John Clare (1793-1864) was born at a time of great social upheaval, just months after the beheading of Louis XVI and the outbreak of war with France which was to last till the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. He also lived through the upheavals of the land enclosure movement and agricultural revolution which changed the face of the countryside and the way of life in rural England. His father was a farm worker who managed to pay for his son’s schooling, though this was cut short as conditions worsened, but at least Clare had by then learnt to read and write so he could continue his own education, reading whatever books he could lay his hands on. At the age of sixteen he witnessed the social dislocation caused by the local enclosure Act and observed how the landscape was gradually transformed. Drawing on Clare’s writing, this extensively researched study gives the modern reader an appreciation of the divisive effects of these policies. Structured chronologically, this exploration of John Clare’s life highlights the socio-economic and environmental aspects of his observations and includes his reports on an insidious revolution taking place in the English countryside. Parliament, dominated by landowners, authorised the enclosure of large tracts of common land by private acts without considering the effect on those who had enjoyed rights of use and pasturage for centuries. Land enclosures, and the improved agricultural techniques which this permitted, was important in increasing food production at a time when the population of England was growing rapidly. While additional work was initially provided for agricultural labourers in the fencing and walling needed, this was temporary. The introduction of new, labour-saving machinery further reduced the opportunities for work. Insufficient attention, the author argues, has been given to the consequences. Those driven out of their homes in the country were left with no option but to migrate to the towns and sell their labour to whoever would pay for it. In effect, land enclosure created a market in land; landlessness created a market in labour. These are the foundations of our modern market economy. The author asserts that the harshness of the early years of the industrial revolution were the product of land enclosure which the welfare state has to some extent mitigated, although at the cost of creating a dependency culture in contrast to the sturdy independence of Clare’s parents’ generation of farm workers.

‘The Gustav Holst Way’ is the first guidebook to describe the 35-mile rambling route across the Cotswolds to celebrate the life and work of the composer Gustav Holst. Published exactly 100 years after Holst began work on The Planets, the route visits many of the places that were important to the young Holst as his musical career took wing. Among the highlights are the house in Cheltenham where he was born (now the Holst Birthplace Museum) and several venues in the Cotswolds where he played, conducted and taught music. The richly illustrated guidebook divides the walk into five easy/moderate sections (with four optional detours) and includes detailed maps, points of historical interest and all the practical information you need to follow in Gustav Holst’s footsteps from Cranham to Wyck Rissington. The Holst Birthplace Museum Gustav Holst, one of England’s greatest composers, was born in a Regency terraced house in Cheltenham in 1874. The house has been carefully restored and converted into a ‘living museum’ that captures the atmosphere of the era, both above and below stairs. The most eye-catching of the museum’s collection of 3,000 items is the piano on which Holst composed The Planets, as popular as ever nearly 100 years after it was published. Step inside the Museum and see the piano Holst used to compose The Planets. Find out how he developed into a world-class composer by examining and listening to original manu*s written when he was a schoolboy in Cheltenham. "

