Other books that might interest you

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  The Invincibles

  Amanda Whittington

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  1917: World War One is raging in Europe. In Britain, Sterling Ladies – known as the Dagenham Invincibles – are playing to win. For two whirlwind seasons, they never lose a game. Yet once peace is restored, the factory girls must hang up their boots and see triumph fade into obscurity.
  2023: Injured footballer Maya follows England's progress through the Women's World Cup. The world has changed, yet the roar of the Lionesses echoes the Invincibles' war-cry. Watching at home, Maya fears she'll never play again – but as she loses herself in the present, she hears the call of the past and finds fresh hope for the future.
  Amanda Whittington's play The Invincibles celebrates two generations of inspirational women, and their adventures on the football pitch a century apart. It was premiered at Queen's Theatre Hornchurch in 2023, and offers rich opportunities for other theatre companies looking to score a hit with their audiences.

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  Birds Knit My Ribs Together

  Phil Barnett

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  what if / I actually – am – a bird / my cupped hands / opening to release me... Phil Barnett's relationship with birds is so close that his poetry blurs the distinctions between himself and the birds - a kind of ornimorphology where rather than giving the birds human characteristics, the reverse happens, and he imagines himself as a bird. Phil Barnett is a photographer, writer, musician, artist and naturalist, who has a passion for the birds that kept him company through a long hard illness. His photography and poetry have quite a following on social media, which is where we found him, on The Daily Haiku. His skill as a photographer leads to an acute visual sensibility, and his slow recovery moves from a tick sheet his mother had to fill in for him, to extraordinary poetry - full of wit and wonder and spectacular language.

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  The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon...

  Willie Perdomo

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  A suite of poems about a percussionist in 1970 Spanish Harlem music circles, from the author of The Crazy Bunch 
    
  A National Book Critics Circle 2014 Finalist for Poetry 
    
  Through dream song and elegy, alternate takes and tempos, prizewinning poet Willie Perdomo’s third collection crackles with vitality and dynamism as it imagines the life of a percussionist, rebuilding the landscape of his apprenticeship, love, diaspora, and death. At the beginning of his infernal journey, Shorty Bon Bon recalls his live studio recording with a classic 1970s descarga band, sharing his recollection with an unidentified poet. This opening section is followed by a call-and-response with his greatest love, a singer named Rose, and a visit to Puerto Rico that inhabits a surreal nationalistic dreamscape, before a final jam session where Shorty recognizes his end and a trio of voices seek to converge on his elegy. 
    
  “A vivid portrait of a late-20th century Nuyorican musical community … Perdomo manages to mix the language of city life with a sense of the transcendent.”—NPR.org 

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  The Hunting of the Snark - The...

  Lewis Carroll

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  Lewis Carroll was born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson on the 27th January 1832 at Daresbury, Cheshire, the eldest boy and the third child.  Another eight followed.   
   
  When Dodgson was 11, his cleric father moved his family to Croft-on-Tees in the North Riding of Yorkshire.  Although his father was active and highly conservative his son was ambivalent with those values and with the Church as a whole. 
   
  In his early years Dodgson was educated at home and by age 7 he was reading the likes of ‘The Pilgrim's Progress’.  He also spoke with a stammer which he called his ‘hesitation’. 
   
  At 12 he was dispatched to Richmond Grammar School in North Yorkshire and then on to Rugby.  He sailed through the curriculum.  He was accepted at Christ Church, Oxford but two days after arriving he was summoned home: his mother had died of ‘inflammation of the brain’ at only 47. 
   
  Dodgson was exceptionally gifted and, when not distracted, achievement came easily to him.  He remained at Christ Church studying and teaching in various capacities until his death. 
   
  In March 1856, he published the romantic poem ‘Solitude’ as by ‘Lewis Carroll’.  
   
  That same year he took up the new art of photography.  He soon excelled and became a well-known gentleman-photographer, and even toyed with the idea of making a living out of it.  When he ceased photography in 1880, he had his own studio and had created around 3,000 images. 
   
