Barrytown, Dublin, has something to sing about. The Commitments are spreading the gospel of the soul. Ably managed by Jimmy Rabitte, brilliantly coached by Joel ' The Lips' Fagan, their twin assault on Motown & Barrytown takes them by leaps & bounds from paris hall to immortality on vinyl. But can The Commitments live up to their name? ...

What she produced is an eccentric & unofficial literary & social history from the fourteenth to the twentieth century, with an excursion to ancient Greece thrown in. she investigates medieval Engl&, tsarist Russia, Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian novelists & modern essayists. When she published this book Woolf's fame as a novelist was already established: now she was hailed as a brilliant interpretative critic. Here, she addresses her 'common reader' in the remarkable prose & with all the imagination & gaiety that are the stamp of her genius. ...

So Virginia Woolf described the 'common reader' for whom she wrote. This is her second series of essays, first published in 1932. Here she turns her brilliant eye on Lord Chesterfield's letters, the novels of George Gissing, the poetry of Donne: we meet Dr Burney & Beau Brummell, Christina Rossetti, Geraldine Jewsbury, Jane Carlyle, Mary Wollstonecraft & many others. This is an informal, informative & witty celebration of our literary & social heritage by a writer of genius. ...

John Sulston was director of the Sanger Centre in Cambridge from 1993 to 2000. There he led the British arm of the international team selected to map the entire human DNA sequence, a feat that was pulled off in record time by an extraordinary collaboration of scientists. Despite innumerable setbacks & challenges from outside competitors the ultimate success of the project can be attributed in large part to John Sulston ...

John Sulston was director of the Sanger Centre in Cambridge from 1993 to 2000. There he led the British arm of the international team selected to map the entire human DNA sequence, a feat that was pulled off in record time by an extraordinary collaboration of scientists. Despite innumerable setbacks & challenges from outside competitors the ultimate success of the project can be attributed in large part to John Sulston ...

During the ten years she lived at the edge of Putney Common Jilly Cooper walked daily on this expanse of green. For most of the time she lived there she kept a diary, noting the effects of the changing seasons & writing about her encounters with dogs & humans. The book is a distillation of those diaries: an affectionate & enthralling portrait
- warts & all
- of life on Putney Common. Never has Jilly Cooper written more lyrically about flowers, trees, birds & the natural world; more tellingly about the sorrows
- as well as the joys
- of caring for dogs & children; or more outrageously about the gossip, illicit romances & jealousies of life in a small community.



...

In late-18th-century Britain, people were hanged for petty offences, yet crime was rife. The gaols were bursting & over-flow prisoners were kept in notorious 'hulks': rotting old ships moored offshore. Out of this situation was born the 'solution'
- ' The Sydney Experiment': criminals perceived to 'damage' British society would be transported to Australia. Thus Sydney was founded as 'an open-air prison' with 'walls 14, 000 miles thick'.

There were orgies, diseases, court marshalls, hangings, escapes & hunger.. . Tom Keneally tells the fascinating story of how Governor Arthur Phillip, despotic ruler of New South Wales, imposed order between the convicts, sailors & native aboriginal tribespeople... & how the 'open-air prison' eventually developed into one of the most vibrant cities in the world.


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' The Sydney Experiment' was the political experiment of founding Sydney as a penal settlement to receive criminals. In late-18th-century ...

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DAVID AARONOVITCH

The Communist Manifesto was first published in London, by two young

...

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DAVID AARONOVITCH

The Communist Manifesto was first published in London, by two young

...