"Suppose that everything we think we know about the Victorians is wrong." So begins Inventing the Victorians by Matthew Sweet, a compact and mind-bending whirlwind tour through the soul of the nineteenth century, and a round debunking of our assumptions about it. The Victorians have been victims of the "the enormous condescension of posterity," in the historian E. P. Thompson's phrase. Locked in the drawing room, theirs was an age when, supposedly, existence was stultifying, dank, and over-furnished, and when behavior conformed so rigorously to proprieties that the repressed results put Freud into business. We think we have the Victorians pegged-as self-righteous, imperialist, racist, materialist, hypocritical and, worst of all, earnest. Oh how wrong we are, argues Matthew Sweet in this highly entertaining, provocative, and illuminating look at our great, and great-great, grandparents. In this, the year of the centenary of Queen Victoria's death, Sweet forces us to think again about her century, entombed in our minds by Dickens, the Elephant Man, Sweeney Todd, and by images of unfettered capitalism and grinding poverty. Sweet believes not only that we're wrong about the Victorians but profoundly indebted to them. In ways we have been slow to acknowledge, their age and our own remain closely intertwined. The Victorians invented the theme part, the shopping mall, the movies, the penny arcade, the roller coaster, the crime novel, and the sensational newspaper story. Sweet also argues that our twenty-first century smugness about how far we have evolved is misplaced. The Victorians were less racist than we are, less religious, less violent, and less intolerant. Far from being an outcaste, Oscar Wilde was a fairly typical Victorian man; the love that dared not speak its name was declared itself fairly openly. In 1868 the first international cricket match was played between an English team and an Australian team composed entirely of aborigines. The Victorians loved sensation, novelty, scandal, weekend getaways, and the latest conveniences (by 1869, there were image-capable telegraphs; in 1873 a store had a machine that dispensed milk to after-hours' shoppers). Does all this sound familiar? As Sweet proves in this fascinating, eye-opening book, the reflection we find in the mirror of the nineteenth century is our own. We inhabit buildings built by the Victorians; some of us use their sewer system and ride on the railways they built. We dismiss them because they are the age against whom we have defined our own. In brilliant style, Inventing the Victorians shows how much we have been missing.

Inventing the Victorians: What We Think We Know About Them and Why We're Wrong

History

Sweet, Matthew

Europe

St.Martin's Press

If you thought the British film industry was a genteel, conservative sort of business, then think again. This is a history of home-grown movies that includes the scandals, the suicides, the immolations and the contract killings - the product of thousands of conversations with veteran film-makers. Here you'll meet the actress who remembers the night in 1920 when her father cheated her out of a Hollywood contract; the screenwriter who, one night in 1924, watched his film idols snort cocaine from an illuminated glass dance floor on the bank of the Thames at Maidenhead; the movie columnist of the 1930s whose sense of job satisfaction increased with every writ that landed on her editor's desk; the model who escaped Soho's gangsters to become the queen of the nudie flicks; the genteel Scottish comedienne who, at the age of fifty-five, reinvented herself as a star of exploitation cinema, and fondly remembers 'the one where I drilled in people's heads and ate their brains'. A Babel of voices from the lost worlds of British cinema.

Shepperton Babylon : The Lost Worlds of British Cinema

Humor & Entertainment

Television

Faber&Faber

Set in Nebraska in the '90s, Will, a bit of a social outcast, and Mike, the popular football player, figure out that there is more to life than what high school has taught them. Days after graduation they explore their relationship and begin to ask themselves where their lives begin. Based on the album by Matthew Sweet, Girlfriend is a pop/rock musical for everyone who's lived in a small town and feels for their first love.

Girlfriend

Literature & Fiction

Almond, Todd

Dramas & Plays

Concord Theatricals

12 of his best songs arranged for piano and voice with a separate guitar section. Songs include: Devil with the Green Eyes * Divine Intervention * Girlfriend * I've Been Waiting * Someone to Pull the Trigger * The Ugly Truth * and more.

Matthew Sweet: Altered Beast/Girlfriend

Arts & Photography

Music

HAL LEONARD CORPORATION

Operation Chaos is an untold Cold War story: how the CIA tried to infiltrate a radical group of U.S. military deserters, an audiobook that leads from a bizarre political cult to the heart of the Washington establishmentStockholm, 1968. A thousand American deserters and draft-resisters are arriving to escape the war in Vietnam. They’re young, they’re radical, and they want to start a revolution. Some of them even want to take the fight to America. The Swedes treat them like pop stars―but the CIA is determined to stop all that.It’s a job for the deep-cover men of Operation Chaos and their allies―agents who know how to infiltrate organizations and destroy them from inside. Within months, the GIs have turned their fire on one another. Then the interrogations begin―to discover who among them has been brainwashed, Manchurian Candidate-style, to assassinate their leaders.When Matthew Sweet began investigating this story, he thought the madness was over. He was wrong. Instead, he became the confidant of an eccentric and traumatized group of survivors―each with his own theory about the traitors in their midst. All Sweet has to do is find out the truth. And stay sane. Which may be difficult when one of his interviewees accuses him of being a CIA agent and another suspects that he’s part of a secret plot by the British royal family to start World War III. By that time, he’s deep in the labyrinth of truths and half-truths, wondering where reality ends and delusion begins.

