Search results for ""Unbound""

LONGLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 2021 SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA DAGGERS HISTORICAL AWARD 2022 Spring, 1840. In the Dorset market town of Wimborne Minster, a young choirboy drowns himself. Soon after, the choirmaster—a belligerent man with a vicious reputation—is found murdered, in a discovery tainted as much by relief as it is by suspicion. The gaze of the magistrates falls on four local men, whose decisions will reverberate through the community for years to come. So begins the chronicle of Crow Court, unravelling over fourteen delicately interwoven episodes, the town of Wimborne their backdrop: a young gentleman and his groom run off to join the army; a sleepwalking cordwainer wakes on his wife’s grave; desperate farmhands emigrate. We meet the composer with writer’s block; the smuggler; a troupe of actors down from London; and old Art Pugh, whose impoverished life has made him hard to amuse. Meanwhile, justice waits…

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Few things in life are more delightful than sharing in the laughter of a baby. Until now, however, psychologists and parenting experts have largely focused on moments of stress and confusion. Developmental psychologist Caspar Addyman decided to change that.Since 2012 Caspar has run the Baby Laughter project, collecting data, videos and stories from parents all over the world. This has provided a fascinating window into what babies are learning and how they develop cognitively and emotionally. Deeper than that, he has observed laughter as the purest form of human connection. It creates a bond that parents and infants share as they navigate the challenges of childhood.Moving chronologically through the first two years of life, The Laughing Baby explores the origin story for our incredible abilities. In the playful daily lives of babies, we find the beginnings of art, science, music and happiness. Our infancy is central to what makes us human, and understanding why babies laugh is key to understanding ourselves.

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A great read - Matt Haig 13 October 2008. Welcome to the worst day of Chef Charlie Sheridan's life, the day he's about to lose his two great loves: his childhood sweetheart, Lulu, and the legendary Brighton hotel his grandfather, Franco Sheridan, opened in 1973. This is the story of the Belle Hotel, one that spans the course of four decades from the training of a young chef in the 1970s and 80s, through the hedonistic 90s, up to the credit crunch of the noughties and leads us right back to Charlie's present-day suffering. In this bittersweet and salty tale, our two Michelin star-crossed lovers navigate their seaside hangout for actors, artists and rock stars; the lure of the great restaurants of London; and the devastating effects of three generations of family secrets.

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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?

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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.

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'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.

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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…

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Video games can instil amazing qualities in children – curiosity, resilience, patience and problem-solving to name a few – but with the World Health Organisation naming gaming disorder as a clinically diagnosable condition, parents and carers can worry about what video games are doing to their children.Andy Robertson has dealt with all of the above, not just over years of covering this topic fo newspapers, radio and television but as a father of three. In this guide, he offers parents and carers practical advice and insights – combining his own experiences with the latest research and guidance from psychologists, industry experts, schools and children's charities – alongside a treasure trove of 'gaming recipes' to test out in your family.Worrying about video game screen time, violence, expense and addiction is an understandable response to scary newspaper headlines. But with first-hand understanding of the video games your children love to play, you can anchor them as a healthy part of family life.Supported by the www.taminggaming.com Family Video Game Database, Taming Gaming leads you into doing this so that video games can stop being a point of argument, worry and stress and start providing fulfilling, connecting and ambitious experiences together as a family.

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The sequel nobody wants. After a decade of the Tories, could it get any worse? Spoiler it does. Towards the end of 2021, Britain had been frogmarched into an escalating series of surreal calamities. Brexit was a disaster, the NHS was in crisis, the government was bathed head-to-toe in impropriety, senior Tories were still acting as though the public purse was their personal feed-trough, and the air crackled with anger about PartyGate. All of which led to an inglorious start to 2022: the year the UK saw two monarchs, three prime ministers and four chancellors. From Boris Johnson, who trashed our international reputation and handed billions to his mates so they could ineptly fight a pandemic while he stayed at home, shagging and acting as a super-spreader; to Liz Truss, a drive-by prime minister who managed to kill off the queen and crash the economy in a single week. And now we're led by Rishi Sunak, who doesn't know how to use a credit card,