Even if there is a realm beyond mortality, would finding it improve our lives on earthWhat use is Spirit to a troubled worldDo prayer and meditation workAs a young man in search of love and a purpose to live for, the author could not fit within the world he found. Longing to be useful but unwilling to conform, he went out to South America. It wasn’t so easy. Alone on a mountainside one day, an inner voice said, ‘To make whole, be whole’. This was a turning point. He realised that, before being able to help others, he first had to work on himself. Once back in England, he found a method of meditation. Love of nature led him to become one of the first organic farmers but, when asked what he really wanted in life, he answered ‘God’. He’d been schooled in the Christian faith but was not at this time attracted to the Church. Meditation proved an ideal accompaniment as further adventures took him to Africa and, in particular, the desert. Later, at a low ebb in the USA, he ‘met Jesus’, which brought his practice of meditation and Christianity together. At the age of 51, he re-entered university to study Russian prior to visiting his mother’s homeland for the first time in 1991. This led to several years living in Russia, where he realised the similarity between his own practice and traditional Orthodox ‘prayer of the heart’. The book is based on notes of the author’s unfolding spiritual experience, which taught him that the wholeness he sought is actually – Spirit. How is it attainedWith many encouraging examples he shows how, with patient perseverance, the grip of the ego with all the restrictive unhappiness it brings, can be released. Being then more open to the influence of Grace, we may come to discover the Kingdom of God – our original, spiritual and perfect home. Dear John, ‘I hope you won’t mind my addressing you by your Christian name but having read your book twice as well as highlighting many paragraphs to study, I feel you are a dear friend. I am writing to say that your profound insights are enormously encouraging, an awakening, a wonderful inspiration for me, and I feel so fortunate to have found them. Your experiences in Spirit are conveyed so clearly and simply ‘ I find them truly uplifting. Every day I read some pages and always seem to find something new. I feel extremely grateful that you chose to write of your experience ‘ your legacy is to inspire countless other people, and to enrich their lives as you have mine.’ ML, 2011 Dear Mr Butler, ‘I am over half-way through your book ‘Wonders of Spiritual Unfoldment’ and feel I would like to express my gratitude to you for helping me gain clarity in the process of awakening. It is difficult to express in words the way your writings from personal experience have helped crystallise my sense of ‘Being’ in Reality. Your notes on waking from the dream or illusion we mistake for life and the sense of non-attachment to the world this engenders ‘ greatly assist me in releasing my conditioned perception. It is wonderful to find that someone living so near me, geographically, can write with such clarity and, knowing that you are here in the flesh confirming the truth of the possibility of waking up, has been a great affirmation to me and is supporting me in my own journey of awaking or coming home. Thank you so much.’ L, 2011 ‘This is a moving, honest ‘ and long ‘ spiritual autobiography, interestingly given in two voices: contemporary notebooks interlaced with present day ruminations. Butler met the meditation early and it colours his early days of self-sustaining farming after Cambridge, and his many adventures described in detail and with compassion in South America, Africa (sharing keenness of hunger and the haunting splendour of the night skies) and India, culminating in coming ‘home’ to his core way in the Russia of his mother and its Christian orthodoxy. It was love that led him through the labyrinth of his life ‘ a path we all recognise. As he says, ‘to surrender myself and let the spirit act.’ Throughout it is his honesty which makes the book valid for us. His spiritual insights have all been gained through the experience of this varied life which he seems to have accepted with the innocence and enthusiasm of a child. His way is our way. It is a book of vivid de*ion and some very helpful insights.’ Contact 55 – Summer 2011

The beautiful Cassandra Sherburn has everything a young lady could possibly desire. Slender, flame-haired and alabaster-skinned and the heiress to her father’s immense fortune, her father has promised her hand in marriage to the dashing young Marquis of Charlbury, heir to the ancestral home and estates of the Duke of Alchester and she believes that she is in love with him. And over the years she has collected newspaper cuttings about him and pasted them secretly into albums. Now the Marquis’s father has died and he has become the Duke of Alchester. Yet Cassandra is not happy. Not only has she not set eyes on her ‘fiancé’ since she was a child, she has heard from a number of different sources that he is penniless. Is it just her money that he wants to marryWorse still, rumour has it that he has eyes only for the glamorous and seductive performers at London’s notorious Gaiety Theatre. Determined to find out for herself where his heart lies, Cassandra ventures to London in the company only of her disagreeable lady’s maid. She disguises herself as one of the racy actresses the Duke so admires and enlists the help of the celebrated Lily Langtry in order to meet him incognito. But little does she know of the perils that await an innocent young woman alone among the rakes and roués of London’s glittering lights.

