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The Complete Film Production Handbook (American Film Market Presents)
The Complete Film Production Handbook is a comprehensive step-by-step guide covering the essentials of the business, from checklists and sample pre-production and post production schedules to contracts and company policies relating to insurance, talent management, and even customs and immigration details. The book contains all of the many necessary forms including SAG, DGA, and WGA forms, together with standard production forms, deal memos, and release forms which are found both in the book and on companion CD.This book provides producers and production managers with both a quick reference and refresher and an easy means of training their production staff on the day to day procedures needed to keep their production running smoothly. It provides film students with an in-depth look at what must be considered and accomplished before a single camera can roll and a more comprehensive understanding of the logistics that are required to complete and deliver a finished picture. First time independent filmmakers will find this the most comprehensive and helpful resource guide available.
The third edition includes substantial updates throughout. New chapters examine such topics as:
Basic accounting procedures
Production team members and their responsibilities
Working with vendors–negotiating deals. Saving money
Working with extras
Foreign locations–Work visas, shipping and customsRead more
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The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southest Asia: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (Yale Agrarian Studies Series)
For two thousand years the disparate groups that now reside in Zomia (a mountainous region the size of Europe that consists of portions of seven Asian countries) have fled the projects of the organized state societies that surround them – slavery, conscription, taxes, corvée labour, epidemics and warfare. This book, essentially an anarchist history, is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain; agricultural practices that enhance mobility; pliable ethnic identities; devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders; and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states. In accessible language, James Scott – recognized worldwide as an eminent authority in Southeast Asian, peasant, and agrarian studies – tells the story of the peoples of Zomia and their unlikely odyssey in search of self-determination. He redefines our views on Asian politics, history, demographics, and even our fundamental ideas about what constitutes civilization, and challenges us with a radically different approach to history that presents events from the perspective of stateless peoples and redefines state-making as a form of internal colonialism. This new perspective requires a radical reevaluation of the civilizational narratives of the lowland states. Scotts work on Zomia represents a new way to think of area studies that will be applicable to other runaway, fugitive communities, be they Gypsies, Cossacks, tribes fleeing slave raiders, Marsh Arabs, or San-Bushmen. Chosen as A Best Book of 2009, Jesse Walker, managing editor, Reason.Read more
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Raising Turnip: Candid and comical memoirs of a single adopter
This book is an unprocessed and insightful memoir of an adoptive mother in her forties, candidly sharing her personal experiences about adopting a 6-year-old boy, and their first five years together. A truly compassionate and genuine account of the joys and trials of single motherhood and of raising a little boy and his stand-in persona, Turnip. The author’s natural ability to mother and her ingenious improvisational skills are meritable. It’s such an honest account of, well, life and how things sometimes go according to plan, and how they occasionally don’t. A riveting page-turner that will make you laugh, wonder and be filled with admiration. The conversational tone, and the author’s readiness to share generously prevail throughout the book. A must read for all parents, not just the ones who have adopted, are adopting or are thinking of adopting.Read more
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MAKING REPORT WRITING EASY: Mental Capacity Assessments: A simple and practical guide based on the Mental Capacity Act 2005
Are you satisfied that your Mental Capacity Assessment would stand up to legal scrutiny in The Court of Protection, where a dispute needed to be settled? If not, then this guide is for you. This guide provides a step-by-step process of how to complete capacity assessments using the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and its Code of Practice. There are 4 SOLID example reports on capacity around finances, capacity to litigate, capacity to choose a lasting power of attorney. It can be used by health and social care workers. It is informative and easy to use and provides a clear description of the requirements when using the 2 – stage test to ensure that assessments are legal, strengths based and person-centred. This guide describes how to assess capacity and what a good assessment of capacity should look like. It also provides sample questions to ask based on the specific decision to be made. This Simple Guide to Report Writing will be a vital resource for any health and social care professional working with individuals who may lack capacity to make specific decisions.Read more
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The Teacher’s Guide to Grammar
The Teacher’s Guide to Grammar is unique in focusing directly on the aspects of grammar that teachers need to know. Assuming little or no formal linguistic education, this concise and accessible book provides the necessary background knowledge required in the classroom context. There are detailed chapters on the nuts and bolts of language: words, morphology, sentences, phrases, verbs, and clauses. Other important educational issues concerned in the teaching of English are discussed: the grammatical variation that differentiates standard and non-standard English; how grammar varies in relation to the purpose and audience of a text; and the different grammatical characteristics of different languages. Throughout, illustrations are given using examples from the real spoken and written language produced by learners.Here are the essentials every English and literacy teacher needs to know about grammar in one practical and relevant guide.
