The story of Uwe Johnson, one of Germany's greatest and most-influential post-war writers, and how he came to live and work in Sheerness, Kent in the 1970s.Towards the end of 1974, a stranger arrived in the small town of Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. He could often be found sitting at the bar in the Napier Tavern, drinking lager and smoking Gauloises while flicking through the pages of the Kent Evening Post. "Charles" was the name he offered to his new ...

Have you ever found yourself lying in bed, counting sheep but somehow ending up at sunrise? Or waking up feeling like you just survived an exhausting round of the "Insomnia Olympics"? If so, you're not alone!In this book, we're about to embark on a journey to unlock the secrets of a better night's sleep, transforming each night into a cozy dream adventure. Sleep is not just about lying down and closing your eyes; it's the key to rejuvenation, stress relief, and mental clarity....

Patrick Wright's memoir opens on a diplomatic crisis. A growing number of countries are threatening to boycott the Commonwealth Games in protest of the British government's handling of South African apartheid. And the problems only get worse.Patrick Wright was one of the pre-eminent diplomats of his day, putting him at the forefront of some of the late twentieth century's most important global events. His six years at the FCO found him dealing with the backlash from the Falklands W...

A reissue of Patrick Wright's 1995 classic about the military takeover of the village of Tyneham, with a new introduction taking in Brexit and a new wave of British nationalism.Shortly before Christmas in 1943, the British military announced they were taking over a remote valley on the Dorset coast and turning it into a firing range for tanks in preparation for D-Day. The residents of the village of Tyneham loyally packed up their things and filed out of th...

A unique evocation of Britain at the height of Margaret Thatcher's rule, A Journey Through Ruins views the transformation of the country through the unexpected prism of every day life in East London. Written at a time when the looming but still unfinished tower of Canary Wharf was still wrapped in protective blue plastic, its cast of characters includes council tenants trapped in disintegrating tower blocks, depressed gentrifiers worrying about negative equity, metal detectorists...

President Nixon's famous 1972 trip has gone down in history as the first great opening between the West and Communist China. However, eighteen years previously, former prime minister Clement Attlee had also been to China to shake Chairman Mao by the hand. In the second half of 1954, scores of European delegations set off for Beijing, in response to Prime Minister Chou En-lai's invitation to 'come and see' the New China and celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Communist victory. In this d...

The hulk of Henry VIII's flagship is raised from the seabed in an operation that captures the mind of the nation. The leader of the Labour party wears an informal coat at the Cenotaph and provokes a national scandal. An elderly lady whose ancient house is scheduled for demolition dismantles it, piece by piece, and moves it across the country... On Living in an Old Country probes such apparently fleeting and disconnected events in order to reveal how history lives on, not just in t...

'From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. . .' With these words Winston Churchill famously warned the world in a now legendary speech given in Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946. Launched as an evocative metaphor, the 'Iron Curtain' quickly became a brutal reality in the Cold War between Capitalist West and Communist East. Not surprisingly, for many years, people on both sides of the division have assumed that the story of th...

'From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. . .' With these words Winston Churchill famously warned the world in a now legendary speech given in Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946. Launched as an evocative metaphor, the 'Iron Curtain' quickly became a brutal reality in the Cold War between Capitalist West and Communist East. Not surprisingly, for many years, people on both sides of the division have assumed that the story of th...

The second edition of this popular shortform book provides a concise expert summary of key issues in the theory and practice of the management of human resources (HR) – one of the most crucial drivers of organizational performance.As human resource management strategies evolve over time, this new edition pays special regard to the HR challenges arising from radically altering contexts – economic, social, and technological. For example, the book examines research reports on the impa...

When a plague ravages his village, the shaman Cian sails to the land of the dwarves for a cure. During the voyage, he meets and allies with Thanyan, a beautiful male elf who is a bard. Upon reaching the dwarven cleric whom Cian has been tasked with consulting, they uncover a dangerous secret: the plague resulted from blood magic. To undo this forbidden magic, they must travel to the island nation of the centaurs and visit The Amphitheater of Souls, the ancient temple where the blood magic ...

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.Can one man reconcile his past, or will the shadows consume him?In the oppressive silence of a 1950s Craftsman house, where the air hangs heavy with the echoes of the dead, Fredrick Michael Anderson faces an unsettling task. Tasked with preparing his late mother's home for auction, Fredrick, haunted by memories of a bitter childhood war over his gender, descends into the cellar with his loyal friend Chalsey. A...