Neil Bowen

When he gets home from visiting his new best friend, a young boy finds a letter mysteriously tucked into the pocket of his coat. The letter is his first encounter with romantic love. And, perhaps, his last. The notes a middle-aged teacher receives out-of-the -blue are brutally to-the-point and increasingly threatening. Meanwhile a young girl faces a false accusation and learns something bitter about class and power, while a boy not much older than her travels North by train to meet the mother he'd always been told was dead. Years later, a wife hits on an innovative money-making idea while an anxious newly qualified teacher struggles to find any ideas at all as to how to teach 'Macbeth' to a difficult class and an older colleague puzzles about what to do with a boy who demands to attach a tail to his school uniform. Years earlier an auxiliary policeman travels by motorbike to arrest a German pilot captured after crashing in a Welsh farmer's field. This debut collection features a host of characters trapped somehow in their lives. When some kind of opportunity for liberation opens up they have choices to make, choices on which a whole life balances. There are comic, satirical stories drawn from a career in teaching and tender stories of family life and about growing up. Some stories are presented in conventional forms, while others bend and stretch the short story or pare it down to only the absolute essentials.

Written expressly for GCSE students and their teachers, this innovative new guide features detailed critical commentaries on each chapter, essays on major and minor characters and on a range of key themes. In addition, The Art of Literature, Volume 2, includes exploration of other fundamental aspects of Stevenson's novella, such as settings and the Gothic as a genre. Written in an erudite, but lively and accessible style, this critical and revision guide is a springboard to more sophisticated appreciation of Stevenson's novella and to the top GCSE grades.

Undoubtedly the funniest play you'll ever watch, study or teach, Jez Butterworth's tragicomedy 'Jerusalem' is 'unarguably one of the best dramas of the twenty-first century, ' according to the Guardian. It's a play that has received almost universal acclaim for its riotous depiction of country life in twenty-first century England. The Art of Drama, volume 4 provides much needed critical support for teachers and students brave enough to study Butterworth's extraordinary play. Featuring sections on stagecraft, major characters and key scenes, our critical guide is a springboard to richer appreciation of the play and to the highest examination grades

Written expressly for students and teachers, Volume 19 in our series of critical guides features our hallmark sharp critical essays as well as lots of creative ideas for teaching and study of these poems. A springboard to greater appreciation of poetry, The Art of Poetry will help you to reach higher exam grades.

Written expressly for bright students and their teachers, The Art of Poetry, volume 18, provides sharp and engaging critical essays on each of the poems from the Edexcel Time & Place cluster. In addition the book features a rich range of teaching and revision ideas. If you wish to reach a top grade in your poetry, this book is a must read.

This new schools edition includes the full text of Stevenson's classic tale of Gothic Horror as well as a critical introduction and a section of teaching and revision ideas.

Volume 17 in The Art of Poetry series offers astute and engaging close readings of 21 poems from the CCEA GCSE poetry anthology. In addition to analytical essays on each poem, the book features innovative teaching and revision ideas. Whether you're studying the CCEA poems or are just interested in lucid analysis of poetry, The Art of Poetry is a springboard to higher grades and a greater appreciation of this art form

This revised and expanded version of our companion book to The Art of Poetry 15, is a concise anthology, featuring Pre-C20th poems chosen especially with KS3 pupils in mind. Starting with Sappho, Ovid and Dante, the anthology takes pupils chronologically on a journey through key developments in poetry up to the cusp of the present day. On the way, pupils will come across some familiar names, with poems by the likes of Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickinson, but there will be plenty of new discoveries too. Some of the poems will certainly present a challenge for this age group, but these are leavened with more accessible ones. In The Art of Poetry, volume 16, pupils will encounter poems about heroism and love, ghosts and giants, villains and monsters, romance and gunfights, identity and friendship, animals and outlaws, and much more besides.