Search results for ""Pantheon""

An assessment of how important the sea was in the middle ages. How important has the sea been in the development of human history? Very important indeed is the conclusion of this ground-breaking four volume work. The books bring together the world's leading maritime historians, who address the question of what difference the sea has made in relation to around 250 situations ranging from the earliest times to the present. They consider, across the entire world, subjects related to human migration, trade, economic development, warfare, the building of political units including states and empires, the dissemination of ideas, culture and religion, and much more, showing how the sea was crucial to all these aspects of human development. The Sea in History - The Medieval World covers the period from the end of the Roman Empire in the West up to around the year 1500. It demonstrates that for many peoples and states in this period the sea was central to theirexistence - the Vikings, the Hanse, Venice, Genoa, the Normans - and it shows also how important the sea was for states which are not normally thought of as maritime powers, such as Byzantium, the Crusader states and the Mongol Empire. The book is global in its coverage, including material on East and Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa, with particularly interesting material on China's extensive voyages of exploration in the fifteenth century, the role of the Vikings in the early formation of Russia, and on the building of ships, appropriate to local conditions, in different parts of the world. 40 of the contributions are in English; 34 are inFrench. MICHEL BALARD is Emeritus Professor at the University Paris 1 - Panthéon Sorbonne. CHRISTIAN BUCHET is Professor of Maritime History, Catholic University of Paris, Scientific Director of Océanides and a member of l'Académie de marine.

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The legend of Jean-Michel Basquiat is as strong as ever. Synonymous with New York in the 1980s, the artist first appeared in the late 1970s under the tag SAMO, spraying caustic comments and fragmented poems on the walls of the city. He appeared as part of a thriving underground scene of visual arts and graffiti, hip hop, post-punk, and DIY filmmaking, which met in a booming art world. As a painter with a strong personal voice, Basquiat soon broke into the established milieu, exhibiting in galleries around the world. Basquiat’s expressive style was based on raw figures and integrated words and phrases. His work is inspired by a pantheon of luminaries from jazz, boxing, and basketball, with references to arcane history and the politics of street life—so when asked about his subject matter, Basquiat answered “royalty, heroism and the streets.” In 1983 he started collaborating with the most famous of art stars, Andy Warhol, and in 1985 was on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. When Basquiat died at the age of 27, he had become one of the most successful artists of his time. This book allows an unprecedented insight into Basquiat’s art, with pristine reproductions of his most seminal paintings, drawings, and notebook sketches. In large-scale format, the book offers vivid proximity to Basquiat’s intricate marks and scribbled words, further illuminated by an introduction to the artist from editor Hans Werner Holzwarth, as well as an essay on his themes and artistic development from curator and art historian Eleanor Nairne. Richly illustrated year-by-year chapter breaks follow the artist’s life and quote from his own statements and contemporary reviews to provide both personal background and historical context.

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Wild Tales by Graham Nash - a classic rock memoir of the legendary Hollies front man and member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & YoungIn this candid and riveting autobiography Graham Nash tells it all: the love, the sex, the jealousy, the drugs, and the magical music-making.This is one of the great rock and roll stories: growing up in poverty in postwar Manchester, where Nash founded the Hollies with schoolfriend Allan Clarke and the incredible success that followed, friendships with all the great British bands of the 60s including the Beatles, the Stones and the Kinks, decamping to America and becoming the lover of Joni Mitchell (for whom he wrote 'Our House') and achieving superstardom with David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Neil Young.This book will be adored by Graham Nash fans and takes its rightful place in the pantheon of classic music memoirs alongside Book Dylan's Chronicles, Keith Richards' Life and Neil Young's Waging Heavy Peace.Graham Nash was born in Blackpool in 1942 and brought up in Salford. He was cofounder with his schoolfriend Allan Clarke of the Hollies - one of the most successful British pop groups of the 1960s for whom he was lead-singer and one of the principal songwriters. In 1968 he left the UK to live in California, where he became part of the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash (later, after Neil Young joined, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young). Unusually he has been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, for the Hollies and for CSNY, and in 2010 he received the OBE. He is noted for his political and charity work (he played Occupy Wall Street in 2011), is a serious photographer, and has homes in California and Hawaii.

