Almost one hundred years later, a groom-to-be prepares for his gay wedding.Queers celebrates a century of evolving social attitudes and political milestones in British gay history, as seen through the eyes of eight individuals.Poignant and personal, funny, tragic and riotous, these eight monologues for male and female performers cover major events - such as the Wolfenden Report of 1957, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the debate over the age of consent - through deeply affecting and personal rites-of-passage stories.Curated by Mark Gatiss, the monologues were commissioned to mark the anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which decriminalised homosexual acts in private between two men over the age of twenty-one. They were broadcast on BBC Four in 2017, directed and produced by Gatiss, and starring Alan Cumming, Rebecca Front, Ian Gelder, Kadiff Kirwan, Russell Tovey, Gemma Whelan, Ben Whishaw and Fionn Whitehead. They were staged at The Old Vic in London.This volume includes:The Man on the Platform by Mark GatissThe Perfect Gentleman by Jackie CluneSafest Spot in Town by Keith JarrettMissing Alice by Jon BradfieldI Miss the War by Matthew BaldwinMore Anger by Brian FillisA Grand Day Out by Michael DennisSomething Borrowed by Gareth McLean

    In 1942 Elizabeth Bynam Sanders was a young woman who left home under false pretenses and travelled to Our Lady of Victory, a home for unwed mothers in upstate New York. Shortly after surrendering her daughter for adoption, she returned to her life in Johnston County, North Carolina. She never married and never had another child of her own. This powerful and moving memoir speaks of the profound need for connection. It is a story about identity, the hunger we feel for a sense of belonging and the ineffable significance of blood.

    New York Underground takes readers through ingenious criminal escape routes, abandoned subway stations, and dark crypts beneath lower Manhattan to expose the city's basic anatomy. While the city is justly famous for what lies above ground, its underground passages are equally legendary and tell us just as much about how the city works.

    Internationally famous Czech photographer Jan Saudek is no exception, and equally as uncompromising in pursuit of his own unique vision. For over four decades Saudek has created a parallel photographic universe, a two-dimensional home full of longing, peopled with the most extraordinary characters and colored by desire. The timeless strength of his hand-tinted photographs lies in their poetic compositions and their forceful?at times ribald?pictorial language, with its overtones of medieval genre pictures and Baroque mythology. Rejecting the traditional beauty in his famous nude photographs, Saudek shows the distinctively different: old women, fat women, children; real people in tableaux vivants that remind us of everything from surreal early movies to fin-de-siecle carnival nights. They exist outside time, a uniquely colored and almost mythical theater of dreams. Covering his debut in the 1950s through his lesser-known work to recent images, this dazzling collection offers us the true "velvet revolution," fertile and unsettling images from the dreams we might still have. The author: Daniela Mr?zkov?, critic and editor of the Czech magazines Revue fotografie and Fotografie-Magaz?n, is the author of sixteen books on photography published in the Czech Republic and abroad, and the curator of around fifty photography exhibitions. She has been a member of international juries, and has authored film and television documentaries on photography and photographers. She hasfollowed Jan Saudek's work since his early years and is the author of Saudek's first Czech monograph, The Theatre of Life.

      Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852–1934) was the father of modern neuroscience and an exceptional artist. He devoted his life to the anatomy of the brain, the body’s most complex and mysterious organ. His superhuman feats of visualization, based on fanatically precise techniques and countless hours at the microscope, resulted in some of the most remarkable illustrations in the history of science. Beautiful Brain presents a selection of his exquisite drawings of brain cells, brain regions, and neural circuits with accessible descriptive commentary.   These drawings are explored from multiple perspectives: Larry W. Swanson describes Cajal’s contributions to neuroscience; Lyndel King and Eric Himmel explore his artistic roots and achievement; Eric A. Newman provides commentary on the drawings; and Janet M. Dubinsky describes contemporary neuroscience imaging techniques. This book is the companion to a traveling exhibition opening at the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis in February 2017, marking the first time that many of these works, which are housed at the Instituto Cajal in Madrid, have been seen outside of Spain.  Beautiful Brain showcases Cajal’s contributions to neuroscience, explores his artistic roots and achievement, and looks at his work in relation to contemporary neuroscience imaging, appealing to general readers and professionals alike.