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‘This is Doro and he is beautiful.’So begins the extraordinary story of Doro Ģoumãňęh, who faced an unimaginable series of adversities on his journey from persecution in The Gambia to refuge in France.Doro was once a relatively prosperous fisherman, but in 2014, when the country’s fishing rights were stolen and secret police began arresting Gambian fishermen, Doro left home, fleeing for his life. From Senegal to Libya to Algeria and back to Libya, Doro fell victim to the horrific cycle of abuse targeted at refugees. He endured shipwrecks, torture and being left for dead in a mass grave. Miraculously, he survived.In 2019, during one of his many attempts to reach Europe, Doro was rescued by the boat Sea-Watch 3 in the Mediterranean, where he met volunteer Brendan Woodhouse. While waiting out a two-week standoff – floating off the coast of Sicily, as political leaders accused Sea-Watch, a German organisation that helps migrants, of facilitating illegal entry to Europe – a great friendship formed.Told through both Doro’s and Brendan’s perspectives, Doro touches on questions of policy and politics, brutality and bravery, survival and belonging – issues that confront refugees everywhere. But ultimately it is one man's incredible story – that of Doro: refugee, hero, champion, survivor and friend.

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For once, these men are the objects; I am the subject. Me, me, me.Rosemary Mac Cabe was always a serial monogamist – never happier than when she was in a relationship or, at the very least, on the way to being in one. But in her desperate search for ‘the one’ – from first love to first lust, through a series of disappointments and the searing sting of heartbreak – she learned that finding love might mean losing herself along the way.This Is Not About You is a life story in a series of love stories. About Henry, with the big nose and the lovely mum, with whom sex was like having a verruca frozen off in the doctor’s surgery: ‘uncomfortable, but I had entered into this willingly’. About Dan, with the goatee. About Luke, who gave her a split condom. About Frank, who was married…But mostly, it’s about Rosemary, figuring out just how much she was willing to sacrifice for her happy ending.

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There has, in recent years, been an explosion of writing about place, landscape and the natural world. But within this, women’s voices have remained in the minority. This anthology gathers the voices of women from the fourteenth to the twenty-first centuries whose subject is the natural world in Britain, Ireland and the outlying islands of our archipelago. Alongside the traditional forms of the travelogue, the walking guide, books on birds, plants and wildlife, Women on Nature embraces alternative modes of seeing and recording that turn the genre on its head. Katharine Norbury has sifted though the pages of women’s fiction, poetry, biography, gardening diaries and recipe books and garnered accounts from artists, farmers, theologians and natural scientists to demonstrate the multitudinous ways in which women have observed the world about them. From the fourteenth-century spiritual revelations of Julian of Norwich to the seventeenth-century travel journals of Celia Fiennes, and including a host of twenty-first-century voices such Sarah Evans, Sinéad Gleeson, Kathleen Jamie, Jackie Kay, Rachel Lichtenstein, Amy Liptrot, Helen Mort, Anita Sethi and more, Women on Nature presents a fresh vision of the natural world and is of unique importance in terms of women’s history and the history of writing about nature.

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Over half a million copies soldSix murders. One hundred pages. Millions of possible combinations… but only one is correct. Can you solve Torquemada’s murder mystery?In 1934, the Observer’s cryptic crossword compiler, Edward Powys Mathers (aka Torquemada), released a novel that was simultaneously a murder mystery and the most fiendishly difficult literary puzzle ever written.The pages have been printed in an entirely haphazard order, but it is possible – through logic and intelligent reading – to sort the pages into the only correct order, revealing six murder victims and their respective murderers.Dare you take it on?Please note: this puzzle is extremely difficult and not for the faint-hearted.

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As a teacher in an inner-city school, Lucy Crehan was exasperated with ever-changing government policy claiming to be based on lessons from ‘top-performing’ education systems. She resolved to find out what was really going on in the classrooms of countries whose teenagers ranked top in the world in reading, maths and science.Cleverlands documents Crehan’s journey around the world, weaving together her experiences with research on policy, history, psychology and culture to offer extensive new insights into what we can learn from these countries.

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'Funny and refreshing' Independent'Forthright but funny feminism shines through' Grazia'Enlightening, inspiring, funny, shocking and brave, every woman should get a copy' StylistI want to have slow sex, work out what to do with a penis, and experience the fourteen different types of female orgasm.In her mid-thirties, Lucy-Anne Holmes still felt like a novice when it came to sex. But when she tried to find out what she could do about it, she realised everything she googled was geared to male pleasure rather than to women’s. Determined not to let this stop her, Lucy penned a list and set out to discover what her sex life was missing. She embarked on an adventure which would change her life. Lucy has written the book about sex she wanted to read. It will make you snort with laughter one minute and weep the next; it is frank, eye-opening and inspiring, and will speak to women everywhere.

