Libby Purves – författare

This lively selection brings together journalist and broadcaster Libby Purves’ experiences as journalist, parent, governor and former pupil of half a dozen assorted schools from Bangkok to Tunbridge Wells, displaying her eclectic and provocative opinions and ideas on teaching and learning. This collection of the best of her writing in the Times Educational Supplement covers - sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes mockingly - everything from national policy to the eccentricities of headteachers and the limitations of IT.

Education professionals over the years have received her outsider view with enthusiasm, laughter, inspiration and occasional fury. From ministerial madness to the pitfalls of uniform and the vagaries of teenagers, this book is dedicated to the amusement of a cadre of professionals Libby once planned to join, until she lost her nerve. It is dedicated, with thanks and admiration, to all teachers.

This lively selection brings together journalist and broadcaster Libby Purves’ experiences as journalist, parent, governor and former pupil of half a dozen assorted schools from Bangkok to Tunbridge Wells, displaying her eclectic and provocative opinions and ideas on teaching and learning. This collection of the best of her writing in the Times Educational Supplement covers - sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes mockingly - everything from national policy to the eccentricities of headteachers and the limitations of IT.

Education professionals over the years have received her outsider view with enthusiasm, laughter, inspiration and occasional fury. From ministerial madness to the pitfalls of uniform and the vagaries of teenagers, this book is dedicated to the amusement of a cadre of professionals Libby once planned to join, until she lost her nerve. It is dedicated, with thanks and admiration, to all teachers.

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.

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?

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 Tom''s wishes, she determines to find out more about her son''s 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.

Sheila Harrison always looks forward to the descent of the summer visitors onto ''Seafret'', her tall brick house right on the front at Blythney, in East Anglia. She loves the way her spare bedrooms are full, from June to September, with successive waves of children - schoolfriends of her own three and the waifs and strays sent by the Country Hosts'' Association.But Sheila is not prepared for the upheaval caused by one young girl, Anansi, who arrives from a background that Sheila can only guess at. Urban, streetwise, knowing beyond her years, Anansi refuses to be patronised by Sheila''s well-meaning attempts to make her feel at home. She looks at Sheila, her family and friends, with eyes unclouded by familiarity - and drops a bombshell. Even when the dust has settled, summers will never be the same again.

Kit Milcourt - impatient, quirky, idealistic and brilliant - has been a climber, diver in exotic waters and affluent young city banker. Now, because of his beloved Anna, he is a teacher. Glumly mediocre Sandmarsh High School, reeling under assaults from Inspectors and its own unpromising pupils, is hard put to contain his maverick ideas. Year Seven, on the other hand, love them. Only the soothing presence of Anna keeps the peace.But Anna can''t guard her erratic husband on the school trip: instead a far darker, more malevolent staffroom presence crosses Europe and discovers what Kit has secretly planned for the children amid the dim alleys of winter Venice. But children are unpredictable too, and things move rapidly beyond both teachers'' control.Between farce and tragedy the resulting events swiftly change Kit''s and Anna''s live in unthinkable ways, strain a great love to the limit and open a dark chasm into the past.

A story about coming of age in 1970s Oxford. Politics and the Pill. Pot and poetry. Glamrock and groupies. The way we were. Love isn''t 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 Sally''s life for many years. She writes lyrics for Max''s 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.

A perceptive novel from our favourite chronicler of the dilemmas of modern family life.Catherine and Caroline, Toby and Mark were globetrotting siblings: British ''diplo-brats'', whose childhood homes lay in Italy or Israel, France or Washington DC – wherever their father was posted at the time. But all that was years ago. Now Catherine is approaching middle-age, married to a life of cheeseparing selflessness looking after young offenders on a chilly organic farm; Mark is a prim supermarket executive, Caroline a wealthy Kensington wife, and Toby – well, Toby is a problem. The joker in the pack. He always was. Amid growing tensions, marriage-fatigue and unspoken resentments, the apparent tragedy of Toby''s disappearance jolts his sisters and brother into making angry, anxious journeys: from California to Flanders, back in time and into their own hearts.

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.

The Andersons are a military family with honours and traditions stretching back two hundred years. When the second Iraq war breaks out, it is only natural that their newest generations should be represented in the ranks of British officers: at 24, Lieutenant Susie Anderson delays her wedding to handsome fellow-officer Callum and joins her regiment on the hot sands of Kuwait. Brother Francis, meanwhile, continues his cabaret career as Madam Fanny Fantoni, drag chanteuse and net-stockinged vamp, with a stinging line in repartee and the most remarkable falsetto top C in Clapham. As the neighbours agree, it must be terribly difficult for their poor parents, especially the General. Real difficulties come, though, when Callum comes home injured, altered and bitter, and Susie and her family feel as though their lives are shattered. The solution to this tangle comes from the most unlikely source of all.Set against a background of desert war, seedy clubs, a hippie sailing-ship and quiet English village life, Libby Purves'' latest novel is a commentary on changing social roles, the nature of courage and the futility of prejudice.