Burton Rembrandt has the sort of perspective on life that is impossible for most adults to comprehend: the perspective of an eight-year-old boy. And to Burt,...... more

Burton Rembrandt has the sort of perspective on life that is impossible for most adults to comprehend: the perspective of an eight-year-old boy. And to Burt, his parents and teachers seem to be speaking a language he cannot understand. When Burt meets Jessica he finds solace from the problems of growing up, of dealing with parents and teachers and adults in general. But when he expresses the ardent love he feels for Jessica, he is placed in an institution with autistic, mentally retarded, sociopathic, and generally 'disturbed' children. This is Burt's story as written in pencil on the walls of the Quiet Room in The Children's Trust Residence Center. It begins: "When I was five I killed myself..." This strange, funny and darkly touching tale explores the chasm between childhood and adulthood in the starkly honest words of a misunderstood little boy. "When I Was Five I Killed Myself" is considered a modern classic in France where it has sold over a million copies. Buten's writing is compared with Hemingway and J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye".

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With the advent of footballers being paid well above the national wage it has gone from being a sport to a business. This illustrated book takes us...... more

With the advent of footballers being paid well above the national wage it has gone from being a sport to a business. This illustrated book takes us through the Century of English football from the photographic and written archives of the 'Daily Mirror'.

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General Sir John Hackett is best known as the "Tufton Bufton" of the British Army who, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, wrote a couple of bestselling Cold...... more

General Sir John Hackett is best known as the "Tufton Bufton" of the British Army who, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, wrote a couple of bestselling Cold War Domesday scenarios, The Third World War and The Third World War: the Untold Story, in which he laid out in meticulous and, it has to be said, utterly inaccurate detail how the next global conflict would start and what course it would take. Such credentials don't exactly set the pulse racing at the prospect of his wartime memoir I Was a Stranger, but once again Pimlico have shown sound critical judgement in raiding other publishers' out-of-print backlist and reissuing them in a new format. Where Hackett's later tomes lean to the portentous, this book never strays from the personal and is all the better for it. He kicks off on page one with how he was badly wounded by a shell splinter at the Battle of Arnhem in 1944 and thereafter the book rattles along like some Boys Own story. The Dutch Resistance whisk him out of a POW hospital, hide him up for the winter and the following spring he straps a suitcase on to the back of a borrowed bicycle and rides off--via some Biggles-like narrow escapes--to freedom. Pimlico have retained an extremely old-fashioned typeface for I Was a Stranger; whether this was for economic reasons or not, it does have the curious side-effect of dragging you back to the time when it was written. The prose, too, is often clipped and formal--think Brief Encounter--and there is no chance of Hackett being mistaken for Andy McNab. But oddly enough it still comes to life. The Second World War was a different era, and their heroes were very different to ours. But their courage and bravery still shine through. I Was A Stranger may be something of a period piece, but it is one worth revisiting. --John Crace

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Using photographic and written archives of the 'Daily Mirror', this title takes us on a nostalgia-packed journey through the club's evolution from its...... more

Using photographic and written archives of the 'Daily Mirror', this title takes us on a nostalgia-packed journey through the club's evolution from its beginnings as a south London munitions factory team, through the nurturing of some of the game's fabled characters - from notorious chairman Henry Norris to the great innovator Herbert Chapman.

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First published in 1925, this little book has i nspired thousands of people around the world to fi nd a sense of purpose and belonging. It remains as...... more

First published in 1925, this little book has i nspired thousands of people around the world to fi nd a sense of purpose and belonging. It remains as relevant today as when it was written, and reveal s that life is not a battle but a game - a game of giving and receiving. Whatever we send out into t he world will eventually be returned to us - throu gh what we give and receive, we shape our reality. Discover how your mind and it's im aging faculty play a leading role in the game of l ife. Whatever you imagine or focus upon will soone r or later be experienced as part of your world. T his little book will show you how you can change y our circumstances, leave your regrets behind and c reate your own dazzling future.

