombing raid, and their adoption of a baby boy, Eileen is the first account of the Blairs' nine-year marriage. It is also a vivid picture of bohemianism, political engagement, and sexual freedom in the 1930s and '40s.Through impressive depth of research, illustrated throughout with photos and images from the time, this captivating and inspiring biography offers a completely new perspective on Orwell himself, and most importantly tells the life story of an exceptional woman who has been unjustly overlooked.
£9.99
Unbound Quiet Pine Trees
'This is the one true star-map,’ he whispered. ‘Time fluctuates wildly beyond our solar system. Everything we know about distance is wrong.'Quiet Pine Trees is jet fuel for your imagination, a wrecking ball against writer's block. This collection features more than 500 enchanting microfiction stories, each one a miniature work of literary art.Using just a few words, these stories combine powerful imagery with compelling, high-concept themes to create snapshots of bigger, stranger worlds and inspire the reader.The stories in this volume span genres and galaxies alike: from science fiction about advanced time travel techniques and lovestruck androids, to fantasy about the best ways to wish and trees that long to speak, to chilling tales about dolls' eyes and the horror that awaits humanity between the stars.
£12.99
Unbound The Future of British Politics
Where and who do we want to be? How might we get there? What might happen if we stay on our current course?In The Future of British Politics, comedian Frankie Boyle takes a characteristically acerbic look at some of the forces that will be key in coming years, from Scottish independence and post-colonial entitlement to big tech surveillance and the looming climate catastrophe. Despite his fears that 'soon the only red tape in this country will be across the finish line of the compulsory Food Bank Olympics', he manages to locate some hopeful signs amid the gloom, reminding us that 'despair is a moment that pretends to be permanent'.This brief but mighty book is one of five that comprise the first set of FUTURES essays. Each standalone book presents the author's original vision of a singular aspect of the future which inspires in them hope or reticence, optimism or fear. Read individually, these essays will inform, entertain and challenge. Together, they form a picture of what might lie ahead, and ask the reader to imagine how we might make the transition from here to there, from now to then.
£6.66
Unbound Who Hunts the Whale: A satirical novel set in the exploitative world of big-budget game development
Supremacy Software is the world’s largest video-game developer and publisher. If you’ve played games, you’ve played one of theirs at some point. They’re the shining light, a dream job for many aspiring game developers.Who Hunts the Whale tells the story of a newly hired PA taking a seat in the executive boardroom. An out-of-towner who risked it all to come to the big city and live her dream of working for a company she’s idolised for years.But she soon discovers the cynical side of things. Stolen ideas, long hours, managerial impropriety – will she risk her ideal career and take a stand for those who dare not speak, or keep quiet in the face of a powerful, litigious corporation?Written by industry insider Laura Kate Dale and (small ‘g’) gamer Jane Aerith Magnet, Who Hunts the Whale takes a witty, satirical look at the human cost of a rapacious market that must constantly be fed new content.
£12.99
Unbound From Far Around They Saw Us Burn
Words begin to lose their meanings, flaking off into air like moths. Friendships cultivated over a lifetime fall apart in testing circumstances. What does the stranger with yellow eyes really want?From Far Around They Saw Us Burn is the eagerly awaited first short story collection from Alice Jolly, one of the most exciting and accomplished voices in British fiction today.The extraordinary range of work gathered here is united by a fascination with how everyday interactions can transform our lives in unpredictable ways. These are stories of lonely people, outcasts and misfits, and the ghosts that inhabit our intimate spaces. The result is a compelling, arresting and, at times, devastating collection – not least in the title story, which was inspired by the tragic true events of the 1943 Cavan orphanage fire.Written with an exemplary eye for detail and an intimate understanding of the complexities of human nature, Jolly's collection builds up towards the ultimate question: what is revealed of us when we peel away the surfaces, and is it enough?