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The Little Book of Politics: A Pocket Guide to Parties, Power and Participation
Worried about the world and want to make a difference? Inspired by a new political voice or enraged by an old one? Whether you’re taking your first tentative steps into the world of politics or thinking about getting out and knocking on some doors, this clear and concise guide is for you. Providing a whistle-stop tour through the corridors of power and explaining the basics of our parliamentary democracy, it will INSPIRE YOU TO TAKE ACTION.Read more
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Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe
‘Magisterial … Immensely readable’ Douglas Alexander, Financial Times
‘Insightful, productively provocative and downright brilliant’ New York Times
A compelling history of catastrophes and their consequences, from ‘the most brilliant British historian of his generation’ (The Times)
Disasters are inherently hard to predict. But when catastrophe strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of many developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why?
While populist rulers certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, Niall Ferguson argues that more profound pathologies were at work – pathologies already visible in our responses to earlier disasters.
Drawing from multiple disciplines, including economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe offers not just a history but a general theory of disaster. As Ferguson shows, governments must learn to become less bureaucratic if we are to avoid the impending doom of irreversible decline.
‘Stimulating, thought-provoking … Readers will find much to relish’ Martin Bentham, Evening Standard
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£10.10£12.30Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe
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30-Second Politics: The 50 most thought-provoking ideas in politics, each explained in half a minute
You may be OK with standard stuff like Conservatism and Democracy, but do you really know what Patrimonialism is? And what about Oligarchy? Anarcho-syndicalism?
Politics is, we are willing to bet, the most passionately argued-over subject matter, and yet how many of us flounder around in confrontational debates because we have no grip on political theory, just a vague notion that they are all out to get us?
30-Second Politics will help dispel this fog mistrust and paranoia. It challenges political theorists of all colors to come up with no-frill, no-spin, tell-it-like-it-is explanations of the 50 most important political -isms, -archies, and -ocracies that have pertained since the time of Periclean Athens. At no public expense, the book explains each political theory in nothing more than two pages, 300 words, and some propaganda-style imagery, for we all know that a picture opportunity is worth a thousand words of dull interview.
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Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (Veritas Paperbacks)
“One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades.”―John Gray, New York Times Book Review
“A powerful, and in many insightful, explanation as to why grandiose programs of social reform, not to mention revolution, so often end in tragedy. . . . An important critique of visionary state planning.”―Robert Heilbroner, Lingua FrancaHailed as “a magisterial critique of top-down social planning” by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail―sometimes catastrophically―in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters.
“Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”―New Yorker
“A tour de force.”― Charles Tilly, Columbia UniversityThe Institution for Social and Policy Studies
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The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude
States are more vulnerable than people think. They can collapse in an instant—when consent is withdrawn.This is the thesis of this thrilling book. Murray Rothbard writes a classic introduction to one of the great political essays in the history of ideas.In times when dictators the world over are falling from pressure from their own people, this book, written nearly 500 years ago, is truly the prophetic tract of our times.Étienne de La Boétie was born in Sarlat, in the Périgord region of southwest France, in 1530, to an aristocratic family, and became a dear friend of Michel de Montaigne. But he ought to be remembered for this astonishingly important essay, one of the greatest in the history of political thought. It will shake the way you think of the state. His thesis and argument amount to the best answer to Machiavelli ever penned as well as one of the seminal essays in defense of liberty.La Boétie’s task is to investigate the nature of the state and its strange status as a tiny minority of the population that adheres to different rules from everyone else and claims the authority to rule everyone else, maintaining a monopoly on law. It strikes him as obviously implausible that such an institution has any staying power. It can be overthrown in an instant if people withdraw their consent.He then investigates the mystery as to why people do not withdraw, given what is obvious to him that everyone would be better off without the state. This sends him on a speculative journey to investigate the power of propaganda, fear, and ideology in causing people to acquiesce in their own subjection. Is it cowardice? Perhaps. Habit and tradition. Perhaps. Perhaps it is ideological illusion and intellectual confusion.La Boétie goes on to make a case as to why people ought to withdraw their consent immediately. He urges all people to rise up and cast off tyranny simply by refusing to concede that the state is in charge.The tyrant has “nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you. Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from you? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? How does he have any power over you except through you? How would he dare assail you if he had no cooperation from you?”Then these inspiring words: “Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.”In all these areas, the author has anticipated Jefferson and Arendt, Gandhi and Spooner, and those who overthrew Soviet tyranny. The essay has profound relevance for understanding history and all our times.As Rothbard writes in his spectacular introduction, “La Boetie’s Discourse has a vital importance for the modern reader—an importance that goes beyond the sheer pleasure of reading a great and seminal work on political philosophy, or, for the libertarian, of reading the first libertarian political philosopher in the Western world. For La Boétie speaks most sharply to the problem which all libertarians—indeed, all opponents of despotism—find particularly difficult: the problem of strategy. Facing the devastating and seemingly overwhelming power of the modern State, how can a free and very different world be brought about? How in the world can we get from here to there, from a world of tyranny to a world of freedom? Precisely because of his abstract and timeless methodology, La Boétie offers vital insights into this eternal problem.”Read more
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Edexcel GCE Politics AS and A-level Student Book and eBook (Edexcel GCE Politics 2017)
Exam papers covered: Edexcel AS and A level Politics
First teaching: September 2017
First exams: Summer 2018This Student Book with e-book is specifically designed for the Edexcel AS and A level Politics 2017 specifications, giving you comprehensive coverage of the qualification content and great support for the new assessments – in both print and digital formats.
