Stranger Than Kindness


Mark A. Radcliffe - 2013
    It is 1989 and Community Care is about to reboot the industry of psychiatry. In a soon-to-be-closed asylum a bruised nurse, Adam Sands, is feeling less like a purveyor of kindness and more like a concentration camp guard with every passing drink. Many years later Adam has got used to the quiet life when his past finds him. Maybe this time he can do some good. Even make a diference. But redemption, like magic, can come from the strangest of places.

Plays 1: 'Art' / Life x 3 / The Unexpected Man / Conversations After a Burial


Yasmina Reza - 2005
    In this sly critique of contemporary relationships, Reza skillfully picks apart the friendship of three men via a bowl of olives and a white-on-white painting. Now translated into more than 30 languages, Art continues to be performed worldwide, even as Reza's other plays have garnered similar acclaim. Life x 3, Reza's most recent offering, again highlights her satirical wit as two couples face off in three different versions of the dinner from hell. Praised as "compact, cool and clever" by Christopher Isherwood of Variety, Reza uses the acidic exchanges of her characters to illuminate their inner desire for love and acceptance. Also included in this edition are two earlier plays, The Unexpected Man and Conversations After a Burial. Each elucidates the startling difference between public and private life, be it in the confines of a train compartment or a country estate in the aftermath of a loved one's passing.

Sadler's Birthday


Rose Tremain - 1991
    Or is it? He's not sure, he doesn't really care. It might be his last day or the beginning of a new chapter in his life. He must find the key to his old room. He knows the truth about his past lies there and somehow he must get in and confront it.Over a million Rose Tremain books sold‘A writer of exceptional talent ... Tremain is a writer who understands every emotion’ Independent I‘There are few writers out there with the dexterity or emotional intelligence to rival that of the great Rose Tremain’ Irish Times‘Tremain has the painterly genius of an Old Master, and she uses it to stunning effect’ The Times'Rose Tremain is one of the very finest British novelists' Salman Rushdie‘Tremain is a writer of exemplary vision and particularity. The fictional world is rendered with extraordinary vividness’ Marcel Theroux, Guardian

Blood Brothers


Willy Russell - 1985
    She gives one of them away to wealthy Mrs Lyons and they grow up as friends in ignorance of their fraternity until the inevitable quarrel unleashes a blood-bath. 'Willy Russell is less concerned with political tub-thumping than with weaving a close-knit story about the working of fate and destiny … it carries one along with it in almost unreserved enjoyment" Guardian One of the longest-running and most successful ever West End musicals, Blood Brothers premiered at the Liverpool Playhouse in January 1983.

Gandhi (The Oxford Bookworms Library, stage #4)


Rowena Akinyemi - 2010
    and he began to fight in a way the world had not seen before - not with weapons, and wild crowds, and words of hate, but with the power of non violence. This is the story of a man who become the Father of the Nation in his own country of India, and great leader for the whole world. [Word count 17,000]

The Wild Life of Sailor and Lula


Barry Gifford - 1996
    As Elmore Leonard said of him, "Gifford cuts right through to the heart of what makes a good novel readable and entertaining . . . the way Barry Gifford does it, it's high art."

Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard


Ben Crystal - 2008
    He wrote too much and what he did write is inaccessible and elitist. Right? Wrong. "Shakespeare on Toast" knocks the stuffing from the staid old myth of Shakespeare, revealing the man and his plays for what they really are: modern, thrilling and uplifting drama. Actor and author Ben Crystal brings the bright words and colourful characters of the world's greatest hack writer brilliantly to life, handing over the key to Shakespeare's plays, unlocking the so-called difficult bits and, astonishingly, finding Shakespeare's own voice amid the poetry.Told in five fascinating Acts, "Shakespeare on Toast" sweeps the cobwebs from the Bard - from his language, his life, his time - revealing both the man and his work to be relevant, accessible and full of beans. This is a book for everyone, whether you're reading Shakespeare for the first time, occasionally find him troublesome, think you know him backwards, or have never set foot near one of his plays but have always wanted to ...It's quick, easy and good for you. Just like beans on toast.

Macbeth: A Novel


A.J. Hartley - 2011
    In this full-length novel written exclusively for audio, authors A. J. Hartley and David Hewson rethink literature’s most infamous married couple, grounding them in a medieval Scotland whose military and political upheavals are as stark and dramatic as the landscape on which they are played.Macbeth is a war hero and a patriot, doing everything in his power to hold together Duncan’s crumbling kingdom, which is beset by sedition from within and with threats from overseas. But when Duncan, contrary to ancient Scottish tradition, turns to building a family dynasty instead of rewarding those who have borne the brunt of the fighting, Macbeth and his powerful wife, Skena, make plans of their own, plans designed to hold both the nation and their strained relationship together. Sinister figures who claim supernatural knowledge spur them on, but the terrible outcome is as much about accident and failure as it is malevolence. Soon Macbeth and his wife find themselves preeminent in all the land, but struggling to hold themselves and their country together as former friends turn into bitter and deadly enemies.This is Macbeth as you have not heard it before: fresh, edgy, and vital. It is a story of valor in battle, whispering in shadows, witchcraft in the hollows of an ancient landscape, and the desperate struggle of flawed people to do what they think is right.ABOUT THE AUTHORSA. J. Hartley, a professor of Shakespeare at the Univ. of North Carolina-Charlotte, is the author of the “Will Hawthorne” fantasy series as well as several thrillers. David Hewson is the best-selling author of 16 novels, including the Rome-based “Nic Costa” crime series.ABOUT THE NARRATORAlan Cumming stars in CBS's The Good Wife, for which he received an Emmy nomination, and is the host of PBS’s Masterpiece Mystery. He was honored with the 2011 Audie Award for Best Male Narrator.The Irish folk song “She Moved Through the Fair” is performed by Heather O'Neil of the Irish Repertory Theater.

