THE AMBASSADOR BOOKLIST

1999 BOOKS-ACROSS-THE-SEA SELECTION FOR
THE RUDOMINO LIBRARY FOR FOREIGN LITERATURE, MOSCOW

In 1999 over 60 British publishers supported the BAS programme and a final selection of 120 books were exhibited at the Rudomino Library for Foreign Literature in Moscow. The exhibition was a great success and the books were received with enthusiasm by Russian librarians and citizens.
[see also BOOKS-ACROSS-THE-SEA 1998]
 

CONTENTS

HISTORY

General - Historical Biography

"BELLE LETTRES" BRITISH LITERATURE

Fiction
Poetry
Literary Criticism and Language
Literary Biography POLITICS & ECONOMICS
General

CONTEMPORARY BRITISH LIFE

Travel
Topography and Natural History
The Arts
British Lifestyle
Contemporary Biography

 


BRITISH HISTORY

GENERAL


Aslet, Clive
The Story of Greenwich.
Fourth Estate, 1999, 288pp. [£25]
colour illustrated throughout, this is a portrait of Greenwich and a history of England

Cook, Chris
Britain in the Nineteenth Century.
Addison Wesley Longman, 1999, 359pp. [£14.99]
political, social religious and economic history plus foreign affairs and defence are all dealt with

Dickinson, H. T.
No Fear.
Blake, 1999, 304pp. [£15.99]
the American Revolution seen from the British point of view

Foyster, Elizabeth
Manhood in Early Modern England.
Addison Wesley Longman, 1999, 247pp. [£13.99]
brief history focuses on the relationships which men formed with their wives in England from the late 16th century through to 1700

Hall, Davis and Dibnah, Fred
Fred Dibnah's Industrial Age.
BBC Worldwide, 1999, 208pp. [£15.99]
history and gazetteer of Britain's industrial past, introducing the great inventors of the age of steam

Lacey, Robert and Danziger, Danny
The Year 1000.
Little Brown & Co, 1998, 354pp. [£8.99]
a portrait of life in England 1000 years ago

Marlow, Joyce
The Virago Book of Women of the Great War.
Virago, 1998, 418pp. [£17.99]
women of all ages and backgrounds describe their lives as surgeons, foresters, and bus conductors, munitions workers and train drivers

Overy, Richard
The Times History of the World
HarperCollins, 1999, 375pp. [£50]
a new edition of the ultimate work of historical reference

Strong, Roy
The Spirit of Britain
Hutchinson, 1999, 708pp. [£40]
a stunningly illustrated comprehensive history of the Arts in Britain

Smith, Harold
The British Woman's Suffrage Campaign 1866-1928.
Addison Wesley Longman, 1998, 122pp. [£6.99]
women's suffrage from it's origins in the 1860s to achieving equal rights in 1928
 

HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY

Ackroyd, Peter
Thomas More.
Vintage, 1998, 435pp. [£8.99]
a new biography of Thomas More, sympathetic though not uncritical, the enigma of More's personality remains

Briggs, Raymond
Ethel and Ernest.
Jonathon Cape, 1998, 103pp. [£14.99]
the life of the author's parents from their first meeting until their deaths, told in a strip format

Duffill, Mark
Mungo Park
NMS Publishing, 1999, 144pp. [£6.99]
a Scottish surgeon who left his practice to travel to unexplored Africa

Hill, Malcolm
Churchill: His radical Decade.
Othila Press, 1999, 143pp [£ ]
A book exploring Churchill's first decade in politics, often brushed aside by historians

Haigh, Christopher
Elizabeth 1.
Longman, 1998, 209pp [£11.50]
an academic study and history of the reign of the 1st Queen Elizabeth

Hughes, Kathryn
George Eliot: The last Victorian.
Fourth Estate, 1998, 536pp. [£8.99]
scholarly book on the freewheeling life of the remarkable novelist

Lees-Milne, James
Through Wood & Dale. Dairies 1975-78.
John Murray, 1998, 325pp. [£20.00]
the diaries reveal a portrait of an almost vanished society

Plomer, William
Kilvert's Diaries 1870-1878
Pimlico Press, 1999, 350pp
the diaries paint a unique picture of English country life in mid-Victorian times

Soames, Mary
Speaking for Themselves, Personal letters of Winston & Clementine Churchill.
Doubleday letters of Winston & Clementine Churchill, meant only for each other's eyes, written over a period of fifty-seven years together
 

"BELLE LETTRES" BRITISH LITERATURE

FICTION

BRITISH LITERATURE


Bennett, Alan
The Complete Talking Heads
BBC Worldwide, 1998, 207pp. [£12.99]