- Covers the whole of the two-year A level course, and includes all three components of the course so you have everything you need in one book.
- Clearly explains all key terminology and includes support for the assessments in every unit, including exam-style questions and guidance with exam technique.
- Comes with an e-book to give you easy online access to the textbook content on the go.
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The Times Sir: The year in letters (1st edition)
The perfect Christmas gift for anyone with a shrewd sense of humour.
Decidedly absurd, and always entertaining, revel in the very best letters to The Times.
From umbrella protocol at the Coronation to growing cress in lunar soil, this collection lets you in on more than a few inside jokes from one of Britain’s longest-running correspondences.
While the other pages of the newspaper chronicle the pressing issues of the day, the Letters page often muses on the things that really matter.Sir: The year in letters is a selection of the best of these letters, an elegant and erudite display of Times readers at their most whimsical and droll.
The perfect gift for anyone with a shrewd sense of humour, this book features:
• An absurdly entertaining round up of the year’s happenings
• More than 400 letters featured in The Times, curated by Letters editor Andrew Riley
• Original cartoons by Royston RobertsonRead more
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Red Card: The Soccer Star Who Lost It All To Gambling
A blossoming soccer career marred by mishaps which drove him to disaster. Ruined by an addiction to gambling, Tony Kelly lost his career, his partner and all his money. Now he has written his story to “invite the public, family and friends into my secret hell of racism, despair, depression, stardom, gambling addiction and self-destruction”Tony Kelly was football crazy from the age of seven. At sixteen Nyrere Anthony Kelly was the youngest ever player in the first team at Bristol City and in his twenties he went professional, playing for clubs such as Stoke City, Cardiff City, Leyton Orient and Bury in the second and third divisions of the Football League and starring in a Swedish side. But his blossoming soccer career was marred by a series of mishaps and misdeeds which drove him to disaster. Ruined by an addiction to gambling, he lost his job, his career, his partner and all his money. Now he has written his story – as Kelly puts it, to “invite the public, my family and my friends into my secret hell of racism, despair, depression, stardom, gambling addiction and ultimately self-destruction”. Red Card is a tragic yet uplifting story of a sportsman’s battle with his demons, on and off the pitch.Read more
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The Dinosaurs Rediscovered: How a Scientific Revolution is Rewriting History
If you want to know how we know what we know about dinosaurs, read this book! Steve Brusatte‘I defy anyone who is, like me, a non-scientist to read it and not feel a sense of wonder’ Tom Holland, Guardian
Startling new fossil finds are the lifeblood of modern palaeobiology. Giant sauropod dinosaur skeletons from Patagonia, dinosaurs with feathers from China, and even a tiny dinosaur tail in Burmese amber – complete down to every detail of its filament-like feathers, skin, bones and mummified tail muscles – inspire awe in a global audience enthralled by the idea of these great creatures walking the earth. Dinosaurs are of perennial interest to all ages, as illustrated by the huge range of dino-themed films, books and live attractions, from the enduring popularity of the Jurassic Park franchise to the success of London’s immersive ‘Dinosaurs in the Wild’ experience.
In the past twenty years, dinosaur study has changed from natural history to testable science. New technologies have revealed secrets locked in the bones in a way nobody predicted – we can now work out the colour of dinosaurs, their bite forces, speeds and parental care as well as how they came to die out.This groundbreaking book illustrates how science has replaced speculation and how our understanding of dinosaurs and their world hascompletely changed. The subject has never been so vigorous, has never changed so fast, and has never been so attractive to so many.
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Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump: The brilliant New York Times bestseller 2019
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR. FROM THE JUDGES:
‘Rick Reilly lets Donald’s Trump relationship with his favourite sport speak for itself. Commander in Cheat is full of astonishing ‘you could not make it up’ detail delivered in full knowledge that nothing revealed would embarrass the President one jot. You will be howling with laughter and gasping in disbelief in equal measure so be careful when reading this fascinating book in public.’SHORTLISTED FOR THE GENERAL OUTSTANDING SPORTS WRITING AWARD AT THE 2020 TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.
‘An eye-watering account of the president’s abuse of the rules of golf’ The Sunday Times
‘Reilly pokes more holes in Trump’s claims than there are sand traps on all his courses combined. It is by turns amusing and alarming’ The New Yorker
Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump is a fascinating on-the-ground and behind-the-scenes survey of Donald Trump’s ethics deficit on and off the golf course.Renowned sports writer Rick Reilly transports readers onto the greens with President Trump, revealing the absurd ways in which he lies about his feats, and what they can tell us about the way he leads off the course in the most important job in the world.
