With a foreword by John le Carre. 1984. East Germany. Captain Gerd Wiesler, a loyal member of the secret police, is assigned to spy on the playwright Georg Dreyman. The flat is bugged, & Wiesler begins to listen in to the daily
- & nightly -activities of the playwright & his actress-girlfriend. But when he discovers that the surveillance has been instigated by the Minister of Culture`s desire for Dreyman`s girlfriend, rather than the playwright`s political views, Wiesler begins to question his own loyalties. As he continues to listen in, he finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed in the couple`s lives, & the gap between his professional duty & personal integrity starts to widen. This hugely influential film by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, whose screenplay is published in English for the first time, is as relevant
- or even more so
- now, in the wake of Edward Snowden & the Wiki Leaks revelations, as it was when it won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Further contents: Introduction by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck; ` Appassionata: The Idea for the Film`, by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck`; an essay by Sebastian Koch (` Georg Dreyman`); an interview with Ulrich Muhe, by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck; ` Wiesler`s Change of Heart`, an essay by Manfred Wilke; full film cast & crew credits Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the writer & director of The Lives of Others, was born in Cologne in 1973 & grew up in New York City, Brussels, Frankfurt & West Berlin. He studied Russian Literature in Leningrad before obtaining an MA from Oxford & a Diploma in Film Direction from the University of Film & Television in Munich.


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Throughout history great gardeners have risen from all walks of life. Some have been aristocratic amateur gardeners, others professional designers with an international practice. Some have come to garden-making from sister arts such as sculpture or painting; some have been hands-on nurserymen or botanists. What they all have in common, no matter where or when they were born, is the ability to take an idea & develop it in a new manner relevant to their times. The book contains four sections. ` Gardens of Ideas` moves from the politically allusive gardens of 18th-century England made by men such as William Kent, to Charles Jencks` Scottish garden inspired by 21st-century cosmography. ` Gardens of Straight Lines` explores the lives of the great formalist gardeners, from Le Notre at Versailles to the rational English minimalism of contemporary designer Christopher Bradley-Hole. ` Gardens of Curves` begins with that great exponent of the English landscape garden, ` Capability` Brown, & leads to the extraordinary Brazilian designer Roberto Burle Marx. Finally, ` Gardens of Plantsmanship` moves from the father of naturalistic planting, William Robinson, to the sweeping prairies of New York`s favourite Dutch designer, Piet Oudolf. With an outstanding text by the award-winning gardens writer Stephen Anderton, this book will appeal to garden lovers everywhere. ...

The turbulent Tudor age never fails to capture the imagination. But what was it actually like to be a woman during this period? This was a time when death in infancy or during childbirth was rife; when marriage was usually a legal contract, not a matter for love, & the education of women was minimal at best. Yet the Tudor century was also dominated by powerful & characterful women in a way that no era had been before. Elizabeth Norton explores the seven ages of the Tudor woman, from childhood to old age, through the diverging examples of women such as Elizabeth Tudor, Henry VIII`s sister who died in infancy; Cecily Burbage, Elizabeth`s wet nurse; Mary Howard, widowed but influential at court; Elizabeth Boleyn, mother of a controversial queen; & Elizabeth Barton, a peasant girl who would be lauded as a prophetess. Their stories are interwoven with studies of topics ranging from Tudor toys to contraception to witchcraft, painting a portrait of the lives of queens & serving maids, nuns & harlots, widows & chaperones. ...

In this tender, lyrical, & often funny novel, Anjali Joseph, author of Saraswati Park, shines a light on everyday life, illuminating its humour, beauty, & truth. There is a certain number of breaths each of us have to take, & no amount of care or carelessness can alter that. This is the story of two lives. Claire is a young single mother working in one of England`s last remaining shoe factories, her adult life formed by a teenage relationship. Is she ready to move on from memory & the routine of her days? Arun makes h&-sewn chappals at his home in Kolhapur. A recovered alcoholic, now a grandfather, he negotiates the newfound indignities of old age while returning in thought to the extramarital affair he had years earlier. These are lives woven through with the ongoing discipline of work & the responsibility & tedium of family life. Lives laced with the joys of friendship, the pleasure of sex, & the redemptive kindness of one`s own children. This is the story of the living. In this tender, lyrical & often funny novel, Anajli Joseph, author of Saraswati Park, shines a light on everyday life, illuminating its humour, beauty, & truth. ...

This view was produced by assembling hundreds of images from NOAA weather satellites which orbit the earth at an altitude of over 820 km (520 miles). The resulting cloud-free satellite image is enhanced with shaded-relief for land & the sea bed & natural colours to depict vegetation distribution & landscape variations. Printed on high quality paper. ...

Britain possesses one of the most remarkable & varied coastlines in the world, with its richness in geology & human history on display. Since the dawn of time the sea has been sculpting the rocks, sands & marshes, constantly changing the shape of the coastline & the inhabitants of Britain have adapted, defended, sometimes surrendered it or recaptured it in response to the forces of nature. ” The Living Coast” brilliantly celebrates this dynamic interplay between sea, land & people in over 350 sumptuous images from the air
- a seagull`s-eye view round the 9, 000 miles of British coast, from Land`s End to the wave-pounded isles & the ancient rocks of the far north; the receding shores & sensationally beautiful estuaries of the east; &, the familiar chalk cliffs, crumbling Jurassic coast & drowned river valleys of the south. This book is composed of 14 chapters, each beginning with a narrative & ending with a photographic exhibition. The coast is taken region by region, moving clockwise round the perimeter of the UK.
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This view of the world was produced by assembling hundreds of individual images from NOAA weather satellites which orbit the earth at an altitude of over 820 km (520 miles). The resulting cloud-free satellite image is presented as a cylindrical projection centred on the Atlantic Ocean. It is enhanced with shaded-relief for land & the sea bed & natural colours to depict vegetation distribution.A fine overprint depicts the international land borders & margin ticks show latitude & longitude at 15 ...

In a small medieval palace on Kathmandu`s Durbar Square lives Nepal`s famous Living Goddess
- a child as young as three who is
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Inspired by the true story of a Spanish princess, an outspoken firebrand at the Bourbon court during the troubled final years of her family`s reign. Eulalia accepts a role as emissary in the New World. In the company of Tomas Aragon, the son of her one-time wet nurse, & a small-town bookseller with a thirst for adventure, she travels first to a Cuba bubbling with revolution then on to the 1893 Chicago World Fair. Publicly, she is there as a representative of the Bourbon dynasty, privately, she is in America to find a publisher for her autobiography. ...

The Living Mountain is a lyrical testament in praise of the Cairngorms. It is a work deeply rooted in Nan Shepherd`s knowledge of the natural world, & a poetic & philosophical meditation on our longing for high & holy places. Drawing on different perspectives of the mountain environment, Shepherd makes the familiar strange & the strange awe-inspiring. Her sensitivity & powers of observation put her into the front rank of nature writing. ...