Michael Jacobs was haunted by Velazquez`s enigmatic masterpiece Las Meninas from first encountering it in the Prado as a teenager. In Everything is Happening Jacobs searches for the ultimate significance of the painting by following the trails of associations from each individual character in the picture, as well as his own memories of & relationship to this extraordinary work. From Jacobs` first trip to Spain, to the complex politics of Golden Age Madrid, to his meeting with the man who saved Las Meninas during the Spanish Civil war, via Jacobs` experiences of the sunless world of the art history academy, Jacobs` dissolves the barriers between the past & the present, the real & the illusory. Cut short by Jacobs` death in 2014, & completed with an introduction & coda of great sensitivity & insight by his friend & fellow lover of art, the journalist Ed Vulliamy, this visionary, meditative & often very funny book is a passionate, personal manifesto for the liberation of how we look at painting. ...

Michael Jacobs was haunted by Velazquez`s enigmatic masterpiece Las Meninas from first encountering it in the Prado as a teenager. In Everything is Happening Jacobs searches for the ultimate significance of the painting by following the trails of associations from each individual character in the picture, as well as his own memories of & relationship to this extraordinary work. From Jacobs` first trip to Spain to the complex politics of Golden Age Madrid, to his meeting with the man who saved Las Meninas during the Spanish Civil war, via Jacobs` experiences of the sunless world of the art history academy, Jacobs` dissolves the barriers between the past & the present, the real & the illusory. Cut short by Jacobs` death in 2014, & completed with an introduction & coda of great sensitivity & insight by his friend & fellow lover of art, the journalist Ed Vulliamy, this visionary, meditative & often very funny book is a passionate, personal manifesto for the liberation of how we look at painting. ...

Evie Wyld was a girl obsessed with sharks. Spending summers in the brutal heat of coastal New South Wales, she fell for the creatures. Their teeth, their skin, their eyes; their hunters & their victims. Everything is Teeth is a delicate & intimate collection of the memories she brought home to Engl&, a book about family, love & the irresistible forces that pass through life unseen, under the surface, ready to emerge at any point. ...

Just like it was taken for granted that houses could be abandoned & slowly decay, so it was taken for granted that people died in prisons, & that it was possible that no-one would really ever know the cause of death. This is the nature of totalitarianism. In 1993-94 Sigrid Rausing completed her anthropological fieldwork on the peninsula of Noarootsi, a former Soviet border protection zone in Estonia. Abandoned watch towers dotted the coast line, & the huge fields of the Lenin collective farm were lying fallow, waiting for claims from former owners, fleeing war & Soviet & Nazi occupation. Rausing`s conversations with the local people touched on many subjects: the economic privations of post-Soviet existence, the bewildering influx of western products, & the Swedish background of many of them. In Everything Is Wonderful Rausing reflects on history, political repression, & the story of the minority Swedes in the area. She lived & worked amongst the villagers, witnessing their transition from repression to freedom, & from Soviet neglect to post-Soviet austerity. ...

From 1993 to 1994, Sigrid Rausing completed her anthropological fieldwork on the penninsula of Noarootsi, a former Soviet border protection zone in Estonia. Abandoned watchtowers dotted the coastline, & the huge fields of the Lenin collective farm were laying fallow, waiting for claims from former owners who had fled war & Soviet & Nazi occupation. Rausing`s research focused on the loss of historical memory during the Soviet occupation, & the slow revival of an independent Estonian culture, including the recognition of the minority Swedes in Estonia. She lived & worked amongst the villagers, witnessing their transition from repression to independence, & from Soviet neglect to post-Soviet austerity. ...

**LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018**` Daisy Johnson is a new goddamn swaggering monster of fiction.` Lauren Groff Words are important to Gretel, always have been. As a child, she lived on a canal boat with her mother, & together they invented a language that was just their own. She hasn`t seen her mother since the age of sixteen, though
- almost a lifetime ago
- & those memories have faded. Now Gretel works as a lexicographer, updating dictionary entries, which suits her solitary nature.A phone call from the hospital interrupts Gretel`s isolation & throws up questions from long ago. She begins to remember the private vocabulary of her childhood. She remembers other things, too: the wild years spent on the river; the strange, lonely boy who came to stay on the boat one winter; & the creature in the water
- a canal thief?
- swimming upstream, getting ever closer. In the end there will be nothing for Gretel to do but go back. Daisy Johnson`s debut novel turns classical myth on its head & takes readers to a modern-day England unfamiliar to most. As daring as it is moving, Everything Under is a story of family & identity, of fate, language, love & belonging that leaves you unsettled & unstrung.



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An incisive investigation of China`s ideological development as it becomes an ever more aggressive player in regional & global diplomacy. For many years after Deng Xiaoping initiated the economic reforms that began in 1978 & led to its overtaking the USA as the world`s economic powerhouse, China maintained an attitude of false modesty about its ambitions. That diffidence has now been set aside. China has asserted its place among the global heavyweights, revealing its plans for pan-Asian geopolitical dominance by building up its navy, fabricating new islands to support its territorial claims in areas like the South China Sea, & diplomatically bullying smaller players. Underlying this shift in attitude is a strain of thinking that casts China`s present-day actions in historical terms. China is now once more on the path to restoring the glories of its dynastic past. Howard W. French demonstrates that if we can understand how that historical identity informs current actions
- in ways ideological, philosophical, & even legal
- we can learn to forecast just what kind of global power China intends to become
- & to interact wisely with the superpower.


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A highly entertaining read for anyone with even a passing interest in London`s history. This myth-busting book takes you on a great ride through history & the city`s character. Think that the tower that holds Big Ben is called St Stephen`s Tower? Think again
- it was called the Clock Tower until 2012 when it was renamed the Elizabeth Tower. Think that the Union Flag flying over Buckingham Palace means the Queen is home? Think again
- it means that she`s elsewhere, doing other Queenish things. Packed with details on real London history, it explodes a range of myths from the rumoured burial of Queen Boudica beneath platform 10 at King`s Cross to the lamp on Carting (or ` Farting`) Lane that runs on gas from the city`s sewers. Myths regarding London`s arts, entertainment, food, drink, kings & queens, traditions as well as politics are all covered, to give you a fascinating insight into the true capital.

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A fascinating & humorous read that debunks the surprising myths about the world we always believed. The latest addition to the popular Everything You Know series, this book will blow apart your beliefs in the world`s physical & social landscape, leaving you staggered by astounding facts about geography, nature, cities & the people who inhabit them. Indulge your curiosity & you`ll find a plethora of myths, legends & misquotes that have shaped the way you view the world today. Convinced the world is round? Think again! It`s actually flatter at the poles. Have the Sahara down as the world`s biggest desert? It`s actually Antarctica. Learn how the Mayans got it wrong when they predicted the world would end in 2012 & how a heatwave in 2003 led to a worldwide shortage of wine. Brimming with facts about the world, how it works & the way we live in it, this illuminating book will guide you through the minefield of misinformation to answer questions such as whether overpopulation could be solved by colonising space (only if we were prepared to bankrupt our planet in the process!), what is the shortest geographical name in the world (the answer is `A`, a district in Sweden & Norway meaning `river`), & why you shouldn`t measure earthquakes on the Richter scale. Discovering untruths about people & places, geography & the environment, Everything You Know About The World Is Wrong provides a hugely entertaining insight into the world we live in. ...

Madeline Whittier is allergic to the outside world. So allergic, in fact, that she has never left the house in all of her seventeen years. But when Olly moves in next door, & wants to talk to Maddie, tiny holes start to appear in the protective bubble her mother has built around her. Olly writes his IM address on a piece of paper, shows it at her window, & suddenly, a door opens. But does Maddie dare to step outside her comfort zone? ” Everything, Everything” is about the thrill & heartbreak that happens when we break out of our shell to do crazy, sometimes death-defying things for love. ...