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Groupie (Oberon Modern Plays)
by Arnold WeskerMattie Beancourt, a 61 year old woman, reads the autobiography of Mark Gorman, a famous painter. Having grown up in the same London East End streets as the painter she writes him a fan letter. He replies briefly, apologising he can't write at length as he's busy preparing for a new exhibition and must give interviews and meet with prospective purchasers, and so on. She is so surprised and impressed that he has deigned to reply that she dares write again. A correspondence develops. She visits him unannounced, and discovers that far from preparing for a new exhibition and being absorbed with interviews he lives in near poverty and neglect. Her personality is sunny, his is curmudgeonly. Their impact upon each other is startling. Groupie began life as a Radio 4 commissioned Friday Play which was transmitted in 2001 with Barbara Windsor and Timothy West. The world premiere opened in Naples 2002.
Groupthink: A Study in Self Delusion
by Christopher BookerIn Groupthink, his final book, the late, eminent journalist and bestselling author Christopher Booker seeks to identify the hidden key to understanding much that is disturbing about the world today.With reference to the ideas of a Yale professor who first identified the theory, and to the writings of George Orwell from whose 'newspeak' the word was adapted, Booker sheds new light on the remarkable – and worrying – effects of 'groupthink', and its influence on our society. Booker defines the three rules of groupthink: the adoption of a common view or belief not based on objective reality; the establishment of a consensus of right-minded people, an 'in group'; and the need to treat the views of anyone who questions the belief as wholly unacceptable. He shows how various interest groups, journalists and even governments in the twenty-first century have subscribed to this way of thinking, with deeply disturbing results. As Booker shows, such behaviour has led to a culture of fear, heralded by countless examples throughout history, from Revolutionary Russia to Napoleonic France and Hitler's Germany. In the present moment it has caused countless errors in judgement and the division of society into highly polarised, oppositional factions. From the behaviour of the controversial Rhodes Must Fall movement to the sacking of James Damore of Google, society's attitudes towards gender equality, the Iraq war and the 'European Dream', careers and lives have been lost as those in the 'in-group' police society with their new form of puritanism. As Booker argues, only by examining its underlying causes can we understand the sinister power of groupthink which permeates all aspects of our lives.
Groupthink: A Study in Self Delusion
by Christopher BookerIn Groupthink, his final book, the late, eminent journalist and bestselling author Christopher Booker seeks to identify the hidden key to understanding much that is disturbing about the world today.With reference to the ideas of a Yale professor who first identified the theory, and to the writings of George Orwell from whose 'newspeak' the word was adapted, Booker sheds new light on the remarkable – and worrying – effects of 'groupthink', and its influence on our society. Booker defines the three rules of groupthink: the adoption of a common view or belief not based on objective reality; the establishment of a consensus of right-minded people, an 'in group'; and the need to treat the views of anyone who questions the belief as wholly unacceptable. He shows how various interest groups, journalists and even governments in the twenty-first century have subscribed to this way of thinking, with deeply disturbing results. As Booker shows, such behaviour has led to a culture of fear, heralded by countless examples throughout history, from Revolutionary Russia to Napoleonic France and Hitler's Germany. In the present moment it has caused countless errors in judgement and the division of society into highly polarised, oppositional factions. From the behaviour of the controversial Rhodes Must Fall movement to the sacking of James Damore of Google, society's attitudes towards gender equality, the Iraq war and the 'European Dream', careers and lives have been lost as those in the 'in-group' police society with their new form of puritanism. As Booker argues, only by examining its underlying causes can we understand the sinister power of groupthink which permeates all aspects of our lives.
Grove: A Field Novel
by Esther KinskyAn unnamed narrator, recently bereaved, travels to Olevano, a small village south-east of Rome. It is winter, and from her temporary residence on a hill between village and cemetery, she embarks on walks and outings, exploring the banal and the sublime with equal dedication and intensity. Seeing, describing, naming the world around her is her way of redefining her place within it. Written in a rich and poetic style, Grove is an exquisite novel of grief, love and landscapes.‘Like a landscape painter who day after day sets up their easel outside, Esther Kinsky directs her eyes onto the terrain, studies it at particular times and in ever-changing weather, and seeks to understand its anatomy as well as the way it is used by people.’— Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung
The Grove of Eagles: A Novel of Elizabethan England (Pan Heritage Classics #3)
by Winston GrahamSet in the last years of Elizabeth I's reign, Winston Graham's The Grove of Eagles seamlessly blends historical fact and fiction in a rich tale full of unforgettable characters.In 1588 the Spanish Armada had been defeated in the English Channel and the whole of Elizabethan England was alert for the revenge that surely had to follow. On the Cornish coast, men like John Killigrew - in charge of the castle at Pendennis - were vital to the survival of the country, and on their backs rested the trust of those defending the nation. His eldest but base-born son, Maugan, emerges in the novel, through his loneliness and his love, as a touchingly honest and believable character who is, above all things, a man of his word.
