Everyone knows something of the sonnets of William Shakespeare - even if they have never read Shakespeare. Allusions are all around in song lyrics, TV shows, and news headlines. The 154 poems Shakespeare wrote in sonnet form and published in 1609 are referenced in so much popular culture, yet unless you are a student of English literature you may not have ever tried reading them. Now you don't have to. In this book, all the 154 original poems are included and paired with a Twitter version. That's right, every one of the sonnets has been reduced to a message of fewer than 140-characters. This is an experiment in making 400-year-old poetry work in the age of social media, but it is also a continuation of the sonnet traditions. Sonnets are very structured, short poems anyway. Poets needed to follow strict rules to make a sonnet work, to convey meaning within a set number of lines. In this book, the sonnets have been reduced to individual tweets - but they still retain the essence of each poem.

This is a short book about running. It's not a guide to weight loss and it's not a week-by-week marathon-training guide. In fact, you might be looking at this book even if you don't run or engage in any physical activity at all. Perhaps it may inspire you into action. Mark Hillary is a British writer and analyst known globally for his visionary insight into how technology shapes the world we live in. He has published 15 books on technology and he regularly writes for The Huffington Post and other business journals. Mark has advised the UN on technology in developing societies and has helped several governments to develop ICT-related policies. He was an official London 2012 Olympic blogger and was the first ever blogger hired by the British government in 2010. Mark ghost-writes on technology for leading CEOs and executives all over the world. He also runs regularly on the streets of São Paulo, Brazil. @markhillary www.markhillary.com

The true story of a self-taught sleuth's quest to prove his eye-opening theory about the source of the world's most famous plays, taking readers inside the vibrant era of Elizabethan England as well as the contemporary scene of Shakespeare scholars and obsessives. What if Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare . . . but someone else wrote him first? Acclaimed author of The Map Thief, Michael Blanding presents the twinning narratives of renegade scholar Dennis McCarthy and Elizabethan courtier Sir Thomas North. Unlike those who believe someone else secretly wrote Shakespeare, McCarthy argues that Shakespeare wrote the plays, but he adapted them from source plays written by North decades before. In Shakespeare's Shadow alternates between the enigmatic life of North, the intrigues of the Tudor court, the rivalries of English Renaissance theater, and academic outsider McCarthy's attempts to air his provocative ideas in the clubby world of Shakespearean scholarship. Through it all, Blanding employs his keen journalistic eye to craft a captivating drama, upending our understanding of the beloved playwright and his "singular genius." Winner of the 2021 International Book Award in Narrative Non-Fiction

Hauntingly told and sumptuously illustrated, this wintry modern fairy tale is perfect for holiday sharing. When Frindleswylde is near, the wind trembles, the sun pales, and the wild things hide. When he enters Cora and Granny's house in the woods, Frindleswylde steals the light from their lantern, so Granny can’t find her way home after work in the dark. And when a determined Cora chases the mysterious boy down a hole in the fishpond to his frozen kingdom, he sets her three Impossible Tasks. If she completes them, she can take her light and go, or so he says. But can Cora resist the urge to forget? As fresh and sparkling as sunlight on ice, this beautifully illustrated tale of enchantment—reminiscent of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen”—celebrates the transformative power of love in the darkest of times, the unbreakable bond between grandparent and child, and the bright promise of springtime.

font size="+0.5"'Absolutely delightful, surprisingly useful and pleasingly absurd' - Rachel Parris font size="+0.5"'Tessa and Stevie are two of the funniest people I know' - Nish Kumar font size="+0.5"'A must-read for anyone struggling to be a convincing grown up' - Richard Herring font size="+0.5"'Bloody funny and genuinely informative' - Ellie Taylor Trying to get your life together? Got three dead houseplants, no debit card, and an exploded yoghurt in your bag? Useful, funny and life-affirming, Nobody Panic is an instruction manual for anyone with absolutely no idea what they're doing. From the creators of the critically acclaimed podcast comes a series of How To guides for everything from job interviews to leaving a WhatsApp group, from understanding the oven to dealing with your best friend's new (astoundingly dull) partner. There's also a poem about taxes. Comedians and professional panickers Tessa Coates and Stevie Martin are here to help you learn from their many, many mistakes, and remind you that when it comes to life, we're all in this together - so nobody panic. Praise for the podcast: font size="+0.5"'Hilarious and brilliant' - Grazia font size="+0.5"'Witty, smart and oh-so-relatable' - Evening Standard font size="+0.5"'Jaunty' - The Times

