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The ArtsJuly 2025The Fairy Tales of Jim Henson
Keeping the best place by the fire
by Andrea Wright
The Fairy Tales of Jim Henson: The best place by the fire is the first book to specifically consider Henson, best known for the immensely popular The Muppet Show, as an important creator of screen fairy tales. In a chronological overview of Henson's career from the late 1950s to his death in 1990, it explores key themes, artistic practices and innovations that make his contribution to the genre unique. Drawing upon a range of fairy tale scholarship, it also situates Henson's work within the wider context of the genre, specifically its conventions, themes and inherent intertextuality.
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The ArtsDecember 2024Horizontal together
Art, dance, and queer embodiment in 1960s New York
by Paisid Aramphongphan
Horizontal together tells the story of 1960s art and queer culture in New York through the overlapping circles of Andy Warhol, underground filmmaker Jack Smith and experimental dance star Fred Herko. Taking a pioneering approach to this intersecting cultural milieu, the book uses a unique methodology that draws on queer theory, dance studies and the analysis of movement, deportment and gesture to look anew at familiar artists and artworks, but also to bring to light queer artistic figures' key cultural contributions to the 1960s New York art world. Illustrated with rarely published images and written in clear and fluid prose, Horizontal together will appeal to specialists and general readers interested in the study of modern and contemporary art, dance and queer history.
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Humanities & Social SciencesJanuary 2026A queer scrapbook
Britain and Ireland since 1945
by Justin Bengry, Matt Cook, Rebecca Jennings, E-J Scott
A beautifully illustrated compendium of LGBTIQ+ life. A queer scrapbook offers a treasure trove of LGBTIQ+ histories from across Britain and Ireland. Packed with materials, from interviews and newspaper articles to photographs and flyers, the book explores urban, rural and regional queer life since 1945. Commentaries and short essays introduce a changing queer landscape, spotlighting four broad themes: home and family, sex and socialising, arts and culture and politics and activism. The book delves into the meaning and experiences of domesticity and parenting and explores the sometimes unexpected places LGBTIQ+ people met to have fun. It examines the importance of creative work in forming community and identity and shows how people fought injustice and advocated for equal rights. Collecting has been a way for the marginalised to explore and assert identity and community. A queer scrapbook vividly illustrates the diversity of queer and trans lives across the British and Irish isles since the Second World War.
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Humanities & Social SciencesFebruary 2025An unorthodox history
British Jews since 1945
by Gavin Schaffer
A bold, new history of British Jewish life since the Second World War. Historian Gavin Schaffer wrestles Jewish history away from the question of what others have thought about Jews, focusing instead on the experiences of Jewish people themselves. Exploring the complexities of inclusion and exclusion, he shines a light on groups that have been marginalised within Jewish history and culture, such as queer Jews, Jews married to non-Jews, Israel-critical Jews and even Messianic Jews, while offering a fresh look at Jewish activism, Jewish religiosity and Zionism. Weaving these stories together, Schaffer argues that there are good reasons to consider Jewish Britons as a unitary whole, even as debates rage about who is entitled to call themselves a Jew. Challenging the idea that British Jewish life is in terminal decline. An unorthodox history demonstrates that Jewish Britain is thriving and that Jewishness is deeply embedded in the country's history and culture.
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Children's & YAThe Strawberry Fairy. The Loveliest Stories to Read Aloud
by Stefanie Dahle
The Strawberry Fairy works her magic again! For this top-quality gift edition, decorated with glitter and foil embossing, the author and illustrator Stefanie Dahle has chosen her own favourite stories from the three books. There is always something going on in the strawberry garden: the little fairy cures the sore throats of the frog choir, helps Don Carlo to win the love of his sweetheart, and enjoys some jolly parties in the garden. Later everyone cuddles up by the fire and makes plans for the spring while drinking a delicious cup of strawberry tea. A book to treasure, and not just for Strawberry Fairy fans.
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Children's & YAOwl Magic (13). The Mystery of the White Horse
by Ina Brandt/Irene Mohr
It’s just like a fairy tale. In the forest Flora stumbles on a little house with a garden that’s overgrown with roses. But the house is about to be sold. Not only that, but Flora learns from the owner’s daughter that a white horse has been living for a long time in the stable…but now he’s disappeared! Together with her magic owl Goldwing, Flora tries to find the terrified animal. Will the two of them manage to make their way through the jungle of roses and win the confidence of the white stallion?
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Business, Economics & LawNovember 2024
The Island Book of Records Volume II
1969-70
by Neil Storey
The second volume of this highly collectable series, covering the pivotal years of 1969-70. The Island Book of Records Volume II documents the years 1969-70, during which Island sought to build on its success with the Spencer Davis Group by seeking out new British rock talent. By the end of the period, Island was emerging as a major British label, one that could boast releases from Jethro Tull, Nick Drake, King Crimson, John and Beverley Martyn, Fairport Convention and Cat Stevens. Featuring material from recent interviews and from media interviews of the time, and including a comprehensive discography of 45s, The Island Book of Records Volume II is lavishly illustrated with gig adverts (very many at venues that no longer exist), concert tickets, flyers, international LP variants, labels, LP and 45 adverts and other ephemera collector's dream.
