Scarp: In Search of London's Outer Limits


Nick Papadimitriou - 2012
    Part meditation on nature and walking, part memoir and part social history, his arresting debut is first and foremost a personal inquiry into the spirit of a place: a 14-mile broken ridge of land on the fringes of Northern London known as Scarp. Conspicuous but largely forgotten, a vast yet largely invisible presence hovering just beyond the metropolis, Scarp is a vast storehouse of regional memory. We join the author as he explores and reimagines this brooding, pregnant landscape, meticulously observing his surroundings, finding surprising connections and revealing lost slices of the past. SCARP captures the satisfying experience of a long, reflective walk. Whether talking about the beauty of a bird or a telegraph pole, deaths at a roundabout or his own troubled past, Papadimitriou celebrates the poetry in the everyday. His captivating prose reveals that the world around us is alive and intrinsically valuable in ways that the trappings of day-to-day life lead us to forget, and allows us to re-connect with something more authentic, more immediate, more profound.

Nelson's Dream


J.M. Newsome - 2008
    At seven levels, from Starter to Advanced, this impressive selection of carefully graded readers offers exciting reading for every student's capabilities. Nelson Mbizi returns to his home in southern Africa after studying in Britain. When he tries to help a family of orphans he meets Viki, a South African TV presenter. The story of Nelson and Viki's relationship is told against a background of HIV/AIDS and government corruption on the one hand, and great good humour and wonderful music on the other. Contains a paperback and 3 Audio CDs with complete text recordings from the book.

Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday


Donna Hay - 2005
    Her daft name, her hand-me-down clothes, her mother's habit of turning up to school parents' evenings dressed like Shirley Bassey. Most of all she hated being the daughter of Normanford's only single parent, failed nightclub singer and resident goodtime girl, Sadie Moon. As soon as she could, she decided to quit Yorkshire. She bought a one-way ticket to London, changed her name and escaped - for ever, so she thought. But nearly twenty years on, fate has conspired to send Roo MacPherson, now a successful management consultant, back to Normanford. Back to the friends and family she once knew too well, and the boy who broke her heart. And back to the infamous Sadie, now in her 50s and still acting like a teenager. But as Roo discovers, there are two sides to every story. Perhaps the past is not exactly as she remembers it ...

UFOs & Aliens: UFO Secrets - Area 51, Alien & UFO Encounters, Alien Civilizations & New World Order (Extraterrestrial, Alien Abduction, Conspiracy Theories, ... History, Alien Technology, Alien Races)


Alex Monaldo - 2015
    You’ll also discover what Area 51 is — and why “ufologists” are so fascinated with this secretive facility. You’ll also learn about the portrayal of aliens in pop culture, the ancient spiritual connections between religion and aliens, and unanswered questions about alien hieroglyphics on Mars! With It’s Special “Textbook” Formatting and Exercises, This Book Ensures You Understand All of This Essential Knowledge! In UFOs and Aliens, you’ll find out about alien encounters, abductions, and UFO Sightings. This book also describes crop circles and other unexplained phenomena that may be evidence of visitors from other worlds! You’ll discover what the New World Order is, whether alien civilizations are good or bad, and whether an alien invasion is imminent! You’ll even learn how “ancient aliens” may have facilitated or accelerated human development! Hurry! Download this Expanded Second Edition of UFOs and Aliens: UFO Secrets (& Conspiracies) – Area 51, Alien & UFO Encounters, Alien Civilizations & the New World Order (Conspiracy) right away! Just scroll to the top of the page and select the Buy Button. Download Your Copy TODAY!

Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain


John Grindrod - 2013
    FLYOVERS. STREETS IN THE SKY. ONCE, THIS WAS THE FUTURE. Was Britain's postwar rebuilding the height of midcentury chic or the concrete embodiment of Crap Towns? John Grindrod decided to find out how blitzed, slum-ridden and crumbling 'austerity Britain' became, in a few short years, a space-age world of concrete, steel and glass. On his journey he visits the sleepy Norfolk birthplace of Brutalism, the once-Blitzed city centre of Plymouth, the futuristic New Town of Cumbernauld, Sheffield's innovative streets in the sky, the foundations of the BT tower, and the brave 1950s experiments in the Gorbals. Along the way he meets New Town pioneers, tower block builders, Barbican architects, old retainers of Coventry Cathedral, proud prefab dwellers and sixties town planners: people who lived through a time of phenomenal change and excitement. What he finds is a story of dazzling space-age optimism, ingenuity and helipads -- so many helipads -- tempered by protests, deadly collapses and scandals that shook the government. Concretopia is an accessible, warm and revealing social history of an aspect of Britain often ignored, insulted and misunderstood. It will change the way you look at Arndale Centres, tower blocks and concrete forever.

Five Farthings


Susan Sallis - 2003
    The recent death of her beloved father had cast the only shadow on their tranquil domesticity. But returning to work after her bereavement, Jess found a sketch, drawn by Matt, of her father, and, in the same mysteriously grand and unknown setting, a sketch of someone totally unexpected. In the events following this discovery, Jess began to realize that her family and friends had secrets which, as they were gradually revealed, affected the foundations of all their lives. She was to experience heartbreak and loss before she could begin to reach out to a new, and different, kind of happiness. Five Farthings is another wonderful, heart-warming, and utterly involving novel from bestselling author Susan Sallis.

