In 'To Be or Not to Be' (1942), Ernest Lubitsch brought his legendary comic touch to the most unpromising situation: life in Nazi-occupied Poland. In this study, Peter Barnes considers what it is to make comedy out of tragedy.

We think our wealth today comes from productive corporations and workers, but they merely add icing to a cake baked long ago. In this provocative book, Peter Barnes argues that most of today's wealth is co-inherited from nature and past human efforts, not individually earned. If some of that co-inherited wealth were placed in trust for each of us, living and yet-to-be born – creating what Barnes calls “universal property” – capitalism would be fundamentally transformed.As Barnes no...

Set in medieval Italy during a crisis in the Church, Sunsets and Glories is "a work of the highest and most thrilling theatrical energy" (Independent on Sunday)Sunsets and Glories is set in the late thirteenth-century Italy where power struggles between Church and State inspire such characters as the spineless Charles 11, paid killer Montefelto and 'madwoman' Maifreda. Into this maelstrom steps Peter de Morrone, the saintly Pope Celestine V, provoking a bitter crisis of faith in th...

Andrew never meant to change his life. He was just trying to get home.Cutting across a dark field after a long night, he crashes into something that shouldn't be there — a smooth, silent object half-buried in the ground. No lights. No markings. No explanation.Just … wrong.By morning, the mystery has only deepened. And when the truth finally reveals itself, it brings with it something far stranger than Andrew could ever have imagined — and an opportunity he can't aff...

Etonians aren't exactly noted for their grey matter, but I've always found them perfectly adjusted to society.Jack, a possible paranoid schizophrenic with a Messiah complex, inherits the title of the 14th Earl of Gurney after his father passes away in a bizarre accident. Singularly unsuited to a life in the upper echelons of elite society, Jack finds himself at the centre of a ruthless power struggle as his scheming family strives to uphold their reputation.Bubblin...

An RSC commission to commemorate the first celebration of Shakespeare's life and worksA mischievous satire on the foundation of the Shakespeare industry: In 1769, when David Garrick staged the first theatre festival to celebrate the life of Stratford's most famous son, little did he realise the impact it would have on the future livelihood of the small Warwickshire market town. Peter Barnes' ironic and irreverent new comedy dissects the cult of the theatrical personality, with gues...

Charlie Glover has spent a lifetime surviving by one rule: trust no one.Working in the shadows of London's criminal underworld, he keeps people at arm's length and emotions locked away. It is a life built on routine, discipline, and the certainty that nothing lasts forever.Then Mee arrives.Quiet, perceptive and endlessly curious, she begins to dismantle Charlie's carefully ordered world one cup of tea, one impossible conversation and one summer afternoon at a time. ...

The collection of lectures and publications from the Schumacher Center for a New Economics represents some of the foremost voices on a new economics.Peter Barnes avers that we are no longer in the Holocene epoch, but in the Anthropocene epoch, an era in which humans are "a, if not the, dominant geological force on our planet," and thus we cannot continue with business as usual. Barnes argues that the best means to achieve the goal of an economic system that provides an adequate inc...

When neonatal monitors across Europe begin to fall silent, Dr Isla Muir hears something no one else can.In the neonatal ward of an Aberdeen hospital, a strange harmonic hum threads through flatlined EEGs — not random noise, but a pattern. A rhythm. A voice. As governments rush to suppress the anomaly and colleagues urge restraint, Isla follows the sound into forbidden data, hidden networks, and the fragile minds of sleeping infants who seem to be learning something new together.

There are many books which set out the case for Islam or for Christianity and point out what they regard as defects in the other religion. This book does that, but it seeks to do so in the form of a workbook which groups of Christians or Muslims might use, and it is conducted in a spirit where truth is paramount but so too is kindness and civility. The two authors have become friends and hope that this can be detected in the exchanges. As the major doctrines of each religion are dealt with...

This issue of Clinics in Chest Medicine is Guest Edited by Peter J. Barnes FRS, FMedSci from Imperial College London and will fosus on COPD. Article topics include epidemiology, pathophysiology, cellular and molecular mechanisms and comorbidities of COPD, diagnosis and phenotype of COPD, pulmonary rehabilitation, asthma and COPD, biomarkers, bronchodilators, non invasive ventialtion, and new drug therapies.

Once in a Blue Moon is the story of one man's never-ending affair with Manchester City. Be it playing, watching or managing, Steve 'Worthy' Worthington's life in football has never been easy. Having suffered an almost fatal road accident in the week before his ninth birthday, any aspirations for glocal stardom as a player were crushed beneath the wheels of a speeding Triumph Spitfire in 1971. As a spectator he fared no better. Over the years Manchester City and En...