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John Stow first published his 'Survey of London' in 1598 during the reign of Elizabeth I. His detailed description of the city and its suburbs was an...... more

John Stow first published his 'Survey of London' in 1598 during the reign of Elizabeth I. His detailed description of the city and its suburbs was an immediate success when it first appeared and has remained a popular classic of English history ever since.

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You might be forgiven for thinking that Michael Bracewell's The Nineties: When Surface was Depth is a cultural commentary on the nineties and in...... more

You might be forgiven for thinking that Michael Bracewell's The Nineties: When Surface was Depth is a cultural commentary on the nineties and in part it is-but only in part. This is a book of interviews, music and art reviews, snatches of Bracewell's literary writing, a retrospective of the last four decades of art, literature and music as well as a cultural commentary on the nineties. In the nineties, everything was being touted in quick succession as "the new rock and roll". Everything, that is, from football (the great surge of public fervour for England's chances in Italia 90), to Opera, (Pavarotti brought to the high street) to comedy, (Vic and Bob, Harry Enfield, Frank Skinner, Newman and Baddiel selling out Wembley Arena). Then came the pronouncement that contemporary art was the new rock and roll before the emergence and international success of Oasis reminded us all that "rock and roll, actually, was the new rock and roll and always had been." Bracewell knows the music scene and he tells the story of Britpop with the authority and assurance of someone who has spent a lifetime collecting records, going to concerts and writing reviews for the music papers. He also appears to be equally at home with the Britart phenomenon as well as the literary scene past and present. Some of the material used in the book has appeared elsewhere and consequently The Nineties is something of a patchworkbut none the worse for that. A good portion of the book is comprised of a series of fascinating interviews with and/or commentary upon more or less iconic figures from the 60s, 70s and 80s as well as the 90s; from The Pet Shop Boys to Patti Smith, from Alexander McQueen to Yoko Ono. The interviews and evaluations are truly first rate and alone they justify the price of the book. But this also works as cultural analysis and right from the get-go Bracewell identifies the key ideas that were to emerge from the culture during the nineties, such Irony and Authenticity with the explosion in popular factual programme-making the defining spirit of the nineties. Books such as this are potential banana skins but Bracewell pulls it off with aplomb. Splendidly written, hugely entertaining and intellectually engaging without being too pretentious.--Larry Brown

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With the advent of footballers being paid well above the national wage it has gone from being a sport to a business. This illustrated book takes us...... more

With the advent of footballers being paid well above the national wage it has gone from being a sport to a business. This illustrated book takes us through the Century of English football from the photographic and written archives of the 'Daily Mirror'.

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Burton Rembrandt has the sort of perspective on life that is impossible for most adults to comprehend: the perspective of an eight-year-old boy. And to Burt,...... more

Burton Rembrandt has the sort of perspective on life that is impossible for most adults to comprehend: the perspective of an eight-year-old boy. And to Burt, his parents and teachers seem to be speaking a language he cannot understand. When Burt meets Jessica he finds solace from the problems of growing up, of dealing with parents and teachers and adults in general. But when he expresses the ardent love he feels for Jessica, he is placed in an institution with autistic, mentally retarded, sociopathic, and generally 'disturbed' children. This is Burt's story as written in pencil on the walls of the Quiet Room in The Children's Trust Residence Center. It begins: "When I was five I killed myself..." This strange, funny and darkly touching tale explores the chasm between childhood and adulthood in the starkly honest words of a misunderstood little boy. "When I Was Five I Killed Myself" is considered a modern classic in France where it has sold over a million copies. Buten's writing is compared with Hemingway and J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye".

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"Speed" follows Billy as he hustles for dope and money, crashing in garbage-strewn apartments and guiding a paranoid friend through the perilous city streets....... more

"Speed" follows Billy as he hustles for dope and money, crashing in garbage-strewn apartments and guiding a paranoid friend through the perilous city streets. With tough, gritty detachment, he describes the stages of his own drug addiction and physical and emotional deterioration. "Kentucky Ham" takes him from the squalor of the East Village crash pads to his father's literary hideaway in Tangier, and finally to incarceration at the Federal Narcotics Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. Through both these autobiographical novels, William S. Burroughs Jr. tells a story of generational isolation that is as relevant today as when it was first written.

