Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky

Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky

Author: Patrick Hamilton

Publisher: New York Review of Books

Published: 2013-10-30

Total Pages: 521

ISBN-13: 159017772X

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NYRB Classics presents 3 darkly humorous, atmospheric novellas of love and disappointment, set in a run-down London pub after WWI—from the author of the Hitchcock classics Gaslight and Rope. “Bleak and brilliant. . . an authentic lost classic.” —The Guardian Featuring a Dickensian cast of pubcrawlers, prostitutes, lowlifes, and just plain losers who are looking for love—or just an ear to bend—Hamilton’s novels are a triumph of deft characterization, offbeat humor, unlikely compassion, and raw suspense. In recent years, Hamilton has undergone a remarkable revival, with his champions including Doris Lessing, David Lodge, Nick Hornby, and Sarah Waters. Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky is a tale of obsession and betrayal that centers on a seedy pub in a run-down part of London. Bob the waiter skimps and saves and fantasizes about writing a novel, until he falls for the pretty prostitute Jenny and blows it all. Kindly Ella, Bob’s co-worker, adores Bob, but is condemned to enjoy nothing more than the attentions of the insufferable Mr. Eccles; Jenny, out on the street, is out of love, hope, and money. We watch with pity and horror as these three vulnerable and yet compellingly ordinary people meet and play out bitter comedies of longing and frustration. Included: The Midnight Bell (1929) The Siege of Pleasure (1932) The Plains of Cement (1934)


Craven House

Craven House

Author: Patrick Hamilton

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2017-07-06

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0349141525

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'All his novels are terrific' Sarah Waters Patrick Hamilton's novels were the inspiration for Matthew Bourne's new dance theatre production, The Midnight Bell. In Craven House, among the shifting, uncertain world of the English boarding house, with its sad population of the shabby genteel on the way down - and the eternal optimists who would never get up or on - the young Patrick Hamilton, with loving, horrified fascination, first mapped out the territory that he would make, uniquely, his own. Although many of Hamilton's lifelong interests are here, they are handled with a youthful brio and optimism conspicuously absent from his later work. The inmates of Craven House have their foibles, but most are indulgently treated by an author whose world view has yet to harden from scepticism into cynicism. The generational conflicts of Hamilton's own youth thread throughout the narrative, with hair bobbing and dancing as the battle lines. That perennial of the 1920s bourgeoisie, the 'servant problem', is never far from the surface, and tensions crescendo gradually to a resolution one climactic dinnertime.


Through a Glass Darkly

Through a Glass Darkly

Author: Nigel Jones

Publisher: Black Spring Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 9780948238390

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Penetrating biography of a fascinatingly contradictory writer who, despite a privileged background and early and sustained success, became increasingly embittered with the world. Doris Lessing calls him 'a marvellous novelist', Keith Waterhouse 'A riveting dissector of English life' and Nigel Jones makes excellent use of Hamilton's own letters and notes as well as his own highly perceptive insights. The Literary Review called Through a Glass Darkly 'One of the most stimulating biographies for years'.


Plant Dreaming Deep

Plant Dreaming Deep

Author: May Sarton

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2014-07-22

Total Pages: 134

ISBN-13: 1497646324

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The author’s tribute to the 18th-century New England farmhouse she called home: “[A] tender and often poignant book by a woman of many insights” (The New York Times Book Review). In Plant Dreaming Deep, Sarton shares an intensely personal account of transforming a house into a home. She begins with an introduction to the enchanting village of Nelson, where she first meets her house. Sarton finds she must “dream the house alive” inside herself before taking the major step of signing the deed. She paints the walls white in order to catch the light and searches for the precise shade of yellow for the kitchen floor. She discovers peace and beauty in solitude, whether she is toiling in the garden or writing at her desk. This is a loving, beautifully crafted memoir illuminated by themes of friendship, love, nature, and the struggles of the creative life. This ebook features an extended biography of May Sarton.


