A collection of texts that explores the excitement, tensions and injustices of urban life. A variety of texts - including extracts from novels, newspaper articles, poems and short stories - make up each of the five themed sections: Five cities; This landscape, these people, Penthouse and pavement; Gangs, groups, friends, foes and Hear me speak. The collection include texts by Bill Bryson, Jeanette Winterson, Beverley Naidoo, Jon McGregor and Robert Harris.

 

This book is part of a book series called Cambridge Collections .

There are 240 pages in this book. This book was published 2009 by Cambridge University Press .

Mike Gould is a former Head of English and a university Lecturer in English and Education, who has written over 150 books for students and teachers in the UK and overseas.

This book has the following chapters: 1. Five cities: Tokyo, Graham Marks; India: A Million Mutinies Now, V. S. Naipaul; Pompeii, Robert Harris; The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson; London, William Blake; Composed upon Westminster Bridge, William Wordsworth; Activities; 2. Spilled Water, Sally Grindley; No Turning Back, Beverley Naidoo; The Ruined Maid, Thomas Hardy; Estates, Lynsey Hanley; A Home from Home, George Alagiah; This Landscape, These People, Zulfikhar Ghose; Entering the City, Tony Connor; A Journey Back to My Hostage Hell, Brian Keenan; Activites; 3. The Railway Children, ActionAid; Sao Paolo - City of the Future, Rory Carroll; The Missing, Andrew O'Hagan; The Lost Sewer Children, Lutaa Badamkhand; Little Dorritt, Charles Dickens; Embankment at Night, Before the War, D. H. Lawrence; If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Jon McGregor; Activities; 4. Gangs, groups, friends and foes: Tanglewreck, Jeanette Winterson; Piper, Meg Harper; The Well-dressed Girl Gangs of Paris, Adam Sage; The Whisper, Bali Rai; The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton; Box, Mark Powell; The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini; Activities; 5. Hear me speak: Harassment, Frederick Williams; Little Soldier, Bernard Ashley; Ex-gang Member Opens LA Airwaves to Street Voices, Andrew Glazer; Why Paris is Burning, Amir Taheri; Stuart: A Life Backwards, Alexander Masters; The Centre of the Universe, Paul Durcan; Activities; Notes on authors; Acknowledgements.