Search results for ""faber faber""

It was as a poet that Samuel Beckett launched himself in the little reviews of 1930s Paris, and as a poet that he ended his career. This new selection, from Whoroscope (1930) to 'what is the word' (1988), describes a lifetime's arc of writing. It was as a poet moreover that Beckett made his first breakthrough into writing in French, and the Selected Poems represents work in both languages, including the sequence of brief but highly crafted mirlitonnades, which did so much to usher in the style of his late prose, and come as close as anything he wrote to honouring the ambition to 'bore one hole after another in language, until what lurks behind it - be it something or nothing - begins to seep through.' Also included are several of Beckett's translations from contemporaries - Apollinaire, Eluard, Michaux, Montale - in versions which count among his own poetic achievements. Edited by David Wheatley

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Stories by one of the outstanding Irish writers of today, author of Nightlines, The Barracks, The Dark, The Leavetaking, The Pornographer, High Ground, Amongst Women (nominated for the Booker Prize in 1990) and That They May Face the Rising Sun.

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'Exquisite, powerful . . . I can think of no better way of commemorating British exploration's culminating triumph.' Simon Winchester? Coronation Everest offers a breathtakingly intimate evocation of the most famous of all mountaineering exploits - and of perhaps the last great old-fashioned Fleet Street scoop. 'It was Morris who broke the news that a British-led expedition had conquered Mount Everest the day before the Queen's coronation in 1953 . . . Allied to physical courage in getting down the mountain and a dogged resourcefulness in getting the news home, Morris scooped the world and was launched on one of the most remarkable literary careers in the second half of the twentieth century.' Guardian Jan Morris's collection of travel writing and reportage spans over five decades and includes such titles as Venice, Coronation Everest, Hong Kong, Spain, Manhattan '45, A Writer's World and the Pax Britannica Trilogy. Hav, her novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

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In this new novel Günter Grass examines a subject that has long been taboo - the sufferings of the Germans during the Second World War. He explores the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, the deadliest maritime disaster of all time, and the repercussions upon three generations of a German family.

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Nothing cuts into us like the family knife.The Webster House. 1965. 1979. 1985. 1990. 2016. Death silences no one, least of all the dead. Set against the ever-changing industrial landscape of working-class Britain, Beth Steel's revelatory new play spans five decades in the lives, and deaths, of the Webster family. The House of Shades premiered at the Almeida in May 2022.Best Play, 2023 Writers' Guild Awards - Shortlisted. Beth Steel won Most Promising Playwright at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards.

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'The Brussels Commission has just suspended its senior economist, Bernard Connolly, for writing a book savaging the prospects for a common currency. There are many who now believe he should be lauded as a prophet.' Observer, Editorial, 1 October 1995'Mr. Connolly's longstanding proposition that the foisting of a common currency upon so many disparate nations would end in ruin is getting a much wider hearing...' New York Times, 17 November 2011When first published in 1995, The Rotten Heart of Europe caused outrage and delight - here was a Brussels insider, a senior EU economist, daring to talk openly about the likely pitfalls of European monetary union. Bernard Connolly lost his job at the Commission, but his book was greeted as a profound and persuasive expose of the would-be 'monetary masters of the world.' His brave act of defiance became headline news - and his book a major international bestseller. In a substantial new introduction, Connolly returns to his prophetic account of the double-talk surrounding the efforts of politicians, bankers and bureaucrats to force Europe into a crippling monetary straitjacket. Hidden agendas are laid bare, skulduggery exposed and economic fallacies are skewered, producing a horrifying conclusion. No one who wants to understand the workings of the EU, past, present and future can afford to miss this enthralling and deeply disturbing book.

