Other books that might interest you

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  The Hills of California

  Jez Butterworth

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  'This house. It's called "Sea View". It's just I've looked out of every window, and you can't. You can't see the sea.'
  Blackpool, 1976. The driest summer in two hundred years. The beaches are packed. The hotels are heaving. In the sweltering backstreets, far from the choc ices and donkey rides, the Webb Sisters are returning to their mother's run-down guest house, as she lies dying upstairs.
  Jez Butterworth's play The Hills of California was first performed at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End in 2024, directed by Sam Mendes, and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions and Neal Street.

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  Bracing

  Simone Broome

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  ‘Bracing’ is a full collection of poems, mostly about contemporary life, experienced richly, intensely, unsentimentally and with humour. The writing is humane and accessible, wearing its intelligence lightly. There is something for everyone in ‘Bracing’, even for those who were put off poetry at school. This is a mature, well-rounded piece of work. The subject matter ranges across modern life and beyond - childhood, parenthood, love, lust, loss, shopping, animals (and our connection to them), climate change, the complexities of the human heart and of relationships, spirituality, food, suffragettes, the status of women, homesickness, grief, illness, ageing, dementia, fear, the joy in small things. All the poems are underpinned by a keen eye, a sharp wit and a total absence of self-pity. Simone is a safe pair of hands, writing in an unshowy style, a poet who manages to be heartfelt, humorous and accomplished.

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  Nostromo

  Joseph Conrad

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  Nostromo, written by Joseph Conrad and published in 1904, is set in the fictional South American country of Costaguana, particularly in the port city of Sulaco. The novel explores themes of imperialism, capitalism, and the moral dilemmas faced by its characters amid political turmoil.The story revolves around Charles Gould, a Costaguanero of English descent who owns a silver mine. Disillusioned by the political instability in Costaguana, Gould supports the dictatorship of President Ribiera, hoping to bring order to the region. However, the wealth generated by the mine attracts the attention of revolutionaries, leading to chaos as General Montero's forces invade Sulaco.

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  Winter Dreams - Author of the...

  F Scott itzgerald

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  Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on 24th September 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota into an upper-middle class family. Whilst his mother was pregnant with him, his two young sisters tragically died.  Fitzgerald once said this was when his destiny as a writer was ordained. 
   
  His intelligence and talent was recognised from an early age, with his first story, about a detective being published in the school magazine when he was just 13.   
   
  In 1913 he enrolled at Princeton but his devotion to his own literary pursuits resulted in him leaving and, rather bizarrely, joining the Army.  In 1918, stationed at Fort Sheridan near Montgomery, Alabama he met and became infatuated and then inseparable from Zelda Sayre.  Initially though she refused to marry him but with the success of ‘This Side of Paradise’, the fame and the flow of money enabled them both to begin a gilded life.  For them this was The Jazz Age.  For Fitzgerald he was already an alcoholic. 
   
  He continued to write with great mastery and the titles of his novels and many of his 164 short stories are household names.  The Great Gatsby, often cited as The Great American Novel was published to mixed reviews.  As America moved from the Great Depression to the slaughter of the Second World War his works and himself were seen as far too entwined with the decadent twenties. The world had moved on and he hadn’t.   
   
  Further tragedy was never far from his life. Zelda after years of erratic and now intolerable behaviour was committed to an institution in 1936.  His own sales began to decline and he became a hack for hire in Hollywood, dependent on increasing amounts of booze and the weekly pay check.  His drunken state had often resulted in arrest or hospitalisation, further imperiling his talents.   Despite his contribution to many MGM films he received only one credit. 
   
  The end came all too soon for one of America’s greatest ever writers.  On 21st December 1940, at only 44 years of age in Hollywood, F Scott Fitzgerald succumbed to a heart attack. 
   
  In ‘Winter Dreams’ Fitzgerald carefully unravels the life of a young entrepreneur who, many years before, meets a hauntingly beautiful woman at the summer resort where he caddies.

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  Why Fathers Cry at Night - A...

  Kwame Alexander

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  This powerful memoir from a #1 New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Medalist features poetry, letters, recipes, and other personal artifacts that provide an intimate look into his life and the loved ones he shares it with. In a powerfully intimate and non-traditional (or "new-fashioned") memoir, Kwame Alexander shares snapshots of a man learning how to love. He takes us through stories of his parents: from being awkward newlyweds in the sticky Chicago summer of 1967, to the sometimes-confusing ways they showed their love to each other, and for him. He explores his own relationships—his difficulties as a newly wedded, 22-year-old father, and the precariousness of his early marriage working in a jazz club with his second wife. Alexander attempts to deal with the unravelling of his marriage and the grief of his mother's recent passing while sharing the solace he found in learning how to perfect her famous fried chicken dish. With an open heart, Alexander weaves together memories of his past to try and understand his greatest love: his daughters. Full of heartfelt reminisces, family recipes, love poems, and personal letters, Why Fathers Cry at Night inspires bravery and vulnerability in every reader who has experienced the reckless passion, heartbreak, failure, and joy that define the whirlwind woes and wonders of love.

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  The Hound of the Baskervilles

  Arthur Conan Doyle

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  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most celebrated Sherlock Holmes story gets a gloriously funny makeover.
  When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead on his estate, with a look of terror still etched on his face, and the paw prints of a gigantic hound beside his body, the great detective Sherlock Holmes is summoned from Baker Street, with Dr Watson in tow, to unravel the mysteries surrounding his death, and investigate the ancient curse of the Hound of the Baskervilles...
  Packed full of the verbal and visual ingenuity that hit comedy team Peepolykus is known for, and offering abundant opportunities for riotous comedy and slapstick, The Hound of the Baskervilles will suit any theatre company looking to dust off their deerstalkers for a sublimely funny adaptation of a classic tale.
  It was adapted by Olivier Award nominees Steven Canny and John Nicholson, and first performed by Peepolykus at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, in 2007, before transferring to the West End. It has since become a firm favourite with theatre companies – both professional and amateur – around the world.
  This revised, definitive version of the play was first seen in a revival at Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, in 2024, directed by John Nicholson.

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