In August 1947, an émigré Austrian opera impresario launched the Edinburgh International Festival of Music and Drama to heal the scars of the Second World War through a celebration of the arts. At the same time, a socialist theatre group from Glasgow and other amateur companies protested their exclusion from the festival by performing anyway, inventing the concept of 'fringe' theatre.Now the annual celebration known collectively as the Edinburgh Festival is the largest arts festiva...

True, the city's many summer festivals each maintain their own identities. And yet 'The Festival' has stuck as a shorthand which captures the truly eclectic experience of 'doing Edinburgh' which has made the city's very name synonymous with world-leading culture and performance. This book is the first to tell the complete history of the Edinburgh Festival. Arts writer David Pollock paints an extraordinary portrait of the growth, glory years and struggles of this global cultural phenomenon....

A remarkable memoir detailing a heroic and unswerving commitment to renew the severely degraded land on Wooleen, a massive pastoral property in Western Australia’s southern rangelands.The outback conjures many images that the Australian psyche is built upon. Its grand vistas of sweeping dusty plains and its evocation of a tough pioneering spirit form the foundation of our prosperous culture. But these romantic visions often hide the stark environmental, economic, a...

An ounce of prevention is a worth a pound of cure! That old saying especially applies to the many financial challenges facing the local church today. Written for pastors, finance staff, and board members of local churches, Pressure Points identifies and offers solutions to many of those difficult and sometimes thorny issues that commonly surface when dealing with church finances. David R. Pollock has served as church Business Administrator and consultant for dozens of churches for over 30 ...

8-page photo insert

Lyrically unique, Morrissey saw post-industrial Manchester differently. Where most recognised the derelict remains of a Victorian powerhouse, he saw humour, where others saw post-industrial squalor, he felt the frisson of romance. As a result Manchester became as much a part of "The Smiths" output as the guitars, drums and vocals. As their fame grew, strangers in far away lands wondered about the location of the 'Cemetery Gates' or the setting of 'Vicar in a Tutu'. Unusually, these places ...

But what does your furniture point at?' asks the character Joey in the sitcom Friends on hearing an acquaintance has no TV. It's a good question: since its beginnings during WW2, television has assumed a central role in our houses and our lives, just as satellite dishes and aerials have become features of urban skylines. Television (or 'the idiot's lantern', depending on your feelings about it) has created controversy, brought coronations and World Cups into living rooms, allowed ...

Drawing on exclusive and unprecedented access to David Hockney’s extensive archives, notebooks, and paintings, interviews with family, friends, and on Hockney himself, Christopher Simon Sykes provides a colorful and intimate portrait of one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century.Born in 1937, David Hockney grew up in a northern English town during the days of postwar austerity. By the time he was ten years old he knew he wanted to be an artist, an...

London's forgotten scandals, secrets and personalities from the twentieth century, told by the writer of the popular blog Another Nickel in the Machine.

Retrace the footsteps of over 100 of Edinburgh's most illustrious people (& animals). With many maps to guide you, Edinburgh - Celebrity City Guide, details the lives of one hundred of the city's most famous people, along with illustrations and maps of where they lived, worked or dallied. From the discovery of a reliable anaesthetic to the birthplace of Sean Connery, this book reveals the city's darkest secrets and its most colourful characters. A celebrity city guide to the lives of one h...

"British Film Design" is about the things that you see when you close your eyes and think of British cinema: "Dr. No's Hideaway", the buffet of "Brief Encounter", Vera Drake's parlour, "Hogwarts School"...and a thousand other visions of British films. This book is also about the people who have created those visions. The physical environments of films are made by Production Designers/Art Directors. Their efforts have tended to go unnoticed by cinema audiences. "British Film Design" offers ...

This unusual collection of photographs from the area of Walworth and its immediate surrounding area tell further stories on this fascinating part of South London. We take a peek at long lost cinemas, famous theatres, legendary local characters, war time bombing, a large urban park, the biggest nightclub in the world, a modern mosque, fondly remembered pubs and schools, local transport, often frequented shops and the ever rapidly arriving 'new builds'.We travel outside SE17 to take a look a...