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Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war...... more

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. With its wry portrayal of a shallow, materialistic leisure class' obsessed by clothes, cars, consumer goods and climbing the social ladder, this withering satire on modern capitalism is as pertinent today as when it was written over a century ago.

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Robert Fagles' this latest achievement completes the magnificent triptych of Western epics. A sweeping story of arms and heroism, "The Aeneid" follows the...... more

Robert Fagles' this latest achievement completes the magnificent triptych of Western epics. A sweeping story of arms and heroism, "The Aeneid" follows the adventures of Aeneas, who flees the ashes of Troy to embark upon a tortuous course that brings him to Italy and fulfills his destiny as founder of the Roman people. Retaining all of the gravitas and humanity of the original, this powerful blend of poetry and myth remains as relevant today as when it was first written.

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Jock of the Bushveld, published in 1907, has been read and enjoyed by millions of children and is now a classic among animal stories. It remains as...... more

Jock of the Bushveld, published in 1907, has been read and enjoyed by millions of children and is now a classic among animal stories. It remains as fresh and exciting as it was when it was first written and is dedicated by Fitzpatrick to '...those keenest and kindest of critics, best of friends and most delightful of comrades' the likkle people!' Jock's owner was a young transport rider in the rugged and colourful days of the Transvaal gold rush. Those were the days when big game roamed the land and each sunrise brought a new adventure. The story of the bull terrier who shared his master's life on the veld has been illustrated with lively sketches by Edmund Caldwell.

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General Sir John Hackett is best known as the "Tufton Bufton" of the British Army who, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, wrote a couple of bestselling Cold...... more

General Sir John Hackett is best known as the "Tufton Bufton" of the British Army who, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, wrote a couple of bestselling Cold War Domesday scenarios, The Third World War and The Third World War: the Untold Story, in which he laid out in meticulous and, it has to be said, utterly inaccurate detail how the next global conflict would start and what course it would take. Such credentials don't exactly set the pulse racing at the prospect of his wartime memoir I Was a Stranger, but once again Pimlico have shown sound critical judgement in raiding other publishers' out-of-print backlist and reissuing them in a new format. Where Hackett's later tomes lean to the portentous, this book never strays from the personal and is all the better for it. He kicks off on page one with how he was badly wounded by a shell splinter at the Battle of Arnhem in 1944 and thereafter the book rattles along like some Boys Own story. The Dutch Resistance whisk him out of a POW hospital, hide him up for the winter and the following spring he straps a suitcase on to the back of a borrowed bicycle and rides off--via some Biggles-like narrow escapes--to freedom. Pimlico have retained an extremely old-fashioned typeface for I Was a Stranger; whether this was for economic reasons or not, it does have the curious side-effect of dragging you back to the time when it was written. The prose, too, is often clipped and formal--think Brief Encounter--and there is no chance of Hackett being mistaken for Andy McNab. But oddly enough it still comes to life. The Second World War was a different era, and their heroes were very different to ours. But their courage and bravery still shine through. I Was A Stranger may be something of a period piece, but it is one worth revisiting. --John Crace

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Steven Shapin argues that science, for all its immense authority and power, is and always has been a human endeavor, subject to human capacities and limits. Put...... more

Steven Shapin argues that science, for all its immense authority and power, is and always has been a human endeavor, subject to human capacities and limits. Put simply, science has never been pure. To be human is to err, and we understand science better when we recognize it as the laborious achievement of fallible, imperfect, and historically situated human beings. Shapin's essays collected here include reflections on the historical relationships between science and common sense, between science and modernity, and between science and the moral order. They explore the relevance of physical and social settings in the making of scientific knowledge, the methods appropriate to understanding science historically, dietetics as a compelling site for historical inquiry, the identity of those who have made scientific knowledge, and the means by which science has acquired credibility and authority. This wide-ranging and intensely interdisciplinary collection by one of the most distinguished historians and sociologists of science represents some of the leading edges of change in the scholarly understanding of science over the past several decades. Steven Shapin is the Franklin L. Ford Professor of the History of Science at Harvard, and his books include Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (with Simon Schaffer), A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England, and The Scientific Revolution. He has written for the New Yorker and writes regularly for the London Review of Books.