‘Golf is like bicycle shorts. It reveals a lot about a man.’
Reilly has been with Trump on the fairways, the greens and in the rough, he has seen how the President plays – and it’s not pretty. Based on his personal experiences, and interviews with dozens of golf pros, amateurs, developers, partners, opponents, and even caddies who have first-hand involvement with Trump out on the course, Reilly takes a deep and often hilarious look at how Trump shamelessly cheats at golf, lies about it, sues over it, bullies with it, and profits from it.
‘Somebody should point out that the way Trump does golf is sort of the way he does a presidency, which is to operate as though the rules are for other people.’
From Trump’s ridiculous claim to have won eighteen club championships, to his devious cheating tricks, to his tainted reputation as a golf course tycoon, Commander in Cheat tells you everything you need to know about the man.
‘You could write a book about what Trump’s golf reveals about him. Here it is.’
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£9.60£12.30 -
The Absorbent Mind
Maria Montessori was an Italian physician and educator best known for the philosophy of education that bears her name, and her writing on scientific pedagogy. Her educational method is in use today in public and private schools throughout the world. In 1947 she returned to India and gave courses in Adyar and Ahmedabad. These courses led to the book The Absorbent Mind, in which Montessori described the development of the child from birth onwards and presented the concept of the Four Planes of Development.Read more
£0.50The Absorbent Mind
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Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps: How to Thrive in Complexity
Author and consultant Jennifer Garvey Berger has worked with all types of leaders―from top executives at Google to nonprofit directors who are trying to make a dent in social change. She hears a version of the same plea from every client in nearly every sector around the world: “I know that complexity and uncertainty are testing my instincts, but I don’t know which to trust. Is there some way to know what to do when I can’t know what’s next?”
Her newest work is an answer to this plea. Using her background in adult development, complexity theories, and leadership consultancy, Garvey Berger discerns five pernicious and pervasive “mind traps” to frame the book. These are: the desire for simple stories, our sense that we are right, our desire to get along with others in our group, our fixation with control, and our constant quest to protect and defend our egos. In addition to understanding why these natural impulses steer us wrong in a fast-moving world, leaders will get powerful questions and approaches that help them escape these patterns.
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Blood & Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain
The acclaimed author of Witches, Druids, and King Arthur presents a “lucid, open-minded” cultural history of the Druids as part of British identity (Terry Jones).
Crushed by the Romans in the first century A.D., the ancient Druids of Britain left almost no reliable evidence behind. Historian Ronald Hutton shows how this lack of definite information has allowed succeeding British generations to reimagine, reinterpret, and reinvent the Druids. Hutton’s captivating book is the first to encompass two thousand years of Druid history and to explore the evolution of English, Scottish, and Welsh attitudes toward the forever ambiguous figures of the ancient Celtic world.Druids have been remembered at different times as patriots, scientists, philosophers, or priests. Sometimes portrayed as corrupt, bloodthirsty, or ignorant, they were also seen as fomenters of rebellion. Hutton charts how the Druids have been written in and out of history, archaeology, and the public consciousness for some 500 years, with particular focus on the romantic period, when Druids completely dominated notions of British prehistory. Sparkling with legends and images, filled with new perspectives on ancient and modern times, this fascinating cultural study reveals Druids as catalysts in British history.
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FIFTH SUN: A New History of the Aztecs
In November 1519, Hernando Cortés walked along a causeway leading to the capital of the Aztec kingdom and came face to face with Moctezuma. That story―and the story of what happened afterwards―has been told many times, but always following the narrative offered by the Spaniards. After all, we have been taught, it was the Europeans who held the pens. But the Native Americans were intrigued by the Roman alphabet and, unbeknownst to the newcomers, they used it to write detailed histories in their own language of Nahuatl. Until recently, these sources remained obscure, only partially translated, and rarely consulted by scholars.For the first time, in Fifth Sun, the history of the Aztecs is offered in all its complexity based solely on the texts written by the indigenous people themselves. Camilla Townsend presents an accessible and humanized depiction of these native Mexicans, rather than seeing them as the exotic, bloody figures of European stereotypes. The conquest, in this work, is neither an apocalyptic moment, nor an origin story launching Mexicans into existence. The Mexica people had a history of their own long before the Europeans arrived and did not simply capitulate to Spanish culture and colonization. Instead, they realigned their political allegiances, accommodated new obligations, adopted new technologies, and endured.
This engaging revisionist history of the Aztecs, told through their own words, explores the experience of a once-powerful people facing the trauma of conquest and finding ways to survive, offering an empathetic interpretation for experts and non-specialists alike.
