Other books that might interest you

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  Contemporary Plays by Black...

  Travis Alabanza, Firdos Ali,...

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  'Welcome. Welcome to Bristol in 1963. Welcome to Waterloo Bridge in 2016. Welcome to a house in May 2017. Welcome to three couples and what might be, what once was and what could have been in 2017. Welcome to a West Indian household in 2018. Welcome to London in 2018. Welcome to the past, present and – crucially – the future.'
  This anthology brings together six plays, all written or performed since 2017, by six brilliant Black British writers – Travis Alabanza, Firdos Ali, Natasha Gordon, Arinzé Kene, Chinonyerem Odimba and debbie tucker green.
  The plays demonstrate a rich range of settings, forms, styles, locations, scales, contents and concerns – and explore themes including politics and protest, grief and colonisation, relationships and gender.
  They have been seen on stages including the National Theatre, the Royal Court, the Bush and Bristol Old Vic, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in the West End, and on tour of the UK.
  Selected and introduced by leading theatre director Natalie Ibu, Contemporary Plays by Black British Writers celebrates a multiplicity of stories authored by Black playwrights in the UK over the last decade.

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  All's Well That Ends Well

  William Shakespeare

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  All's Well That Ends Well is a play by William Shakespeare.    Helena, the low-born ward of a Spanish countess, is in love with the countess' son Bertram, who is indifferent to her. Bertram goes to Paris to replace his late father as attendant to the ailing King of France. Helena, the daughter of a recently deceased doctor, follows Bertram, ostensibly to offer the King her services as a healer. The King is sceptical, and she guarantees the cure with her life: if he dies, she will be put to death, but if he lives, she may choose a husband from the court. The King is cured and Helena chooses Bertram, who rejects her, owing to her poverty and low status.     The King forces him to marry her, but after the ceremony Bertram immediately goes to war in Italy without so much as a goodbye kiss. He says that he will only marry her after she has borne his child and wears his family ring. In Italy, Bertram is a successful warrior and also a successful seducer of local virgins. Helena follows him to Italy, befriends Diana, a virgin with whom Bertram is infatuated, and they arrange for Helena to take Diana's place in bed. Diana obtains Bertram's ring in exchange for one of Helena's. In this way Helena, without Bertram's knowledge, consummates their marriage and wears his ring. Helena returns to the Spanish countess, who is horrified at what her son has done, and claims Helena as her child in Bertram's place. Helena fakes her death, and Bertram, thinking he is free of her, comes home.

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  How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes

  Chris Tse

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  The award-winning first book of poetry by Chris Tse – now available as an audiobook.
  Winner – Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry at the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards
  The world is full of murder
  
  and words are usually
  the first to go
  In 1905, white supremacist Lionel Terry murdered the Cantonese gold prospector Joe Kum Yung to draw attention to his crusade to rid New Zealand of Chinese and other East Asian immigrants.
  Chris Tse uses this story – and its reenactment for a documentary a hundred years later – to reflect on the experiences of Chinese migrants of the period, their wishes and hopes, their estrangement and alienation, their ghostly reverberation through a white-majority culture. Along the way we visit the gold fields of the south, a shipwreck in the Hokianga that left the spirits of 500 Chinese goldminers in an unmemorialised limbo for a hundred years and the streets of Newtown, Wellington, where Lionel Terry went out one night ' looking for a Chinaman' .
  Chris Tse' s flickering use of imagery, resonant language and flexible pronouns are particularly suited to the historic events he describes and the viewpoints he shifts through.  How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes  is a welcome poetic addition to New Zealand literature.

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  The Artist and the Beautiful -...

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

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  Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on 4th July 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, a town synonymous with the earlier Salem Witch Trials. It was instrumental in Hawthorne’s later use of American Gothic and dark romanticism in his writing. 
   
  He was a mere four years old when his father died and his mother took him and his two sisters to live with her family and then on to their own home in Raymond, Maine. The young Hawthorne had a passion for fiction and poetry and voraciously read the works of Ann Radcliffe, Henry Fielding and Lord Byron.  
   
  He was sent to college at his maternal uncle’s insistence. During these years he met and befriended Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and future U S president Franklin Pierce. These friendships were lifelong and to have a crucial impact on his writings and career.  
   
  At college Hawthorne had made attempts at writing short stories and essays but without opportunities to publish. It was only in 1828 that he finally published his novel ‘Franshawe’ to little success and so he began work as editor for the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge.  
   
  Hawthorne’s short stories were first published in magazines but in 1837 were collected and published as ‘Twice-Told Tales’. A steady literary career still did not come his way and so he worked in a good position at Salem’s port and married the love of his life Sophia Peabody. They moved to live in ‘The Old Manse’ at Concord, Massachusetts.   
   
  Finally. in 1850 came spectacular literary and commercial success with ‘The Scarlet Letter’ followed by ‘The House of the Seven Gables’ the following year.  
   
  In 1852, Hawthorne published a biography of presidential candidate Franklin Pierce. After Pierce’s victory he was appointed consul in Liverpool, a position that offered prestige, money and fame. At the end of this appointment he returned several times to Europe before settling in Massachusetts and resuming writing and publication. 
   
  During the early 1860’s his health declined and on 19th May 1864 during a trip to Plymouth, New Hampshire. He was 59 and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.  
   
  In his short story ‘The Artist of the Beautiful’ Hawthorne creates a work, now considered early science fiction, that weaves an unrequited life-long love with the creation of a beautiful miniature object that is both breath-taking and heart-breaking.

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  The Other Boleyn Girl - (stage...

  Philippa Gregory

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  Henry VIII's court is a stage for love and treachery, where the weapons of choice are sex, marriage – and the executioner's axe. As Henry's mistress, Mary Boleyn is a pawn in her family's lust for power. Queen Katherine of Aragon hasn't produced a male heir, and Mary's ruthless uncle scents the chance of putting his niece on the throne.
  But Henry's wandering eye has fallen on another: Mary's headstrong sister, Anne, whose ambition not only threatens to destroy her bond with Mary, but shakes the foundations of Church and State.
  Based on Philippa Gregory's internationally bestselling novel, The Other Boleyn Girl is a brilliant evocation of intrigue at the Tudor court – a racy and riveting drama of events that changed the course of English history. This stage adaptation by Mike Poulton was premiered at Chichester Festival Theatre in 2024, directed by Lucy Bailey.

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  Tamerlane

  Edgar Allan Poe

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  Tamerlane is part of Edgar Allan Poe's debut collection, showcasing his early poetic style, heavily influenced by Romantic poets like Lord Byron. The title poem, "Tamerlane," is a dramatic monologue by the historical conqueror, reflecting on his life of war and conquest.

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