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Stewart Lee has seen a ghost but doesn’t believe in the afterlife. Rob Beckett can peel a banana with his feet. Viv Groskop gave birth to a baby next to a dishwasher.What do you get when you combine unknown facts about some of Britain’s best-lovedcomedians with their favourite one-liners and candid, black-and-white portraits? The result is Joker Face , a hilarious record of the British comedy scene from comedian Steve Best, a 20-year veteran of the comedy circuit.In this book – a companion to the 2014 book Comedy Snapshot – Best paints an intimate and very funny portrait of some of our favourites: Jimmy Carr, Rob Delaney, Sarah Pascoe, Stewart Lee, John Bishop, Mackenzie Crook, Josie Lawrence, Mark Watson,Tommy Tiernan, Phill Jupitus, and many, many more.Joker Face is an essential book for any fan of British humour and gives us a backstage pass into the world of comedy.

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'Vivid . . . the history Maud Blair brings alive is significant in its detail' Beverley Naidoo, acclaimed author of Journey to Jo’burgWhat does it mean to grow up with an African mother and European father in racially segregated 1950s Rhodesia?For Maud Blair it meant being sent, aged four, to a ‘Coloured’ boarding school run by Christian nuns. It meant being taught in English rather than her native language, which she was encouraged to forget. It meant only seeing her family for two weeks during the school’s Christmas holiday, where Maud longed for the sense of belonging she once had.Labelled as neither African nor European, Maud tries to make sense of her mixed identity in the midst of political unrest and de facto apartheid, taking her to England via South Africa and back to post-independence Zimbabwe. The result is a strikingly original memoir that confronts privilege, prejudice and the place we call home.'Important and powerful’ Natalie Evans, author of The Mixed-Race Experience'An unremitting search for identity' Florence Olajide, author of Coconut'Lucid, flowing and warm' Ibbo Mandaza, Director of the SAPES Trust'Immensely enjoyable' Professor Iram Siraj, University of Oxford

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William Grenfell, Lord Desborough, was, for many, the epitome of the perfect English gentleman: an exceptional sportsman, a dedicated public servant and a devoted husband and father.Grenfell’s astounding sporting achievements, from climbing mountains to swimming the basin of the Niagara Falls twice, from rowing the English Channel and winning the Amateur Punting Championship for three years consecutively, to representing Great Britain in fencing, produced his deep-rooted belief in the importance of sport. It wasn’t surprising therefore that he became the driving force behind the 1908 London Olympic Games, an enormous success despite being staged with only two years’ notice.A surprisingly modern public figure, Grenfell was elected as an MP before going on to hold a prodigious array of local, national and international roles: mayor of Maidenhead, leading the London Chamber of Commerce, promoting aviation, establishing modern policing, and serving as chairman of the Thames Conservancy. Although Grenfell’s public life was successful, his family was struck by tragedy, aged six he lost his father and he and his wife Ettie suffered the loss of two sons in the First World War and their third in a motor accident. Despite this, their home, Taplow Court, was a place for entertaining and had been a focal point for the Souls, including notable politicians such as A. J. Balfour and the young Winston Churchill, as well as writers like H. G. Wells and Henry James.In Titan of the Thames, Nairne and Williams disentangle the myths surrounding this fascinating man who spans the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and have pieced together a compelling biography of a figure whose story should have been told many years ago.

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As seen on Woman's Hour, BBC Newsnight and in the Daily TelegraphA hundred years ago, on the night of 3 October 1922, a thirty-two-year-old clerk named Percy Thompson was stabbed to death as he walked home to his suburban villa in Ilford. With him was his wife, twenty-eight-year-old Edith. His killer was Edith’s lover: Frederick Bywaters, a merchant seaman aged twenty. Bywaters was hanged for murder on 9 January 1923. So too was Edith Thompson.Despite a lack of any tangible evidence linking her to the murder, Edith found herself condemned by a society steeped in sexism. What sealed her fate were the letters she had penned to her lover, which were interpreted by the law as incitement to murder. These letters are remarkable documents. Charged with the vitality of Edith's voice, they are moving, perplexing, maddening, banal, spectacularly sensual, infused with a stream-of-consciousness immediacy. And they have never been collected in print, until now.In Au Revoir Now Darlint Laura Thompson – author of the CWA Gold Dagger-shortlisted Rex vs Edith Thompson – gathers the letters together alongside illuminating commentary to tell the remarkable story of a woman ahead of her time and an extraordinary imagination that ultimately led to appalling tragedy.

