The Day the Country Died features author, historian, and musician Ian Glasper (Burning Britain) exploring in minute detail the influential, esoteric, UK anarcho punk scene of the early Eighties. If the colorful ’80s punk bands captured in Burning Britain were loud, political, and uncompromising, those examined in The Day the Country Died were even more so, totally prepared to risk their liberty to communicate the ideals they believed in so passionately. With Crass and Poison Girls opening the floodgates, the arrival of bands such as Zounds, Flux of Pink Indians, Conflict, Subhumans, Chumbawamba, Amebix, Rudimentary Peni, Antisect, Omega Tribe, and Icons of Filth heralded a brand new age of honesty and integrity in underground music. With a backdrop of Thatcher’s Britain, punk music became self-sufficient and considerably more aggressive, blending a DIY ethos with activism to create the perfectly bleak soundtrack to the zeitgeist of a discontented British youth. It was a time when punk stopped being merely a radical fashion statement, and became a force for real social change; a genuine revolutionary movement, driven by some of the most challenging noises ever committed to tape. Anarchy, as regards punk rock, no longer meant “cash from chaos.” It meant “freedom, peace, and unity.“ Anarcho punk took the rebellion inherent in punk from the beginning to a whole new level of personal awareness. All the scene’s biggest names, and most of the smaller ones, are comprehensively covered with new, exclusive interviews and hundreds of previously unseen photographs.

In this revealing history, author, historian, and musician Ian Glasper explores in minute detail the influential and esoteric UK anarcho-punk scene of the early 1980s. Where some of the colorful punk bands from the first half of the decade were loud, political, and uncompromising, their anarcho-punk counterparts were even more so, totally prepared to risk their liberty to communicate the ideals they believed in so passionately. With Crass and Poison Girls opening the floodgates, the arrival of bands such as Amebix, Chumbawamba, Flux of Pink Indians, and Zounds heralded a new age of honesty and integrity in underground music. New, exclusive interviews and hundreds of previously unreleased photographs document the impact of all of the scene's biggest names--and a fair few of the smaller ones--highlighting how anarcho-punk took the rebellion inherent in punk from the very beginning to a whole new level of personal awareness.

As the Seventies drew to a close and the media declared punk dead and buried, a whole new breed of band was emerging from the gutter. Harder and faster than their ’76–’77 predecessors, not to mention more aggressive and political, the likes of Discharge, the Exploited, and G.B.H. were to prove not only more relevant but arguably just as influential. Several years in the making and featuring hundreds of new interviews and photographs, Burning Britain is the true story of the UK punk scene from 1980 to 1984 told for the first time by the bands and record labels that created it. Covering the country region by region, author Ian Glasper profiles legendary bands like Vice Squad, Angelic Upstarts, Blitz, Anti-Nowhere League, Cockney Rejects, and the UK Subs as well as the more obscure groups like Xtract, The Skroteez, and Soldier Dolls. The grim reality of being a teenage punk rocker in Thatcher’s Britain resulted in some of the most primal and potent music ever committed to plastic. Burning Britain is the definitive overview of that previously overlooked era.

‘One of the masters of modern Chinese literature’ Jung Chang This gripping dystopia contrasts the reality of life in China today with the sunny optimism of the ‘Chinese dream’. One dusk in early June, in a town deep in the Balou mountains, fourteen-year-old Li Niannian notices that something strange is going on. As the residents would usually be settling down for the night, instead they start appearing in the streets and fields. There are people everywhere. Li Niannian watches, mystified. Until he realises the people are dreamwalking, carrying on with their daily business as if the sun hadn’t already gone down. And before too long, as more and more people succumb, in the black of night all hell breaks loose. Set over the course of one night, The Day the Sun Died pits chaos and darkness against the bright ‘Chinese dream’ promoted by President Xi Jinping. We are thrown into the middle of an increasingly strange and troubling waking nightmare as Li Niannian and his father struggle to save the town, and persuade the beneficent sun to rise again. Praise for Yan Lianke's books: ‘Nothing short of a masterpiece’ Guardian ‘A hyper-real tour de force, a blistering condemnation of political corruption and excess’ Financial Times ‘Mordant satire from a brave fabulist’ Daily Mail ‘Exuberant and imaginative’ Sunday Times ‘I can think of few better novelists than Yan, with his superlative gifts for storytelling and penetrating eye for truth’ New York Times Book Review

The untold story of the massacre of a Southern town’s freedmen and a white lawyer’s battle to bring the killers to justice: “Riveting.” —The New York Times Book Review Following the Civil War, Colfax, Louisiana, was a town, like many, where African Americans and whites mingled uneasily. But on April 13, 1873, a small army of white ex–Confederate soldiers, enraged after attempts by freedmen to assert their new rights, killed more than sixty African Americans who had occupied a courthouse. With skill and tenacity, the Washington Post’s Charles Lane transforms this nearly forgotten incident into a riveting historical saga. Seeking justice for the slain, one brave US attorney, James Beckwith, risked his life and career to investigate and punish the perpetrators—but they all went free. What followed was a series of courtroom dramas that culminated at the Supreme Court, where the justices’ verdict compromised the victories of the Civil War and left Southern blacks at the mercy of violent whites for generations. The Day Freedom Died is an electrifying piece of historical detective work that captures a gallery of characters from presidents to townspeople, and re-creates the bloody days of Reconstruction, when the often-brutal struggle for equality moved from the battlefield into communities across the nation. “Thoroughly readable, carefully documented.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Fascinating.” —New Orleans Times-Picayune “An electrifying piece of historical reporting.” —Tucson Citizen

"Positively tailor-made for reading—or reading aloud—by flashlight," declares Kirkus Reviews in a starred review. The phenomenally versatile, award-winning author Candace Fleming gives teen and older tween readers ten ghost stories sure to send chills up their spines. Set in White Cemetery, an actual graveyard outside Chicago, each story takes place during a different time period from the 1860s to the present, and ends with the narrator's death. Some teens die heroically, others ironically, but all due to supernatural causes. Readers will meet walking corpses and witness demonic posession, all against the backdrop of Chicago's rich history—the Great Depression, the World's Fair, Al Capone and his fellow gangsters.

On a sunny day in the town of Bloomington, a devastating occurrence happens. No, it’s not famine, or floods, or loss of your basic rights. The internet has gone down! And it will continue to be down! For a week! A whole week! Pandemonium! In a world that is so dependent on the internet for shopping, mailing, and posting pictures of cute babies, how will society function? Not well as it turns out. The Day the Internet Died hilariously explores how inept we are at dating, research, and basic human interactions when we don’t have a screen to look at. Comedy One-act. 30-35 minutes 10-50 actors, gender flexible