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Promoted Content
August 2016Englisches Gartenglück für das ganze Jahr
Ein immerwährender Kalender
by Katrin Eisner
Nirgendwo sonst wird der Gartenkunst, dem Glück des Gärtnerns und den Schönheiten der blühenden Natur so gehuldigt wie in England. Der Garten gehört zum nationalen Selbstverständnis wie Fish’n’Chips und Linksverkehr. Und nicht umsonst besagt eine englische Weisheit: »Gärtnern ist ein ernst zu nehmender Sport.« Dass man die Gartenkunst auf der Insel seit Jahrhunderten mit großem Ernst und Sportsgeist verfolgt, bedeutet jedoch nicht, dass die Leidenschaft, der Genuss und das sinnliche Vergnügen dabei zu kurz kommen, denn: »Gärtnern ist ein Lebensstil«, wie auch Gartenikone Beth Chatto betont. Diesem Lebensstil, der englischen Gartenlust und den Schönheiten der englischen Natur ist dieser immerwährende Kalender gewidmet – mit Zitaten und Gedanken englischer Schriftsteller, Dichter und Gärtner, wunderbar illustriert mit zahlreichen Fotos und Abbildungen englischer Gartenpracht.
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Promoted Content
March 2013Die Damen mit dem grünen Daumen
Berühmte Gärtnerinnen
by Claudia Lanfranconi, Sabine Frank
»Die Rolle der Frau in der Entwicklung der Gartenkunst wurde bisher noch nie so thematisiert«, lobte die Jury des Deutschen Gartenbuchpreises den Gewinnerband »Die Damen mit dem grünen Daumen«. Ob Herrscherinnen, Aristokratinnen, Künstlerinnen, Schriftstellerinnen oder ganz allgemein naturbegeisterte Damen, die ihre Passion für den Garten selbstbewusst und frei auslebten – sie alle trugen entscheidend dazu bei, dass der Garten nicht nur ein Stück Erde blieb, auf dem sich Essbares kultivieren lässt. Die Bedeutung der grünen Oase als Ort der Entspannung, Inspiration und Passion ist bis heute ungebrochen, und das ist besonders dem Einfluss einiger feiner Damen mit grünem Daumen zu verdanken … Von Katharina de Medici, Sibylla Merian, Wilhelmine von Bayreuth über Lucie von Pückler, Gertrude Jekyll, Beatrix Potter, Vita Sackville-West zu Beth Chatto, Gabriella Pape und vielen anderen.
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FictionA Lover's Discourse
by Xiaolu Guo
A story of desire, love and language – and the meaning of home – told through conversations between two lovers A Chinese woman comes to London to start a new life, away from her old world. She knew she would be lonely, adrift in the city, but will her new relationship bring her closer to this land she has chosen, will their love give her a home? A Lover’s Discourse is an exploration of romantic love told through fragments of conversations between the two lovers. Playing with language and the cultural differences that her narrator encounters as she settles into life in a post-Brexit Britain, Xiaolu Guo shows us how this couple navigate these differences, and their romance, whether on their unmoored houseboat or in a stifling flatshare in east London, or journeying through other continents together… Suffused with a wonderful sense of humour, this intimate and tender novel asks universal questions: what is the meaning of home when we’ve been uprooted? How can a man and woman be together? And how best to find solid ground in a world of uncertainty?
