Search results for ""September Publishing""

'Of all the places where I feel the translucency of things, places that are thin for me, bluebell woods are first among them.' Some travellers are driven by the need to scale a natural wonder, or to see a city's sights or a place of history. Others, like Alice Maddicott, travel in search of a particular scene, feeling or atmosphere, often inspired by music, literature and art. Taking us deep into our emotional and creative responses to place, this extraordinary book explores the author's relentless travelling, from the heat of Sicily to the mountains of Japan. With her uniquely lyrical approach to psycho-geography, Maddicott explores the relationship with landscape that is the very essence of human creativity. From seventeenth-century salons of Paris to the underground culture and crumbling balconies of modern Tbilisi, through writers as diverse as Italo Calvino and L. M. Montgomery and artists like Ana Mendieta and eighteenth-century girls embroidering their lives, Tender Maps is a beautifully evocative book of travel, culture and imagination that transports readers in time and place. 'A rich and beguiling work of literary travel memoir that nimbly tracks the wider contours of the world in terms of feeling, memory, introspection and the imagination.' - Travis Elborough, author of Atlas of Vanishing Places

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A uniquely vivid and wickedly funny memoir of growing up ambitious, creative and sometimes hungry in Malawi. With exuberant prose, a cast of extraordinary characters and a rebellious spirit, Samson Kambalu tells the story of how a little boy obsessed with fashion, football, Nietzsche and Michael Jackson won a free education at the Kamuzu Academy ('The Eton of Africa') and began his journey to art school and artistic success. The son of a philosophising, hard-drinking, poorly paid hospital manager, Kambalu's award-winning conceptual work is shown in galleries across the world, and still evokes that childhood landscape of literary excitement, family chaos and music; post-colonial injustice, poverty and Aids.

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'A thrilling, deeply emotional and authentic bird-lover's travelogue.' James Lowen, author of Much Ado About Mothing 'One spring morning, as the cuckoos were arriving in England, we departed. At Tilbury Docks we slowly edged our Toyota camper into a shipping container and, like a heron scooping a frog from a marsh, our container was hoisted high over the dockside. Inside was everything we needed, our new life bound for South America.' After a vicious attack left Michael Webster in treatment for years, it was only his love of nature - in particular birds - that truly healed. Repaying this debt to nature, he and his wife embarked on their trip of a lifetime, travelling through South America; immersed in the wild, following and filming birds. For over four years Michael and Paula travelled the length of the Andes, the greatest mountain chain on Earth. From penguins in Patagonia, up beyond the hummingbirds of the equator, to the flamingos of the Caribbean. They endured dust storms, thundering gales, icy mountain tops and skin-searing heat, and tested the limits of their physical and mental strength as they lived wild, month after month, camping under galaxies of diamond stars. The Condor's Feather is testament to the possibility of new adventures, new friendships and new hope.

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Part memoir, part detective story, part untold history of museums - The Museum Makers is a fascinating and moving family story.'Rachel Morris is one of the smartest storytellers I have ever met ... a wonderful and beguiling book' James Rebanks, author of The Shepherd's Life Without even thinking I began to slide all these things from the dusty boxes under my bed into groups on the carpet, to take a guess at what belonged to whom, to match up photographs and handwriting to memories and names - in other words, to sort and classify. As I did so I had the revelation that in what we do with our memories and the stuff that our parents leave behind, we are all museum makers, seeking to makes sense of the past.; Museum expert Rachel Morris had been ignoring the boxes under her bed for decades. When she finally opened them, an entire bohemian family history was laid bare. The experience was revelatory - searching for her absent father in the archives of the Tate; understanding the loss and longings of the grandmother who raised her - and transported her back to the museums that had enriched her lonely childhood. By teasing out the stories of those early museum makers, and the unsung daughters and wives behind them, and seeing the same passions and mistakes reflected in her own family, Morris digs deep into the human instinct for collection and curation.

