‘Unique and unexpectedly moving: it’s a choral work of frustration, pride and despair’ – The Telegraph

‘Charlie Colenutt’s intense and revealing interviews capture the raw voices of people talking honestly about work . . . Read this, as each one opens a hidden window on the way we live now’ – Polly Toynbee

For the best part of two years Charlie Colenutt travelled the country to talk to a hundred strangers, from all walks of life, about their jobs: What did they do for a living? Why did they do it? Did they like it?

They met in coffee shops, chain pubs or front rooms. Through hearing people tell their stories, he found out the number of birds killed per day in a poultry factory, the order in which patients are woken up in care homes, and the reasons why you shouldn’t smile when you are shown your bonus in an investment bank.

He spoke with the church minister who, maddened by his email inbox, has come to feel more like an administrator than a spiritual leader; the cleaner that became so frustrated by the lack of change in her local area that she ran to be a councillor and won; the baker who used to hate touching flour; and the trade union organizer, not pressured by hours or targets, but by the cause.

Together, the voices in Is This Working? tell a story about the one thing that most British adults have in common – work.

Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

Witty, urbane and vital to this day, A Room of One’s Own is a persuasive argument against the intellectual subjection of women, particularly women writers. It weaves together memoir, imaginative speculation and political vision to create one of the most important works of feminism of the twentieth century.

The book sprang from two lectures that Woolf delivered at the University of Cambridge in 1928. The first printing of the book the following year was as a limited edition, a joint publication between The Fountain Press of New York and the Hogarth Press. Two months later it was released to the general trade and has been an essential work ever since.

The text of this edition of A Room of One’s Own is based on the original Hogarth Press edition, published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf in October 1929. The dust jacket features the original cover created by Virginia Woolf’s sister, Vanessa Bell, for the Hogarth Press. Beneath the cover ‘cinnamon’ boards printed in gilt take inspiration from the finish of the first trade edition.

‘Brilliant interweaving of personal experience, imaginative musing and political clarity’ Kate Mosse

‘Achingly relevant’ Natasha Walter, Guardian

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HERMIONE LEE

‘Unique and unexpectedly moving: it’s a choral work of frustration, pride and despair’ – The Telegraph

‘Charlie Colenutt’s intense and revealing interviews capture the raw voices of people talking honestly about work . . . Read this, as each one opens a hidden window on the way we live now.’ – Polly Toynbee

For the best part of two years Charlie Colenutt travelled the country to talk to a hundred strangers, from all walks of life about their jobs: What did they do for a living? Why did they do it? Did they like it?

They met in coffee shops, chain pubs or front rooms. Through hearing people tell their stories, he found out the number of birds killed a day in a poultry factory, the order in which patients are woken up in care homes, and the reasons why you shouldn’t smile when you are shown your bonus in an investment bank. He spoke with the church minister who, maddened by his email inbox, has come to feel more like an administrator than a spiritual leader; the cleaner that became so frustrated by the lack of change in her local area that she ran to be a councillor and won; the baker who used to hate touching flour; and the trade union organiser, not pressured by hours or targets, but by the cause.

Together, the voices in Is This Working? tell a story about the one thing that most British adults have in common – work.

THE EXPLOSIVE NEW BOOK FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF NATIONAL POPULISM AND VALUES, VOICE AND VIRTUE.

Depressed tutors and disillusioned students. Funding crises and falling standards. Culture wars and campus protests. Welcome to the broken world of academia. Welcome to Bad Education.

————————-

Our universities are broken. Established as sanctuaries of truth and higher learning, they are now decaying institutions that are failing a generation of young people. Consumed by funding and admissions crises, mired in political scandal and governed by self-interest, their founding principles have been corrupted. This explosive book shows us why, and what we must do to fix them.

Matt Goodwin spent decades working as an academic in some of the world’s leading universities, delivering underfunded courses to increasingly disengaged lecture theatres, sitting on rudderless committees, counselling depressed colleagues and concerned students, watching standards slip and academic integrity decline.

At the heart of this crisis is an increasingly politicised campus. Once bastions of free speech, forums for open debate and incubators of bold new ideas, our universities are increasingly becoming monocultures, ruled by an ideology that is silencing respected voices, stifling discussion and violently shutting down diverse opinion, betraying intellectual freedom and failing to deliver the very basics of an education.

Unflinching, shocking and urgent, this first-hand account provides an insider’s view of how the founding principles of academia are in decline and why we should all consider what this means for the students of today, tomorrow and the world they will shape.

‘An astonishing tale, well structured and punchily told.’ – Sunday Times

‘Impossible not to read in one sitting.’ – Stylist, Best Books for 2024

‘A memoir you read with the same breathlessness as you read the most gripping of novels’ – i news

*******

When you have nothing, you cling to whatever gives you hope.

Put yourself in Tracy King’s shoes. Growing up in an ordinary council estate outside Birmingham; a house filled with creativity, curiosity and love, but marked by her father’s alcoholism and her mother’s agoraphobia.

By the time she turns twelve her father has been killed, her sister taken into care and her mother ensnared by the promises of born-again Christianity.

