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FIT by Rikki Beadle-Blair


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Game of Thrones: The Book of White Walkers (Game of Thrones Mysteries and Lore 1)


CraftWrite Publishing - 2017
    How did the First Men cross the Narrow Sea, habitat of the Children of the Forest, and how did the war of technology and magic unleash the White Walkers? Was it really Bran the Builder who constructed the Wall and what horror lies underneath it? And is the Wall truly the permanent structure fans perceive it to be, or will it be razed through one of the many ways hinted at in the books? Finally, can White Walkers be truly defeated, and if so, how? A perfect gift for fans of the TV show as well as the book series, Game of Thrones: The Book of White Walkers serves as both an introduction and an accompaniment to the existing media. If you want to find out how the World of Ice and Fire came to be or what might happen next, this is the place to start! Read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited! Note that the book is constantly updated!

Four Great Comedies: The Taming of the Shrew / A Midsummer Night's Dream / Twelfth Night / The Tempest


William Shakespeare - 1625
    Reading these plays, we sample the whole comic spectrum of the Elizabethan world--from the satiric comes that portrays a world of people whose unreasonable behavior is ludicrous and in need of reform to the romantic comedy that takes us into a dreamlike holiday world whose inhabitants, for all their folly, are still endearing characters. And to give these plays more meaning for the modern reader, this edition includes the following special features:An Introduction by Sylvan Barnet, general editor of the Signet Classic Shakespeare series Reliable texts by noted Shakespeare scholarsTexts printed in the clearest, most readable typeName of each speaker given in fullDetailed footnotes at the bottom of each page keyed to the numbered lines of the textTextual notesUpdated bibliography--back cover

Cradle of Thorns


Josephine Cox - 1997
    But for all her aunt's spiteful attempts to break Nell's independent spirit, she has never succeeded. But now Nell, pregnant and alone, is forced to leave behind the men in her life, believing she might never be able to return.With little but the clothes she wears, she travels across the Bedfordshire countryside of 1890. When she encounters a scruffy urchin called Kit, a ten-year-old orphan who's lived his whole life on the streets, she takes him under her wing. The pair become devoted friends, never knowing where their journey will take them, but each aware that the time will come when there must be a reckoning.

Italian American Reconciliation


John Patrick Shanley - 1998
    He enlists the aid of his lifelong buddy, Aldo Scalicki, a confirmed bachelor who tries, without apparent success, to convince Huey that he would be better off sticking with his new lady friend, Teresa, a usually placid young waitress whose indignation flares when she learns what Huey is up to. In a moonlit balcony scene (hilariously reminiscent of Cyrano de Bergerac) Aldo pleads his lovesick friend's case and, to his astonishment, Janice capitulates although not for long. However we do learn that her earlier abuse of Huey was intended to make him "act like a man" which, at last, he does. And, more than that, he (and the audience) become aware that, in the final essence, "the greatest and only success is to be able to love" a truth which emerges delightfully from the heartwarming, wonderfully antic and always imaginatively conceived action of the play.

Jasper Jones


Kate Mulvany - 2016
    Overseas, war is raging in Vietnam, Civil Rights marches are on the streets, and women’s liberation is stirring – but at home in Corrigan Charlie Bucktin dreams of writing the Great Australian Novel. Charlie’s 14 and smart. But when 16-year-old, constantly-in-trouble Jasper Jones appears at his window one night, Charlie’s out of his depth. Jasper has stumbled upon a terrible crime in the scrub nearby, and he knows he’s the first suspect – that goes with the colour of his skin. He needs every ounce of Charlie’s bookish brain to help solve this awful mystery before the town turns on Jasper. Kate Mulvany’s adaptation of Craig Silvey’s award-winning novel is wise and beautiful. A coming-of-age story, Jasper Jones interweaves the lives of complex individuals all struggling to find happiness among the buried secrets of a small rural community.Whether you know the book or not, this piercing adaptation is very much worth seeing for the way it depicts – and shows ways across – some of the deep and enduring divides in our society." - Jason Blake SMH

