Sailing to an Island

Literature & Fiction

Richard Murphy

Poetry

Faber and Faber

In The Joy of Tax, tax campaigner Richard Murphy challenges almost every idea you have about tax. For him, tax is fundamentally about the ideas that shape the sort of society we want to live in, not technicalities. His intention is to demonstrate that there is indeed a joy in tax, and by embracing it we can create a fairer society and change the world for the better. Tax has been a feature of human society for a very long time. Almost no one gives tax a good press even though, as Richard Murphy argues, it has been fundamental to the development of democracy the world over. Whilst we may not like tax very much, in contrast it is clear that we really do like the public services which governments provide. So much so, in fact, that for most of the last 300 years, people have been more than happy for governments to run deficits by spending more than they raise in taxation. 2008 apparently changed all that. The issues of debt, deficits, cuts and austerity have dominated the political agenda ever since. Virtually every aspect of the government's finances and how to rearrange them in the forlorn hope of balancing the books has been discussed in great detail. Despite that, there has been almost no real discussion during this period about what tax is for and how it contributes to the creation of the society we aspire to.

The Joy of Tax

Business & Money

Accounting

Transworld Publishing

Collection of poems inspired by the songs of the Mirror Wall in Sri Lanka

Mirror Wall

Merlin

Henry Sullivan has spent seventeen years renovating houses for wealthy women in Los Angeles. To distance himself from his clients, and the intimate environments he works in, he has devised a set of rules to keep him out of trouble. Over the course of one very complicated summer, he begins breaking those rules when he takes on the houses and the lives of two very different women who used to be friends. Henry, an unconventional craftsman with a reputation that precedes him, falls for both women, and quickly finds himself erecting an emotional house of cards as he attempts to complete both jobs while piecing together the mysterious events that ended the women’s friendship.Confessions of a Contractor breaks new ground, knocking down the walls of the American home, uncovering the way people behave behind closed doors―and the secrets they shelter within. Candid, amusing, and hugely entertaining, this novel reveals that a good contractor can fix just about any home, but no contractor will ever be able to fix a homeowner.

Confessions of a Contractor

Humor & Satire

BRILLIANCE AUDIO ^

<p>Carlo Scarpa worked on the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona intermittently between 1957 and 1975. It is perhaps his most important project. His work there draws on all his remarkable skills. It demonstrates how to work creatively within a building which already possesses a complex history. It is a magnificent example of his highly personal language of architecture, not least his incredible eye for detail and mastery of the crafting of materials. And it contains a museum exhibition which is as radical and timeless today as the day it opened in 1964 and has served as an inspiration to museum designers ever since. His most extraordinary achievement is where all these themes coincide in the astonishing display of the equestrian statue of Cangrande, perhaps the most remarkable setting for a single work of art ever made. This book analyses not just Scarpa's work as we find it today, and in great detail, but also introduces the reader to the complex history of the building as well as sequences of Scarpa's own highly revealing drawings; witnesses to a brilliant curiosity and holistic approach to design where the art and architecture are completely complimentary. </p>
<p> Richard Murphy surveyed the whole building in 1986, and later interviewed many of Scarpa's collaborators, including his craftsmen, and analysed all Scarpa's drawings leading to three exhibitions and a book published in 1990. However, Carlo Scarpa and Castelvecchio Revisited is in many ways unrecognizable from its predecessor. It is neither a second edition nor is it a completely new analysis. It has started with the 1990 publication but the format is larger and 198 pages have grown to 384. Almost twice as many Scarpa drawings have been selected (some were unknown in 1990), and this time they are printed in colour with a reference system to guide the reader to details within them.</p>

Carlo Scarpa and Castelvecchio Revisited

Breakfast Mission Publishing

The Mirror Wall

Genre Fiction

Bloodaxe Books, Newcastle upon Tyne

The Architect's Architect: Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Arts & Photography

Murray Grigor

Architecture

Bellew Publishing Co. Ltd.

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Books by Richard Murphy