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With the recent success of 'Rome' on BBC2, no one will look at the private lives of the Roman Emperors again in the same light. Anthony Blond's scandalous expose of the life of the Caesars is a must-read for all interested in what really went on in ancient Rome. Julius Caesar is usually presented as a glorious general when in fact he was an arrogant charmer and a swank; Augustus was so conscious of his height that he put lifts in his sandals. But they were nothing compared to Caligula, Claudius and Nero. This book is fascinating reading, eye-opening in its revelations and effortlessly entertaining.
The Beatles' impact on the visual arts.
Although he gained fame with his classic novel series, Alms for Oblivion, which chronicled the misdeeds of English society in the 1950s and 60s, Simon Raven is also recognized as a brilliant travel writer, an unblinking reporter of the seamier side of English upper-class life, and a hilarious commentator on the sexual mores of gay London. His demise in 2001 robbed English letters of one of its most colorful characters. Expelled from Charterhouse “for the usual thing,” he was, for a time, an officer in the British Army. He gambled heavily on the horses for years, was often in debt, drank too much, and had a rich and uncommonly varied sex life. He was said to possess “the mind of a cad and the pen of an angel,” and this selection of his writing contains a magnificent array of pieces on army life, sex, school days, and travel. The quality of his writing and his fearless descriptions of the habits of the English, and indeed of all mankind, will come as a revelation.
Brian Howard was expected to become one of the leading authors of his generation, but instead he became a secondary character in the books of others. Marie-Jaqueline Lancaster's biography makes him -- at last -- the protagonist of his own highly entertaining story. Packed with dishy reminiscences and extracts from Howard's letters and writings, this book details the outrageous parties, stunts, and confrontations that were second-nature to this ne'er-do-well. Chronicling 30 years of waste and dereliction, Lancaster captures a prototypical gay literary life, perfect for anyone curious about gay history, the 1920s, modernism, or the mystery of failed artistic promise. From austere libraries in Oxford to seedy hotels in Amsterdam to darkened cinemas in Tangiers, Howard lived and died precociously and -- most importantly -- as he pleased. "Brian Howard: Portrait of a Failure" is the next best thing to an invitation to one of his famous parties.
Esme is pushed into working in his summer holidays as a way of settling his college’s bills. Hired as holiday tutor, his brief is unusual. Not expected to teach anything he is there to keep his charge out of trouble. As the summer develops Esme makes his discoveries, the presence in the background of a psychiatrist being of some concern.
Economics sometimes seems to be stacked against social, environmental and individual well-being. But it doesn't have to be like this. A new approach to economics - deriving as much from Ruskin and Schumacher as from Keynes or Smith - has begun to emerge. Skeptical about money as a measure of success, this new economics turns our assumptions about wealth and poverty upside down. It shows us that real wealth can be measured by increased well-being and environmental sustainability rather than just having and consuming more things. This book is the first accessible and straightforward guide to the new economics. It describes the problems and bizarre contradictions in conventional economics as well as the principles of the emerging new economics, and it tells the real-world stories of how new economics is being successfully put into practice around the world. An essential guide to understanding new economics for all those who care about making economics work for people and planet.
A rake's progress by one of publishing's great eccentrics--the memoirs of Anthony Blond. Richly entertaining...delightfully unstuffy...plenty of juicy gossip --Mail on Sunday
Gregory Bateson (1904–1980), anthropologist, psychologist, systems thinker, student of animal communication, and insightful environmentalist, was one of the most important holistic thinkers of the twentieth century. Noel G. Charlton offers this first truly accessible introduction to Bateson's work, distilling and clarifying Bateson's understanding of the "mind" or "mental systems" as being present throughout the living Earth, in systems and creatures of all kinds. Part biography, part overview of the evolution of his ideas, Charlton's book situates Bateson's thought in relation to that of other ecological thinkers. This long-awaited volume opens up this challenging thinker's body of work and introduces it to a new generation of readers.