The Grove of the Caesars: Flavia Albia 8 (Flavia Albia #8)
by Lindsey DavisThe next gripping Ancient Roman mystery in the bestselling Flavia Albia series.Julius Caesar left his gardens to the citizens of Rome, a peaceful sanctuary across the Tiber. Now the gardens and their sacred grove are dangerous haunts, especially for women alone.'Don't go to the Grove,' people mutter, but when her husband has to leave Rome, it falls to Albia to supervise his building project in an old grotto. Why has someone buried tattered scrolls by obscure philosophers - and does it involve a worse crime than terrible writing?Soon that puzzle is overtaken. A woman disappears from her husband's birthday party; she meets a dire fate, then Albia learns that on the same night, two louche slaves given to her family by the brooding Emperor Domitian also vanished in the gardens. Apparently, it is well known that a killer lurks there.The vigiles have failed to investigate properly for decades and this won't improve when the sinister agent Karus arrives. Albia must co-operate, in order to give the many victims justice and find answers for grieving relatives. But can she herself remain safe? And, after others have failed, can she at last identify the predator who has made the Grove his killing ground?Praise for Lindsey Davis and the Flavia Albia series'Lindsey Davis has seen off all her competitors to become the unassailable market leader in the 'crime in Ancient Rome' genre . . . Davis's squalid, vibrant Rome is as pleasurable as ever' - Guardian'Davis's prose is a lively joy, and Flavia's Rome is sinister and gloriously real' - The Times on Sunday'For fans of crime fiction set in the ancient world, this one is not to be missed' - Booklist'Davis's books crackle with wit and knowledge . . . She has the happy knack of making the reader feel entirely immersed in Rome' - The Times
Grow
by Luke PalmerA white supremacist group and its violent leader target fifteen-year-old Josh, who is struggling to cope with his father’s recent death at the hands of terrorists. Will he find the strength to resist? Will unlikely accomplice Dana help him plant something good in the space grief has left inside him?
Grow Up: A Novel
by Ben BrooksWho says youth is wasted on the young? Jasper wants to get on in the world, but he's got a lot on his plate: A-levels, his mother pushing him to overachieve, weekly visits to his psychologist, come-downs, YouTube suicides and pregnant one-night-stands. Then there's his stepdad – the murderer. Hilarious and heartbreaking by turns, Grow Up is the ultimate twenty-first-century coming-of-age novel. It paints a vivid portrait of the pills and thrills and bellyaches of growing up today. Funny, smart and twisted, it is the story of one young man transformed.
Grow Up, Tahlia Wilkins!
by Karina EvansIn this fun and honest romp about friendship, puberty, and growing up, a debut author gives modern-day readers their own version of Are You There God? It's Me Margaret, for fans of Pixar's Turning Red. Twelve-year-old Tahlia Wilkins is ready to kick off the perfect summer, starting with an invitation to a pool party being thrown by the most popular kid in school. But when the Red Goddess of Panties, aka her first period, arrives twenty-four hours before the party, it messes up all her plans. To make matters worse, her mom is out of town, and there&’s no way she&’s going to ask her awkward dad for help! Tahlia always feared that growing up would be tough, but this is just not fair. In order to save herself from total embarrassment, it will take all of Tahlia and her best friend Lily&’s scheming to keep her reputation—and her favorite jeans—from being ruined. Sneak off to the grocery store only to have the clerk price-check your tampons over the loudspeaker? Check. Trick your mature teenage neighbor into letting you use some of her tampons? Check. Take a dip into a fountain to get quarters for a bathroom period product dispenser? Check, check, check! With the hilarious and heartwarming tone of Dork Diaries, Grow Up, Tahlia Wilkins! is a coming-of-age middle-grade novel about growing up, in all of its awkward glory.
