Ways of Virtue - Liz O'Neill
In 1950s New England, being a marriageable young lady means following a certain set of rules. Nineteen-year-old Sabina knows them all too well, thanks to her imposing aunt Poppy, who has already decided how Sabina…
This irreverently satirical book pokes fun at the bureaucracy rampaging across quango-land; the vagaries of office life, with its endless meetings, counter-productive wellness programmes and pointless motivational events; the absurdity of many corporate visions and missions; the comicality of jargon beloved by officialdom; the pomposity of inflated job titles; political correctness gone mad; and the wholesale takeover of our daily lives by digital technologies, including artificial intelligence.The book also attempts to defuse – albeit in a light-hearted way – some of the usage booby-traps strewn across the English language.We laugh at the comical name and farcical purpose of the organisation parodied in the book, at its absurd hierarchy and taxpayer-enabled profligacy, at the pointlessness of its frenzied working practices, at the abundance of its committees with their ridiculous names and remits and at its surreal rebranding exercise.We also chuckle at the highly inventive names of the book’s protagonists and gasp in disbelief at the linguistic ineptitude of the organisation’s editorial team and at the ludicrous phraseology used by the mocked bureaucrats in their countless policies, directives, rules, regulations, edicts, decrees, statutes, precepts, schedules, memoranda and the like.
In 1950s New England, being a marriageable young lady means following a certain set of rules. Nineteen-year-old Sabina knows them all too well, thanks to her imposing aunt Poppy, who has already decided how Sabina…
V roce 2017 uplynulo 110 let od narození a současně 40 let od smrti Jana Patočky, nejvýznamnějšího českého filosofa 20. století. Taková jubilejní příležitost se stala výzvou nejen k očekávaným a spíše formálně oslavným proslovům,…
A Southern Gothic, feminist horror set in a maternity home in the 1970s from Grady Hendrix, the New York Times bestselling author of How To Sell A Haunted House and The Final Girl Support Group.
Some people facing violence and persecution flee. Others stay. How do households in danger decide who should go, where to relocate, and whether to keep moving? What are the conditions in countries of origin, transit,…
This is the only book ever published which concentrates on Titanic people from one particular region – Greater Manchester. The RMS Titanic disaster, which occurred on the night of 14/15 April 1912, is one of…
''Magnificent. Beautifully written, immaculately researched and thoroughly absorbing from start to finish. A tour de force that explains how Europe''s cultural life transformed during the course of the 19th century - and so much more''…
A sensitive and gently humorous look at a little boy’s imaginings of where his Grandpa goes after he dies 'What Happens Next?' follows a child’s hilarious, wildly inventive train of thought following the death of…
This is the brilliant memoir of a man who starts out in Manhattan and comes of age in the skies over Korea, before emerging as one of America''s finest authors in the New York of…