£17.09
Unbound Salt Lick: Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 'A compelling fable of decline, a lament for a way of life, and a warning about what society is already becoming. It is a capsule of England and its dystopian present ... as sad and angry as it is memorable' Rónán Hession'Salt Lick is that rare beast – imaginative, risky storytelling where every sentence is a gift' Heidi JamesBritain is awash, the sea creeps into the land, brambles and forest swamp derelict towns. Food production has moved overseas and people are forced to move to the cities for work. The countryside is empty. A chorus, the herd voice of feral cows, wander this newly wild land watching over changing times, speaking with love and exasperation. Jesse and his puppy Mister Maliks roam the woods until his family are forced to leave for London. Lee runs from the terrible restrictions of the White Town where he grew up. Isolde leaves London on foot, walking the abandoned A12 in search of the truth about her mother.
£9.99
Unbound Rory Hobble and the Voyage to Haligogen
'This story is full of adventure and heart! A real page turner!' Dani Harmer'Warm, funny, pacy, endlessly inventive and life-affirming; there are lots of young readers who will identify with Rory' Chris Beckett, Arthur C. Clarke-Award winnerEleven-year-old Rory Hobble has it tough: he gets upsetting thoughts all the time and they won't go away – 'Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)', the head doctors call it. His mum hasn't been very well for a long while either. Perhaps it's his fault... Maybe that's why she doesn't always feed him; maybe that's why she screams at him. At least Rory has his telescope – gazing at the unchanging stars keeps him calm. But, one night, Rory sees something impossible in the sky: mysterious lights – artificial and definitely not of earthly origin.When his mum is abducted by the shadowy Whiffetsnatcher, Rory – accompanied by his space-faring, care-experienced social worker, Limmy – travels beyond the Earth, chasing those mysterious lights to the frozen ends of the Solar System. Along the way he must outwit a breakaway human civilisation living on a Martian moon; survive the threat of otherworldly monsters; and learn to speak to alien whales.But his greatest challenge left Earth with him and it will take all the courage he has not only to overcome his OCD, but to decide whether he wants to rescue an abusive mother if he gets his chance…
£9.99
Unbound This Party's Dead: Grief, Joy and Spilled Rum at the World's Death Festivals
'Poignant and often hilarious' Publishers WeeklyWhat if we responded to death... by throwing a party?By the time Erica Buist’s father-in-law Chris was discovered, upstairs in his bed, his book resting on his chest, he had been dead for over a week. She searched for answers (the artery-clogging cheeses in his fridge?) and tried to reason with herself (does daughter-in-law even feature in the grief hierarchy?) and eventually landed on an inevitable, uncomfortable truth: everybody dies.With Mexico’s Day of the Dead festivities as a starting point, Erica decided to confront death head-on by visiting seven death festivals around the world – one for every day they didn’t find Chris. From Mexico to Nepal, Sicily, Thailand, Madagascar, Japan and finally Indonesia – with a stopover in New Orleans, where the dead outnumber the living ten to one – Erica searched for the answers to both fundamental and unexpected questions around death anxiety.This Party’s Dead is the account of her journey to understand how other cultures deal with mortal terror, how they move past the knowledge that they’re going to die in order to live happily day-to-day, how they celebrate rather than shy away from the topic of death – and how when this openness and acceptance are passed down through the generations, death suddenly doesn’t seem so scary after all.
