Chatto & Windus Quilt on Fire. The Messy Magic of Midlife Уотсон Кристи

Politicians claim social mobility is real - a just reward for ambition and hard work. This book proves otherwise • From servants' children who became clerks in Victorian Britain, to managers made redundant by the 2008 financial crash, travelling up or down the social ladder has been a fact of British life for more than a century. Drawing on hundreds of personal stories, Snakes and Ladders tells the hidden history of how people have really experienced that social mobility - both upwards and down • It shows how a powerful elite on the top rungs have clung to their perch and prevented others ascending. It also introduces the unsung heroes who created more room at the top - among them adult educators, feminists and trade unionists, whose achievements unleashed the hidden talents of thousands of people

A powerful work of memoir and storytelling that will change the way we think about the natural world • Unearthed is the story of how Claire Ratinon found belonging through falling in love with growing plants and reconnecting with nature • Like many diasporic people of colour, Claire grew up feeling cut off from the natural world. She lived in cities, reluctant to be outdoors and stuck with the belief that success and status could fill the space where belonging was absent. Through learning the practice of growing food, she unpicked her beliefs about who she ought to be. Over her first year living in the English countryside and with the first vegetable patch of her own, she finds a pathway back to nature's embrace. And through growing the food of Mauritius, recording her parents' stories and exploring the history of the island, she also strengthens her connection to her homeland

Enlightenment Britain was ablaze with ambition and energy. Great writers like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Samuel Johnson, John Wilkes and Catharine Macaulay were part of a pioneering generation that shaped and inspired the American Dream. For the first time, bestselling historian Peter Moore vividly traces the transatlantic friendships and revolutionary ideas that inspired the Declaration of Independence • 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness' is the best-known phrase from that document, which was drafted by Thomas Jefferson in the summer of 1776. Today this line is evoked as a shorthand for that ideal we call the American Dream. But the vision it encapsulates – of a free and happy world – has its roots in Great Britain • This book tells the story of the years that preceded the Declaration

Рассказы, вошедшие в сборник Old Babes in the Wood, посвящены самым разным темам. Путешествия женатой пары; двое друзей, которые по-разному видят свое прошлое; правильный способ помочь человеку, если он подавился; дочь, которая пытается выяснить, является ли ее мать ведьмой; унаследованные мечи с парадов Второй мировой… • Герои рассказов – любимые кошки, запутавшаяся улитка, Марта Геллхорн, Джордж Оруэлл, философ-астроном-математик Гипатия, целая толпа пожилых женщин-ученых и инопланетянин, которому было поручено задание собирать человеческие сказки • Old Babes in the Woods – это сборник рассказов канадской писательницы Маргарет Этвуд, ее первое произведение со времен «Заветов». Используя свои превосходные творческие способности, Этвуд вызывает у читателей целый спектр эмоций

An intensely beautiful, profound and poetic biography of the formative years of the dark prince of rock ‘n’ roll, Boy on Fire is Nick Cave’s creation story, a portrait of the artist first as a boy, then as a young man. A deeply insightful work which charts his family, friends, influences, milieu and, most of all, his music, it reveals how Nick Cave shaped himself into the extraordinary artist he would become • A powerful account of a singular, uncompromising artist, Boy on Fire is also a vivid and evocative rendering of a time and place, from the fast-running dark rivers and ghost gums of country-town Australia to the torn wallpaper, sticky carpet and manic energy of the nascent punk scene which hit staid 1970s Melbourne like an atom bomb • Boy on Fire is a stunning biographical achievement

'Naomi Klein's work has always moved and guided me. She is the great chronicler of our age of climate emergency, an inspirer of generations' - Greta Thunberg • For more than twenty years Naomi Klein's books have defined our era, chronicling the exploitation of people and the planet and demanding justice. On Fire gathers for the first time more than a decade of her impassioned writing from the frontline of climate breakdown, and pairs it with new material on the staggeringly high stakes of what we choose to do next • Here is Klein at her most prophetic and philosophical, investigating the climate crisis not only as a profound political challenge but also as a spiritual and imaginative one. Delving into topics ranging from the clash between ecological time and our culture of 'perpetual now', to rising white supremacy and fortressed borders as a form of 'climate barbarism,' this is a rousing call to action for a planet on the brink