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Humanities & Social SciencesMarch 2020SITOPIA
How Food Can Save The World
by Carolyn Steel
A vital call for us to rediscover the way that food binds us to each other and to the natural world, and in doing so find new ways of living -- Christopher Kissane, Guardian Steel's ideas have become a matter of urgency -- Clare Saxby, Times Literary Supplement Essential reading! A visionary look at how quality food should replace money as the new world currency -- Tim Spector Steel offsets the obviously weighty subject matter with a lightness of touch and twinkling eye for luminous details… an unambiguously essential read -- George Reynolds, Daily Telegraph The beauty of food is that it is so many things at once: necessity and treat, nature and artifice, the subject of science, philosophy, etiquette and art. The book is accordingly multiple in its themes, an all-you-can-eat buffet of thoughts and facts about food...a brave and ambitious book, Observer Prize Shortlisted: https://wainwrightprize.com/sitopia/ Discussed on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Weds 17th Sept (Starts at 2hrs & 20 mins in: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000mkst) From our foraging hunter-gatherer ancestors to the enormous appetites of modern cities, food has shaped our bodies and homes, our politics and trade, and our climate. Whether it’s the daily decision of what to eat, or the monopoly of industrial food production, food touches every part of our world. But by forgetting its value, we have drifted into a way of life that threatens our planet and ourselves. Yet food remains central to addressing the predicaments and opportunities of our urban, digital age. Drawing on insights from philosophy, history, architecture, literature, politics and science, as well as stories of the farmers, designers and economists who are remaking our relationship with food, Sitopia is a provocative and exhilarating vision for change, and how to thrive on our crowded, overheating planet. In her inspiring and deeply thoughtful new book Carolyn Steel, points the way to a better future. Carolyn Steel is a leading thinker on food and cities. Her first book, Hungry City, received international acclaim, establishing her as an influential voice in a wide variety of fields across academia, industry and the arts. It won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction and was chosen as a BBC Food Programme book of the year. A London-based architect, academic and writer, Carolyn has lectured at the University of Cambridge, London Metropolitan University, Wageningen University and the London School of Economics and is in international demand as a speaker. Her 2009 TED talk has received more than one million views.
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GardeningBeth Chatto's Shade Garden
Shade-Loving Plants for Year-Round Interest
by Beth Chatto (author), Steve Wooster (photographer)
First published as The Shade Garden by Cassell in 2002, this Pimpernel Classic edition includes new photography by Steve Wooster and a new introduction by Beth Chatto. ‘Most gardens have dark areas – a north-facing border, an area shaded by a hedge, fence or house wall, a bed in the shade cast by shrubs or trees with greedy roots – and for many gardeners these are a challenge, and often a trial. Fortunately there are plants adapted by Nature to a vast range of conditions and, by choosing suitable plants, we can transform almost any problem site into something beautiful.’ In this book legendary plantswoman Beth Chatto shows how the problem of shade in a garden can be turned to advantage. She tells how she transformed a derelict site into a woodland garden that is tranquil and serene yet full of life and interest in every season. She describes, too, a wealth of plants that will thrive in shady beds and borders and on walls.
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Literature & Literary StudiesThe Shakespearean Ethic
by John Vyvyan
‘… the most original book about Shakespeare I have ever read'Christopher BookerOriginally published by Chatto & Windus in 1959, this book has long been out of print and largely neglected by Shakespearean scholars. It offers a viewpoint seldom considered: an unusual and exceptionally clear insight into Shakespeare’s philosophy. It does so with freshness, modesty and conviction.Appreciating the danger Shakespeare faced in writing at a time of major religious intolerance, Vyvyan shows how subtly the plays explore aspects of the perennial philosophy allegorically. In doing so, Shakespeare raises the fundamental question of ethics: What ought we to do?‘Shakespeare,’ says the author, ‘is never ethically neutral. He is never in doubt as to whether the souls of his characters are rising or falling.’ There is a constant pattern in the tragedies: ‘first the hero is untrue to his own self, then he casts out love, then conscience is gone – or rather inverted – and the devil enters into him.’ Vyvyan shows us this pattern of damnation, or its counterpart – a pattern of regeneration – working out in certain plays, contrasting Hamlet with Measure for Measure and Othello with The Winter’s Tale, where a similar dilemma and choice confront the hero. His intuitive insights also illumine Macbeth, Julius Caesar and Titus Andronicus which focus on the fall, whereas The Tempest explores most fully the pattern of regeneration and creative mercy.Here is a book, both thought-provoking and persuasive, which will send many readers back to Shakespeare’s plays with fresh vision and clearer understanding. To assist such readers, this edition cross-references the quotations in the text to the relevant place in the play. The text has been completely reset and the index expanded.