£15.29
Unbound Pedro and Ricky Come Again: Selected Writing 1988–2020
'Ought to become a classic. It is an enshrinement of [Meades's] intense baroque and catholic cleverness' Roger Lewis, The Times'One of the foremost prose stylists of his age in any register . . . Probably we don’t deserve Meades, a man who apparently has never composed a dull paragraph' Steven Poole, Guardian'There are more gems in this wonderful book than I could cram into a dozen of these columns' Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph'Such a useful and important critic . . . He is very much on the reader’s side, bringing his full wit to bear on every single thing he writes' Nicholas Lezard, SpectatorThis landmark publication collects three decades of writing from one of the most original, provocative and consistently entertaining voices of our time. Anyone who cares about language and culture should have this book in their life.Thirty years ago, Jonathan Meades published a volume of reportorial journalism, essays, criticism, squibs and fictions called Peter Knows What Dick Likes. The critic James Wood was moved to write: ‘When journalism is like this, journalism and literature become one.’Pedro and Ricky Come Again is every bit as rich and catholic as its predecessor. It is bigger, darker, funnier and just as impervious to taste and manners. It bristles with wit and pin-sharp eloquence, whether Meades is contemplating northernness in a German forest or hymning the virtues of slang.From the indefensibility of nationalism and the ubiquitous abuse of the word ‘iconic’, to John Lennon’s shopping lists and the wine they call Black Tower, the work assembled here demonstrates Meades's unparalleled range and erudition, with pieces on cities, artists, sex, England, France, concrete, faith, politics, food, history and much, much more.
£27.00
Unbound The Silent Unwinding
This book is a companion to The Unwinding. It contains within images that tell stories, but it reads like a silent film. Each of the images is an invitation to dream.The tales of this silent edition are not pinned to the page by words. Each dreamer will find their own path, perhaps a new one each time they return.The illustrations are intended to inspire: there is space to draw and write, to paint dreams and stories, thoughts and verse, in new worlds, wherever your pen may guide you.
£13.49
Unbound A Hare-Marked Moon: From Bhutan to Yorkshire: The Story of an English Stupa
In the spring of 2004, David Lascelles invited a group of monks from Bhutan to build a stupa in the gardens of Harewood House in Yorkshire. It was a step into the unknown for the Bhutanese. They didn’t speak any English, had never travelled outside their own culture, had never flown in an airplane or seen the ocean.Theirs was one kind of journey, but the project was also another kind of voyage for David. It was an attempt to reconcile a deep interest in Buddhism with the 250 years that his family has lived at Harewood, the country house and estate – with its links to one of the darkest chapters in Britain’s colonial past – that he has loved, rejected, tried to make sense of and been haunted by all his life.In Buddhist thought, one of the functions of a stupa is to harmonise the environment in which it is built and subdue the chaotic forces at work there. Would this stupa have a similar effect, quelling the forces of Harewood’s past and harmonising the contradictions of its present?A Hare-Marked Moon tells the story behind the extraordinary meeting of cultures that resulted in the Harewood Stupa, interspersed with accounts of David’s travels in the Himalayas which delve into the rich and turbulent history of the region, and the beliefs that have shaped it.
£15.29
Unbound The Song of the Golden Hare
He had been waiting all his life, hoping to hear the hare’s song. . .The boy and his family are special. While others hunt the hares, his family search for leverets orphaned by the hunt and keep them safe. When the hares begin to move across the land, the boy and his sister know that their greatest challenge has begun. They must follow and watch and wait until the time comes for the old queen to leave and her child to reign in her place.But others are searching for the golden queen of the hares, a hunter with two hounds, one silver, one black. Can two children, on their own, keep the golden queen safe from the man and his hounds?
£12.99
Unbound Things I Learned from Mario's Butt
Have you ever wondered why some video game characters wear trousers and others don’t? Or pondered the connection between a character’s toned, muscular derrière and their level of dexterity? What about the depth of a crack, the jiggle of a cheek?When it comes to video game character designs, one of the most overlooked aspects is the buttocks. Sure, we might appreciate a nice toned butt on a character or giggle at GIFs of farts from time to time, but how often do we stop to really think about the meaning of the butt?In Things I Learned from Mario’s Butt, video game critic Laura Kate Dale brings backsides to the foreground, analysing dozens of posteriors and asking the important questions: Has Mario let himself go? Do Link’s small buttocks hold him back? When he dies, is Pac-Man eaten by his own caboose?Wedged full of original artwork by Zack Flavin, and featuring interviews with game developers and guest butt reviews from gaming favourites such as Jim Sterling, Stuart Ashen, Brentalfloss and more, this book is a deep dive into why butts are downright integral to the games we play. So, crack it open and have a cheeky look inside at some of the most interesting bottoms the world of video games has to offer.
