Tired of London, Tired of Life
Tired of London, Tired of Life

Author: Tom Jones

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2012-03-08

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1448132231

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A charming and inspiring book of 365 things to do in London. Beautifully illustrated with bitesize entries ranging from the well-known to the quirky, this is the perfect gift for anyone wanting to discover all of the gems London has to offer... 'One thing to do every day that'll stop you getting tired of the big smoke.' -- The Guardian 'A great way to explore London!' -- ***** Reader review 'Great fun and great information' -- ***** Reader review 'Great book to dip into. Always find something new to do/somewhere new to go' -- ***** Reader review 'A brilliant book with fascinating ideas to do around the city' -- ***** Reader review ****************************************************************************************************** As the late great Samuel Johnson sagely observed, 'When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.' When author Tom Jones found himself doing the same things week in, week out while living in England's treasured capital, he decided to heed Johnson's words and seek out a thing to do each day in London to make him fall back in love with the city. Here, in Tired of London, Tired of Life, Tom shares the fun, diverting and imaginative things that you can do to keep yourself amused in London. With seasonally appropriate suggestions for each day of the year, you can explore East London by canoe, search for Fagin's lair in Clerkenwell, play petanque in Southwark, seek out Aphrodite in the British Museum on Valentine's Day and enjoy a host of unusual ways to enjoy the capital. So grab your A-Z and start discovering a whole other side to this majestic city!

Five Days in London, May 1940
Five Days in London, May 1940

Author: John Lukacs

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1999-09-10

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 0300180918

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A “gripping [and] splendidly readable” portrait of the battle within the British War Cabinet—and Churchill’s eventual victory—as Hitler’s shadow loomed (The Boston Globe). From May 24 to May 28, 1940, members of Britain’s War Cabinet debated whether to negotiate with Hitler or to continue what became known as the Second World War. In this magisterial work, John Lukacs takes us hour by hour into the critical events at 10 Downing Street, where Winston Churchill and his cabinet painfully considered their responsibilities. With the unfolding of the disaster at Dunkirk, and Churchill being in office for just two weeks and treated with derision by many, he did not have an easy time making his case—but the people of Britain were increasingly on his side, and he would prevail. This compelling narrative, a Washington Post bestseller, is the first to convey the drama and world-changing importance of those days. “[A] fascinating work of historical reconstruction.”—The Wall Street Journal “Eminent historian Lukacs delivers the crown jewel to his long and distinguished career.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A must for every World War II buff.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer “Superb…can be compared to such classics as Hugh Trevor-Roper’s The Last Days of Hitler and Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August.”—Harper’s Magazine

Shakespeare's London On Five Groats a Day
Shakespeare's London On Five Groats a Day

Author: Richard Tames

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2009-06-23

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0500287937

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This fact-packed guide provides all the practical advice a tourist needs to travel back four centuries to explore the booming city of London. London is big and can be baffling, but don’t worry if you don’t know a buskin from a firkin. This is the book to put you right – how to read up in advance, how to get there, settle in and keep safe on the streets, how to meet the people and find out the famous. Saunter over London Bridge with its dozens of shops and houses. Wonder at Whitehall, Europe’s largest palace. Revere the tombs of kings in Westminster Abbey. Tour the Tower of London – an archive, armoury, mint, menagerie, prison and jewel house all in one building. Watch the finest plays and players at the Rose Theatre and marvel at the bustle of business in the Royal Exchange. Go down to Greenwich to stand on the deck of the Golden Hind, the ship that sailed round the world. London is the magnet for the talents of a nation stirring to greatness. Shakespeare bestrides the stage. At Elizabeth’s dazzling court Ralegh and Essex are rivals for her favour. From the shadows Dr Dee, mathematician and magician, proffers secret counsel to the Queen. T&H picture researchers Sally Paley and Alice Foster won the Longman-History Today award 2010 for Historical Picture Researcher of the Year for their work on Shakespeare's London on 5 Groats a Day.

