Search results for ""RedDoor Press""

'If Mr Pickering had done his job well and taught me the right syllabus, maybe I would have studied English at university. He didn't and now I'm a full time drummer who loves Pride and Prejudice. I guess it worked out in the end' - Femi Koleoso, drummer (Gorillaz and The Ezra Collective) 'An infallible guide to the pleasures and pitfalls of teaching the strange canon of texts selected for this annual trial by ordeal. Sharp critical insights combine with hilarious anecdotes... Highly recommended' - Professor David Duff, Queen Mary University of London What Page, Sir? records the hilarious and sometimes painful experience of an English teacher as he struggles through some very familiar literary texts with some very unenthusiastic teenagers. Alongside the comedy that a teacher could really live without, is a fresh and irreverent look at the stalwarts of the school curriculum. Featuring An Inspector Calls, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, plus the obvious works by Jane Austen, Dickens and Shakespeare – texts that seem to have been the staple for secondary schools forever, and, in some cases, remain a drag for everyone involved. But beneath the buffoonery in the classroom, this book makes a more serious point about the education we are serving up for our children and whether it's finally time for change.

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Many a loft is full of family memorabilia, but Bryony Hill’s collection is extraordinary. Packed to the rafters with photographs and historical documents, Bryony Hill has finally achieved her dream of studying those precious albums to reveal a record of her British family who left the Highlands for India during the reign of George III, continuing through to the reign of Queen Victoria, the high noon of the Raj. In Scotland to Shalimar – a Family’s Life in India you’ll find family portraits dating back to the 18th century, her ancestor’s watercolour images and precious sketches that mingle amongst favourite family recipes, stories of courage, riddles and rhymes – all collected through the generations. This well-researched, fascinating book creates a vivid and unique portrait of life at different stages in the ever-fascinating history of the British and their on-going relationship with India.

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A fascinating insight into Clive James, the songwriter - his lyrics and the life events that led to them. Described by Clive as 'the work I'm known least for, but which is closest to my heart', this book will be loved by Clive James fans and music fans alike.

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An unreliable first-person narrative in the tradition of noir writer, Jim Thompson, set in the world of art, wine, and provincial retail. Spurned by his lover and mentor, art student Keir Rothwell presents a gruesome effigy of her at his art school's end of year show and is promptly excluded. A job at a local wine shop, In Vino Veritas, gives Keir a lifeline and a delicious opportunity. Resolving to regain his place and his lover's attention, he plots to reinvent the shop as a working art installation under the noses of unwitting customers and colleagues. The repurposed wine critiques make grotesques of the shop's clientele and tension soon builds on both sides of the counter. When conflict turns to murder, the would-be artist is forced to fight a rear guard action against a tenacious detective and inquisitive customers. Will a long buried past now threaten the future of a Cornish seaside town? Murder by the Bottle is a compelling study in character, criminality and truth.

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Once upon a time they were best friends. They were all friends. So when Jenny moved to Australia to focus on her swimming career, she not only lost Kath, but her soul-mate Tom. It was for the best. Or so they said. Now, eight years later, Jenny seeks out her childhood friend and heads to rural France where Kath has settled. At first the women fall back into a close relationship, but before long strange and malicious behaviour leads Jenny to realise the truth: that Kath has played a clever game all along to manipulate and control those around her. And Jenny is her biggest victim. Set against the glorious backdrop of the Languedoc lavender fields, The Good Friend is a beautifully written psychological drama about love, lies and a dangerous obsession. Because once the truth is revealed, there’s no going back…

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Tom is a young man without a plan. After graduating from university in the UK, his search for something meaningful sees him embark on a doctorate in political philosophy at the prestigious Laughton University in the US. When he secures a scholarship from the Willoughby T. Forsyth Foundation, the future’s looking bright across the pond… After two relatively quiet years at Laughton, the election of Trump galvanises Tom to join the political activism sweeping campus, through which he finally finds a purpose – and a girlfriend! But in a cruel twist of fate, the budding progressive activist’s life is thrown into chaos when the sordid past of Willoughby T. Forsyth is revealed. Dumped, publicly shamed and with his bank account empty, Tom struggles haplessly through the fallout from under his desk. Will he ever make it out? Witty and thought-provoking in equal measure, Pond Life is a satire of contemporary academia that questions the institutionalisation of privilege and highlights the dangers of unequal power.

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From the BESTSELLING author of Dust Life can change in a split second, and so it does for twenty-eight-year-old photographer Finn Chambers. One careless decision at the Cimitero Acattolico in the eternal city of Rome, finds him falling head first onto Shelley's tomb, to his death. He awakes to a beautiful afterlife surrounded by long-dead poets, artists and thinkers, including Shelley, Keats, Gramsci, Sanchez and the delightful Lady Mary von Haas, and these luminaries test Finn's values and principles in a way they have never been tested before. Uncomfortable truths require honest assessment when the 21st century's lust for celebrity, drugs, and fifteen minutes of fame, is questioned by others from centuries past but his new life finds much in common with his previous life, with love, art, sex, music, humour and irreverence, all experienced on this different and fascinating plane. For Finn Chambers there is life after death - and it's a life worth living.

