Neil Powell – författare

Benjamin Britten was the greatest English composer of the twentieth century and one of the outstanding musicians of his age. Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, in 1913, Britten was the youngest child of a dentist father and amateur musician mother. After studying at the Royal College of Music, he became a vital part of London’s creative and intellectual life during the 1930s, collaborating with W. H. Auden and meeting his lifelong partner, the tenor Peter Pears. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Britten and Pears were already in America, earning a precarious living as freelance musicians before re-crossing the Atlantic by ship in the perilous days of 1942.But the east coast of England was where Britten, as he himself said, belonged: this was where he returned to write his most famous opera, Peter Grimes, and – with Pears and Eric Crozier – to found the Aldeburgh Festival in 1948. In the years that followed, his worldwide reputation grew steadily, helped by a busy schedule of international tours and, for many, crowned by the extraordinary success of his War Requiem. Meanwhile, his festival went from strength to strength, its progress symbolised by the opening of Snape Maltings Concert Hall in 1967.Britten was a mass of paradoxes: a solitary, introspective thinker who came to ebullient life in the company of young people, for whom he composed some of his most memorable works; a man of the political left who was on the friendliest terms with members of the royal family; a composer inspired by some of the twentieth century’s deepest preoccupations who combined innovation with a profound understanding of musical tradition. Devoted to his friends, protégés and fellow musicians, he was, above all, someone who lived for music.Neil Powell’s book is the landmark biography for Britten’s centenary year: a subtle and moving portrait of a brilliant, complex and ultimately loveable man.

Neil Powell fuses a critical look at language with an exploration of the political and existential problems facing humankind... The Storyteller is tired of telling stories about Love, God and Beauty. With the invention of Eric Crawford, an English teacher at Davenport College, he explores what is required to tell new stories. As a result, a tantalising world of freedom beckons.  This encompasses Eric’s teaching, family and romantic life, the explosive relationship he has with troubled student, David Spurling, a protest movement about the role of Art, and a violent crime on college grounds. The Storyteller’s control of Eric’s life conversely makes the Storyteller realise the power language has over him. Reminding him that language is a public medium, not the exclusive tool of an authority or author. A stylistically innovative novel, at turns both a philosophy and black comedy, The Office of Future Storytelling, examines the relationship of language to individual identity and freedom. It argues that the stories we need are those which demonstrate our unequivocal connection to the world.

The 2,500 year old Yi-jing or I Ching, translated as the 'Book of Changes', is an ancient Chinese work of divination and prophesy. Dating from the 4th century BCE, it is traditionally consulted by performing complex routines of dropping bundles of dried grass stalks. The particular patterns formed when six stalks are dropped are represented by 64 symbols called hexagrams, which show every possible combination of broken and unbroken stalks. The Book of Changes tells how to interpret the hexagrams to decide which is the best approach or action in a given situation. I Chingfeatures the 64 hexagrams and their successive interpretations, including the Judgment, written by King Wen in the 12th Century BCE, The Commentary and The Image (both attributed to Confucius, 6–5th Century BCE), and The Lines, written by King Wen’s son. Accompanying The Lines are present-day interpretative texts. In a handy pocket edition with 75 illustrations, this book will allow anyone fascinated by the traditional philosophies of the East to follow in the footsteps of Confucius and use the I Ching to predict their destiny.

Varför startas krig och hur skapas fred? Det är fundamentala frågor som forskare länge har ägnat sig åt. Därför vet vi i dag en hel del både om krigens orsaker och om fredens möjligheter. I "Krig/fred. Riksbankens Jubileumsfonds årsbok 2016/2017" presenterar forskare från det human- och samhällsvetenskapliga fältet sina resultat. Det handlar bland annat om hur demokratiseringsprocesser, flyktingar, klimat och åldrande påverkar konfliktnivån, hur stabil fred kan byggas i en värld som trots alla konflikter har blivit fredligare, hur kriget påverkar de drabbade i generationer samt hur krig i dag faktiskt ska förstås. Boken avslutas med ett samtal mellan experterna Hans Blix, Katarina Engberg och Pierre Schori om fredens utmaningar i vår tid.

Neil Powell has been a dog handler for more than forty years and the dogs in his charge (breeds including the Alsatian, bloodhound, retriever and Labrador) have participated in every kind of search and rescue: from daring mountaineering rescues in the Mourne Mountains to helping to find victims of the Lockerbie bombing, from training the first Drowned Victim Recovery Dogs in Ireland to preparing two rescue Labradors to sniff out pirate DVDs for the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America).Neil and his dogs have participated in countless searches and saved many lives in Ireland, the United Kingdom and worldwide. Both heroic working dogs and much loved family pets, all the dogs in the book have their own quirks and personalities, but it’s their remarkable bond with Neil that forms the heart of this book. Search Dogs & Me is a heartwarming, inspiring and beautifully told story that proves once more the extraordinary things that man and dog can achieve by working together.