Nothing to Write Home About uncovers the significance of British family correspondence sent between the United Kingdom and British Columbia between 1858 and 1914. Drawing on thousands of letters, Laura Ishiguro offers insights into epistolary topics including familial intimacy and conflict, everyday concerns such as boredom and food, and what correspondents chose not to write. She shows that Britons used the post to navigate family separations and understand British Columbia as an uncontested settler home. These letters and their writers played a critical role in laying the foundations of a powerful settler order that continues to structure the province today.
"Nothing to Write Home About" is a lightly fictionalized memoir of a now distant period of recent American History, "The Cold War." In mid-1950s America, a rite of male passage was a couple of years of non-threatening, peacetime military service. By 1955, the war in Korea was two years past and Vietnam was still just a name. For the author, then aged eighteen, the Army offered an escape from the confines of a blue-collar neighborhood, a first opening on and into a larger world, a semi-grownup world filled with characters from all over the country, some good, some not so good and some just outlandish. Two years in the Army, with duty in South Carolina, Arkansas, Colorado and finally Germany became, unknowingly at the time, one of the genuinely educational and more memorable experiences of a lifetime.
A New York Times Bestseller • A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, People, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, TIME, The A.V. Club, Buzzfeed, and PopSugar “I can’t believe how good this book is.... It’s wholly original. It’s also perfect.... Wilson writes with such a light touch.... The brilliance of the novel [is] that it distracts you with these weirdo characters and mesmerizing and funny sentences and then hits you in a way you didn’t see coming. You’re laughing so hard you don’t even realize that you’ve suddenly caught fire.” —Taffy Brodesser-Akner, author of Fleishman is in Trouble, New York Times Book Review From the New York Times bestselling author of The Family Fang, a moving and uproarious novel about a woman who finds meaning in her life when she begins caring for two children with a remarkable ability. Lillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite boarding school. But then Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal and they’ve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help. Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Lillian is convinced Madison is pulling her leg, but it’s the truth. Thinking of her dead-end life at home, the life that has consistently disappointed her, Lillian figures she has nothing to lose. Over the course of one humid, demanding summer, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other—and stay cool—while also staying out of the way of Madison’s buttoned-up politician husband. Surprised by her own ingenuity yet unused to the intense feelings of protectiveness she feels for them, Lillian ultimately begins to accept that she needs these strange children as much as they need her—urgently and fiercely. Couldn’t this be the start of the amazing life she’d always hoped for? With white-hot wit and a big, tender heart, Kevin Wilson has written his best book yet—a most unusual story of parental love.
This is a collection of John Hinde postcards and the messages written on them by holidaymakers between 1960s and 1980s. The text is a celebration of the Britain of yesteryear and documents the heyday of the British holiday postcard.
Some kids refuse to read, others won’t stop – not even at the dinner table! Either way, many parents question the best way to support their child’s literacy journey. When can you start reading to your child? How do you find that special book to inspire a reluctant reader? What can you do to keep your tween reading into their adolescent years? Award-winning teacher librarian Megan Daley, the passionate voice behind the Children’s Books Daily blog, has the answers to all these questions and more. She unpacks her twenty years of experience into this personable and accessible guide, enhanced with up-to-date research and firsthand accounts from well-known Australian children’s authors. It also contains practical tips, such as suggested reading lists and instructions on how to run book-themed activities.Raising Readers is a must-have resource for parents and educators to help the children in their lives fall in love with books.
“Remarkable.”—New York Times Book Review From Annie Barrows, the acclaimed #1 New York Times–bestselling coauthor of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and the author of the award-winning and bestselling Ivy + Bean books, this teen debut tells the story of Charlotte and Frankie, two high school students and best friends who don’t have magical powers, fight aliens, crash their cars, get pierced, or discover they are royal. They just go to school. And live at home. With their parents. A great read for fans of Becky Albertalli, Louise Rennison, and Adi Alsaid. Nothing ever happens to Charlotte and Frankie. Their lives are nothing like the lives of the girls they read about in their YA novels. They don’t have flowing red hair, and hot romantic encounters never happen—let alone meeting a true soul mate. They just go to high school and live at home with their parents, who are pretty normal, all things considered. But when Charlotte decides to write down everything that happens during their sophomore year—to prove that nothing happens and there is no plot or character development in real life—she’s surprised to find that being fifteen isn’t as boring as she thought. It’s weird, heartbreaking, silly, and complicated. And maybe, just perfect.
George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times
This dictionary is the ideal supplement to the German/English Dictionary of Idioms, which together give a rich source of material for the translator from and into each language. The dictionary contains 15,000 headwords, each entry supplying the German equivalents, variants, contexts and the degree of currency/rarity of the idiomatic expression. This dictionary will be an invaluable resource for students and professional literary translators. Not for sale in Germany, Austria or Switzerland
The most comprehensive reference for understanding and using the contemporary idioms of American English—with more than 1,000 entries. Mastering the use of idiomatic language is an essential step toward achieving fluency in any language. Webster's New World: American Idioms Handbook is the ideal guide to the slang, sayings, expressions, jargon, and colloquialisms of American English—covering more than 1,000 entries. Emphasizing acquisition and application, this book explains their meanings as well as when, where, why, and how to use them. A wealth of examples helps readers understand each idiom’s connotation and identify its appropriate context. An extensive index allows for quick and easy reference.
New cover design - all titles in the Partridge collection now have the same style covers. Group shot of titles will be made available, together with an order form The first edition had life sales of over 19000 copies (hardback), the second edition sold out after selling 6000 copies (hardback) and the paperback has sold nearly 5000 copies in 2 editions