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Kew Gardens 1771. Five strong women, trapped by Georgian convention, together rise to the challenges of espionage, smuggling, and slavery, to find happiness and freedom. When botanical artist Daisy Salter meets pre-eminent Georgian scientist Joseph Banks and not only becomes Artist in Residence at Kew Gardens, but ‘Lady-in-Painting’ to Queen Charlotte, she gets a new start. However, whilst expecting a quiet and studious life, Daisy not only learns about plant hunting from botanist friend Rupert Fitzgerald but is unwittingly inveigled into espionage, tea smuggling and the ‘triangular trade’ by mysterious Dutchman Johannes Van der Humm. When a fabulous flower is discovered in South Africa and sent back to Kew for the Queen’s birthday, the women little guess it offers a route to freedom. But only if Daisy can foil a plot to steal it from under the King’s nose. Who is friend and who is foe? Can she work out whom to trust before disaster strikes? And who will she choose to marry? Set in an incredibly exciting period of history, The Daisy Chain is a pacy debut novel. If you like historical fiction mixed with gardening, art, adventure, espionage, skulduggery, smuggling, the slave trade and romance, buy your copy today. Read it on holiday, read it in the garden, or read it in bed – but don’t miss it!

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The highly anticipated fourth book in the exciting and atmospheric Shadow of the Raven series. WESSEX 893 AD As the threat of yet another Viking invasion looms over his troubled realm, Alfred, King of Wessex, reviews and strengthens his defences. Among his many concerns is the fate of Edward, his stable boy, who he believes to be the bastard son of revered warrior Matthew, who died serving the Saxon cause. If his heritage can be proved, Edward is not only heir to vast fortune but, more importantly, he has the blood of a warrior in his veins, something the Saxons are likely to need in spades. More worryingly, Alfred fears that if Edward's true lineage ever became known, there would be those who might seek to exploit him or, worse still, use him to usurp Alfred's rule. He confides in just two of his closest advisers and they conspire to send Edward to the relative safety of Wareham on the pretext of having him train Governor Osric's magnificent black stallion, a horse thought to be all but unrideable. Edward is treated with disdain when he reaches Wareham and regarded as being too puny to be a warrior. However when the barely-trained members of the fyrd find themselves outnumbered, isolated and confronting a dreaded Viking warband, it is Edward's quick thinking and extraordinary courage that leads them to victory, leaving no doubt about his true bloodline. AUTHOR: Chris Bishop is a retired chartered surveyor who has pursued his love of writing for as long as he can remember. He is an intrepid traveller and a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. He is married with two children and four granddaughters and lives in London.

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In an attic packed full of family memorabilia, Bryony Hill unearthed an extraordinary collection – portraits, watercolours, sketches and stories – dating back to the 18th century. Amongst those treasures, she stumbled across her great- and great-great grandmother’s precious recipes – ones that provide a unique glimpse of life in the high noon of the Raj. An Indian Table offers an eclectic range of Anglo-Indian dishes for every course, including curries, pilafs, souffles, pies and puddings. This marvellous medley of cuisines reflects the challenging conditions lived through over 150 years ago, and highlights how food has always played such an intrinsic role in both British and Indian culture.

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Jimi Hendrix, Princess Diana and Syria's Asma Al-Assad rub shoulders with Auden, Eliot and Shelley - and with the Trouser Thief Clive met during ten long weeks locked up in a closed psychiatric ward - in this offbeat and affectionate poetic biography. Since 2010, when Clive was told he had three separate life-threatening conditions, he has poured out a stream of fine poems - sometimes light, witty and paradoxical, sometimes sad, heartfelt and regretful. Some, like `Japanese Maple', an instant Internet sensation, have already made it into the anthologies. Others, like his book-length epic, The River in the Sky, are more demanding. All are packed with the unexpected ideas, inventive imagery and breathtaking wordplay that have helped him achieve his avowed ambition of becoming `a fairly major minor poet'.

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The Becket List is a not entirely serious compendium of ‘First World Problems’ – the sort of stuff that drives us round the bend on a daily basis. How is it that atonal music, bus stations, cling-film and coat-hangers can bugger us up so comprehensively? Or passport control people, modern poetry, or just about anything you’ll find in a typical hotel bedroom? Embracing both the inanimate – from allen keys to rawlplugs – and the animated (well, in some cases) – from your fellow-travellers to every third-rate waiter who ever walked the earth ¬– this book is essential for your sanity. As such, this comprehensive A to Z provides a signal service to humanity.

