Empfehlungen basierend auf "William and the Pop Singers"

My part of Ireland had a poet at one time, a poor ragged fellow whom no respectable person whom no respectable person would be seen talking to, but he left doors open as he passed. A delightful autobiographical novel from one of Ireland's best-loved writers Time hardly mattered in the village of Mucker, the birthplace of poet and writer Patrick Kavanagh. Full of wry humour, Kavanagh's unsentimental and evocative account of his Irish rural upbringing describes a patriarchal society surviving on the edge of poverty, sustained by the land and an insatiable love of gossip. There are tales of schoolboy skirmishes, blackberrying and night-time salmon-poaching; of country-weddings and fairs, of political banditry and religious pilgrimages; and of farm-work in the fields and kicking mares. Kavanagh's experiences inspired him to write poetry which immortalized a fast-disappearing way of life and brought him recognition as one of Ireland's great poets.

Pull on your wellies, grab your flat cap and join Jeremy Clarkson in this hilarious and fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the farm we're all obsessed with.Welcome to Clarkson's farm.An idyllic spot offering picturesque views across the Cotswolds, bustling hedgerows and natural springs, it's the perfect plot of land for someone to delegate the actual, you know, farming to someone else while he galivants around the world in cars.Until one day, Jeremy decided he would do the farming itself.After all, how hard could it be? . . .Faced with suffocating red tape, biblical weather, local objections, a global pandemic and his own frankly staggering ignorance of how to 'do farming', Jeremy soon realises that turning the farm around is going to take more than splashing out on a massive tractor.Fortunately, there's help at hand from a large and (mostly) willing team, including girlfriend Lisa, Kaleb the Tractor Driver, Cheerful Charlie, Ellen the Shepherd and Gerald, his Head of Security and Dry Stone Waller.Between them, they enthusiastically cultivate crops, rear livestock and hens, keep bees, bottle spring water and open a farm shop. But profits remain elusive.And yet while the farm may be called Diddly Squat for good reason, Jeremy soon begins to understand that it's worth a whole lot more to him than pounds, shillings and pence . . .

The classic book that inspired Kes, the famous film, now published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. Barry Hines's A Kestrel for a Knave was published in 1968, and was made into one of the key British films of the sixties. Billy Casper is beaten by his drunken brother, ignored by his mother and failing at school. He seems destined for a hard, miserable life down the pits, but for a brief time, he finds one pleasure in life: a wild kestrel that he has raised and tamed himself.

‘The finest book ever written about England and the English’ Stuart Maconie ‘J. B. Priestley is one of our literary icons of the 20th Century and it is time that we all became re-acquainted with his genius.’ Dame Judi Dench Three years before George Orwell made his expedition to the far and frozen North in The Road to Wigan Pier, celebrated writer and broadcaster JB Priestley cast his net wider, in a book subtitled ‘a Rambling but Truthful Account of What One Man Saw and Heard and Felt and Thought During a Journey Through England During the Autumn of the Year 1933.’ Appearing first in 1934, it was a huge and immediate success. Today, it still stands as a timeless classic: warm-hearted, intensely patriotic and profound. An account of his journey through England – from Southampton to the Black Country, to the North East and Newcastle, to Norwich and home – English Journey is funny and tender. But it is also a forensic reading of a changing England and a call to arms as passionate as anything in Orwell’s bleak masterpiece. Moreover, it both captured and catalysed the public mood of its time. In capturing and describing an English landscape and people hitherto unseen, writing scathingly about vested interests and underlining the dignity of working people, Priestley influenced the thinking and attitudes of an entire generation and helped formulate a public consensus for change that led to the birth of the welfare state. Prophetic and as relevant today as it was nearly ninety years ago, English Journey is an elegant and readable love letter to a country Priestley finds unfathomable.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ADAM THIRLWELL 'Our very best writer today' Milan KunderaSparkling with comic genius and narrative exuberance, I Served the King of England is a story of how the unbelievable came true. Its remarkable hero, Ditie, is a hotel waiter who rises to become a millionaire and then loses it all again against the backdrop of events in Prague from the German invasion to the victory of Communism. Ditie's fantastic journey intertwines the political and the personal in a narrative that both enlightens and entertains.