    I referred them to Doctor Who's Tardis.'Frank Skinner wants you to read more poetry. Wait, wait - don't stop reading. Whether you're a frequent poetry reader or haven't read any since sixth form, Frank's infectious passion for language, rhythm and metre will win you over and provide you with the basic tools you need to tackle any poem.In this short, easy-to-digest and delightful book, Frank guides us through the twists and turns of 'Pad, pad' by Stevie Smith, a short, seemingly simple poem that contains multitudes of meaning and a deceptive depth of emotion. Revel in the mastery of Stevie Smith's choice of words, consider the eternal mystery of the speaker of the poem and be moved by rhyming couplets like you never have before.Give it a go. You never know, you might even enjoy it.

    This book, covering both the Cambridge IGCSE and O Level courses of the Cambridge syllabuses, draws extensively on real world examples to explore economic concepts, theories and issues. A number of activities, based on examples from qround the world, are designed to facilitate students' easy understanding of the contents. Principles and practices have been explained in simple language and lucid style to enhance the accessibility of the content to students whose first language is not English.

    came along, letters from New York City children to Santa Claus were destroyed, unopened, by the U.S. Post Office. Gluck saw an opportunity, and created the Santa Claus Association. The effort delighted the public, and for 15 years money and gifts flowed to the only group authorized to answer Santa’s mail. Gluck became a Jazz Age celebrity, rubbing shoulders with the era’s movie stars and politicians, and even planned to erect a vast Santa Claus monument in the center of Manhattan — until Gotham’s crusading charity commissioner discovered some dark secrets in Santa’s workshop. The rise and fall of the Santa Claus Association is a caper both heartwarming and hardboiled, involving stolen art, phony Boy Scouts, a kidnapping, pursuit by the FBI, a Coney Island bullfight, and above all, the thrills and dangers of a wild imagination. It’s also the larger story of how Christmas became the extravagant holiday we celebrate today, from Santa’s early beginnings in New York to the country’s first citywide Christmas tree and Macy’s first grand holiday parade. The Santa Claus Man is a holiday tale with a dark underbelly, and an essential read for lovers of Christmas stories, true crime, and New York City history.

    The only surviving member of this tragic ordeal was Ronald DeFeo Jr., who was later charged and convicted to six-life-sentences. Still, the evidence shows that Ronnie "Butch" DeFeo could not have killed all six of his family members by himself, while they lay sleeping in their beds. Thirteen months later, the Lutz family moved into the lavish Dutch Colonial home and moved out mysteriously after just 28-days with only the clothes on their backs, claiming that the house was haunted; they would never return! Then came a media frenzy and with the release of Jay Anson's runaway best selling book, "The Amityville Horror," which was later transformed into a blockbuster movie, the story became an international phenomenon. What really happened at 112 Ocean Ave. in Amityville? Mentally Ill in Amityville (MIA), is the true story of the events as they occurred, with exclusive interviews and official documents of these dramatic events. MIA is a must read for anyone who wants to know the complete story behind the most famous haunted house in the world