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General Sir John Hackett is best known as the "Tufton Bufton" of the British Army who, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, wrote a couple of bestselling Cold...... more

General Sir John Hackett is best known as the "Tufton Bufton" of the British Army who, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, wrote a couple of bestselling Cold War Domesday scenarios, The Third World War and The Third World War: the Untold Story, in which he laid out in meticulous and, it has to be said, utterly inaccurate detail how the next global conflict would start and what course it would take. Such credentials don't exactly set the pulse racing at the prospect of his wartime memoir I Was a Stranger, but once again Pimlico have shown sound critical judgement in raiding other publishers' out-of-print backlist and reissuing them in a new format. Where Hackett's later tomes lean to the portentous, this book never strays from the personal and is all the better for it. He kicks off on page one with how he was badly wounded by a shell splinter at the Battle of Arnhem in 1944 and thereafter the book rattles along like some Boys Own story. The Dutch Resistance whisk him out of a POW hospital, hide him up for the winter and the following spring he straps a suitcase on to the back of a borrowed bicycle and rides off--via some Biggles-like narrow escapes--to freedom. Pimlico have retained an extremely old-fashioned typeface for I Was a Stranger; whether this was for economic reasons or not, it does have the curious side-effect of dragging you back to the time when it was written. The prose, too, is often clipped and formal--think Brief Encounter--and there is no chance of Hackett being mistaken for Andy McNab. But oddly enough it still comes to life. The Second World War was a different era, and their heroes were very different to ours. But their courage and bravery still shine through. I Was A Stranger may be something of a period piece, but it is one worth revisiting. --John Crace

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In January 2003, the British media splashed the news that anti-terror police had disrupted an Al-Qaeda cell, poised to unleash the deadly poison ricin on the...... more

In January 2003, the British media splashed the news that anti-terror police had disrupted an Al-Qaeda cell, poised to unleash the deadly poison ricin on the capital. Police had reportedly found traces of ricin, as well as a panoply of bomb and poison-making equipment in the cell's 'factory of death' - a shabby flat in north London. 'This danger is present and real, and with us now' announced prime minister Tony Blair. But, when the 'ricin plot' came to trial at the Old Bailey, a very different story emerged: there was no ricin and no sophisticated plot. Rarely has a legal case been so shamelessly distorted by government, media and security forces to push their own 'tough on terror' agendas. In this meticulously researched and compellingly written book, Lawrence Archer, the jury foreman at the trial, and journalist Fiona Bawdon, give the definitive story of the ricin plot, the trial and its aftermath.

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If youve not met Moss, Jen and Roy before, then heres as good a place to start as any. As the IT Crowd of the shows title, the trio find themselves...... more

If youve not met Moss, Jen and Roy before, then heres as good a place to start as any. As the IT Crowd of the shows title, the trio find themselves relegated to the basement, only called upon when the company above them has a computer problem that needs solving. And as viewers of series one and two can testify, this provides a superb setting for one of the best comedy shows currently running. Written (and directed too) by Graham Linehan, one of the geniuses behind Father Ted and Black Books, The IT Crowd this time lacks Noel Fielding, but has plenty to fill the gap he leaves. If theres a particular favourite episode, its the one that rips apart the Facebook phenomenon by uncovering some information that its fair to say was best left covered up. And youre unlikely to forget the box that apparently holds the entire Internet, too. Not for the first time in the show, a genius idea, superbly executed. Its a slightly uneven series, and one that saves its weakest episodes for first and last. But across the six episode run of The IT Crowd, there are plenty of laughs from a show that continues to deliver time and time again. Series four, fortunately, has already been commissioned, and off the back of what we get here, its got a high standard to aim for. --Jon Foster

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