Think of England

Think of England
Author: Alice Elliott Dark
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2003-05-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0743234979

N rural eastern Pennsylvania, nine-year-old Jane MacLeod is writing a book about the happy family she desperately wishes she had. Her mother, Via, is dissatisfied and petulant, always resentful of the time Jane's father, Emlin, a heart surgeon, must spend with his patients at the hospital. One night in 1964, the family (including Jane's two younger brothers and sister and Via's homosexual brother, Uncle Francis) gathers to watch the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. All goes well until Emlin discovers that someone has taken the phone off the hook, so that he can't receive emergency calls. Angrily, he accuses Via (who accuses Jane) and rushes off to the hospital. He is killed in an automobile accident. Fifteen years later, Jane has moved to London, where she's become friends with bohemians Nigel and Colette. A political bombing and an affair with aloof (and married) American writer Clay West lead Jane to confront her long-buried guilt over her parents' unhappiness and father's death.

Think of England

Think of England
Author: Martin Parr
Publisher: Phaidon Press Limited
Total Pages: 150
Release: 2004-11
Genre: History
ISBN:

Comic, opinionated and affectionately satirical photographs of England by the Magnum photographer.

Think of England

Think of England
Author: K. J. Charles
Publisher:
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2017
Genre: England
ISBN: 9780995799097

"Lie back and think of England ... England, 1904. Two years ago, Captain Archie Curtis lost his friends, fingers, and future to a terrible military accident. Alone, purposeless, and angry, Curtis is determined to discover if he and his comrades were the victims of fate, or of sabotage. Curtis's search takes him to an isolated, ultra-modern country house, where he meets and instantly clashes with fellow guest Daniel da Silva. Effete, decadent, foreign and all too obviously queer, the sophisticated poet is everything the straightforward British officer fears and distrusts. As events unfold, Curtis realizes that Daniel has his own secret intentions. And there's something else they share-- a mounting sexual tension that leaves Curtis reeling. And as the house party's elegant facade cracks to reveal treachery, blackmail, and murder, Curtis finds himself needing clever, dark-eyed Daniel as he has never needed a man before."--Page 4 of cover.

Icons of England

Icons of England
Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2010-04-07
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1409095665

This celebration of the English countryside does not only focus on the rolling green landscapes and magnificent monuments that set England apart from the rest of the world. Many of the contributors bring their own special touch, presenting a refreshingly eclectic variety of personal icons, from pub signs to seaside piers, from cattle grids to canal boats, and from village cricket to nimbies. First published as a lavish colour coffeetable book, this new expanded paperback edition has double the original number of contributions from many celebrities including Bill Bryson, Michael Palin, Eric Clapton, Bryan Ferry, Sebastian Faulks, Kate Adie, Kevin Spacey, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, Richard Mabey , Simon Jenkins, John Sergeant, Benjamin Zephaniah, Joan Bakewell, Antony Beevor, Libby Purves, Jonathan Dimbleby, and many more: and a new preface by HRH Prince Charles.

The Shortest History of England: Empire and Division from the Anglo-Saxons to Brexit - A Retelling for Our Times (Shortest History)

The Shortest History of England: Empire and Division from the Anglo-Saxons to Brexit - A Retelling for Our Times (Shortest History)
Author: James Hawes
Publisher: The Experiment, LLC
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2022-03-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1615198156

How the most powerful country in the UK was forged by invasion and conquest, and is fractured by its north-south divide. The Shortest History books deliver thousands of years of history in one riveting, fast-paced read. England—begetter of parliaments and globe-spanning empires, star of beloved period dramas, and home of the House of Windsor—is not quite the stalwart island fortress that many of us imagine. Riven by an ancient fault line that predates even the Romans, its fate has ever been bound up with that of its neighbors; and for the past millennia, it has harbored a class system like nowhere else on Earth. This bracing tour of the most powerful country in the United Kingdom reveals an England repeatedly invaded and constantly reinvented—yet always fractured by its very own Mason-Dixon Line. It carries us swiftly through centuries of conflict between Crown and Parliament (starring the Magna Carta), America’s War of Independence, the rise and fall of empire, two World Wars, and England’s break from the EU. We discover: why the American colonists of 1776 believed that they were the true Anglo-Saxons how the British Empire was undermined from within why Winston Churchill said the UK could only be saved by splitting up England itself and how populism spawned Brexit and its “new elite.” The Shortest History of England brings all this and more to prescient life—offering the most direct, compelling route to understanding the country behind today’s headlines.