We got our first taste of Adrian Plass's outrageous humour in The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass, Age 37 3⁄4 and The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass, Age 45 3⁄4. With over 2 million copies sold, these beloved bestsellers naturally placed the author's fanciful alter-ego in great demand as an inspirational speaker. And of course, his touring experiences have led to all-new stories to share with his friends. This sequel to the first two books will doubtless secure the Sacred Diarist's reputation as a spiritual authority. It's probably not the reputation he's hoping for, but it's the perfect medium for a bucketful of laughter. So meet the speaker, meet the crew and take a seat. It's time to join Adrian Plass on tour! Anne seems to think it would be a good idea to let people see some of the diary entries I've written in connection with the little seven-day speaking tour that she and I have just done ... On that innocent note, Adrian Plass whisks us along on one of the zaniest tours in his career as a Christian speaker. Besides his wife, his fictional entourage includes Gerald, his grown son, who is now a wise-cracking vicar; high-strung Leonard Thynn and his talented but surrealistic girlfriend, Angels Twitten; and the tour's Scripture-spouting benefactor, Barry Ingstone. First stop is the church of St. James the Hardly Visible at All, where a dour caretaker is waiting to set the tone for things to come. So hop on board - the tour is leaving, and you don't want to miss a thing.

Volume 5 of Spike's war biography sees him dispatched from the front line to a psychiatric hospital and from there to a rehabilitation camp, where he becomes embroiled in a battle with depression. But music, wit, and a little help from friends carry him through to his first stage appearances.

South Dublin's favourite son thought he could face any challenge - until he was asked to cross the bridge over the River Dargle. For Ross O'Carroll-Kelly - schools rugby hero, celebrated bon vivant and lover of beautiful women - life has suddenly become complicated. His father has been accused of rigging a General Election, his seventy-year-old mother is about to bring six surrogate babies into the world, and his daughter is being hailed as 'Ireland's answer to Greta Thunberg', telling everyone who cares to listen that the end of the world is nigh. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Greatest Rugby Player Never to Play for Ireland has a nagging sense that he has to more to contribute to the beautiful game. Now he's been offered a job coaching an underachieving school who've been waiting almost a century for their moment of glory. The challenge is to persuade a collection of jokers, chokers and forty-a-day smokers that they have what it takes to win the Leinster Schools Senior Cup. The only drawback ... the school is in Bray! Praise for the Ross O'Carroll-Kelly series: 'Ross is a national institution ... wicked humour and sharp observation' Irish Times 'One of the funniest writers in the land' Irish Independent 'Extraordinarily accurate and outstandingly funny' Sunday Business Post

‘Dear Miss Thorpe, We hope you are quite well. We are very sorry we did not do your leaflets very well owing to strong winds. Darbishire has some new laces so we will give you your elastic band back when we come, but it has got stretched a bit owing to Darbishire’s shoe?’ When Linbury goes green, Jennings and Darbishire offer to do their bit for the environment and are given the task of distributing leaflets. Unfortunately, Darbishire’s shoelace refuses to stay tied and, using his initiative, Jennings removes the rubber band holding the leaflets together and performs an emergency shoelace repair. All seems fine, until a gust of wind hurls the leaflets over Marina Gardens. The residents are none too pleased, and it’s poor Mr Wilkins who’s going to get the blame? ‘Addle-pated eyewash!’

About this book: "What's Wrong with Civilizashun" was written by Richmal Crompton, with a foreword from Mary Cadogan and first published as a whole collection in book form in 1990 by Macmillan Children's Books, 96pp, ISBN 0333526562. 'People go on an' on tryin' to find out what's wrong with civilizashun an' what they never seem to see is that civilizashun's all wrong anyway an' that nothing will ever be right till we all go back to bein' savages.' So says William Brown, the famous 'Just William' created by Richmal Crompton and hero of the thirty-eight William books she wrote over a forty-year period - the first in 1922. Generations of children-and adults-have read with delighted enjoyment the stories of William and the Outlaws, and their attempts to educate an uncomprehending adult world to an understanding of the straightforward logic of William and his friends. In this collection of articles 'by William', we have his forthright views on education ('at present it is all wrong. You've only got to look at the grown-ups round you to see that'), holidays ('there's far too few of them'), Latin ('I don't wonder the Latin people have all died off, having to speak a language like that'), careers ('pirates are a noble and glorious career') and, of course, civilisashun. The first and only publication of these articles was in magazines in the 1920s and 1930s. Now re-published in book form, today's readers can enjoy the views of one of our youngest, and most practical, philosophers