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£13.40£16.60FIFTH SUN: A New History of the Aztecs
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A Village in the Third Reich: How Ordinary Lives Were Transformed By the Rise of Fascism – from the author of Sunday Times bestseller Travellers in the Third Reich
___________
A Waterstones Paperback of the Year 2022
A New Statesman Book of the Year 2022
‘Fascinating… You’ll learn more about the psychological workings of Nazism by reading this superbly researched chronicle… than you will by reading a shelf of wider-canvas volumes on the rise of Nazism.’Daily Mail
‘An utterly absorbing insight into the full spectrum of responses from ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.’The Times
‘Boyd is an outstanding micro-historian.’iNews
___________Hidden deep in the Bavarian mountains lies the picturesque village of Oberstdorf – a place where for hundreds of years people lived simple lives while history was made elsewhere.
Yet even this remote idyll could not escape the brutal iron grip of the Nazi regime.
From the author of the
Sunday Times bestselling
Travellers in the Third Reich comes
A Village in the Third Reich: an extraordinarily intimate portrait of Germany under Hitler, shining a light on the lives of ordinary people. Drawing on personal archives, letters, interviews and memoirs, it lays bare their brutality and love; courage and weakness; action, apathy and grief; hope, pain, joy and despair.Within its pages we encounter people from all walks of life – foresters, priests, farmers and nuns; innkeepers, Nazi officials, veterans and party members; village councillors, mountaineers, socialists, slave labourers, schoolchildren, tourists and aristocrats. We meet the Jews who survived – and those who didn’t; the Nazi mayor who tried to shield those persecuted by the regime; and a blind boy whose life was judged ‘not worth living’.
This is a tale of conflicting loyalties and desires, of shattered dreams – but one in which, ultimately, human resilience triumphs.
These are the stories of ordinary lives at the crossroads of history.
___
‘Exceptional… Boyd’s book reminds us that even the most brutal regimes cannot extinguish all semblance of human feeling’Mail on Sunday
‘Masterly… [an] important and gripping book… [Boyd is] a leading historian of human responses in political extremis.’The Oldie
‘Gripping… vividly depicted… [a] humane and richly detailed book’ Spectator
‘Vivid, moving stories leave us asking “What would I have done?”‘ Professor David Reynolds, author of
Island Stories
“An absorbing, thoroughly recommended read”Family Tree magazine‘Laying bare the tragedies, the compromises, the suffering and the disillusionment. Exemplary microhistory.’ Roger Moorehouse, author of
First to Fight
‘Compelling and evocative’All About History
‘The rise of Nazi Germany through the prism of one small village in Bavaria. […] Astonishing’ Jane Garvey on
Fortunately… with Fi and Jane
‘incredibly engaging’History of War magazine‘Intensely detailed, exhaustively researched and rendered in almost cinematographic detail, Julia Boyd’s A Village In The Third Reich is deeply evocative, redolent of those times and truly revelatory. I learned so much. This is a book I will need to return to again and again, to relearn, refresh and remember. A triumph.’ Damien Lewis, author of
The Flame of ResistanceRead more
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Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema
This deluxe, expanded new full colour edition includes an updated filmography and previously unpublished interview material and stills. In this title, Simon Sheridan traces the history of the British sex film from its beginnings in coy nudist camp films such as Some Like It Cool (directed by Michael Winner in 1960) through the boom years of the Confessions films to its demise in the early 1980s.Read more
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Blockbusters: Why Big Hits – and Big Risks – are the Future of the Entertainment Business
What is behind the phenomenal success of entertainment businesses such as Warner Bros., Marvel Enterprises and Manchester United – along with such stars as Jay-Z and Lady Gaga? Which strategies give leaders in film, television, music, publishing, and sports an edge over their rivals?
Anita Elberse, Harvard Business School’s expert on the entertainment industry, has done pioneering research on the worlds of media and sports for more than a decade. Now, in this groundbreaking book, she explains a powerful truth about the fiercely competitive world of entertainment: building a business around blockbuster products – the movies, television shows, songs and books that are hugely expensive to produce and market – is the surest path to long-term success. Along the way, she reveals why entertainment executives often spend outrageous amounts of money in search of the next blockbuster, why superstars are paid unimaginable sums and how digital technologies are transforming the entertainment landscape.
Full of inside stories emerging from her unprecedented access to some of the world’s most successful entertainment brands, Blockbusters is destined to become required reading for anyone seeking to understand how the entertainment industry really works – and how to navigate today’s high-stakes business world at large.
‘Convincing . . . Elberse’s Blockbusters builds on her already impressive academic résumé to create an accessible and entertaining book.’ Financial Times
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Thunderclap: From the Sunday Times bestselling author of On Chapel Sands
‘One of the most captivating books I have ever read … A wonderful read (or a great present) for anyone who loves stories and art’ Nina Stibbe, author of Love, Nina
A beautifully illustrated new memoir of a life in art, a father and daughter, and what a shared love of a painting can come to mean.
‘We see with everything that we are’
On the morning of 12 October 1654, a gunpowder explosion devastated the Dutch city of Delft. The thunderclap was heard over seventy miles away. Among the fatalities was the painter Carel Fabritius, dead at thirty-two, leaving only his haunting masterpiece The Goldfinch and barely a dozen known paintings. The explosion that killed him also buried his reputation, along with answers to the mysteries of his life and career.
