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Read stories inspired by the four Underground lines that run North and South through city - part of a series…
of twelve books tied to the twelve lines of the London Underground, as Tfl celebrates 150 years of the Tube with Penguin. Comedy and capitalism join in four tales: The Northern Line: William Leith, author of The Hungry Years and Bits of Me Are Falling Apart, tells, in A Northern Line Minute, the darkly humorous tales of his escapades on the Tube.The Bakerloo Line: Paul Morley, author, journalist and cultural commentator, tells the story in Earthbound of post-punk, music and changing times.The Victoria Line: Kids Company, a leading London charity supported by Prince Charles, Helen Mirren and Stephen Fry, presents the voices of some of London's children, in partnership with the charity's founder Camila Batmanghelidjh.The Jubilee Line: John O'Farrell, author of The Man Who Forgot His Wife and An Utterly Impartial History of Britain turns his comedic genius to the problem of capitalism, encapsulated in a Tube train full of passengers stuck underground.Night Walks (Penguin Great Ideas)
By Charles Dickens. 2010
Charles Dickens describes in Night Walks his time as an insomniac, when he decided to cure himself by walking through…
London in the small hours, and discovered homelessness, drunkenness and vice on the streets. This collection of essays shows Dickens as one of the greatest visionaries of the city in all its variety and cruelty.GREAT IDEAS. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.A New View of Society and Other Writings
By Gregory Claeys, Robert Owen. 1991
In his early works Owen argues that, since individuals are wholly formed by their environment, education is the crucial factor…
in transforming them. Later he came to adopt far more radical positions, proposing nothing less than 'the emancipation ofmankind' and the creation of a 'new moral world', a full-scale reorganization of British society, major reforms of working practices and the Poor Laws and the establishment of co-operative model.Natural History
By Pliny The Elder. 2004
Pliny's Natural History is an astonishingly ambitious work that ranges from astronomy to art and from geography to zoology. Mingling…
acute observation with often wild speculation, it offers a fascinating view of the world as it was understood in the first century AD, whether describing the danger of diving for sponges, the first water-clock, or the use of asses' milk to remove wrinkles. Pliny himself died while investigating the volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii in AD 79, and the natural curiosity that brought about his death is also very much evident in the Natural History - a book that proved highly influential right up until the Renaissance and that his nephew, Pliny the younger, described 'as full of variety as nature itself'.Mushroom Season
By Nina Lyon. 2013
'Mushroom Season' is a ramble through magic mushrooms, mountains and metaphysics. After heavy sanctions relegated their use to a spell…
in the stoner wilderness, are psilocybin mushrooms about to help reframe important social and philosophical debates about our minds, and ourselves?Where do they grow? What do they do to our brains? And why are they eschewed by the bourgois? Nina Lyon introduces us to Liberty Caps and Fly Agarics, the characters she encountered as a student tripper and the differences between home-grown hallucinogens and Mexican export. Among the anecdotes and observations are chemical facts, etymological revelations and philosophical speculation. Why are mushrooms subject to social stigma? What are the good effects they might have on us? And how does illegalisation damage a culture of free-thinking and experiment? Taking apart the teenage clichés and middle-class prejudice associated with the drug, Nina Lyon provides a wonderfully entertaining history of the magic mushroom.A Modest Proposal and Other Writings: A Modest Proposal And Other Works (Quirky Classics Ser.)
By Jonathan Swift. 2018
The political dilemma of Ireland; the state of faith in England; the charms of the Beggar's Opera; the importance of…
puns . . . This selection gathers together some of Swift's most brilliant prose, from high politics to social gossip, from savage tirades to lighthearted social satire. In addition to his classic essays, the collection includes several of Swift's letters to Alexander Pope and other great thinkers of the age.Love (Penguin Great Loves Ser.)