Although her father is the acclaimed Music Hall performer, Keegan Kenway, his young daughter, Isla, who is ethereally beautiful, is never allowed even to go near the Music Halls, which were not deemed suitable places for a lady to be seen at. Now that her mother is dead, her father is close to bankruptcy and so desperate for the proceeds of a benefit show that, when his co-star is taken ill, he is reluctantly forced to allow Isla to take her place for the evening and he sings his famous sons Champagne Charlie and It was only a dream. After a supremely successful performance when Isla and he are acclaimed by an enthusiastic audience, Keegan Kenway disappears to a late night party and Isla, declining the invitation, goes home alone, where the party’s host, Lord Polegate, arrives to inform her that her father has collapsed and is still unconscious. In her dismay and anxiety, Isla agrees to accompany the persistent Lord Polegate to his country house, where she gradually realises that his intentions are very much less than honourable and she flees his house in terror. Lost and alone, she flags down a passing carriage on the main road and, to her immense relief, she is saved by the handsome and kind Marquis of Longridge, whose superb house is nearby. And already Isla is falling in love – But is it real or is it only a dream?

Dejected and jobless like so many other Servicemen after the end of the Great War of 1914-18, Tybalt Hampton escapes a ball in Berkeley Square and meets a delightful young girl who has also sought refuge in the little Temple in the nearby gardens because no one has asked her to dance. It is too dark to make out her face, but in an enchanted moment they kiss in the moonlight and a nightingale sings in the trees above as if just for them. Two years later the beautiful Aleta Wayte, the recipient of that anonymous kiss, and her brother, Sir Harry Wayte, are forced to let their beloved ancestral mansion to a millionaire American called Cornelius Wardolf, disguising themselves as servants in their own home and at their tenant’s beck and call. Of noble birth but penniless, Aleta still dreams of that handsome stranger. So, when Fate in the form of a road accident brings him injured to her door, her hopes are raised and then instantly dashed. In her guise as a lowly servant how can she reveal herself as Tybalt Hampton is now the fifth Duke of Stadhampton and anyway, because of his impoverished estates, he has been earmarked by Cornelius Wardolf to marry his attractive daughter, Lucy-MayIs it possible that Fate could be so cruel as to bring love so close only to snatch it away?

To afford the food and medicine her ailing mother needs, the beautiful Honourable Olinda Selwyn, daughter of the late Lord Selwyn, former Lord Chief Justice of England, is obliged to conceal her background to take employment with the Dowager Countess of Kelvedon as an expert embroiderer at the family stately home in Derbyshire. Taken aback to find that the ageing but still beautiful Countess is having a love affair with a dissolute young rake, Olinda sympathises with her estranged son, the Earl, who despises his mother for her loose morals. Drawn reluctantly into the Kelvedon family’s tangle of bitterness and resentment, Olinda finds herself gently advising the Earl – or as he puts it, inspiring him. But just as the love she has only ever dreamt of seems almost within her grasp, Kelvedon is rocked by a sudden and suspicious death – and, incredibly, the man she loves with all her heart stands accused.

Jenny Rosenstrach, and her husband, Andy, regularly, some might say pathologically, cook dinner for their family every night.?Even when they work long days. Even when their kids' schedules pull them in eighteen different directions. They are not superhuman.?They are not from another planet. With simple strategies and common sense, Jenny figured out how to break down dinner—the food, the timing, the anxiety, from prep to cleanup—so that her family could enjoy good food, time to unwind, and simply be together.Using the same straight-up, inspiring voice that readers of her award-winning blog, Dinner: A Love Story,?have come to count on, Jenny never judges and never preaches. Every meal she dishes up?is a real meal, one that has been cooked and eaten and enjoyed at least a half dozen times by someone in Jenny's house. With inspiration and game plans for any home cook at any level, Dinner: A Love Story is as much for the novice who doesn't know where to start as it is for the gourmand who doesn't know how to start over when she finds herself feeding an intractable toddler or for the person who never thought about home-cooked meals until he or she became a parent.?This book is, in fact, for anyone interested in learning how to?make a meal to be shared with someone they love, and about how so many good, happy things?happen when we do.

