Liverpool is a unique city within the United Kingdom - in terms of its dialect, hedonism, friendliness, rejection of 'Englishness', and most pertinently, its politics. It is bastion of working-class left-wing politics like no other - as evidenced by the suspension of a Liverpool FC match after the death of the Queen, for fear the Liverpool fans would boo the minute's silence. Yet it was not always so, and Liverpool's transformation from a stronghold of working-class Toryism to its current ...

Liverpool is a unique city within the United Kingdom - in terms of its dialect, hedonism, friendliness, rejection of 'Englishness', and most pertinently, its politics. It is bastion of working-class left-wing politics like no other - as evidenced by the suspension of a Liverpool FC match after the death of the Queen, for fear the Liverpool fans would boo the minute's silence. Yet it was not always so, and Liverpool's transformation from a stronghold of working-class Toryism to its current ...

A resident doctors’ strike,unionised butchers,and the same old hapless politicians.What (more) could possibly go wrong?When the government’s ruthless solution to an overwhelmed National Health Service is to start treating patients like farm animals, the British public is thrust into unimaginable chaos. Caught in the crossfire is Dougie Warren, an ex-rugby player and fiercely principled Yorks...

We are in crisis.As a society we have never been less connected.The internet and globalisation fuel ignorance and anger, while the disconnect between people's reality and perceived identities has never been greater.Karl Marx outlined the idea of a material 'base' and politico-cultural 'superstructure'. According to this formula, a material reality - wealth, income, occupation - determined your politics, leisure habi...

This contemporary story, set in the fictional town of Aidemby, England, is centred around the plight of a single mother of three teenage children,Annie Slade, who, having previously been such a ‘happy-go-lucky’ person, has recently become the subject of her family’s concerns, due to her having uncharacteristically fallen victim to the debilitating effects of depression.The root cause of Annie’s problems are unknown, until it duly emerges, that she is in fact, being subjected...

This volume synthesises the latest scholarship on First World War veterans in post-war Britain and Ireland, investigating the topic through its political, social and cultural dynamics. It examines the post-war experiences of those men and women who served and illuminates the nature of the post-war society for which service had been given. Complicating the homogenising tendency in existing scholarship it offers comparison of the experiences of veterans in different regions of Britain, inclu...

Miss Marple, living a quiet life in St Mary Mead, is saddened to hear of the death of Jason Rafiel. Not that they were friends - the old financier was much too irascible and self-centred for friendship - but they had once been allies in solving a series of murders that took place on the tiny Caribbean island of St Honoré. She is therefore greatly surprised by a summons to the dead man's solicitor, where she receives a bizarre challenge in the form of a posthumous letter. According to Mr Ra...

All seven series of Andy Hamilton's fiendishly funny award-winning comedy set in Hell.'Satirical, philosophical - and devilishly funny' Gillian Reynolds, Daily TelegraphWelcome to Hell - where nobody can ever quite catch the barman's eye. In this collection, which contains all seven series of Old Harry's Game, get ready for some wicked one-liners and scorching satire.Satan is fed up after a millennia in charge of Hell, esp...

Comedy about the ruling family of Renaissance Italy's most inconsequential city-stateIn Monte Guano, a ridiculously small and penniless principality in Renaissance Italy, Prince Ludovico II finds his rule constantly undermined by those around him: his shrewd wife, his official mistress, and his three disappointing - if not outright humiliating - sons.As well as having to manage the ever-increasing tributes demanded by the Pope, Prince Ludovico must also con...

Shipwrecked and cast adrift, English surgeon Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people, whose height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters—with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the philosophical Houyhnhnms, and the brutish Yahoos—give him new, bitter insights into human behavior.Jonathan Swift's savage satire views mankind in a distorted hall of mirrors as a diminished, magnified, and fina...

Gulliver had always wanted to see the world. But whenever he steps on board a ship, bad luck always seems near at hand. He is shipwrecked, abandoned, marooned and mutinied against—and each time lands in a strange and curious place.First he discovers the kingdom of the small people of Lilliput, whose height make their petty quarrels seem ridiculous. Gulliver then encounters the giants of Brobdingnag, who are amazed by how tiny he is, and treat him like a pampered pet. But his smalln...

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is a brilliantly layered satirical novel that follows the extraordinary voyages of Lemuel Gulliver, a ship's surgeon who encounters astonishing civilizations across uncharted parts of the world. From the tiny inhabitants of Lilliput to the towering giants of Brobdingnag, from the abstract philosophers of Laputa to the noble horses known as Houyhnhnms, each journey offers a sharp and often humorous reflection on human nature and society. Though often mis...