Grow Where They Fall
by Michael Donkor'Michael Donkor is a real talent' SARAH WINMAN, author of Still Life'Hugely enjoyable and very moving, Donkor's frank, clear-eyed and funny prose is so refreshing - an important voice in contemporary British fiction' DIANA EVANS, author of Ordinary PeopleBright and precocious ten-year-old Kwame Akromah knows how to behave. He knows the importance of good manners, how to stay at the top of the class and out of the way when his mother and father are angry with each other. But when his charismatic cousin Yaw arrives from Ghana to live with the family while he looks for work, the rules Kwame has learned about the world can no longer guide him.Twenty years later, Kwame is a secondary-school teacher, popular with his students and depended on by his friends. His is a life spent elegantly weaving between the classroom, the labyrinth of Grindr politics and increasingly intermittent visits to his parents’ home. Behind the confident façade, however, he is as driven by caution as he was as a boy.But when electrifying changemaker Marcus Felix is appointed as headteacher, Kwame must reckon with himself as he never has before. Can he face the ghosts of his childhood? How will he learn to move through the world without losing who he is? And where does existing stop and living begin?Grow Where They Fall is a beautifully written, spirited and deeply moving novel about a young man finding the courage to expand the limits of who he might become, from the acclaimed author of Hold.---'Brilliant ... Donkor shapes lives that are so rich in texture that you genuinely care about who they are and what they’re going through' JEFFREY BOAKYE'Radiant, deeply felt ... I loved every shining moment' GUY GUNARATNE'A masterclass in immersive storytelling ... Donkor's words make me proud to be a Black British man' ASHLEY HICKSON-LOVENCE
The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole (Adrian Mole #2)
by Sue Townsend'If I turn out to be mentally deranged in adult life, it will be all my mother's fault.'Adrian Mole continues to struggle valiantly against the slings and arrows of growing up and his own family's attempts to scar him for life in this second volume of his secret diary.
The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole: Adrian Mole Book 2 (Adrian Mole #2)
by Sue Townsend NoneSunday July 18thMy father announced at breakfast that he is going to have a vasectomy. I pushed my sausages away untouched.In this second instalment of teenager Adrian Mole's diaries, the Mole family is in crisis and the country is beating the drum of war. While his parents have reconciled after both embarked on disastrous affairs, Adrian is shocked to learn of his mother's pregnancy. And even though at the mercy of his rampant hormones and the fickle whims of the divine Pandora, a victim of a broken home and his own tortured (though unrecognised) genius, Adrian continues valiantly to chronicle the pains and pleasures of a misspent adolescence.
The Growing Pains of Jennifer Ebert, Aged 19 Going on 91: The feel good, uplifting comedy
by David M. Barnett'The characters jump right off the page and into your heart.' Reader reviewFrom the bestselling author of CALLING MAJOR TOM comes a heartwarming comedy about unlikely friendships and community. Fans of The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes by Ruth Hogan, The Man I Think I Know by Mike Gayle, The Map of Us by Jules Preston, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, and Checking Out by Nick Spalding will love this. Nineteen-year-old Jennifer is regretting her hasty move into Sunset Promenade, an unusual retirement home taking in students to save money. Despite their differences in age, Jennifer and the older residents thrive and embark on a series of new adventures. But when Sunset Promenade is threatened with closure, cracks begin to show, and this quirky group of friends must work together to save their home. The Growing Pains of Jennifer Ebert, aged 19 going on 91 is a funny, warm and uplifting novel about the importance of friendship, the value of community, and how it's never too late to have the time of your life... 'I loved every word of this book and would advise people take an afternoon off, find a comfy spot and lose yourself for a few hours in the world of Sunset Promenade.' Reader review Readers are loving The Growing Pains of Jennifer Ebert 'Brilliant page turner' 'this is a lovely book' 'a really good read' 'a wonderful story' ******************* Previously published as The Lonely Hearts Cinema Club
Growing Pleasures
by Jodie Johnson-SmithJodie Johnson-Smith, writer of Watchers, is back with a brand new sexy title!Stuck in a relationship with her belittling boyfriend, Giles, Emma hopes to land work at Pleasure Paradise, a hotel that fulfils its guests' wildest sexual fantasies. But Giles is outraged at the idea of her working there and vows he will never set foot in the place. After passing two sexy interviews, Emma gets the job, much to the delight of her ex, Andy. It's not long before she is asked to grant a voyeur's fantasy and display herself naked in the garden she tends. Who has requested this kinky favour? Giles, Andy, or someone else entirely? And what will happen as Emma's exhibitionistic pleasure grows ever more intense?
