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To Miss with Love
by Katharine BirbalsinghFrom the whistle-blowing teacher behind the headlines: one inspirational teacher, one extraordinary year, hope and heartbreak on the front lines of an inner-city school, To Miss With Love by Katharine Birbalsingh is the remarkable and eye opening exposé of our education system.A third of teachers leave within their first term on the job. This one wouldn't quit for all the world. Meet Furious - sixteen, handsome and completely out of control. Nothing frightens him and no one can get through to him. Now meet Munchkin - a sweet kid with glasses who's an easy target and needs protecting. Then there's Seething and Deranged, two girls who are brimming with bad attitude; Fifty and Cent, who act like gangsters but are afraid of getting beaten up; and Stoic, a brilliant young mind struggling to survive. In the midst of them all, there is a bodyguard and bouncer, a counsellor and confidante, a young woman whose job it is to motivate and inspire them and somehow keep them out of trouble: their teacher. None will make it through the year unscathed. Some may not even make it at all...Spanning a year of shocking truths and hard-won victories, of fights and phone-thefts, teenage pregnancies and the dreaded OFSTED report, this is the remarkable diary of an inner-city school teacher. Revealing the extraordinary chaos, mismanagement and wrong-thinking that plague our education system, it is a funny, surprising and sometimes heartbreaking journey from the frontlines of the classroom to the heart of modern Britain.'The constant frustration, the struggle to hold on to your ideals in the face of a broken system - this book is the story of contemporary state education. It's both heart-breaking and inspiring' Toby Young'Everyone should read this book and do a bit of re-thinking. Straight from the chalk-face - a book which explains why our kids have been failed by State Education' Rod Liddle'The teacher who laid bare the chaos in the education systems. . . by delivering some brutal home truths. . . articulate and inspirational' Daily Mail'Charismatic. . . .electrifying. . . This remarkable woman has neatly identified the problem with education' The TimesKatharine Birbalsingh is Britain's most outspoken and controversial teacher. Educated at a comprehensive school, she earned a degree in philosophy and modern languages at Oxford university and has taught for over a decade in inner-city schools. To Miss with Love was for several years an anonymous blog that exposed the reality of inner-city schools and the problems with the education system. She now writes regularly for the Telegraph and has given evidence at the Commons select committee for education. Her views have sparked a national debate. www.katharinebirbalsingh.com
The Three Emperors: Three Cousins, Three Empires and the Road to World War One
by Miranda CarterThe Three Emperors by Miranda Carter is the juicy, funny story of the three dysfunctional rulers of Germany, Russia and Great Britain at the turn of the last century, combined with a study of the larger forces around them.Three cousins. Three Emperors. And the road to ruin.As cousins, George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II and the last Tsar Nicholas II should have been friends - but they happened also to rule Europe's three most powerful states. This potent combination together with their own destructive personalities - petty, insecure, bullying, absurdly obsessive (stamp collecting, uniforms) - led not only to their own dramatic fallouts and falls from grace, but also to the outbreak of the First World War. Miranda Carter's riveting account of how three men who should have known better helped bring down an entire world is a gripping story of abdication, betrayal and murder.'Fascinating. A wonderfully fresh and beautifully choreographed work of history' Mail on Sunday'Miranda Carter's story is full of vivid quotations...a romp though the palaces of Europe in their last decades before Armageddon' Sunday Times'Fascinating. Carter is a gifted storyteller and has written a very readable account' Independent'That these three absurd men could ever have held the fate of Europe in their hands is a fact as hilarious as it is terrifying. I haven't enjoyed a historical biography this much since Lytton Strachey's Victoria' Zadie SmithMiranda Carter's first book, Anthony Blunt: His Lives, won the Royal Society of Literature Award and the Orwell Prize and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography Prize, the Guardian First Book Award, the Duff Cooper Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. The book was named as one of the New York Times Book Review's seven best books of 2002. Miranda lives in London with her husband and two sons.
