We are living in a very difficult time. The United States is greatly polarized. Important institutions are failing. People have lost confidence in the government. The country is in decline.What are the indications of decline? How did we get here? Which divisions are most harmful to the country? Can these trends be reversed? Can the divisions he healed? What can we do about it?In this book James F. Booth answers these questions and many more.

What is it to do justice to the absent victims of past injustice, given the distance that separates us from them? Grounded in political theory and guided by the literature on historical justice, W. James Booth restores the dead to their central place at the heart of our understanding of why and how to deal with past injustice. Testimonies and accounts from the race war in the United States, the Holocaust, post-apartheid South Africa, Argentina’s Dirty War and the conflict in Northern Irela...

A revelatory, intimate, and sympathetic study of Philip Larkin, an iconic poet and a much misunderstood man, offering fresh understanding of the interplay of his life and work.Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is one of the most beloved poets in English. Yet after his death a largely negative image of the man himself took hold; he has been portrayed as a racist, a misogynist and a narcissist. Now Larkin scholar James Booth, for seventeen years a colleague of the poet's at ...

_______________'Superb … Booth's psychology is subtler than Motion's and more convincing' - Peter J. Conradi, Spectator'Booth's diligence is unquestionable and even readers who think they know the poems will see nuances they had previously missed … should render further attention by biographers superfluous for several years' - Guardian'Those of us who never warmed to Larkin the man or poet,...

A six-part BBC Radio 4 crime drama set in nineteenth-century LondonIt is 1830, a year after Sir Robert Peel’s creation of the Metropolitan Police, known as the 'Peelers'. As the brand new bobbies patrol the beat in their smart blue uniforms, armed only with truncheons and rattles, they form the first line of defence against crime.But as this thrilling series opens, the fledgling detective force is proving unpopular, sparking deep political unrest and public...

Never has contemporary fiction been more widely discussed and passionately analysed; recent years have seen a huge growth in the number of reading groups and in the interest of a non-academic readership in the discussion of how novels work. Drawing on his weekly Guardian column, 'Elements of Fiction', John Mullan examines novels mostly of the last ten years, many of which have become firm favourites with reading groups. He reveals the rich resources of novelistic technique, settingrecent f...

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...

In Two Minds is the first comprehensive biography of Jonathan Miller – the story of one of post-war Britain's most intriguing polymaths. Descended from immigrants who fled Tsarist anti-Semitism to become shopkeepers in Ireland and London's East End, Miller was born into an intellectual milieu, between Bloomsbury and Harley Street – the son of a novelist and a leading child psychiatrist. Miller trained as adoctor but then forged a career as a stellar comedian and as a world-renowned theatre...

The 700-year history of the novel in English defies straightforward telling. Geographically and culturally boundless, with contributions from Great Britain, Ireland, America, Canada, Australia, India, the Caribbean, and Southern Africa; influenced by great novelists working in other languages; and encompassing a range of genres, the story of the novel in English unfolds like a richly varied landscape that invites exploration rather than a linear journey. In The Novel: A Biography,...

The book offers a detailed commentary on the poetry of Philip Larkin, exploring the political and cultural contexts which have shaped his contemporary reputation. Part 1, Life and Times, traces Larkin's early years and follows his development, within his career as a university librarian, into one of the most important and popular voices in twentieth-century poetry. Part 2, Artistic Strategies, explores a range of methodologies and aesthetic influences by which Larkin was able to create poe...

Creative Writing is a complete writing course that will jump-start your writing and guide you through your first steps towards publication.Suitable for use by students, tutors, writers’ groups or writers working alone, this book offers:a practical and inspiring section on the creative process, showing you how to stimulate your creativity and use your memory and experience in inventive waysin-depth coverage of the most popular forms of writing, in ex...

Philip Larkin met Monica Jones at University College Leicester in autumn 1946, when they were both twenty-four; he was the newly-appointed assistant librarian and she was an English lecturer. In 1950 Larkin moved to Belfast, and thence to Hull, while Monica remained in Leicester, becoming by turns his correspondent, lover and closest confidante, in a relationship which lasted over forty years until the poet's death in 1985.This remarkable unpublished correspondence only came to lig...