Sociology: customs & traditions – The Bell Bookshop

Let’s play sports

Emma — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Embark on a fun-filled sporting journey with this lift-the-flap book for young readers. Find famous and lesser-known games and sports from across the continents and learn how children around the world play. From ice hockey in Canada, baseball in the USA to kabbadi in India – discover interactive surprises and beautiful illustrations on every page.

Packed with super-cool artwork and fascinating insights, curious kids aged 3-5+ can explore 8 vibrant sporty scenarios, each set in a different country, with flaps that lift to reveal hidden team uniforms, behind-the-scenes imagery of stadiums and more. This one-of-a-kind book is a brilliant introduction to the world of sports for children who love to play.

Inside Let’s Play Sports:

– Interactive lift-the-flap feature that reveals the inside of stadiums, sports equipment and uniforms

– 8 scenes of people playing sports from all over the globe, providing a fun glimpse into the awesome ways kids, grown-ups and teams compete in friendly games

– Famous and lesser-known games and sports that show how other cultures play together and spend time with one another

– Easy-to-understand insights into the history of particular sports and games

– Beautifully illustrated to keep curious minds entertained and engaged

– Covers: Canada (winter sports like ice hockey and snowboarding), USA (adventures at a baseball game), Brazil (beach sports like volleyball and beasal), UK (seaside games, crazy golf and skateboarding), Cameroon (soccer and ‘stockings’), India (cricket and kabaddi), Australia (water sports like surfing and paddleboarding), New Zealand (touch-rugby and a haka performance)

Let’s Play Sports is the latest book in the Lonely Planet Kids’ lift-the-flap series following on from A Place Called Home and A Time to Celebrate. Written by Kate Baker and illustrated by Hannar Riordan, this is the perfect book to gift to young minds, showing them how sports and games can bring joy and happiness to life – anywhere in the world.

About Lonely Planet Kids: Lonely Planet Kids – an imprint of the world’s leading travel authority Lonely Planet – published its first book in 2011. Over the past 45 years, Lonely Planet has grown a dedicated global community of travellers, many of whom are now sharing a passion for exploration with their children. Lonely Planet Kids educates and encourages young readers at home and in school to learn about the world with engaging books on culture, sociology, geography, nature, history, space and more. We want to inspire the next generation of global citizens and help kids and their parents to approach life in a way that makes every day an adventure. Come explore!

Seeing others

Emma — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

From internationally renowned sociologist Michèle Lamont, a game-changing argument about what we value and why

How do we measure our self-worth?

For many of us, it signifies accomplishment, self-reliance, and wealth. Decades of neoliberalism have driven our definition of success. Yet, as we have amassed more achievements, we have been overwhelmed and overworked in a world of growing inequality. Should we start judging others, and ourselves, differently?

In this capstone work, acclaimed sociologist Michèle Lamont argues that it is time to move our focus from having to being. We will only heal ourselves by the power of recognition: by rendering others visible and valued. By drawing on nearly forty years of research and interviews, as well as new interviews with Gen Z, change agents, and cultural icons who intentionally practice and promote recognition, she shows how new narratives are essential to shifting our metrics of success to focus on respect and dignity. Seeing Others fills a gaping hole left by recent economic and psychological thinking, with its focus on nudging, grit, and constant striving, offering a powerful, sociological alternative.

This book is a clarion call: it strikes at the heart of our struggles and illuminates an inclusive path forward.

The throne

Emma — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

From the crowning of Charles III, thirty-nine coronations have been held in Westminster Abbey since the Norman Conquest. Only two monarchs – Edward V and Edward VIII – were uncrowned, and a further twenty or so Scottish monarchs were crowned elsewhere, usually at either Scone Abbey or Holyrood Abbey.

In The Throne, Ian Lloyd turns his inimitable, quick-witted style to these key events in British royal history, providing fascinating anecdotes and interesting facts: William the Conqueror’s Christmas Day crowning, during which jubilant shouts were mistaken by his guards as an assassination attempt; the dual coronation of William and Mary in 1689; the pared-back ‘Half Crown-ation’ of William IV; and the televised spectacle of Elizabeth II’s 1953 ceremony.

