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by Balding, Clare, Ross, Tony | Children’s, young adult & educational
Published 13/06/2019 by Penguin Books Ltd (Puffin)
Hardback | 304 pages
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The Racehorse Who Learned to Dance
£12.99
by Balding, Clare, Ross, Tony
Children’s, young adult & educational
Hardback
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The City of Tears
June 1572: for ten, violent years the Wars of Religion have raged across France. Neighbours have become enemies, countless lives have been lost, and the country has been torn apart over matters of religion, citizenship and sovereignty. But now a precarious peace is in the balance: a royal wedding has been negotiated by Catherine de’ Medici and Jeanne d’Albret, an alliance between the Catholic Crown and Henri, the Huguenot king of Navarre. It is a marriage that could see France reunited at last.
Meanwhile in Puivert, an invitation has arrived for Minou Joubert and her family to attend this historic wedding in Paris in August. But what Minou does not know is that the Joubert family’s oldest enemy, Vidal, will also be there. Nor that, within days of the marriage, on the eve of the Feast Day of St Bartholomew, Minou’s family will be scattered to the four winds and one of her beloved children will have disappeared without trace . . .
Sweeping from Paris and Chartres to the City of Tears itself – the great refugee city of Amsterdam – this is a story of one family’s fight to stay together, to survive and to find each other, against the devastating tides of history . . .
The Lost Spells
Kindred in spirit to The Lost Words but fresh in its form, The Lost Spells is a pocket-sized treasure that introduces a beautiful new set of natural spell-poems and artwork by beloved creative duo Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris.
As in The Lost Words, these "spells" take their subjects from relatively commonplace, and yet underappreciated, animals, birds, trees and flowers -- from Barn Owl to Red Fox, Grey Seal to Silver Birch, Jay to Jackdaw. But they break out of the triptych format of The Lost Words, finding new shapes, new spaces and new voices with which to conjure.
Written to be read aloud, painted in brushstrokes that call to the forest, field, riverbank and also to the heart, The Lost Spells summons back what is often lost from sight and care, and inspires protection and action on behalf of the natural world. Above all, it celebrates a sense of wonder, bearing witness to nature's power to amaze, console and bring joy.
Signed Copy
Fast Forward : Confessions of a Post-Punk Percussionist: Volume II
ISBN: 978-1472132574
Author: Stephen Morris
Cover: Hardback
Pages: 464
Language: English
Category: Biography
This book is signed with a bookplate
To mark the publication of ‘Fast Forward’, Stephen Morris’s new book about his New Order years, an extended and free-to-view in conversation with DJ/writer Dave Haslam will be broadcast on Thursday 26th November by Gorilla TV, a free online channel founded by Tim Burgess and his team.
'Fast Forward’ by Stephen Morris is the sequel to his acclaimed ‘Record Play Pause’ which covered his early life and his time with Joy Division.
The book is published by Little, Brown on 3rd December 2020.
To watch the Stephen Morris interview on Thursday 26th November, and to view the archive of Gorilla TV shows to date; https://gorillatelevision.com
Signed Copy
Free Speech: And Why It Matters
ISBN: 978-0349135380
Author: Andrew Doyle
Cover: Paperback
Pages: 144
Language: English
Category: Democracy, Religious History of Christianity, Political Science
Each book is sold with a signed bookplate
(Publication Date - 25th Feb 2021)
The Keystone of Civilisation
Free speech is one of the most important issues of our time. With increased political division, more and more are calling for greater restrictions on our ability to speak our minds. In this incisive and fascinating book, Andrew Doyle addresses the most common concerns of free speech sceptics, and offers a timely and robust defence of this most foundational of principles.
Over the past decade, many people have detected a pattern of minor changes in our culture. A new identity-based conceptualisation of ‘social justice’ has brought with it a mistrust of unfettered speech, appealing for greater intervention from the state. And yet without free speech, no other liberties exist. In the age of identity politics – with the collusion of Big Tech enabling some voices to be heard and silencing others, such as Parler – defenders of the concept run the risk of being accused of complicity with those considered repellent. But there is no contradiction in holding individuals in contempt for their repugnant views and simultaneously defending their right to express them. We all have a right to incivility, just as we have the right to opinions that are considered to be beyond the purview of permissible thought. Likewise, those who wish to criticise such forms of dissent are free to express their disapproval however they see fit within the law. This is the liberal system, and it works.
Andrew Doyle believes the concept of free speech is nothing less than the keystone of our civilisation. Readers may have reservations about this view. Readers may believe that unlimited speech enables the worst elements among us to commit harm. But a society that abandons freedom of expression risks exacerbating the very problems about which many of us are rightly concerned.
‘Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.’
– John Milton, Areopagitica
Andrew Doyle is a writer, broadcaster and satirist whose commentary on political and cultural issues is regularly published in the national press. He is a panellist on The Moral Maze (BBC Radio 4) and often appears on Sky News. In 2019, he toured the UK with his stand-up show Friendly Fire. He is the author, as Titania McGrath, of the satirical books Woke: A Guide to Social Justice and My First Little Book of Intersectional Activism. He has a doctorate in Renaissance literature from the University of Oxford, where he also worked as a stipendiary lecturer. He was formerly a Visiting Research Fellow at Queen's University, Belfast.