Childhood, Boyhood, Youth
by Leo Tolstoy Rosemary EdmondsThe artistic work of Leo Tolstoy has been described as 'nothing less than one tremendous diary kept for over fifty years'. This particular 'diary' begins with Tolstoy's first published work, Childhood, which was written when he was only twenty-three. A semi-autobiographical work, it recounts two days in the childhood of ten-year-old Nikolai Irtenev, recreating vivid impressions of people, place and events with the exuberant perspective of a child enriched by the ironic retrospective understanding of an adult. Boyhood and Youth soon followed, and Tolstoy was launched on the literary career that would bring him immortality.
Selected Letters: With Notes For The Use Of Schools
by D. Bailey CiceroThe greatest orator in Roman history, Marcus Tullius Cicero remained one of the republic's chief supporters throughout his life, guided by profound political beliefs that illuminated his correspondence with both close friends and powerful aristocrats. A chronicle of a crumbling civilization during the era when the republic disintegrated and was replaced by despotism, his Letters portray a world dominated by characters who have since acquired almost mythic status - including Pompey, Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, and Mark Antony. Whether describing the vagaries of war, the collapse of Roman society, his beloved republic, or his own personal domestic dramas, all compellingly reflect the complex personality of an honourable and selfless man whose refusal to compromise ultimately cost him his life.
Deep Country: Five Years in the Welsh Hills
by Neil AnsellDeep Country is Neil Ansell's account of five years spent alone in a hillside cottage in Wales.'I lived alone in this cottage for five years, summer and winter, with no transport, no phone. This is the story of those five years, where I lived and how I lived. It is the story of what it means to live in a place so remote that you may not see another soul for weeks on end. And it is the story of the hidden places that I came to call my own, and the wild creatures that became my society.'Neil Ansell immerses himself in the rugged British landscape, exploring nature's unspoilt wilderness and man's relationship with it. Deep Country is a celebration of rural life and the perfect read for fans of Robert Macfarlane's Landmarks, Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk orJames Rebanks' A Shepherd's Life.'A beautiful, translucent portrayal of mid-Wales' Jay Griffiths'Touching. Through Ansell's charming and thoroughly detailed stories of run-ins with red kites, curlews, sparrowhawks, jays and ravens, we see him lose himself . . . in the rhythms and rituals of life in the British wilderness' Financial Times'Remarkable, fascinating' Time Out'A gem of a book, an extraordinary tale. Ansell's rich prose will transport you to a real life Narnian world that CS Lewis would have envied. Find your deepest, most-comfortable armchair and get away from it all' CountryfileNeil Ansell spent five years living on a remote hillside in Wales, and wrote his first book, Deep Country, about the experience. Since that time, he has become an award-winning television journalist with the BBC. He has travelled in over fifty countries and has written for the Guardian, the New Statesman and the Big Issue.
The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead
by David ShieldsMesmerized and somewhat unnerved by his 97-year-old father's vitality and optimism, David Shields undertakes an original investigation of our flesh-and-blood existence, our mortal being.Weaving together personal anecdote, biological fact, philosophical doubt, cultural criticism, and the wisdom of an eclectic range of writers and thinkers - from Lucretius to Woody Allen - Shields expertly renders both a hilarious family portrait and a truly resonant meditation on mortality.
Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Our Times
by Sarah BradfordElizabeth II has lived through the Abdication, the Blitz and World War Two, the sex and spy scandals of the swinging sixties, the Cold War and the nuclear threat and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. She has known 11 US Presidents including JFK and Ronald Reagan, and other world leaders like President Mandela and Pope John XXII. Her Prime Ministers have ranged from Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher to David Cameron, the last only ten years older than her grandson. Her own family experiences, a mixture of happiness and crisis, weddings and divorces, and, in the case of Diana, violent death, have been lived in the glare of tabloid headlines. More than 2 billion people watched the wedding of her grandson Prince William to Catherine Middleton in 2010 shortly before she made the first State Visit to Ireland by a British monarch for 100 years. Our world has changed more in her lifetime than in any of her predecessors': the Queen has remained a calm presence at the centre, earning the respect of monarchists and republicans. How has she done it?