Visions of England

Visions of England
Author: Roy Strong
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2012-09-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1409029360

Why do we still get misty-eyed about England's green and pleasant land? What explains our obsession with country houses - from the National Trust to Downton Abbey? Why do we still dream of a place in the country? In this delightul book Roy Strong explores the definition of Englishness. Celebrating our literature, music, art, gardening and drama, Strong identifies those icons and traditions that still speak to us - it is a vision of England that is inclusive and relevant for everybody living in the country today.

Every Life Is on Fire

Every Life Is on Fire
Author: Jeremy England
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2020-09-15
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1541699009

A preeminent physicist unveils a field-defining theory of the origins and purpose of life. Why are we alive? Most things in the universe aren't. And everything that is alive traces back to things that, puzzlingly, weren't. For centuries, the scientific question of life's origins has confounded us. But in Every Life Is on Fire, physicist Jeremy England argues that the answer has been under our noses the whole time, deep within the laws of thermodynamics. England explains how, counterintuitively, the very same forces that tend to tear things apart assembled the first living systems. But how life began isn't just a scientific question. We ask it because we want to know what it really means to be alive. So England, an ordained rabbi, uses his theory to examine how, if at all, science helps us find purpose in a vast and mysterious universe. In the tradition of Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, Every Life Is on Fire is a profound testament to how something can come from nothing.

Engel's England

Engel's England
Author: Matthew Engel
Publisher: Profile Books
Total Pages: 803
Release: 2014-10-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1847659284

England, says Matthew Engel, is the most complicated place in the world. And, as he travels through each of the historic English counties, he discovers that's just the start of it. Every county is fascinating, the product of a millennium or more of history: still a unique slice of a nation that has not quite lost its ancient diversity. He finds the well-dressers of Derbyshire and the pyromaniacs of Sussex; the Hindus and huntsmen of Leicestershire; the goddess-worshippers of Somerset. He tracks down the real Lancashire, hedonistic Essex, and the most mysterious house in Middlesex. In Durham he goes straight from choral evensong to the dog track. As he seeks out the essence of each county - from Yorkshire's broad acres to the microdot of Rutland - Engel always finds the unexpected . Engel's England is a totally original look at a confused country: a guidebook for people who don't think they need a guidebook. It is always quirky, sometimes poignant and often extremely funny.

England, England

England, England
Author: Julian Barnes
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2009-01-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 030755595X

BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • From the internationally acclaimed bestselling author The Sense of an Ending comes a "wickedly funny” novel (The New York Times) about an idyllic land of make-believe in England that gets horribly and hilariously out of hand. Imagine an England where all the pubs are quaint, where the Windsors behave themselves (mostly), where the cliffs of Dover are actually white, and where Robin Hood and his merry men really are merry. This is precisely what visionary tycoon, Sir Jack Pitman, seeks to accomplish on the Isle of Wight, a "destination" where tourists can find replicas of Big Ben (half size), Princess Di's grave, and even Harrod's (conveniently located inside the tower of London). Martha Cochrane, hired as one of Sir Jack's resident "no-people," ably assists him in realizing his dream. But when things go awry, Martha develops her own vision of the perfect England. Julian Barnes delights us with a novel that is at once a philosophical inquiry, a burst of mischief, and a moving elegy about authenticity and nationality.

Notes from a Small Island

Notes from a Small Island
Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2015-06-02
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0062417436

Before New York Times bestselling author Bill Bryson wrote The Road to Little Dribbling, he took this delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation of Great Britain, which has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie’s Farm, and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey.