The Road To Nab End

Author: William Woodruff
Publisher: Abacus
ISBN: 1405520450
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 299

Book Description
William Woodruff had the sort of childhood satirised in the famous Monty Python Yorkshireman sketch. The son of a weaver, he was born on a pallet of straw at the back of the mill and two days later his mother was back at work. Life was extrememly tough for the family in 1920's Blackburn -- a treat was sheep's head or cow heel soup -- and got worse when his father lost his job when the cotton industry started its terminal decline. Woodruff had to find his childhood fun in the little free time he had available between his delivery job and school, but he never writes self-pityingly, leaving the reader to shed the tears on his behalf. At ten his mother takes him on his one and only holiday -- to Blackpool. He never wonders where they get the money to do so, only where she disappears to with strange men in the afternoons, before taking him to the funfair, pockets jingling an hour or two later. NAB END is certainly not all grime and gloom however, there's a cast of great minor characters from an unfrocked vicar to William's indomitable grandmother Bridget who lend some colour and humour -- and all against the strongly rendered social backdrop of the 1920s and 1930s.

Billy Boy

Author: William Woodruff
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cotton manufacture
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description

Vessel of Sadness

Author: William Woodruff
Publisher: Abacus (UK)
ISBN: 9780349118116
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Book Description
Italy, 1944 - this is the setting of one of the most convincing and quietly magnificent stories about man and war that has ever been written. Here, (distilled from the experiences and observations of one who fought with them in the British infantry unit) is the mood of those who fought and died at Anzio. Their task - to seize the Alban Hills and then Rome forty miles away. Instead, for more than four months, they sank into the mud of the Anzio plain and fought for their lives. Nothing has appeared since Erich Maria Remarque's ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT that can compare with this book's ability to penetrate the minds of men at war. There are no heroes, no heroines, no victories. This is a faceless, nameless, fragmented war. Even national differences - Britain, Italian, German, American - merge and are forgotten in this larger story of humanity. This story, in fact, does not need to be Anzio; it could be any battlefield where man has faced death.

Beyond Nab End

Author: William Woodruff
Publisher: Abacus
ISBN: 9780349116228
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
The second volume of Woodruff's memoirs starts with him having arrived in Poplar in the early 1930s. On spec he turns up at a steel foundry and luckily gets a job. His digs are with an old couple in Bow where he has to share a single bed (head to toe) with their mentally retarded son. Life in the foundry is grim but William is indomitable. For recreation one day he cycles (then in the days before inflatable tyres) to Berkhamstead to try and track down an old girlfriend. She's not there and he has to return in a snowstorm - it takes him eight hours to get back to Poplar and then he has to get up three hours later to work at the foundry. Eventually he decides to 'get some leernin' and his first white collar job starts for the water board in ... Brettenham House! He continues to pursue his studies, finally winning a place at Ruskin College, Oxford. How the ex-steel worker became an Oxford academic - and William's concluding description of returning from the war to meet the son he's never seen - is deeply moving.

A Concise History of the Modern World

Author: William Woodruff
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781349122349
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Book Description

Shadows of Glory

Author: William Woodruff
Publisher: Little Brown Uk
ISBN: 9780349116891
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 358

Book Description
Woodruff's novel is about the fortunes of an Oxford University rowing eight, leading up to and during the Second World War. 1938: the Arnold College crew are a varied bunch, united only by the love of their sport and a sense that theirs is a generation which may have to fight for king and country. There's Charley Bradbury, a Scottish Communist and pacifist; David Evans, a chorister and super-boffin; Roger Blundell a witty dandy;Tony Markham, heir to a substantial estate and brother to four Mitford-type sisters; Pat Riley, charming somewhat mysterious Irishman; Alex Haverfield, handsome and a natural leader; Max Elsfield a dangerous self-destructive drinker and Bill Clark a naval cadet. As the war progresses they are gradually whittled away. Some, like Max Elsfield and David Evans, have been unhappy in love and have brought about their own destruction through reckless assaults on the enemy. Others like Charley Bradbury have had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - torpedoed on a passenger vessel from Russia. Ultimately this - like the Nab End stories - is a book about common humanity: the importance of virtues such as faith, loyalty and self-sacrifice.

The Other Half of Me

Author: Emily Franklin
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 149768403X
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Book Description
A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age: How do you define family? Jenny Fitzgerald is an artist who never fit in with her sports-obsessed parents and siblings. Still, she loves her family—even if she doesn’t relate to them. Even if, unlike her younger siblings, Jenny’s father is Donor 142. She’s always known the truth, but before now, it hasn’t seemed to matter much. But this summer—her sixteenth—is different. Where does Jenny really belong? Her parents don’t understand her artwork (and her boss at the studio isn’t even convinced she has talent), her twin sisters are so close it hurts (and it’s good at hurting Jenny), and she’s not entirely sure why she has a crush on jock Tate Brodeur (not that he’s noticed her . . . yet). To find her true self, Jenny begins to search for the one person who might really understand her—someone biologically connected. With Tate’s help, Jenny consults the Donor Sibling Registry, and before she knows it, she has discovered a half sibling. Alexa is witty, impulsive, and desperate to meet. Jenny’s convinced her genetic other half is the key to having a family, but when Alexa shows up unannounced, Jenny’s world changes in ways she never could have predicted.

Death By Choice

Author: Masahiko Shimada
Publisher: Thames River Press
ISBN: 085728259X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Book Description
Yoshio Kita’s hopelessness and lack of faith in his future crystallizes into a decision to commit suicide by what he calls ‘capital punishment at free will’, meaning his only pressing problem now is how to spend both his remaining self-allocated seven days on earth and all his worldly money. From fine dining with a former porn actress to insuring his life, from pursuing an ex-girlfriend to an entanglement with an assassin, Yoshio’s last seven days on earth take on unexpected twists and turns in this darkly comic exploration of the cult of suicide in Japan and the culture that has created it.

Quarantine: A Love Story

Author: Katie Cicatelli-Kuc
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
ISBN: 1338232932
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Book Description
Love can be contagious in this infectiously fun romance by debut author Katie Cicatelli-Kuc. Oliver wants a girlfriend, and there's a girl back home who might be interested in him. The problem is, he has to spend his spring break on a volunteer trip in the Dominican Republic. Flora, on the other hand, isn't really looking for a boyfriend. She just wants to end a miserable spring break visiting her dad and her new stepmom in the D.R.The solution to both their problems? Get back home to New York ASAP. Sadly, they won't be getting there anytime soon. Their hopes are dashed when Flora's impulsiveness lands them in quarantine -- just the two of them. Now, the two teens must come together in order to survive life in a bubble for 30 days. In that time, love will bloom. But is it the real thing, or just a placebo effect? In her debut novel, Katie Cicatelli-Kuc delivers an introspective and witty story about finding love in the most unexpected place.

Broke Down

Author: Sharan Daire
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
My car broke down on an icy road in the middle of nowhere. I've got no money in the bank, no place to stay, and no food for my kids. Can it get any worse? Sure. A police car pulls up. The county sheriff calls his twin brother to tow my car for repairs that'll probably cost more than the beater is worth. They say don't worry about it. They only want to help. Sure they do. These gorgeous guys just happen to have two friends who own a luxurious motel called Little Cypress Lodge. I walk into this incredible hotel and it's like I've entered a new fantasy world. It's warm, there's plenty of food for my kids, and they say I can stay. For free. As long as I need a place.The four of them even want to hire me to do some modeling work for their new fashion line. Crazy, right?Me. The broke down, homeless single mom.If I can keep up the act long enough to make some deposits on a new place, I can start a new life for me and my kids. If I don't lose my heart first.