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Do You Believe in the Power of Rock & Roll? is a history of alternative rock from John Robb, with the music still ringing in his ears. This collection follows John’s journey from the late 1970s, when he was first caught up in punk’s high-octane thrill, to the present day, via the early days of the rave scene, the birth of electronic and techno, and myriad bands that spun off on their own idiosyncratic paths.John was the first person to write about Nirvana, he coined the term Britpop, and he documented the Stone Roses’ rise out of Manchester before anyone else was interested. He was at every pivotal gig, and has interviewed every key player in the business, including Jordan, the queen of punk, founding father of new American rock Steve Albini, goth-rock guitarist Daniel Ash, infamous Oasis co-founder Noel Gallagher, and music greats like Lemmy and Poly Styrene.Few others have witnessed first-hand so many important moments of the last forty years of rock history. Here, they come together to form the essential history of a personal quest to document the ever-changing soundtrack of the modern world.

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Brextorians had long suspected that at the time of the Brexit negotiations, a series of audio recordings were made by and of government officials. In the year 3563, their suspicions were confirmed with the discovery of the first cache of tapes: conversations in the halls of Westminster and in private residences, secretly recorded in direct contravention of privacy laws.In The Brexit Tapes, the transcripts of these recordings are published for the very first time. Compiled by leading Brextorian John Bull, they offer a remarkable insight into the lost years from the Referendum to the Second Dark Age, and a clear picture of the events leading up to the civil war that followed.Directly challenging the accounts of Brexit provided in The Book of Mogg and Lord Johnson’s Res Brexitica, these transcripts are our first concrete record of history as it happened and, for the modern reader, a way to finally understand one of the most tumultuous periods of British history.

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Have your kids ever shaved the dog? Or decided pants are optional? Don’t worry, you are not alone. Parenting is hard and this mummy is f*cking tired. Inspired by the story of a beloved caterpillar, The Very F*cking Tired Mummy is an all-too-relatable tale of the frustration, exhaustion and sometimes unexpected joy of parenthood.Here we follow the journey of one mummy over the course of a week, taking everything life throws at her with a side of wine, coffee, chocolate from last Christmas, the kids’ leftover lunch and even the occasional dog treat.It will comfort anyone for whom eight hours of sleep seems like a distant memory, and serve as a welcome reminder that sometimes, just sometimes, we all need a break…

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As 95 per cent of our brain activity carries on at a subconscious level, we’re not always aware of why we think what we think and do the things we do. Sometimes these subconscious wirings can make us think or act in ways that are not optimal for our happiness – they can bring out the illogical in us all.How Your Brain Is Wired draws on recent breakthroughs in our understanding of how the brain really works, empowering the reader to take control over their own behaviour. Full of insight and practical advice, it equips you with a toolkit of simple changes you can put into action to: * reduce conflict and anxiety * achieve a positive mindset * make better decisions * have more fun * and reach new goals.This book is about rewiring your attitudes; re-seeing yourself and your choices. It reveals something rather magical: how tiny tweaks to your behaviour can be all you need to deliver a big, sometimes thrilling, reboot to your life.

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'This honest and beautiful book is a story of resilience and doing life your way' Fearne Cotton'Kris's story should make you feel grateful for every second you're alive. It's a testament to her positivity, empathy, bravery and her unfailing sense of humour' Dermot O'Leary'A manifesto for how to be alive. It will leave you calm, hopeful and unafraid' Dawn O'PorterKris was living a totally normal life as a twenty-three-year-old: travelling the world, falling in love, making plans. However, when she found a lump in her boob and was told that it was not only cancer, but also incurable, life took on a completely new meaning. She was diagnosed at an age when life wasn’t something to be grateful for, but a goddamn right.Little did Kris know it was cancer that would lead her to a life she had never considered: a happy one. From founding a charity to visiting Downing Street, campaigning at festivals to appearing on TV, and being present at the birth of her nephew; in the face of all the possible prognoses, Kris is surviving, thriving, and resolutely living.Glittering a Turd is more than just another cancer memoir; it’s a handbook for living life to the fullest, shining a new perspective on survival and learning to glitter your own turd, whatever it might be. Kris has survived the unsurvivable for twelve years. Here, she begins to discover why.

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The fan-favourite story from celebrated author and former British Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen – now in graphic novel form with full-colour illustrations by Cole Henley.Uh-oh… Frank isn’t doing well at school, and he has just been told off by his head teacher again… He has one last chance to prove himself: all he has to do is follow the rules on his class trip to Chiltern House, complete his worksheet and stay out of trouble.But when a girl steps out of a painting and steals Frank’s worksheet, staying out of trouble is easier said than done. Together, they embark on a perilous adventure to discover the girl’s lost identity, uniting with new friends along the way who show Frank all is not as it seems in this stately home.How did the owners of Chiltern House come to own its priceless treasures? Can the secrets of the past ever really stay hidden? Will Frank’s head teacher stop him and his new friends before they find out the truth?Frank’s class trip is more than he bargained for, but it may just hold the greatest lesson he’ll ever learn.

