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Penguin Decades bring you the novels that helped shape modern Britain. When they were published, some were bestsellers, some were considered scandalous, and others were simply misunderstood. All represent their time and helped define their generation, while today each is considered a landmark work of storytelling. Barry Hines's A Kestrel for a Knave was published in 1968, and was made into one of the key British films of the sixties. Billy Casper is beaten by his drunken brother, ignored by his mother and failing at school. He seems destined for a hard, miserable life down the pits, but for a brief time, he finds one pleasure in life: a wild kestrel that he has raised and tamed himself.
“There is no way but gentlenesse to redeeme a Hawke” Edmund Bert, 1619 Born and raised in the South Yorkshire mining village of Hoyland Common, Richard Hines remembers sliding down heaps of coal dust, listening out for the colliery siren at the end of shifts, and praying for his father's safe return. It seemed all too likely that he would follow in his father's footsteps and end up working in the pits, especially when to his mother's horror and his own he failed the 11+, so that unlike his older brother Barry, who had passed the exam to grammar school and who seemed to be heading for great things, Richard was left without hope of academic achievement. Crushed by this, and persecuted by the cruelty of his teachers, Richard spent his time in the fields and meadows just beyond the colliery slag heap. One morning, walking in the grounds of a ruined medieval manor, he came across a nest of kestrels. Instantly captivated, he sought out ancient falconry texts from the local library, and pored over the strange and beautiful language there. With just these books, some ingenuity, and his profound respect for the hawk's indomitable wildness, Richard learned to “man”, or train, his kestrel, Kes, and in the process grow into the man he would become. Richard and his experiences with kestrels inspired Barry's classic novel A Kestrel for a Knave. When production began on what would become Ken Loach's iconic film Kes, Richard found himself training the kestrels that would soar on screen and into cinematic history. No Way But Gentlenesse is a superb, moving memoir of one remarkable boy's love for a forgotten culture, and his attempt to find salvation in the natural world.
CHOSEN AS BOOK OF THE MONTH BY AFRORI BOOKS FEATURED ON BBC RADIO 4: OPEN BOOK 'It's hard not to fall for the main character . . . you can see the car crash coming, but you can't look away' CLAIRE FULLER 'A brilliantly crafted story about class and race, and the failure of society to catch children who fall through the cracks' INDEPENDENT Kai lives on a rural council estate in Somerset with his three older sisters, and his mum who is being led into an addiction by his troubled father. Kai adores three things: his dad, his friend Saffie and the school rabbit Flopsy - and is full of ambition to be the fastest runner in Middledown Primary. But Kai's natural optimism and energy collide with an adult world he doesn't understand. And when his life drifts towards an event that will change everything, will his love of nature and the wild rabbits in the woods provide him with the resilience he needs to overcome the odds? 'A heartfelt novel about poverty, race and trauma' GUARDIAN 'A brilliant debut; vivid and compelling' JENNI FAGAN
A rip-roaring pirate romance and mystery In a world where infants with magical powers are torn from their parents to be raised by the mysterious and powerful Danisoba, who have a monopoly on magic, Kestrel has managed to keep her abilities concealed—and herself free. First hiding in back alleys as a street urchin, she hid when they killed her parents, and then served as a young tavern maid before escaping to sea, where magic is cancelled by water. Now an adult, as the quartermaster of a pirate ship, Kestrel loves the freedom of living on the seas. But her way of life could end if anyone on board learns her closely guarded secret—that she has magical control over the wind. One day a black ship appears, and her life changes. Its captain is a handsome rogue of whom Kestrel is strangely, constantly aware. When Kestrel's captain is led into a trap and is arrested, she gathers her crew and sets sail in relentless pursuit. . . . At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
When Mum gives her the notebook, Scarlet should be happy. It's beautiful, with its shiny scarlet cover and its blank pages full of promise. But Scarlet is absolutely NOT in the mood for a peace offering.Does Mum really think she can tear their family apart and expect Scarlet to be happy about it?Scarlet decides there's only one thing she can write in the notebook. The truth, about everything . . .
