In several nations across the globe, the Communist Party has managed to hold on, mutate & adapt to the 21st century. Whether due to unaddressed class inequality, nostalgia or the steel fist of totalitarianism, these places continue to resist against the tides of history. Over the course of seven years, award-winning documentary photographer Tomas Van Houtryve secured unprecedented access to North Korea, Cuba, China, Nepal, Vietnam, Laos & Moldova. He discovered a secretive world of revolutionaries, spies, opposition fighters & ordinary workers. His photographs explore the gulf between the high ideals of communism & its complex present day reality. With a Foreword by philosopher Tzvetan Todorov. ...

` It was useless to think I`d ever be able to throw open the door behind which I was yet again hiding.. . Not now. Not ever.` School is a place of unspoken hierarchies & rivalries for a young teenage boy growing up in the provincial town of Ferrara. But as the everyday classroom & playground dramas are played out, they begin to reflect the disturbing undertones of 1930s Italy, & the narrator realizes that being Jewish means he will always be excluded. The fourth book in Bassani`s Romanzo di Ferrara cycle, Behind the Door is a luminous portrayal of childhood friendship & the loss of innocence. A new translation by Jamie Mc Kendrick ...

`I never saw the man again, alive or dead. One will say that I saw him only for a moment, that it was misty at the time, & that even I did not recognise the features, covered as they were with grime & stubble. Yet I am sure that the taller of the two ragged civilians I saw in the chalk quarry that misty March morning of 1918 was that Lieutenant Peter Rawley, R. F.A., who the official records stated was killed near Arras the previous autumn.` Behind the Lines is a thriller that follows on from the success of W. F. Morris`s first novel, Bretherton: Khaki or Field-Grey? Morris is again concerned with questions of identity, allegiance, chance, concealment & self-discovery. A subaltern is forced to flee when he accidentally kills an overbearing, taunting fellow officer: appearances are all against him & he does not trust to trench justice. He becomes a fugitive & has to join forces with other deserters, lost soldiers & outlaws in a h&-to-mouth existence in the no man`s land between opposing forces. A series of adventures & disasters ensue, including capture by the Germans & near death by firing squad. Only his own bravery & the devotion of his fiance can rescue him from his plight. A contemporary commentator noted that `in spite of the flood of war books`, Morris was able to achieve `a quite different viewpoint from all the others`, & his book was `an outstanding success`. ...

Aristocrat, literary celebrity, ` Rose Queen`, devoted wife, lesbian, recluse, iconoclast
- Vita Sackville-West was many
...

Aristocrat, literary celebrity, ` Rose Queen`, devoted wife, lesbian, recluse, iconoclast
- Vita Sackville-West was many
...

Ruby Lennox was conceived grudgingly by Bunty & born while her father, George, was in the Dog & Hare in Doncaster telling a woman in an emerald dress & a D-cup that he wasn`t married. Bunty had never wanted to marry George, but here she was, stuck in a flat above the pet shop in an ancient street beneath York Minster, with sensible & sardonic Patrica aged five, greedy cross-patch Gillian who refused to be ignored, & Ruby... Ruby tells the story of The Family, from the day at the end of the nineteenth century when a travelling French photographer catches frail beautiful Alice & her children, like flowers in amber, to the startling, witty, & memorable events of Ruby`s own life. ...

`I am fascinated by people turning their daft dreams into a reality. How did they do it & why?` Driven by his own passion for collecting Hunter Davies has packed his notepad & set off in search of Britain`s maddest museums. As he explores these hidden gems he soon discovers that they are everywhere & that they celebrate just about everything, from lawnmowers in Southport to pencils in Keswick. But as Hunter travels up & down the country he comes to realise that it isn`t only the collections that are fascinating, it`s also the people who have put them together. Whether they`re a man who loves his Heinz so much he`s changed his name to Captain Beany or a kleptomaniac Vintage Radio buff, these eccentric collectors are Britain`s finest & could live in no other country in the world. Once you discover these museums & get to know their curators, Great Britain won`t look quite the same again... ...

Behind the Throne is a history of family life. The families concerned were royal families. But they still had to get up in the morning. They ate & entertained their friends & worried about money. Henry VIII kept tripping over his dogs. George II threw his son out of the house. James I had to cut back on the drink bills. The great difference is that royal families had more help with their lives than most. Charles I maintained a household of 2, 000 people. Victoria`s medical establishment alone consisted of thirty doctors, three dentists & a chiropodist. Even in today`s more democratic climate, Elizabeth II keeps a full-time staff of 1, 200. A royal household was a community, a vast machine. Everyone, from James I`s Master of the Horse down to William IV`s Assistant Table Decker, was there to smooth the sovereign`s path through life while simultaneously confirming his or her status. Behind the Throne uncovers the reality of five centuries of life at the English court, taking the reader on a remarkable journey from one Queen Elizabeth to another & exploring life as it was lived by clerks & courtiers & clowns & crowned heads: the power struggles & petty rivalries, the tension between duty & desire; the practicalities of cooking dinner for thousands, or ensuring the king always won when he played a game of tennis. Behind the Throne is nothing less than a domestic history of the royal household, a reconstruction of life behind the throne. Readers go on progress with Elizabeth I as she takes her court & her majesty to her subjects. They dance the conga round the state rooms of Buckingham Palace with George VI. They find out what it was like to dine with queens, & walk with kings. ...

Having learned mandarin, & travelling alone by foot, bicycle & train, Colin Thubron set off on a 10, 000-mile journey from Beijing to Tibet, starting from a tropical paradise near the Burmese border to the windswept wastes of the Gobi desert & the far end of the Great Wall. What Thubron reveals is an astonishing diversity, a land whose still unmeasured resources strain to meet an awesome dem&, & an ancient people still reeling from the devastation of the cultural revolution. ...

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR A powerful & timely story of marriage, class, race & the pursuit of the American Dream. Behold the Dreamers is a dazzling debut novel about life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness
- & of what we`re prepared to sacrifice to hold on to each of them. ` We all do what we gotta do to become American, abi?` New York, 2007: a city of dreamers & strivers, where the newly-arrived & the long-established jostle alike for a place on the ladder of success. & Jende Jonga, who has come from Cameroon, has just set his foot on the first rung. Clark Edwards is a senior partner at Lehman Brothers bank. In need of a discrete & reliable chauffeur, he is too preoccupied to closely check the paperwork of his latest employee. Jende`s new job draws him, his wife Neni & their young son into the privileged orbit of the city`s financial elite. & when Clark`s wife Cindy offers Neni work & takes her into her confidence, the couple begin to believe that the land of opportunity might finally be opening up for them. But there are troubling cracks in their employers` facades, & when the deep fault lines running beneath the financial world are exposed, the Edwards` secrets threaten to spill out into the Jonga`s lives. Faced with the loss of all they have worked for, each couple must decide how far they will go in pursuit of their dreams
- & what they are prepared to sacrifice along the way. ` There are no heroes in this marvellous debut, only nuanced human beings. A classic tale with a surprise ending, as deeply insightful as it is delightfully entertaining` Taiye Selasi ` Imbolo Mbue would be a formidable storyteller anywhere, in any language. It`s our good luck that she & her stories are American` Jonathan Franzen ` Eerily timely.. .bittersweet & buoyant` Jessie Burton, Observer Books of the Year

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