Set in a big Dublin hotel of the mid-nineteenth century, The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs is a total theatre creation. In it, we discover that Albert, the perfect waiter – who never drinks, smokes or flirts with the chambermaids – is in fact a woman who once dressed as a man to avoid poverty and is now trapped in the role. Based on a short story by George Moore, which was recently adapted into a major Hollywood film starring Glenn Close, Benmussa’s story releases a string of disturbing questions about the nature of women and society, and is one of the most powerful and groundbreaking plays of the 1970s. Adapted for the stage from George Moore's short story 'Albert Nobbs'.

It's senior year, and Simone Thibodeaux is ready to shake things up. Until now, her life has been sealed in a boy-proof container, thanks to her strict Haitian immigrant parents, who enforce no-dating rules and send Simone to an all-girls high school. As for prom? Simone is allowed to go on one condition: Her parents will select her date (a boy from a nice Haitian immigrant family, obviously). Simone is desperate to avoid the humiliation of the setup -- especially since she's crushing on a boy she knows her parents wouldn't approve of. It's time to take action. So Simone and her fellow late-bloomer friends make a Senior Year Bucket List of all the things they haven't had a chance to do. Like: sneaking out of the house, skipping class (gasp!), and oh yeah - choosing their own prom dates. But as the list takes on a life of its own, things get much more complicated than Simone expected. She'll have to discover which rules are worth breaking, and which might save her from heartbreak.

A deeply moving and brilliantly idiosyncratic visual book of days by the National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids and M Train. More than 365 images chart Smith's singular aesthetic - inspired by her wildly popular Instagram In 2018, without any plan or agenda for what might happen next, Patti Smith posted her first Instagram photo: her hand with the simple message "Hello Everybody!" Known for shooting with her beloved Land Camera 250, Smith started posting images from her phone including portraits of her kids, her radiator, her boots, and her Abyssinian cat, Cairo. Followers felt an immediate affinity with these miniature windows into Smith's world, photographs of her daily coffee, the books she's reading, the graves of beloved heroes - William Blake, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, Simone Weil, Albert Camus. Over time, a coherent story of a life devoted to art took shape, and more than a million followers responded to Smith's unique aesthetic in images that chart her passions, devotions, obsessions, and whims. Original to this book are vintage photographs: anniversary pearls, a mother's keychain, and a husband's Mosrite guitar. Here, too, are never-before-seen photos of life on and off the road, train stations, obscure cafes, a notebook always nearby. In wide-ranging yet intimate daily notations, Smith shares dispatches from her travels around the world. With 365 photographs, taking you through a single year, A Book of Days is a new way to experience the expansive mind of the visionary poet, writer, and performer. Hopeful, elegiac, playful - and complete with an introduction by Smith that explores her documentary process - A Book of Days is a timeless offering for deeply uncertain times, an inspirational map of an artist's life.

For more than six decades, Queen Victoria ruled a great Empire at the height of its power. Beside her for more than twenty of those years was the love of her life, her trusted husband and father of their nine children, Prince Albert. But while Victoria is seen as the embodiment of her time, it was Prince Albert, A. N. Wilson expertly argues, who was at the vanguard of Victorian Britain’s transformation as a vibrant and extraordinary centre of political, technological, scientific and intellectual advancement. A composer, engineer, soldier, politician, linguist and bibliophile, Prince Albert, more than any other royal, was truly a ‘genius’.

New in the critically acclaimed Little People, BIG DREAMS series, discover the incredible life of Simone de Beauvoir, the great French philosopher and mother of feminism. When Simone de Beauvoir was a little girl, her father would proudly boast that she had the brain of a man - whatever that meant. But later, after years of studying, Simone would write a book that challenged the role of women in society, sending shock waves around the world. This moving book features stylish and quirky illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with historical photos and a detailed profile of the philosopher's life. Little People, BIG DREAMS is a bestselling series of books and educational games that explore the lives of outstanding people, from designers and artists to scientists and activists. All of them achieved incredible things, yet each began life as a child with a dream. This empowering series offers inspiring messages to children of all ages, in a range of formats. The board books are told in simple sentences, perfect for reading aloud to babies and toddlers. The hardback versions present expanded stories for beginning readers. Boxed gift sets allow you to collect a selection of the books by theme. Paper dolls, learning cards, matching games and other fun learning tools provide even more ways to make the lives of these role models accessible to children. Inspire the next generation of outstanding people who will change the world with Little People, BIG DREAMS!

The Flame is a stunning collection of Leonard Cohen’s last poems and writings, selected and ordered by Cohen in the final months of his life. The book contains an extensive selection from Cohen’s notebooks, featuring lyrics, prose pieces and illustrations, which he kept in poetic form throughout his life, and offers an unprecedentedly intimate look inside the life and mind of a singular artist and thinker. An enormously powerful final chapter in Cohen’s storied literary career, The Flame showcases the full range of Leonard Cohen’s lyricism, from the exquisitely transcendent to the darkly funny. By turns devastatingly sad and winningly strange, these are the works of a poet and lyricist who has plumbed the depths of our darkest questions and come up wanting, yearning for more.

Simone Thibodeaux is about to switch things up. Check her life: It's sealed in a boy-proof container. Her Haitian immigrant parents send Simone to an all-girls high school and enforce strict no-dating rules. As for prom? Simone is allowed to go on one condition: Her parents will select her date (a boy from a nice, Haitian immigrant family, obviously). Simone is desperate to avoid the setup - especially since she has a serious crush on another boy. It's time to take action. Simone and her fellow late-bloomer friends make a senior year bucket list of all the wild things they haven't done yet. Like: going out dancing, skipping class (what), and oh yeah - deciding their own prom destinies. But as the list takes on a life of its own, things get much messier than Simone expected. Can she figure out which rules are worth breaking and which might save her from heartbreak?

Brilliant, honest, combative - Eddie Jones is a true legend of world rugby and remains an enigmatic figure in the game. In My Life and Rugby he tells his story for the first time, including the full inside account of England's 2019 World Cup campaign. He describes his experience growing up in a tough working-class area of Sydney, where he first played rugby, and how he learnt from the extreme highs and lows of his own playing career - the numerous successes but also the painful disappointment of never playing for Australia. He tells how he then embarked on a coaching career that has seen him become one of the most experienced and decorated coaches in Rugby Union, spanning four World Cups and three finals. His successes have included masterminding England's spectacular victory over New Zealand in the 2019 World Cup and engineering the sport's most stunning upset when Japan beat South Africa in 2015. My Life and Rugby is the story of one of the most compelling and singular figures in rugby. Told with unflinching honesty, this is the ultimate book for all fans of the sport. Written with Donald McRae, twice winner of the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award and three-time Sports Feature Writer of the Year, My Life and Rugby is the story of one of the most compelling and singular figures in rugby. Told with unflinching honesty, this is the ultimate rugby book for all fans of the sport.

Giovanna's pretty face has changed: it's turning into the face of an ugly, spiteful adolescent. But is she seeing things as they really are? Where must she look to find her true reflection and a life she can claim as her own? Giovanna's search leads her to two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: the Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and the Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. Adrift, she vacillates between these two cities, falling into one then climbing back to the other. Set in a divided Naples, The Lying Life of Adults is a singular portrayal of the transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood.

First published in 1967, this book consists of three short novellas on the theme of women's vulnerability - in the first, to the process of ageing, in the second to loneliness, and, in the third, to the growing indifference of a loved one. The Woman Destroyed is a collection of three stories, each an exquisite and passionate study of a woman trapped by circumstances, trying to rebuild her life. In the first story, 'The Age of Discretion', a successful scholar fast approaching middle age faces a double shock - her son's abandonment of the career she has chosen for him and the harsh critical rejection of her latest academic work. 'The Monologue' is an extraordinary New Year's Eve outpouring of invective from a woman consumed with bitterness and loneliness after her son and her husband have left home. Finally, in 'The Woman Destroyed', Simone de Beauvoir tells the story of Monique, trying desperately to resurrect her life after her husband confesses to an affair with a younger woman. Compassionate, lucid, full of wit and knowing, Simone de Beauvoir's rare insight into the inequalities and complexities of women's lives is unsurpassable.

Avant-garde composer Albert Sanger lives in a ramshackle chalet in the Swiss Alps, surrounded by his 'Circus' of assorted children, admirers and a slatternly mistress. The family and their home life may be chaotic, but visitors fall into an enchantment, and the claims of respectable life or upbringing fall away. When Sanger dies, his Circus must break up and each find a more conventional way of life. But fourteen-year-old Teresa is already deeply in love: for her, the outside world holds nothing but tragedy.

Virginia Woolf's singular technique in Mrs Dalloway heralds a break with the traditional novel form and reflects a genuine humanity and a concern with the experiences that both enrich and stultify existence.Society hostess, Clarissa Dalloway is giving a party. Her thoughts and sensations on that one day, and the interior monologues of others whose lives are interwoven with hers gradually reveal the characters of the central protagonists. Clarissa's life is touched by tragedy as the events in her day run parallel to those of Septimus Warren Smith, whose madness escalates as his life draws toward inevitable suicide.

Virginia Woolf's singular technique in Mrs Dalloway heralds a break with the traditional novel form and reflects a genuine humanity and a concern with the experiences that both enrich and stultify existence.Society hostess, Clarissa Dalloway is giving a party. Her thoughts and sensations on that one day, and the interior monologues of others whose lives are interwoven with hers gradually reveal the characters of the central protagonists. Clarissa's life is touched by tragedy as the events in her day run parallel to those of Septimus Warren Smith, whose madness escalates as his life draws toward inevitable suicide.

Virginia Woolf's singular technique in Mrs Dalloway heralds a break with the traditional novel form and reflects a genuine humanity and a concern with the experiences that both enrich and stultify existence. Society hostess, Clarissa Dalloway is giving a party. Her thoughts and sensations on that one day, and the interior monologues of others whose lives are interwoven with hers gradually reveal the characters of the central protagonists. Clarissa's life is touched by tragedy as the events in her day run parallel to those of Septimus Warren Smith, whose madness escalates as his life draws toward inevitable suicide.

Claire Wilcox has been a curator of fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum for most of her working life. In Patch Work, she turns her curator's eye to the fabric of life itself, tugging at the threads of memory: a cardigan worn by a child, a tin button box, the draping of a curtain, a pair of cycling shorts, a roll of lace, a pin hidden in a seam. Through these intimate and compelling close-ups, we see how the stories and the secrets of clothes measure out the passage of time, our gains and losses, and the way we use them to unravel and write our histories.

A legendary collection of essays by one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century Illuminations contains the most celebrated work of Walter Benjamin, one of the most original and influential thinkers of the 20th Century: 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', ‘The Task of the Translator’ and 'Theses on the Philosophy of History', as well as essays on Kafka, storytelling, Baudelaire, Brecht's epic theatre, Proust and an anatomy of his own obsession, book collecting. This now legendary volume offers the best possible access to Benjamin’s singular and significant achievement, while Hannah Arendt’s introduction reveals how his life and work are a prism to his times.