На страницах «Мира льда и пламени» читателей ждут новые подробности из истории Вестероса и лежащих за его пределами земель • Прошлое – это лишь пролог, и «Песнь льда и пламени», будучи самым масштабным и захватывающим фэнтезийным циклом современности, заслуживает пролог себе под стать. «Мир льда и пламени» – это предыстория, достойная такой культовой саги • Джордж Р.Р. Мартин в соавторстве с Элио Гарсией-младшим и Линдой Антонссон написал всеобъемлющую историю Семи королевств – историю эпических битв, ожесточенного соперничества и отчаянных восстаний, которые привели к событиям популярного цикла • В первый сборник вошли летописи, спекуляции историков и предания мейстеров и септонов, мэйг и певцов, а также более 170 цветных иллюстраций и карт, семейные древа Старков, Ланнистеров и Таргариенов и детальные описания культурных и исторических особенностей Вестероса

The malodorous horrors of Sports Day • Bracing yourself for Parents' Evening • Refereeing teenage relationship dramas • This is not what you see in the adverts • From the age of eight, Ryan Wilson dreamt of being a teacher. This is the inside story of his time at the chalkface, from fresh-faced trainee with grand ideals to exhausted assistant head battling ever-changing government demands. It is a tribute to the colleagues who befriended him and to the chaotic, brilliant, maddening students who inspired and enraged him. From Sean, the wannabe gangster with a soft heart, to David, the king of innuendo, and terrifyingly clever Amelia. And, above all, it's about the lessons they taught him: how to be patient and resilient, how to live authentically and how to value every day

The Penguin Book of Card Games is the authoritative up-to-date compendium, describing an abundance of games to be played both for fun and by serious players • Auctions, trumpless hands, cross-ruffing and lurching: card players have a language all of their own. From games of high skill (Bridge) to games of high chance (Newmarket) to trick-taking (Whist) and banking (Pontoon), David Parlett, seasoned specialist in card games, takes us masterfully through the countless games to choose from • Not content to merely show us games with the conventional fifty-two card pack, Parlett covers many games played with other types of cards - are you brave enough to play with Tarot? With a 'working description' of each game, with the rules, variations and origins of each, as well as an appendix of games invented by the author himself, The Penguin Book of Card Games will delight, entertain and inform both the novice and the seasoned player

The Romanticism that emerged after the American and French revolutions of 1776 and 1789 represented a new flowering of the imagination and the spirit, and a celebration of the soul of humanity with its capacity for love. This extraordinary collection sets the acknowledged genius of poems such as Blake's 'Tyger', Coleridge's 'Khubla Khan' and Shelley's 'Ozymandias' alongside verse from less familiar figures and women poets such as Charlotte Smith and Mary Robinson. We also see familiar poets in an unaccustomed light, as Blake, Wordsworth and Shelley demonstrate their comic skills, while Coleridge, Keats and Clare explore the Gothic and surreal

"The Ladybird Book of London" is a gem from the Ladybird vintage archive. First published in 1961, this is a classic Ladybird hardback book, packed with information about Britain's capital. This new edition is exactly the same as the original, with a dust jacket and beautifully reproduced images. The story of London, her sights and history, is illustrated with twenty-four beautiful full-page pictures. Starting from Trafalgar Square this book takes you through famous streets to see historic buildings, to learn something of the story of Britain's famous capital. Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral, the Tower, Guildhall and the City, Hampton Court and Kew Gardens, the Zoo and Madame Tussaud's - they are all here

'The Boy-scouts mistook my signal, and have killed the postman. I've had very little practice in this sort of thing, you see' • The British short story tradition is probably the richest, most varied and historically extensive in the world. This new anthology celebrates the full diversity and energy of its writers, subjects and tones, from the story's origins with Defoe, Swift and Fielding, to the 'golden age' of the fin de siecle and Edwardian period, ending with the First World War. Including the most famous authors as well as some magnificent, little-known stories never republished since their first appearance in magazines and periodicals, these stories are by turns topical and playful, ghostly and theatrical, rumbustious and sublime • Edited with an introduction by Philip Hensher