A new stage adaptation of the BAFTA-winning BBC drama and cultural landmark Our Friends in the North, adapted by original writer Peter Flannery.Marking thirty years since the series became a defining British drama, this adaptation revisits four Newcastle friends – Tosker, Geordie, Nicky and Mary – who come of age during the Thatcher years, a period of seismic political and social change, testing their friendships, ambitions and relationships.Premiered at Newcastle ...

Peter Flannery's adaptation of his own iconic BAFTA award winning TV series - with a brand new final episode by award-winning writer Adam Usden'A stunning state-of-the-nation social commentary' The TelegraphFirst broadcast in 1996, Our Friends in the North was one of the most highly acclaimed TV shows of the 1990s. It launched the careers of Daniel Craig, Christopher Eccleston, Gina McKee and Mark Strong, won nume...

Sometime this century, after 4 billion years, some of Earth's regulatory systems will pass from control through evolution by natural selection, to control by human intelligence. Will humanity rise to the challenge? This landmark essay by Tim Flannery is about sustainability, our search for it in the twenty-first century, and the impact it might have on the environmental threats that confront us today. Flannery discusses in detail three potential solutions to the most pressing of the sustai...

Terra preta is the Portuguese name of a type of soil which is thought to have almost miraculous properties. The newspapers are flooded with reports about black gold,” scientists believe that two of the greatest problems facing the world climate change and the hunger crisis - can be solved by it. The beauty of it is that everyone can do something about it because since 2005 the secret of producing this black soil has been revealed - and it is a secret that seemed to have been lost foreve...

An odyssey into life’s challenging questions during an unforgettable summer motorcycle tripAcclaimed as one of the most exciting books in the history of American letters, Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance became an instant bestseller upon its publication in 1974. A powerful examination of how we live, as well as a breath-taking meditation on how to live better, it tells the epic story of a father and son’s motorcycle trip across ...

Thirteen plays about human connection, from some of BBC Radio's best writers exploring love, family, romances and life's ups and downsThis diverse collection of stories centres around family dynamics, relationships both romantic and platonic, and the diverse ways ordinary people navigate the vicissitudes of everyday life.Ranging from modern fairy tales to coming-of-age dramas, they feature a wide variety of styles, and are scripted by an array of writers fr...

A rich evocation of a world poised on the brink of Stalin's Great Terror, based on the 1994 Oscar-winning film written by Nikita Mikhalkov and Rustam Ibragimbekov.General Kotov, decorated hero of the Russian Revolution, is spending an idyllic summer in the country with his beloved young wife and family. But on one glorious sunny morning in 1936, his wife's former lover returns from a long and unexplained absence. Amidst a tangle of sexual jealousy, retribution and remorseless polit...

A NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER • One of the most beloved books of our time: an illuminating account of the forest, and the science that shows us how trees communicate, feel, and live in social networks. After reading this book, a walk in the woods will never be the same again.“Breaks entirely new ground ... [Peter Wohlleben] has listened to trees and decoded their language. Now he speaks for them.”—

Revised and updated, this long-awaited second edition provides a comprehensive introduction to what the most thoughtful Americans have said about the American experience from the colonial period to the present. The book examines the political thought of the most important American statesmen, activists, and writers across era and ideologies, helping another generation of students, scholars, and citizens to understand more fully the meaning of America.This new second edition of the b...

In the 2016 CBC Massey Lectures, former Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General and international relations specialist Jennifer Welsh delivers a timely, intelligent, and fascinating analysis of twenty-first-century geopolitics.In 1989, as the Berlin Wall crumbled and the Cold War dissipated, the American political commentator Francis Fukuyama wrote a famous essay, entitled “The End of History,” which argued that the demise of confrontation between Communism and...

The New York Times–bestselling roadmap to resistance in the Trump era from the internationally acclaimed activist and author of On Fire and The Battle for Paradise.The election of Donald Trump is a dangerous escalation in a world of cascading crises. Trump's vision—a radical deregulation of the US economy in the interest of corporations, an all-out war on "radical Islamic terrorism," and a sweeping aside of climate science to unleash a do...

**Over a year on the New York Times bestseller list and more than a million copies sold.The essential universe, from our most celebrated and beloved astrophysicist.**What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There’s no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson.But today, few of us have time to contemplate th...