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Jane Austen’s Emma is now available in an exclusive collector’s edition featuring a delicate laser-cut jacket on a textured book with foil stamping and ribbon marker, ideal for fiction lovers and book collectors alike.The Emma Jane Austen Collection Edition: Presents Austen’s final novel published during her lifetime, viewed by literary scholars as both revolutionary and reflective of Austen’s maturity as a novelist; its 1815 publication helped established Austen’s iconic place in literature’s pantheon of great writers Explores such important themes as the courtship and marriage in the Regency era; manners and etiquette; gender limitations; pride and vanity; and the power of imagination Is ideal for special-edition book collectors, Jane Austen aficionados, fans of literary fiction and classic literature, and people who love both the book and the movies it inspires Whether you’re buying this as a gift or for yourself, this remarkable limited edition features: Beautiful hardcover with a distinctive one-of-a-kind, high-end/high-treatment laser-cut jacket, perfect for standing out on any book lover’s shelf Decorative interior pages featuring pull quotes distributed throughout Part of a 6-volume Jane Austen series including Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion Beautiful, clever, and rich, Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her single life and sees no need for either love or marriage. However, nothing delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend, Mr. Knightley, and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protégée, Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected.Emma by Jane Austen is one of six titles completing the Jane Austen collection, which includes Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Northanger Abbey.

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Reacher never backs down from a problem.And he's about to find a big one, on a deserted Arizona road, where a Jeep has crashed into the only tree for miles around. Under the merciless desert sun, nothing is as it seems.Minutes later Reacher is heading into the nearby border town, a backwater that has seen better days. Next to him is Michaela Fenton, an army veteran turned FBI agent, who is trying to find her twin brother. He might have got mixed up with some dangerous people.And Reacher might just need to pay them a visit.Their leader has burrowed his influence deep into the town. Just to get in and meet the mysterious Dendoncker, Reacher is going to have to achieve the impossible.To get answers will be even harder. There are people in this hostile, empty place who would rather die than reveal their secrets.But then, if Reacher is coming after you, you might be better off dead.Although the Jack Reacher novels can be read in any order, Better Off Dead is the 26th book in the internationally popular series.And be sure not to miss Reacher's newest adventure, no.27, No Plan B! ***OUT NOW***____Jack Reacher is today's James Bond, a thriller hero we can't get enough of.' Ken Follett'If you haven't read any Jack Reacher, you have a treat in store . . . a hitchhiker without a phone, a one-man force for good.' The Times'A contemporary version of the knight in shining armour . . . Reacher is a mythic figure.' Literary Review'Jack Reacher is a wonderfully epic hero; tough, taciturn, yet vulnerable... Irresistible.' People'Jack Reacher has long since earned his prominent place in the pantheon of cool, smart-talking American heroes.' New York Times

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Although his activity as a recording artist spanned a period of just three years, from 1967, the year of his arrival in England from America to 1970, the year of his death, Jimi Hendrix created a body of work that has exerted a significant influence on a number of artists in the 20th century and beyond. A headline-grabbing, explosive performer, he is widely recognized as an innovative guitarist who broadened the vocabulary of his instrument through both his technique and daring use of technology. For several generations of critics and audiences, he remains the archetypal rock star who framed his immeasurable talent with lifestyle excesses inherent to his profession. Hear My Train A Comin' seeks to appraise Hendrix's legacy in different terms. His ability as a soloist is undeniable, but it is not necessarily the defining aspect of his genius. This book focuses on Hendrix the songwriter, a superlative storyteller who was able to combine melody, lyric and arrangement in order to create pieces that take pride of place in the pantheon of post-war popular music. Why do anthems such as Crosstown Traffic, The Wind Cries Mary, Little Wing, Voodoo Child [Slight Return] Purple Haze or Foxy Lady still affect us today? They alchemize word and sound. These are just a few examples of Hendrix crafting a composition in the most complete sense of the term, making judicious decisions with regard to mood, texture, contrast and overall orchestral richness, looking at his basic resource, the guitar-bass-drums set up as a unit to be enhanced by a range of other instruments and studio production. This book investigates the artist's immense creativity, and the intriguing relationship he had with the art of song, a platform for a multitude of ideas and improvisation.