Hancox
by Charlotte MooreHancox is the Tudor hall house in rural Sussex where Charlotte Moore grew up, and where she lives today. It's a time warp where little has changed since her family took it on in 1888. They were a diverse family of doctors and soldiers, liberal politicians and educational pioneers. What they all had in common though was a habit of writing everything down and never throwing anything away. Every cupboard and every drawer is crammed with relics of family history - letters, diaries, sketchbooks, photograph albums, even old shopping lists and chequebook stubs - which together constitute a huge archive of Victorian and Edwardian family life containing fascinating stories of love and jealousy, heroism and defeat, riches and poverty as well as snapshots of the wider world beyond of Hastings, London and the empire.Told with a novelist's vigour, Hancox offers a richly detailed portrait of a vanished way of life: an English country house at the turn of the twentieth century, just before the tragedy of the First World War, with its presiding family, its servants, its farm and its local village.
Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years (The\adrian Mole Ser. #4)
by Sue Townsend'A classic. The Adrian Mole diaries are thoroughly subversive. A true hero for our time' Richard IngramsCelebrate Adrian Mole's 50th Birthday with this new edition of the FOURTH BOOK in his diaries, where we catch up with a hapless Adrian and his desperate attempts to win back the love of his life.--------------------------- Thursday January 3rd I have the most terrible problems with my sex life. It all boils down to the fact that I have no sex life. At least not with another person. Finally given the heave-ho by Pandora, Adrian Mole finds himself in the unenviable situation of living with the love-of-his-life as she goes about shacking up with other men. Worse, as he slides down the employment ladder, from deskbound civil servant in Oxford to part-time washer-upper in Soho, he finds that critical reception for his epic novel, Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland, is not quite as he might have hoped. But Adrian is about to discover that extraordinary and wonderful things may blossom even in the wilderness . . . 'A very, very funny book' Sunday Times 'The funniest person in the world' Caitlin Moran
Susan Boyle: Dreams Can Come True
by Alice MontgomeryFrom that moment when Susan Boyle burst onto our screens on Britain's Got Talent, she has become an unexpected phenomenon, and has gone on to become the creator of the fastest selling female debut album of all time - in the UK and worldwide - hitting the number one spot in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland. Susan's own personal dream has finally come true, but the phenomenal success story doesn't end here - Susan has arrived and she's here to stay.This book will be the first to tell the full story of Susan's incredible journey from rags to riches, from West Lothian to Times Square. Ever since her mesmerising, historic performance on Britain's Got Talent, Susan has captured the heart of millions. Hers is a very modern fairytale that is at once uplifting and compelling. Bestselling biographer Alice Montgomery charts her meteoric rise from humble beginnings to global superstardom, exploring the relationships, events and people that have played a role in her astonishing story - a 21st century fairytale that became reality.