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*PAPERBACK NOW AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER*'Louise Doughty leads her unnerved readers into dark territory.' Hilary Mantel.'Utterly mesmerizing, with the pace of a thriller and a sense of profound mystery in the most ordinary of settings. I was hooked from its start to its nerve-racking, surprising finish.' Deborah MoggachThe new novel from Sunday Times bestselling author Louise DoughtyPlatform Seven at 4am: Peterborough Railway Station is deserted. The man crossing the covered walkway on this freezing November morning is confident he's alone. As he sits on the metal bench at the far end of the platform it is clear his choice is strategic - he's as far away from the night staff as he can get.What the man doesn't realise is that he has company. Lisa Evans knows what he has decided. She knows what he is about to do as she tries and fails to stop him walking to the platf

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Inside Llewyn Davis chronicles a struggling young folk singer, played by Oscar Isaacs, who arrives in Manhattan in 1961 and tries to navigate the treacherous waters of the the Greenwich Village coffeehouse scene, as well as having to deal with a disaffected girlfriend, his father's dementia, the suicide of his musical partner, and the loss of his friend's cat . . .Suffused with the music of the time, the film is an emotional journey inside the soul of Llewyn Davis.

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Professional slackers and best friends KJ and Jasper spend their days talking music and Bukowski outside the back of a small coffee shop in Vermont. Seventeen-year-old Evan is eking out his summer working at the café. When he meets the two young men he is irresistibly drawn to their world of magic mushrooms, philosophical musings and great-bands-that never-were.One of the freshest voices to come out of America in recent years, Annie Baker's gentle, engaging and deeply funny play introduces two cult heroes in the shape of KJ and Jasper, and puts modern day America under the microscope. What happened to the generation who never grew up?The Aliens opened at the Bush Theatre, London in September 2010. The play's world premiere was held at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, New York, in April of the same year.

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Snake in the Grass"A terrific piece - brilliant, bizarre and yet totally believable... In fact, it's more than classic; it's close to the top of its class." Yorkshire PostIf I Were You"A blissfully funny comedy that's also filled with sadness, a devilishly simple theatrical idea that spins out all kinds of complex truths about human nature." Daily TelegraphLife and Beth"A wise, humane, funny play about the inevitability of death and the continuity of life." GuardianMy Wonderful Day"A transformation happens as magical as the most magnificent pantomime transformation anyone could ever imagine... the playwright dissolves the paraphernalia of our adult selves and uncovers that space inside each of us that is still the child we once were." ObserverLife of Riley"As perceptive as ever... Ayckbourn has once again achieved a satisfyingly rich, tragi-comic complexity." Daily Telegraph

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In virtually all areas of Dylan's life - his immigrant antecedents, his business dealings, his various addictions and his romantic attachments - Heylin is able to provide a fascinating picture of a man who changed the whole course of popular music in the sixties and, over thirty years later, won three Grammys. Heylin has given full weight to Dylan's own words and those of his closest associates, with over 250 people quoted in the book, helping to provide a portrait of a complex figure. Including 60,000 words of brand new material - dealing with Dylan's four twenty-first century albums; his archival audio-visual projects; his third film; his series of paintings and exhibitions; his autobiography, Chronicles; and his ongoing romantic liaisons and 'missing' marriages - this fully updated story of Dylan provides a monumental overview of the Man and his Music.

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'One of those rare nights in the theatre when some strange alchemy takes place in the dark and as a shiver runs down your spine and a bubble of laughter rises in your throat, you remember why theatre really matters and can be such a transforming experience.' GuardianIncludes the following dramatisations/stories:Blue BeardThe Husband Who Was to Mind the HouseThe Three WishesBeauty and the BeastThe Emperor's New ClothesToby and the WolfThe Juniper TreeThe Girl and the North WindBeasts and Beauties premiered at the Bristol Old Vic in April 2004.

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In Altman on Altman, one of American cinema's most incorrigible mavericks reflects on a brilliant career.Robert Altman served a long apprenticeship in movie-making before his great breakthrough, the Korean War comedy M*A*S*H (1969). It became a huge hit and won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, but also established Altman's inimitable use of sound and image, and his gift for handling a repertory company of actors. The 1970s then became Altman's decade, with a string of masterpieces: McCabe and Mrs Miller, The Long Goodbye, Thieves Like Us, Nashville . . . In the 1980s Altman struggled to fund his work, but he was restored to prominence in 1992 with The Player, an acerbic take on Hollywood. Short Cuts, an inspired adaptation of Raymond Carver, and the Oscar-winning Gosford Park, underscored his comeback.Now he recalls the highs and lows of his career trajectory to David Thompson in this definitive interview book, part of Faber's widely acclaimed Directors on Directors series. 'Hearing in his own words in Altman on Altman just how much of his films occur spontaneously, as a result of last-minute decisions on set, is fascinating . . . For film lovers, this is just about indispensable.' Ben Sloan, Metro London