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Disenchanted Wanderer is the first comprehensive English-language study in over half a century of the life and ideas of Konstantin Nikolaevich Leontiev (1831–1891), one of the most important thinkers in nineteenth-century Russia on political, social, and religious matters. Glenn Cronin gives the reader a broad overview of Leontiev's life and varied career as novelist, army doctor, diplomat, journalist, censor, and, late in life, ordained monk. Reviewing Leontiev's creative work and his writing on aesthetics and literary criticism—notable figures such as Belinsky, Turgenev, Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy appear—Cronin goes on to examine Leontiev's sociopolitical writing and his theory of the rise and fall of cultures and civilizations, placing his thought in the context of his contemporaries and predecessors including Hegel, Herzen, and Nietzsche, as well as Danilevsky, Pobedonostsev, and other major figures in Slavophile and Russian nationalist circles. Cronin also examines Leontiev's religious views, including his ascetic brand of Orthodoxy, informed by his experiences of the monastic communities of Mount Athos and OptinaPustyn, and his late attraction to Roman Catholicism under the influence of the theologian Vladimir Solovyev. Disenchanted Wanderer concludes with a review of Leontiev's prophetic vision for the twentieth century and his conviction that, after a period of wars, socialism would triumph under the banner of a new Constantine the Great. Cronin considers how far this vision foretold the rise to power of Joseph Stalin, an aspect of Leontiev's legacy that previously had not received the attention it merits. Elevating Leontiev to his proper place in the Russian literary pantheon, Cronin demonstrates that the man was not, as is often maintained, an amoralist and a political reactionary but rather a deeply moral thinker and a radical conservative.

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In the pantheon of freedom fighters, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has pride of place. His fame and influence extend far beyond India and are nowhere more significant than in South Africa. "India gave us a Mohandas, we gave them a Mahatma," goes a popular South African refrain. Contemporary South African leaders, including Mandela, have consistently lauded him as being part of the epic battle to defeat the racist white regime. The South African Gandhi focuses on Gandhi's first leadership experiences and the complicated man they reveal—a man who actually supported the British Empire. Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed unveil a man who, throughout his stay on African soil, stayed true to Empire while showing a disdain for Africans. For Gandhi, whites and Indians were bonded by an Aryan bloodline that had no place for the African. Gandhi's racism was matched by his class prejudice towards the Indian indentured. He persistently claimed that they were ignorant and needed his leadership, and he wrote their resistances and compromises in surviving a brutal labor regime out of history. The South African Gandhi writes the indentured and working class back into history. The authors show that Gandhi never missed an opportunity to show his loyalty to Empire, with a particular penchant for war as a means to do so. He served as an Empire stretcher-bearer in the Boer War while the British occupied South Africa, he demanded guns in the aftermath of the Bhambatha Rebellion, and he toured the villages of India during the First World War as recruiter for the Imperial army. This meticulously researched book punctures the dominant narrative of Gandhi and uncovers an ambiguous figure whose time on African soil was marked by a desire to seek the integration of Indians, minus many basic rights, into the white body politic while simultaneously excluding Africans from his moral compass and political ideals.

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In this absorbing, suspenseful novel Julia Kristeva combines social satire, medieval history, philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, and autobiography within a gruesome murder mystery. Murder in Byzantium deftly moves from eleventh-century Europe, wracked by the turbulence of the First Crusade, to the sun-dappled, cultural wasteland of present-day Santa Varvara, threatened by religious cults, gangs, and a serial killer on the loose. This killer is murdering members of a dubious religious sect, the New Pantheon, and leaving a mysterious figure eight drawn on their corpses. Meanwhile, Sebastian Chrest-Jones, a noted professor of human migrations, clandestinely writing a novel about the Byzantine princess-historian Anna Comnena, disappears on a quest to learn more about an ancestor who roamed across Europe to Byzantium during the First Crusade. Kristeva's recurring characters, detective Northrop Rilsky and the French journalist Stephanie Delacour, step in and desperately try to piece together the two-part mystery in the midst of their unexpected love affair. In the tradition of Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, and Ian McEwan, Kristeva skillfully weaves philosophical and critical ideas into her fiction. Peering into the mores, obsessions, and excesses of contemporary society, Kristeva offers an engrossing portrait of Santa Varvara, a paradoxical place of sunshine and pollution where skeletons lurk in the closets of politicians and oil company executives. Her descriptions of the First Crusade and the Byzantine Empire vividly evoke a distant past while speaking to such contemporary concerns as immigration, fundamentalism, terrorism, and the East-West divide. Murder in Byzantium is also the only work in which Kristeva explores her Bulgarian roots. In the midst of this rich, multilayered historical novel, Kristeva also presents three stunning, closely observed, and interlocking portraits of characters struggling with loss and emptiness in their personal histories and day-to-day lives.