By Stendhal. 2007
In 1818, when he was in his mid-thirties, Stendhal met and fell passionately in love with the beautiful Mathilde Dembowski.…
She, however, was quick to make it clear that she did not return his affections, and in his despair he turned to the written word to exorcise his love and explain his feelings. The result is an intensely personal dissection of the process of falling - and being - in love: a unique blend of poetry, anecdote, philosophy, psychology and social observation. Bringing together the conflicting sides of his nature, the deeply emotional and the coolly analytical, Stendhal created a work that is both acutely personal and universally applicable.London: City of Disappearances
By Iain Sinclair. 2006
‘A book full of richness, unexpected enticements, short sharp shocks and breathtaking writing’ Guardian Welcome to the real, unauthorised London:…
the disappeared, the unapproved, the unvoiced, the mythical and the all-but forgotten. The perfect companion to the city. ‘Exhilarating, truly wonderful, a cavalcade of eloquent writing. London demands an anthology like this to remind us of the irascible quirkiness of its residents, and we have Sinclair to thank for marshalling such a perverse and ultimately pleasurable exercise’ Independent on SundayLiberty: Vintage Minis (Vintage Minis)
By Virginia Woolf. 2017
Why should one half be free to live, while the other is doomed to watch silently from the sidelines? In…
this visionary collection, Virginia Woolf leads us on a transformative journey through the liberating powers of the mind. From an exploration of why women were barred from writing and under what conditions they might break free, to the solace derived from haunting London's streets, these essays and stories present Woolf at her most impassioned, rendering the pursuit of liberty one of life's most poetic adventures. Selected from the books A Room of One's Own, The Waves and Street Haunting and Other Essays by Virginia WoolfVINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us humanAlso in the Vintage Minis series:Love by Jeanette WintersonHome by Salman RushdieLanguage by Xiaolu GuoRace by Toni MorrisonSelected Writings
By Thomas Carlyle. 1971
The most important writings by the great and controversial Victorian polemicist.Carlyle was one of the great figures of his age:…
thunderous, passionate, irascible, sceptical and idealistic. This selection is representative of all stages of Carlyle's career, and includes 'Sign of the Times', his essay against the mechanization of the age and the rise of the machines; the whole of 'Chartism'; and extracts from The French Revolution, Heroes and Hero-Worship, Sartor Resartus, Past and Present, as well as other pieces. The book also includes an introduction and notes by Alan Shelston.Thomas Carlyle was born in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, in 1795. Intended by his family to become a Presbyterian minister, he was influenced by the Scottish Enlightenment while at the University of Edinburgh and became a teacher instead. He later turned to literary work, publishing a life of Schiller and translations of Goethe in the 1820s. His first truly successful book was The French Revolution, which was followed by many others. He died in 1881.Alan Shelston was Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Manchester until retirement in 2002. He has edited a number of Gaskell's works including The Life of Charlotte Bronte (1975) and North and South (2005), and was joint editor with John Chapple of The Further Letters of Mrs Gaskell (2000). He has published a selection of Hardy's poetry and written on a number of nineteen century authors including Dickens and Henry James.Selected Writings (World's Classics Ser.)
By Thomas Aquinas. 1993
In his reflections on Christianity, Saint Thomas Aquinas forged a unique synthesis of ancient philosophy and medieval theology. Preoccupied with…
the relationship between faith and reason, he was influenced both by Aristotle's rational world view and by the powerful belief that wisdom and truth can ultimately only be reached through divine revelation. Thomas's writings, which contain highly influential statements of fundamental Christian doctrine, as well as observations on topics as diverse as political science, anti-Semitism and heresy, demonstrate the great range of his intellect and place him firmly among the greatest medieval philosophers.Selected Writings
By Hildegard Of Bingen. 2001
Benedictine nun, poet and musician, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was one of the most remarkable figures of the Middle Ages.…
She undertook preaching tours throughout the German empire at the age of sixty, and was consulted not only by her religious contemporaries but also by kings and emperors, yet it is largely for her apocalyptic and mystical writings that she is remembered. This volume includes selections from her three visionary works, her treatises on medicine and the natural world, her devotional songs, and fascinating letters to prominent figures of her time. Dealing with such eternal subjects as the relationship between humans and nature, and men and women, Hildegard's works show her to be a wide-ranging thinker who created such fresh, startling images and ideas that her writings have been compared to Dante and Blake.Selected Prose
By John Donne. 1987
This selection of John Donne's most powerful prose shows that the man remembered predominantly for his poetry was also a…
preacher, and a prose writer of extraordinary power. In it, he explores the metaphysical collision between poetry and religion, suicide and duty, the secular and the spiritual that characterized his times.Edited with an introduction and notes by Neil Rhodes.Selected Prose: Selected From The Series Of Prose Master Pieces From The Modern Essayist
By Charles Lamb. 2013
This selection brings together the best prose writings of the great early nineteenth-century essayist Charles Lamb, whose shrewd wit and…