Fischer,Tibor & Norfolk, Laurence (ed)
New Writing 8
Vintage, 1999, 575pp. [£7.99]
an anthology from new and established writers

Gross, John
The New Oxford Book of English Prose.
Oxford University Press, 1999, 1012pp. [£14.99]
a unique anthology that draws on the full range of English prose

 

FICTION

Byatt A.S.
Elementals
Chatto & Windus, 1998, 232pp, [£12.00]
a collection of stories by A.S. Byatt

Elton,Ben
Blast From the Past.
Bantam Press, 1998. 271pp.
a novel by one of Britain's most popular comedians

Forster, Margaret
The Memory Box
Chatto & Windus, 1999, 276pp. [£15.99]
a young woman starts to unravel the clues left in a box her dead mother left her when she was a baby

Lessing, Doris
Mara & Dan
Flamingo. 1999, 407pp. [£16.99]
a story of a brother and sister living in the imagined future

Mitchinson, Naomi
Lobsters on the Agenda
House of Lochar, 1998, 254pp. [£9.99]
a topical story about a West Highland fishing village

Mortimer, John
The Sound of Trumpets
Viking, 1998, 273pp [£6.99]
humorous satire of political life

McEwan, Ian
Amsterdam
Viking, 1998 178pp. [£6.99]
psychologically brilliant study of heartlessness

O'Brien, Patrick
The Hundred Days
Harper Collins, 1998, 281pp. [£16.99]
Nelson's navy after Napoleons escapes from Elba

Pratchett, Terry
Carpe Jugulum
Doubleday, 1998, 285pp. [£16.99]
another instalment in the addictive cycle of Discworld

Seth,Vikram
An Equal Music
Pheonix House, 1999, 381pp. [£16.99]
book about love lost and found, and how love of music can run through a life

Smith, Steve
The Holiday
Virago, 1999, 202pp. [£5.99]
humorous story of Celia in post-war England, detailing her relationships that include loves and hate
 

POETRY

Anstley, Neil
New Blood.
Bloodaxe Books, 1999, 240pp. [£9.95]
collection of poetry

Brown, George Mackay
Northern Lights: A Poets Sources
John Murray, 1999, 336pp. [£18.99]
poetry appears in tandem with prose a collection of George Brown's writings

Cope, Wendy
The Funny Side
Faber & Faber, 1998, 159pp. [£7.99]
101 Humorous poems

Forbes, Peter
Scanning the Century
Penguin, 1999, 596pp. [£20.00]
a useful reference for anyone interested in 20th century poetry

Forward
The Forward Book of Poetry
Forward Publishing, 1998, 101pp. [£7.95]
a collection of the best poems of the year

Fuller,John
W.H. Auden, A Commentary
Faber & Faber, 1998, 613pp. [£30.00]
a compendium and condensed reference work, which deals with every Auden poem

Hamilton, Ian
Sixty Poems.
Faber & Faber, 1998, 63pp [£7.99]

Heaney, Seamus
Open Ground: Poems 1966-1996
Faber & Faber, 1998, 479pp. [£12.99]

Hislop,Ian
Private Eye
Private Eye, 1998, 96pp [£7.99]
from Private Eye, a comic compilation

Hughes, Ted
Birthday Letters
Faber & Faber, 1998, 198pp. [£7.99]

Jones, Griff Rhys
The Nations Favourite Comic Poems
BBC Worldwide, 1998, 176pp. [£5.99]
anthology of comic verse

Kay, Jackie
Off Colour
Bloodaxe Books, 1998, 64pp. [£6.95]
a collection by Jackie Kay

Motion, Andrew
Selected Poems
Faber & Faber, 1998, 151pp. [£9.99]
poems by the appointed poet laureate



LITERARY CRITICISM & LANGUAGE

Bayley, John
Iris: A Memoir
Gerald Duckworth, 1998, 190pp. [£16.95]
the marriage of Iris Murdoch and John Bayley, interrupted by Dame Iris suffering from Alzheimers disease

Hooper, Barbara
Cider With Laurie Lee Remembered.

