Showing 1-10 of 10 Results.
You’ve tried them all, right? Wrong! No time like the present…
- James
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The sheer volume of work on WWII often makes it difficult to choose what to read. Bad Faith is a sobering account of life in France under German and Vichy rule. Focusing on the life of Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, it gives great insight into how petty prejudices, weaknesses and seemingly insignificant acts of normal human beings, can have devastating consequences. Pellepoix is truly a despicable individual whose actions led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Jews. He is largely forgotten and died in relative peace, unpunished for his crimes, in 1980. Read this. Some people don’t deserve to escape quietly and fall through the cracks of history. If you find this interesting you might want to try Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl by Stephen Bach. She was responsible for Hitler’s propaganda films and also died relatively recently, denying any allegations of collaboration, despite using concentration camp prisoners as extras in her films. She went on to photograph the Nuba in Africa.
- Rebecca
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C J Jackson; Barton Seaver I don't have this book, but whenever everyone's back is turned you'll find me sneakily browsing it. It's a recent aspiration of mine to become better at cooking fish and seafood, and of all the books we have on the subject this one appeals to me the most. The recipes are simple, but not too simple and the book's full of charming illustrations and mouth-watering photographs. A must for fish lovers! - Adam
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Frank O'Hara; Donald Allen I've never thought about who my favourite poet is, but if I did I'd have to consider Frank O'Hara. Writing in the mid-20th century, his poems are concerned with art and modernity, film stars and cocktail bars, all explored with lush lyricism and self-awareness. Have a look at the intensely vulnerable 'Meditations in an Emergency' and the swooning, gorgeous love poem 'Having a Coke With You' to see just how remarkable he was. - Adam
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I love Wells Tower so much that, even though he looks slightly like my old sweaty maths teacher, I would marry him if he asked. This is his first collection of short stories and you shouldn’t buy this as a present for any one but yourself. It’s too good to give away. Sometimes you read something and it says everything you think about the world, but better, and more eloquently than you ever could. - Rebecca |
This is perfect comfort reading. Charlotte is a really lovable character and throughout the book you follower her through all her trials and tribulations, learning valuable lessons along the way.
- Jo
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Sarah Moss's disturbing, darkly funny second novel brilliantly conveys the atmosphere of an almost deserted Scottish Island in the cold depths of summer. Practically abandoned by her husband who is off counting Puffins, Research fellow Anna struggles to complete a book for publication and deal with her two young children alone: an insomniac and punishingly clingy toddler and a seven-year-old obsessed with reconstructing catastrophic historical events (the Paddington rail crash and Serbian massacres) through the medium of Lego. Then there is the discovery of a tiny human skeleton buried in the garden one fraught afternoon, and soon afterwards disturbing noises from the attic. This is at once a serious and very funny novel, I picked it up on a word of mouth recommendation and have hardly put it down since.
- Heather |
“All around swam the fireflies. Clouds of them, trees of them, islands of them floating, a lower order of brightness(…)The stars barely showed their place in the pale sky – small and far from this bright world.” This is so short; it almost seems like reading a dream. I’ve gotten into the bad habit of skim reading but this made me slow down. Long, hot, hazy Southern days are perfectly mirrored in the rhythms and cadences of the language. It is a fantastic account of the odd, surreal limbo between childhood and adulthood. - Rebecca |
Gilles Deleuze; Felix Guattari In the words of its authors, this book is not a book. It is instead an assemblage of distinct yet interconnecting micro-politics and philosophies, of radical economic and cultural analyses; it forms a nomadic toolbox for the critique of the technocracy of globalised late capital and the political impotency of the philosophical canon. This call for a radical autonomous politics seems all the more important in the 21st century, as the development of a globalised capital flow it predicted has been actualised. A Thousand Plateaus is one of the most important works of contemporary continental philosophy in the Marxist tradition. - Josh |
In 2002, the Oakland A’s Baseball team set a record winning streak of 20 wins in a row. They went from being one of the poorest, lowest ranked baseball teams to a playoff team in one season. Moneyball tells the story of how that remarkable winning streak happened, and the events leading up to it. The centuries old wisdom of baseball insiders was badly flawed, and this book has made such an impact that the term 'moneyball' itself has entered the language of baseball. The central character is Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland team, and the book follows him amongst other baseball insiders, and traces his history as a player, and the history of the 'sabermetrics' system that revolutionised baseball. - Andrew |