DescriptionPresented by Michael Parkinson, this highly entertaining collection of interviews is taken from Spike Milligan's numerous appearances on Parkinson between 1972 and 1982. The subjects Spike covers include his early years, his poetry and books, The Goons, and his relationship with the BBC.
DescriptionLeo Gursky is a man who fell in love at the age of 10 and has been in love ever since. These days, he is just about surviving life in America, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbour know he's still alive, drawing attention to hims…
DescriptionFor most people childhood ends slowly, so nobody can see where one part of life finishes and the next bit starts. But my childhood has ended suddenly. In a day. In the Blood is Andrew Motion's beautifully delivered memoir of growing-up in post-war England - an unforgettable evocation of family life, school life, and country life. It also tells the story of how these worlds were shattered when Motion's mother suffered a terrible riding accident. The tragedy shadows the book, feeding its mood of elegy as well as its celebratory vigilance. Told from a teenage child's point of view, without the benefit of hindsight, Motion captures the pathos and puzzlement of childhood with great clarity of expression and freshness of memory. We encounter a strange but beguiling extended family, a profound love of the natural world, and a growing passion for books and writing.
DescriptionParnassus on Wheels is the story of a marvelous man, small in stature, wiry as a cat, yet Olympic in personality. Roger Mifflin is part pixie, part sage, part noble savage, and all God's creature. With his traveling book wagon, named Parnassus, he moves through the New England countryside of 1915 on an itinerant mission of enlightenment. Mifflin's delight in books and authors (if not publishers) is infectious. With his singular philosophy and bright eyes, he comes to represent the heart and soul of the book world. A roaring good adventure yarn spiced with fiery roadside brawls, the most groaning boards in the history of Yankee cookery, heroic escapes from death, and a rare love story, Roger Mifflin's story shows how bookselling can be one of the world's highest callings: dispelling ignorance while causing constant delight.
DescriptionWhen we think of great events in the history of the world, we tend to think of war, revolution, political upheaval, or natural catastrophe. But throughout history there have been moments of vital importance that have taken place not on the battlefield, or in the palaces of power, or even in the violence of nature, but between the pages of a book. In this audiobook, Melvyn Bragg presents a vivid reminder of the book as agent of social, political, and personal revolution. Here are famous books by Darwin, Newton, and Shakespeare, but we also discover the stories behind some less well-known works, such as Marie Stopes' Married Love, the original radical feminist Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and even the rules to an obscure ball game that became the most popular sport in the world.
DescriptionMary Lamb is confined by the restrictions of domesticity, the only solace of her life being her brother Charles. But he feels equally constrained by the drudgery of his work at the East India Company, taking refuge in drink while spreading his wings as a writer. Sometimes, in the evenings, they study together. Mary reads what Charles reads. So it is no surprise that Mary should fall for the bookseller's son, 17-year-old antiquarian William Ireland, from whom Charles has purchased a book.
DescriptionHidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the "cemetery of lost books", a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, a man brings his 10-year-old son Daniel one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves and pulls out La Sombra del Viento by Julian Carax. But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find. Then, one night, as he is wandering the old streets once more, Daniel is approached by a figure who reminds him of a character from La Sombra del Viento, a character who turns out to be the devil. This man is tracking down every last copy of Carax's works in order to burn them. What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind.