A Preparation for Death
by Greg BaxterIn his early thirties, Greg Baxter found himself in a strange place. He hated his job, he was drinking excessively, he was sabotaging his most important relationships, and he was no longer doing the thing he cared about most: writing. Strangest of all, at this time he started teaching evening classes in creative writing - and his life changed utterly.A Preparation for Death is a document of the chaos and discovery of that time and of the experiences that led Greg Baxter to that strange place - an extraordinarily intimate account of literary failure (and its consequences), personal decay, and redemption through reading, writing, and truth-telling. 'Brilliant and wonderfully original ... Yes, this is a book about drinking and shagging. But rarely have these things been written about so well' William Leith, Literary Review'Baxter is a serious, thoughtful writer, bend on emotional truth and artistry. He has written an unusual, provocative book' Suzi Feay, Financial Times'Brave, honest and propulsive' Metro'The triumph is the steely courage it takes to put a life down with such uncompromising clarity' Hugo Hamilton, Irish Times'This is an occasionally infuriating and completely wonderful book. I read it in one sitting, unsettled and delighted by its ferocity' Anne Enright
The Governor
by John LonerganIn his talks to communities throughout the length and breath of Ireland, John Lonergan finds himself coming back to one theme: the importance of kindness. It is an unexpected theme for the former boss of Ireland's biggest and toughest prison, Mountjoy, but then John Lonergan is an unusual man. John entered the prison service in 1968 and in the years that followed, as he saw human nature at its worst - and often, unexpectedly, at its best - he developed a deep understanding both of human nature and of Irish society.Now, after 42 years in the service, 26 of them as the most senior prison officer in the country, John tells his fascinating life story - from his idyllic childhood in rural Tipperary, to coming face to face with the ugliest face of Irish life, to grappling with the politics of working in a service that was the plaything of officials and politicians. His description of life in the prison service is not only a gripping account of humanity at its rawest, but also an invaluable primer for anyone in top level management.Revealing, surprising and inspiring The Governor gives a unique insight into modern Ireland.
The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole: True Confessions Of Adrian Albert Mole, Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years, And Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (The\adrian Mole Ser. #3)
by Sue TownsendCelebrate Adrian Mole's 50th Birthday with this new edition of the third book in his diaries, as 16-year-old Adrian navigates his way into adulthood Monday June 13th I had a good, proper look at myself in the mirror tonight. I've always wanted to look clever, but at the age of twenty years and three months I have to admit that I look like a person who has never even heard of Jung or Updike. Adrian Mole is an adult. At least that's what it says on his passport. But living at home, clinging to his threadbare cuddly rabbit 'Pinky', working as a paper pusher for the DoE and pining for the love of his life, Pandora, has proved to him that adulthood isn't quite what he expected. Still, without the slings and arrows of modern life what else would an intellectual poet have to write about . . . Included here are two other less well-known diarists: Sue Townsend and Margaret Hilda Roberts, a rather ambitious grocer's daughter from Grantham. 'Wonderfully funny and sharp as knives' Sunday Times 'Essential reading for Mole followers' Times Educational Supplement 'Townsend has held a mirror up to the nation and made us happy to laugh at what we see in it' Sunday Telegraph'The funniest person in the world' Caitlin Moran
Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane
by Andrew Graham DixonMichelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio lived the darkest and most dangerous life of any of the great painters. The worlds of Milan, Rome and Naples through which Caravaggio moved and which Andrew Graham-Dixon describes brilliantly in this book, are those of cardinals and whores, prayer and violence. On the streets surrounding the churches and palaces, brawls and swordfights were regular occurrences. In the course of this desperate life Caravaggio created the most dramatic paintings of his age, using ordinary men and women - often prostitutes and the very poor - to model for his depictions of classic religious scenes. Andrew Graham-Dixon's exceptionally illuminating readings of Caravaggio'spictures, which are the heart of the book, show very clearly how he created their drama, immediacy and humanity, and how completely he departed from the conventions of his time.
Sold as a Slave (Great Journeys Ser. #No. 8)
by Olaudah EquianoIn an adventurous and extraordinary life, Equiano (c.1745-c.1797) criss-crossed the Atlantic world, from West Africa to the Caribbean to the USA to Britain, either as a slave or fighting with the Royal Navy. His account of his life is not only one of the great documents of the abolition movement, but also a startling, moving story of danger and betrayal.Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries – but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.
More About Boy: Tales of Childhood
by Roald Dahl Quentin BlakeThis new rebrand of MORE ABOUT BOY is a favourite book containing a wealth of new photos, facts and writings about Roald Dahl and his childhood, together with the original text and illustrations from his much-loved memoir. With lots of little-known details, this is a must-have for all Dahl fans!Look out for new Roald Dahl apps in the App store and Google Play- including the disgusting TWIT OR MISS! and HOUSE OF TWITS inspired by the revolting Twits.
Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life (The\lewis Walpole Series In Eighteenth-century Culture And History)
by Nicholas PhillipsonAdam Smith is celebrated all over the world as the author of The Wealth of Nations and the founder of modern economics. A few of his ideas - that of the 'Invisible Hand' of the market and that 'It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest' - have become icons of the modern world. Yet Smith saw himself primarily as a philosopher rather than an economist, and would never have predicted that the ideas for which he is now best known were his most important. This book, by one of the leading scholars of the Scottish Enlightenment, shows the extent to which The Wealth of Nations and Smith's other great work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, were part of a larger scheme to establish a grand 'Science of Man', one of the most ambitious projects of the European Enlightenment, which was to encompass law, history and aesthetics as well as economics and ethics.Nicholas Phillipson reconstructs Smith's intellectual ancestry and formation, of which he gives a radically new and convincing account. He shows what Smith took from, and what he gave to, the rapidly changing and subtly different intellectual and commercial cultures of Glasgow and Edinburgh as they entered the great years of the Scottish Enlightenment. Above all he explains how far Smith's ideas developed in dialogue with those of his closest friend, the other titan of the age, David Hume. This superb biography is now the one book which anyone interested in the founder of economics must read.
A Diary of The Lady: My First Year As Editor
by Rachel JohnsonRachel Johnson takes on the challenge of saving The Lady, Britain's oldest women's weekly, in her hilarious diary, A Diary of The Lady: My First Year and a Half as Editor.'The whole place seemed completely bonkers: dusty, tatty, disorganized and impossibly old-fashioned, set in an age of doilies and flag-waving patriotism and jam still for tea, some sunny day.'Appointed editor of The Lady - the oldest women's weekly in the world - Rachel Johnson faced the challenge of a lifetime. For a start, how do you become an editor when you've never, well, edited? How do you turn a venerable title, full of ads for walk-in baths, during the worst recession ever? And forget doubling the circulation in a year - what on earth do you wear to work when you've spent the last fifteen years at home in sweatpants?Will Rachel save The Lady - or sink it?'Action-packed, entertaining, marvellously indiscreet. Johnson is everything you want in a diarist and has a compulsive habit of saying the wrong thing' Sunday Times'She's a loose cannon. All she thinks of is sex. You can't get her away from a penis' Mrs Julia Budworth, co-owner, The Lady'A total romp, wonderfully readable, unflinchingly described' Guardian'HYSTERICAL. For the first time, everyone is talking about The Lady for reasons other than nannies' Piers MorganRachel Johnson is a journalist who has written two previous novels and two volumes of diaries. The Mummy Diaries, Notting Hell, Shire Hell and A Diary of The Lady are all available now from Penguin.
The Death of Ayrton Senna
by Richard WilliamsMillions of people around the world watched in horror on that fateful day in Imola at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix when Ayrton Senna's car careered off the track at 190mph. The greatest driver in Formula One history was dead.In this classic sports book, reissued to tie-in with a new Working Title documentary film about Senna, Richard Williams explores the complex Brazilian who was a hero in his own country and an icon to everyone who loved not just motor-racing but sport itself. In his drive to win and his desire always to test himself to the limit, Senna embodied all that is best and most thrilling in sport.
Tiger, Tiger: A Memoir
by Margaux FragosoI still think about Peter, the man I loved most in the world, all the time. At two in the afternoon, when he would come and pick me up and take me for rides; at five, when I would read to him, head on his chest; in the despair at seven p.m., when he would hold me and rub my belly for an hour; in the despair again at nine p.m. when we would go for a night ride, down to the Royal Cliffs Diner in Englewood Cliffs where I would buy a cup of coffee with precisely seven sugars and a lot of cream. We were friends, soul mates and lovers. I was seven. He was fifty-one.
