All 18 episodes from the first two series of the BBC drama starring Aidan Turner as Captain Ross Poldark. Upon returning to Cornwall after fighting in the American War of Independence, Poldark must rebuild his life following the death of his father with his estate in ruins and his childhood sweetheart Elizabeth (Heida Reed) engaged to his cousin Francis (Kyle Soller), after hearing premature reports of his death. With the help of his new maid Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson), Ross attempts to navigate the hostile, poverty-stricken locals and the region's wealthy and influential businessmen to reopen his family's disused copper mine, Wheal Leisure.

Joe Cole and Philip Davis star in this gritty British crime drama. After the death of his grandfather (Davis), a group of violent gangsters turn to young drug addict Johnny (Cole) to finish the job his grandfather started and open a safe for them. Chosen as the only one able to crack the safe and complete their heist, Johnny's drug habit threatens to compromise his task as withdrawal symptoms set in and he wrestles with the guilt of his grandfather's recent passing...

"Shakespeare Now!" is a series of short books of truly vital literary scholarship, each with its own distinctive form. "Shakespeare Now!" recaptures the excitement of Shakespeare; it doesn't assume we know him already, or that we know the best methods for approaching his plays. "Shakespeare Now!" is a new generation of critics, unafraid of risk, on a series of intellectual adventures. Above all - it is a new Shakespeare, freshly present in each volume. Shakespearean thinking is always dynamic: thinking that happens in the living moment of its performance, in quickly passing process. This book offers a model of human mentality that can be shown through the dense immediacy of dramatic thinking, as embodied above all in Shakespeare's working method. "Shakespeare Thinking" discusses the positioning of Shakespeare as the paradigm of fully human mental creativity from the Romantics to the latest neurological experiments which show that Shakespeare can reveal new understandings of the hard-wiring of the human brain, and the sheer sudden electricity of its synaptic development.

'His mind and hand went together' said Hemings and Condell of the speed of Shakespeare. But the conceptual language of literary criticism, be it moralistic or political, has long been too slow to the properly responsive to Shakespeare's meaning. With the help of both Renaissance philosophers and present-day actors, Sudden Shakepeare seeks to locate the underlying secrets of Shakespeare's dynamic power. It offers a technical language wihch, close to Shakespeare's own, is capable of responding suddenly to the speed, transforming shape, and power of Shakespeare's way of thinking as it comes into meaning.

British crime thriller. Mickey Skinner (Leo Gregory) is a small-time crook saddled with mounting debts and a seemingly endless run of bad luck. Mickey's break finally comes when he is unexpectedy given the keys to the empire of gangland boss Don Barber (Vincent Regan). But does he have what it takes to make it in the big league?

Regan Hall's directorial feature debut is a fast-paced sports drama set in London. Sparks fly when Shania (Lenora Crichlow), a sprinter from the city's back streets, comes head to head with Lisa (Lily James), an equally ambitious young runner from a wealthy middle class background. Their fierce rivalry soon reaches breaking point as both girls strive to make it to the top. Bradley James, Rupert Graves and Noel Clarke co-star.

The Barret Browning volume in the 21st Century Oxford Authors series offers a comprehensive selection of the works of one of the nineteenth-century's most famous poets. The revaluation of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's work by feminist scholars has made her an established (indeed standard) author in university syllabuses in Britain and in America. Yet the emphasis upon her contribution to a female tradition has tended to rigidify Barrett Browning's contribution to English literary culture in the nineteenth century, just as her popular image as ringleted-invalid-turned-romantic-heroine served sentimentally to eclipse her role as a literary pioneer. This edition complements or corrects these emphases by being the first edition dedicated to witnessing the progress and growth of the poet's creative direction - from her juvenilia through to her major achievements and beyond. In keeping with the aims of the series, the selection honours the original sequencing of the published works as the best means of indicating the contours of Barrett Browning's poetic career. Thus, following fairly limited selections from published juvenilia, The Battle of Marathon (1820) and 'An Essay on Mind' and Other Poems (1826) and from 'Prometheus Bound' and Miscellaneous Poems (1833), there are more extensive selections from 'The Seraphim' and Other Poems (1838), from Poems 1844 and from Poems 1850 including the full text of Sonnets from the Portuguese. Substantial excerpts from Casa Guidi Windows (1851) is followed by the full text of Aurora Leigh (1857) and by selections from the posthumous Last Poems (1862). These individual sections are supplemented by careful selections (also chronologically ordered) from the correspondence, including the courtship letters with Robert Browning, and, where applicable, from poetry unpublished in the nineteenth century. The edition comes with full scholarly apparatus (introduction, chronology, explanatory notes), though it follows the series policy of recording only significant variants between editions.