This isn’t the stuff of cult documentaries; this is the story of an ordinary family trapped in a broken system. It’s a story that could happen to anyone without the tools to transform their circumstances.

And it’s the story of how Tracy discovered the truth about her father’s death and how she found her way out.

Shocking, inspiring and ultimately hopeful, Learning to Think. is a testament to the power of books and holds up a mirror to the everyday realities of poverty in Britain.

*******

Praise for Learning to Think.:

‘A raw and unflinching account of growing up in poverty, which tackles the false narratives we tell ourselves to survive.’ – Caroline Criado Perez

‘Tracy King’s memoir is heartbreaking and hopeful … An incredible true story of survival and forgiveness.’ – Tim Minchin

‘What would you do if you began to suspect the events of your childhood didn’t happen as you remembered them? In this evocative memoir, Tracy King confronts the stories we all tell ourselves in order to live.’ – Helen Lewis, author of Difficult Women

‘[An] extraordinary book. It’s compelling and courageous, and it couldn’t be more timely. It’s written with such clarity and compassion, and I think it will leave every reader wiser and stronger.’ – Daisy Buchanan, author of How to Be a Grownup and Sisterhood

‘A brilliant writer’ – Adam Kay

‘You won’t often read a book so driven by raw emotion. A book of tragedy, hope and ultimately of triumph.’ – HH Wendy Joseph KC, author of Unlawful Killings

‘Stories like this inspire me. Seeing the way people like Sola Mahfouz think about the world reinforces my optimism about the future.’ BILL GATES

At age eleven, Sola Mahfouz was told she could no longer attend school. The Taliban threatened that any girl who dared to continue their education would have acid thrown in their face, be kidnapped, or worse. Confined to the walls of her home, Sola watched as the few freedoms of childhood were stripped away. She was forbidden to play, to sing, even to laugh. Her early teenage years were consumed by restrictions.

Realising that she would have to either succumb to this life or find a way out, she decided on the latter. At age sixteen, without even a basic ability to add or subtract, she began secretly learning maths and English. By reading dictionaries and taking free online courses, she taught herself theoretical physics and philosophy, all from a home she could only leave five times a year. In the space of nine years she achieved the level of education that a westerner might take 25 years to do and against all odds moved to America to study quantum computing.

It is a radical act to tell the story of an Afghan woman. Too often, they are portrayed only as victims, their identities erased by thick veils and blanket reporting. Defiant Dreams will change the narrative. It’s the story of an Afghan girl who dared to ask for more.

An Amazon Best Non-Fiction Book of 2022
‘Essential reading’ – The Guardian
‘Sharp and witty with moments of startling candour’ – The i
‘Revealing and beautifully written’ – David Harewood
_____

Before Jeffrey Boakye was a black teacher, he was a black student. Which means he has spent a lifetime navigating places of learning that are white by default. Since training to teach, he has often been the only black teacher at school. At times seen as a role model, at others a source of curiosity, Boakye’s is a journey of exploration – from the outside looking in.

In the groundbreaking I Heard What You Said, he recounts how it feels to be on the margins of the British education system. As a black, male teacher – an English teacher who has had to teach problematic texts – his very existence is a provocation to the status quo, giving him a unique perspective on the UK’s classrooms.

Told through a series of eye-opening encounters based on the often challenging and sometimes outrageous things people have said to him or about him – from ‘Can you rap?’ and ‘Have you been in prison?’ to ‘Stephen who?’ – Boakye reflects with passion and wit on what he has found out about the presumptions, silences and distortions that underpin the experience of black students and teachers.
_____

‘Hugely important’ – Baroness Lawrence
‘Deeply compelling, intellectually rigorous and essential’ – Nels Abbey
‘Makes a powerful case’ – Rt Hon Lady Hale

‘Essential reading’ Guardian
‘Sharp and witty with moments of startling candour’ The i
‘Makes a powerful case’ Rt Hon Lady Hale
‘Revealing and beautifully written‘ David Harewood
________

Before Jeffrey Boakye was a black teacher, he was a black student. Which means he has spent a lifetime navigating places of learning that are white by default. Since training to teach, he has often been the only black teacher at school. At times seen as a role model, at others a source of curiosity, Boakye’s is a journey of exploration – from the outside looking in.

In the groundbreaking I Heard What You Said, he recounts how it feels to be on the margins of the British education system. As a black, male teacher – an English teacher who has had to teach problematic texts – his very existence is a provocation to the status quo, giving him a unique perspective on the UK’s classrooms.

Through a series of eye-opening encounters based on the often challenging and sometimes outrageous things people have said to him or about him, Boakye reflects on what he has found out about the habits, presumptions, silences and distortions that black students and teachers experience, and which underpin British education.
________

‘Hugely important’ Baroness Lawrence
‘Deeply compelling, intellectually rigorous and essential’ Nels Abbey
‘Personal and political, profound and playful’ Darren Chetty
‘Written with passion, fury, knowledge and, in spite of the painful subject, wit’ Patrice Lawrence