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Winner of the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing'Reading this book might make you wish to set fire to your smartphone, but it might also make you wish to call for reform. If you do the latter you might consider the former, as long as that thing is on, they know where you live.' Margaret Atwood How to comprehend and correct the negative impact of the internet on politics, the economy, the environment and humanity? Reset is a fast-paced, compelling expose; and a rallying call for clear change. Drawing on the cutting-edge research of the Citizen Lab, the world-renowned digital security research group he founded, Ronald J. Deibert exposes the influence of the communications ecosystem on civil society. He tracks a mostly unregulated surveillance industry, innovations in technologies of remote control, superpower policing practices, dark PR firms and highly profitable hack-for-hire services feeding off rivers of poorly secured personal data. He also unearths how dependence on social media and its expanding universe of consumer electronics creates immense pressure on the natural environment.  Determined to find solutions, Deibert has written a unique, readable and forward-looking book. In order to combat authoritarian practices, environmental degradation and rampant electronic consumerism, Deibert urges for very specific restraints on tech platforms and governments to reclaim the internet for civil society. It's time for us to push RESET. 'Deibert is a rare hybrid who combines an advanced understanding of computer technology with a rich background in political science. He is also a legend in security and tech circles.' Misha Glenny

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In 50 Things About Us, Mark Thomas combines his trademark mix of storytelling, stand-up, mischief and really, really well-researched material to examine how we have come to inhabit this divided wasteland that some of us call the United Kingdom. Based on his latest show, 50 Things About Us, Mark picks through the myths, historical facts and current figures of our national identities to ask: who do we think we are?

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Charged with possibility and power, this memorable collection is an extraordinary immersion into the bodies and voices, mindscapes and landscapes, of the shapeshifting women of our native folklore. Drawing on myth and fairy tales found across Europe from Croatia to Sweden, Ireland to Russia, these stories are about coming to terms with our animal natures, exploring the ways in which we might renegotiate our fractured relationship with the natural world, and uncovering the wildness and wilderness within.

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Breathwork is conscious breathing - an active form of meditation that can be done by anyone, anywhere. This grounding activity clears the mind, slows the heart rate and brings renewed energy to the body, along with a host of mental, emotional, physical and spiritual benefits. Created by breathwork expert Ashley Neese, How to Breathe introduces the foundations of breathwork and gives 25 simple practices for reducing stress, managing anger, falling asleep, building intimacy, dealing with grief and more. Neese gives practical guidance for channeling the power of breathing to help tackle common challenges with mindfulness and serenity.

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Year after year the family returns to the lake. The children, barefoot and free, explore its sun-drenched wilderness... The summer Bruce turns ten seems, at first, like any other: swimming out to the raft, watching the gulls, frogs and herons, catching crayfish. But just when he thinks that life is perfect, everything begins to change, and over the course of two months both the harshness of the adult world and the patterns of the natural reveal themselves.Barefoot at the Lake is not only a beautifully written boy’s-eye view of the animals, humans and landscape of his youth, it is also delightfully funny, with a moving wisdom at its heart.

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Blue plaques, bearing names both familiar and intriguing, can be found all across the capital. From BOB MARLEY to ALAN TURING, VIRGINIA WOOLF to VINCENT VAN GOGH, MAHATMA GANDHI to EMMELINE PANKHURST, the plaques celebrate an incredible range of London's past residents. Whether they be scientists, sports stars, artists, actors, inventors or politicians - this revised and updated English Heritage guide reveals, with wit and insight, the stories of London's most extraordinary men and women and the homes in which they lived.

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My War Gone By, I Miss It So is a uniquely powerful piece of writing, unparalleled in the genre. Ex-infantry officer Anthony Loyd arrived in the Balkans hoping to become a war correspondent. He wanted to see `a real war', and in Bosnia he found one. The cruelty and chaos of the conflict both appalled and embraced him - the adrenaline lure of the action perhaps the loudest siren call of all. In the midst of the daily life-and-death struggle among the Serbs, Croatians and Bosnian Muslims he was inspired by the extraordinary human fortitude he discovered. But returning home, empty and craving adrenaline, he faced his own frailties until he could bear it no longer.

