The author takes us from the Globe of Shakespeare to the modern Globe on the South Bank. He describes the bad times during the Commonwealth when the theatres were closed & public entertainment banned, & explores the conditions that gave rise to the theatre-building spree of the 19th century, the formation of the National Theatre & the abolition of the Lord Chancellor's power of censorship in 1968. This well-illustrated book

Includes:: a survey of the actors, directors, entrepreneurs, playwrights & architects over the centuries, who made London an international centre of theatre.

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Narrated by the twin voices of the artist Butcher Bones, & his `damaged two-hundred-&-twenty-pound brother` Hugh, Theft: A Love Story once again displays Peter Carey`s extraordinary flair for language. Ranging from the rural wilds of Australia to Manhattan via Tokyo, it is a brilliant & moving exploration of art, fraud, responsibility & redemption. ...

When Janie, at sixteen, is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two stifling marriages before meeting the man of her dreams, who offers not diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds.. .` For me, THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD is one of the very greatest American novels of the 20th century. It is so lyrical it should be sentimental; it is so passionate it should be overwrought, but it is instead a rigorous, convincing & dazzling piece of prose, as emotionally satisfying as it is impressive. There is no novel I love more` Zadie Smith ...

” Ian Buruma`s maternal grandparents were born into the same world: children of German-Jewish emigre stockbrokers living in London. But at the demand of his parents, Ian`s grandfather, the dutiful son, broke up with his fiancee by letter just before leaving for the Western Front during World War One, where he served as a stretcher bearer in the Battle of the Somme. It was the first great shock their romance would suffer, but their love would survive it. Bernard (` Bun`) & Winifred (` Win`) Schlesinger were married for more than sixty years, but the heart of their story lies within the span of the two world wars. This is the moving story of an assimilated Jewish family in unhappy times. With the outbreak of war in 1939, the Schlesingers began to face the real prospect that the Nazis could defeat England & place their family`s survival in question. Nonetheless, they helped twelve Jewish children escape from Nazi Germany & gave them new lives in Britain. Drawn into service during World War Two, Bun was stationed in India as a military doctor. No matter what else befell them, Win & Bernard sustained a remarkably consistent stream of letters back & forth between England & India, averaging a letter every other day, & filling their correspondence with vivid accounts of wartime activity. Back home, Win struggled through wartime privation & the Blitz to hold her family together. Through courage & imagination, she cast a spell over her children that kept fear & horror at bay. Their Promised Land is Ian Buruma`s spellbinding homage to the sustaining power of a family`s love & devotion through very dark days.” ...

Ian Buruma`s maternal grandparents, Bernard & Winifred (Bun & Win), wrote to each other regularly throughout their life together. The first letters were written in 1915, when Bun was still at school at Uppingham & Win was taking music lessons in Hampstead. They were married for more than sixty years, but the heart of their remarkable story lies within the span of the two world wars. After a brief separation, when Bernard served as a stretcher bearer on the Western Front during the Great War, the couple exchanged letters whenever they were apart. Most of them were written during the Second World War & their correspondence is filled with vivid accounts of wartime activity at home & abroad. Bernard was stationed in India as an army doctor, while Win struggled through wartime privation & the Blitz to hold her family together, including their eldest son, the later film director John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy, Sunday Bloody Sunday), & twelve Jewish children they had arranged to be rescued from Nazi Germany. Their letters are a priceless record of an assimilated Jewish family living in England throughout the upheavals of the twentieth century & a moving portrait of a loving couple separated by war. By using their own words, Ian Buruma has created a spellbinding homage to the sustaining power of a family`s love & devotion through very dark days ...

Theme parks are a uniquely interactive & enduring form of entertainment that have influenced architecture, technology & culture in surprising ways for more than a century, as Scott Lukas now reveals in his compelling book. ” Theme Park” takes the primitive amusements of pleasure gardens as its starting point & launches from there into a rich, in-depth investigation of the evolution of the theme park over the twentieth century. Lukas examines theme parks in countries around the world including the United States, UK, Europe, Japan, China, South Africa & Australia & how themed fairs & parks developed through diverse means & in a variety of settings. The book examines world-famous & lesser-known parks, including the early parks of Coney Isl&, a series of World Fairs & their luxurious exhibition halls, Six Flags parks & virtual theme parks today, &, of course, Disneyland & Walt Disney World. Lukas analyses the theme park as a living entity that unexpectedly shapes people, their relationships & the world around them. Ultimately, ” Theme Park” reveals, the wider influence of theme parks can be found in the shopping malls, branded stores & casinos that employ the techniques of amusement parks to dominate our current entertainment world. Packed with captivating illustrations, ” Theme Park” takes us on a historical roller-coaster ride that both reanimates the places that shaped our childhoods & anticipates the future of escapism & fantasy fun. ...

It was 9.22, the moment when everything stopped. First there was the burning air, then came the darkness, the fire, & finally the frost. Now, in a frozen, wasted London, a woman
- uncertain even of her own name
- is fighting to stay alive. Along with a small group of fellow survivors, she takes refuge in an abandoned skyscraper in what was once the financial centre. But spectres stalk the empty offices & endless corridors, & soon visions of a forgotten world emerge, a world of broken love & betrayal, & horrific, shocking mercies
- a world more traumatic even than the desolate present. Then is a novel of singular invention & bravery. With it, Julie Myerson has created an echo chamber of the heartbreaking & the terrifying, & an enduring apocalyptic vision.


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For fans of Lorna Sage & Paula Fox, a unique memoir from Irma Kurtz, the acclaimed author of ` The Great American Bus Ride` & internationally renowned agony aunt. ”A girl of indisputable gifts, she should of course use them someday to make a beautiful home & raise a family in elegant surroundings...” School psychologist`s report on Irma Kurtz, 1950. In 1954 eighteen-year-old Irma Kurtz left New Jersey to travel across Europe, intent on transforming herself & changing the world. She looked to the Old World for an alternative destiny to that mapped out by the traditional expectations at home. On her post-war Grand Tour she found what she believed in: Art & Culture & Beauty & Love, & some horror as a Jewish girl encountering the seat of much of her family`s destruction. Years later, sifting through a cardboard box filled with memories at her mother`s house, she rediscovered the journal of her first journey, the one that marked the beginning of a life of writing & living abroad. Gripped by intense recollections of sailing across the Atlantic, & intrigued by the exuberant remarks of her adventurous younger self, she decided to leave her London home & retrace her footsteps, this time with herself as a guide. Testing her theory that older women are invisible, Kurtz`s journey is peppered with acute observations of human behaviour, not to mention some sharp advice for her ghostly travel companion, a teenager who thinks she knows it all, yet is blind to what lies ahead of her. Part-memoir, part-travelogue, this unique book contrasts the experience of two very different travellers, offering an insight into what has endured, & what has been lost, in the life of one woman & the altered environment of Europe at the dawn of a new millennium. Beautifully written, moving & funny, Then Again is time-travel at its best, revealing the pains & pleasures of growing older & wiser. ...

This stunning collection gathers never-before-seen poems, found by archivists in boxes kept at the Pablo Neruda Foundation ...

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