Libby Purves

What happens if I drop an ant? What books are bad for you? What percentage of the worlds water is contained in a cow? The Oxbridge undergraduate interviews are infamous for their unique ways of assessing candidates, and from these peculiar enquiries, professors can tell just how smart you really are. John Farndon has collected together 75 of the most intriguing questions taken from actual admission interviews and gives full answers to each, taking the reader through the fascinating histories, philosophies, sciences and arts that underlie each problem. This is a book for everyone who likes to think theyre clever, or who thinks theyd like to be clever. And cleverness is not just knowing stuff, its how laterally, deeply and interestingly you can bend your brain. Guesstimating the population of Croydon, for example, opens a chain of thought from which you can predict the strength of a nuclear bomb ...and thats just the start of it.

In the summer of 1988, Libby Purves set sail with her family on a voyage round the entire coastline of Britain, from the soft, sandy South-East, to the wilder shores of Orkney. They travelled in the wake of their literary-nautical forebears aboard their m

Con humor chispeante y una astucia desarrollada a lo largo de cuatro años de coger el vuelo las papillas antes de que toquen el suelo, Libby Purves nos ebseña de qué forma, incluso, la madraza más candida puede sobrevivir a los años criticos en que habra de lidiar con bebes y tiernos infantes que dan sus primeros pasos. Repleto de consejos practicos y de divertidas anecdotas, he aqui un manual de batalla imprescindible para la madre situada en la linea de fuego; una obra que abarca desde el embarazo hasta la etapa preescolar, deteniendose de pasada en temas tales como los celos entre hermanos, las excursiones, las chicas canguro y la profesion de la madre. A partir de la propia experiencia de los estragos domesticos causados por dos hijos, y de los consejos y la sabiduria acumuladas por cincuenta madres de ideas parecidas, Libby Purves describe con desenfado como hacer trampas o quebrantar abiertamente unas normas sobre la maternidad que, de todos modos, nunca sirvieron de gran cosa. Una guia valiosisima para llegar a ser una madre imperfecta y disfrutar siendolo.

What makes a wife and mother, pillar of the community and partner in a cosy tea-shop (The Bun in the Oven) suddenly run away to sea, alone?Joanna Gurney hardly knows herself. But as she moves along the rocky, dangerous coast of Britain, evading police and press, Joanna meets other cast-off and washed-up individuals in 1990s Britain, and finds that she can also make a voyage into her own past. And, in the end, find her solution.

Even her closest friend agreed that Shark Grayson wasnt fit to keep her baby. A heroin addict, living in a sordid London squat, she was already close to death when her American lover took charge of the situation by force, and carried off the baby Alexander to give him a loving home in the Mid-West and an affluent future. But now Alex is twenty-seven, orphaned again and afflicted by a sense of lost roots and a romantic vision of England. A business trip provides the chance to go and trace his unknown relatives. He finds friendship; encounters some startlingly predatory girls; and confronts mystery in the eccentric alternative health centre run by the austere Julia. He discovers that while some British people are very hard indeed to get along with, some turn out to be, after all, more closely akin to him than he could ever have imagined.

Tras haber analizado -de una manera siempre ingeniosa y realista- los peligros de ser una madre perfecta o de educar a un hijo perfecto, Libby Purves se enfrenta ahora al fundamento de la sociedad, la familia, y nos habla con ironica sabiduria sobre las amas de casa, la intimidad, la television, los ordenadores, los celos entre hermanos, las normas de convivencia, las mudanzas, los problemas escolares, la adolescencia, las peleas, la vacaciones y un largo etcetera, sobrevolando por todo ello con un gran sentido del humor y un puñado de consejos practicos. Pero no creas que nos encontramos ante un manual al uso, ni mucho menos. Mas bien se trata de un libro sobre la vida que debemos afrontar (y disfrutar) dia a dia y sobre las diferencias entre lo ideal y lo real. Tres ejemplos: Mientras las familias perfectas lo mantienen todo en perfecto orden, las familias reales guardan sus objetos mas valiosos en las escaleras o en la cocina. Mientras las familias mas educadas visitan todos los museos que aparecen en la guia, las familias de carne y hueso se limitan a pelearse en el Louvre. Y mientras los vastagos de las familias serias trabajan duro y juegan limpio, los niños de las familias que conocemos suelen hacer sus deberes en el autobus y hacer trampas en el Monopoly.Poco importa que tu casa sea un santuario o un manicomio: de todos modos, este vitriolico y a la vez cariñoso retrato de la vida familiar hara que rias, llores e incluso te horrorices con las situaciones descritas. Sobre todo cuando te reconozcas en ellas.

The family is natures masterpiece - George Santayana A compendium of practical advice and reflections on modern family life in the age of computer gaming, ever younger drug and drink problems, educational upheaval and concerns about the way childrens freedom, health and personal development are threatened by considerations of safety. Libby also considers the maintenance of marriage in an age of rising divorce and stepfamilies, a balanced approach to sexual threats to children, and the dangers and opportunities for family life caused by dual careers, teleworking, and other trends in the modern workplace. Each subject is treated with wit and brevity to make the book a delight to read as well as providing a fund of useful advice.

A perfect child:* Dresses neatly and practises the violin before breakfast* Comes top of the class and is captain of everything* Is unfailingly obedient and sweet-tempered* Is a perfect credit to its perfect motherA real child:* Prefers shoelaces undone and mismatched socks* Shouts Bum! at Granny* Turns breakfast and bedtime into a battleground* Is the normal offspring of imperfect parentsWith affectionate lack of illusion and a refreshing honesty about her own shortcomings, Libby Purves examines the pleasures and pitfalls of raising children from three to eight years old. Playgroup, starting school, rude words, pets - all these topics are tackled with frank good humour and down-to-earth advice.Best of all is her reassuring reminder that there is no such thing as a perfect child.