The heavily illustrated stand-alone companion book to the internationally best-selling Last Apprentice series, the series that inspired the forthcoming major motion picture Seventh Son. The Spook's Bestiary is your guidebook to the supernatural, terrifying creatures of the dark: Learn what to do if you must face a boggart, a witch, a dark mage, or even the Fiend himself.Fill your pockets with salt and iron. Carry a rowan staff and a silver chain. And most importantly, clear your mind and conquer your own fear. Here is the Spook's own notebook, full of the instructions that any young apprentice, like Tom Ward, will need. Learn how to bind a boggart. Find out how to capture a witch. Memorize what to do if you face the Fiend himself. If you are the seventh son of a seventh son—or even if you are simply a fan of The Last Apprentice series—this book holds all you need to face the forces of evil. The Last Apprentice series is soon to be a major motion picture, Seventh Son, starring Jeff Bridges, Ben Barnes, Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Olivia Williams, Antje Traue, Djimon Hounsou, and Julianne Moore as Mother Malkin. It's a suspenseful thrill ride that's "spine-tingling" (Publishers Weekly) and "anything but tame" (Horn Book). BUT DON'T READ IT AFTER DARK!

Burned, the twelfth installment in Sara Shepard's YA Pretty Little Liars series, is packed with thrilling secrets and spicy scandals. This #1 New York Times bestselling series is also a hit ABC Family original TV show.High school seniors Aria, Emily, Hanna, and Spencer have made some terrible mistakes, but nothing compares to what they did last spring break.Now the girls are packing their bags for a Caribbean cruise, hoping the trip will be a much-needed vacation from their stalker, A. But they should know by now that A won't be left high and dry.Sure enough, A shows up on deck, ready to send these pretty little liars to a watery grave. . . . .

Dead Silence is the gripping fourth novel in the Body Finder series. With romance, suspense, and unexpected twists, Dead Silence will keep readers guessing until the very last page.All her life Violet has grappled with her ability to sense the echoes of those who have been murdered and the matching imprint that clings to their killers. Now that she has an imprint of her own, Violet's "gift" is intolerable. Torn between her desire to lead a normal life and the pressure from the Center to continue her work tracking down killers, Violet's world starts to unravel . . . and some of her most carefully guarded secrets are exposed.Then she discovers a gruesome murder scene unlike anything she's ever encountered, and she can't rest until she's silenced the echoes for good. As Violet sets out to find a vicious murderer and his band of devoted followers, she realizes that protecting those closest to her is far more difficult than protecting herself.

Mix the wry humor of Vladimir Tod, the relatability and fun of Ally Carter, and a sinfully hilarious setup, and you have No Angel—an unforgettable spin on angels and demons from the author of Fang Girl.Rafael Angelos just got handed the greatest gift any teenage boy could ever dream of. Upon arriving at his new boarding school for his senior year, he discovered that he is the only male student there. But Raffi's about to learn that St. Mary's is actually a hub for demons—and that he was summoned to the school by someone expecting him to save the day. Raffi knows he's no angel—but it's pretty hard to deny that there's some higher plan at work when he wakes up one morning to discover he's sprouted wings and a glowing circle around his head. . . .

Join Nancy Clancy in New York Times bestselling team Jane O'Connor and Robin Preiss Glasser's fourth Nancy Clancy chapter book about the past, present, and future! Nancy and her best friend, Bree, must go back in time to solve their latest mystery. While Nancy's class learns about time capsules in school, another relic from the past pops up in the present. Nancy buys an old desk at a tag sale and soon finds out that someone left behind a key. In the perfect follow-up to Nancy Clancy, Super Sleuth; Nancy Clancy, Secret Admirer; and Nancy Clancy Sees the Future, Nancy and Bree set out to unlock the secret of the silver key in the hopes of finding some treasure along the way. But unlocking the mystery soon proves to be more difficult than they had thought, and when the answer isn't what they had expected, Nancy and Bree learn there are some things that remain timeless forever. Fans of Fancy Nancy will love joining Nancy Clancy in the latest edition to the chapter book series. The central theme of all the Nancy Clancy books shines through, showing the power of positive thinking and the will to never give up.