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Myths and legendary tales from around the world are packed with gigantic rivalries; gods, monsters and giants compete for supremacy over the land, the creatures within and the universe beyond. Zeus clashes with the all-powerful Typhon, Odin is destined to face the great wolf Fenrir during Ragnarok. And yet monsters such as the Minotaur, and giants of all kinds, dragons even, are monsters only to those too fearful to understand them, while others such as the Sirens, or the weird sisters, are malevolent without remorse. Such mythical gods and their foes, make great adventures for the modern reader tracing the roots of The Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and The Witcher, where good and evil are morphed into real avatars and creatures of vivid imagination. In these pages you'll find the gods of the heavens and mountains, and the spirits and demons of the deep sea, the dark woods and the burning sands. From the gods of Babylon and Ancient Egypt to the Norse Aesir, from the pantheon of mighty Greek deities to the gods of the earth and the sky in Pacific legends, most of the great traditions are featured here, with monsters galore: Anansi the trickster spider, the chaos serpent Apep, the Wendigo (or Windegoo spirits), the Greek Sphinx, the drought demon dragon Vritra and the Chimera to name a few. The Flame Tree Gothic Fantasy, Classic Stories and Epic Tales collections bring together the entire range of myth, folklore and modern short fiction. Highlighting the roots of suspense, supernatural, science fiction and mystery stories the books in Flame Tree Collections series are beautifully presented, perfect as a gift and offer a lifetime of reading pleasure.

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Like the ever-widening universe, Standard candles expands on Alice Major’s earlier themes of family, mythology, and cosmology, teasing out subtle wonders in form and subject. Her voice resonates through experiments with old and new poetic forms as she imbues observed and imagined phenomena—from the centres of galaxies to the mysteries of her own backyard—with the most grounded and grounding moments of human experience. In Standard candles, readers will find an emotional dimension that seamlessly intersects with the dimensions of space and time. Fans of Alice Major will enjoy seeing her work through familiar themes, while readers new to her poetry will discover unexplored universes. Alice Major emigrated from Scotland at the age of eight, and grew up in Toronto before coming west to work as a weekly newspaper reporter. She served as Edmonton’s first poet laureate and has been inducted into the city’s cultural hall of fame. A widely-published author, she has won many distinctions. Her most recent book is Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science, which received the Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction as well as a National Magazine Award gold medal. Her website is www.alicemajor.com. Let us compare cosmologies There is a beginning and a middle. There is an arc of narrative. There is a word, a large engraved initial. There is imperative— a cause, a god. Or not. There is an end. A purpose. Or maybe none. There is a plot with reasons, reason. There is a circus, a theatre stage of space and time. There are equations at the bottom or the top. There is a pantheon of matter, motion, scattered photons. And the questions every universe expects: what came before? What happens next?

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Revolutionary Melodrama explores intersections between cinema and politics during the Nasser era, a period in which a military regime embarked upon the construction of a new civic identity for an independent Egypt. The way in which filmmakers participated in this venture provides the focal point, with their cultural production as the central texts which both shaped and were shaped by an emerging sense of a new Egypt. With the blessing of a "revolutionary" regime, filmmakers began to explore issues of social inequity, colonial and feudal exploitation, changing gender roles, religious and cultural traditions and, finally, the disappointments of the revolutionary project itself. No realm of cultural production holds greater import for the Nasser era than the cinema. Even those who are active in deconstructing the last vestiges of the Nasserist state trumpet the Nasser era as a "golden age" of the arts and media. The faces and voices on big and little screens, many still alive, some still working, constitute a pantheon who many Egyptians, young and old alike, feel will never be replaced. The author approaches his subject as a scholar of the early Nasser years who has turned his attention to questions of civic identity and its relationship to art and political symbology. The work is enriched and informed by extensive interviews with a large circle of people engaged in the production or analysis of Egyptian cinema and broadcast, then and now: directors, actors, critics, historians, scenarists, censors, musicians, writers, politicians, and government ministers. Egyptian film remains a largely ignored topic in an ever-growing literature on film and culture. This book sheds new light on what many consider to be the greatest era of Egyptian filmmaking, one that remains formative for many engaged in creating Egyptian films today.