Motortown


Simon Stephens - 2006
    He visits an old flame, buys a gun and goes on a blistering road trip through the new home front.'I don't blame the war. The war was alright. I miss it. It's just you come back to this.'Written during the London bombings of 2005, Motortown is a fierce, violent and controversial response to the anti-war movement - and to the war itself. Chaotic and complex, powerful and provocative, Simon Stephen's new play portrays a volatile and morally insecure world.Motortown premieres at the Royal Court Theatre on 21 April 2006. It follows the critically acclaimed On the Shore of the Wide World (Manchester Royal Exchange/National Theatre), winner of the Olivier Award for Best New Play (2005).

Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight: A Comedy in Three Beds


Peter Ackerman - 2000
    Ever been racially slurred in the sack? Ever been subjected to strangers yelling at you at 3am about the most intimate details of your life? Ever been to New York? Six characters from wildly different backgrounds make love, war and hysteria late one night in the cultural, sexual and generational smorgasbord that is Manhattan.

Sacrifice


Rabindranath Tagore - 2012
    This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ]+++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Sacrifice: And Other Plays Rabindranath Tagore The Macmillan company, 1917 Drama

The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays


Oscar Wilde - 1898
    Manners and morality are also victims of Wilde's sharp wit in Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband, in which snobbery and hypocrisy are laid bare. In Salomé and A Florentine Tragedy, Wilde makes powerful use of historical settings to explore the complex relationship between sex and power. The range of these plays displays Wilde's delight in artifice, masks and disguises, and reveals the pretentions of the social world in which he himself played such a dazzling and precarious part.Richard Allen Cave's introduction and notes discuss the themes of the plays and Wilde's innovative methods of staging. This edition includes the excised 'Gribsby' scene from The Importance of Being Earnest.

Gangs of Bombay: From Failing a Million-Dollar Startup to Creating a Criminal Empire


Divyansh Mundra - 2019
     When the million-dollar stock prediction startup of Lakshya and Naman (two brilliant IIT-grads) tanks; they are taken in by Manav, their college friend who makes a living out of selling drugs. Debt-ridden and homeless, the two decide to help their friend in selling ‘The Holy Grail’, the newest drug in the Indian markets which is sold for margins never heard before, and the three end up making the quickest money they have seen. Lured and intrigued, they decide to sell and make as much as possible in two months before leaving the drug trade for good, and in that time, they expand their drug enterprise under Lakshya’s guidance by applying their startup strategies. Unknown to them though, they cross paths with the five infamous historical gangs of Bombay, who’ve survived and thrived since the British occupation of the city. Artavardiya, the powerful boss of the Parsi gang Surtis, takes interest in Lakshya and his drug enterprise after being charmed by his brilliance and vision. He takes him under his guidance and that is when Lakshya is able to gauge the extent to which the criminal underbelly of Mumbai is spread, spiralling down and knowing in his heart that he’d never be able to escape. In a tale of gang-wars and blood, love and loss, loyalty and betrayal, and mind-numbing revelations spread amidst brutal action and insane twists— explore the crime of the city that never sleeps. Will Lakshya and his friends expand their drug business like a startup? Will they succeed in dealing with mind-games and bullets of the five historical gangs of Mumbai? Will they survive the trials of their personal lives while the demons of their pasts try to catch up with them? And will these brilliant minds fall against the richest crime syndicates of the country? Read the crime-thriller that would keep you on the edge of your seats, about a few brilliant minds who lost their million-dollar startup and turned their skills to create a criminal empire.

Adrift


Greg Curtis - 2020
     After that he had been rescued by more aliens! But only to be dumped on an alien planet in an alien galaxy and left to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. But there was nothing to figure out. The sights were indescribable. The smells intolerable. The food – even the stuff that was supposedly safe to eat – inedible. And the people unimaginable. There was only one thing he knew. He wanted to go home. And if the aliens wouldn't take him back to Earth, then he would just have to buy a spaceship and damn well fly himself back there!

The Blue Room


David Hare - 1998
    It was only when Max Ophuls made his famous film in 1950 that the work became better known as La Ronde. Now David Hare has reset these circular scenes of love and betrayal in the present day, with a cast of two actors playing a succession of characters whose sexual lives enmesh like a daisy chain. The Blue Room is a meditation on men and women, sex and social class, actors and the theater. With deft insight about the gap between the sexes, The Blue Room takes the treacherous Freudian subject of projection and desire and reinvents it in a bittersweet landscape that is both eternal and completely up-to-date.