£22.50
Unbound Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile
Longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2019 2019 Walter Scott Prize Academy recommendation If you tell a story oft enough So it become true As the nineteenth century draws towards a close, Mary Ann Sate, an elderly maidservant, sets out to write her truth. She writes of the Valleys that she loves, of the poisonous rivalry between her employer's two sons and of a terrible choice which tore her world apart. Her haunting and poignant story brings to life a period of strife and rapid social change, and evokes the struggles of those who lived in poverty and have been forgotten by history. In this fictional found memoir, novelist Alice Jolly uses the astonishing voice of Mary Ann to recreate history as seen from a woman's perspective and to give joyful, poetic voice to the silenced women of the past.
£9.99
Unbound A Guide to Modernism in Metro-Land
From Barnet to Richmond, explore the history of London's Metro-LandA Guide to Modernism in Metro-Land is your essential pocket guide to the modernist architecture of London's suburbs. Inspired by John Betjeman's 1973 documentary Metro-Land and the writing of Ian Nairn, it examines the growth of the city's suburbs from the 1920s up to the present day – a story that is closely interwoven with the development of innovative architecture in Britain – through its most remarkable modernist buildings.Featuring work by architects such as Charles Holden, Erno Goldfinger and Norman Foster, the book covers nine London boroughs and two counties: Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Enfield, Haringey, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Richmond, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. It is designed to help you explore Metro-Land's modernist heritage, featuring short descriptions of each building alongside maps of the areas covered, and more than 100 colour photographs.
£10.99
Unbound The Story of John Nightly
'I loved the creativity, the unpredictability, its dazzling coverage of so many ideas' Rob Cowan'Superb . . . An original character and an original book' David Quantick, Record CollectorCan John Nightly be brought back to life again?John Nightly (b. 1948) finds his dimension in pop music, the art form of his time. His solo album becomes one of 1970's bestselling records – but success turns out to have side effects.Supermaxed in LA after a dazzling career, John renounces his gift, denying music and his very being, until he is rediscovered in Cornwall thirty years later by a teenage saviour dude, who persuades him to restore and complete his quasi-proto-multimedia eco-Mass, the Mink Bungalow Requiem.This epic novel mixes real and imagined lives in the tale of a young singer-songwriter, to tell a story about creativity at the highest level – the level of genius.
£17.09
Unbound Of Mouse and Man: The Best of Jim'll Paint It
‘Ask me to paint anything you wish and I will try no matter how specific or surreal your demands. You name it. I’ll paint it. On Paint.’Jim has painted some truly unhinged requests – from ‘Kanye West giving birth to himself’ and 'Ross Kemp on toast' to 'A swan wearing Björk as a dress' and ‘Bill Oddie beating Hitler at Catchphrase’ – each brought to life with painstaking detail using nothing but an archaic version of Microsoft Paint and an optical mouse. Many have since become beloved icons of British internet culture, such as ‘The chestburster scene from Alien portrayed by famous TV puppets’ and the infamous 'Tory Squat Party'.Of Mouse and Man is the very best of Jim’s first five years of work alongside never-before-seen material and unique insights into his creative process.
£22.50
Unbound Distortion
'Thought-provoking' Spectator'Taut and timely . . . A brilliant exploration of social media' Nikesh Shukla'Original and important . . . Essential reading' Sathnam SangheraMeet Dillon: a high-functioning fuck-up and carer for his dying mum. Trapped in an absurd cycle of pre-bereavement bereavement, he has been hiding his pain and some horrible truths, not least from his girlfriend, Ramona.His distortions have been growing dangerously more hardcore and hardwired, both online and off, thanks to the self-reinforcing effects of social media and creepy digital surveillance. And when a pair of snooping goons turn up, threatening to expose him, he is forced to confront a gut-wrenching secret that he would rather leave well alone.This audacious novel asks what happens when our minds are twisted beyond recognition by our digital data and search histories, and when our darkest truths are forced into the light by the uncanny predictive capabilities of our smartphones.What lengths would you go to in order to hide from yourself?