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'God save all here.'Summer, 1847. People are getting used to the corpses lying by the road and along the ditches. For John Mitchel - lawyer, journalist, activist, politician - the word 'famine' will forever conjure the hollowed faces of Ireland's dead, the liquid Irish of the past now mute on their tongues.Propelled by disgust at the injustice, Mitchel will do all he can to fight for the destitute, the starved, the forgotten. His odyssey will take him all the way to America - that land of promise - but it will draw him into a terrible paradox. He is trying to save lives - in doing so, will he betray the very people he is trying to protect?In Fanatic Heart, Booker Prize winner Thomas Keneally takes on one of the most controversial figures of the fight for Irish independence to wrestle with the conflicts at the centre of a complicated legacy. 'One of the world's greatest writers.' Spectator'He writes with tenderness and pathos.' Irish Times'A grand master of historical fiction.' Mail on Sunday'He succeeds, with touches of brilliance, in bringing to life characters in more detail than history ever possibly could.' Sydney Morning Herald

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In this revelatory career-length biography, produced through many hours of interviews with Danny Boyle, he talks frankly about the secrets behind the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games as well as the struggles, joys and incredible perseverance needed to direct such well-loved films as Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, 28 Days Later and Shallow Grave.Throughout his career Danny Boyle has shown that he has an incredible knack of capturing the spirit of the times, be they the nineties drug scene, the aspirations of noughties Indian slum-dwellers or the things that make British people proud of their nation today, from the NHS to the internet. In 2012, Danny Boyle was the Artistic Director for the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games. He has been awarded an Oscar, a Golden Globe Award and two BAFTA awards for directing such influential British films as Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Slumdog Millionaire. He has worked alongside such actors as Cillian Murphy, Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston, Kelly Macdonald, Dev Patel and Rose Byrne. In this in-depth biography, Amy Raphael captures the optimism and determination of a driven individual in full career flight.

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One by One in the Darkness follows a week in the lives of three sisters shortly before the start of the IRA ceasefire in 1994, undercut with the story of their childhood in Northern Ireland of the 1960s and 1970s. The history of both a family and a society, One by One in the Darkness confirms Deirdre Madden's reputation as one of Irish fiction's most outstanding talents.

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Between 1856 and 1876, five explorers, all British, took on the seemingly impossible task of discovering the source of the White Nile. Showing exceptional courage and extraordinary resilience, Richard Burton, John Hanning Speke, Samuel Baker, David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley risked their lives and their reputations in the name of this quest. They journeyed through East and Central Africa into unmapped territory, discovered the great lakes Tanganyika and Victoria, navigated the upper Nile and the Congo, and suffered the ravages of flesh-eating ulcers, malaria and deep spear wounds. Using new research, Tim Jeal tells the story of these great expeditions, while also examining the tragic consequences which the Nile search has had on Uganda and Sudan to this day.Explorers of the Nile is a gripping adventure story with an arresting analysis of Britain's imperial past and the Scramble for Africa.

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Harriette Wilson was the most desired and the most dangerous woman in Regency London. This highly acclaimed biography reveals for the first time the true story behind her sensational life and scandalous 'Memoirs'. When her former lovers - including much of the British aristocracy - turned against her, she knew exactly how to take revenge . . .'A wonderful book. Much more than a biography of one attractive, witty woman, it offers a deft analysis of how Britain dealt with celebrity, sex, power and popular journalism in an age that bears remarkable similarities to our own . . . Frances Wilson is not only a first-rate scholar but also a wonderful storyteller who manages to get inside her namesake's famously creamy skin and tell her story with wit and understanding.' Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday'Lively and stylish . . . Reveals how dangerous the courtesan who operated at the heart of the political world was thought to be.' Anne Sebba, Spectator'Harriette's story is deftly and stylishly told. It beats most novels with its rich ingredients.' Frances Spalding, Daily Mail

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Every age has its utopias, from Plato's Republic to contemporary sci-fi visions. In this spellbinding anthology John Carey charts the course of every conceivable dream world - whether communist, fascist, anarchist, green, golden age, techno-fantastic or hermaphroditic - combining a broad historical sweep with lively variety. An experienced and imaginative anthologist, editor of The Faber Book of Reportage and The Faber Book of Science, Carey has gathered together a vast range of texts from Ancient Egypt to modern California, the authors of which, in different ways, attempt to describe a better world than our own.

