Experience how it feels to be the subject of a blasphemy prosecution! Find out why 'wool' is a funny word! See how jokes work their inner mechanisms revealed before your astonished face! In 2001 after over a decade in the business Stewart Lee quit st&-up disillusioned & drained & went off to direct a loss-making opera about Jerry Springer. How I Escaped My Certain Fate" details his return to live performance & the journey that took him from an early retirement to his position as the most critically acclaimed st&-up in Britain. Here is Stewart Lee's own account of his remarkable comeback told through transcripts of the three legendary full-length shows that sealed his reputation. Astonishingly frank & detailed in-depth notes reveal the inspiration & inner workings of his act. With unprecedented access to a leading comedian's creative process this book tell us just what it was like to write these shows develop the performance & take them on tour. " How I Escaped My Certain Fate" is everything we have come to expect from Stewart Lee: fiercely intelligent unsparingly honest & very funny." ...

In 1979 Sean Bull a bright nine-year-old lives an untroubled childhood with his extended family in the heart of the industrial Midlands. His dad & granddad role models work hard at the local steel foundries while his young uncle dabbles in politics & painting. Sean enjoys his school & football & caravan holidays in Wales but cant help listening in to the increasingly worrying conversation of the adults around him. When Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister she slowly begins to take away everything Sean loves. He decides that someones got to stop her. This sad comic novel captures the intensity of early 1980s Britain through the eyes of an unusual Black Country boy & offers an English twist on the most Latin American of genres the Dictator novel. ...

How I Live Now is an original & poignant book by Meg Rosoff. How I Live Now is the powerful & engaging story of Daisy the precocious New Yorker & her English cousin Edmond torn apart as war breaks out in London from the multi award-winning Meg Rosoff. How I Live Now has been adapted for the big screen by Kevin Macdonald starring Saoirse Ronan as Daisy & releases in 2013. Fifteen-year-old Daisy thinks she knows all about love. Her mother died giving birth to her & now her dad has sent her away for the summer to live in the English countryside with cousins she's never even met. There she'll discover what real love is: something violent mysterious & wonderful. There her world will be turned upside down & a perfect summer will explode into a million bewildering pieces. How will Daisy live then? Fresh honest rude funny. I put it down with tears on my face". (Julie Myerson Guardian). " Assured powerful engaging.. .you will want to read everything that Rosoff is capable of writing". (Observer). " An unforgettable adventure". (Sunday Times). Bestselling author Meg Rosoff has received great critical acclaim since the publication of her first novel How I Live Now (winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize). Her other novels Just in Case (winner of the 2007 Carnegie Medal) The Bride's Farewell & What I Was which was described by The Times as ' Samuel Beckett on ecstasy' are also available from Puffin. Follow Meg on Twitter @megrosoff. Also by Meg Rosoff: How I Live Now; Just In Case; What I Was; The Bride's Farewell; & There is No Dog." ...

It would be much easier to tell this story if it were all about a chaste & perfect love between Two Children Against the World at an Extreme Time in History. But lets face it that would be crap. Daisy is sent from New York to England to spend a summer with cousins she has never met. They are Isaac Edmond Osbert & Piper. & two dogs & a goat. Shes never met anyone quite like them before
- & as a dreamy English summer progresses Daisy finds herself caught in a timeless bubble. It seems like the perfect summer. But their lives are about to explode. Falling in love is just the start of it. War breaks out
- a war none of them understands or really cares about until it lands on their doorstep. The family is separated. The perfect summer is blown apart. Daisys life is changed forever
- & the world is too.


...

Its 1983 & in a sleepy community in New Jersey seventeen-year-old Edward Zanni is Peter Panning his way through a carefree summer of magic & mischief. However the fun comes to a halt when his father refuses to pay for Edward to study acting at Julliard. Edwards truly in a bind. Hes ineligible for scholarships because his father earns too much. & in a sure sign that hes destined for a life in the arts Edwards incapable of holding down a job. So he turns to his loyal (but immoral) friends to help him steal the tuition fees from his father all the while practising for their high school performance of Grease. Disguising themselves as nuns & priests they merrily scheme their way through embezzlement money-laundering identity theft forgery & blackmail. But along the way Edward also learns the value of friendship hard work & how youre not really a man until you can beat up your father metaphorically or otherwise. ...