Detailing everything from the famous Coronation Chair made for Edward I and the Crown Jewels to the infamously uncomfortable Gold State Coach – this is a truly spectacular celebration of British culture and the ultimate pomp of royalty.

The soul of a woman

Emma — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

_______________‘An autobiographical meditation on feminism, power and womanhood ? Full of Isabel’s wisdom and warm words’ – Grazia‘In her small, potent polemic . . . Isabel Allende writes about the toxic effects of “machismo”, combining wit with anger as she picks apart the patriarchy’ – Independent‘Allende has everything it takes: the ear, the eye, the mind, the heart, the all-encompassing humanity’ – New York TimesAn Independent, Guardian and Grazia Highlight for 2021_______________The wise, warm, defiant new book from literary legend Isabel Allende – a meditation on power, feminism and what it means to be a womanWhen I say that I was a feminist in kindergarten, I am not exaggerating.As a child, Isabel Allende watched her mother, abandoned by her husband, provide for her three small children. As a young woman coming of age in the late 1960s, she rode the first wave of feminism. She has seen what has been accomplished by the movement in the course of her lifetime. And over the course of three marriages, she has learned how to grow as a woman while having a partner, when to step away, and the rewards of embracing one’s sexuality.So what do women want? To be safe, to be valued, to live in peace, to have their own resources, to be connected, to have control over their bodies and lives, and above all, to be loved. On all these fronts, there is much work to be done, and this book, Allende hopes, will ‘light the torch of our daughters and granddaughters with mine. They will have to live for us, as we lived for our mothers, and carry on with the work still left to be finished.’_______________‘Her thoughts, language and ideas traverse fluidly through ideas of gender, historic injustices, her marriages and bodily experiences and literary references . . . Allende’s love for women is palpable’ – Sydney Morning Herald

You are not alone

Emma — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

THE TIMES NO. 7 BESTSELLER‘A blackly funny, honest, thought-provoking and compassionate book’ THE TIMES‘Full of sense, heart and hope’ PHILIPPA PERRY‘Cariad Lloyd has changed the way we speak about grief‘ SARA PASCOE_______________Welcome to the club. I’m still here now, all these years later. You don’t leave once you’ve joined; it’s a life membership. Grief eases and changes and returns but it never disappears. But you will be okay. Somehow you will be. When Cariad was just fifteen, her dad died. She became the person-whose-dad-had-died; a mess of emotions and questions; a grief-mess. Years later, she began trying to unravel this tightly wound grief. What had happened? What effect had it all had on who she was? She started Griefcast, the podcast that talks openly, honestly and at times cheerfully about life’s most difficult moment: its end. Inspired by her own grief mistakes and lessons, and from the profound and witty insights from her incredible guests – including Philippa Perry, Reverend Richard Coles, Isabel Allende, Nish Kumar and Marian Keyes – Cariad provides a road map for all of us. For anybody who has felt lost in grief, who wants to help someone struggling, or just wants to understand this life a little better. You are not alone._______________‘It’s honest and warm and funny (in all the right places)’ JULIA SAMUEL‘A comfy companion for anyone struggling after the death of someone close’ BBC NEWS‘A book that you should read before grief takes over your life’ FI GLOVER

A Ukrainian Christmas

Emma — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

‘History, stories, recipes and beautiful illustrations’ – OLINA HERCULES

‘Christmas brings the indestructibility of hope in times of the greatest hopelessness. As long as we celebrate this holiday, we can neither be defeated nor destroyed. This is the message that Ukraine is trying to convey to the world. And this is what our book is about.’

From Christmas music to gifts and food, as well as a look back through the country’s rich and troubled history through the perspective of the festive season, this beautifully illustrated and powerful book introduces readers to Ukraine’s unique Christmas traditions. In a country where East and West meet, this is a fascinating and unmissable guide to capturing the spirit of one of the most important times of year and a powerful reminder of the strength of holding on to your culture and beliefs, even as others try to take everything from you.

