Search results for ""author john brownjohn""

Isolated in the vastness of the South Atlantic and fortress-like in appearance, the Island of St Helena was important for centuries only as a victualling station for ships of the British East India Company, on their long voyages to and from India via the Cape of Good Hope. It was on one of these journeys that Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, took note of the island's remote impregnability. It was Wellington who suggested St Helena as Napoleon Bonaparte's place of imprisonment and exile after his defeat at Waterloo in 1815. Until his death in 1821, the former Emperor spent his final years under constant British guard. His exile transformed a speck on the maritime map into the most famous island in the world.

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A thief and a nobleman, both down on their luck, cross paths on a bitter winter's day in 1701. One, known locally as "The Fowl-Filcher," is fleeing the gallows; the other, the callow Christian von Tornefeld, has escaped execution to fight for his Swedish king. Neither will reach his destination. Sent with a message to secure aid for von Tornefeld, the thief falls in love with his companion's secret fiancee. He resolves to win her love for himself, and through a clever stratagem, exchanges his fate for the other man's. Risking everything to attain the woman and station of his dreams, he becomes the Swedish cavalier, staying one step ahead of exposure. Later, he sacrifices everything so that is daughter won't learn of his secret past. In this book he considered is masterpiece, Leo Perutz has created a picaresque world of barons and brigands, swashbuckling dragoons and spurned lovers, gentleman farmers and masked robbers, and lucky parchments, magic spells, and mystical visions. Part adventure, part historical novel of war-ravaged Europe, The Sweddish Cavalier is also a moral tale of deceit, betrayal, and redemption.

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The Soul Breaker doesn't kill his victims. What he does is much worse. He leaves them paralysed and completely catatonic. His only trace: a note left in their hands. There are three known victims when suddenly the abductions stop. The Soul Breaker has tired of his game, it seems. Meanwhile, a man has been found in the snow outside an exclusive psychiatric clinic. He has no recollection of who he is, or why he is there. Soon the weather goes from bad to worse, and the clinic becomes completely cut off from the world outside. When the head psychiatrist is found trembling, naked and distraught, with a slip of paper in her hands, it seems the Soul Breaker has returned. And with the clinic cut off from the world, no one is able to get in – or out.

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Optimus Yarnspinner, a young Zamonian writer, inherits very little from his beloved godfather apart from an unpublished short story by an unknown author. This manuscript proves to be such a superb piece of writing that he can't resist the temptation to investigate the mystery surrounding the author's identity. The trail takes him to the City of Dreaming Books.After falling under the spell of this book-obsessed metropolis; Yarnspinner also falls into the clutches of its evil genius, Pfistomel Smyke, who treacherously maroons him in the city's labyrinthine catacombs. He finds himself in a subterranean world where reading books can be genuinely dangerous, where ruthless Bookhunters fight to the death for literary gems and the mysterious Shadow King rules a murky realm populated by Booklings, one-eyed beings whose vast library includes live books equipped with teeth and claws. Walter Moers transports us to a magical world where reading is still a genuine adventure, where books can not only entertain people but also drive them insane or even kill them. Only those intrepid souls who are prepared to join Optimus Yarnspinner on his perilous journey should read this book. We wish the rest of you a long, safe, unutterably dull and boring life!

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There's only one Auntie Poldi: bewigged, cursing in Bavarian, and knocking back a wee shot of grappa as a pre-breakfast aperitif ... or is there? No one is as they seem (and sound) in this hilarious new mystery featuring Sicily's sultriest sleuth.Strange dealings are afoot in the Apostolic Palace-a nun leapt to her death shortly after participating in a seemingly routine exorcism. But when a priest clad in Gammarelli and a Vatican Commissario with an almost unholy level of sex appeal turn up at her door, Poldi is shocked to hear that she's a suspect in their case. Who is the woman being exorcised, and where has she disappeared to? And why in the world does she claim, in perfect Bavarian, to be Poldi, Isolde Oberreiter, of Torre Achirafari? Poldi will need all the help she can get to clear her name, but her nephew has been distracted by a love affair gone sour, someone in the town has been graffitiing death threats on her front door, and her local friends seem to be avoiding her. And even Vito Montana balks when Poldi discovers that the case hinges on a lost Madonna statue, stolen years ago from the Pope himself... Forza Poldi! With a pair of mysterious twins dogging her every move and a mandate to maintain sobriety, will Poldi be able to find the lost statue in time, and survive her sixty-first birthday?