Paris 4 July 2003: My first Tour de France. I had never seen a bike race. I had only vaguely heard of Lance Armstrong. I had no idea what I was doing there. Yet that day I was broadcasting live on television. I fumbled my way through a few platitudes before summing up with the words.. . Dave Millar just missing out on the Yellow Jumper". Yes the Yellow Jumper. Follow Ned Boultings (occasionally excruciating) experiences covering the worlds most famous two-wheeled race. His story offers an insiders view of what really goes on behind the scenes of the Tour. From up-close-&-personal encounters with Lance Armstrong to bewildered mishaps with the local cuisine Neds been there done that & got the crumpled-looking t-shirt. Eight Tours on from Neds humbling debut he has grown to respect mock adore & crave the race in equal measure. Whats more he has even started to understand it. It

Includes:: " How Cav Won the Green Jersey: Short Dispatches from the 2011 Tour de France"."

...

How It All Began" is the wonderful new novel from Booker Prize winner Penelope Lively. When... Charlotte is mugged & breaks her hip her daughter Rose cannot accompany her employer Lord Peters to Manchester which means his niece Marion has to go instead which means she sends a text to her lover which is intercepted by his wife which is.. .just the beginning in the ensuing chain of life-altering events. In this engaging utterly absorbing & brilliantly told novel Penelope Lively shows us how one random event can cause marriages to fracture & heal themselves opportunities to appear & disappear lovers who might never have met to find each other & entire lives to become irrevocably changed. Funny humane touching sly & sympathetic " How It All Began" is a brilliant sleight of hand from an author at the top of her game. " Contains some of Livelys funniest & most enjoyable character studies.. .she remains a sublime storyteller". (" Guardian"). " Deeply comical essentially kind-hearted wonderfully written & seasoned with a rare wisdom". (" Literary Review"). " More stylish than many writers half her age... Lively knows a thing or two about storytelling.. .her candour is refreshing & reminds us that you dont have to lie to yourself to live life finely until the very end". (" The Times"). Penelope Lively is the author of many prize-winning novels & short-story collections for both adults & children. She has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize: once in 1977 for her first novel " The Road to Lichfield" & again in 1984 for " According to Mark". She later won the 1987 Booker Prize for her highly acclaimed novel " Moon Tiger". Her other books include " Going Back"; " Judgement Day"; " Next to Nature Art"; " Perfect Happiness"; " Passing On"; " City of the Mind"; " Cleopatras Sister"; " Heat Wave"; " Beyond the Blue Mountains" a collection of short stories; " Oleander Jacaranda" a memoir of her childhood days in Egypt; " Spiderweb"; her autobiographical work "A House Unlocked"; " The Photograph"; " Making It Up"; " Consequences"; " Family Album" which was shortlisted for the 2009 Costa Novel Award & " How It All Began". She is a popular writer for children & has won both the Carnegie Medal & the Whitbread Award. She was appointed CBE in the 2001 New Years Honours List & DBE in 2012. Penelope Lively lives in London." ...

Kirsty Jenkins adores the allotment her grandfather lovingly tends & just before he dies he asks Kirsty to look after it for him. But when horrible Mr Thomas from the council insists it must go to the next person on the waiting list Kirsty is determined to find a way to keep her promise. After pleading with Mr Thomas & demonstrating at the council offices Kirsty & her half-siblings undertake their most daring plan of all: to 'borrow' the stuffed elephant from the museum that Mr Thomas loves so much in a last-ditch attempt to gain his attention & understanding. Perhaps this risky ruse might also shake Kirsty's dad from the quiet sadness he has fallen into ever since her grandfather died. A warm funny & moving novel about family relationships dealing with bereavement green beans & marrows. ...

In this fascinating survey of everything from how sounds become speech to how names work David Crystal answers every question you might ever have had about the nuts & bolts of language in his usual highly illuminating way. Along the way we find out about eyebrow flashes whistling languages how parents teach their children to speak how politeness travels across languages & how the way we talk show not just how old we are but where were from & even who we want to be. ...

A thoroughly updated edition of this prize-winning readable introduction to the main theories of first & second language acquisition. This book introduces you to some of the language acquisition research that will help you not just to evaluate existing materials but also to adapt & use them in a way that fits what we currently understand about how languages are learned. -Content including new research & new areas in pedagogy to provide an up-to-date & comprehensive overview of research in the field.-Chapter Preview s & Summaries with round-up questions.-Companion website with vodcasts content updates & shared user content.-Also available as an e-book. ...