Poets, novelists and academics committed to creative thinking join together in this collection of essays to say what serious reading really means to them as individuals. The collection is divided into four sections: George Steiner and George Craig on the act of reading in general; Joseph Brodsky, Les Murray, Douglas Oliver and Hester Jones on reading, poetry and vision; John Bayley, Philip Davis and Gabriel Josipovici on reading and teaching in the universities; Raymond Tallis, Michael Irwin, Josie Billington and Doris Lessing on reading and the novel.

For many years it has been recognized that the key to explaining the production of the Bible lies in understanding the profession, the practice and the mentality of scribes in the ancient Near East, classical Greece and the Greco-Roman world. In many ways, however, the production of the Jewish literary canon, while reflecting wider practice, constitutes an exception because of its religious function as the written "word of God", leading in turn to the veneration of scrolls as sacred and even cultic objects in themselves. "Writing the Bible" brings together the wide-ranging study of all major aspects of ancient writing and writers. The essays cover the dissemination of texts, book and canon formation, and the social and political effects of writing and of textual knowledge. Central issues discussed include the status of the scribe, the nature of 'authorship', the relationship between copying and redacting, and the relative status of oral and written knowledge. The writers examined include Ilimilku of Ugarit, the scribes of ancient Greece, Ben Sira, Galen, Origen and the author of Pseudo-Clement.

Can reading literature really help our mental health? This book shows how and why - not by instruction or prescription but by emotion and exploration. Offering case histories of individual readers and reading groups based on the work of The Reader, a charity dedicated to bringing serious literature to neglected communities, the authors showcase how a whole new demographic might get into reading, and in doing so unlock the emotional intelligence and benefits to health and wellbeing which come from our access to written human stories and imagined situations.

This book explores the role of the biblical patriarch Abraham in the formation and use of authoritative texts in the Persian and Hellenistic periods. It reflects a conference session in 2009 focusing on Abraham as a figure of cultural memory in the literature of these periods. Cultural memory is the shared reproduction and recalling of what has been learned and retained. It also involves transformation and innovation. As a figure of memory, stories of Abraham served as guidelines for identity-formation and authoritative illustration of behaviour for the emerging Jewish communities.

Covers a crucial two decades in American history, when the links between Hollywood and Washington DC were at their strongest.. The period is 'book-ended' by the mighty political and cinematic figures of Reagan and Clinton.. Covers a period in which movies have become targets of political rhetoric of 'family values'.. Essays examine cinematic views of key American political institutions - the presidency and electoral process, politically significant places such as New York City and the American South, the promotion of major issues like gender, family and race. This is a subject which has gained new significance in the wake of recent terrorist attacks in New York and Washington DC, which have changed both the political climate, and the priorities of the movie industry. -- .

This book gives a thorough account of the electoral process at all levels and in all branches of American government. The book is particularly effective in placing current issues in the American political arena in context, illustrated with much needed and otherwise difficult to find information. In addition to a thorough coverage of recent elections the book gives substantial account to other important related themes. An examination of the historical development of political campaigning over 200 years leads into a study of the genealogy and current status of America's political parties.

"MI6 and the Machinery of Spying "traces the development of the agency's internal structure from its inception until the end of the Cold War. The analysis examines how its management structure has been driven by its operational environment on the one hand and its position within the machinery of British central government on the other. Close attention is paid to the agency's institutional links to its consumers in Whitehall and Downing Street, as well as to the causes and consequences of its operational organization and provisions for counter-espionage and security.
The book presents a detailed response to assertions that the SIS was historically chronically mismanaged and badly organized, and to claims that it is unaccountable to political and public oversight. It also argues that where SIS activities have resulted in public disasters and scandals the reason has usually been less its lack of accountability and control than the very high degree of control and direction exercised by opportunistic politicians and the senior Civil Servants.

"MI6 and the Machinery of Spying "traces the development of the agency's internal structure from its inception until the end of the Cold War. The analysis examines how its management structure has been driven by its operational environment on the one hand and its position within the machinery of British central government on the other. Close attention is paid to the agency's institutional links to its consumers in Whitehall and Downing Street, as well as to the causes and consequences of its operational organization and provisions for counter-espionage and security.
The book presents a detailed response to assertions that the SIS was historically chronically mismanaged and badly organized, and to claims that it is unaccountable to political and public oversight. It also argues that where SIS activities have resulted in public disasters and scandals the reason has usually been less its lack of accountability and control than the very high degree of control and direction exercised by opportunistic politicians and the senior Civil Servants.

Reading for Life is an anthology of poems and of extracts from prose fiction, related to a series of case-histories of individuals carefully reading, discussing their reading lives, and thinking about the relation of literature to their existence. It enables readers to gain increased imaginative access to the works in question through seeing how they have intensely affected equivalent readers-a novelist, a poet, a doctor, a teacher, an anthologist, but also non-specialists, ordinary people within shared reading groups in many different settings, finding help from literary texts in times of often painful personal need. It is the story of the work done by Philip Davis' research unit, the Centre for Research into Reading, Literature and Society (CRILS), at the University of Liverpool, in a ten-year partnership with the outreach charity The Reader, taking serious literature to often neglected communities and struggling individuals through the shared reading-alive and aloud-of literature from all ages. Reading for Life is a detailed account of what reading literature can do for a wide variety of individuals in relation to a wide variety of texts: it will be of interest to serious readers in the wider world as much as to scholars working within literary studies, and to all those involved in thinking about the therapeutic interactions of literature and life in psychology, medicine, and mental health support settings.

Going beyond the standard interpretation of Supreme Court opinions, thisandnbsp;practical text delves into the legal reasoning behind the written opinions - the modes of persuasion and justification used by Supreme Court justices - to give readers a deeper understanding of how to read and interpret the decisions of our highest court. An indispensableandnbsp;supplement to any constitutional law casebook, the sixth edition has been thoroughly updated, incorporating new material throughout the book on recent opinions issued by the Supreme Court.andnbsp; It also includes a new Chapter 9, which discusses in greater depth the briefing of a case - Seattle Schoolandnbsp;District No. 1;- and its analysis.

Discusses the life and work of William James, a founder of the study of psychology. William James (1842-1910) was elder brother to the novelist Henry James and a founder of the study of psychology. But he was also a thinker who sought to work across conventional boundaries, and did not believe in separate disciplines or over-professionalized ways of thinking. James was above all interested in those moments when thoughts suddenly come into being, 'hot' and 'alive'. William James is for anyone who has experienced the personal need for such thinking and feels the excitement of ideas. It concerns the personal experience of reading James, involving extensive quotation from his work in relation to Philip Davis' own inner life and the lives of other readers of James-a thinker who is defiantly convinced of the fundamental validity of the inner life in the making of the Real. This book is about William James's life-writing, writing for the sake of existence, that puts together a mix of literature, psychology, philosophy, and biography in the search for purpose and human flourishing, in place of formal religion. It includes James' interest in his brother's novels and in Shakespearean drama, as well as Thomas Hardy's pessimistic challenge to James. Davis is a reader of literature who feels that readers of novels and poems also need the help of psychology and philosophy, to get the thinking out, to make it into a working part of a life. His book is for readers, especially readers of literature, seeking to create, like William James, a literary way of thinking outside the realm of literature.

For many years it has been recognized that the key to explaining the production of the Bible lies in understanding the profession, the practice and the mentality of scribes in the ancient Near East, classical Greece and the Greco-Roman world. In many ways, however, the production of the Jewish literary canon, while reflecting wider practice, constitutes an exception because of its religious function as the written "word of God", leading in turn to the veneration of scrolls as sacred and even cultic objects in themselves. "Writing the Bible" brings together the wide-ranging study of all major aspects of ancient writing and writers. The essays cover the dissemination of texts, book and canon formation, and the social and political effects of writing and of textual knowledge. Central issues discussed include the status of the scribe, the nature of 'authorship', the relationship between copying and redacting, and the relative status of oral and written knowledge. The writers examined include Ilimilku of Ugarit, the scribes of ancient Greece, Ben Sira, Galen, Origen and the author of Pseudo-Clement.