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True crimeDestination Peking
18 true stories of those who went...
by Paul French
New York Times bestselling author Paul French (Midnight in Peking, City of Devils) returns to the Chinese capital to tell 18 true stories of fascinating people who visited the city in the first half of the 20th century. From the ultra-wealthy Woolworths heiress Barbara Hutton and her husband the Prince Mdivani, to the poor “American girl” Mona Monteith who worked in the city as a prostitute; from socialite Wallis Simpson and novelist JP Marquand, who held court on the rooftop of the Grand Hôtel de Pékin, to Hollywood screenwriter Harry Hervey, who sought inspiration walking atop the Tartar Wall; from Edgar and Helen Foster Snow – Peking’s ‘It’ couple of 1935 – to Martha Sawyers, who did so much to aid China against Japan in World War II; Destination Peking brings a lost pre-communist era back to life.
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FictionSeptember 2019SILENCE IS MY MOTHER TONGUE
by Sulaiman Addonia
In a time of war, what is the shape of love? Saba arrives in an East African refugee camp as a young girl, devastated to have been wrenched from school and forced to abandon her books as her family flees to safety. In this unfamiliar, crowded and often hostile community, she must carve out a new existence. As she struggles to maintain her sense of self, she remains fiercely protective of her mute brother, Hagos – each sibling resisting the roles gender and society assign. Through a cast of complex, beautifully-drawn characters, Sulaiman Addonia questions what it means to be a man, to be a woman, to be an individual when circumstance has forced the loss of all that makes a home or a future.
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April 2022Grounded at Kai Tak
Chinese Aircraft Impounded in Hong Kong, 1949–1952
by Malcolm Merry
Set against the backdrop of regional and international post–Second World War tensions, Grounded at Kai Tak is the most comprehensive account of the complex legal struggle for ownership of 71 airplanes belonging to the two main Chinese airlines, which were stranded at Kai Tak airfield in Hong Kong at the end of the Chinese civil war. The resulting contest for possession of them took place in the courts and among politicians and diplomats on three continents. In the process, the struggle became entangled with the anti-communist policies of the United States in the emerging ‘Cold War’, British hopes for restoration of her pre-war commercial position in China, disagreements between nations about recognition of the new government in Peking, and the delicate balance that the colonial government of Hong Kong had to keep to preserve that colony’s interests. Merry tells the tale of this legal saga by weaving together archival documents and news reports of the day, revealing the international alignments that emerged from the aftermath of the wars and the colourful cast of actors that influenced the outcome of the dispute. This struggle would go on to become one of the leading public international law cases on the recognition of governments at the time.
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HobbiesMarch 2010Creative Fabric Techniques
For Quilters, Embroiderers and Textile Artists
by Annette Morgan
New ideas for creating exciting textile surfaces – for quilters and embroiderers, in this CD book in PDF format. Using innovative new techniques, top quilter Annette Morgan explains how to use existing textiles combined with sheer fabrics and stitching to create sumptuous new surfaces. She shows how to play with wire frames, wrapping, stitching, burning and appliqué to make creative squares. Using fabric as a base for piling on texture she adds paint to give surface decoration. In Creative Fabric Techniques, Annette Morgan gives ideas for creating textiles from fabrics and those old pieces in the attic, and for creating new from something old – exactly what the painters used to do. Learn how to experiment with wadding, to create a textile base with which to work, also how to use your own images, transfer them to fabric and transform with stitch. ‘Annette Morgan, writes in a friendly but firm style – don’t procrastinate, do it! She explores a lot of popular mixed media methods, but her interpretations are fresh and interesting. Her work is lovely and having the ability to zoom right in on the details is a real bonus.’ – The Textile Directory ‘a great introduction to exciting ways with fabric.’- Karenplatt.co.uk