Mendelson, L
Early Auden
Faber & Faber, 1999, 407pp. [£17.50]
an intellectual history of the 1930s with Auden at it's centre

Nicholson, Harold
Byron The Last Journey.
Prion, 1999, 210pp. [£10.00]
Byron's journey to Greece and subsequent death April 1823-April 1824

Park, Honan
Shakespeare A Life,
OUP. 1998, 479pp. [£25.00]
the most complete, accurate, and up to date narrative of Shakespeare's life ever written

Ricketts, Harry
The Unforgiving Minute: A Biography of Rudyard Kipling
Chatto & Windus, 1999, 434pp. [£25.00]
in this biography our understanding of Kiplings motivation is enhanced

Shakespeare, Nicholas
Bruce Chatwin.
Harvill/Jonathon Cape, 1999. 591pp [£20.00]
a definitive biography of this charismatic literary figure, who had one of the most erudite and brilliant minds

Thomas, Donald
Swinburne
Allison & Busby, 1999, 264pp. [£9.99]
the poet who was a rebel against Victorian society pictured as a man who lived from one century to the next with an undiminished appetite for life



POLITICS & ECONOMICS

Clark,Alan
The Tories: Conservatives & The Nation State 1922-1997
BCA/Weidenfeld & Nicholson/Orion, 1998, 493pp.
the definitive history of the Conservative party from 1922-1997

Burton,Anthony
William Cobbett: Englishman.
Aurum Press Ltd, 1997, 275pp. [£18.95]
a scholarly study of a great Englishman in many fields, the man who wrote Rural Rides was also a politician, traveller, educator and campaigner

Harmer, Harry
The Longman Companion to the Labour Party 1900-1998
Longman, 1999, 323pp. [£13.99]
a scholarly history of the party who form the government in England

Hattersley, Roy
Buster's Diaries
Little Brown, 1998, 152pp. [£9.99]
with the English obsession for their pets, Buster tells his own story, ghost written by Roy Hattersley

Pope, Rex
The British Economy Since 1914.
A Study In Decline.
Longman, 1998, 140pp.
a short, accessible study reviews the debate on the performance of the British economy since 1914 and shows how concerns have changed.

Shannon, Richard.
Gladstone, Peels Inheritor
Penguin, 1999, 580pp. [£12.99]
a valuable synthesis of Gladstone's scholarship

Silk, Paul, Williams, Rhodri.
How Parliament Works,
Longman, 1998, 285pp.



CONTEMPORY BRITISH LIFE

TRAVEL

Bavin, Eric
Travelling in Lakeland
Pentland Press, 1999, 615pp [£14.50
a comprehensive guides for walkers in the lakes and fells of England

Cope, Julian
The Modern Antiquarian
Thorson/Harper Collins 1998, 438pp. [£29.99]
a pre-millennium wander through megalithic Britain, illustrated with colour photo's

Couldrey, Vivienne
Painters of Scotland.
Thomas & Lochar, 1998, 120pp [£39.00]
tracing the tradition of landscape painting, an artistic journey through the highlands and lowlands of Scotland

Hilary, Edmund
View From the Summit
Doubleday, 1999, 309pp. [£20.00]
the first man to set foot on the summit of Everest a member of the British 1953 expedition, recalls his life

Street Porter, Janet
As The Crow Flies.
Metro, 1999, 311pp. [£8.99]
the vice-president of the Ramblers Association walks from Edinburgh to London in a straight line

 

TOPOGRAPHY & NATURAL HISTORY

Attenborough, David
The Life of Birds
BBC World-wide. 1998, 320pp. [£18.99]
the first extended study of a single animal group

Buczacki, Stefen
Stefen Buczacki's Plant Dictionary
Hamlyn, 1998, 320pp. [£30]
500 colour photographs illustrate this dictionary, encyclopaedia, and featuring information on over 6,000 plants

Hamilton, Geoff
A Man and His Garden
BBC World-wide, 1998, 192pp [£16.99]
the life of a man loved for his gardening programmes on British Television

Perutz, Max
I Wish I'd Made You Angry Earlier
Oxford University Press, 1998, 354pp. [£19.99]
beautifully written essays on science and scientists
 

THE ARTS

Bell, Vanessa
(lia Giachero ed)

Sketches in Pen & Ink
Pimlico, 1998, 214pp. [£10.00]
the quirky writings of Vanessa Bell illustrated with her own woodcuts and drawings

Bussel, Darcy
Life In Dance.
Century, 1998, 247pp. [£17.99]
this British ballerina describes her feelings about a life in ballet

Gale, Matthew & Stephens, Chris
Barbara Hepworth, Works in the Tate and the Barbara Hepworth Museum St Ives.
Tate Gallery, 1999, 296pp [£35.00]
beautifully photographed overview of the internationally acclaimed sculptor's fifty-year career

Harrison, Martin
David Bailey. Archive One
Thames & Hudson, variant, 273pp [£39.95]
book of beautiful photographic images from the 60s