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‘A career-changing book, packed with real, lived-in wisdom and advice not just about working but really living as a self-employed person. If you’re thinking about going freelance, read this first’ Oliver Franklin-Wallis‘Invaluable … A wonderful, warts and all book written in a friendly, approachable manner. I wish I’d had a book like this years ago’ Simon BrewSelf-employment has never been a more popular career path, and for thousands of writers, freelancing is becoming an appealing – and sometimes necessary – option. But alongside the benefits of a freelance career come very real obstacles that are daunting for anyone going it alone. We all need some guidance. Sian Meades-Williams – freelance writer, editor and founder of the Freelance Writing Jobs newsletter – knows all too well that while freelancing doesn’t come with hard and fast rules, sometimes there is a wrong way to go about things. Drawing on her extensive experience and dozens of industry interviews, she pulls back the curtain with tips on how to get out of your pyjamas and pitch effectively, find new ideas and hone your voice, build a network of contacts, deal with edits and editors, cope with rejection, know your worth and get more money for your work, manage your finances, deal with late payments and file your taxes, care for your physical and mental health and ultimately find a path to success that makes you happy.Inspiring, optimistic and – above all – real, The Pyjama Myth is an essential, practical survival guide for anyone embarking on their career, established freelance writers and everyone in between.

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Following the story wherever it goes can take you to some unexpected placesWokelore is a thought-provoking collection of more than fifty articles, essays and stories you won’t find anywhere else. The first book from the independent and fearless newspaper Byline Times, it transports you from 1970s Europe to Putin’s Russia, from the days of empire in Kenya to Brexit Britain, shedding light on America’s political crisis and exposing the UK’s disastrous handling of COVID-19.The work collected here – from an impressive range of writers including Anthony Barnett, Otto English, Misha Glenny, Bonnie Greer, Salena Godden, Peter Oborne and Musa Okwonga – explores race, identity, disinformation, populism, the state of journalism, threats to our democracy and more, each piece offering a fresh take and new ideas.

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'Ian Stone has one of the sharpest comic minds in the country. I would read anything he’s written about anything. This book made me start listening to The Jam' Romesh Ranganathan'Full of wit, cheek and energy – not just for fans of The Jam, this is for fans of London, of youth, of life itself' Rory Bremner'This is a funny, fascinating, absorbing, surprising and readable book with the added bonus of Phill Jupitus’s delicious cartoons . . . A book for anyone who is now middle-aged and looking back joyfully at their youth' Jo Brand'I really liked this book. I'd forgotten how shit it was in the seventies' Paul WellerIan Stone grew up in a Jewish, working-class house in north London in the mid-1970s. Everywhere around him, adults were behaving badly. His parents' relationship was in freefall so he tried not to spend too much time at home. But outside, there was industrial unrest, football violence, racism and police brutality. As for the music, it was all 'Save All Your Grandma's Kisses for My Love Sweet Jesus'. It made him feel physically sick. Then The Jam appeared.This is Ian's story of that time. Of weekend jobs so that he could go to gigs. Of bunking into the Hammersmith Odeon and ending up on the roof. Of going to see The Jam in Paris and somehow finding himself being interviewed for Melody Maker. Of attempting to keep out of the way of skinheads and trying (and failing) to work out how to talk to girls. And of devastation when in 1982 Paul Weller announced that the band were splitting up.There will never be another band like The Jam. For those who went on that journey with them, the love ran deep. And still does. They helped Ian and thousands like him to grow up – to be someone.

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What does it mean for the Sun to call Shami Chakrabarti ‘the most dangerous woman in Britain’ or the Daily Mail to label Nicola Sturgeon ‘the most dangerous wee woman in the world’? What, really, does it mean to be a dangerous woman? This powerful anthology presents fifty answers to that question, reaching past media hyperbole to explore serious considerations about the conflicts and power dynamics with which women live today.In Dangerous Women, writers, artists, politicians, journalists, performers and opinion-formers from a variety of backgrounds – including Irenosen Okojie, Jo Clifford, Bidisha, Nada Awar Jarrar, Nicola Sturgeon and many more – reflect on the long-standing idea that women, individually or collectively, constitute a threat.In doing so, they celebrate and give agency to the women who have been dismissed or trivialised for their power, talent and success – the women who have been condemned for challenging the status quo. They reclaim the right to be dangerous.