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The first book to cover Krishna’s entire life, from his childhood pranks to his final powerful acts in the Mahabharata war • Draws from the Bhagavad Purana, the Bhagavad Gita, the Mahabharata, and India’s sacred oral tradition • Shows how the stories of Krishna’s life are expressed with such simplicity and humor that they enable anyone--man, woman, or child--to see the wisdom of his teachings • Provides a valuable meditative tool that allows the lessons of these stories to illuminate from within Krishna, one of the most beloved characters of the Hindu pantheon, has been portrayed in many lights: a god-child, a prankster, a model lover, a divine hero, an exemplary ruler, and the Supreme Being. In The Complete Life of Krishna, Vanamali, a leading Krishna expert from a long line of prominent Krishna devotees, provides the first book in English or Sanskrit to cover the complete range of the avatar’s life. Drawing from the Bhagavad Purana, the Bhagavad Gita, the Mahabharata, and India’s sacred oral tradition, Vanamali shares stories from Krishna’s birth in a dungeon and early days as a merry trickster in Vrindavana, through his time as divine ruler at Dwaraka, to his final powerful acts as the hero Arjuna’s charioteer and guru in the Kurukshetra war. She explains how Krishna became a mahayogi, the greatest of all yogis, and attained complete mastery over himself and nature. By integrating the hero-child with the mahayogi, the playful lover with the divine ruler, Vanamali shows how the stories of Krishna’s life are expressed with such simplicity and humor that they enable anyone--man, woman, or child--to see the wisdom of his teachings. This complete biography of the man who was also a god provides a valuable meditative tool allowing Krishna’s lessons to illuminate from within.

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Winner of The PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize 2022Shortlisted for The Wolfson History Prize 2022A The Times Books of the Year 2022Three thousand years ago, in the Southwest Asian lands we now call Israel and Palestine, a group of people worshipped a complex pantheon of deities, led by a father god called El. El had seventy children, who were gods in their own right. One of them was a minor storm deity, known as Yahweh. Yahweh had a body, a wife, offspring and colleagues. He fought monsters and mortals. He gorged on food and wine, wrote books, and took walks and naps. But he would become something far larger and far more abstract: the God of the great monotheistic religions.But as Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou reveals, God’s cultural DNA stretches back centuries before the Bible was written, and persists in the tics and twitches of our own society, whether we are believers or not. The Bible has shaped our ideas about God and religion, but also our cultural preferences about human existence and experience; our concept of life and death; our attitude to sex and gender; our habits of eating and drinking; our understanding of history. Examining God’s body, from his head to his hands, feet and genitals, she shows how the Western idea of God developed. She explores the places and artefacts that shaped our view of this singular God and the ancient religions and societies of the biblical world. And in doing so she analyses not only the origins of our oldest monotheistic religions, but also the origins of Western culture.Beautifully written, passionately argued and frequently controversial, God: An Anatomy is cultural history on a grand scale.'Rivetingly fresh and stunning' – Sunday Times'One of the most remarkable historians and communicators working today' – Dan Snow

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Witness what the gods do after dark in the fourth volume of a stylish and contemporary reimagining of one of the best-known stories in Greek mythology from creator Rachel Smythe."I don't always get to do as I please."The rumor mill of Olympus is constantly churning, but Persephone and Hades are all anyone can talk about. With the constant gossip creating intense pressure on the pair, they decide to slow down their budding romance and focus on sorting out their own issues first.But that's easier said than done.Hades struggles to find support in his personal life, with Zeus trivializing his feelings and Minthe resorting to abusive patterns in their relationship. And while Hades tries to create healthier boundaries where he can-like finally putting a stop to his sporadic, revenge-fueled hookups with Hera-he still feels lonely and adrift.Persephone feels equally ostracized as her classmates shun her for her connection to Hades, and she can find no refuge at home, with Apollo constantly dropping by unannounced and pushing his unwelcome advances. And on top of it all, the wrathful god of war, Ares, has returned to Olympus to dredge up his sordid history with the goddess of spring, threatening to surface Persephone's dark and mysterious past and ruin her tenuous position in the land of the gods.Despite agreeing to take it slow, Persephone and Hades find themselves inextricably drawn toward each other once more amid the chaos. The pull of fate cannot be denied.This edition of Rachel Smythe's original Eisner-winning webcomic Lore Olympus features exclusive behind-the-scenes content and brings the Greek pantheon into the modern age in a sharply perceptive and romantic graphic novel.This volume collects episodes 76-102 of the #1 WEBTOON comic Lore Olympus.