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Despite Alfred's great victory at Edington, Wessex is far from secure. With the threat of an imminent Viking attack, Matthew, now a warrior, is sent to fortify and defend the ford at Leatherhead. There, hopelessly outnumbered, he faces his sternest test as he and a small band of barely trained Saxon warriors strive to hold out long enough for help to arrive - or resolve to die trying. In a time ravaged by political uncertainty, Matthew is placed in intense personal danger as he's also ordered to investigate the tyranny of the Ealdorman's stepson and dispense justice as he sees fit. With his life still threatened by the wound to his chest, what is asked of him seems more than any man should endure as he faces... The Final Reckoning

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'Pushes all the seductive buttons in a world tangential to our own' (Edward Fennell, The Times) Meet Simon Haines. For a decade he's been chasing his dream: partnership at the legendary, family-run law firm of Fiennes & Plunkett. The gruelling hours and manic intensity of his job have come close to breaking him, but he has made it through the years and is now within a whisker of his millions: in less than two weeks, he will know the outcome of the partnership vote. He decides to spend the wait in Cuba in an attempt to rediscover his youthful enthusiasm and curiosity, and to clear his mind before the arrival of the news that might change his life forever. But alone in Havana he becomes lost in nostalgia and begins to relive his past...Set against the backdrop of an uncertain world, and charged with emotion, Being Simon Haines is a searching story about contemporary London and aspiration, values and love. Painting a picture of a generation of young professionals, it asks the most universal of questions: are we strong enough to know who we are? 'Beautiful, intelligent, and thoroughly readable' (Ian Sansom)

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SATELLITES ARE FALLING OUT OF THE SKIES When rogue junk collides with a television satellite 22,000 miles above the Earth, blind cosmologist Harry Stones approaches Film Director Nathalie Thompson to make an investigative documentary. Undeterred by Harry's lack of sight, their quest leads them from the peaks of Arizona to a mile-deep mine in Yorkshire, and finally to a Launchpad in Kazakhstan. As more and more satellites keep falling out of the sky, their curiosity turns to fear. Forewarned of the possible outbreak of World War Three, can Harry and Nathalie prevent the space collision of all time?

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In the second book in the exciting and atmospheric Shadow of the Raven series we rejoin novice monk turned warrior, Matthew as he marches ahead of King Alfred, to Exeter to herald the King’s triumphant return to the city, marking his great victory at Edington. It should have been a journey of just five or perhaps six days but, as Matthew is to find to his cost, in life the road you’re given to travel is seldom what you wish for – and never what you expect. In this much-anticipated sequel Chris Bishop again deposits the reader slap-bang into the middle of Saxon Britain, where battles rage and life is cheap. An early confrontation leaves Matthew wounded, but found and tended by a woodland-dwelling healer he survives, albeit with the warning that the damage to his heart will eventually take his life. Matthew faces many challenges as he battles to make his way back to Chippenham to be reunited with King Alfred and also with the woman he wants to make his wife. This is an epic tale of triumph over adversity as we will the warrior with the pierced heart to make it back to those he loves, before it is too late.

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thebrandgym is a refreshingly simple, practical guide to boosting brand and business performance in a digital age. This new and updated edition 'reboots' the whole brand vision to action process, to be fit for purpose in today's digital age, and is illustrated with inside stories from brand leaders such as Snapchat, Airbnb, Burberry, Dove, Lego and many others. Leaders from these companies share their tips and tricks for success, and warn you of the traps to avoid, while the programme of 11 Workouts is packed with practical tools and tips to raise your game in key areas including insight, brand positioning, innovation and internal engagement. The comprehensive programme covers four key stages of growth creation: . Brand-led Growth: focusing branding on driving profitable growth by 'Following the Money', not the latest marketing trends including pruning the portfolio to concentrate on fewer, bigger brands . Bring Your Vision to Life: blending the best of digital and human insight to create an inspiring and purposeful positioning that is then brought to life to align and engage the team delivering the brand . Grow the Core: driving distinctiveness through product, service, identity and communication including the use of digital technology to upgrade or even re-invent your core business. Expanding distribution, including harnessing exciting new digital routes to the consumer . Stretch from the Core: extending and then stretching the core using products and packaging, including innovative new ways to deliver your brand promise using digital technology. AUTHOR: David Taylor is founder and Group Managing Partner of the brandgym and has led the writing of this book. He has been named one of the world's 50 leading marketing thinkers by the CIM. He started his career in brand management with P&G before doing an MBA at INSEAD. He then started and successfully grew the Paris office of marketing consultancy Added Value, prior to starting the brandgym in 2002. The brandgym is a global network of senior-only brand coaches and the whole team has contributed to this fully updated and expanded 3rd edition of this book.

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