‘Sings of the independence of Ukraine yet ensures you feel the connecting hand of warmth, understanding, and friendship … So profoundly meaningful and powerful, A Ukrainian Christmas ensures that you never lose sight of the true meaning of these festivities and how important they are in the lives of so many people‘ – LOVEREADING

‘Richly illustrated … from Christmas music to gifts and food, it introduces readers to festive traditions followed in Ukraine’ – Caroline Sanderson, THE BOOKSELLER

The Publisher is making a donation to the Disasters Emergency Committee Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal on publication of this book.

Telling the Seasons

Emma — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Telling the Seasons takes us on a journey through the twelve months of the year with stories, customs and celebrations. Drawing on the changing patterns of nature and the rich tapestry of folklore from the British Isles, it is a colourful guide into how and why we continue to celebrate the seasons.

Here are magical myths of the sun and moon, earthy tales of walking stones and talking trees and lively legends of the spirits of each season. Original drawings, sayings, songs, recipes and rhymes, combine into a ‘spell-book’ of the seasons. Martin Maudsley tells tales around the year to children and adults, specialising in stories of the natural world and local landscapes. He can be found leading seasonal celebrations from firelit winter wassails to bright May Day mornings in rural Dorset where he lives.

Whatever Happened to Tradition?

Emma — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The West feels lost. Brexit, Trump, the coronavirus: we hurtle from one crisis to another, lacking definition, terrified that our best days are behind us. The central argument of this book is that we can only face the future with hope if we have a proper sense of tradition – political, social and religious. We ignore our past at our peril. The problem, argues Tim Stanley, is that the Western tradition is anti-tradition, that we have a habit of discarding old ways and old knowledge, leaving us uncertain how to act or, even, of who we really are. In this wide-ranging book, we see how tradition can be both beautiful and useful, from the deserts of Australia to the court of nineteenth-century Japan. Some of the concepts defended here are highly controversial in the modern West: authority, nostalgia, rejection of self and the hunt for spiritual transcendence. We’ll even meet a tribe who dress up their dead relatives and invite them to tea. Stanley illustrates how apparently eccentric yet universal principles can nurture the individual from birth to death, plugging them into the wider community, and creating a bond between generations. He also demonstrates that tradition, far from being pretentious or rigid, survives through clever adaptation, that it can be surprisingly egalitarian. The good news, he argues, is that it can also be rebuilt. It’s been done before. The process is fraught with danger, but the ultimate prize of rediscovering tradition is self-knowledge and freedom.

The Fairy Tellers

Emma — Thu, 18 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

‘His cornucopia of tellers and tales is a delight, a riveting celebration of a genre that revels in its own hybridity and the imaginative riches produced by the crossing of cultural and literary borders’ Financial Times

‘Like a child after the Pied Piper I pursued Jubber into a world both human and full of magic. A carnival of a book, rigorously researched and jostling with life‘ Amy Jeffs, author of Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain

‘Magical tales about magical tales and tellers. Jubber, congenially and fascinatingly, explores the land from which the great fairy stories seeped, making the stories more resonant, powerful and important than ever‘ Charles Foster, author of Being a Human and Being a Beast

The surprising origins and people behind the world’s most influential magical tales: the people who told and re-shaped them, the landscapes that forged them, and the cultures that formed them and were in turn formed by them.

Who were the Fairy Tellers?

In this far-ranging quest, award-winning author Nicholas Jubber unearths the lives of the dreamers who made our most beloved fairy tales: inventors, thieves, rebels and forgotten geniuses who gave us classic tales such as ‘Cinderella’, ‘Hansel and Gretel’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘Baba Yaga’.

From the Middle Ages to the birth of modern children’s literature, they include a German apothecary’s daughter, a Syrian youth running away from a career in the souk and a Russian dissident embroiled in a plot to kill the tsar.

Following these and other unlikely protagonists, we travel from the steaming cities of Italy and the Levant, under the dark branches of the Black Forest, deep into the tundra of Siberia and across the snowy fells of Lapland. In the process, we discover a fresh perspective on some of our most frequently told stories. Filled with adventure, tragedy and real-world magic, this bewitching book uncovers the stranger lives behind the strangest of tales.