£9.99
Unbound Exodus, Reckoning, Sacrifice: Three Meanings of Brexit
Exodus, Reckoning, Sacrifice offers a very different take on Brexit to those found in most news segments or opinion pieces. Kalypso Nicolaïdis, Professor of International Relations at Oxford University, examines Britain's relationship with the EU through the lens of Greek mythology, using three key archetypes to analyse the differing visions of the world that have clashed so dramatically over this issue.'Exodus' makes Brexit a story about British exceptionalism; both a British problem and a testimony to the EU’s incapacity to accommodate exceptions. 'Reckoning'brings the story back to the EU’s shores, with Brexit a harbinger of terrible truths which we lump together under the easy label of euroscepticism. And 'Sacrifice' contends with the ironic possibility that after and perhaps because of Brexit, the EU will live up to the pluralist ideals that define both the best of Britain and the best of Europe.Ultimately, the book contains a plea for acknowledging each other’s stories, with their many variants, ambiguities and contradictions. And in this spirit of recognition, it calls for a mutually respectful, do-no-harm Brexit – the smarter, kinder and gentler Brexit possible in our hard-edged epoch of resentment and frustration.
£16.99
Unbound One Hundred and Fifty-Two Days
'Superb, moving, beautiful' Joanna Cannon, author of The Trouble with Goats and SheepHe will be allowed to visit his mother soon. His mother who is terminally ill, his mother who he has been barred from seeing as he recovers from his own bout of pneumonia.Until then, with the help of his physiotherapist Freya, he must navigate his increasingly empty and isolated existence: his father, who finds solace in the bottom of a glass; his Nana Q, whose betting-slip confetti litters her handbag; his friends, who simply wouldn’t understand.Time passes with the promise of soon, but one hundred and fifty-two days later the boy will come face to face with his grief, and move beyond to a world full of possibility, hope and love.
£12.99
Unbound What Doesn't Kill You: Fifteen Stories of Survival
‘A stellar cast of writers and thinkers’ Nathan FilerAn explorer spends a decade preparing for an expedition to the South Pole; what happens when you live for a goal, but once it’s been accomplished, you discover it’s not enough? A successful broadcast journalist ends up broke, drunk and sleeping rough; what makes alcohol so hard to resist despite its ruinous consequences? A teenage girl tries to disappear by starving herself; what is this force that compels so many women to reduce their size so drastically?In this essay collection, writers share the struggles that have shaped their lives – loss, depression, addiction, anxiety, trauma, identity and others. But as they take you on a journey to the darkest recesses of their mind, the authors grapple with challenges that haunt us all.
£9.99
Unbound Pure: Now a major Channel 4 series
Now a major Channel 4 seriesRose Cartwright has OCD, but not as you know it. Pure is the true story of her ten-year struggle with ‘Pure O’, a little-known form of the condition, which causes her to experience intrusive sexual thoughts of shocking intensity. It is a brave and frequently hilarious account of a woman who refused to give up, despite being undermined at every turn by her obsessions and enduring years of misdiagnosis and failed therapies.Eventually, the love of family and friends, and Rose’s own courage and sense of humour prevailed, inspiring this deeply felt and beautifully written memoir. At its core is a lesson for all of us: when it comes to being happy with who we are, there are no neat conclusions.
£9.99
Unbound Galactic Keegan
The near future. Earth has been invaded by the L'zuhl, an aggressive, imperialistic alien race who have laid waste to the galaxy for centuries. The few human survivors have been evacuated to the farthest reaches of space to rebuild and fight back against the L'zuhl onslaught.There, on the distant planet of Palangonia, in a large, walled compound that houses the new human colony, lives the former Newcastle United and England boss Kevin Keegan, now manager of Palangonia FC.As the war rages, Keegan would love it if he could focus on the most important thing – picking up three points on Saturday against the neighbouring nebula – but with whispers of a L'zuhl spy on the loose in the compound, it falls to Keegan himself to find the culprit before it's too late...
