Showing results for "John English" in City Life

Toulouse-Lautrec's iconic Parisian poster stars come to life in these full-cast dramas, set in 19th-century Montmartre 1889, Paris. When Charles Zidler's extravagant pleasure palace, the Moulin Rouge, opens in bohemian Montmartre, he commissions local artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to create a...

1594, Bishopsgate Ward, London. Within the walls and without, unease and uncertainty lurk beneath the noise and bustle of a smoky, teeming city. Matthew Cutler, newly widowed and caring for two spirited daughters, takes his position as constable for the parish of Spitalfields very seriously. So when Paulo Brisco, a quiet Venetian perfumer is found brutally murdered in his own shop, Cutler throws himself into his first major crime, and one which threatens to set all Bishopsgate alight.

Panicked by his own mortality, despondent over his many failings as a writer and a man, Dunne leaves his wife and their three-year old child for the solitude of a crummy apartment off the Vegas Strip. There he plans to write an account of the city as he finds it; the book he ends up writing is "a fiction which recalls time both real and imagined."

In a busy maternity ward, first-time father Dan meets Jada, a dad welcoming his fifth — no, sixth? — child into the world. Dan and Jada come from very different places: both called Glasgow. Dan is a successful TV writer with a townhouse in the West End and a shiny Tesla ready to drive his wife and baby home. Jada is a hustling, small-time criminal who is already planning how to separate Dan from some of the luxuries Jada has never been able to enjoy in his tiny flat in a Brutalist sixties council block. Both men find that the birth of their sons has fired their ambitions.

Some would say the Market is the last authentic part of the city centre. This northern city has reinvented itself as a business and financial centre, bristling with designer shops and bars. A cosmopolitan, twenty-four hour city. Yet slap bang in the centre the Victorian City Market remains what it has always been; a place where you can get anything and see anything - a place teeming with life. The market is the real face of the city - mucky, multicultural and magnificent.

'You know you're in the presence of an expert when you read The Siege. A gripping debut novel.' Jeffrey Archer Nine hostages. Ten hours. One chance to save them all. Lee James Connor has found his purpose in life: to follow the teachings of far-right extremist leader, Nicholas Farmer. So when...

A quietly influential force in African American literature and art, Clarence Major makes his Penguin Classics debut with the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition of Dirty Bird Blues The PRH Audio book of Dirty Bird Blues by Clarence Major won a 2022 EARPHONE AWARD. Narrated by Dion Graham. A Penguin...

From the Orange Prize winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, this is the novel Lionel Shriver wrote directly afterwards. The Post-Birthday World is an unflinching account of the choices that unfold before us and what our decisions really mean. Irina McGovern’s destiny hinges on a...

*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER* Random House presents the audiobook edition of Dead Men's Trousers by Irvine Welsh, read by Tam Dean Burn. Mark Renton is finally a success. An international jet-setter, he now makes significant money managing DJs, but the constant travel, airport lounges, soulless...

A poignant, highly original novel about an author whose relationship with his very famous book editor will change him forever.... After years of struggling as a writer in 1990s New York City, James Smale finally gets his big break when his novel sells to an editor at a major publishing house: none other than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Jackie, or Mrs. Onassis as she's known in the office, loves James' candidly autobiographical novel about his own dysfunctional family. 

Banneker Homes is a low-income high rise in Harlem where gentrification weighs on everyone's mind. There is Swan in apartment 6B, whose excitement about his friend's release from prison jeopardises the life he's been trying to lead. Mimi, in apartment 14D, who hustles to raise the child she had with Swan, waitressing at Roscoe's and doing hair on the side. And Quanneisha B. Miles, a former gymnast with a good education who wishes she could leave Banneker for good, but can't seem to escape the building's gravitational pull. 

Chase Myles can throw together a dinner party or redecorate a townhouse with jaw-dropping elegance. Followers scroll his Insta and see effortless workouts, exotic travel, and an adoring boyfriend. The world believes Chase is a style icon. The world is mistaken. Ethan Wells is actually the one who knows what to wear, what to eat, and how to do it but he's happy staying behind the scenes producing their hit LGBTQ show Myles of Style. When Chase walks off set just before the Pride live TV show that will make or break Ethan's career, Ethan thinks it's just another tantrum.

Pericles Drakos has lived in the exquisite Circle Building for all of his seventy-five years. From its lofty windows, he has seen his little corner of Istanbul shift and transform. But as the area has become increasingly gentrified, Pericles has retreated into its shadowy corners. And when the pandemic hits, his isolation deepens.

An emotionally powerful novel about four women and the incredible strength it takes to live a life made invisible by others. When you can't get out, let kindness in. In a non-descript building in a gentrifying corner of London, Penny is doing daily battle with her mind. She is convinced that the...

An unambitious 22 year-old, Darren lives in a Brooklyn brownstone with his mother, who wants nothing more than to see him live up to his potential. But Darren is content working at Starbucks in the lobby of a Manhattan office building, hanging out with his girlfriend, Soraya and eating his mother's home-cooked meals. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, NYC's hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the 36th floor. 

A young woman is dead. A very wealthy client needs a favour. You're newly qualified as a lawyer and this could be your big break, so you jump at the chance. The case is about to be closed. All you have to do is talk to a family, ask them to sign some papers. How difficult could it be? Their daughter was found dead at a beauty spot on the outskirts of London in what you're told was a tragic suicide. Only you can uncover what really happened. But the truth is never that simple. And this case could cost you your life.

Mr. Hoopdriver is a frustrated draper’s assistant in Putney, London. He is badly paid, over-worked, and he needs a holiday. He also owns a bicycle—though he is an awkward rider. When his annual ten days’ holiday comes around, Mr. Hoopdriver sets out on a bicycling tour of the “Southern Coast.” Wells wrote this at the height of the bicycling craze and before the automobile. The bicycle gave freedom to the working class, weakened the English class structure and gave a boost to female emancipation. In his story he explores these changes.

“Delicious, decadent, and utterly diabolical. No one serves up a scandal like Asha Elias.”—Kirsten Miller, author of The Change A seductive social satire about the wealthy PTA moms of an elite elementary school in Miami Beach, Pink Glass Houses is very Big Little Lies and Pineapple Street...

The stories are all set in New York City and concern themselves with various facets of life in Gilded Age New York City—from the highest of high society to the commonest pensioner in less fashionable neighborhoods in boarding houses. The stories are about manners and mores; about the people of various strata of society relating to each other and the world around them.

Step back into the streets of Victorian London, as the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce brings together a strange group of people, including Ada Clare and Richard Carstone who are at the heart of the legal battle, orphan Jo and Inspector Bucket. Oscar-winning actor Sir John Gielgud transports you to the criminal slums of the poor and the drawing rooms of the rich in Dickens’ riveting portrayal of a corrupt society.