What happened to Fabritius before and after this disaster is just one of the discoveries in a book that explores the relationship between art and life, interweaving the lives of Laura Cumming, her Scottish painter father, who also died too young, and the great artists of the Dutch Golden Age.
This is a book about what a picture may come to mean: how it can enter your life and change your thinking in a thunderclap. Beautifully illustrated in full colour, this is the perfect Christmas gift for art lovers.
‘A book that often borders on the sublime’ Sunday Times
‘No one writes art like Laura Cumming’ Philip Hoare
‘I will never look at any painting in the same way again’ Polly Morland
‘Superb … this book taught me to see anew’ Daily Telegraph
‘Her pages stay with you long after you finish’ Simon Schama
‘Brilliant … rush out and buy it’ Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber EyesRead more
£19.00£23.80 -
The Coming Wave: The instant Sunday Times bestseller from the ultimate AI insider
**A Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, Sept 2023**
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE FT BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023**AI. SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY. QUANTUM COMPUTING. Everything is about to change. This is the only book you need to understand this new world.
From the ultimate AI insider, Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind, part of Google.
‘Fascinating, well-written, and important’ Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens
‘Deeply rewarding and consistently astonishing’ Stephen Fry
‘An excellent guide for navigating unprecedented times’ Bill GatesSoon you will live surrounded by AIs. They will organise your life, operate your business, and run core government services. You will live in a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy.
None of us are prepared.
As co-founder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind, part of Google, Mustafa Suleyman has been at the centre of this revolution. The coming decade, he argues, will be defined by this wave of powerful, fast-proliferating new technologies.
In The Coming Wave, Suleyman shows how these forces will create immense prosperity but also threaten the nation-state, the foundation of global order. As our fragile governments sleepwalk into disaster, we face an existential dilemma: unprecedented harms on one side and the threat of overbearing surveillance on the other.
Can we forge a narrow path between catastrophe and dystopia?
This ground-breaking book from the ultimate AI insider establishes ‘the containment problem’ – the task of maintaining control over powerful technologies – as the essential challenge of our age.
‘A stunning book by a man at the very centre of the AI revolution’ Rory Stewart
‘Essential reading’ Daniel KahnemanRead more
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Meditations: Marcus Aurelius (Penguin Classics)
‘Their icy blasts are refreshing and restorative. They tell you the worst. And having heard the worst, you feel less bad’ Blake Morrison
Written in Greek by the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher, without any intention of publication, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. While the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Marcus Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection that has been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers and readers throughout the centuries.
Translated with notes by MARTIN HAMMOND with an Introduction by DISKIN CLAY
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£7.85£8.99 -
The House of Islam: A Global History
‘A powerful corrective’ Guardian
‘This should be compulsory reading’ Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads
‘For anyone interested in the future of Islam, both in Britain and the Islamic world, this is an important book’ The Times
The gulf between Islam and the West is widening. A faith rich with strong values and traditions, observed by nearly two billion people is seen by the West as something to be feared rather than understood. Sensational headlines and hard-line policies spark enmity, while ignoring the feelings, narratives and perceptions that preoccupy Muslims today.
The House of Islam seeks to provide entry to the minds and hearts of Muslims the world over. It introduces us to the kindness of Mohammed, the beauty of Islamic art and the permeation of the divine in public spaces; and the tension between mysticism and literalism that still threatens the religion.
Ed Husain expertly and compassionately guides us through the nuances of Islam and its people, contending that the Muslim world need not be a stranger to the West, nor its enemy, but a peaceable ally.
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£7.30£9.50The House of Islam: A Global History
£7.30£9.50 -
Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy
This is the first survey of religious beliefs in the British Isles from the Old Stone Age to the coming of Christianity, one of the least familiar periods in Britain’s history. Ronald Hutton draws upon a wealth of new data, much of it archaeological, that has transformed interpretation over the past decade. Giving more or less equal weight to all periods, from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages, he examines a fascinating range of evidence for Celtic and Romano-British paganism, from burial sites, cairns, megaliths and causeways, to carvings, figurines, jewellery, weapons, votive objects, literary texts and folklore.Read more
£32.30 -
Phonics Catch-up Activity Book Ages 6+: Ideal for home learning (Collins Easy Learning KS1)
Level: KS1
Subject: EnglishLearn the easy way with this Phonics activity book!
Including helpful questions and answers, this English book provides reassurance whilst supporting your child’s learning at home.
Combining useful English practice with engaging, colourful illustrations, this Phonics practice book helps to boost your child’s confidence and develop good learning habits for life. Each fun activity is designed to give your child a real sense of achievement.
Included in this book:
- questions that allow children to practise the important skills learned at school
- colourful activities that make learning fun and motivate children to learn at home
- helpful tips and answers so that you can support your child’s learning
Provides recap and additional practice for phonics phases 2-5.