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In a world where an increasing number of people work remotely, Invisible Work is a new skillset and framework to ensure personal and business success - from the author of The Creative Economy. Just as power has moved from boardrooms into the domain of dynamic individuals, Invisible Work maps the evolution of this new way of being and succeeding. It is a mindset of deeply focused, value-added thinking and sharing. It is a process of creativity that combines emotional intelligence and collaboration. It is the key to the success of a growing army of self-employed workers. This is an emerging field of work in which new business domains and creative endeavours are based on personal interests and digital connections. Howkins lays out a visionary framework for working practice and success. He focuses on the ways in which we think most innovatively, how we best share those private ideas, and how we make unseen connections and remain authentic while staking out our domain in a virtual world.

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As the summer draws to a close, a few snowbeds - some as big as icebergs - survive in the Scottish Highlands. Christopher Nicholson's Among the Summer Snows is both a celebration of these great, icy relics and an intensely personal meditation on their significance. A book to delight all those interested in mountains and snow, full of vivid description and anecdote, it explores the meanings of nature, beauty and mortality in the twenty-first century.

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Christopher Nicholson's first book of nature writing is a beautiful account of an unusual obsession. In 2016 he spent August searching for the remaining snows of the Scottish Highlands. His account of his solitary walk is by turns funny, fascinating and inspiring. A meditation on walking, mountains, snow and our changing climate, Nicholson also turns his curious eye on nature-lovers themselves. What are we looking for when we walk and what is it we want from nature? What is it we see and what is it we miss? What remains when we are gone and what have we lost from the landscape forever?

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Ten years ago, Angela Kiss arrived in the UK without a word of English. All she brought with her was a small bag, a sense of adventure, a desire to work and a copy of George Mikes' classic 1940s' humour book about the peculiarities of the British, How to be an Alien. Through every dodgy flat share, low-paid waitressing job, awkward date and office mishap, Angela held tight to George's wit and wisdom. With his help she began to understand how to live amongst the English - with their eccentricity, spirit and singing train drivers - and fell in love with a land rich in green spaces, pubs and puddings.

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Alice Stevenson is a Londoner who neither drives, runs nor cycles. Instead Alice walks, navigating the city's parks, pavements and paths daily, in all weathers. As the miles have mounted so too has her knowledge of the city - the thoroughfares and the alleyways, the beauty spots and the forgotten corners. She is a unique guide with a unique eye. Whether you are walking with a purpose or walking to escape, or simply looking for new ways to appreciate the city, Ways to Walk in London is a revelation. Including walks above-ground and below-ground, waterways, pathways and the Pedway, Alice also opens our eyes to London's hidden places and pasts. An inspiring collection of walks, notes and artworks, revealing London's multiple layers and different moods.

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Inspirational quotes and sketches from Van Gogh on the restorative power of nature. 'One thing I tell you, that this countryside has the effect on me of bringing me peace, faith, courage . . .' A captivating collection of lesser-known images, chosen largely from sketchbooks and letters. The Healing Power of Nature is testament to the immense influence the natural world had on Vincent van Gogh; from the restorative, calming effect of rural landscapes to the stimulation and joy he found in natural beauty. Each image is accompanied by an insightful quote from his letters, showing how nature is a source of great healing and inspiration to us all, connecting us with the peace and beauty of our surroundings and with a sense of something even greater. '. . . I console myself by reconsidering the sunflowers.'

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A time-travelling, genealogical adventure, bringing pre-industrial, rural, eighteenth-century England vividly to life on the page. One day Ian Marchant decided, as all men of a certain age must, to have a dig around his family history. Surprisingly quickly, a web search informed him that his seven-times-great great-grandfather, Thomas Marchant, had left a detailed diary from 1714 to 1728. Diarist Thom – who liked a drink and a game of cards – feels recognisably Marchant to Ian. With immersive detail we learn about Thom’s family farm and fishponds; about dung, horses and mud; about beer, the wife’s nights out, his own job troubles and their shared worries for their children. But as Ian digs deeper beyond the Sussex diary’s bucolic portrait he discovers a subtext – a family descended from immigrants, with anti-establishment politics, who are struggling with illness, political instability and cash crises – just as their country does three centuries on. ‘A unique and exhilarating exploration of time and love … elegiac, consistently funny, deeply moving.’ Richard Beard, author of Sad Little Men