Queer City
Queer City

Author: Peter Ackroyd

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2018-05-08

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 1683353013

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A history of the development of London as a European epicenter of queer life. In Queer City, the acclaimed Peter Ackroyd looks at London in a whole new way–through the complete history and experiences of its gay and lesbian population. In Roman Londinium, the city was dotted with lupanaria (“wolf dens” or public pleasure houses), fornices (brothels), and thermiae (hot baths). Then came the Emperor Constantine, with his bishops, monks, and missionaries. And so began an endless loop of alternating permissiveness and censure. Ackroyd takes us right into the hidden history of the city; from the notorious Normans to the frenzy of executions for sodomy in the early nineteenth century. He journeys through the coffee bars of sixties Soho to Gay Liberation, disco music, and the horror of AIDS. Ackroyd reveals the hidden story of London, with its diversity, thrills, and energy, as well as its terrors, dangers, and risks, and in doing so, explains the origins of all English-speaking gay culture. Praise for Queer City “Spanning centuries, the book is a fantastically researched project that is obviously close to the author’s heart.... An exciting look at London’s queer history and a tribute to the “various human worlds maintained in [the city’s] diversity despite persecution, condemnation, and affliction.””—Kirkus Reviews “[Ackroyd’s] work is highly anecdotal and near encyclopedic . . . the book is fascinating in its careful exposition of the singularities—and commonalities—of gay life, both male and female. Ultimately it is, as he concludes, a celebration as well as a history,” —Booklist “A witty history-cum-tribute to gay London, from the Roman “wolf dens” through Oscar Wilde and Gay Pride marches to the present day,” —ShelfAwareness

Any Day Now
Any Day Now

Author: Kevin Cann

Publisher: Adelita Limited

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780955201776

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An in-depth and highly visual chronology charting the rise of one of the most formidable artists of all time - David Bowie - from his birth in London in 1947 to the height of his success in 1974 with the release of his album Diamond Dogs and his departure from the UK. Author Kevin Cann is an associate of Bowie and has acted as his archivist for nearly 20 years - allowing him unprecedented access to extremely rare photographs and memorabilia which are here combined with interviews with over 100 of Bowie's friends and associates.

Modern London
Modern London

Author: Lukas Novotny

Publisher: White Lion Publishing

Published: 2018-10-04

Total Pages: 147

ISBN-13: 071123972X

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From the art deco factories of the 1920s through to the skyscraper boom of the twenty-first century, Modern London takes you on an illustrated tour of the capital’s ever-changing landscape. Shaped variously by war, economics, population growth and design trends, the city has been moulded by some of the greatest modern architects and to this day remains a centre of building design and experimentation. Through intricate graphic illustrations and accessible entertaining text, London’s streets, structures and transport systems of the last century are brought to life. Discover long lost treasures such as the Firestone Factory and marvel at modern–day masterpieces like the London Aquatics centre; delight in previously vilified social housing projects such as the Balfron Tower, and discover the drama behind bold, eccentric designs like the ‘Cheesegrater’. The city’s skyline can change in an instant; Modern London invites you to sit back and survey the scene so far.

A Journey Through Ruins
A Journey Through Ruins

Author: Patrick Wright

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2009-02-26

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 0191580082

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A unique evocation of Britain at the height of Margaret Thatcher's rule, A Journey Through Ruins views the transformation of the country through the unexpected prism of every day life in East London. Written at a time when the looming but still unfinished tower of Canary Wharf was still wrapped in protective blue plastic, its cast of characters includes council tenants trapped in disintegrating tower blocks, depressed gentrifiers worrying about negative equity, metal detectorists, sharp-eyed estate agents and management consultants, and even Prince Charles. Cutting through the teeming surface of London, it investigates a number of wider themes: the rise and dramatic fall of council housing, the coming of privatization, the changing memory of the Second World War, once used to justify post-war urban development and reform but now seen as a sacrifice betrayed. Written half a century after the blitz, the book reviews the rise and fall of the London of the post-war settlement. It remains one of the very best accounts of what it was like to live through the Thatcher years.

Londoners
Londoners

Author: Craig Taylor

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2012-02-21

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0062096931

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“A rich and exuberant kaleidoscopic portrait of a great, messy, noisy, daunting, inspiring, maddening, enthralling, constantly shifting Rorschach test of a place. . . . Delightful. . . . In Taylor’s patient and sympathetic hands, regular people become poets, philosophers, orators.” -- New York Times Book Review Londoners is a fresh and compulsively readable view of one of the world's most fascinating cities–a vibrant narrative portrait of the London of our own time, featuring unforgettable stories told by the real people who make the city hum. Acclaimed writer and editor Craig Taylor has spent years traversing every corner of the city, getting to know the most interesting Londoners, including the voice of the London Underground, a West End rickshaw driver, an East End nightclub doorperson, a mounted soldier of the Queen's Life Guard at Buckingham Palace, and a couple who fell in love at the Tower of London—and now live there. With candor and humor, this diverse cast—rich and poor, old and young, native and immigrant, men and women (and even a Sarah who used to be a George)—shares indelible tales that capture the city as never before. Together, these voices paint a vivid, epic, and wholly original portrait of twenty-first-century London in all its breadth, from Notting Hill to Brixton, from Piccadilly Circus to Canary Wharf, from an airliner flying into London Heathrow Airport to Big Ben and Tower Bridge, and down to the deepest tunnels of the London Underground. Londoners is the autobiography of one of the world's greatest cities.