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£3.80 -
The Nostalgia Nerd’s Retro Tech: Computer, Consoles & Games (Tech Classics)
The perfect Father’s Day gift.Remember what a wild frontier the early days of home gaming were? Manufacturers releasing new consoles at a breakneck pace; developers creating games that kept us up all night, then going bankrupt the next day; and what self-respecting kid didn’t beg their parents for an Atari or a Nintendo? This explosion of computers, consoles, and games was genuinely unlike anything the tech world has seen before or since.
This thoroughly researched and geeky trip down memory lane pulls together the most entertaining stories from this dynamic era, and brings you the classic tech that should never be forgotten.
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£10.40£18.00 -
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: The official novel of the highly anticipated new game (Assassin’s Creed, 10)
Journey deeper in the world of Assassin’s Creed in the official novel of the incredible game: Odyssey.
Greece, 5th century BCE.
Kassandra is a mercenary of Spartan blood, sentenced to death by her family, cast out into exile. Now she will embark on an epic journey to become a legendary hero – and uncover the truth about her mysterious lineage.
The Assassin’s Creed novels have sold more than 1 MILLION COPIES around the world – see what readers are saying:
‘A brilliant read’ *****
‘I love this book’ *****
‘Original and unique’ *****
‘A brilliant accompaniment to the games’ *****
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£8.70£9.50 -
The View from the Train: Cities and Other Landscapes
In his classic sequence of films, Patrick Keiller retraces the hidden story of the places where we live, the cities and landscapes of our everyday lives. This collection explores the surrealist perception of the city; the relationship of architecture to film; how cities change over time, as well as an urgent portrait of post-crash Britain. The View from the Train establishes Keiller as one of the most perceptive writers and thinkers about the city, landscape and politics.Read more
£5.80 -
Escape from Model Land: How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do About It
‘A brilliant account of how models are so often abused and of how they should be used’ John Kay
How do mathematical models shape our world – and how can we harness their power for good?
Models are at the centre of everything we do. Whether we use them or are simply affected by them, they act as metaphors that help us better understand the increasingly complex problems facing us in the modern world. Without models, we couldn’t begin to tackle three of the major challenges facing modern society: regulation of the economy, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet in recent years, the validity of the models we use has been hotly debated and there has been renewed awareness of the disastrous consequences when the makers and interpreters of models get things wrong.
Drawing on contemporary examples from finance, climate and health policy, Erica Thompson explores what models are, why we need them, how they work and what happens when they go wrong. This is not a book that argues we should do away with models, but rather, that we need to properly understand how they are constructed – and how some of the assumptions that underlie the models we use can have significant unintended consequences. Unexpectedly humorous, thought-provoking and passionate, this is essential reading for everyone.
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£10.11£10.99 -
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades) (The Politically Incorrect Guides)
“The courageous Robert Spencer busts myths and tells truths about jihadists that no one else will tell.” —MICHELLE MALKINWhile many choose to simply blame the West for provoking terrorists, Robert Spencer’s new book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)™ reveals why it is time to ignore political correctness and identify the enemy – if we hope to ever defeat them.
In a fast-paced, politically incorrect tour of Islamic teachings and Crusades history, Spencer reveals the roots of Islamic violence and hatred. Spencer refutes the myths popularized by left-wing academics and Islamic apologists who justify their political agendas with contrived historical “facts.”
Exposing myth after myth, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)™ tackles Islam’s institutionalized mistreatment of non-Muslims, the stifling effect Islam has on science and free inquiry, the ghastly lure of Islam’s X-rated Paradise for suicide bombers and jihad terrorists, the brutal Islamic conquests of the Christian lands of the Middle East and North Africa, and more.
InThe Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)™, you will learn:
- How Muhammad did not teach “peace and tolerance”—instead he led armies and ordered the assassination of his enemies
- Why American Muslim groups and left-wing academics are engaged in a huge cover-up of Islamic doctrine and historyHow today’s jihad terrorists following the Qur’an’s command to make war on Jews and Christians have the same motives and goals as the Muslims who fought the Crusaders
- Why the Crusades were not acts of unprovoked aggression by Europe against the Islamic world, but a delayed response to centuries of Muslim aggression
- What must be done today—from reading the Qur’an to reclassifying Muslim organizations—in order to defeat jihad terrorists
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£12.30£14.20 -
Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition
Currently in Bill Gates’s bookbag and FT Books of 2018
Increasingly, the demands of identity direct the world’s politics. Nation, religion, sect, race, ethnicity, gender: these categories have overtaken broader, inclusive ideas of who we are. We have built walls rather than bridges. The result: increasing in anti-immigrant sentiment, rioting on college campuses, and the return of open white supremacy to our politics.
In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote that American and global institutions were in a state of decay, as the state was captured by powerful interest groups. Two years later, his predictions were borne out by the rise to power of a series of political outsiders whose economic nationalism and authoritarian tendencies threatens to destabilise the entire international order. These populist nationalists seek direct charismatic connection to ‘the people’, who are usually defined in narrow identity terms that offer an irresistible call to an in-group and exclude large parts of the population as a whole.
