Manchester by Paul Dobraszczyk
What is Manchester? Moving far from the glitzy shopping districts and architectural showpieces, away from cool city-centre living and modish cultural centres, this book shows us the unheralded, under-appreciated and overlooked parts of Greater Manchester in which the majority of Mancunians live, work and play. It tells the story of the city thematically, using concepts such as 'material', 'atmosphere', 'waste', 'movement' and 'underworld' to challenge our understanding of the quintessential post-industrial metropolis. Bringing together contributions from poets, academics, writers, novelists, historians, architects and artists from across the region alongside a range of captivating photographs, this book explores the history of Manchester through its chimneys, cobblestones, ginnels and graves. This wide-ranging and inclusive approach reveals a host of idiosyncrasies, hidden spaces and stories that have until now been neglected.'Dobraszczyk and Butler have gathered together a set of excavations and forgagings which piece together very different visions of the towns and developments and rivers and canals and in-between spaces that make up the disjointed, uneven, ever-changing city of ManchesterHere, in the book’s exploration of undervalued urban spaces, readers will find the traces of other futures, snickets and ginnels, a rumour of salmon, slow-worms appearing in old brickworks, the amazing story of the city’s hibakujumoko trees, and myriad other transplantations and spaces that twenty-first-century time has passed by.'
John McAuliffe, poet and Reader of Creative Writing and Modern Literature, University of Manchester
'Manchester: Something rich and strange epitomises everything that is wonderful about this great city. The book tells the story of Manchester’s past and present in a unique and engaging way, bringing together a variety of contributors from a variety of different backgrounds.'
Michala Hulme, author of A grim almanac of Manchester and Bloody British history: Manchester'
'It is a book like the city; bold, brash, and gobby, moving from morbid self-pity to delirious triumph in mere moments. A guided tour where they pull up the floorboards and let you see what lies beneath.'
Manchester Review of Books
'There’s strong material in this ragbag of themed think-pieces - Rose recalling the attack which prompted her to reclaim the streets from her nightmares; Kalu conjuring the realities of Manchester’s sewer system with unnerving brio; Tim Edensor on the sources of municipal cobble stone; Hanson on the ubiquity of facades in post-modern, post-Factory Records Manchester - plus Simon Buckley’s celebrated ‘iPhone Lowry’ on the cover and a good helping of Dobraszczyk’s magnificently crisp photography.'
Manchester Confidential
Paul Dobraszczyk is a researcher and writer based in Manchester and a Teaching Fellow at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. He is the author of Future Cities: Architecture and the Imagination (2019) and The Dead City: Urban Ruins and the Spectacle of Decay (2017).
Sarah Butler is a novelist and Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Manchester Writing School, Manchester Metropolitan University. She is the author of Jack & Bet (2020) and Ten Things I've Learnt About Love: A Novel (2014) and explores the relationship between writing and place through her consultancy UrbanWords.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781526144140 |
| ISBN 10 | 152614414X |
| Title | Manchester |
| Author | Paul Dobraszczyk |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Manchester University Press |
| Year published | 2020-11-19 |
| Number of pages | 360 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |