You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
It is said that, however long you live, and however far you travel, the streets and fields where you played as a child will always be home to you. So Cambridge is for Alec Forshaw. This is a story of a childhood in Cambridge in the 1950s and '60s, followed by three undergraduate years and three decades of frequent and regular visits until the ties of the parental home were broken. These are memories set down before they too disappear and they recall a Cambridge which for many will have faded. Those who have read Gwen Raverat's Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood will have seen in her description of the town and its society a different world. The reminiscences herein may rekindle more recent recollections, or simply entertain and amuse.
This portrait of a fascinating era in London's history will be of interest to all those who remember the 1980s or know London well.
Famed throughout the world for its meat market, the Smithfield area of London has a long and turbulent history. Originally a "smooth field" lying just beyond the city wall, over the years Smithfield has seen riots, public executions, and healing. From medieval times it became a center of industry for tanners, slaughterers, glue-makers, and dyers assembled. Largely untouched by either the Great Fire of 1666 or the 1940s Blitz, its streets preserve some of London's most ancient institutions. In Smithfield: Past and Present over 100 illustrations and photographs trace the development of the area from Roman times to the present. The book records the growth of the notorious cattle market, the gaiety of the Bartholomew Fair, the history of the palace of the Bishops of Ely, medieval tournaments, crime and punishment, and the bawdy life of Cock Lane, one of London's earliest "red-light" districts. Written by an architect and former town planner, this third edition looks at the people, history, and buildings in this vibrant part of London, and considers the inevitable impact of Crossrail.
Brussels can claim to be the Art Nouveau capital of Europe. This is the first comprehensive guide in English to individual buildings in eleven main areas of the city. For those wishing to devise their own tours and visits, there are specially-drawn maps and an index of architects and designers. A movement or design philosophy more than a precise style, Art Nouveau flourished c. 1893-1914, inspired by forms and patterns found in nature such as flowers and plants, clouds, waves, and even wisps of smoke. The influence of architects and designers rebelling against heavy Victorian conformity, spread from buildings and detailing to interior design, furniture, lighting, textiles and fittings; fine and decorative art including graphics, calligraphy, carved lettering and ceramics. The famous names are all here: Victor Horta, Paul Hankar and Henry Van de Velde; and their disciples, colleagues and successors,each with a short biography as a side note to the lavishly- illustrated text.
Explores the large-scale redevelopment of the City of London since the mid-1980s.
Following a sheltered childhood and a sequestered education in Cambridge, and having missed out on the swinging sixties, Alec Forshaw was ready for a dose of the wider world. London in the early 1970s was where the lights shone brightest. In reality, it was still a city struggling to find its post-war identity, full of declining industries and derelict docklands, a townscape blighted by undeveloped bomb sites, demonic motorway proposals and slum clearance schemes. The streets were full of costermongers and greasy-spoon cafes, but enlivened by ghettos of immigrants and student culture. Ideas of traffic constraint and recycling rubbish were in their infancy. It was a decade which saw the three-day week, the Notting Hill riots and the last of the anti-Vietnam war protests.This sequel to Growing Up in Cambridge portrays the London of over thirty years ago as it appeared to a young man in his twenties, finding his feet, coming of age, and stumbling across the sights and sounds of an extraordinary city.
THE SUNDAY TIMES NATURE BOOK OF THE YEAR The new bestseller from the author of The Shepherd's Life 'A beautifully written story of a family, a home and a changing landscape' Nigel Slater As a boy, James Rebanks's grandfather taught him to work the land the old way. Their family farm in the Lake District hills was part of an ancient agricultural landscape: a patchwork of crops and meadows, of pastures grazed with livestock, and hedgerows teeming with wildlife. And yet, by the time James inherited the farm, it was barely recognisable. The men and women had vanished from the fields; the old stone barns had crumbled; the skies had emptied of birds and their wind-blown song. English Pastoral is t...
Welcome to the most gripping thriller of the year: hugely entertaining, high-octane and read-in-a-single-sitting. Mind games. Murder. Mayhem. How far would you go to survive the night? Blackmail lures sixteen-year-old Ava to the derelict carnival on Portgrave Pier. She is one of ten teenagers, all with secrets they intend to protect whatever the cost. When fog and magic swallow the pier, the group find themselves cut off from the real world and from their morals. As the teenagers turn on each other, Ava will have to face up to the secret that brought her to the pier and decide how far she's willing to go to survive. For fans of Karen McManus' One of Us is Lying, Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None and films like I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Strange as it sounds, during the 1870s and 1880s, America's most popular spectator sport wasn't baseball, football, or horseracing-it was competitive walking. Inside sold-out arenas, competitors walked around dirt tracks almost nonstop for six straight days (never on Sunday), risking their health and sanity to see who could walk the farthest-500 miles, then 520 miles, and 565 miles! These walking matches were as talked about as the weather, the details reported in newspapers and telegraphed to fans from coast to coast. This long-forgotten sport, known as pedestrianism, spawned America's first celebrity athletes. The top pedestrians earned a fortune in prize money and endorsement deals. The s...