Identity is an urgent and necessary book: a sharp warning that unless we forge a universal understanding of human dignity, we will doom ourselves to continual conflict.
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£8.90£10.40 -
The Undeclared War: Struggle for Control of the World’s Film Industry
An account of the way in which Hollywood has achieved almost total sovereignty over the world’s movies. It tells of a battle which has seen Hollywood establish itself as a global cultural and economic force, and in the process, devastate the national industries of many other countries.Read more
£3.40 -
Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism
‘A clear, concise, easy-to-read account of the issues between sex, gender and feminism . . . an important book’ Evening Standard
‘A call for cool heads at a time of great heat and a vital reminder that revolutions don’t always end well’ Sunday Times
Material Girls is a timely and trenchant critique of the influential theory that we all have an inner feeling known as a gender identity, and that this feeling is more socially significant than our biological sex.
Professor Kathleen Stock surveys the philosophical ideas that led to this point, and closely interrogates each one, from De Beauvoir’s statement that, ‘One is not born, but rather becomes a woman’ (an assertion she contends has been misinterpreted and repurposed), to Judith Butler’s claim that language creates biological reality, rather than describing it. She looks at biological sex in a range of important contexts, including women-only spaces and resources, healthcare, epidemiology, political organization and data collection.
Material Girls makes a clear, humane and feminist case for our retaining the ability to discuss reality, and concludes with a positive vision for the future, in which trans rights activists and feminists can collaborate to achieve some of their political aims.
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£5.70£10.40Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism
£5.70£10.40 -
Adland: A Global History of Advertising
Adland is a ground-breaking examination of modern advertising, from its early origins, to the evolution of the current advertising landscape. Bestselling author and journalist Mark Tungate examines key developments in advertising, from copy adverts, radio and television, to the opportunities afforded by the explosion of digital media – podcasting, text messaging and interactive campaigns.
Adland focuses on key players in the industry and features exclusive interviews with leading names in advertising today, including Jean-Marie Dru, Sir Alan Parker, John Hegarty and Sir Martin Sorrell, as well as industry luminaries from the 20th Century such as Phil Dusenberry and George Lois.
Exploring the roots of the advertising industry in New York and London, and going on to cover the emerging markets of Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America, Adland offers a comprehensive examination of a global industry and suggests ways in which it is likely to develop in the future.
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£4.00 -
Scientific Advertising: Complete and Unabridged
The time has come when advertising has in some hands reached the status of a science. It is based on fixed principles and is reasonably exact. The causes and effects have been analyzed until they are well understood. The correct method of procedure have been proved and established. We know what is most effective, and we act on basic law. Advertising, once a gamble, has thus become, under able direction, one of the safest business ventures. Certainly no other enterprise with comparable possibilities need involve so little risk. Therefore, this book deals, not with theories and opinions, but with well-proved principles and facts. It is written as a text book for students and a safe guide for advertisers. Every statement has been weighed. The book is confined to establish fundamentals.Read more
£15.20 -
Normal Teacher Dance Teacher: Teacher Notebook , Journal or Planner for Dance Teacher Gift,Thank You Gift for Teachers to Show Your Gratitude During … Weekr, Gift Idea for…
A Wonderful Teacher Gift Under 10.00!
This extra special teacher appreciation notebook or journal is the perfect way to express your gratitude to the best teacher ever!
Instead of a boring thank you card, surprise your teacher.
Here’s a wonderful present for teachers to show your gratefulness and appreciation!Make them feel how special they are by giving them a teacher notebook that is specially made for them. With an inspirational teacher quote on a soft matte cover filled with more than 109 pages of writing,8.5 x 11 inch, this teacher journal will remind them that their work and influence on their students’ lives are remembered.This Funny Teacher Appreciation gift makes makes the perfect minimalistic notebook for any great Teachers at school for Birthdays, Holidays, or big events such as Christmas or retirement.
Read more
£5.70 -
Normal Teacher Dance Teacher: Teacher Notebook , Journal or Planner for Dance Teacher Gift,Thank You Gift for Teachers to Show Your Gratitude During … Weekr, Gift Idea for…
A Wonderful Teacher Gift Under 10.00!
This extra special teacher appreciation notebook or journal is the perfect way to express your gratitude to the best teacher ever!
Instead of a boring thank you card, surprise your teacher.
Here’s a wonderful present for teachers to show your gratefulness and appreciation!Make them feel how special they are by giving them a teacher notebook that is specially made for them. With an inspirational teacher quote on a soft matte cover filled with more than 109 pages of writing,8.5 x 11 inch, this teacher journal will remind them that their work and influence on their students’ lives are remembered.This Funny Teacher Appreciation gift makes makes the perfect minimalistic notebook for any great Teachers at school for Birthdays, Holidays, or big events such as Christmas or retirement.
Read more
£5.70
