Life in London


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Through The Looking Glasses


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'Elegant and multi-focal. Glorious!' Simon Garfield 'It will make you look at specs with fresh eyes' New Statesman 'Lively, engaging and admirably wide-ranging' The Times 'Fascinating' Observer The humble pair of glasses might just be one of the world's greatest inventions, allowing millions to see a world that might otherwise appear a blur. And yet how much do many of us really think about these things perched on the ends of our noses? Through the Looking Glasses traces the fascinating story of spectacles: from their inception as primitive visual aids for monkish scribes right through to today's designer eyewear and the augmented reality of Google Glass. There are encounters with ingenious medieval Italian glassmakers, myopic Renaissance rulers and spectacle-makers, as well as the silent movie star Harold Lloyd, the rock'n'roller Buddy Holly and the full-screen figure of Marilyn Monroe. This is a book about vision and the need for humanity to see clearly, and where the impulse to improve our eyesight has led us.




Tom and Jerry


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London Fields


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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A blackly comic late 20th-century murder mystery set against the looming end of the millennium, in which a woman tries to orchestrate her own extinction—from "one of the most gifted novelists of his generation" (TIME). “Lyrical and obscene, colloquial and rhapsodic." —The New York Times First published in 1989, London Fields is set ten years into a dark future, against a backdrop of environmental and social decay and the looming threat of global cataclysm. As the dreaded Y2K approaches, Nicola Six, a “black hole” of sex and self-loathing, has chosen her thirty-fifth birthday, November 5, 1999, as the date of her own murder. Whom to manipulate into killing her is the question; her choice wavers between violent lowlife Keith Talent, who is obsessed with winning a darts tournament, and a dimly romantic banker named Guy Clinch. When Samson Young—a writer suffering from a long bout of writer’s block—stumbles upon these three, he believes he has found a story that will write itself. A highly unusual mystery with an unexpected twist at the end, London Fields is also a corrosively funny narrative of pyrotechnic complexity and scalding moral vision.




The Real Top Boys


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The true story of London's toughest, deadliest street gangs: the events, the rules and the real top boys. Are the streets of London some of the deadliest in the world? What's the truth behind the headlines? And who are the real top boys? Looking beyond the hit TV series, The Real Top Boys reveals the lives of the street gangs who have taken over, and now rule, dozens of corners of the UK's capital. Bestselling true crime author Wensley Clarkson takes us on a tour of the housing estates and volatile neighbourhoods where pride, rivalry and revenge are the codes people live and die by. He talks to the criminals who have helped create this chilling modern-day underworld and recounts the vicious turf wars that changed the map, unravels the rules and rights of the streets, and charts the rise and fall of many of the game's key players over the decades that have transformed the city. Featuring interviews with real-life gangsters and told in a gripping story that lays bare the hard life in this world, The Real Top Boys is the ultimate account of gang life in London and a jaw-dropping look at who really runs the streets.




Martin Eden


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Daily Life in Victorian England


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What was life really like in Victorian England during its transition from provincial society into modern urban power? Discover the effects of increased women's rights, technological advances, and Charles Darwin's discoveries on everyday life. This volume offers a fascinating glimpse into Victorian daily living, including women's roles; Victorian Morality; leisure; health and medicine; and life in all settings, from workhouses to country estates. This edition features an extensive guide to contemporary primary source material and further research, including information about finding authoritative sources easily on the Web. Illustrations, interactive sidebars, a chronology and glossary further illuminate the details of Victorian culture. This volume is an ideal source for students and teachers alike. Discover the effects of increased women's rights, technological advances, and Charles Darwin's discoveries on everyday life. Engaging narrative chapters explore all aspects of the Victorian experience, including: fashion, morality, courtship and mourning rituals, crime and punishment, public school requirements, legal status (marriage, divorce, inheritance, guardians, and bankruptcy), sports like croquet and foxhunting, and the importance of religion.




Real Life in London


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Dirty Old London


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In Victorian London, filth was everywhere: horse traffic filled the streets with dung, household rubbish went uncollected, cesspools brimmed with "night soil," graveyards teemed with rotting corpses, the air itself was choked with smoke. In this intimately visceral book, Lee Jackson guides us through the underbelly of the Victorian metropolis, introducing us to the men and women who struggled to stem a rising tide of pollution and dirt, and the forces that opposed them. Through thematic chapters, Jackson describes how Victorian reformers met with both triumph and disaster. Full of individual stories and overlooked details--from the dustmen who grew rich from recycling, to the peculiar history of the public toilet--this riveting book gives us a fresh insight into the minutiae of daily life and the wider challenges posed by the unprecedented growth of the Victorian capital.




Rainbow Milk


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Nominated for a 34th annual Lambda Literary Award • An essential and revelatory coming-of-age narrative from a thrilling new voice, Rainbow Milk follows nineteen-year-old Jesse McCarthy as he grapples with his racial and sexual identities against the backdrop of his Jehovah's Witness upbringing. "The kind of novel you never knew you were waiting for." —Marlon James In the 1950s, ex-boxer Norman Alonso is a determined and humble Jamaican who has immigrated to Britain with his wife and children to secure a brighter future. Blighted with unexpected illness and racism, Norman and his family are resilient, but are all too aware that their family will need more than just hope to survive in their new country. At the turn of the millennium, Jesse seeks a fresh start in London, escaping a broken immediate family, a repressive religious community and his depressed hometown in the industrial Black Country. But once he arrives he finds himself at a loss for a new center of gravity, and turns to sex work, music and art to create his own notions of love, masculinity and spirituality. A wholly original novel as tender as it is visceral, Rainbow Milk is a bold reckoning with race, class, sexuality, freedom and religion across generations, time and cultures.