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'There can be a perverse pleasure, as well as a sense of rightness and beauty, in insisting on flowering just when the world expects you to become quiet and diminish.' Sharon Blackie What is Hagitude? It means being at ease with the unique power women embody in the second half of their life. It means having a strong sense of who we are and what we have to offer the world. And a firm belief in our place in the ever-shifting web of life. For the woman who wishes to flourish without chasing eternal youth comes Hagitude. Interweaving myth, psychology, landscape and ecofeminism, acclaimed author Sharon Blackie reclaims the mid years as an alchemical moment - from which to shift into your chosen, authentic and fulfilling future - and the elder years as a path to dynamic influence. 'A fascinating book ... well researched, packed with stories and bursting with lovely descriptions of the natural world. There's plenty in it to inspire women of every age.' Christina Patterson, Sunday Times

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FROM THE DIRECTOR AND SCREENWRITER OF WOMEN TALKING 'Fascinating, harrowing, courageous, and deeply felt, these explorations of "dangerous stories", harmful past events and trials of the soul speak to all who’ve encountered dark waters and have had to navigate them.' Margaret Atwood Sarah Polley's work as an actor, screenwriter and director is celebrated for its honesty, complexity and deep humanity. She brings all those qualities, along with her exquisite storytelling skills, to these six essays. Each one captures a piece of Polley's life as she remembers it, while at the same time examining the fallibility of memory and the embodied reactions of children and women adapting and surviving. The guiding light is the possibility of experiencing the past anew, as the person she is now but was not then. In this extraordinary book, Polley explores what it is to live in one's body, in a constant state of becoming, learning and changing. As she was advised after a catastrophic head injury - if we relinquish our protective crouch and run towards the danger, then life can be reset, reshaped and lived afresh. '[Polley is] a stunningly sophisticated observer of the world and an imperfect witness to the truth.' New York Times

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A time-travelling, genealogical adventure, bringing pre-industrial, rural, eighteenth-century England vividly to life on the page. One day Ian Marchant, acclaimed author of books on music, railways and pubs, decided, as all men of a certain age must, to have a dig around his family history. Surprisingly quickly, a web search informed him that his seven-times-great great-grandfather, Thomas Marchant had left a detailed diary from 1714 to 1728. So far, so jolly ... Life-loving diarist Thom - who liked a drink and a game of cards - feels recognisably Marchant to Ian. With fascinating, immersive detail we learn about Thom's family farm and fishponds; about dung, horses and mud; about beer, the wife's nights out, his own job troubles and their shared worries for their children. But as Ian digs deeper beyond the Sussex diary's bucolic portrait he discovers a subtext - a family descended from immigrants, with anti-establishment politics, who are struggling with illness, political instability and cash crises - just as their country does three centuries on. 'When I was reflecting late one January evening on the differences between Thom and me, I realised the unbridgeable thing that comes between us is industrialisation. He lived right at its beginning, while I am living somewhere towards its end. Old Thom Marchant was one of the last people before industrialisation to understand how his world worked - and how to be largely self-sufficient in it. He knew where his food came from, his fuel, his water, his clothes. He knew how the welfare system worked, and was part of its administration; he knew who looked after the roads, too. He collected taxes. He was not separate from the system, but part of it.' Rich with immersive detail, One Fine Day draws a living portrait of Marchant family life in the 1720s and how their England (rainy, muddy, politically turbulent, illness-ridden) became the England of the 2020s.