Chosen


Lauren Chow - 2017
     Clara Evans’ needs a fresh start. Exhausted from the taunts of her classmates and the neglect of her careless foster parents, she is counting down the days until graduation when she can move away and leave her miserable life behind. When swoon-worthy Jay Woods transfers to Ford High School, Clara’s eyes are opened to a universe she never knew existed. As the life she once knew shatters and ancient secrets are revealed, Clara must learn to control her newfound powers while defeating a raging darkness that will change the world forever. Could “The Freak” from Ford High be the key to saving the human race?

Charles Dickens


L. Du Garde Peach - 1965
    Many of the events in his life, and the characters whom he knew, are described in his books: this is the story of the man who wrote them.

Vanderbilt's Biltmore


Robert Wernick - 2012
    But ambition quickly took wing. The house swelled to 225 rooms and became - until 2012 when it was topped by the home of a billionaire in Mumbai, India – the world’s largest residence ever built for a private citizen. Here’s the story of the house that Vanderbilt built - from the gardens by Frederick Law Olmsted to the John Singer Sargent portraits that adorn its walls.

Why Architecture Matters


Paul Goldberger - 2009
    The purpose of Why Architecture Matters is to "come to grips with how things feel to us when we stand before them, with how architecture affects us emotionally as well as intellectually" — with its impact on our lives. "Architecture begins to matter," writes Paul Goldberger, "when it brings delight and sadness and perplexity and awe along with a roof over our heads." He shows us how that works in examples ranging from a small Cape Cod cottage to the "vast, flowing" Prairie houses of Frank Lloyd Wright, from the Lincoln Memorial to the highly sculptural Guggenheim Bilbao and the Church of Sant'Ivo in Rome, where "simple geometries...create a work of architecture that embraces the deepest complexities of human imagination."Based on decades of looking at buildings and thinking about how we experience them, the distinguished critic raises our awareness of fundamental things like proportion, scale, space, texture, materials, shapes, light, and memory. Upon completing this remarkable architectural journey, readers will enjoy a wonderfully rewarding new way of seeing and experiencing every aspect of the built world.

The Story of Architecture


Jonathan Glancey - 2000
    This beautifully illustrated book features photographs, plans and diagrams that help put significant periods into historical, geographical and cultural contexts.

Draw 50 Buildings and Other Structures: The Step-by-Step Way to Draw Castles and Cathedrals, Skyscrapers and Bridges, and So Much More...


Lee J. Ames - 1980
    From the Eiffel Tower to the Taj Mahal -- 50 man-made and natural structures from around the world are drawn here.

The Look of Architecture


Witold Rybczynski - 2001
    But Witold Rybczynski disagrees, and in The Look of Architecture, he makes a compelling case for the importance of style to the mother of the arts. This is a book brimming with sharp observations--that form does not follow function; that the best architecture is not timeless but precisely of its time; that details do not merely complement the architecture--details are the architecture. But the heart of the book illuminates the connection between architecture, interior decoration, and fashion. Style is the language of architecture, Rybczynski writes, and fashion represents the wide and swirling cultural currents that shape and direct that language. The two--style and fashion--are intimately linked; indeed, architecture cannot escape fashion. To set these ideas in sharp relief, he shows us how style and fashion have been expressed in the work of major architects including Frank Gehry, Mies van der Rohe, Charles McKim, Allan Greenberg, Robert Venturi, Enrique Norten, and many others. He helps us see their works anew and ultimately to look afresh at our surroundings. Style is one of the enduring--and endearing--aspects of architecture, Rybczynski concludes. Furthermore, an architecture that recognizes the importance of style would not be as introspective and self-referential as are so many contemporary buildings. It would be part of the world: Not architecture for architects, but for the rest of us.

Operative Design: A Catalog of Spatial Verbs


Anthony di Mari - 2012
    These operative verbs abstract the idea of spatial formation to its most basic terms, allowing for an objective approach to create the foundation for subjective spatial design. Examples of these verbs are expand, inflate, nest, wist, lift, embed, merge and many more. Together they form a visual dictionary decoding the syntax of spatial verbs. The verbs are illustrated with three-dimensional diagrams and pictures of designs which show the verbs 'in action'.This approach was devised, tested, and applied to architectural studio instruction by Anthony Di Mari and Nora Yoo while teaching at Harvard University's Career Discovery Program in Architecture in 2010. As instructors and as recent graduates, they saw a need for this kind of catalogue from both sides - as a reference manual applicable to design students in all stages of their studies, as well as a teaching tool for instructors to help students understand the strong spatial potential of abstract operations.

From Bauhaus to Our House


Tom Wolfe - 1981
    The strange saga of American architecture in the twentieth century makes for both high comedy and intellectual excitement as Wolfe debunks the European gods of modern and postmodern architecture and their American counterparts.