Leopoldstadt


Tom Stoppard - 2020
    But Hermann Merz, a manufacturer and baptised Jew married to Catholic Gretl, has moved up in the world. Gathered in the Merz apartment in a fashionable part of the city, Hermann's extended family are at the heart of Tom Stoppard's epic yet intimate drama. By the time we have taken leave of them, Austria has passed through the convulsions of war, revolution, impoverishment, annexation by Nazi Germany and - for Austrian Jews - the Holocaust in which 65,000 of them were murdered. It is for the survivors to pass on a story which hasn't ended yet.Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt was first performed at Wyndham's Theatre, London, in January 2020. 'One of Britain's greatest living playwrights to provide his most personal play yet.' The Times'The news that Tom Stoppard has written a new drama ranks as top-end seismic activity.' Daily Telegraph

April: A mother and father's heart-breaking story of the daughter they loved and lost


Paul Jones - 2015
    The nation was shocked by her disappearance from the tiny Welsh village of Machynllech in October 2012. Her body was never fully recovered but paedophile Mark Bridger was convicted of her murder and abduction following a month-long trial in May 2013. In this gripping and harrowing book, April's heartbroken parents Coral and Paul speak at length about their beloved daughter and the search for her, their ordeal as they faced Bridger in court every day during the trial, and their ongoing fight against the vile child pornography he viewed in the days leading up to April's abduction. They remember with enduring love the daughter who fought so bravely to survive premature birth and mild disability, and who was enchanted by all the things a little girl finds magical. Paul Jones kept a diary throughout the ordeal, the contents of which are revealed for the first time in this searingly honest account of unimaginable emotional pain. Alongside books such as Madeleine by Kate McCann and Goodbye Dearest Holly by Kevin Wells, April will stand as a poignant reminder of what it means to lose the thing you most love.

Twelve Angry Men


Reginald Rose - 1983
    There are several differences between scripts. Reginald Rose's landmark American drama was a critically acclaimed teleplay, and went on to become a cinematic masterpiece in 1957 starring Henry Fonda, for which Rose wrote the adaptation. A blistering character study and an examination of the American melting pot and the judicial system that keeps it in check, Twelve Angry Men holds at its core a deeply patriotic belief in the U.S. legal system. The story's focal point, known only as Juror Eight, is at first the sole holdout in an 11-1 guilty vote. Eight sets his sights not on proving the other jurors wrong but rather on getting them to look at the situation in a clear-eyed way not affected by their personal biases. Rose deliberately and carefully peels away the layers of artifice from the men and allows a fuller picture of America, at its best and worst, to form.

Our Day Out


Willy Russell - 1984
    Many have large casts and an equal mix of boy and girl parts. The television play "Our Day Out" asks what can a group of back-street kids from Liverpool expect from life beyond a rare "day out"?

The Entertainer (Plays)


John Osborne - 1957
    This play about the life and work of a second-rate music hall comic (brilliantly created by Sir Laurence Olivier in the original production) and staged only eleven months after the opening of Look Back in Anger, secured John Osborne's reputation and has become a classic of 20th century drama.

Mindgame


Anthony Horowitz - 2001
    A thriller that actually manages to thrill, and a very dark comedy that twists and spirals towards a completely unexpected ending. This is one play where seeing isn't quite believing and reading the text is the only way to uncover all the clues.

The Pain and the Itch


Bruce Norris - 2007
    Someone - or something - is leaving bite marks in the avocados, Clay and Kelly's little daughter has an itch, and Carol can't remember who played Gandhi. This work takes a look at phoney liberal values.

The Talented Mr Ripley


Phyllis Nagy - 1999
    He is sent to Italy by a wealthy financier to try and coax home the rich man's son. In the process Ripley becomes both attracted and seduced, finding the murder the only way to deal with the situation. From that point Ripley tries to cover up his crime. Patricia Highsmith's beguiling tale of morality and amorality is given a dramatic rendering by contemporary dramatist Phyllis Nagy, who knew Highsmith in her later years in Paris."Each play I see by Phyllis Nagy confirms me in the belief that she is the finest playwright to have emerged in the 1990s" (Financial Times)

Les Liaisons Dangereuses


Christopher Hampton - 1985
    Christopher Hampton has made a masterful adaptation for the stage of the conspiracy to corrupt a young girl barely out of her convent.

The Sugar Syndrome


Lucy Prebble - 2003
    She's just 17, hates her parents, skives college and prefers life in the chatrooms. What she's looking for is someone honest and direct. Instead she finds Tim, a man twice her age, who thinks she is 11 and a boy.What seems at first to be a case of crossed wires, ends up as an unlikely, and unsettling friendship between the two, which culminates in a shocking, and morally challenging revelation.