Hume, Peter
England's Cathedral's in Watercolour.
Scala, 1999, 64pp.
beautifully illustrated book of 26 English Cathedrals in watercolour

Jolliffe, John
Glyndebourne, an Opera Miracle
John Murray, 1999, 284pp. [£25]
unique Opera House set in the downs of Sussex, successful without receiving any public funding

Kinchin, Perilla
Miss Cranston
NMS Publishing, 1999, 94pp [£5.99]
life of the patron of Charles Rennie Macintosh

Lacey, Robert
Sotheby's
Little Brown & Co, 1998, 354pp. [£8.99]
a look behind the glamour of the world's oldest auction house

Miller, John
Judi Dench: A Biography
Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1998, 319pp [£20.00]
a revealing biography of the great actress held in deep affection by her profession and the public

McCann, Gordon
Morecambe & Wise
Fourth Estate, 1998, 398pp. [£16.99]
the story of Britain's best-loved double-act, who worked together for more than forty years

Mowl, Timothy
William Beckford. Composing for Mozart.
John Murray, 1998, 324pp. [£22.00]
biography of Beckford's two lives, one real and sensational the other a forgery of elegant lies and half-truths

Shellard, Dominic
British Theatre Since the War
Yale University Press, 1999, 259pp. [£20.00]
a comprehensive account of British Theatre over the past fifty years



BRITISH LIFESTYLE

Cannadine,David
Class In Britain
Yale University Press, 1998, 242pp. [£19.95]
a sustained history of class in Britain over the last 300 years

Fiennes, Ranulph
Fit For Life
Little Brown, 1998, 207pp. [£16.99]
world famous explorer explains how we can all benefit from a fitness regime

Forster, Margaret
Precious Lives
Chatto & Windus, 1998, 232pp. [£16.99]
a follow up to Hidden Lives a moving book about living and dying

Marwick, Arthur
The Sixties
Oxford University Press, 1998, 903pp. [£14.99]
a study of social and political change in Europe and the USA during the sixties cultural revolution

Slater,Nigel
Real Food
Fourth Estate, 1998, 320pp. [£18.99]
120 new recipes plus eight old favourites, beautifully illustrated with photographs by Jonathan Lovekin

Smith,Delia
Delia's How To Cook
BBC Worldwide, 1998, 239pp. [£16.99]
beginning at the beginning a guide to the roots of British cooking for the twenty-first century

Tennant, Emma
Girlitude, A Memoir of the 50s and 60s
Jonathan Cape, 1999, 216pp. [£15.99]
the aristocratic world of Emma Tennant in the 1950s and 1960s

Turner, Lowri
Looking Good
BBC Worldwide, 1999, 112pp. [£9.99]
advice on fashion and how to dress comfortably

 

CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY

Carpenter, Humphrey
Dennis Potter, The Authorised Biography
Faber & Faber, 1998, 672pp. [£8.99]
a new biography reveals the truth behind the rumours and describes the strange relationships with women, plus giving a portrait of the backstage drama and fights behind the screen triumphs

Clements, Paul
Jan Morris
University of Wales Press, 1998, 111p
a major study of Jan Morris, travel writer, critic, journalist, historian biographer

Coggin, Janet
The Spy's Wife
Constable, 1999, 240pp. [£16.99]
the spy Dieter Gerhardt's wife gives an account of a look behind the scenes of a man who was imprisoned for selling NATO secrets to the Soviet Union

Davies,Hunter
Born 1900
Little Brown, 1998, 378pp. [£16.99]
life stories of twenty-one people from all walks of life born 1900

Devereux, Steve
No Fear
Blake, 1999, 304pp. [£15.99]
fast moving dangerous and unpredictable life of a former SAS man for hire

Forbes, Grania
Elizabeth the Queen Mother
Pavilion Books Ltd, 1999, 192pp.
a beautifully illustrated book on the Queen Mother, whose life has spanned the whole of the 20th century

Grant, Linda
Remind Me Who I Am Again
Granta, 1998, 307pp. [£7.99]
allied to the story of her mother's dementia, is the story of second generation Anglo-Jewry, whose parents were immigrants from Russia, Poland and Romania

Pearson,John
Blood Royal, The Story of the Spencers and the Royals
Harper Collins, 1999, 292pp. [£19.99]
the history and character of this once powerful feudal family, who after Diana's death returned to centre stage

Wallace, Christine
Germaine Greer Untamed Shrew
Richard Cohen Books, 1999, 331pp. [£18.99]
a biography of the writer who defined feminism for a generation

December 1999