£9.99
Unbound The Carpet Merchant of Konstantiniyya, Vol. I
Set in seventeenth-century Istanbul, The Carpet Merchant of Konstantiniyya, Vol I is a beautifully drawn meditation on love, home, faith and loss. It tells the story of Zeynel, an ordinary man surrounded by the extraordinary – his life, his death, and the aftermath of his transformation into a vampire.Born into an esteemed family of scholars, the young Zeynel meets Ayşe, an Anatolian girl from a tiny village, who harbours big dreams. Where he is insecure and pressured to live up to the expectations of other people, she is sure of herself and knows exactly how to achieve what she wants. Perhaps there is more to their meeting than just chance.Twenty-five years later, Ayşe is a successful businesswoman, and Zeynel her contented husband. But on a trip one evening, he plays Good Samaritan to a mysterious traveller, who turns out to be his undoing… Forced into unfortunate circumstances he must learn to reconcile himself with his curse and make sacrifices to protect the people he loves, even if that means letting go of the things he holds most dear.
£20.69
Unbound Take Pride: How to Build Organisational Success Through People: How to Build Organisational Success Through People
In the UK, only one in three employees say they love their jobs and as many don’t give a damn. Sheila Parry, strategic communications consultant to some of the world's best-known brands, aims to change that. This book launches her PRIDE model, a methodology based around five key motivators: Purpose, Reputation, Integrity, Direction and Energy. Building pride at work delivers higher performance, improves brand reputation and strengthens customer loyalty. It also increases innovation, quality, productivity and profit. And those who are more fulfilled at work tend to achieve more and lead happier, healthier lives.Take Pride distills forty years of experience into a practical business philosophy: it is the perfect toolkit for leaders and influencers who have the imagination to think and desire to think differently about work.
£12.99
Unbound You Took the Last Bus Home: The Poems of Brian Bilston
You Took the Last Bus Home is the first and long-awaited collection of ingeniously hilarious and surprisingly touching poems from Brian Bilston, the mysterious ‘Poet Laureate of Twitter’.With endless wit, imaginative wordplay and underlying heartache, he offers profound insights into modern life, exploring themes as diverse as love, death, the inestimable value of a mobile phone charger, the unbearable torment of forgetting to put the rubbish out, and the improbable nuances of the English language. Constantly experimenting with literary form, Bilston’s words have been known to float off the page, take the shape of the subjects they explore, and reflect our contemporary world in the form of Excel spreadsheets, Venn diagrams and Scrabble tiles.This irresistibly charming collection of his best-loved poems will make you laugh out loud while making you question the very essence of the human condition in the twenty-first century.
£9.99
Unbound Where Are the Fellows Who Cut the Hay
LONGLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE 2024 ''Essential reading for anybody who wants to understand rural life'' Patrick Galbraith, author of In Search of One Last Song ''This is a book of life and why we should celebrate our roots before it is too late'' John Connell, author of The Cow Book Where Are the Fellows Who Cut the Hay? is an ode to rural life, charting traditions of the past, how they were lost and why we need to reconnect. Exploring the relationship between everyday items and the communities that make them, Robert Ashton provides a snapshot of twenty-first century England. Where are the people who grow barley, milk cows and produce wool? How have their farming methods become less ethical, sustainable and natural over time? And what are we doing today to reverse that change? Inspired by George Ewart Evans's Ask the Fellows Who Cut the Hay, Ashton gives vo
£15.29
Unbound The Decade in Tory: The Sunday Times Bestseller: An Inventory of Idiocy from the Coalition to Covid
In 2020 the United Kingdom reached a bewildering milestone: ten successive years of Conservative rule. In that decade there were three prime ministers, each in turn described as the worst leader we ever had; ministerial resignations by the hundred; and an unrelenting stream of ineffectual, divisive bum-slurry oozing from 10 Downing Street.The Decade in Tory is an inglorious, rollicking and entirely true account of ten years of demonstrable lies, relentless incompetence, epic waste, serial corruption, official police investigations, anti-democratic practices, abuse of power, dereliction of duty and hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths.With his signature scathing wit, Russell Jones breaks down the government’s interminable failures year by year, covering everything from David Cameron’s pledge to tackle inequality – which reduced UK life expectancy for the first time since 1841 – through the bewildering storm of lies and betrayals that led to Brexit, devastating education cuts, serial mismanagement of the NHS and Boris Johnson’s calamitous response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It will leave you gasping and wondering: can things possibly get any worse?
