In 1971, Michael Blakemore joined the National Theatre as Associate Director under Laurence Olivier. The National, still based at the Old Vic, was at a moment of transition awaiting the move to its vast new home on the South Bank. Relying on generous subsidy, it would need an extensive network of supporters in high places. Olivier, a scrupulous and brilliant autocrat from a previous generation, was not the man to deal with these political ramifications. His tenure began to unravel and, beh...

Bringing producer and consumer debates together, Geographic Information: Value, Pricing, Production, and Consumption provides a coherent perspective on what have become emotional and territorial issues of IPR protection and liberation. This book addresses a range of issues relating to GI, from its definition, purpose, and use to how GI affects indi

Published under a pseudonym, J. K. Rowling's brilliant debut mystery introduces Detective Cormoran Strike as he investigates a supermodel's suicide in "one of the best books of the year" (USA Today), the first novel in the brilliant series that inspired the acclaimed HBO Max series C.B. Strike.After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, creditors...

This is the first complete biography of the last of the great British comedians, published to coincide with his 80th birthday in November 2007.

An engaging, wickedly funny and splendidly anecdotal memoir of a career spent among writers, agents, publishers and bookmen and women of every stripe.Jeremy Lewis's first memoir, 'Playing for Time', was hailed by James Lees-Milne as 'the funniest and best written book I've read for years.' His second, 'Kindred Spirits', was described by John Carey as 'sheer pleasure from start to finish'. Now he has written a third autobiographical account of his encounters with literary figures ov...

From the acclaimed writer of the beloved Clara Callan comes a beautifully crafted, charming portrait of the writing life. Combining his characteristic wit and self-deprecation with his extraordinary imagination and insight, Richard B. Wright has created a deeply affecting memoir that reads like a novel.As a small, watchful boy growing up in a working class family in Midland, Ontario, during the Second World War, Wright gradually discovered that he saw the world through dif...

Anna Quindlen first visited London from a chair in her suburban Philadelphia home—in one of her beloved childhood mystery novels. She has been back to London countless times since, through the pages of books and in person, and now, in Imagined London, she takes her own readers on a tour of this greatest of literary cities. While New York, Paris, and Dublin are also vividly portrayed in fiction, it is London, Quindlen argues, that has always been the star, both because of the primacy of Eng...

This deluxe edition of Helen ONeills award-winning book is a must for lovers of design. With stunning full-page prints of Florence Broadhursts distinctive fabric and wallpaper designs, together with gorgeous photographs of interiors from around the world using her amazing patterns, this is a beautiful book you will want to treasure. Florence Broadhurst led an extraordinary and eccentric life. She was born in 1899 to a farming family in rural Queensland and by 25 she had toured across Asia wit...

Why do authors write? How do they go about it? What is good writing?In On Writing, Robert McCrum collects together his questions and reflections on the nature of writing from his Observer newspaper column. In them he explores the sometimes tricky relationship between writing and commerce, looks at the state of modern literature, and asks where great writing really comes from can it be taught, or is it borne out of author experience?A unique and informed view on writing and how it is affected...

There are those who say - and Peter Cook himself was among them - that most of his humour was autobiographical. Others - and Peter Cook himself was among them -contend that this simply isn't the case. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle.Peter Cook made President Kennedy wait in line to see him and visited Elizabeth Taylor in her dressing room. He befriended tramps and fundraised for CND. He was capable of extraordinary kindnesses and occasional cruelties. He helped d...

The first publication from FIRST TUESDAY BOOK CLUB, this book is a collection of specially commissioned writing from selected guests on a book they have loved and treasured.first tuesday book club has been blessed with entertaining, inspiring and provocative guests. Now, a selection of wonderful authors and booklovers featured on the show comes together to reveal the books closest to their hearts. Some love classics-Jane Eyre anyone? A Moveable Feast? Anna Karenina? Some champion ne...

Florence Broadhurst, the one-time chanteuse of Shanghai, Bond Street salon owner, world-renowned wallpaper designer and Sydney socialite lived a life steeped in subterfuge and deception. Here for the first time we get a glimpse at the fascinating woman behind the hand-printed brocades.Late in the afternoon of 16 October 1977, seventy-eight year-old Florence Broadhurst was brutally murdered. Her killer was never found.The mystery surrounding Florence's death...