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This first collection by Frank McGuinness contains plays from the 1980s, including his major work of that decade, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, a powerful and profoundly moving study of a group of Ulster Protestant volunteers in the Great War. The book also contains Carthaginians, set in a Derry graveyard in the aftermath of the Bloody Sunday killings, Innocence, McGuinness's vigorous drama based on the life of Caravaggio, The Factory Girls and Baglady.

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Adam Phillips uses the idea of flirtation to explore the virtues of being uncommitted - to people, to ideas, to methods - and the pleasures of uncertainty. These buoyant essays promote a psychoanalysis with a light touch, a psychoanalysis for pleasure and curiosity.'In On Flirtation, he has again deployed all his erudition and perception to beguiling effect . . . Adam Phillips may well be one of our greatest contemporary psychoanalytic thinkers.' Independent on Sunday

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'The poem we are told was originally intended as a film scenario. Ted Hughes has that sure poetic instinct that heads implacably for the particular instances rather than ideas or abstraction; he has an especial talent for evoking the visual particular . . . Ted Hughes has produced a strange bastard form that [works] because he has such an acute sense of the suggestive power of specific visual images and the ability to evoke them in words.' Oliver Lyne, Times Literary Supplement

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During a time of momentous events -BREXIT! A GENERAL ELECTION! A GLOBAL PANDEMIC!- the Government's chief adviser has been writing down his thoughts - in diaries, blog posts, on Post-it notes and any scrap of paper he can find.Discovered in an abandoned backpack on a train, we reveal the intriguing contents. These include:· The full story of the INFAMOUS TRIP TO DURHAM (and furious dash back to London while driving at speed with faulty eyesight)· The SHOCKING REVELATIONS of his 1995 Russian diary · FASCINATING secrets of CABINET ZOOM CALLS in which government ministers SHAKE IN TERROR when he asks them some very basic questions· What happened when he hit MICHAEL GOVE over the head with a PENCIL · His EXPLOSIVE REACTION to BORIS JOHNSON'S DEATH (and subsequent response when he found out the PM was still alive)· The sheer EXHILARATION of being DOMINIC CUMMINGSAnd much, much more . . .

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Victoria & Abdul tells the extraordinary true story of Queen Victoria's relationship with Abdul Karim, her Muslim manservant, who travelled from India to present a ceremonial medal as part of the Queen's Golden Jubilee but within months became her personal teacher of Urdu and dedicated spiritual advisor. The unprecedented and unlikely friendship caused meltdown within the royal household, the ensuing battle royale pitting the Queen against the court and her entire family. Through the prism of a highly unusual love story, Lee Hall's Victoria & Abdul, based on the book by Shrabani Basu, explores race, religion, power and the farce of empire through the prism of a highly unusual love story.

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This revised third volume of Harold Pinter's work includes The Homecoming, Old Times, No Man's Land, four shorter plays, six revue sketches and a short story. It also contains the speech given by Pinter in 1970 on being awarded the German Shakespeare Prize.The Homecoming'Of all Harold Pinter's major plays, The Homecoming has the most powerful narrative line... You are fascinated, lured on, sucked into the vortex.' Sunday Telegraph'The most intense expression of compressed violence to be found anywhere in Pinter's plays.' The TimesOld Times'A rare quality of high tension is evident, revealing in Old Times a beautifully controlled and expressive formality that has seldom been achieved since the plays of Racine.' Financial Times'Harold Pinter's poetic, Proustian Old Times has the inscrutability of a mysterious picture, and the tension of a good thriller.' IndependentNo Man's Land'The work of our best living playwright in its command of the language and its power to erect a coherent structure in a twilight zone of confusion and dismay.' The Times

