Consisting entirely of staff emails, this novel invites the reader to spend a fortnight in the company of Miller Shanks, an advertising agency that scales dizzying peaks of incompetence, backstabbing and pure sleaze.
The Miller Shanks Christmas party is going to be the best and most impressive ever -- or at least, that's the plan. It certainly turns out to be unforgettable... Once again told entirely in a series of e-mails, the further adventures of the characters from e take them into the run-up to Christmas. Harriet's determined to make her first party as MD mega-memorable, but even her much-tested imagination can't predict what actually happens. Meanwhile, Pinki wants to change the world by introducing Real Women Barbies and Simon has resurfaced to write a novel -- which is rejected by a publishing director known to many of us...
Through his highly idiosyncratic readings of some of the finest paintings, sculptures, and poems of the French and Italian Renaissance, Walter Pater in Studies in the History of the Renaissance redefined the practice of criticism as an impressionistic, almost erotic exploration of the critic's aesthetic responses. Pater's infamous nullConclusion, null which forever linked him with the decadent movement, scandalized many with its insistence on making pleasure the sole motive of life, even as it charmed fellow aesthetes such as Oscar Wilde. This edition of Studies reproduces the text of the first edition of 1873. Matthew Beaumont's Introduction describes the cultural context that gave rise to the book, the reasons for its notoriety, Pater's philosophical outlook, and the arguments in his book. It explores Pater's work as an attempt to preserve the unique aesthetic of a work of art in the face of encroaching mass culture. The book also includes the later chapter on Giorgione as an Appendix, comprehensive notes that identify the many literary and artistic references, and a useful glossary of names. - Publisher
Out of the ashes of doomed ad agency Miller Shanks has risen Meerkat 360, a very 21st century workplace. Staff include David Crutton, an MD with the worst email signature in history; Milton Keane, a definitely-straight PA with a yearning for reality tv fa
One week in the making of a TV commercial for car tyres -- as told by the inimitable Matt Beaumont, author of e What does a successful adman do when he realises the stars of his new commercial want to kill each other, his director has walked off the set and his client has turned up in the wrong T-shirt? How does one of these stars react when he's asked if it's true that he's packing salami in his shorts? Why on earth does the other one think that dueting with a Chinese Elvis impersonator could be a smart career move? What does the adman's pregnant, swollen-ankled wife do when she realises the cheating bastard just happens to be shooting an ad with a rubber-clad Hollywood nymph? And how could any of the above possibly have a connection to the world's most useless drug smuggler?
Can we ever be truly in control of our own destinies, or are our lives entirely shaped by random events and unknown people? Small World is an entirely contemporary and engrossing page-turner which explores universal themes of love, death, friendship, marriage, madness, and redemption, unifying them all through this central question. Friends, family, workmates. The woman you see at the bus stop every morning; the man who reaches for the last newspaper just before you get to it. Everyone you meet, and some you nearly meet, will have an impact on the way your day goes.
From the bestelling author of 'e' comes a hilarious novel of a very normal life becoming extraordinaryMurray's life is on the duller side of normal. His once-scintillating career has run into a dead end. His crusading girlfriend has left him for a hotshot lawyer. While he likes things safe and tidy, he dreams of more, getting in touch with his inner Jimi Hendrix. But finding a lump and discovering he has four months to live isn't what he had in mind. What would you do? Murray, to his great astonishment, is soon living with a burglar, mixing with supermodels, charged with murder and in massive debt to slipper-wearing gangsters. And he's finally said what he thinks in a meeting. So who cares? He's living life to the full. But what if it's all a mistake and he has to face the consequences...
Lev Shestov, a Jewish philosopher, offers a compelling anti-Enlightenment perspective that critiques reason's limitations and promotes an ethics of hope amidst despair. His thought has significantly influenced prominent figures like Georges Bataille, Albert Camus, and Gilles Deleuze. In the context of the twenty-first century, revisiting Shestov's ideas appears both timely and essential, as his philosophy resonates with contemporary existential inquiries and challenges.
"Whether one considers Dickens's insomniac night-time perambulations or restless excursions through the faceless monuments of today's neoliberal city, the act of walking is one of self-discovery and escape, of disappearances and secret subversions. Pacing stride for stride alongside literary amblers and thinkers such as Edgar Allan Poe, André Breton, H. G. Wells, Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, and Ray Bradbury, Beaumont explores the relationship between the metropolis and its pedestrian life"-- Provided by publisher