Introduction to JavaScript Object Notation

'Memorable... One of [China's] most astute and sensitive foreign observers' Financial Times'Compassionate... full of warmth' GuardianMore than twenty years after teaching English to China's first boom generation at a small college in Sichuan Province, Peter Hessler returned to teach the next generation.At the same time, Hessler's twin daughters became the only Westerners in a student body of about two thousand in their local primary school. Through reconnecting with his previous students now in their forties - members of China's "Reform generation" - and teaching his current undergraduates, Hessler is able to tell an intimately unique story about China's incredible transformation over the past quarter-century. In the late 1990s, almost all of Hessler's students were the first of their families to enrol in higher education, sons and daughters of subsistence farmers who could offer little guidance as their children entered a brand-new world.By 2019, when Hessler arrived at Sichuan Univer

'Astonishingly brilliant. My book of the year.' Liz Nugent, Sunday Times-bestselling author of Strange Sally DiamondFor fans of Emily St John Mandel and Kazuo Ishiguro, an exhilarating novel about an isolated town neighboured by its own past and future, and a young girl who faces an impossible choice... Would you sacrifice the future for love?Sixteen-year-old Odile vies for a coveted seat on an elite council that decides who may cross her town's heavily guarded borders.To the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time. To the west, it's twenty years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness.When Odile recognizes two visitors she wasn't supposed to see, she realizes that the parents of her friend Edme have been escorted across the border from the future, on a mourning tour, to view their son while he's still alive in Odile's present. Edme-who is brilliant, funny, and the only person to truly know Odile-is going to die. Sworn to secrecy to preserve the timel

In 1971 Deirdre Bair was a journalist and recently minted PhD who managed to secure access to Nobel Prize-winning author Samuel Beckett. He agreed that she could write his biography despite never havi

What was it really like to take the LNER's Art Deco Coronation streamliner from King's Cross to Edinburgh, to cross the Atlantic by the SS Normandie, to fly with Imperial Airways from Southampton to S

Returning to the UK in September 2010 after serving in Iraq as the political adviser to the top American general, Emma Sky felt no sense of homecoming. She soon found herself back in the Middle East t

1991. A young man is mesmerized by the rolling coverage of Desert Storm. Forging sick notes to avoid work and feigning reasons to avoid his girlfriend, he gradually destroys his whole life. Then he me

Returning to the UK in September 2010 after serving in Iraq as the political adviser to the top American general, Emma Sky felt no sense of homecoming. She soon found herself back in the Middle East t

After moving to Los Angeles, Susan Orlean became fascinated by a mysterious local crime that has gone unsolved since it was carried out on the morning of 29 April 1986: who set fire to the Los Angeles

India was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, with vast riches to be exploited and vast numbers of people to be subjugated. How better to achieve these aims than by building a rail netw

Vespasian has been made Governor of Africa. Nero, Rome's increasingly unpredictable Emperor, orders him to journey with his most trusted men to a far-flung empire in Africa to free 200 Roman citizens

Vespasian has been made Governor of Africa. Nero, Rome's increasingly unpredictable Emperor, orders him to journey with his most trusted men to a far-flung empire in Africa to free 200 Roman citiz

"India was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire. There were vast riches to be exploited and vast numbers of people to be subjugated. How better to achieve these aims than by building a rail ne

A senior Private Eye journalist charts the last 50 years of political lies -- and gets to the bottom of the "post-truth" era

From ancient Egypt to the Tudors to the Nazis, the film industry has often defined how we think of the past. But how much of what you see on the screen is true? And does it really matter if filmmakers