£22.50
Unbound The Light in Suburbia: A Year of Lockdown Paintings
At the start of the March 2020 lockdown, Ian Beck would walk his greyhound Gracie through the early morning streets of Isleworth in west London, revelling in the light and the silence that the restrictions had brought. The familiar became charged with new meaning, inspiring Ian to paint the scenes around him for their own sake, something that he hadn’t done since his student days in the sixties. Suburban streets, trees, fences, shrubs and overgrown alleyways – all are transformed in the quiet intensity of Ian’s lockdown paintings. He painted interiors too: the moon shining through a bedroom window, objects on mantelpieces, the eeriness of back gardens at dusk. As the year progressed, the crisp light of spring gave way to the haze of summer and the gloom of autumn fogs. The Light in Suburbia collects sixty of Ian's paintings from this period: a remarkable record of his year spent trying to capture the beauty of the unprepossessing everyday.
£22.50
Unbound Ring the Hill
'Always engaging, charming, funny and often moving . . . It made me want to pull on my stoutest boots and follow in his footsteps' Stephen Fry'Beautiful, funny, fascinating, impossible-to-categorise . . . Like going on a great ramble with a knowledgeable, witty, engaging friend. Tom Cox brings magic to the most mundane of subjects' Marian Keyes'Sheer bloody genius . . . I loved it. Then I loved it more' John Lewis-Stempel, author of MeadowlandA hill is not a mountain. You climb it for you, then you put it quietly inside you, in a cupboard marked ‘Quite A Lot Of Hills’ where it makes its infinitesimal mark on who you are.Ring the Hill is a book written around, and about, hills: it includes a northern hill, a hill that never ends and the smallest hill in England. Each chapter takes a type of hill – whether it’s a knoll, cap, cliff, tor or even a mere bump – as a starting point for one of Tom’s characteristically unpredictable and wide-ranging explorations.Tom’s lyrical, candid prose roams from an intimate relationship with a particular cove on the south coast, to meditations on his great-grandmother and a lesson on what goes into the mapping of hills themselves. Because a good walk in the hills is never just about the hills: you never know where it might lead.
£9.99
Unbound Pompey
At first glance, Jonathan Meades's 1993 masterpiece is a post-war family saga set in and around the city of Portsmouth. This doesn't come close to communicating the scabrous magnificence of Meades's creation.Pompey is an obscene, suppurating vision of an England in terminal decline. The story begins with Guy Vallender, a fireworks manufacturer from Portsmouth, who has four children by different four different women. There's Poor Eddie, a feeble geek with a gift for healing; 'Mad Bantu', the son of a black prostitute, who was hopelessly damaged in the womb by an attempted abortion; Bonnie, who is born beautiful but becomes a junkie and a porn star; and finally Jean-Marie, a leather-wearing gay gerontophiliac conceived on a one-night stand in Belgium. The narrator is 'Jonathan Meades', cousin to Poor Eddie and Bonnie, who tells the story of how their strange and poisonous destinies intersect. And although there is no richer stew of perversity, voyeurism, corruption, religious extremism and curdled celebrity in all of English literature, there is also an underlying compassion and a jet-black humour which makes Pompey an important and strangely satisfying work of art. Prepare to enter the English novel's darkest ride…
£10.99