Operation Chaos: The Vietnam Deserters Who Fought the CIA, the Brainwashers, and Themselves

Americas

MacMillan Audio

Humor

Picador

Operation Chaos: The Vietnam Deserters Who Fought the CIA, the Brainwashers, and Themselves (My First Touch and Find) [Feb 08, 2018] Sweet, Matthew

An untold Cold War story: how the CIA tried to infiltrate a radical group of U.S. military deserters, a tale that leads from a bizarre political cult to the heart of the Washington establishment
Stockholm, 1968. A thousand American deserters and draft-resisters are arriving to escape the war in Vietnam. They’re young, they’re radical, and they want to start a revolution. Some of them even want to take the fight to America. The Swedes treat them like pop stars―but the CIA is determined to stop all that.
It’s a job for the deep-cover men of Operation Chaos and their allies―agents who know how to infiltrate organizations and destroy them from inside. Within months, the GIs have turned their fire on one another. Then the interrogations begin―to discover who among them has been brainwashed, Manchurian Candidate-style, to assassinate their leaders.
When Matthew Sweet began investigating this story, he thought the madness was over. He was wrong. Instead, he became the confidant of an eccentric and traumatized group of survivors―each with his own theory about the traitors in their midst. 
All Sweet has to do is find out the truth. And stay sane. Which may be difficult when one of his interviewees accuses him of being a CIA agent and another suspects that he’s part of a secret plot by the British royal family to start World War III. By that time, he’s deep in the labyrinth of truths and half-truths, wondering where reality ends and delusion begins.

Henry Holt and Co.

Doctor Who: The Target Storybook

Product Description 
In this exciting collection you’ll find all-new stories spinning off from some of your favourite Doctor Who moments across the history of the series. Learn what happened next, what went on before, and what occurred off-screen in an inventive selection of sequels, side-trips, foreshadowings and first-hand accounts – and look forward too, with a brand new adventure for the Thirteenth Doctor.\nEach story expands in thrilling ways upon aspects of Doctor Who’s enduring legend. With contributions from show luminaries past and present – including Colin Baker, Matthew Waterhouse, Vinay Patel, Joy Wilkinson and Terrance Dicks – The Target Storybook is a once-in-a-lifetime tour around the wonders of the Whoniverse. 
 About the Author 
 Terrance Dicks became Script Editor of 
Doctor Who in 1968, co-writing Patrick Troughton&#x2019;s classic final serial, 
The War Games, and editing the show throughout the entire Jon Pertwee era to 1974. He wrote many iconic episodes and serials for the show after, including Tom Baker's first episode as the Fourth Doctor, 
Robot; 
Horror at Fang Rock in 1977; 
State of Decay in 1980; and the 20th anniversary special, 
The Five Doctors in 1983. Terrance novelised over sixty of the original 
Doctor Who stories for Target books, including classics like 
Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen and 
Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, inspiring a generation of children to become readers and writers. He died in August 2019, only weeks before the publication of his final Doctor Who short story, &#x2018;Save Yourself&#x2019;, in 
The Target Storybook.\nMatthew Sweet presents the BBC radio programmes 
Free Thinking, 
Sound of Cinema and 
The Philosopher&#x2019;s Arms. He has judged the Costa Book Award, edited 
The Woman in White for Penguin Classics and was Series Consultant on the Showtime/Sky Atlantic series 
Penny Dreadful. His books include 
The West End Front and 
Operation Chaos: The Vietnam Deserters Who Fought the CIA, the Brainwashers and Themselves.\nSimon Guerrier is co-author of 
Doctor Who: The Women Who Lived and 
Whographica for BBC Books, and has written countless 
Doctor Who books, comics, audio plays and documentaries. He has been a guest on 
Front Row and 
The Infinite Monkey Cage on Radio 4 and, with his brother Thomas, makes films and documentaries &#x2013; most recently 
Victorian Queens of Ancient Egypt for Radio 3.\nColin Baker is an English actor who became known for playing Paul Merroney in the BBC drama series 
The Brothers from 1974 to 1976. He went on to play the sixth incarnation of the Doctor in the TV series 
Doctor Who. He reprised the role for the 1993 Children in Need special, 
Dimensions in Time, and the 1989 stage show 
Doctor Who &#x2013; The Ultimate Adventure. He has also voiced the Doctor for over 140 
Doctor Who audio stories for Big Finish Productions.\nMatthew Waterhouse played Adric, companion to Tom Baker and Peter Davison's Doctors from 1980 to 1982. Since then, he has worked extensively as an actor in theatre. His published writing includes a memoir, 
Blue Box Boy, three novels and a book of stories. Recently he's appeared in episodes of the audio version of 
Dark Shadows and numerous 
Doctor Who audio projects, including an award-winning one-man play, 
Doctor Who: A Full Life, and a forthcoming quartet of new adventures starring alongside Tom Baker.\nJenny T. Colgan has written numerous bestselling novels as Jenny Colgan, which have sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide, been translated into 25 languages, and won both the Melissa Nathan Award and Romantic Novel of the Year 2013. Aged 11, she won a national fan competition to meet the Doctor and was mistaken for a boy by Peter Davison.\nJacqueline Rayner is the author of over 40 books and audio plays, including number one bestseller 
The Stone Rose, the highest-selling 
Doctor Who novel of all time, and two 
Doctor Who &#x2018;Quick Reads&#x2019; for World Book Day. She lives in Essex with her husband and twin s

Guerrier, Simon

Dicks,Terrance

Literary

Penguin Group UK

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