Marek Kohn - 'one of the best science writers we have' (AC Grayling) - paints an important and eye-opening portrait of Britain and Ireland after a century of global warming. Author of A Reason for Everything and Four Words for Friend Marek Kohn projects one hundred years into the future when, based on the climate change evidence we have now, some parts of Britain will be like regions of today's Mediterranean. But, more disturbingly, our parks will be arid brown fields; private automobile use will probably be unheard of; water will be severely rationed; significant stretches of our beloved coastline will have been sacrificed to the sea. Floods on these coasts and in certain river valleys will make them uninhabitable. Some of our flora and fauna will have vanished; exotic animals and pests will flourish. Human climate migration will have become a significant fact of life as other continents become harsher places to survive in. Surveillance and restriction of our movements will be taken for granted. Walking in what is left of 'nature' will be nearly impossible. As climate activism - including Greta Thunberg's school strikes and Extinction Rebellion's mass protests - gathers pace worldwide in the light of a growing climate emergency, Turned Out Nice is more relevant than ever: an urgent report from the near-future that we cannot afford to ignore. It will change the way you think about the climate and global warming. 'An imaginative journey through different parts of the British Isles, crammed with detail . . . A good primer for anyone who wants to think about the British future without being suicidal or consciously blinkered.' Andrew Marr, Financial Times ' Graphic, gripping . . . [Kohn] warns against the current complacency of short-term thinking and temporising inactivity.' The Times

With a cast of thousands, including Peter Cook, Ken Dodd, Dusty Springfield, Spike Milligan, Rolf Harris, Bruce Forsyth, and Reeves and Mortimer, this book reveals a world of comedians and cavorters, dancing girls, and crooners. From the early days of vaudeville, via the golden age of radio, live television spectaculars, the rise of the chat show, and alternative comedy, Louis Barfe pulls back the curtain of variety to reveal the world of light entertainment in all its glory.

In his trademark style, Richard Mabey weaves together science, art and memoirs (including his own) to show the weather's impact on our culture and national psyche. He rambles through the myths of Golden Summers and our persistent state of denial about the winter; the Impressionists' love affair with London smog, seasonal affective disorder (SAD - do we all get it?) and the mysteries of storm migraines; herrings falling like hail in Norfolk and Saharan dust reddening south-coast cars; moonbows, dog-suns, fog-mirages and Constable's clouds; the fact that English has more words for rain than Inuit has for snow; the curious eccentricity of country clothing and the mathematical behaviour of umbrella sales. We should never apologise for our obsession with the weather. It is one of the most profound influences on the way we live, and something we all experience in common. No wonder it's the natural subject for a greeting between total strangers: 'Turned out nice again.'

They were Music Hall aristocracy. George Formby senior was the first Northern comedian to gain a national reputation. The great Marie Lloyd maintained there were only two performers she would turn out to see - and he was one of them.

From a small town in West Michigan to the wild bush country of Alaska is a long way, but that’s where Suzanne Henning ended up. Armed with only a teaching degree from Western Michigan University, she set off with her new husband for Alaska. Starting in Sitka, where there were no teaching jobs available, she took whatever work she could find from hotel maid at the Sitka Hotel to a secretarial job at Sheldon Jackson College. She helped her husband, a surveyor for the Alaska Aviation Division, make ends meet. When she finally landed a teaching position in Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Strait, life began to change. She was teaching a first-grade class of Siberian Yupik children. The problem: the kids didn’t speak English, and Henning didn’t speak Siberian Yupik. She taught their lessons with the help of two bilingual aides, Apiyeka and Sunqaanga. Both teacher and class reaped benefits from this teaching method and learned a lot from each other. This began a twenty-three-year odyssey of teaching in the Alaskan bush, and along the way, she picked up many skills that would help her deal with a new way of life: baking her own bread in an oil stove how to cook walrus liver, seal meat, and other tasty Eskimo treats the ins and outs of riding a three-wheeler (more difficult than it looks) having only one community phone to the outside and being at the mercy of the phone operator of the day Henning loved her students, and they returned that love. She became a well-respected Alaskan educator, earning not only the famous Milken Award but also the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching.

In the first major academic work to examine British variety theatre, Double provides a detailed history of this art form and analyses its performance dynamics and techniques. Encompassing singers, comedians, dancers, magicians, ventriloquists and diverse speciality acts, this vibrant book draws on a series of new interviews with variety veterans.

The fifth book in the DEATH OF ROME SAGA is an exhilarating thriller and perfect for readers of Ben Kane and Simon Scarrow. 612 AD. No longer the glorious cradle of all art and science, Athens is a ruined provincial city in one of the Byzantine Empire's less vital provinces. The Emperor has diverted Aelric's ship home from Egypt to send him there, but surely there is more important business in Constantinople. Isn't Aelric needed to save the Empire's finances? Is Aelric on a high level mission to save the Empire or has he been set up to fail? The only certainty is that Aelric finds himself in a derelict palace of dark and endless corridors that Martin, his cowardly secretary, assures him pulse will an ancient evil.

This anthology of contemporary American poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction, explores issues of identity, oppression, injustice, and social change. Living American writers produced each piece between 1980 and the present; works were selected based on literary merit and the manner in which they address one or more pressing social issues. William Reichard has assembled some of the most respected literary artists of our time, asking whose voices are ascendant, whose silenced, and why. The work as a whole reveals shifting perspectives and the changing role of writing in the social justice arena over the last few decades.