Nicholas Blincoe

"A fascinating family and social history and a savage indictment of the role of child slavery in the growth of the Industrial Revolution," Catherine Taylor, author of The Stirrings: A Memoir in Northern TimeWe all think we know the tale. As a child, Charles Dickens was forced to work in a mouldering Thames-side blacking factory, an event that scarred him for life and inspired Oliver Twist. Except that''s only part of the story. In reality, Dickens appropriated the stories of foundlings and orphans - including Robert Blincoe, whose memoir supplied the source material for his great novel of childhood. In Oliver Twist & Me, novelist Nicholas Blincoe presents a dual biography of Dickens and his great-great-great-grandfather Robert, showing how the story of an orphan took off in different directions, helping Dickens project himself as an inimitable literary one-off, just as Robert''s memoir of a workhouse boy gave a voice to the masses.From London and Kent to the factories of Manchester, Blincoe retraces the steps of both men, along the way discovering the Camden workhouse that inspired Dickens and revisiting the great stage musical. His journeys with his family and his dog Fredo lead him to an affectionate reassessment of a beloved classic, while also revealing how Dickens shaped the story of his lonely childhood to suppress his debt to his family, hide his affairs and, as his career ignited, abandon the people who had helped him. By playing off the lives of a working-class hero and a classic author, Oliver Twist & Me reveals Dickens - and his world - as they have never been seen before.

The town of Bethlehem carries so many layers of meaning--some ancient, some mythical, some religious--that it feels like an unreal city, even to the people who call it home. Today, the city is hemmed in by a wall and surrounded by forty-one Israeli settlements and hostile settlers and soldiers. The population is undergoing such enormous strains it is close to falling apart. Any town with an eleven-thousand-year history has to be robust, but Bethlehem may soon go the way of Salonica or Constantinople: the physical site might survive, but the long thread winding back to the ancient past will have snapped, and the city risks losing everything that makes it unique. Still, for many, Bethlehem remains the "little town" of the Christmas song. Nicholas Blincoe will tell the history of the famous little town, through the visceral experience of living there, taking readers through its stone streets and desert wadis, its monasteries, aqueducts and orchards, showing the city from every angle and era. Inevitably, a portrait of Bethlehem will shed light on one of the world's most intractable political problems. Bethlehem is a much-loved Palestinian city, a source of pride and wealth but also a beacon of co-existence in a region where hopelessness, poverty and violence has become the norm. Bethlehem could light the way to a better future, but if the city is lost then the chances of an end to the Israel-Palestine conflict will be lost with it.