Hindoo Holiday

Hindoo Holiday

Author: J. R. Ackerley

Publisher: New York Review of Books

Published: 2012-10-31

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 1590175247

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In the 1920s, the young J. R. Ackerley spent several months in India as the personal secretary to the maharajah of a small Indian principality. In his journals, Ackerley recorded the Maharajah’s fantastically eccentric habits and riddling conversations, and the odd shambling day-to-day life of his court. Hindoo Holiday is an intimate and very funny account of an exceedingly strange place, and one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century travel literature.


The House by the Sea

The House by the Sea

Author: May Sarton

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2014-07-22

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 1497646359

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The author and poet’s graceful elegy about life, love, work, and growing older: “The most moving and the most thoughtful [of her] journal-memoirs” (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland). When May Sarton uprooted her life after fifteen years in the refurbished New Hampshire house with the garden she tended so lovingly, she relied solely on instinct. And something told her it was time to move on. Accompanied by her wild cat, Bramble, and Tamas, a Shetland shepherd puppy—the first dog she ever owned—Sarton embarked on the next chapter of her life. The house she chose by the sea in the Maine village of York is completely isolated except during the summer months. Surrounded by nothing but endless ocean, woods, and vast skies, Sarton experiences a rare sense of peace. She creates a new garden and fears that in this tranquil state, she may never write again. But in her solitude—with its occasional interruptions for trips away and visits from friends—she realizes that creativity is constantly renewing itself. This journal offers fascinating insight into a remarkable woman and the work and friendships that form the twin pillars of her life. This ebook features an extended biography of May Sarton.


Alone Together

Alone Together

Author: Sherry Turkle

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2017-11-07

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 0465093663

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A groundbreaking book by one of the most important thinkers of our time shows how technology is warping our social lives and our inner ones Technology has become the architect of our intimacies. Online, we fall prey to the illusion of companionship, gathering thousands of Twitter and Facebook friends, and confusing tweets and wall posts with authentic communication. But this relentless connection leads to a deep solitude. MIT professor Sherry Turkle argues that as technology ramps up, our emotional lives ramp down. Based on hundreds of interviews and with a new introduction taking us to the present day, Alone Together describes changing, unsettling relationships between friends, lovers, and families.


Twopence Coloured

Twopence Coloured

Author: Patrick Hamilton

Publisher: Abacus

Published: 2018-08-02

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 0349141614

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'I recommend Hamilton at every opportunity, because he was such a wonderful writer and yet is rather under-read today. All his novels are terrific' Sarah Waters 'If you were looking to fly from Dickens to Martin Amis with just one overnight stop, then Hamilton is your man' Nick Hornby Patrick Hamilton's novels were the inspiration for Matthew Bourne's new dance theatre production, The Midnight Bell. West Kensington - grey area of rot, and caretaking, and cat-slinking basements. West Kensington - drab asylum for the driven and cast-off genteel!' Patrick Hamilton was acutely conscious that his third novel (first published in 1928) was longer and 'much grimmer' than his previous and well-received productions. Twopence Coloured is the story of nineteen-year-old Jackie Mortimer, who leaves Hove in search of a life on the London stage, only to become entangled in 'provincial theatre' and complex affairs of the heart with two brothers, Richard and Charles Gissing. The novel, unavailable for many years, is a gimlet-eyed portrait of the theatrical vocation, and fully exhibits Hamilton's celebrated gift for conjuring London - the 'vast, thronged, unknown, hooting, electric-lit, dark-rumbling metropolis.


The Forgotten Slaves of Tromelin

The Forgotten Slaves of Tromelin

Author: Sylvain SAVOIA

Publisher: Europe Comics

Published: 2016-09-16T00:00:00+02:00

Total Pages: 123

ISBN-13:

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This story takes place on a tiny, far-flung island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, whose nearest neighbor is Madagascar, 500 kilometers away... In 1760, the Utile, a ship carrying black slaves from Africa, was shipwrecked here and abandoned by her crew. The surviving slaves had to struggle to stay alive in this desolate land for fifteen years... When this tale got back to France, it became the cornerstone of the battle of Enlightenment to outlaw slavery. More than two hundred years later, the artist Sylvain Savoia accompanied the first archeological mission in search of understanding how these men and women, who had come from the high mountains of Madagascar, had survived alone in the middle of the ocean. This is the story of that mission, through which we're exposed to the extraordinary story of the slaves themselves.