Don't You Love Your Daddy?
by Sally East Toni MaguireThe deeply shocking story of a mother's neglect and a father's betrayalSally East's heartwrenching story starts when she was only three. It was then that her father first touched her inappropriately, as he started to groom her for the future. Sally's mother, a woman who suffered from manic depression, neglected her on her 'bad days', as Sally called them. She would turn her face to the wall and ignore her small daughter. But Sally loved her mother and waited for the 'good days' to return.When she was only six, Sally's mother died. Then when Sally most needed to feel secure, safe and loved, she paid a price that nearly destroyed her: with his wife dead, Sally's father felt free to abuse his daughter whenever he wished. The conflict of wanting to be cared for by the same person who was violating her sowed the seeds of self loathing - something that would haunt her for many years to come until the death of her father.Now in a supportive relationship and with two children of her own, Sally has at last found happiness. Bestselling author Toni Maguire not only puts a voice to Sally's heart-rending story but shows the long-term damage that child abuse does.
The Promise: The Moving Story of a Family in the Holocaust
by Barbara PowersThis is the remarkable true story of a young Jewish girl and her brother growing up during the Second World War, caught in a world turned upside down by the Nazis. Written specially for children, Eva describes her happy early childhood in Vienna with her kind and loving parents and her older brother Heinz, whom she adored. But when the Nazis marched into Austria everything changed. Eva's family fled to Belgium, then to Amsterdam where, with the help of the Dutch Resistance, they spent the next two years in hiding - Eva and her mother in one house, and her father and brother in another. Finally, though, they were all betrayed and deported to Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Despite the horrors of the camp, Eva's positive attitude and stubborn personality (which had often got her into trouble) saw her through one of the most tragic events in history and she and her mother eventually returned to Amsterdam. Sadly her father and brother perished just weeks before the liberation. Eva and her mother went back to the house where Heinz and his father had hidden, for Eva had remembered that Heinz had told her he had hidden his paintings beneath the floorboards there. Sure enough, there were over thirty beautiful paintings. Heinz hadn't wasted any of his talents during his captivity. For Eva, here was a tangible, everlasting memory of her brother and a reminder of her father's promise that all the good things you accomplish will make a difference to someone, and your achievements will be carried on. Heinz's paintings have been on display in exhibitions in the USA and are now a part of a permanent exhibition in Amsterdam's war museum. Told simply and clearly for younger readers, THE PROMISE is an unforgettable story, written by Eva Schloss, the step-daughter of Otto Frank and Barbara Powers, Eva's very close friend.
Where I Lived, and What I Lived For
by Henry ThoreauThroughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.Thoreau's account of his solitary and self-sufficient home in the New England woods remains an inspiration to the environmental movement - a call to his fellow men to abandon their striving, materialistic existences of 'quiet desperation' for a simple life within their means, finding spiritual truth through awareness of the sheer beauty of their surroundings.
Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer
by Patrick FrenchSoldier, explorer, mystic, guru and spy, Francis Younghusband began his colonial career as a military adventurer and became a radical visionary who preached free love to his followers. Patrick French's award-winning biography traces the unpredictable life of the maverick with the 'damned rum name', who singlehandedly led the 1904 British invasion of Tibet, discovered a new route from China to India, organized the first expeditions up Mount Everest and attempted to start a new world religion. Following in Younghusband's footsteps, from Calcutta to the snows of the Himalayas, French pieces together the story of a man who embodies all the romance and folly of Britain's lost imperial dream.
Forbidden Fruit: From the Letters of Abelard and Heloise (Penguin Great Loves Ser.)
by Heloise Peter AbelardThe illicit relationship between Peter Abelard, a medieval philosopher, and his young pupil Heloise is one of history’s most legendary and tragic love affairs. From reckless ecstasy to public scandal and cruel separation, their eloquent and intimate letters tell the story of their passionate, doomed romance.United by the theme of love, the writings in the Great Loves series span over two thousand years and vastly different worlds. Readers will be introduced to love’s endlessly fascinating possibilities and extremities: romantic love, platonic love, erotic love, gay love, virginal love, adulterous love, parental love, filial love, nostalgic love, unrequited love, illicit love, not to mention lost love, twisted and obsessional love….