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Do you ever find that the earth stills and you suddenly feel acutely alive? Have you ever looked into an animal's eyes and felt the pull of a more primal world? Do you sometimes feel panic rise, or isolation sink upon you, or simply feel out of kilter with the modern world? 'Inside my cauldron is a thick fistful of paper, old diary entries, work "to do" lists, notes I wrote while I was in a bad place and feeling trapped in a life that was keeping my mind small and narrow; thoughts and feelings that are holding me back, keeping me tied to a time I want to let go of. These papers are flashes of lightning across a darkened room and I want them gone. As they curl and burn, twisting in their black spirals like the farewell flourish of a travelling cloak, a sense of calm sweeps through my chest and shoulders. I feel it so strongly, like a blast of ice to my system, shivering out the old thoughts. I'm burning a path for something new to come in.' One winter, Jennifer Lane reached breaking point in her fast-paced office life. In the year that followed her stress-related illness, she set out to rediscover the solace and purpose that witchcraft had given her as a teenager. The Wheel is an immersive, engaging read - exploring the life-long draw of witchcraft and our vulnerability to toxic working environments and digital demands. In her year-long journey Jennifer explores ancient festivals and rituals, and visits fellow pagans and wild landscapes, in search of wisdom and peace. For those who are sick at heart of noise, anger and disconnection, The Wheel is full of wise words, crackling rituals and natural beauty. This is a quest to discover how to live fully connected to the natural world while firmly in the twenty-first century.

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A brilliant awakening to our vast shared potential and creative energy for change, from the beloved social media curator Stephen Ellcock. Featuring 240 reproductions of art, photography and objects, selected from cultures through history and across the globe, as well as from living artists such as Zanele Muholi, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, Ellen Gallagher, Shirin Neshat and Gillian Wearing, this is an extraordinary collection of powerfully inspiring imagery on the nature of challenge and change. 'Perfect for our time.' Adrian Searle, Guardian 'In compiling The Book of Change my aim was to combine fragments of the visual culture of the past - drawing upon as many different traditions, geographical locations and eras as possible - with work by contemporary artists and photographers and illustrators, extracting inspiration from the raw material of the world to create a unique patchwork that attempts to reimagine existence. 'By reassembling, repurposing and repositioning fragments of the past and combining them with new visions and fresh ways of seeing, a collage of unfamiliar, unspoiled possibilities can emerge, exorcizing the ghosts of struggles, failures and traumas past, providing glimpses of a better world, of overgrown paths in the clearing, of potential routes out of crisis into a brighter, bolder future.' 'Itinerant image-scavenging art-fugitive Stephen Ellcock returns with a new book revealing that beneath his acerbic, feral and rarefied exterior lies a large, kind and generous heart. When you get right down to it, in life and art, love is the message, and The Book of Change brings forth the codes, keys and surreal visions leading to brighter days.' Simon Armstrong, Tate Modern 'Stephen Ellcock brightens our dark world.' Kara Walker, artist

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An extraordinary photographic exploration of North Korea, from a Westerner who lived in Pyongyang and explored the country beyond for nearly two years. What happens when you travel to a place where even basic truths are ambiguous? Where sometimes you can't trust your own eyes or feelings? Where the divide between real and imagined is never clear? For two years, Lindsey Miller lived in North Korea, long regarded as one of the most closed societies on earth. As one of Pyongyang's small community of resident foreigners, Lindsey was granted remarkable freedoms to experience the country without government minders. She had a front row seat as North Korea shot into the headlines during an unprecedented period of military tension with the US and the subsequent historic Singapore Summit. However, it was the connection with individuals and their families, and the day-to-day reality of control and repression, that delivered the real revelations of North Korean life, and which left Lindsey utterly changed from the woman who had nervously disembarked from her plane onto an empty runway just two years before. This is her extraordinary photographic account, a testament to the hidden humanity of North Korea.

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Explore the beach and its secrets as never before! What makes the tides tick? Do sharks lay eggs? Why are sea levels rising? Investigate the wonderful world of sand, watch how crabs move and marvel at spectacular seashells as you become a beach explorer. This book is bursting with hands-on activities, fascinating experiments and amazing facts to discover at home or on the shore. You can: become a tide fort champion, create a miniature rock pool, find out what makes star fish so special, spy on a hermit crab battle, design your own fish, identify where beach litter comes from and experiment with seashells. Heather Buttivant, award-winning wildlife blogger and author of Rock Pool: Extraordinary Encounters Between the Tides, invites you on an adventure to meet the mysterious creatures that live on the beach and discover what you can do to protect them.

