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Poems and Readings for Weddings
Poems and Readings for Weddings
Sep 29, 2024 7:30 AM

Author:Julia Watson

Poems and Readings for Weddings

Words of joy, love, devotion and celebration

Deciding how to express your feelings on one of the most important days of your or your loved one's life can be overwhelming.

Poems and Readings for Weddings collects the very best readings by world-renowned poets, bards, playwrights and novelists who have written passionately, thoughtfully and deeply over hundreds of years about love, marriage and commitment.

This beautiful collection contains an astonishing range of poems, prose extracts, prayers and songs, all chosen to enhance the occasion, whether they be moving, witty, irreverent, thoughtful or heartfelt.

Above all, these words will be recognized as timeless and true.

Reviews

This book is an absolute game-changer. Paul manages to impart practical wisdom about our behaviour as parents - and how small changes have huge impacts - without ever sounding preachy. I laughed, nodded, winced a few times and most importantly felt inspired to make slow, incremental changes to how we do things in our house. Warm, funny and extraordinarily helpful. A must-read for anyone who looks after children.

—— SARAH TURNER, aka The Unmumsy Mum

In this fantastic book Paul empowers us parents to put our energy and focus where we can have the most influence: over our own behaviour. With wit and warmth, he teaches us the most miraculous thing - that when we change, our children change too. This is a book every parent needs to read.

—— Zoe Blaskey, creator of Motherkind

Many of us have children. Not enough of us truly parent. In this transformative book, Paul Dix offers a simple method to revolutionise the culture in your home - one that will change your children's behaviour and yours. He gets it: the most important part of high performance is high-performance parenting, and this book shows you how to get there.

—— Jake Humphrey, author of High Performance

A highly practical, down-to-earth, well-reasoned book. It would enrich the parenting of anyone.

—— Barry Carpenter OBE, Professor of Mental Health in Education, Oxford Brookes University

Paul Dix has an approach that I love: he understands that when you see a child differently, you see a different child. For years he has been passionate about supporting teachers and children in the classroom, and in this brilliant book he shares his valuable insights to support families too.

—— KATE SILVERTON, author of No Such Thing as 'Naughty'

The principle at the heart of Paul Dix's book is singularly powerful: that if we want to build a loving, resilient relationship with our children, we need to start with ourselves.

—— TINA PAYNE BRYSON co-author of The Whole-Brain Child

Another fabulous book from Paul. Sound, sensible advice for families because we know that schools only see children for a fraction of their lives. All parents and carers should read this book and learn the ‘six steps to stay in control’ – helping families be better able to help themselves.

—— MAUREEN MCKENNA, former Director of Education, Glasgow

I became a better mother in two weeks . . . How simple techniques, and a different way of thinking, can change the entire atmosphere at home . . . and when that happens, children’s behaviour changes, too.

—— iNews

On Marriage is characterized by this kind of agile curiosity . . . Baum holds [marriage] up as a seduction

—— Rebecca Mead , The New Yorker

Because marriage doesn't always bring out the best in us, it makes us wonder what the best in us might be. It is part of the extraordinary wit and wisdom of Baum's remarkable book to show us what kind of romance, and experiment in living, we have wanted marriage to be

—— Adam Phillips

Everything you thought you knew about conjugal beds, secrets, feuds, confessions, triangulations and solaces will be pleasurably complicated by Devorah Baum's wryly insightful tell - all regarding the infinite perversity of marriage - including her own, mine, and probably yours

—— Laura Kipnis

On Marriage is a hugely thought-provoking, witty, warm tour around every significant writer and thinker on love to have emerged since Adam and Eve. Baum is a charming guide to the wisdom of her inspiring judiciously curated cohort

—— Alain de Botton

Baum looks at marriage from multiple angles, legal and political, social and narrative, its interminability and its dailiness . . . it can be funny or tragic or both. Baum’s methodology is to look at what is missing – a philosophy of marriage, a clear idea of what this dominant structure is and how it influences lives. Lovely

—— The White Review

Amy Key’s Arrangements in Blue has been comforting while going through a separation, it revises the societal position of singlehood, especially for childless women and gloriously channels the atmospheric album Blue by Joni Mitchell.

—— Raymond Antrobus, author of The Perseverance

In Arrangements in Blue Amy Key finds a language, searing in its depth and honesty, for desire, shame, grief and, crucially, for compassion.

—— Kayo Chingonyi, A Blood Condition

Deeply moving... A study of love - platonic and romantic, lost and found - Amy's memoir demonstrates the power of music on forming a self.

—— i-D

A seriously beautiful and important work I feel lucky to have encountered and which will change how many think about love in all its iterations.

—— Megan Nolan, author of Acts of Desperation

A gorgeous manifesto for a solo life, the power of music and friendships and a reckoning with the possibilities of love and fulfilment.

—— Sinéad Gleeson, author of Constellations

A beautiful memoir about a life lived without romantic love... Key seems less interested in the privileges that divide us than in the forms of love that can unite us, whatever they may be, and expand our understanding of what it means to have a life well lived.

—— Guardian

Profound and poetic, vulnerable yet brave, I devoured Amy Key's memoir about love, loss, memory and hope. An incredible writer, a stunning debut.

—— Lisa McGee, creator of Derry Girls

An exquisite book whose beauty sweetly stung me. Amy writes just like Joni sings... with ecstatic feminine power.

—— May-Lan Tan, author of Things to Make and Break

Amy Key's extraordinary Arrangements in Blue isn't merely a commentary on Joni Mitchell's Blue, but something bolder, more personal and shape-shifting... It makes itself up on its own terms. An intimate, absorbing inquiry.

—— Paul Lisicky, author of Later: My Life at the Edge of the World

From grief to anger to full-throttled joy, Amy Key hits every note of feeling with perfect pitch... A brave and brilliant exploration of how one woman lives both alone and alongside romance. An absolutely gorgeous work.

—— Heather Christle, author of The Crying Book

Arrangements in Blue is as bold as it is beautiful. Key is not afraid to go to the depths of her longings, but in doing so she creates something new: a space for the voice of solitude, one that is full of heart and creativity for a personal intimacy with home, friends and the self. If a book can be a loving companion, this is it.

—— Lily Dunn, author of Sins of my Father

Filled with lyrical turns of phrase, this insightful take on living solo will appeal to poets, dreamers and anyone marching to the beat of their own drum. It's a lush and moving memoir.

—— Publishers Weekly, *Starred Review*

This memoir may do for you what Blue has done for her Key, putting your unexpressed feelings into beautiful words and helping you feel connected to the world.

—— Crack

Key charts women's lives with a savage delicacy.

—— Olivia Laing

'A writer of a rare and strange magic.'

—— Sarah Perry

'I love Amy Key.'

—— Lauren Laverne

'A beautiful read.'

—— Amy Liptrot

'If you read one thing this weekend make it Amy Key's astonishing essay on Joni Mitchell's Blue, love and love's absence.'

—— Sophie Mackintosh
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