Voted the UK’s Favourite Nature Book The memoir that inspired Chris Packham's BBC documentary, Asperger’s and Me Every minute was magical, every single thing it did was fascinating and everything it didn't do was equally wondrous, and to be sat there, with a Kestrel, a real live Kestrel, my own real live Kestrel on my wrist! I felt like I'd climbed through a hole in heaven's fence. An introverted, unusual young boy, isolated by his obsessions and a loner at school, Chris Packham only felt at ease in the fields and woods around his suburban home. But when he stole a young Kestrel from its nest, he was about to embark on a friendship that would teach him what it meant to love, and that would change him forever. In his rich, lyrical and emotionally exposing memoir, Chris brings to life his childhood in the 70s, from his bedroom bursting with fox skulls, birds' eggs and sweaty jam jars, to his feral adventures. But pervading his story is the search for freedom, meaning and acceptance in a world that didn’t understand him. Beautifully wrought, this coming-of-age memoir will be unlike any you've ever read.
Humankind's relationship to nature is governed by money in this first US publication of a classic by the greatest chronicler of the British working class
In Prehistory, the award-winning archaeologist and renowned scholar Colin Renfrew covers human existence before the advent of written records–the overwhelming majority of our time here on earth–and gives an incisive, concise, and lively survey of the past, and of how scholars and scientists labor to bring it to light. Renfrew begins by looking at prehistory as a discipline, detailing how breakthroughs such as radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis have helped us to define humankind’s past–how things have changed–much more clearly than was possible just a half century ago. As for why things have changed, Renfrew pinpoints some of the issues and challenges, past and present, that confront the study of prehistory and its investigators. Renfrew then offers a summary of human prehistory from early hominids to the rise of literate civilization that is refreshingly free of conventional wisdom and grand “unified” theories. In this invaluable account, Colin Renfrew delivers a meticulously researched and passionately argued chronicle about our life on earth–and our ongoing quest to understand it.
Life After Kes examines the history and legacy of the 1969 award-winning British film, Kes, about a boy's (Billy Casper) relationship with a kestrel. This fascinating book not only pays homage to the vision and extraordinary talent involved both in front and behind the camera but also looks at subsequent changes in the educational system, posing some important questions. Are we any better off today? Have schools and teaching staff moved forward over the last few decades? Have successive government's learnt anything from the mistakes of the past? Life After Kes explores the lives of the cast and production team since the making of the film including David (Dai) Bradley who played the lead role and examines why the legacy of Billy Casper and the national perception of Kes cast a shadow over South Yorkshire. Does Casper’s ghost still haunt this ex-mining community and is director Ken Loach’s gritty northern drama as relevant today as it was then? This book is a must-have for all film fans, anyone who enjoyed Kes and all those with an interest in British social history.
"How Green Was My Valley" is Richard Llewellyn's bestselling -- and timeless -- classic and the basis of a beloved film. As Huw Morgan is about to leave home forever, he reminisces about the golden days of his youth when South Wales still prospered, when coal dust had not yet blackened the valley. Drawn simply and lovingly, with a crisp Welsh humor, Llewellyn's characters fight, love, laugh and cry, creating an indelible portrait of a people.
The bestselling, award-winning author of Bad Land takes us along the Inside Passage, 1,000 miles of often treacherous water, which he navigates solo in a 35-foot sailboat, offering captivating discourses on art, philosophy, and navigation and an unsparing narrative of personal loss. "A work of great beauty and inexhaustible fervor." —The Washington Post Book World With the same rigorous observation (natural and social), invigorating stylishness, and encyclopedic learning that he brought to his National Book Award-winning Bad Land, Jonathan Raban conducts readers along the Inside Passage from Seattle to Juneau. But Passage to Juneau also traverses a gulf of centuries and cultures: the immeasurable divide between the Northwest's Indians and its first European explorers—between its embattled fishermen and loggers and its pampered new class.