Growing Rich: A Novel
by Fay WeldonSelling one's soul to the devil takes on new meaning in this fiendishly clever page-turner by Fay Weldon. Once upon a time, in the dullest town imaginable, there lived three girls: Laura, the pretty one; Annie, the one desperate to escape; and Carmen, the one who catches the devil's eye. Now in her ninth decade, Fay Weldon is one of the foremost chroniclers of our time, a novelist who spoke to an entire generation of women by daring to say the things that no one else would. Her work ranges over novels, short stories, children's books, nonfiction, journalism, television, radio, and the stage. She was awarded a CBE in 2001.
The Growing Season
by Helen SedgwickNow anyone can have a baby. With FullLife’s safe and affordable healthcare plan, the brave new world is here.Without the pouch, Eva might not have been born. And yet she has sacrificed her career, and maybe even her relationship, campaigning against FullLife’s biotech baby pouches. Despite her efforts, everyone prefers a world where women are liberated from danger and constraint and all can share the joy of childbearing. Perhaps FullLife has helped transform society for the better? But just as Eva decides to accept this, she discovers that something strange is happening at FullLife.Piotr hasn’t seen Eva in years. Not since their life together dissolved in tragedy. But Piotr’s a journalist who has also uncovered something sinister about FullLife. What drove him and Eva apart may just bring them back together, as they search for the truth behind FullLife’s closed doors, and face a truth of their own.A beautiful story about family, loss and what our future might hold, The Growing Season is an original and powerful novel by a rising talent.
The Growing Summer (Virago Modern Classics #804)
by Noel StreatfeildBY THE AUTHOR OF BALLET SHOESwith beautiful illustrations by Edward Ardizzone'A joyous, sunlight book. For me, the best Noel Streatfeild of all' HILARY MCKAY'"You have a whole wing of the house to yourselves. The glorious world outside to play in. All that the earth brings forth to feed you, and you stand there asking foolish questions until my head reels. Help yourselves, children, help yourselves." Then, flapping her cloak as if to shoo off a clutter of chickens, Great Aunt Dymphna was gone.' Summer will be different for the Gareth children this year. Their father, an epidemiologist, is ill abroad, and their mother must go to help him. So Alex, Penny, Naomi and Robin are sent to Ireland to stay with an eccentric distant relative.Great Aunt Dymphna is like nobody they've ever met. She lives in a ramshackle house, quotes swathes of poetry and flits about like a great bat. And, to the children's consternation, she expects them to fend for themselves. Despite tears and many mishaps, they learn something new every day, and living with Great Aunt Dymphna becomes an adventure.
Growing Up (Virago Modern Classics #369)
by Angela ThirkellBarsetshire in the war years. Growing Up is the story of ladies, gentlemen, and their irrepressible children keeping the war at bay in their country town. Trying to do their part as the Second World War ravages Europe, Sir Harry and Lady Waring open their estate to convalescing soldiers - bringing romance, drama, and subtle life lessons to the Warings' young niece and her friends.
Growing Up Again
by Catriona McCloudWhat would you do if you had another shot at life - if you could turn back the clock and return to being, say, fifteen?Janie Lawson's life hasn't turned out quite the way she'd hoped. Nearly forty, she's in a marriage that's frozen over with a mother-in-law she despises. Before Janie can make the final step toward divorce, though, her fate is taken out of her hands. Janie wakes up in her old bedroom and finds it just as it was in her teens. She stumbles downstairs to the kitchen where her mother greets her, looking radiantly young. But it isn't until Janie looks in the mirror, to be confronted by her fifteen-year-old self sporting the most diabolical 80s perm, that the reality of her situation sinks in. For a woman who scoffs at anything science can't prove, being swept back decades in time is a particularly ironic twist.She's gone back to 1981 and all the signs suggest that it's a one-way trip. But there's an upside - Janie has the chance to make her life turn out the way she wanted it. She's determined to help her parents, make her fortune and do some good in the world, starting with saving Lady Diana Spencer from her fate. But things don't quite go to plan and pretty soon Janie realises that even second time around, nothing is guaranteed ...GROWING UP AGAIN is a hilarious, laugh-out-loud novel about second chances - it's clever, compassionate and hugely entertaining.
