Bob Marley: Lyrical Genius
Kwame Dawes - 2003
He was a performer who held true to his religious and cultural heritage, yet he is still awarded the status of world rock star. Renowned poet and scholar Kwame Dawes analyses in detail what his actual verses and lyrics meant when matched against the social and political climate of the time and what it meant to be a black man in the modern world.
How to Ruin Everything: Essays
George Watsky - 2016
The essays in How to Ruin Everything range from the absurd (how he became an international ivory smuggler) to the comical (his middle-school rap battle dominance) to the revelatory (his experiences with epilepsy), yet all are delivered with the type of linguistic dexterity and self-awareness that has won Watsky more than 765,000 YouTube subscribers. Alternately ribald and emotionally resonant, How to Ruin Everything announces a versatile writer with a promising career ahead.
Faces in the water
Ranjit Lal - 2010
The water from a magical well in their farmhouse was the reason behind this ‘good fortune’, they said. One day, fifteen-year-old Gurmi sets out to look for the well and what he sees changes everyone’s world forever. The faces of three girls look up at him from the water, and draw him into a world of fun, games and cyber magic—and Gurmi has to face up to an unnerving truth as murky as the surreal well. What terrible crimes have been committed behind the walls of the rambling Diwanchand family home? Will Gurmi and the ghost-girls be able to avenge the evil that has taken place and prevent yet another unspeakable atrocity from occurring? Funny, yet sensitive and immensely powerful, Faces in the Water is the story of lives lost to appease our society’s insatiable hunger for male children, and the price families pay for its sake.
The Essential Dave Allen
Graham McCann - 2005
Sitting cross-legged on a high stool, whiskey in one hand, cigarette in the other, Dave Allen's exasperated commentaries on the absurdities of modern life struck a chord with millions of fans in Britain, Ireland and Australia for over four decades. He was a compelling storyteller - able to spin shaggy dog stories out of the almost any subject, including the missing tip of his fourth finger of his left hand, for which he provided various unlikely explanations. But his gentle, laconic wit could also give way to ferocious attacks on the media, the state and, most famously, the Catholic Church. He was a unique talent - a comic who could make his audiences laugh, cry, and be shocked, all in one.This official celebration of Dave Allen's comedy has been drawn together by Graham McCann - Britain's best-loved entertainment writer. It is a treasure trove of stories, stand-up routines, sketches, interviews and photos, which takes us on a journey from the cradle to the grave. It will delight Dave Allen's million of fans, old and new alike.'Dave Allen was our greatest storyteller and nobody ever came close to his ability to spin a yarn. He was unique, right up there with the greats.' Jack Dee
The Ten Virgins: Ten Women, Ten Stories, Ten Lessons for Our Day
Emily Belle Freeman - 2006
In this beautifully illustrated volume, featuring all-new art by Simon Dewey, each of the Ten Virgins from the biblical account is given an identity and an individual story. Each is portrayed with a positive quality or virtue that would be characteristic of a wise virgin. But as their stories unfold and the struggles of their daily lives are revealed, each woman makes choices that ultimately determine whether she will be one of the five who are prepared with lamps trimmed and burning at the coming of the Bridegroom. With an effective blend of scripture and narrative, this expanded, illustrated treatment of the well-known parable allows readers to relate to the actions and motives of the Ten Virgins in a new way.
Making It
Jamie Scallion - 2013
The RockAteers are born. It must work, and not just for Burt’s sake. Egg has spent his life on the outside looking in, Tea needs to evade a tough future and Clipper wants more than a fast track to football academy. When Egg reveals his song-writing genius, the only way is up… But can they function as a band?Who will win the race to sign them? And who will win the girl?