    French of Family Affair) "singing" songs by Bob Dylan, and tons more

    Many people think of them as "an awe-inspiring group of ascetic, fanatic, and inhuman supermen."Ernest R. Pope knew all too well how illusory this idea was. As senior correspondent for Reuters in Munich from 1936-1941, American Ernest Pope saw the cruel and outrageous behavior of Nazis in their native habitat. In Munich they ran wild, let their hair down, and indulged in every fantasy money and power could avail them. Pope has all the gossip...and the confirmed stories. HISTORY AS IT HAPPENED "I have seen the leading actors in the Nazi tragedy, playing their parts on the Bavarian stage. Long before the climax—the outbreak of the war—I knew what the denouement in Hitler's theater would be."Pope knew, saw, and/or interviewed all the top Nazis and dozens of lower-level officials, including some of Hitler's security. He saw the Nazis for what they were: a corrupt, debauched, all-to-human menace.Once back in the U.S., Pope let loose his frustration and ire at what he'd seen—but couldn't write about when he was reporting from Germany. With great humor and faced-paced prose, he writes of encounters with Hitler, Hess, Streicher, and many more.He was in Munich during the fated compromise with Chamberlain. He reported on the Nazi invasions of Austria and Czechoslovakia.He reported on Hitler's obsession with Dorothy van Bruck's "blitz-tease" and he knew Hitler's English girlfriend, Unity Mitford. AT THE CENTER OF ACTION Pope turns his savage wit and erudition on his former hosts. Fluent in Bavarian German dialect, Pope made many friends in Munich with citizens and officials alike. He heard jokes from Munichers that could get them thrown in a concentration camp and he poked fun at Nazis whenever he dared.On the Austrian border during Hitler's invasion of that country:Guard: “Heil Hitler! What are you doing here?” Pope: “Just enjoying the scenery.” Guard: “Why did you come to Kiefersfelden today?” Pope: “Well, I'll tell you. It's like this. I'm an American student, and I came to Munich when I read the fascinating travel prospectuses which invited me to ‘Visit the beautiful Alps.’ My friend and I have already seen the Alps at Garmisch, so we thought we might look at them today around Kufstein. They really are pretty, in spite of all the uniforms we didn't expect to find here. But I do think it is odd of you to ask me why I am here. For if I were walking in Central Park in New York, I would not expect a policeman to ask me why I wasn't feeding the pigeons in front of the Public Library.”You won't find another account like this of the Nazis in their favorite playground. INCLUDED CHAPTERS: DER FÜHRER AT PLAY MY FRIENDS THE GESTAPO PORTRAIT OF A NAZI GRAFTER HITLER DABBLES IN ART THE ONE-LEGGED BOSS OF BAVARIA CATHOLICISM IN THE NAZI CAPITAL LUNCH WITH JULIUS STREICHER And more Pope turns serious in the final chapters. As he left Germany, he knew he was saying goodbye to friends he would never see again.

    Betsy rejected the Hollywood pattern (no swimming pool or fancy car) and writes of being drawn to the Communist Party, of the coming of the blacklist that brought an end to the optimism of the thirties and forties, and of the terrifying moment when she found her own name on the list.And she makes us understand why she ultimately burst out of the cocoon of her idyllic marriage -- moving to Europe and coming into her own as an actress, winning the Golden Palm at Cannes for Marty, and falling in love with and marrying the director Karel Reisz.

    Like Polaroids framing the years of a troubadour and family man afflicted with an excess of self-awareness, these are stories without any clear good guys or bad guys. Instead, in each of these vignettes, you will find dysfunctional humans trying to do their best and bouncing off each other in the process.

    A man returns to his old haunts to avenge the death of his brother. A couple chooses to embrace their memories of a bygone era rather than live in a diminished future.These are stories of a New York almost lost but not forgotten. They read like messages from a vanished age, brimming over with nostalgia (which Hamill has called the most common New York emotion), for the world after the war, the city before heroin and crack, the days of the Dodgers and Giants, even, for some, the world of the Depression.Full of pieces that have been unavailable for years, this collection is classic Hamill -- a must-read for his fans, for those who love New York, and for anyone who seeks to understand the world today through the lens of the world that once was.

    Bank Street, a short strip of elegant brownstones and humble tenements in Greenwich Village, can trace its lineage back to the yellow fever epidemics of colonial New York. In the middle of the last century, it became home to a cast of extraordinary characters whose stories intertwine in this spirited narrative.Growing up, Donna Florio had flamboyant, opera performer parents and even more free-spirited neighbors. As a child, she lived among beatniks, artists, rock musicians, social visionaries, movie stars, and gritty blue-collar workers, who imparted to her their irrepressibly eccentric life rules. The real-life Auntie Mame taught her that she is a divine flame from the universe. John Lennon, who lived down the street, was gracious when she dumped water on his head. Sex Pistol star Sid Vicious lived in the apartment next door, and his heroin overdose death came as a wake-up call during her wild twenties. An elderly Broadway dancer led by brave example as Donna helped him comfort dying Villagers in the terrifying early days of AIDS, and a reclusive writer gave her a path back from the brink when, as a witness to the attacks of 9/11, her world collapsed. These vibrant vignettes weave together a colorful coming of age tale against the backdrop of a historic, iconoclastic street whose residents have been at the heart of the American story.As Greenwich Village gentrifies and the hallmarks of its colorful past disappear, Growing Up Bank Street gives the reader a captivating glimpse of the thriving culture that once filled its storied streets.