Growing Up In The West (Canongate Classics #110)
by John MuirEdwin Muir - POOR TOM, J.F. Hendry - FERNIE BRAE, Gordon M. Williams - FROM SCENES LIKE THESE, Tom Gallacher - APPRENTICE. Introduced by Liam McIlvanney. Growing Up in the West presents four very different and memorably vivid accounts of what it was to be young and growing up in Glasgow and the west of Scotland, from the 1930s to the 1960s. Poor Tom tells of a young man’s struggle to come to terms with the slow death of his brother in the city slums of a culturally impoverished Scotland. Fernie Brae celebrates the growth and education of a sensitive in a novel reminiscent of Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Gordon Williams’s novel tells a grimmer story as its young protagonist eventually succumbs to a culture of drink and violence where the harshness of life on the land sits next to industrial sprawl: ‘From scenes like these old Scotia’s grandeur springs.’ Set in the Clydeside shipyards, the wryly observant and humorous style of Apprentice strikes a happier note from the 1960s.
Growing Up Twice
by Rowan ColemanPerfect for fans of Jojo Moyes, Dorothy Koomson and Liane Moriarty, this is an uplifting and heartfelt novel from the author of The Memory Book, which was featured in the Richard & Judy book club 2014'I immediately read The Memory Book and it's WONDERFUL ... I'm so happy because she's written other books and its so lovely to find a writer you love who has a backlist' Marian KeyesJenny, Rosie and Selin have been best friends since school. Their teenage years were spent drinking too much wine in the park, dressing up for Friday night, and making the wrong choices with the wrong men because tomorrow seemed a very long way off. Eleven riotous years later, Jenny realises something. After more than a decade of waiting for her real life to begin, nothing has really changed. Here she is, still hung-over in the park, still dressed up in Friday night clothes and about to make her most inappropriate choice of man yet . But Jenny's not the only one waiting for real life to begin. And when tragedy turns their world upside down, all three friends are forced to realise that the real growing up is still to come...
Growing Up Weightless (Golden Age Masterworks)
by John M. FordMatthias Ronay is a prodigy. He's talented, smart, imaginative, and he's never left the Moon. He dreams of more - of space, of adventure, of glory.Desperate to explore the galaxy further, he finds himself at odds with his father, Albin, a senior politician in the Lunar government. Albin has expectations for his son, for the legacy he has built on the Moon, and he expects Matthias to fall in line without question. While Matthias buries himself in computer games to simulate being anywhere but where he is, and Albin attempts to gain support for political plans that he wants to groom Matthias for, can they come to a solution that benefits them both?GROWING UP WEIGHTLESS is one of John M. Ford's last novels, and another triumph of writing.
A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty: A Novel
by Joshilyn JacksonA Grown Up Kind of Pretty is a powerful saga of three generations of women, plagued by hardships and torn by a devastating secret, yet inextricably joined by the bonds of family.Fifteen-year-old Mosey Slocumb -- spirited, sassy, and on the cusp of womanhood -- is shaken when a small grave is unearthed in the backyard, and determined to figure out why it's there. Liza, her stroke-ravaged mother, is haunted by choices she made as a teenager. But it is Jenny, Mosey's strong and big-hearted grandmother, whose maternal love braids together the strands of the women's shared past -- and who will stop at nothing to defend their future.
Grown Ups: ‘the perfect summer read’ Vogue
by Marie AubertA compact, funny, devastating novel about sibling rivalry and modern motherhood, from one of Norway's rising starsIda is a forty-year-old architect, single and starting to panic. She's navigating Tinder and contemplating freezing her eggs, but forces these worries to the back of her mind as she sets off to the family cabin for her mother's sixty-fifth birthday.But family ties old and new begin to wear thin, out in the idyllic Norwegian countryside. Ida is fighting with her sister Marthe, flirting with Marhte's husband and winning the favour of Marthe's stepdaughter. Some supposedly wonderful news from her sister sets tensions simmering even further, building to an almighty clash between Ida and her sister, her mother, her whole family.Exhilarating, funny and unexpectedly devastating, Grown Ups asks what kind of adult you are without a family of your own.MARIE AUBERT made her debut in 2016 with the short story collection Can I Come Home With You, published to great acclaim in Norway. Grown Ups is her first novel; it won the Young People's Critics' Prize and was nominated for the Booksellers' Prize in Norway.