Shortlisted for the Theatre Book Prize; former prime minister John Major takes a remarkable journey into his own unconventional family past to tell the richly colourful story of the British music hall. Music hall was one of the glories of Victorian Engl&. Sentimental, vulgar, but patriotic & champion of the underdog, it held a mirror to the audiences` hopes, fears & the general absurdity of life. Vast, smoke-filled auditoriums were packed every night throughout Britain. Popular performers, such as Marie Lloyd & Vesta Tilley, were among the highest-paid & most celebrated figures in the l&. This was the world that John Major`s father Tom entered at the age of twenty-one as a comedian & singer. In ` My Old Man`, the former prime minister tells his father`s story as a springboard for an entertaining history of the music hall, from its origins in Elizabethan times through to its heyday in the nineteenth century & eventual decline with the rise of radio & cinema in the twentieth century. Packed with colourful anecdotes, this warm-hearted account captures a golden, bygone age of entertainment. ...

If you were asked to write about your father, what would you say? Florence Welch, Paul Weller, Nina Stibbe & the sons & daughters of Ian Dury, Johnny Ball, Roy Castle, Leonard Cohen & many others relate the quirks, flaws & quiet heroisms of their dads. By turns funny, tender & heartbreaking, My Old Man offers a unique opportunity to reflect on our own relationships with our dads
- who they really are, & how we come to understand ourselves through them.
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The fictional narrator of these memoirs, a man of many different guises, has reconstructed his past, giving it wit & life, tragedy & pathos, & imposed an order on it through careful editing. Life, it seems, has no apparent plot & so it can seem messier than fiction; sometimes it seems as if our hero is leading many different, separate lives.. .`A memoir; a collection of short stories; an assemblage of fables; an anthology of Theroux: a book in which he is everywhere present, as himself & as someone other.. . Endlessly inventive, beguiling, provocative & insidiously readable`
- ” Sunday Telegraph”.
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Ray Mears is a household name through his television series Tracks, World of Survival, Bushcraft Survival, The Real Heroes of Telemark & many more. He is a private individual who shuns publicity whenever possible & would prefer to let his many skills tell their own tale
- until now. In MY OUTDOOR LIFE, Ray tells of his childhood & the formative years when he first developed a passion for both bushcraft & the martial arts skills that are central to his life. Having travelled the world several times over, he is no stranger to risk & has had more than his fair share of dangerous & life-threatening encounters to share with his readers. But his life is so much more than a tale of derring-do. Shortly after he returned to England having narrowly survived a serious helicopter crash, his father died. Just a year later, he had to face the death of his first wife Rachel. The book conveys the many sides of Ray Mears, taking us up to the present day
- including the previously untold story of his involvement in the man-hunt for murderer Raoul Moat.MY OUTDOOR LIFE gives us all a chance to share a life-story as rich & as inspirational as a walk in woods with the man himself, Ray Mears.

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Vintage Feminism: classic feminist texts in short form WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JESS PHILLIPSSoldier, criminal, militant, hooligan, revolutionary: these labels Emmeline Pankhurst took up & wore proudly in her long struggle for women`s suffrage. This shortened edition of her autobiography tells the inside story of this struggle: the tireless campaigning, the betrayals by men in power, the relentless round of arrests & hunger strikes, the horror of force-feeding. It is a reminder of the controversial means, the indomitable spirit & the sacrifices of life & liberty by which women won their political freedom.ALSO IN THE VINTAGE FEMINIST SHORT SERIES: The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf A Room of One`s Own by Virginia Woolf ...

What will you pack in your suitcase? Can you spot the pilots rushing through the airport? How many planes are zooming down the runway? & what will you see up high in the sky? Filled with lots of different activities, from colouring to spot-the-difference, that are all about going on a plane journey. This book will keep you entertained for hours, so your journey will fly by. Get ready for take off! ...

Two hours ago I fell in loveand trembled, & tremble still, and haven`t a clue whom I should tell. Any hall she reads her poetry in is invariably filled to the gills. In Italy, Patrizia Cavalli is as beloved as Wislawa Szymborska is in Pol&, & if Italy were Japan she`d be designated a national treasure. The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben said of Cavalli that she has written `the most intensely ethical poetry in Italian literature of the 20th century`. One could add that it is, easily, also the most sensual & comical. Though Cavalli has been widely translated into German, French, & Spanish, she remains little known in Britain; My Poems Won`t Change the World is the first substantial gathering of translations of her work into the English language. The book is made up of poems from Cavalli`s collections published by Einaudi from 1974 to 2006, here translated by an illustrious group of poets including Mark Str&, Jorie Graham, Jonathan Galassi & Gini Alhadeff. Thoughtful, sly & full of life, these are poems of the self, the body, pasta, cats, the city traversed on foot or by car, &
- always, & above all
- love.

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The photographer Steve Bloom is off on another expedition, this time to see the animals living at the freezing poles: polar bears, penguins, whales & seals. The book follows Steves journey as he finds out how these animals survive day to day how they live, grow up, hunt & have babies. His on-location account & dramatic photography make for an exciting commentary. Each key animal polar bear, whale, penguin, albatross & seal appears in a 3 4-spread photograph & a close-up box feature that introduces facts. Within the diary narrative, information & photographs are presented in a visually exciting way, from letting the reader watch how a baby penguin grows into an adult, to seeing a roll call of the different kinds of penguin. There are feature boxes throughout, with tips for children who want to take their own photos of animals, & at the back of the book there are two spreads further explaining how to photograph animals in the wild or at home. ...

With interactive elements including pop-ups, flaps, booklets & pull-tabs, this book is an exciting introduction to people & cultures around the world. An exciting follow up to My Pop-Up City Atlas, My Pop-Up Atlas of People is full of facts to discover. From plush city high-rises to homes on the move, from daily routines to rites & rituals, this book is a treasure trove of information on where & how people live. ...

A bright, fun, fact-packed first atlas with detailed illustrations that little geographers will love to immerse themselves in. Each continent has its own spread, with pop-ups, flaps, booklets & pull-tabs to introduce readers to the world`s countries, inhabitants & most famous landmarks. Anita Ganeri wrote Scholastic`s best-selling Horrible Geography series, which won the Geographical Association Silver Award & the Blue Peter Award for the Best Book with Facts in 2009. ...