In 2007 Romany Mark Bruce, Irish-born lawyer and self-taught artist, was confronted by a stranger while walking his dog in Kemptown, Brighton. 'I want a word with you,' said the mysterious fellow, and walked off, without further explanation. Two days later, Romany received a follow-up email: would he consider mocking up a design for an AIDS Memorial statue, to be erected in the south-coast city? An open-call competition was underway: there were ten days left to enter. Having lost his deare...

Susan Ryder has long been one of the country's leading portrait painters. A member of the New English Arts Club and past vicepresident of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, she has painted many notable sitters including HM The Queen, Diana, Princess of Wales and many more.Inspired by the work of Edouard Vuillard and the teaching of Bernard Dunstan, she is still passionately in love with lamplight, to her it is more thrilling than the most beautiful sunset. Setting her scene be...

Thibodeaux Ray, a storm spotter in a tow truck, drives through heavy weather and is drawn into a desperate search for a child in the hurricane-pounded landscape of the southern United States. He does not realize that he is driving into a Lovecraftian horror.

Alasdair Gray is Scotland's best known polymath. Born in 1934 in Glasgow, he graduated in design and mural art from the Glasgow School of Art in 1957. After decades of surviving by painting and writing TV and radio plays, his first novel, the loosely autobiographical, blackly fantastic Lanark, opened up new imaginative territory for such varied writers as Jonathan Coe, A.L. Kennedy, James Kelman, Janice Galloway and Irvine Welsh. It led Anthony Burgess to call him...

John Constable was English painter, ranked with Turner as one of the greatest British landscape artists. After spending some years working in the Picturesque tradition of landscape and the manner of Gainsborough, Constable developed his own original treatment from the attempt to render scenery more directly and realistically; he thought that 'No two days are alike, nor even two hours; neither were there ever two leaves of a tree alike since the creation of the world', and: 'The sound of wa...

This study Art Book contains selected and annotated color plates of paintings from John Constable.John Constable was English painter, ranked with Turner as one of the greatest British landscape artists. Constable worked extensively in the open air, drawing and sketching, but his finished pictures were produced in the studio. Unlike many of his contemporaries Constable painted from nature rather than thinking up a composition in his minds eye prior to beginning a piece. He was excite...

One day in March 2011 staff at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh noticed a wonderful paper sculpture left on a table. Carved from paper and mounted on a book, it bore a tag expressing support for the Library's work. From then until November 2011 nine more mysterious paper sculptures appeared in arts venues throughout Edinburgh, including the National Library of Scotland, the Filmhouse cinema, the National Museum of Scotland and the Scottish Storytelling Centre. Left anonymously, the...

This walk is one of twelve walks in John Wilks' Walks Through History - Birmingham series which contains twelve walks within the city. The whole book is available as an ebook or physical book or you could try this one out first. The book is a celebration of the beauty and poetry of the county. Each walk in this book has been chosen not only because it is a pleasant walk in its own right, but also because it goes past sites which reveal the rich and varied history of the county. Each walk i...

A loving and hilarious—if occasionally spiky—valentine to Bill Bryson’s adopted country, Great Britain. Prepare for total joy and multiple episodes of unseemly laughter.Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to discover and celebrate that green and pleasant land. The result was Notes from a Small Island, a true classic and one of the bestselling travel books ever written. Now he has traveled about Britain again, by bus and train and re...

Florence Broadhurst, the one-time chanteuse of Shanghai, Bond Street salon owner, world-renowned wallpaper designer and Sydney socialite lived a life steeped in subterfuge and deception. Here for the first time we get a glimpse at the fascinating woman behind the hand-printed brocades.Late in the afternoon of 16 October 1977, seventy-eight year-old Florence Broadhurst was brutally murdered. Her killer was never found.The mystery surrounding Florence's death...

Unlock the more straightforward side of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society with this concise and insightful summary and analysis!This engaging summary presents an analysis of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, which tells the story of Juliet Ashton, a writer who one day is contacted by a man living in Guernsey. Through a series of letters exchanged with him and other residents of...

This deluxe edition of Helen ONeills award-winning book is a must for lovers of design. With stunning full-page prints of Florence Broadhursts distinctive fabric and wallpaper designs, together with gorgeous photographs of interiors from around the world using her amazing patterns, this is a beautiful book you will want to treasure. Florence Broadhurst led an extraordinary and eccentric life. She was born in 1899 to a farming family in rural Queensland and by 25 she had toured across Asia wit...