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The ArtsJune 2017Terry Gilliam
by Peter Marks
Terry Gilliam presents a sustained examination of one of cinema's most challenging and lauded auteurs, proposing fresh ways of seeing Gilliam that go beyond reductive readings of him as a gifted but manic fantasist. Analysing Gilliam's work over nearly four decades, from the brilliant anarchy of his Monty Python animations through the nightmarish masterpiece Brazil to the provocative Gothic horror of Tideland, it critically examines the variety and richness of Gilliam's sometimes troubled but always provocative output. The book situates Gilliam within the competing cultural contexts of the British, European and American film industries, examining his regular struggles against aesthetic and commercial pressures. He emerges as a passionate, immensely creative director, whose work encompasses a dizzying array of material: anarchic satire, childhood and adult fantasy, dystopia, romantic comedy, surrealism, road movie, fairy tale and the Gothic. The book charts how Gilliam interweaves these genres and forms to create magical interfaces between reality and the illuminating, frightening but liberating worlds of the imagination. Scrutinising the neglected importance of literature and adaptation in Gilliam's career, this study also observes him through the lenses of auteurism, genre, performance, design and national culture, explaining how someone born in Minnesota and raised in California came to be one of British television and film's most compelling figures.
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Humanities & Social SciencesDecember 2025Queer as folklore
The hidden queer history of myths and monsters
by Sacha Coward
A celebration of queer history like you've never seen it before. Queer as folklore travels across centuries and continents to reveal the unsung heroes and villains of storytelling, magic and fantasy. Featuring images from archives, galleries and museums around the world, each chapter investigates the queer history of different mythic and folkloric characters, both old and new. Leaving no headstone unturned, Sacha Coward takes you on a wild ride through the night from ancient Greece to the main stage of RuPaul's Drag Race, visiting cross-dressing pirates, radical fairies and the graves of the 'queerly departed' along the way. Queer communities have often sought refuge in the shadows and created safe spaces in underworlds. But these forgotten narratives tell stories of resilience that deserve to be heard. Join any Pride march and you will see a glorious display of papier-mâché unicorn heads, drag queens in mermaid tails and more fairy wings than you can shake a trident at. These are not just accessories: they are queer symbols with historic roots. To truly understand who queer people are today, we must confront the twisted tales of the past.
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The ArtsSeptember 2019Queer Objects
by Chris Brickell, Judith Collard
Queer lives give rise to a vast array of objects: the things we fill our houses with, the gifts we share with our friends, the commodities we consume at work and at play, the clothes and accessories we wear, and the analogue and digital technologies we use to communicate with one another. But what makes an object queer? The sixty-three chapters in Queer Objects consider this question in relation to lesbian, gay and transgender communities across time, cultures and space. In this unique international collaboration, well-known and newer writers traverse world history to write about items ranging from ancient Egyptian tomb paintings and Roman artefacts to political placards, snapshots, sex toys and the smartphone. Fabulous, captivating, transgressive.
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Business, Economics & LawOctober 2023The Island Book of Records Volume I
1959-68
by Neil Storey
The Island Book of Records brings the early years of this iconic record label to life. A fifteen-year labour of love, the volumes will fully document the analogue era of Island. Offering a comprehensive archive of album cover design and photography, together with the voices of the musicians, designers, photographers, producers, studio engineers and record company personnel that worked on each project, the volumes show in unique depth the workings of the label, covering every LP. Featuring material from recent interviews and from media interviews of the time, and each including a comprehensive discography of 45s, the books are lavishly illustrated with gig adverts (very many at venues which no longer exist), concert tickets, flyers, international LP variants, labels, LP and 45 adverts and other ephemera. These LP-sized editions are a collector's dream, offering a truly unparalleled resource for those interested in music history and a perfect gift for any music lover.
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Teaching, Language & ReferenceNovember 2023David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the sun machine
by Nicholas Royle
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2020How Animals Hammer, Drill and Strike
Tool Use in the Animal Kingdom
by Peter-René Becker
From insects to fish as well as birds and primates: the use of tools is amazingly widespread in the animal kingdom. It’s a misnomer to presume that humans are distinguished by tool use and conscious capacity. So where is culture initiated? The biologist Peter-René Becker has evaluated numerous studies and cites plenty of evidence for the use of the hammer and anvil, lances, bait or sponges. Animals also use “tools as social implements”. Ultimately, the depth of man’s conscience singles him out from other animals.
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Benedict XVI - A Life
by Peter Seewald
- Peter Seewald presents exclusive material from new research and interviews with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.- The interview books by Peter Seewald and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI were international best-sellers When Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope in April 2005, it was the event of the century: a German on the Chair of St. Peter. For the chosen one, it is the highlight of an unparalleled career. As a professor, as an archbishop, as leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and then finally as Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger has been in the public eye for more than five decades - a life that reflects the drama and disruption of the 20th and 21st Centuries. Peter Seewald has accompanied him for over 25 years as a journalist and book author. He has the insider knowledge that makes for precision of detail and sound judgement. And so Seewald succeeds in drawing a vivid image of the Pope emeritus that shows the people Joseph Ratzinger in a new light. Rights to 40 4/c photos, including cover, cleared.The biography can be published in two volumes.
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The ArtsNovember 2025Queen Henrietta's Men and the Cockpit Repertory
Drama on the Drury Lane Stage, 1626–36
by Eleanor Collins
This book offers the first extended study of Queen Henrietta's Men, one of Caroline London's most important professional playing companies. The drama that the company performed at the Cockpit between 1626 and 1636 includes many underexplored and neglected plays from the period alongside more celebrated works by dramatists including James Shirley and John Ford, and a number of Elizabethan and Jacobean revivals. Queen Henrietta's Men and the Cockpit Repertory explores the material and cultural conditions under which the company operated, and offers an account of the dynamics that held between new drama written for the company and the revivals staged alongside that fare. In doing so, this account illuminates the ways in which an appreciation of the work of Queen Henrietta's Men can offer new perspectives on theatre history and the categories of company and repertory that have shaped it.