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'Veganism is not just a diet. Not just an opinion, nor a trend. It is a 21st-century revolution which began 20 centuries ago.' From the activist, scientist and animal welfare consultant whose employment tribunal changed the law forever comes a timely, personal polemic on the nature of ethical veganism. A choice many feel is the answer to today's global crises. Written with urgency, humour and a strong personal narrative, Jordi Casamitjana's book is the first to consider veganism as an ethical belief. A political engagement. Not just a 'lifestyle choice.' While the book full of the vitality and complexity of the animal kingdom he has dedicated his life to protecting, chapters are structured to cover both history, science and practicalities. Ethical veganism is about so much more than food and Jordi also explores how it possible to dress ethically, travel according to vegan principles, to work responsibly, as well as eat carefully.

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One summer, Alice Maddicott was adopted by a beautiful tabby called Dylan, and together they shared six years of loving friendship. Alice collected second-hand photos - orphan images - and in her sadness after Dylan's death, she pored over the old photographs of women and their cats. Cats in gardens, cats on laps, cats in alleys and on steps, accompanied by women who were diffident and affectionate, fierce and whimsical, young and old. What did these cats mean to the women who cared for them? Why have cat-owning women always been viewed with suspicion? And where did the Crazy Cat Lady stereotype emerge from, when other cultures revere rather than fear this relationship? Examining these questions and many more, Cat Women is a moving exploration of wild natures and domestic affections.

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The pages of The Confession Album contain 100 questions. Your part is collecting the answers - whether from a loved one, or yourself - in the course of an evening, or over a lifetime. If you're answering for yourself, The Confession Album offers an opportunity to gain and share the solace of self-expression; a way to relay knowledge or impart wisdom; store a little data about what matters in the old-fashioned way, by putting pen to paper. If you're collecting someone else's answers - whether together in person or by inviting them to respond alone and share with you later - The Confession Album is above all an opportunity to bond. To lend your ears and give your love. The Confession Album might be used to mark a birthday or anniversary. As an activity to anchor a family trip or weekend with friends. At the very least, it beats a Greeting Card or social media quiz. At best, it creates a small but thoughtful legacy - recording thought, and hard-won wisdom, to advise and inspire. For Aspiring Writers, The Confession Album removes one more barrier to putting pen to paper. The Confession Album is designed to encourage you to make a start, to help writers find and refine their voice on the page.

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A photographic exploration of the post-war modernist architecture of London. This collection of unique and evocative photography of Brutalist architecture by Simon Phipps casts the city in a new light. Arranged by inner London Borough, BRUTAL LONDON takes in famous examples such as the Trellick Tower, the Brunswick Centre and the Alexandra Road Estate, as well as lesser known housing and municipal spaces. It serves as an introduction to buildings the reader may see every day, an invitation to look differently, a challenge to look up afresh, or to seek out celebrated Brutalism across the capital. The book's portable size and maps for each borough make it useful and practical; while the design, by leading agency A Practice for Everyday Life, echoes the aesthetic of Brutalist architecture with rough textured edges and fonts inspired by the site maps of modernist estates. Finalist for the British Book Design and Production Awards 2017, Photographic Books, Art / Architecture Monographs.

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Vincent van Gogh's paintings are amongst the most iconic and admired in the world. The trials of his life and health are endlessly discussed but the extraordinary richness of his writings and depth of his thinking on creativity, art and beauty is less explored. In Creative Inspiration, Van Gogh's writings have been edited and selected to create an enlightening, uplifting and helpful book for art lovers and creatives - amateurs and professionals alike. 150 carefully selected images illustrate these quotes, focusing on the sketches and drawings that reveal the rigour and ambition with which he approached his work. The book is thematically divided - from Beginnings to Routine to Beauty - and his determination and charisma are shared through words and pictures. A beautiful, and delightfully handy, art book that is designed to inspire.