convivial style have endeared him to generations of readers. These pieces include early discussions of Hogarth and Shakespeare; masterly essays written under the pen-name 'Elia' that range over such subjects as drunkenness, witches, dreams, marriage and the joy of roast pig; and letters to Lamb's circle of contemporaries, among them Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. Wryly amused by the world, allusive, searching and endlessly inventive, these are the essential works of a master of English prose.In his introduction Adam Phillips discusses how Charles Lamb's tragic life and sainted reputation, caring for his mentally ill sister Mary, belied the quality of his work. This edition also includes a biographical index of Lamb's correspondents.Charles Lamb (1775-1834) was an English essayist best known for his humorous Essays of Elia from which the essay 'A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig' is taken. Lamb enjoyed a rich social life and became part of a group of young writers that included William Hazlitt, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and Samuel Taylor Coleridge with whom he shared a lifelong friendship. Lamb never achieved the same literary success as his friends but his influence on the English essay form cannot be underestimated and his book, Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets is remembered for popularising the work of Shakespeare's contemporaries.Selected Journalism 1850-1870
By Charles Dickens. 1997
Throughout his writing career Charles Dickens was a hugely prolific journalist. This volume of his later work is selected from…
pieces that he wrote after he founded the journal Household Words in 1850 up until his death in 1870. Here subjects as varied as his nocturnal walks around London slums, prisons, theatres and Inns of Court, journeys to the continent and his childhood in Kent and London are captured in remarkable pieces such as 'Night Walks', 'On Strike', 'New Year's Day' and 'Lying Awake'. Aiming to catch the imagination of a public besieged by hack journalism, these writings are an extraordinary blend of public and private, news and recollection, reality and fantastic description.Selected Essays, Poems and Other Writings
By A. S. Byatt, George Eliot. 1990
The works collected in this volume provide an illuminating introduction to George Eliot's incisive views on religion, art and science,…
and the nature and purpose of fiction. Essays such as 'Evangelical Teaching' show her rejecting her earlier religious beliefs, while 'Woman in France' questions conventional ideas about female virtues and marriage, and 'Notes on Form in Art' sets out theories of idealism and realism that she developed further in Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda. It also includes selections from Eliot's translations of works by Strauss and Feuerbach that challenged many ideas about Christianity; excerpts from her poems; and reviews of writers such as Wollstonecraft, Goethe and Browning. Wonderfully rich in imagery and observations, these pieces reveal the intellectual development of this most challenging and rewarding of writers.Selected Essays
By Samuel Johnson. 2003
This volume contains a generous selection from the essays Johnson published twice weekly as 'The Rambler' in the early 1750s.…
It was here that he first created the literary character and forged the distinctive prose style that established him as a public figure. Also included here is the best of Johnson's later journalism, including essays from the periodicals 'The Adventurer' and 'The Idler'.Stranger in a Strange Land: 100 Days in the Credit Analysis Department of an Indian Bank
By Abhishek Mukherjee. 2017
2017 RUNNER-UP OF THE BODLEY HEAD | FINANCIAL TIMES ESSAY PRIZEIn this sharp, witty essay, written from inside the Indian…
banking system, we witness the absurdities and mundanities of corruption and bureaucracy, set against a backdrop of modern urban India. In a personal battle with his moustachioed boss, Mukherjee illuminates a Kafkaesque system of compliance inherited from the British Raj and shows us how to walk away from it laughing.Stop What You're Doing And Read This!
By Mark Haddon, Michael Rosen, Zadie Smith, Carmen Callil, Jeanette Winterson, Tim Parks, Blake Morrison, Dr Maryanne Wolf, Mirit Barzillai, Nicholas Carr, Jane Davis. 2011
In any 24 hours there might be sleeping, eating, kids, parents, friends, lovers, work, school, travel, deadlines, emails, phone calls,…
Facebook, Twitter, the news, the TV, Playstation, music, movies, sport, responsibilities, passions, desires, dreams.Why should you stop what you're doing and read a book?People have always needed stories. We need literature - novels, poetry - because we need to make sense of our lives, test our depths, understand our joys and discover what humans are capable of. Great books can provide companionship when we are lonely or peacefulness in the midst of an overcrowded daily life. Reading provides a unique kind of pleasure and no-one should live without it.In the ten essays in this book some of our finest authors and passionate advocates from the worlds of science, publishing, technology and social enterprise tell us about the experience of reading, why access to books should never be taken forgranted, how reading transforms our brains, and how literature can save lives. In any 24 hours there are so many demands on your time and attention - make books one of them.Carmen Callil Tim ParksNicholas Carr Michael RosenJane Davis Zadie SmithMark Haddon Jeanette WintersonBlake Morrison Dr Maryanne Wolf & Dr Mirit BarzillaiThe Soul of Man Under Socialism and Selected Critical Prose
By Oscar Wilde. 2001
Selection includes The Portrait of Mr W.H., Wilde's defence of Dorian Gray, reviews, and the writings from 'Intentions' (1891): 'The…
Decay of Lying, 'Pen, Pencil, Poison', and 'The Critic as Artist'.Wilde is familiar to us as the ironic critic behind the social comedies, as the creator of the beautiful and doomed Dorian Gray, as the flamboyant aesthete and the demonised homosexual. This volume presents us with a different Wilde. Wilde emerges here as a deep and serious reader of literature and philosophy, and an eloquent and original thinker about society and art.