The Enchanted Places

Now the subject of major Disney film starring Ewan McGregor, this is Christopher Robin in his own words. Millions of readers throughout the world have grown up with the stories and verses of A. A. Milne; have envied Christopher Robin in his enchanted world; laughed at Pooh - a bear of very little brain - and worried about Piglet and his problems. But what was it like to be the small boy with the long hair, smock and wellington boots? At the age of fifty-four Christopher Milne recalled his early childhood, remembering 'the enchanted places' where he used to play in Sussex. The Hundred Acre Wood, Galleon's Lap and Poohsticks Bridge existed not only in the stories and poems but were part of the real world surrounding the Milne home at Cotchford Farm. With deftness and artistry Milne draws a memorable portrait of his father, and an evocative reconstruction of a happy childhood in London and Sussex. The Enchanted Places is a story told with humour and modesty.

The need to outgrow one's childhood influences and establish an individual identity is common to us all, but for Christopher Milne it was an especially difficult experience in view of the unique problems he faced as the son of A. A. Milne. In this warm, honest, and often amusing autobiography, he traces the path which, after several wrong turnings, ultimately led him and his wife, Lesley, to establish the successful Harbour Bookshop in Dartmouth - a path which led not to spectacular achievements, but to modest success and contentment. Wise, humble, and philosophical, The Path Through the Trees is Christopher Milne's search as a young man for his own place in life, told with the same sincerity and vividness that distinguished his first book, The Enchanted Places. '. . . it is readily, and with the utmost pleasure, I give this alpha-plus.' Bookseller '. . . it has great charm, and is most enjoyable.' Daily Telegraph 'An irresistibly attractive candour informs this book.' Economist

“The Enchanted wrapped its beautiful and terrible fingers around me from the first page and refused to let go after the last. A wondrous book that finds transcendence in the most unlikely of places. . . . So dark yet so exquisite.” — Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night Circus An astonishing and redemptive novel for readers of Alice Sebold and Toni Morrison, told from the point of view of a convict whose magical interpretations of prison life allow him to find absolute joy while isolated from the rest of humanity and a female investigator who experiences her own personal salvation in her work as a death penalty investigator. This is an enchanted place. Others don’t see it but I do. The enchanted place is a high security prison and is relayed through the eyes of an inmate on death row who escapes his surroundings by immersing himself in books, and by re-imagining the world that surrounds him. Instead of focusing on the cloudy medical vines that snake across the floor, empty and waiting for the warden’s finger to press the red buttons, our narrator sees golden horses as they run deep under the earth, heat flowing like molten metal from their backs. A woman and fallen priest haunt the prison halls--an unnamed female investigator only known as the Lady who is known for discovering information relating to soon-to-be executed inmates’ backgrounds that can be used to overturn their sentences. She is put on the case of a man named York and as she digs into his past, the experience brings up ghosts of her own and threatens to destroy everything that she has come to know about the enchanted place. The Enchanted is a magical novel about redemption, the humanity that can lie within what is monstrous, and the human capacity to transcend and survive.

Most of Fitzgerald's novels and stories start as a romance of love or a fantasy of extravagant glamour, but as the settings and the interplay between characters and the places they live are carefully examined, an emblem-like quality is discovered in their deceptively simple configuration. The first full-length study of Fitzgerald's unparalleled representation of Jazz Age America, this book analyzes an essential, but relatively uncultivated part of the artistry in Fitzgerald's fiction: his use of domestic and urban settings. Fitzgerald's use of these settings as a rich source of imagery objectifies social trends and individual desires. Each setting is no longer just a locale, or a site for a story's action, but a sophisticated device, an integral part of the story designed to convey a unique vision of life in a profound way. Such parabolic quality, the author argues, gives Fitzgerald's fiction enormous possibilities of temporal span and multiple situations, as well as a microcosmic capacity for containing the complexities of reality.

Goodbye Christopher Robin: A.A. Milne and the Making of Winnie-the-Pooh is drawn from Ann Thwaite’s Whitbread Award-winning biography of A. A. Milne , one of England’s most successful writers. After serving in the First World War, Milne wrote a number of well-received plays, but his greatest triumph came when he created Winnie-the-Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore and, of course, Christopher Robin, the adventurous little boy based on his own son. Goodbye Christopher Robin inspired the film directed by Simon Curtis and starring Domhnall Gleeson, Margot Robbie and Kelly Macdonald. It offers the reader a glimpse into the relationship between Milne and the real-life Christopher Robin, whose toys inspired the magical world of the Hundred Acre Wood. Goodbye Christopher Robin is a story of celebrity, a story of both the joys and pains of success and, ultimately, the story of how one man created a series of enchanting tales that brought hope and comfort to an England ravaged by the First World War.

The Hundred Acre Wood in the Ashdown Forest, Sussex, is under attack from a new road, but an unlikely group, inspired unconsciously by Winnie the Pooh, fights back as true NIMBYs. Touches lightly on the themes of life, death, nature, the human spirit and meaning.

For more than 70 years, Winnie-the-Pooh and the other inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood have delighted readers. Now, that most enchanted of settings takes center stage as a spectacular pop-up book. With the punch-out, stand-up characters, young children can act out their favorite tales from the Milne classics or create their own stories. Full color.

A New York Times Bestseller This charmingly illustrated book explores the real landscape of the Ashdown Forest, A. A. Milne's inspiration for the Hundred Acre Wood, the magical realm in which Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends lived and played.