  He enjoyed moderate success with his early poems and short stories but had an array of other interests in the pre-Raphaelite circle, Psychical Research and even ordained in the Church of England in 1861.  
   
  In July 1862 he told a young Alice Liddell the story that would become his first and greatest success.  Alice begged him to write it down, and eventually he did and later presented her with a handwritten and illustrated ‘Alice's Adventures Under Ground’.  The publisher Macmillan agreed to publish it as ‘Alice's Adventures in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll.  
   
  It was a huge and sensational life-changing success.  Royalties quickly accumulated as did fan mail.  
   
  In 1871, the darker themed sequel ‘Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There’ was published.  A half decade later came ‘The Hunting of the Snark’, a fantastical nonsense poem, as nine tradesmen and a beaver set off to find the snark.  It was another enormous success. 
   
  He also loved to invent such delights as a writing tablet ‘the nyctograph’ that allowed note-taking in the dark as well as many word games, such as the precursor to ‘Scrabble’, and alternative systems of parliamentary voting.  Within the discipline of mathematics, he worked in geometry, linear and matrix algebra, mathematical logic, recreational mathematics and wrote nearly a dozen books on the subject.   
   
  Lewis Carroll died of pneumonia following influenza on 14th January 1898 in Guildford, Surrey.  He was 65.  
   
  01 - The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll - An Introduction 
  02 - The Hunting of the Snark. Fit the First - The Landing 
  03 - Fit the Second - The Bellman's Speech 
  04 - Fit the Third - The Baker's Tale 
  05 - Fit the Fourth - The Hunting 
  06 - Fit the Fifth - The Beaver's Lessom 
  07 - Fit the Sixth - The Barrister's Dream 
  08 - Fit the Seventh - The Banker's Fate 
  09 - Fit the Eighth - The Vanishing

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  Ever Dark: The Vampire King...

  X. Aratare

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  Julian Harrow and Christian Thorne are now Vampires! And both young men have been united with their Masters after trials and tribulations. But if they thought that becoming Vampires was dangerous and exciting, being the fledglings of the exiled Lord Balthazar Ravenscroft and the Vampire King Daemon will blow that out of the water. Because both Balthazar and Daemon have enemies that are intent on making sure that they and their new fledglings are given their Second Deaths. 
  This is a FULL CAST audio drama with 12 actors, and all 9 books are complete.

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  Octopolis (NHB Modern Plays)

  Marek Horn

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  Professor George Grey is world-renowned for her pioneering research into octopus intelligence. Recently bereaved, her closest relationship these days is with her research subject: Frances, who resides in a large, purpose-built tank in George's campus accommodation.
  But when ambitious anthropologist Harry enters her life, his breathtaking new theory threatens to tear her world apart in more ways than one…
  
  A play for two actors – and one octopus – Octopolis by Marek Horn is a fascinating and funny exploration of love, grief, and what makes us human. It premiered at Hampstead Theatre, London, in September 2023, directed by Ed Madden.
  'A grownup campus romcom, with profound and complex ideas about consciousness and intelligence' - Guardian
  'A tangled, tentacled tale… unabashedly cerebral' - The Times
  'Funny, touching, and surprising… an intimate two-hander that reveals itself to be about vastly expansive ideas… Marek Horn's writing is probing and incisive… manages to express very complex ideas, both academic and interpersonal, with a surprising lucidity, and with moments of unexpected comedy… an intricately intellectual piece of theatre, diving headfirst into questions of sentience, religion, grief, and community from a uniquely smart writer… you could watch or read Octopolis several times over and continue to notice something new… if you go to the theatre to think, to learn something, to do some introspection, it's unmissable' - Broadway World
  'Fascinating… a game of who's-watching-who as a rapid-fire sparring of wits and intellect dive and propel through the murky waters of grief, spirituality, and admiring love' - WhatsOnStage

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