The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Most Dangerous Thing, I'd Know You Anywhere, and What the Dead Know returns with an addictive story that explores how one man's disappearance echoes through the lives of the five women he left behind—his wife, his daughters, and his mistressDead is dead. Missing is gone.When Felix Brewer meets nineteen-year-old Bernadette "Bambi" Gottschalk at a Valentine's Day dance in 1959, he charms her with wild promises, some of which he actually keeps. Thanks to his lucrative—if not all legal—businesses, she and their three little girls live in luxury. But on the Fourth of July in 1976, Bambi's comfortable world implodes when Felix, facing prison, vanishes. Though Bambi has no idea where her husband—or his money—might be, she suspects one woman does: his devoted young mistress, Julie. When Julie disappears ten years to the day after Felix went on the lam, everyone assumes she's left to join her old lover—until her remains are discovered in a secluded park.Now, twenty-six years later, Roberto "Sandy" Sanchez, a retired Baltimore detective working cold cases for some extra cash, is investigating her murder. What he discovers is a tangled web of bitterness, jealousy, resentment, greed, and longing stretching over five decades. And at its center is the man who, though long gone, has never been forgotten by the five women who loved him: the enigmatic Felix Brewer.Felix Brewer left five women behind. Now there are four. Does at least one of them know the truth?

The award-winning New York Times bestselling author of After I'm Gone, The Most Dangerous Thing, I'd Know You Anywhere, and What the Dead Know brings back private detective Tess Monaghan, introduced in the classic Baltimore Blues, in an absorbing mystery that plunges the new parent into a disturbing case involving murder and a manipulative mother"I'm every woman's worst nightmare. . . . Because whenever a woman kills her child every other mother—at least every one who's honest with herself—has a flash of sympathy. Not empathy. They don't want to have done it, cannot imagine doing it. But they know."On a searing August day, Melisandre Harris Dawes committed the unthinkable: she left her two-month-old daughter locked in a car while she sat nearby on the shores of the Patapsco River. Melisandre was found not guilty by reason of criminal insanity, although there was much skepticism about her mental state. Freed, she left the country, her husband, and her two surviving children, determined to start over.But now Melisandre has returned to Baltimore to meet with her estranged teenage daughters and film the reunion for a documentary. The problem is, she relinquished custody and her ex isn't sure he approves.Now that she's a mother herself—short on time and patience—Tess Monaghan wants nothing to do with a woman crazy enough to have killed her own child. But her mentor and close friend Tyner Gray, Melisandre's lawyer, has asked Tess and her new partner, retired Baltimore PD homicide detective Sandy Sanchez, to assess Melisandre's security needs.Tess has always felt that her curiosity about others is her greatest strength. Yet the imperious Melisandre is someone she cannot begin to understand, much less empathize with. A decade ago, a judge ruled that Melisandre was beyond rational thought. But was sheTess tries to keep her distance from her mercurial yet confident client. This strategy gets tricky after Melisandre becomes a prime suspect in a murder.And as her doubts about Melisandre grow, Tess realizes that she's under scrutiny as well, followed by a judgmental stalker with an ax to grind . . .

This third book in Kathryn Littlewood's acclaimed Bliss trilogy mixes the down-home heart punch of Ingrid Law's Newbery Honor Book, Savvy, the always-on-the-edge-of-chaos comedy of Cheaper by the Dozen, and a humorous magic all its own to create a thoroughly original confection, a delicious guilty pleasure for readers of all ages.Rose won back her family's magical Cookery Booke in an international baking competition in A Dash of Magic, the second novel in the series. Rose is now world famous—so famous, in fact, that Mr. Butter, head of the Mostess Corporation, has kidnapped her so that she can develop new-and-improved magical recipes for his company's snack cakes. With the magically enhanced Dinkies and Moony Pies, Mr. Butter plans to take over the world.Together with her brothers, their talking cat and mouse, and an unlikely team of bakers, Rose must overthrow Mr. Butter before he destroys civilization, one magically evil snack cake at a time.

