Robert McCrum Books

E. F. Fritz Schumacher was a profound, influential thinker and economist, and this fascinating biography traces his life: from his early years in Germany and his move to England and internment during World War II, through to his later years, with the publication of "Small Is Beautiful" and the worldwide fame that resulted. Schumacher, at a time of unlimited economic growth, challenged this ideology and proposed an approach that recognized the impossibility of continuous growth in a finite world, and warned against the world's increasing dependence on oil. He was a key figure in the development of the environmental movement and was adamantly opposed to what he saw as violent solutions to economic problems, arguing against nuclear energy and advocating human-scale technology and organic cultivation. Schumacher's particular genius was to bring together the theoretical and the practical. He set up the Intermediate Technology Development Group (now Practical Action) to provide small-scale technology for developing countries, and his people-centered approach to development has now been adopted throughout the world. "Alias Papa," written by his eldest daughter, shows how his thinking and beliefs changed and evolved as his rigorous and questioning search for truth caused him to reflect on the events of his life and embark on a spiritual journey which was to change him as an economist and as a person."

Now revised, The Story of English is the first book to tell the whole story of the English language. Originally paired with a major PBS miniseries, this book presents a stimulating and comprehensive record of spoken and written English—from its Anglo-Saxon origins some two thousand years ago to the present day, when English is the dominant language of commerce and culture with more than one billion English speakers around the world. From Cockney, Scouse, and Scots to Gulla, Singlish, Franglais, and the latest African American slang, this sweeping history of the English language is the essential introduction for anyone who wants to know more about our common tongue.

Go anywhere in the world today and you'll see or hear English in some form. It may not be the Queen's English that you're hearing, but it is a form of universally recognised English. This title explores the history of English and ponders why, while British and American empires have waxed and waned, the English language, has taken over the world.

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998."To all concerned, this book is meant to send a ghostly signal across the dark universe of ill-health that says 'you are not alone.'" - Robert McCrumOn July 29, 1995, Robert McCrum, 42, married only ten weeks, suffered a paralyzing stroke. Overnight, his life shifted irrevocably. But this admired novelist and former editorial director of the London publishing house Faber and Faber decided to chronicle what became a remarkable journey "into that mysterious, unexplored territory, the neighbourly world of the unwell," as well as a deeply moving love story.

A deeply personal journey into Shakespeare's work that explores how it remains relevant and always has something to say about the times we are living in.

The narrative explores the remarkable transformation of a small North Atlantic island, once colonized by Rome and ravaged by invaders, into a dominant world power in the nineteenth century. It also traces the evolution of its colony across the Atlantic into a formidable military and cultural force in the twentieth century. This journey of power is attributed not only to warfare and industrial innovation but intriguingly, to the unifying strength of their shared language.

One hundred years after his first novel was published P.G. Wodehouse still promises a release from everyday cares into a paradise of innocent comic mayhem. His many books are still in print, his characters Jeeves, Wooster and Lord Emsworth have passed into the language and his admirers range from Dorothy Parker, Evelyn Waugh to Salman Rushdie, Stephen Fry and Gerry Adams.In a new biography based on research throughout Britain, Europe and the USA Robert McCrum delves deep beneath the brilliant surface of P.G. Wodehouse's extraordinary life: his youth in Edwardian Britain, his golden years in Jazz Age America and his internment in Nazi Germany, the experience that haunted him to his death in 1975, to create a moving and extremely funny portrait of an English writer of genius.

Part biography, part showcase for some of McConnell's most celebrated designs, this book gathers McConnell's exclusive redesign for Faber & Faber - a revolutionary new approach to book covers from the early 1980s.

"7 "As in his first novel, In the Secret State, McCrum displays a talent for moody, atmospheric narration here but again lavishes that talent on a thin story--this time the familiar, didactic tale of a passive, apolitical man's radicalization. McCrum's reluctant protagonist is Philip Taylor, 30, a London academic who ""had never taken a risk worth speaking of in his life."" But Philip's older brother Daniel, an investigative journalist, has taken a whole range of turning his back on the family business (pharmaceuticals), writing anti-Establishment exposÉs, permanently alienating their old father. And, though Philip hasn't seen Daniel in years, he suddenly gets caught up in his brother's world--when he gets a call from Daniel's girlfriend, counterculture journalist Daniel has disappeared, Stevie is worried, and indeed Daniel soon turns up dead--an apparent victim of sheer loss-of-heart. So Philip needs ""to know how it all went wrong."" He retraces Daniel's career, really understanding for the first time what Daniel learned (to devastating effect) while in that the family's business in the Third World was corrupt, dangerous, even genocidal. So now, moving into Daniel's house with Stevie (who literally slaps him out of passivity), Philip ""I share your anger and Daniel's anger--you have both taught me that."" And when he discovers that a terrorist is storing explosives at the house, Philip keeps the secret; after all, if he went to the police, he'd lose ""the rapport with Stevie, the unraveling of Daniel's past, and the tiny surges of self-confidence he was now experiencing for the first time in years. . . ."" Unfortunately, however, Philip has discovered activism too the terrorist, tracked down by the cops, holds Philip hostage--with fatal results. In Britain, perhaps, this contrived, theme-heavy scenario is less stale than it is here; very similar American stories were rampant through the Seventies.