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Over two hundred years ago Bookholm, the City of Dreaming Books, was destroyed by a catastrophic firestorm. Optimus Yarnspinner, who witnessed this disaster, has since become Zamonia's greatest writer and is resting on his laurels at Lindworm Castle. Spoilt by his monumental success and basking in adulation, he one day receives a disturbing message that finally reinvests his life with meaning: a cryptic missive that lures him back to Bookholm. Rebuilt on a magnificent scale, the city is once more a vibrant literary metropolis and Mecca of the book trade teeming with book fanatics of all kinds. On the track of the mysterious letter that brought him there, Yarnspinner has scarcely set foot in the city before he falls prey to its spirit of adventure. He is reunited with old friends like Inazia Anazazi the Uggly and Ahmed ben Kibitzer the Nocturnomath, but he also encounters the city's new marvels, which include the mysterious Biblionauts, the warring Puppetists, and the city's latest craze, the Invisible Theatre. Yarnspinner strays ever deeper into the Labyrinth of Dreaming Books, which seems to wield a strange power over Bookholm's destinies. He is eventually drawn into an irresistible maelstrom of events far more sensational than any of the adventures he has previously embarked upon.

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Malaisea, the unhealthiest town in the whole of Zamonia, is home to Echo the Crat, a multi-talented creature resembling a cat in appearance but capable of speaking any language under the sun, human or animal. When his mistress dies, Echo finds himself out on the street. Dying of starvation, he is compelled to sign a contract with Ghoolion the Alchemaster, Malaisea's evil alchemist-in-chief. This fateful document gives Ghoolion the right to kill Echo at the next full moon and render him down for his fat, with which he hopes to brew an alchemical concoction that will make him immortal. In return, he promises to regale the little Crat with the most exquisite gastronomic delicacies until his time is up. But Ghoolion has reckoned without Echo's talent for survival and his ability to make new friends. These include the Leathermice, the Cogitating Eggs, the Golden Squirrel, the Cooked Ghost, Theodore T. Theodore the one-eyed Tuwituwu, and, above all, Izanuela Anazazi, the last Uggly in Malaisea.Walter Moers's magnificent translation of Optimus Yarnspinner's novel introduces us to yet another of Zamonia's hotbeds of adventure: Malaisea, a place where sick is healthy, up is down, right is wrong, and Ghoolion the Alchemaster reigns supreme - until Echo crosses his path.

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A translation of a follow-up to The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebeard finds young writer Optimus Yarnspinner inheriting from his beloved godfather an unpublished anonymous short story, a bequest that takes him to the city of Bookholm in search of its writer. Reprint.

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A delightfully illustrated cult novel, literary satire and epic adventure.'Within the first 15 pages I was carried away by the sheer craziness of it all. Some Minipirates find a baby bear with blue fur inside a walnut shell floating on the ocean towards a giant whirlpool. They rescue him and teach him about knots and waves, and that a good white lie is often considerably more exciting than the truth. Then, when he outgrows their ship to such an extent that he is in danger of sinking it, they abandon him on an island with a bottle of seaweed juice and a loaf of seaweed bread. Thus Bluebear comes to the end of his first life and embarks on his second. By the end of the book, he has expended exactly half of his 27 lives. Again and again, Moers confounds our expectations as the narrative twists and turns, travels backwards and forwards in time. Part science fiction, part fairy tale, part myth, part epic, the book is a satire on all these genres and so constantly satirises itself. Very amusing' - Daily Telegraph

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In an atmosphere of intense paranoia Harry Willemer, a taxi driver and his passenger, an ex-KGB agent and the wife of a Russian Mafioso, flee the hit-men sent to recover a large sum of money they have stolen and take their chances on the open road.

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Astonishingly inventive, amusing and engrossing, Rumo is a captivating story from the unique imagination of Walter Moers. Rumo is a little Wolperting who will one day become the greatest hero in the history of Zamonia. Armed with Dandelion, his talking sword, he fights his way across Overworld and Netherworld, two very different worlds chock-full of adventures, dangers, and unforgettable characters: including Rala, the beautiful girl Wolperting who cultivates a hazardous relationship with death; General Ticktock, the evil commander of the Copper Killers; Ushan DeLucca, the finest and most weather-sensitive swordsman in Zamonia; Professor Abdullah Nightingale, inventor of the Chest-of-Drawers Oracle; and, worse luck, the deadly Metal Maiden.

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