Showing results for "Melvyn Bragg"

Melvyn Bragg's first ever memoir - an elegiac, intimate account of growing up in post-war Cumbria, which lyrically evokes a vanished world.'The best thing he's ever written . . . I loved it'Observer'A memoir bursting with affection'Sunday TimesIn this elegiac and heartfelt memoir, Melvyn Bragg recreates his youth in the Cumbrian market town of Wigton: a working-class boy who expected ...

Here is the riveting story of the English language, from its humble beginnings as a regional dialect to its current preeminence as the one global language, spoken by more than two billion people worldwide. In this groundbreaking book, Melvyn Bragg shows how English conquered the world. It is a magnificent adventure, full of jealousy, intrigue, and war—against a hoard of invaders, all armed with their own conquering languages, which bit by bit, the speakers of English absorbed and made thei...

'Superb'Spectator'C****onsistently entertaining'Independent'Impressive and sage'New Statesman'Bragg's affection for his subject is infectious'ObserverEnglish is the collective work of millions of people throughout the ages. It is democratic, ever-changing and ingenious in its assimilation of other cultures. English runs through ...

'Brilliant'Daily Telegraph'The book is exciting . . . a pleasure to be remembered'Financial TimesAt once a love story and a portrayal of innocence brutally curtailed, Josh Lawton charts the rites of passage of a young Cumbrian farm worker and keen fell runner - an exceptionally good man whose very integrity proves his undoing.'With this novel, Melvyn Bragg has established his...

'A gripping saga of great passion'The Times'As splendid a ripping yarn as any of the best classics'Daily Telegraph'I loved it . . . [a] stately, seething, passionate epic'Literary ReviewBritain during the Dark Ages is the setting for the fascinating story of Bega, a young Irish princess who became a saint, and her lifelong bond with Padric, prince of the north-western ...

'A vivid and surprisingly tender tribute to one of the wildest moments in Plantagenet history' - Dan Jones, The Times'It's impossible not to be caught up' - Daily MailIn this gripping novel, Melvyn Bragg brings an extraordinary episode in English history to fresh, urgent life.At the end of May 1381, the fourteen-year-old King of England had reason to be fearful: the plague had returned, the royal coffers were empty ...

'This is historical fiction with a human face'Peter Ackroyd, The Times'A vivid and erudite tour de force'Penelope Lively, Booker Prize-winning author of Moon Tiger'A skilled, ornate and convincing examination of a nineteenth-century scandal in Bragg's own Cumbria'Thomas Keneally, Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler's ArkSet in the Lake District in the early ninete...

Set in Britain during the 1950s, this moving and evocative novel follows the intertwined fates of people crossing boundaries in their lives. As a teenager in the small northern town of Wigton, Joe Richardson falls in love with Rachel, just when her life is about to be uprooted. While his parents, Sam and Ellen, face the frontiers of middle age, Joe finds himself drawn by the intoxicating world outside home, and swept into situations that seem beyond his control. Vividly conveying the spiri...

The Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller celebrating 400 years of the King James Bible.The King James Bible has often been called the Book of Books both in itself and in what it stands for. Since its publication in 1611 it has been the best selling book in the world, and many believe, had the greatest impact. The King James Bible has spread the Protestant faith. It has also been the greatest influence on the enrichment of the English language and its literature...

The fascinating story of science unfolds in this account of the lives and extraordinary discoveries of twelve of its greatest figures - Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, Lavoisier, Faraday, Darwin, Poincaré, Freud, Einstein, Marie Curie and Crick and Watson. Exploring their impact and legacy with leading scientists of today including Stephen Jay Gould, Oliver Sacks, Lewis Wolpert, Susan Greenfield, Roger Penrose and Richard Dawkins, Melvyn Bragg illuminates the core issues of science past and p...

'Melvyn Bragg's account of the passionate and painful love affair between the 12th century radical theologian, Peter Abelard, and the brilliant young convent-educated Eloise springs magnificently to life . . . Thrilling.' Piers Plowright, TabletWithin the Cloisters of Notre-Dame, a charismatic philosopher and a young woman renowned for her scholarship embark on an ardent, secret affair. It will send shockwaves through Paris, incur savage retribution and le...

THE FIRST NOVEL IN 'ONE OF THE MOST DISTINGUISHED LITERARY SERIES IN RECENT TIMES' (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH)'His masterpiece'Sunday Times'Outstandingly good'Scotsman'A great achievement'ObserverWhen Sam Richardson returns in 1946 from the 'Forgotten War' in Burma to Wigton in Cumbria, he finds the town little changed. But the war has changed ...