The true story of a self-taught Shakespeare sleuth's quest to prove his eye-opening theory about the source of the world's most famous plays, taking readers inside the vibrant era of Elizabethan England as well as the contemporary scene of Shakespeare scholars and obsessives. Acclaimed author of The Map Thief, Michael Blanding presents the twinning narratives of renegade scholar Dennis McCarthy, called "the Steve Jobs of the Shakespeare community," and Sir Thomas North, an Elizabethan courtier whom McCarthy believes to be the undiscovered source for Shakespeare's plays. For the last fifteen years, McCarthy has obsessively pursued the true origins of Shakespeare's works. Using plagiarism software, he has found direct links between Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and other plays and North's published and unpublished writings--as well as Shakespearean plotlines seemingly lifted straight from North's colorful life. Unlike those who believe someone else secretly wrote Shakespeare, McCarthy's wholly original conclusion is this: Shakespeare wrote the plays, but he adapted them from source plays written by North decades before. Many of them, he believes, were penned on behalf of North's patron Robert Dudley, in his efforts to woo Queen Elizabeth. That bold theory addresses many lingering mysteries about the Bard with compelling new evidence, including a newly discovered journal of North's travels through France and Italy, filled with locations and details appearing in Shakespeare's plays. North by Shakespeare alternates between the enigmatic life of Thomas North, the intrigues of the Tudor court, the rivalries of English Renaissance theater, and academic outsider Dennis McCarthy's attempts to air his provocative ideas in the clubby world of Shakespearean scholarship. Through it all, Blanding employs his keen journalistic eye to craft a captivating drama, upending our understanding of the beloved playwright and his "singular genius."

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE 2018** 'A surprisingly touching account of hidden lives forced out of the shadows' Sunday Times One day in 1940 Rene Hargreaves walks out on her family and the city to take a position as a Land Girl at the remote Starlight farm. There she will live with and help lonely farmer Elsie Boston. At first Elsie and Rene are unsure of one another - strangers from different worlds. But over time they each come to depend on the other. They become inseparable. Until the day a visitor from Rene's past arrives and their careful, secluded life is thrown into confusion. Suddenly, all they have built together is threatened. What will they do to protect themselves? And are they prepared for the consequences? 'So lovely, gentle yet enthralling' Claire Fuller 'Quietly beautiful and brilliant. This is no bucolic idyll but an unfolding of a plot that constantly twists and turns and surprises. A truly wonderful, memorable novel' Judges of the Walter Scott Prize 2018

"Your life isn't over." My dad says this. "I mean, YOUR life isn't over. Beyond the kids. You'll go on living, doing things. This isn't it." I know, I assure him. I have the kids. They need me. They're my life now. "OK," he replies, then grunts—more of a brief hum. He only hums when he thinks I'm full of shit. Shockingly single. Amy Biancolli's life went off script more dramatically than most after her husband of twenty years jumped off the roof of a parking garage. Left with three children, a three-story house, and a pile of knotty psychological complications, Amy realizes the flooding dishwasher, dead car battery, rapidly growing lawn, basement sump pump, and broken doorknob aren't going to fix themselves. She also realizes that "figuring shit out" means accepting the horrors that came her way, rolling with them, slogging through them, helping others through theirs, and working her way through life with love and laughter. Amy Biancolli is an author and journalist whose column appears in the Albany Times Union. Before that, Amy served as film critic for the Houston Chronicle where her reviews, published around the country, won her the 2007 Comment and Criticism Award from the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association. Biancolli is the author of House of Holy Fools: A Family Portrait in Six Cracked Parts, which earned her Albany Author of the Year. Amy lives in Albany, New York, with her three children.

"First published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by Jonathan Cape, an imprint of Vintage Publishing."

Perhaps while reading Shakespeare you've asked yourself, What exactly is Hamlet trying to tell me? Why must he mince words and muse in lyricism and, in short, whack about the shrub? But if the Prince of Denmark had a Twitter account and an iPhone, he could tell his story in real time--and concisely! Hence the genius of Twitterature. Hatched in a dorm room at the brain trust that is the University of Chicago, Twitterature is a hilarious and irreverent re-imagining of the classics as a series of 140-character tweets from the protagonist. Providing a crash course in more than eighty of the world's best-known books, from Homer to Harry Potter, Virgil to Voltaire, Tolstoy to Twilight and Dante to The Da Vinci Code. It's the ultimate Cliffs Notes. Because as great as the classics are, who has time to read those big, long books anymore? Sample tweets: From Hamlet: WTF IS POLONIUS DOING BEHIND THE CURTAIN??? From the Harry Potter series: Oh man big tournament at my school this year!! PSYCHED! I hope nobody dies this year, and every year as if by clockwork. From The Great Gatsby: Gatsby is so emo. Who cries about his girlfriend while eating breakfast...IN THE POOL?