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One morning, Josh Hara found himself staring at the blank side of his empty coffee cup. In his other hand was a pen. He brought the two together, and the first of hundreds of comic-covered cups found its way onto the internet.Years later, the coffee cups had taken on a life of their own, with jokes, seasonal greetings and social commentary – ranging from Game of Thrones memes to statements on the US presidential election – being shared around the world, as Hara overcame the perils of sketching on a curved surface while highly caffeinated. With hundreds of cups now created, All the Coffee Cups collects and preserves a particular moment in history – one where pop culture and caffeine came together to create art.

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Described by Philip Pullman as 'the most important British writer of fantasy since Tolkein', Alan Garner has been enrapturing readers with works like The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Owl Service, Red Shift and The Stone Book Quartet for more than half a century. Now, a group of the writers and artists he has inspired over the years have come together to celebrate his life and work in First Light.This anthology includes original contributions from David Almond, Margaret Atwood, John Burnside, Susan Cooper, Helen Dunmore, Stephen Fry, Neil Gaiman, Elizabeth Garner, Paul Kingsnorth, Katherine Langrish, Helen Macdonald, Robert Macfarlane, Gregory Maguire, Neel Mukherjee, Philip Pullman, Ali Smith, Elizabeth Wein, Michael Wood and many, many more.Whether a literary essay, a personal response to Garner's writing or a story about the man himself, each piece is a tribute to his remarkable impact. Edited by the acclaimed journalist and novelist Erica Wagner, First Light will touch the heart of anyone who grew up reading Alan Garner.

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Since forming the seminal art rock band Throwing Muses while still in her teens, Kristin Hersh has been at the forefront of alternative music, acclaimed for her raw, visceral and poetic songwriting.Here, collected for the first time, are the lyrics to one hundred songs, curated by the woman who wrote them. From Throwing Muses classics like 'Bright Yellow Gun' to solo material such as 'Your Ghost' and her songs with 50 Foot Wave, Nerve Endings encapsulates one of the most fascinating and honest careers in modern rock music.

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According to the latest figures, the number of vegans in the UK has more than quadrupled since 2014, now representing over 1 per cent of the total population. With the rise in plant-based foods and cruelty-free products showing no sign of stopping, Think Like a Vegan explores how vegan ethics can be applied to every area of our daily lives.We all want to live more healthily and ethically, and this book is certainly not just for vegans. It’s for anyone interested in veganism, its ideals and what even non-vegans can learn from its practice. Through a personal and often irreverent lens, the authors explore a variety of contemporary topics related to animal use: from the basics of vegan logic to politics, economics, love and other aspects of being human, each chapter draws you into a thought-provoking conversation about your daily ethical decisions. Why should we adopt animals? What’s the problem with organic meat? What are the economics of plant-based foods? What about honey? What is the relationship between veganism and feminism? What is vegansexualism?

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As a gay man living in a big city and working as a nutritionist, Daniel O'Shaughnessy knows that the LGBTQ+ community has specific dietary and health needs. Clients seek his expertise on matters you might expect: weight loss and muscle gain, addiction, fertility and digestive health issues. But they also come to him with more specific questions – about nutrition for balancing hormones while transitioning; how to manage a chronic condition like HIV; how to mitigate the party lifestyle – as well as being able to openly discuss concerns related to their health and routine without fear of judgement or misunderstanding. What surprised Daniel was that, despite the demand in his private practice, there seemed to be little dependable information out there. Not everyone can afford a personal nutritionist! What was missing was a reliable, non-judgemental, knowledgeable resource that considered the nutrition and lifestyle needs of the LGBTQ+ community, one that took an honest and progressive approach. Naked Nutrition offers practical, relevant advice on everything from a proactive approach to sexual health to pragmatic and safe use of supplements, together with the professional expertise that has been enriched by Daniel's own lived experience.

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Vic Reeves Art Book is an expedition through the mind of Jim Moir, aka the comedian, writer and artist and Vic Reeves. The first collection of his visual work in a decade, this book is a wild ride through subjects and media, ranging from sketches to paintings. Whether he’s depicting Sooty and Sweep unzipped and on the toilet, or grotesque versions of beloved TV personalities, Jim’s unmistakable humour shines through in every brushstroke.Featuring more than 200 images, this is the definitive compendium of Jim’s art, covering early work, some of his best-known pieces, and brand-new creations exclusive to the book.

