Other books that might interest you

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  Love in Idleness Less Than Kind...

  Terence Rattigan

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  Love in Idleness is the third in Terence Rattigan's unofficial trilogy of war plays (after Flare Path and While the Sun Shines). It is published here alongside an earlier version of the play, Less Than Kind, which was never staged during Rattigan's lifetime.
  Michael, eighteen, returns to wartime London from schooling in Canada, brimming with youthful left-wing convictions. Reunited with his mother, he is alarmed as he begins to realise that she is the mistress of a leading member of the war cabinet. Sparks fly between the idealistic younger man and the pragmatic politician, while the mother is torn between them...
  Rattigan's first version of this comedy, Less Than Kind, was never staged and never published until 2011, the centenary of his birth. Instead it was substantially rewritten at the behest of the Lunts, who were to star in the premiere production, and it opened in the West End in 1944 as Love in Idleness.
  This volume presents both plays in full so that readers may judge for themselves which is the better. Less Than Kind was premiered in London in January 2011.
  This edition includes an authoritative introduction by Dan Rebellato, a biographical sketch and chronology.
  'Few dramatists of this century have written with more understanding of the human heart than Terence Rattigan' - Guardian

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  Martyrology Book 5

  bp Nichol

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  'All of Nichol's work is stamped by his desire to create texts that are engaging in themselves as well as in context, and to use indirect structural and textual devices to carry meaning. In The Martyrology different ways of speaking testify to a journey through different ways of being. Language is both the poet’s instructor and, through its various permutations, the dominant 'image' of the poem. The [nine] books of The Martyrology document a poet’s quest for insight into himself and his writing through scrupulous attention to the messages hidden in the morphology of his own speech.' - Frank Davey

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  Antigone

  Sophocles

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  This is the final installment in Sophocles's Theban Plays, following Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus.  Oedipus's daughter Antigone deliberately breaks the laws of Thebes when she buries her brother's body and is sentenced to death.  She clashes with Creon, the King of Thebes, over what constitutes justice and morality: the laws of the state or the laws of the individual.  (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)Cast: 
  Antigone: Elizabeth KlettIsmene: Arielle LipshawCreon: Bruce PirieHaemon: mbEurydice: Lucy PerryTiresias: Martin GeesonGuard: Algy PugChorus, Second Messenger: Lars RolanderMessenger: David GoldfarbNarrator: David LawrenceAudio edited by: Elizabeth Klett

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  Cheese Curd for Bait

  James McIntyre

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  LibriVox volunteers bring you 14 recordings of Cheese Curd for Bait by James McIntyre. This was the Weekly Poetry project for September 23, 2012.James McIntyre, born in Scotland, came to Canada in 1841. He finally settled in Ingersoll (a town in central Ontario on the banks of the Thames River), the then-heart of Canadian dairy country.He was well loved in the community, from which he often received aid in hard times, due in part to his poesy and oratorical skills — he was called on to speak at every kind of social gathering in Ingersoll. The region seems to have inspired him, and it was in celebration of the proud history of Canada, the natural beauty and industry of the region, and especially its cheese, that the majority of his oeuvre was written. (Summary from Wikipedia)

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  Goethe - A Very Short Introduction

  Ritchie Robertson

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  In 1878 the Victorian critic Matthew Arnold wrote: "Goethe is the greatest poet of modern times . . . because having a very considerable gift for poetry, he was at the same time, in the width, depth, and richness of his criticism of life, by far our greatest modern man."In this Very Short Introduction Ritchie Robertson covers the life and work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832): scientist, administrator, artist, art critic and supreme literary writer in a vast variety of genres. Looking at Goethe's poetry, novels, and drama pieces, as well as his travel writing, autobiography, and essays on art and aesthetics, Robertson analyses some of the key themes in his works: love, nature, religion and tragedy. Dispelling the misconception of Goethe as a sedate Victorian sage, Robertson shows how much of his art was rooted in turbulent personal conflicts, and draws on recent research to present a complete portrait of the scientific work and political activity which accompanied Goethe's writings.

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  King Lear

  William Shakespeare

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  “When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.” 
  King Lear has lived a long and difficult life as a king and decides that he wants to retire of his duties. To absolve himself of power, Lear decides to split his kingdom among his three daughters based on their affections toward him. While two of his daughters flatter their father and declare their fealty and respect, his third daughter refuses to flatter his ego and declares that she only loves him because he is her father. This disrespect causes Lear to leave her nothing. 
  People in search of power can be duplicitous though, and as King Lear learns that the two flatterers were false in their declarations, his anger sparks a descent into madness that in turn sparks a chain of murders and betrayals that spread through many kingdoms and people rapidly. 
  King Lear, while written with beautiful poetry and language, is dark and brutal, with lessons of loyalty and the value of family bonds that still ring true centuries later.

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