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A remarkable feminist history and biography that features fragments from the five-decade career of an iconic artist.'Through this deeply personal take, the real significance of Faithfull as an irrepressible female icon shines through.'SHINDIG'Excellent . . . Pearson deserves the widest possible audience.'POPMATTERSFirst as a doe-eyed ingénue with 'As Tears Go By', then as a gravel-voiced phoenix rising from the ashes of the 1960s with a landmark punk album, Broken English, and finally as a genre-less icon, Marianne Faithfull carved her name into the history of rock 'n' roll to chart a career spanning five decades and multiple detours.Why, then, was Faithfull absent from the male-dominated history of the British Invasion?Putting memoir on equal footing with biographical accounts, historian Tanya Pearson writes about Faithfull as an avid fan, recovered addict and queer musician at a crossroads. Whether exploring Faithfull's rise to celebrity, her drug addiction and fall from grace as a spurned 'muse' or her reinvention as a sober, soulful chanteuse subverting all expectations for an ageing woman in music, Pearson reaffirms the deep connection between creator and listener in this remarkable feminist history of the iconic artist.'Witty, passioante, and provactive. Finally, a feminist appreciation for Marianne Faithfull.'VIVIEN GOLDMAN, author of Revenge of the She-Punks: A Feminist Music History from Poly Styrene to Pussy Riot'With vulnerability and a smart sense of humor, Tanya Pearson exposes the profoundly misogynistic music industry that abused Marianne Faithfull . . . heroic and hiliarious.'JD SAMSON, of LeTigre and MEN MUSIC MATTERS: SHORT BOOKS ABOUT THE ARTISTS WE LOVE- Why Solange Matters by Stephanie Phillips- Why Marianne Faithfull Matters by Tanya Pearson- Why Karen Carpenter Matters by Karen Tongson

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The acclaimed debut novel from the author of The Pear Affair and The Accidental Stowaway! Abandoned children running wild on the moors, evil child catchers, cunning cats and mysterious ballet shoes abound in this incredible first novel.Clara has lived a life of solitude, home schooled under her mean uncle's strict regime . . . until now!The day that Uncle abandons Clara, leaving her with nothing but a wedge of 'guilt money' and a half empty, crumbling manor house, she is determined to do things her way for a change. And when streetwise Peter turns up, with his rescue cat and a surprising array of knowledge, she is sure that between them they have everything they need to survive.But the house is to be sold . . . and Uncle has lied to Clara . . . and nothing, NOTHING is as it seems.'A riveting adventure.' The Guardian'An absolute delight.' Hilary McKay, author of The Skylarks' War'Thrilling.' Telegraph'An absolute joy of a read.' Emma Carroll, author of Letters from the Lighthouse'A sweeping adventure.' The Bookseller'Should also appeal to fans of Emma Carroll.' Michelle Harrison, author of A Pinch of Magic'A great mystery adventure.' The Bookbag'Gripping.' Golden Books Girl'Wonderfully compelling.' Book Lover Jo'A cracking pacey novel.' MinervaReads'Superb storytelling.' BookTrust'Wonderful.' Bellis Does Books'A treat.' Bookanista

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The day Mum didn't get dressed and went on strike, Dad called her 'a Wild Thing' and Mum said 'Cook your own dinner' and stomped off upstairs to have a bath . . .In this hilarious, touching homage to Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, a worn-out mum finds herself floating across time and space to the place where the Wild Mums are. Dazzled by her party tricks, they crown her Queen of the Wild Mums and try to entice her to join their conga . . . But Mum has just remembered who she loves best of all . . . Lovingly illustrated by the award-winning Sholto Walker, this little book is the perfect gift for baby showers, new mums - or any mum who's ever wanted to go on strike.

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One of the most acclaimed novels of recent times, The Underground Man is the fictionalised diary of a deeply eccentric English aristocrat. The duke has just completed a network of tunnels beneath his estate. His health is failing, but his imagination seems to know no bounds. And while he spends more time underground and retreats ever deeper into the darker corners of his house there are some ghosts that demand to be acknowledged and some memories which insist on making themselves known.