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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 Serious Art, Bidisha uses her personal journey through novels, TV and film to mirror the seismic changes that have occurred in culture and its industries in recent years.The digital revolution has brought all of TV, cinema and music into the palms of our hands. It’s easier than ever to bring stories to life, but what happens when artistic work is rebranded as 'content creation'? Where does this leave literary novelists and arthouse filmmakers? What about those auteur-directors who make mainstream but thoughtful films for the big screen? As a storyteller herself, and a woman of colour who isn't a millennial, Bidisha asks who is taken seriously as an artist, what is taken seriously as art now and how that might change over the next century.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.

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‘In those days we dedicated our whole lives to The Party. We put it first, before anything else, whether that was family, love, or even life itself. I will tell you a fact about the path my life has taken – to survive is victory!’This is the true account of the life of Lin Xiangbei, during a century of tumultuous changes in China. Lin was born in 1918 in Yunan, a small town in north-east Sichuan Province. In 1938, under the influence of a remarkable figure later known as ‘The Double Gun Woman’, Lin became a committed Communist. He worked tirelessly as an underground agent, believing the ideals of Communism would bring a better, fairer society to the people of China. But in 1957 Lin was accused of being a ‘Rightist’, spent several years in and out of labour camps, and was almost broken by the experience. Then came the decade-long nightmare that was the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.And yet, through it all, Lin Xiangbei remains committed to the principles of Communism and is proud of his country today. His account gives us not only a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people in twentieth-century China, but also an insight into the hardship, fear and insecurity of those years – and the comradeship, self-sacrifice and heroism of the people around him.

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An indispensable handbook for anyone seeking inspiration and fresh direction. In work. In life. And beyond. As you’ll discover, the answers to our questions are right in front of our eyes. We walk past them every day. Step by step, Wanderful shows us how to fire up our innate internal guidance system, get off the straight & narrow and find wonder in the everyday. Every-day. David Pearl is the inventor of Street Wisdom, an international social venture that’s bringing experiential learning to city streets the world over through its free, guided WalkShops. All royalties from sales of this book will be donated to streetwisdom.org

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This is the story of a brave young girl, Elodie-Rose, who one day decides to change the world and keep all her fucks in her basket.Wait a minute. You’re confused. What are fucks, you ask? It’s quite simple, really. Fucks are her self-esteem; all the happy, sad and wonderful thoughts that sit in her basket. That sit in every girl’s basket! And every girl must give these fucks away every time someone asks.One day Elodie-Rose decides to break rank and find out what happens if those fucks stay where they are...

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Not all games are released equal.The barriers of language and culture can leave our world divided, and this includes the video games that we get the chance to play. Matt Barnes, Dazz Brown and Greg Seago-Curl of DidYouKnowGaming? created the YouTube series Region Locked to offer an insight into the weird and wonderful titles that never left their home countries, and now they bring their expertise to you, the gaming reader.Encounter masterpieces you never knew existed from your favourite series and developers, as well as some utterly bizarre creations that seem so outlandish you might wonder how on earth they were released in the first place, from the trippy, meandering dreamscapes of 1998’s LSD: Dream Emulator to The Mysterious Murasame Castle, released in 1986 by Nintendo, and the intergalactic adventures of Crime Crackers (1994). The authors explore what it’s like to play these games, and investigate the fascinating characters and maverick designers behind them to discover why such remarkable creations never enjoyed international exposure.For the casual gamer, keen developer, intrigued reader and hardcore fan alike, Region Locked is the key to a surreal and adventurous journey through the lost world of video games.

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Let legendary impresario Simon Napier-Bell take you inside the world of popular music: not just a cradle for talent and expression, but a business that has made people rich beyond their wildest dreams. He balances seductive anecdotes – pulling back the curtain on the gritty and absurd side of the industry – with an insightful exploration of the relationship between creativity and money.The Business describes the evolution of the industry from its birth in the eighteenth century to the huge global market it has become today. Inside you will uncover a treasure trove of musical facts, including how a formula for writing hits in the 1900s helped create 50,000 of the best-known songs of all time; how Jewish immigrants and Black jazz musicians dancing cheek-to-cheek established a template for all popular music that followed; and how rock tours became the biggest, quickest, sleaziest and most profitable ventures the industry had ever seen.Read it and you'll never listen to music in the same way again.

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Around one in one hundred people in the UK are autistic, and the saying goes that if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. Autistic people's personalities, differences and experiences outweigh the diagnostic criteria that link them, yet stereotypes persist and continue to inform a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is to be autistic.Rarely do autistic people get a chance to speak for themselves, but this insightful and eye-opening collection of essays, fiction and visual art showcases the immense talents of eighteen of the world's most exciting autistic writers and artists.Stim invites the reader into the lives and minds of the contributors, and asks them to recognise the challenges of being autistic in a non-autistic world. Inspired by a desire to place the conversation around autism back into autistic hands, editor Lizzie Huxley-Jones has brought together humorous, honest and hopeful pieces that explore the many facets of being autistic.