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An inspiring visual adventure. Driven by curiosity, restlessness and a desire to better understand her own country, artist Alice Stevenson spent two years exploring and drawing Great Britain. With an eye for the odd and an antenna for the unexpectedly beautiful, she documented her slow, attentive forays. Her journeying was wide: steam trains in Snowdonia, art galleries on remove Scottish islands, Kent coastlines, Dorset villages, East Anglian saltmarshes, the erstwhile utopias of Harlow and Portmeirion and the wild fells of eastern Cumbria. Yet she found many hidden delights in the dense populations of cities, from Hull and Plymouth, to Belfast and Edinburgh. The result is a book celebrating detail, of landscape and architecture, and creativity, an essential human urge. A rich, artistic journey through a land deep in natural and man-made puzzles and wonders.

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When Jim Richards left home to make his fortune in a gold rush, he had no language skills, no money and no idea. But when he found diamond-filled pot holes in the remote rivers of Guyana, his problems really began. Chasing gold and diamond rushes around the world, Richards worked with local miners in some of the maddest, baddest and most dangerous places on earth. His dramatic journey ranges from the piranha-infested rivers of South America to the blazing deserts of Australia, from the world's biggest mining scam in Indonesia to the war-torn jungles of Laos. To find the gold, first Jim had to find himself. He learned to dig deep and discover the resilience and fortitude needed to overcome isolation, disease, equipment disasters and gun-toting criminals to come out on top.

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A Passion for China is a personal celebration of the everyday beauty of tableware. Acclaimed ceramicist, artist and designer Molly Hatch explores the family stories behind beloved items; the bowls and cups we have inherited or chosen with love and care. Molly Hatch also brings the history of porcelain, potteries and patterns to life through her stunning, hand-drawn illustrations. 'As we move through our daily lives, eating breakfast, sipping an afternoon cup of tea or gathering for a family dinner, the patterned ceramic objects we live with are precious witnesses to our stories. We eat from them, they warm our hands after a cold walk outdoors and we pull them out to celebrate the births, marriages and lives of our loved ones.' A tribute to the rich heritage of the vintage plates, jugs and pots that make our homes our own.

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The Perfect Stranger was first published in the '60s and since then has continued to find a select group of passionate admirers. Evocative and engaging, and ultimately deeply emotional, The Perfect Stranger is the story of a soldier, a poet and a husband. The author describes it as the story of a rescue -of a young man who emerges from the bleak playing fields of school onto the battlefields of Korea, from the heady chaos of Barcelona into an intense and tragic relationship with a girl called Sally Lehmann. Brutally sad, sharp and wise, this is a classic of the genre.

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Concrete Poetry is the first photographic survey of Modernist sculpture within the Brutalist context.

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Eight authors were given after hours freedom at their chosen English heritage site. Immersed in the history, atmosphere and rumours of hauntings, they channelled their darker imaginings into a series of extraordinary new ghost stories. Sarah Perry's intense tale of possession at the Jacobean country house Audley End is a work of psychological terror, while Andrew Michael Hurley's story brings an unforgettably shocking slant to the history of Carlisle Castle. Within the walls of these historic buildings each author has found inspiration to deliver a new interpretation of the classic ghost story. Relish the imagined terrors at these exhilarating locations: Kate Clanchy, Housesteads Roman Fort | Stuart Evers, Dover Castle | Mark Haddon, York Cold War Bunker | Andrew Michael Hurley, Carlisle Castle | Sarah Perry, Audley End | Max Porter Eltham Palace | Kamila Shamsie, Kenilworth Castle | Jeanette Winterson, Pendennis Castle

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While every parent knows more of what to expect the next time round, the birth of a second child is no less momentous. Family relationships multiply, birth-order myths hover and sibling rivalry and parental exhaustion threaten. Yet the potential for joy and love within the family also expands, as if by magic. This new literary talent shines a tender insight on a forgotten subject: what it is to parent for the second time and what it is to forever be a younger child.

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If Women Rose Rooted has been described as both transformative and essential. Sharon Blackie leads the reader on a quest to find their place in the world, drawing inspiration from the wise and powerful women in native mythology, and guidance from contemporary role models who have re-rooted themselves in land and community and taken responsibility for shaping the future. Beautifully written, honest and moving, If Women Rose Rooted is a passionate song to a different kind of femininity, a rallying, feminist cry for the rewilding of womanhood; reclaiming our role as guardians of the land.

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