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In Chown's most ambitious book to date he sets out to answer some of the most provocative questions of today:- Is Elvis alive and kicking in another space domain?- Will we ever find ET?- What's beyond the edge of the Universe?- Did aliens build the stars?- Can we live forever?

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In the second volume of his celebrated history of the Hundred Years War, Jonathan Sumption examines the middle years of the fourteenth century and the succession of crises that threatened French affairs of state, including defeat at Poitiers and the capture of the king.

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'Where most of us can barely trace our own footprints in the mass of moments that are the stuff of experience, numerous and storyless as grains of sand on a beach, Chaudhuri delves in masterfully to lift out arcs, moods, treasures.'James Meek'A mysterious, subtle, haunting novel.'Chris PowerAn unnamed man arrives in Berlin as a visiting professor. It is a place fused with Western history and cultural fracture lines. He moves along its streets and pavements; through its department stores, museums and restaurants. He befriends Faqrul, an enigmatic exiled poet, and Birgit, a woman with whom he shares the vagaries of attraction. He tries to understand his white-haired cleaner. Berlin is a riddle-he becomes lost not only in the city but in its legacy.Sealed off in his own solitude, and as his visiting professorship passes, the narrator awaits transformation and meaning. Ultimately, he starts to understand that the less sure he becomes of his place in the moment, the more he knows his way.'Chaudhuri has already proved that he can write better than just about anybody of his generation.' Jonathan Coe

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One man, one choice, two lifetimes.A house fire, Vienna, 1933: thirteen-year-old Max is orphaned, disfigured and adopted by an Aryan family who change his identity - and his prospects.A house fire, Vienna, 1933: thirteen-year-old Max saves his parents and escapes unharmed, to face life as a Jew in 1930s Austria.In one unforgettable night, Max Spiegelman's life splits in two. As war looms and Nazism continues to rise, Max is forced into choices that place him and his alter ego on opposing sides of a divided world. Tethered by their dreams, the boys watch helplessly, haunted by visions of what could have been. But in each parallel universe, they share a magnetic bond with an enchanting, grey-eyed girl.The Two Loves of Sophie Strom is a profound story about how tragedy, choice and life-altering love shape our future.

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Sarah Silverman's father taught her to curse-at the age of three. She was a chronic bedwetter-until she was old enough to drive. She lost her virginity at age 19-but didn't really know it. These are just a few of the outrageous true tales that Silverman shares in her alternately hilarious and moving collection of autobiographical essays. With her signature taboo-breaking humour, Silverman writes on everything from her epic struggle with hairy arms (there wasn't enough wax in the world) to the death of her infant brother (It was Nana's fault) and always leaves the reader with a smile. Mixed in among the essays are scores of embarrassing photos, mortifying childhood diary entries, and truly humiliating e-mails to and from her comedian friends.

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All Names Have Been Changed is set in Dublin in the mid-1980s - a city in the grip of recession and a heroin epidemic. Narrated by Declan, the only boy of a tight-knit writing group at Trinity College, it tells of their fascination with the formidably talented but troubled writer Glynn, and the darkly exhilarating journey this leads them on.Brilliantly exploring the shifting group dynamic, and offering a unique insight into the pursuit of the creative life - with all its energy and demons, its moments of artistic elation and defeat - this is a novel of considerable verve. Following earlier forays into the worlds of art restoration and classical music, it is further evidence of Claire Kilroy's natural gift for narrative, atmosphere and character.

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From the best-selling author of The Death of Economics and Butterfly Economics, a ground-breaking look at a truth all too seldom acknowledged: most commercial and public policy ventures will not succeed.Paul Ormerod draws upon recent advances in biology to help us understand the surprising consequences of the Iron Law of Failure. And he shows what strategies corporations, businesses and governments will need to adopt to stand a chance of prospering in a world where only one thing is certain.