A story about coming of age in 1970s Oxford. Politics and the Pill. Pot and poetry. Glamrock and groupies. The way we were. Love isnt always the answer.Have you ever fallen for the wrong man?Sally does. Handsome, clever Max Bellinger brings a whiff of sophistication into the shabby canalside house they share in that final year at Oxford. And Sally, so steeped in the Romantics that she confuses literature with real life, is content to be his adoring handmaiden.That blind devotion shapes Sallys life for many years. She writes lyrics for Maxs wayward rock star brother and stays involved with his family. But the relationship is based on secrets and lies, and when Sally finally wakes up to reality, those deceptions come home to roost . . .Libby Purves perfectly capture what it means to be a woman in the last third of the twentieth century.

Henry Jamess 1898 novella In the Cage (written in the same year as the more well-known The Turn of the Screw) is a sly, slight, vaguely sentimental work but one that acts as a fine introduction to this most convoluted of writers. Exact ("exacting" yet with a pointillists precision) is the word most often used to describe Jamess prose but very often the modern reader will find his hesitant, pedantic, clause-heavy sentences difficult to follow, overlong and tortuously complex. But the key to reading and enjoying James is in succumbing to those very sentences, allowing his perfect ear and fine metre to establish its own rhythm, letting it guide ones response to his beautiful, matchless use of language. In the Cage tells the story of a young women, the "betrothed of Mr Mudge", who works at a post-office counter sending telegrams mostly from the "idle rich" to their fellows to arrange their meetings, parties and other affairs. Concerned, as ever, with the plight of the not so well-to-do--and particularly the role and circumstances of women--James finely delineates our heroines increasing preoccupation with Captain Everard for whom she sends a considerable number of messages and about whom she has increasingly warm thoughts: "people of her sort... didnt count as infidelity, counted only as something else: she might have been curious, since it came to that, to see exactly as what".

Sarah Penn and Maggie Reave are sisters, as different as a tabby and a tiger. Sarah has married kind, reliable Leo and settled contentedly into small-town life. Maggie, light-hearted and footloose, has spent fifteen years drifting round the world with a backpack and a cheerful willingness to do any menial job as long as it has no future. But now Maggie has come home, pregnant, and undecided whether or not to keep the baby. And as she dicusses this with her sister, lets slip that shes had an abortion before, and that the father was Maggies husband. This throws everything into confusion, but Christmas brings reconciliation and a new baby.

Perfect Families: * Tick off museums in the guidebook* Tidy everything away neatly* Work hard and play fair* Show respect for one anotherReal Families: * Start fights in the Louvre * Keep all their worldly goods on the stairs and in the kitchen * Do their homework on the school bus and cheat at Monopoly* Tie the shoelaces of sleeping uncles together after Christmas dinnerWith her customary humour and reliably robust commonsense, Libby Purves celebrates family life in all its aspects. Her accounts of sibling rivalry and the pitfalls of family Christmas will provoke rueful laughter and strike chords of recognition; her practical tips on dealing with everything from marriage maintenance to money matters, testing times to trips and treats, provide essential help for the hard-pressed parent. Best of all is her reassuring reminder that no one else has a perfect family either!

Everyone agreed that Shark Grayson wasn't fit to keep her baby. A herion addict, living in a sordid London squat, she was already close to death when her American lover took charge, carrying of the baby Alexander to give him an affluent future and a loving home in the Midwest. But now Alex is 27 and afflicted by his lost roots and a romantic vision of England. When a business trip provides the chance to go and trace his unknown relatives, he discovers that while some British people are, indeed, very hard to get along with, others turn out to be more closely akin to him that he ever could have imagined. Novelist Libby Purves is an award-winning cloumnist for "The Times; she is also a recipient of an O.B.E. for her services to journalism.

When Eva, a naive and happy Polish backpacker comes into the lives of five English characters, the values of their comfortable world clash with those of Eastern Europe. And the five English characters find comedy, tragedy and romance unfolding with bewildering speed.

A powerful novel from Radio 4 presenter and Times columnist Libby Purves, inspired by the loss of her own son.Family love is one of the most powerful elemental forces on earth, and at that moment, our last moment as a unit of three, we rode a great curling triumphant wave of it, all together. Death may have thought that he won, but I think otherwise.There is no right way to deal with the loss of a beloved son. Marion and Tom are doing their dignified best, but their own relationship is taking a battering.So when a fierce, strange woman turns up and demands to see the dead boy, Marion is almost glad of the distraction. Against Toms wishes, she determines to find out more about her sons life away from home.The quest takes her out of her comfortable, conventional world to a shabby office in East London, and a series of shocks. Tom, furious, finds his own solution, and amid scandal, sorrow and exaltation the quiet Middle-Englanders discover that there is more than one kind of family.

Alice McDonald has escaped all the obvious traps that lie in wait for women. She loves her job but enjoys her clever, spirited children too; her husband (Dan the New Man) does his share at home, and their London house is always full of friends. At her thirty-seventh birthday party, Alice reflects that their life has been a pretty successful production so far.But love can be treacherous, and children are never quite what they seem. Two months later, far from home and alone on a desperate quest through the bleak lanes of Norfolk, Alice wonders how it fell apart so quickly. Were things ever as good as they seemed? Had the McDonalds really been happy, or was it no more than a stage illusion?