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Vicky Unwin had always known her father – an erstwhile intelligence officer and respected United Nations diplomat – was Czech, but it was not until a stranger turned up on her doorstep that she discovered he was also Jewish.So began a quest to discover the truth about his past – one that perhaps would help answer the niggling doubts she had always had about her ‘perfect’ father. Finally persuading him to allow her to open a closely guarded cache of family books and papers, Vicky discovered the identity of her grandfather: the tormented author and diplomat Hermann Ungar, hugely controversial in both life and in death, who was a protégé and possible lover of Thomas Mann, and a friend of Berthold Brecht and Stefan Zweig. How much of her father’s child was Vicky – and how much of his father’s child was he? As Vicky worked to uncover deeply buried family secrets, she would find herself slowly unpicking the lingering power of ‘survivors’ guilt’ on the generations that followed the Holocaust, and would learn, via a deathbed confession, of the existence of a previously unknown sister.Together, the sisters attempted to come to terms with what had made their father into the deeply flawed, complex, yet charismatic man he has always been, journeying together through grief and heartache towards forgiveness.

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'There is much to admire in this intriguing, ambitious, immersive book' Literary ReviewThe gods are abandoning the earth, tempted by other worlds where they can live in peace. Only a few keep an interest in mortals. In their place, darker, more ancient forces are wakening...Silvius is given a task by a dying centaur. The dark god Python is rising and massing an army of immense power. The only thing that can save the world is the Arrow of Apollo – but it has been split into two. Silvius and his friend Elissa must travel to the land of their sworn enemies, the Achaeans. Meanwhile, Tisamenos is facing his own dangers in Achaea. A plot is afoot against him and his father, and it falls to him to stop it.When Silvius, Elissa and Tisamenos meet, they enter a final, terrifying race to bring together the pieces of the Arrow and use it to lay Python low once more.

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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.

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'A smart and pacy debut' Irish Times‘One is struck by its mordant wit and fierce intelligence’ Martin W. Sandler, National Book Award-winning author and historian'A cracker read about morality and ethics in a time of conflict . . . A really accessible way of getting into complex stuff on nation-building and justice' Claire Hanna, MP for Belfast South1920, the Irish War of Independence. Amid the turmoil of an emerging nation, two young IRA members assigned to police a rural village discover the body of a young boy, apparently drowned.One of them, a veteran of the First World War, recognises violence when he sees it – but does one more corpse really matter in this time of bitter conflict?The reluctant detectives must navigate the vicious bloodshed, murky allegiances and savage complexities of a land defining itself to find justice for the murdered boy. Neither of them realises just how dangerous their task will become.

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1333. Edward III is at war with Scotland. Nineteen-year-old Sir Harry de Lyon yearns to prove himself, and jumps at the chance when a powerful English baron, William Montagu, invites him on a secret mission with a dozen elite knights. They ride north, to a crumbling Scottish keep, capturing the feral, half-starved boy within and putting the other inhabitants to the sword.But nobody knows why the flower of English knighthood snuck over the border to capture a savage, dirty teenage boy. Montagu gives the boy to Harry as his squire, with only two rules: don't let him escape, and convert him to the English cause.At first, it's hopeless. The Scottish boy is surly and violent, and eats anything that isn't nailed down. Then Harry begins to notice things: that, as well as Gaelic, the boy speaks flawless French, with an accent much different from Harry's Norman one. That he can read Latin too. And when Harry finally convinces the boy – Iain mac Maíl Coluim – to cut his filthy curtain of hair, the face revealed is the most beautiful thing Harry has ever seen.With Iain as his squire, Harry wins tournament after tournament and becomes a favourite of the King. But underneath the pageantry smoulder twin secrets: Harry and Iain's growing passion for each other, and Iain's mysterious heritage. As England hurtles towards war once again, these secrets will destroy everything Harry holds dear.

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‘Strange, intense, brilliant’ S. J. Watson‘A witty, zappy fable ... Powerful’ GuardianDepression can be hell.Heartbroken and lonely, the narrator has made an attempt on his own life. Whether he meant to or not he can't say. But now he’s stuck in his own head, and time is running out.To save himself, he embarks on a journey across an imagined America, one haunted by his doomed relationship and the memory of a road trip that ended in tragedy.Help arrives in the guise of Jon Bon Jovi, rock star and childhood hero. An unlikely spirit guide, perhaps, but he's going to give it a shot...

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