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Soft Sift is Mark Ford's first collection since the widely praised Landlocked was published in 1992. Barbara Everett has remarked of his recent work: 'Mark Ford's poems are so cool that it's mystifying they aren't cold. But they aren't: they are friendly, touching and very funny. His work exhibits an enormous casual elegance of mind and style, producing work that is witty without pose, refined and subtle without evasiveness.' There are curved stories here, intrigues and quests whose exuberance of plot and sense of quizzical or farcical immersion in the world of appearances is rendered with a light tough and a sure command of tone, staging the conflict between the mind's drift and the 'inflexible etiquette' of form (Gerard Manley Hopkins's 'soft sift / In an hourglass'). The making of these condensed dramas is often the unmaking of the person speaking, whose 'frets and fresh starts' reveal an original sensibility concerned not with self-display but with a general comedy of wrong moves. Mark Ford has been compared to an American Philip Larkin, or an English John Ashbery, but his poetry is in fact, as John Bayley has remarked 'wholly sui generis'.

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An awe-inspiring exploration of the sounds of the living Earth, and the joys and threats of human music, language and noise. 'A symphony, filled with the music of life . . . fascinating, heartbreaking, and beautifully written.'ELIZABETH KOLBERT, author of The Sixth Extinction'Sounds Wild and Broken affirms Haskell as a laureate for the earth, his finely tuned scientific observations made more potent by his deep love for the wild he hopes to save.'NEW YORK TIMES'Wonderful . . . a reminder that the narrow aural spectrum on which most of us operate, and the ways in which human life is led, blocks out the planet's great, orchestral richness.'GUARDIANWe live on a planet alive with song, music, and speech. David George Haskell explores how these wonders came to be. In rainforests shimmering with insect sounds and swamps pulsing with frog calls we learn about evolution's creative powers. From birds in the Rocky Mountains and on the streets of Paris, we discover how animals learn their songs and adapt to new environments. Below the waves, we hear our kinship to beings as different as snapping shrimp, toadfish, and whales. In the startlingly divergent sonic vibes of the animals of different continents, we experience the legacies of plate tectonics, the deep history of animals and their movements around the world, and the quirks of aesthetic evolution.Starting with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth's history, Haskell illuminates and celebrates the emergence of the varied sounds of our world. In mammoth ivory flutes from Paleolithic caves, violins in modern concert halls, and electronic music in earbuds, we learn that human music and language belong within this story of ecology and evolution. Yet we are also destroyers, now silencing or smothering many of the sounds of the living Earth. Haskell takes us to threatened forests, noise-filled oceans, and loud city streets to show that sonic crises are not mere losses of sensory ornament. Sound is a generative force, and so the erasure of sonic diversity makes the world less creative, less beautiful. Sounds Wild and Broken is an invitation to listen, wonder, act.'Absolutely fascinating.' MARIELLA FROSTRUP, TIMES RADIO'Enlightening and sobering.' JINI REDDY, METRO

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Wim Wenders' body of work is among the most formidable in modern cinema: Paris Texas, Wings of Desire, The Buena Vista Social Club, The Million Dollar Hotel. And Wenders writes about cinema as passionately as he produces it. This volume collects three previously published books of Wenders' essays: Emotion Pictures, The Logic of Images, and The Act of Seeing. In them, he discusses his development as a filmmaker from the moment he picked up a camera aged 12, and offers a broader analysis of his guiding passions - rock 'n' roll, avant-garde cinema, questions of German identity, and the influence of America.

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I have a voice in the University, I'm in the House of Lords, I have this lovely permanent home. Everything's hunky-dory. I just need a bit of help.'I wanted to write the final chapter about Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby, now in their eighties, discarded, ignored, watching today's world with utter bewilderment. An elegiac play about old age and loss - loss of power, loss of influence, loss of friends, loss of family. The only play I've seen on this theme is King Lear. This will be funnier.'The hit BBC television series by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, Yes, Minister, and Yes, Prime Minister, captured the political consciousness of the nation in the 1980s. Lynn's stage play I'm Sorry Prime Minister, I Can't Quite Remember . . ., set in a contemporary Hacker College, Oxford, opened at the Barn Theatre, Cirencester, in September 2023.

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Jump into Busy Town and learn your ABCs with Richard Scarry and his friends!Each double page spread is packed with words starting or finishing or including a specific letter of the alphabet. The letters are highlighted in bright pink to emphasise the learning point. It's busy and it's bright and it makes learning your alphabet fun.

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