This second book in the acclaimed Bliss trilogy mixes the down-home heart-punch of Ingrid Law's Newbery Honor Book Savvy, the always-on-the-edge-of-chaos comedy of Cheaper by the Dozen, and a humorous magic all its own to create a thoroughly original confection to please every reader's sweet tooth!The Bliss family's magical Cookery Booke was stolen by evil Aunt Lily at the end of Bliss, the first novel in the series. Now twelve-year-old Rosemary has a chance to win it back: she challenges her aunt to an Iron Chef-style international baking competition in Paris. But the only way to beat the cheating Aunt Lily is to gather magical ingredients of her own. Together with her brothers and their talking cat and mouse, Rose races across Paris—from the Eiffel Tower to the Cathedral of Notre Dame to the Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum—to gather what she needs to out-bake—and out-magic—her conniving aunt.If Rose wins, the cherished Cookery Booke will return to her family where it belongs. If she loses—well, the consequences are too ugly to think about. . . .

The end . . . or a new beginning?As Ellie comes to grips with her destiny as the Elect One, her relationship with Michael grows tense. When she meets a mys?terious boy named Rafe, things get even more complicated.Yet the time has come for the Elect One to stand against the group of evil fallen angels who are bent on destroying the world. In order to face the immeasurable malevolence heading her way, Ellie tries to put her personal life aside. But she soon learns that whoever holds her heart also holds the key to mankind’s salvation—or destruction. As the end days approach, Ellie is faced with an epic decision. Who does her heart really belong toAnd is her love strong enough to save the world?

On Lily Sanderson’s eighteenth birthday she’ll become just a girl—still a mergirl, true, but signing the renunciation will ink Princess Waterlily of Thalassinia out of existence. That leaves plain old Lily living on land, dating the boy she loves, and trying to master this being-human thing once and for all.Now that Lily and Quince are together, mer bond or not, she’s almost content to give up her place in the royal succession of Thalassinia. But just when she thinks she has everything figured out, the waves start to get rough. Lily’s father sends a certain whirlpool-stirring cousin to stay with her on land. What did Doe do to get herself exiled from Thalassinia and stuck in terraped form when everyone knows how much she hates humansAnd why why why is she batting her eyelashes at Lily’s former crush, Brody?The seafoam on the raging surf comes when a merboy from Lily’s past shows up—Tellin asks Lily for something that clouds her view of the horizon. There’s a future with Quince on land, her loyalty to the kingdom in the sea, and Lily tossing on the waves in the middle. Will she find a way to reconcile her love, her duty, and her own dreams?Tera Lynn Childs’s sequel to Forgive My Fins offers another tail-flicking romance with plenty of fun, sun, and underwater adventure.

From Jarrett J. Krosoczka comes Last Panda Standing, the third installment in the hilarious, high-action illustrated middle grade series featuring two platypus detectives, perfect for fans of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Big Nate, and Jarrett's own Lunch Lady series.The Kalamazoo City mayoral race is heating up, and Frank Pandini Jr. has been threatened by a mysterious assailant. He requests a special Platypus Police Squad protection detail: Detective Rick Zengo. This leaves O'Malley to be partnered up with Jo Cooper, the newest detective on the force. Can Zengo get to the bottom of the attacks—without O'Malley backing him up?

Born by blood to be Dhampir—a vampire hunter—Emma Andrews nearly lost her life and everyone she loves at Dulwich Manor. Now something evil is preying on students at a northern Lake District girls' school—the same school Emma's mother attended years ago. Drawn as much by the desire to learn more about her family's secrets as the possibility of vampires, Emma finds the schoolgirls in the grip of a terrible legacy—the ageless evil of the Cyprian Queen, a dark goddess of ancient legend. Now Emma must tread a careful path—along with her old friends Sebastian, Father Luke, and the mysterious and dashing Valerian Fox—deeper into the darkness to face her most paralyzing fears . . . and perhaps come one step closer to the Dracula himself.