The Book that Jack Wrote
Jon Scieszka - 1994
It's about what the Bug did to the rug. It's about how the Egg fell off the wall. It's about the crazy mayhem that can occur when nursery rhymes go awry. Children and adults alike will enjoy reading this book over and over. "This one will wow even the most sophisticated." --Kirkus Reviews, pointer review "Clever, madcap text. A twisted treat in rhyme and pictures." -- Children's Book Review Service Jon Scieszka is the author of many books for children, including the Caldecott Honor Book The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!, the Time Warp Trio series, and most recently Math Curse. Daniel Adel is an illustrator whose work has appeared in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Get Me the Urgent Biscuits: An Assistant's Adventures in Theatreland
Sweetpea Slight - 2017
In between mail-outs and making cups of coffee she meets the formidable producer Thelma Holt. Within a fortnight Thelma has stolen her, cancelled her audition for RADA, sent her to evening classes to learn to type, organised a miniscule salary and renamed her. From that moment she becomes Sweetpea. Her days are spent in an eccentric office where Alan Rickman or Vanessa Redgrave might pop in at any moment. Evenings are filled with the adrenaline of an opening-night performance or the chatter of a smart restaurant where casting for the next production is discussed. Existing somewhere between glamour and penury, Sweetpea finds herself surrounded by dynamic personalities and struggling to trust her own creative instincts. Over the years her apprenticeship takes in unusual demands, misbehaving actors, divinely inspired directors and a hot-air balloon ride with British theatre's finest. GET ME THE URGENT BISCUITS is a keenly observed memoir about the vanishing world of London's West End in the 1980s and 1990s, in which a young woman is swept into the orbit of a theatrical impresario. Shrewd, poignant and irresistibly funny, above all it is a coming-of-age story about the search for independence and an ode to the beguiling nature of theatre.
The Blue Stone: A Journey Through Life
Jimmy Liao - 2006
Breathtaking illustrations and a haunting story take readers on a wondrous voyage around the world. A large, beautiful blue stone is discovered in a forest. It is cut in half, and one half stays in the forest while the other starts on a long and mystical journey through many places, many owners, and many transformations. It begins as a statue of an elephant, admired by museum goers, and then becomes a carved bird residing in an elderly woman's garden. It becomes a moon, a cat, a necklace, and more, until it finally returns to the forest. The Blue Stone is a powerful tale of different life paths and possibilities, a longing for home, and love.Reading Level: Age 3 and Up
Employee of The Month And Other Big Deals
Mary Jo Pehl - 2011
With biting wit, bracing satire, and boundless good cheer, Mary Jo-distinguished member of the First Family of Circle Pines, Minnesota; she'll explain-takes you on a poignant, hilarious journey through the world of keepin' on. Dispatched from her Midwestern home state, then New York, Texas, and exotic points beyond, these very personal stories and essays, with illustrations by Len Peralta, reveal a warm, smart, funny writer who can spot the absurdities in what she deals with every day, and make her readers LOL at them. There's nobody else like Mary Jo Pehl. But then, there's nobody else like you, either. Hey, you two should get together! Read this book, and you will, my friend: you will.
Michael Rosen's A-Z: The best children's poetry from Agard to Zephaniah
Michael Rosen - 2009
From Agard to Zephaniah, the very best of children's poetry from the very best of children's poets appears in this wonderful and exciting anthology edited by Michael Rosen, the Children's Laureate.Coinciding with his laureateship and a very welcome public promotion of the need for children's poetry in our education system, this future classic for Puffin will delight readers young and old, and make the perfect gift.
B&Bers Behaving Madly at a Devon Seaside Guesthouse
Sharley Scott - 2019
Eccentric or challenging guests are the usual order of the day. But when a sinister man moves in across the road, the first ripples of unease appear.Katie has learned the hard way that a seaside idyll is never what it seems. She and Jason have worked hard at their marriage, but now she has other issues to tackle.While her new cleaner has proved to be a godsend, she comes with a complicated love life. Then there’s Katie and Jason’s daughters, Emily and Lucy, whose boomerang visits definitely have an ulterior motive.And what about the threatening man opposite who has taken an intense dislike to Shona, the madcap owner of the adjoining B&B. Shona’s life has always been chaotic, but now it’s verging on disaster.As the season moves on and guests come and go, Katie fears her daughters have been keeping secrets of their own, while Shona’s troubles come to a head.When the B&Bers are behaving madly, anything can happen. Can Katie weather the storm?
Camp Scoundrel: Doing what it takes to survive paradise
David Luddington - 2018
What Michael doesn’t expect, is to be put in charge of a group of offenders and sent to a remote location in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Spain to teach them survival skills as part of their rehabilitation programme. But Michael knows nothing at all about survival skills. He was sort of in the SAS, yes, but his shining record on the “Escape and Evasion” courses was more a testament to his computer skills than his ability to catch wildlife and barbecue it over an impromptu fire. Basically, he was the SAS’s techy nerd and only achieved that position as a result of a bet with a fellow hacker. Facing a stark choice between starvation or returning home to serve out their sentences, the group of offenders under Michael’s supervision soon realise that the only way to survive is to use their own unique set of skills – the kind of skills that got them arrested in the first place.