Search results for ""author john simpson""
John Murray Press Our Friends in Beijing
Jon Swift is in trouble.His journalism career is in freefall.He's too old to be part of the new world order and he's never learned to suck up to those in charge. But experience has taught him to trust his instincts. When, for the first time in years, Jon runs into Lin Lifeng in a café in Oxford he wonders if the meeting is a coincidence. When Lin asks him to pass on a coded message, he knows it's not. Travelling to Beijing, Jon starts to follow a tangled web in which it is hard to know who he can trust. Under the watchful eyes of an international network of spies, double-agents and politicians, all with a ruthless desire for power, Jon is in a high-stakes race to expose the truth, before it's too late.
£8.99
Little, Brown Book Group The Word Detective: A Life in Words: From Serendipity to Selfie
Language is always changing. No one knows where it is going but the best way to future-cast is to look at the past. John Simpson animates for us a tradition of researching and editing, showing us both the technical lexicography needed to understand a word, and the careful poetry needed to construct its definition. He challenges both the idea that dictionaries are definitive, and the notion that language is falling apart. With a sense of humour, an ability to laugh at bureaucracy and an inclination to question the status quo, John Simpson gives life to the colourful characters at the OED and to the English language itself. He splices his stories with entertaining and erudite diversions into the history and origin of words such as 'kangaroo', 'hot-dog' , 'pommie', 'bicycle' , not ignoring those swearwords often classed as 'Anglo-Saxon' ! The book will speak to anyone who uses a dictionary, 'word people' , history lovers, students and parents.
£9.89
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC We Chose to Speak of War and Strife: The World of the Foreign Correspondent
From distinguished foreign correspondent John Simpson, a fascinating history of what it is to risk life and limb to bring home news of the troubled world 'Great stories, sometimes harrowing, sometimes hilarious' Telegraph In corners of the globe where fault-lines seethe into bloodshed and civil war, foreign correspondents have, for hundreds of years, been engaged in uncovering the latest news and – despite obstacles bureaucratic, political, violent – reporting it by whatever means available. It’s a working life that is difficult, exciting and undeniably glamorous. We Chose to Speak of War and Strife brings us pivotal moments in our history – from the Crimean War to Vietnam; the siege of Sarajevo to the fall of Baghdad – through the eyes of those who risked life and limb to witness them first hand, and the astonishing tales of what it took to report them. These stories celebrate an endangered tradition. Where once despatches were trusted to the hands of a willing sea-captain, telegraph operator or stranger in an airport queue prepared to spirit a can of undeveloped film back to London, today the digital realm has transformed the relaying of the news – even if the work of gathering it in the field has changed little. Weaving the tales of the greats of yesterday and today, such as Martha Gellhorn, Ernest Hemingway, Don McCullin and Marie Colvin, with extraordinary accounts from his own lifetime on the frontlines, this is a deeply personal book from a master of the profession, the most distinguished foreign correspondent of our time.
£16.99
John Murray Press Moscow, Midnight
Government minister Patrick Macready has been found dead in his flat. The coroner rules it an accident, a sex game gone wrong. Jon Swift is from the old stock of journos - cynical, cantankerous and overweight - and something about his friend's death doesn't seem right. Then days after Macready's flat is apparently burgled, Swift discovers that his friend had been researching a string of Russian government figures who had met similarly 'accidental' fates. When the police refuse to investigate further, Swift gets in touch with his contacts in Moscow, determined to find out if his hunch is correct. Following the lead, he is soon drawn into a violent underworld, where whispers of conspiracies, assassinations and double-agents start blurring the line between friend and foe.But the truth will come at a price, and it may cost him everything.
£9.99
Hodder & Stoughton General Division Our Friends in Beijing
OLD FRIENDS, NEW ENEMIESJon Swift is in trouble again. His journalism career is in freefall. He is too old to be part of the new world order and he has never learned to suck up to those in charge. But experience has taught him to trust his instincts. When, for the first time in years, Jon runs into Lin Lifeng in a café in Oxford he wonders if the meeting is a coincidence. When Lin asks him to pass on a coded message, he knows it's not. Once a radical student who helped Jon broadcast the atrocities of Tiananmen Square, Lin is now a well-dressed party official with his own agenda. Travelling to Beijing, Jon starts to follow a tangled web in which it is hard to know who are friends and who are enemies. As he ricochets across the country, Jon seeks to make sense of the ways in which China's past and present are colliding - and what that means for the future of the country and the world. Under the watchful eyes of an international network of spies, double-agents and politicians, all with a ruthless desire for power, Jon is in a high-stakes race to expose the truth, before it's too late.
£18.99
John Murray Press Moscow Midnight
The revelatory thriller from the much-admired and million copy-selling journalist
£20.00
Rizzoli International Publications Building Beautiful: Classical Houses by John Simpson
Inviting, perfect in proportion, exquisite in detail such are a few of the ways to describe homes designed by John Simpson. Well known for his work with the British royal family at Buckingham and Kensington palaces and for his buildings at Eton College in the U.K. and at the University of Notre Dame in the U.S., he is perhaps most brilliant at the level of the house and home. Building Beautiful is an invitation to enter the work of this master designer, as one might visit with a treasured friend. From a dream made real within a Venetian palazzo a former seventeenth-century near-ruin, brought back to glorious, fancifully detailed life to an English countryside cottage with a thatched roof, the featured homes are expressions of Simpson s unerring eye and extraordinary sense of beauty. Here we find drama in contrasts of scale and the seductive effects of light, where a cosy reading nook opens to an expansive living room with a double-height ceiling that nevertheless feels not overly large but rather just right. This is Simpson s subtle art a mastery of scale, balance, and a pervading sense of elegance.
£40.50
Oxford University Press Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang
Drawing on the unique resources of the Oxford English Dictionary and offering coverage of over 6,000 slang words and expressions from the Cockney 'abaht' to the American term 'zowie', this is the most authoritative dictionary of slang from the 20th and 21st centuries. The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Slang is a fascinating and entertaining collection, packed with illustrative quotations and providing full details of origins and dates of first printed use. The text contains expressions from around the English-speaking world such as 'dork' and 'cockamamie' (North America) and 'giggle-house' and 'Jimmy Woodser' (Australia). As well as the A-Z listing of terms, the book contains a comprehensive thematic index, enabling users to home in on particular areas of interest, such as the body, food and drink, and human behaviour. Full of surprises, this is an essential read for word lovers and anyone with an interest in language.
£11.99