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This beautiful book brings you the very best of art throughout history - using a truly innovative timeline-led approach. Savour iconic paintings such as Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper and Monet's Waterlilies, and discover less well-known artists, styles, and movements the world over - from Indigenous Australian art to the works of Ming-era China. And explore recurring themes, such as love and religion, and important genres from Romanesque to Conceptual art, along the way. Timelines of Art provides detailed analysis of the works of key artists, showing details of their technique - such as Leonardo's use of light and shade. It tells the story of avant-garde works like Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (Lunch on the Grass), which scandalised society, and it traces how certain artists, genres or movements informed the works of others - showing how the Impressionists were inspired by Gustave Courbet, for example, or how Van Gogh was influenced by Japanese prints.Comprehensive, accessible, and lavishly illustrated throughout, Timelines of Art is an essential guide to the pantheon of world art, so dive straight into discover: - An overview of each movement, including the social and cultural background of the period, grounds the works of art in the spirit of their times.- Turning-point paintings that triggered or epitomised each artistic movement are identified and explained, against a backdrop of influences - the technical advances, admired techniques of an earlier artist, and changes in society that enabled new directions in art.- Glossary of technical terms and comprehensive index help make this an indispensable work of reference for any art-lover.Timelines of Art is the perfect art history book for students of art and/or history, proving ideal for families, schools and libraries and doubling up as a great gift for the art lover in your life.

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In this bracing collection of provocative essays, Michael Knox Beran examines the false benevolence that characterizes the power classes in contemporary America. Their enlightened pity for their fellow citizens, he charges, conceals an instinct for power rather than compassion. Mr. Beran argues that today's elites have come to rely on a social philosophy that reduces people to a mass of social groups and types, obscures their individual humanity, and makes them easier to manipulate. While they tragically conceive their desire for authority as a form of virtue, the elite classes have set about remaking schools, rewriting the U.S. Constitution, dehumanizing charity, and making war on tradition in the name of a crude form of Social Darwinism. Through readings of such inspired critics of the social imagination as Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Beran exposes the romance of dominion that underlies the philosophy of social benevolence, a philosophy that has steadily undermined the older and more valuable tradition that Edmund Burke associated with the moral imagination. In seeking to depose this moral impulse in the pantheon of culture, and enshrine the social imagination in its place, today's elites have weakened not only liberalism but also conservatism-indeed society as a whole. Where the moral imagination is not regularly and habitually cultivated, Mr. Beran observes, where it ceases to have a place in education and art, in schools and in the town square, it becomes more difficult even for the best-intentioned among us to resist the allure of a narrow and obtuse self-righteousness. Pathology of the Elites features a fresh voice of social criticism that is likely to raise hackles on both sides of the aisle.

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As befits a game traditionally passed from one generation to the next, baseball has always had a special reverence for origins. Claims of being first with any element of the game are disputed with fervor and passion. When the octogenarian Fred Goldsmith died in 1939, a headline proclaimed, 'Goldsmith Dies Insisting He Invented Curve Ball'; Fred Goldsmith understood the secret of immortality. Yet while countless thousands of words have been spilled on the subject of baseball “firsts,” there has been no definitive source for the settlement of disputes. Peter Morris's endlessly fascinating A Game of Inches has now arrived to fill the void. Impeccably researched and engagingly written, this treasure trove will surprise, delight, and educate even the most knowledgeable fan by dispelling cherished myths and revealing the source of many of baseball's features that we now take for granted. The scope of A Game of Inches is encyclopedic, with nearly a thousand entries that illuminate the origins of items ranging from catchers' masks to hook slides to intentional walks to cork-center baseballs. But this is much more than just a reference guide. Award-winning author Peter Morris explains the context that led each new item to emerge when it did, and chronicles the often surprising responses to these innovations. Of few books can it genuinely be said that once you start reading, it's hard to put it down—but A Game of Inches is one of them. It belongs in the pantheon of great baseball books, and will give any reader a deeper appreciation of why baseball matters so much to Americans. (A companion volume, A Game of Inches: The Game Behind the Scenes, was published in the fall of 2006.)

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This beautiful book brings you the very best of art throughout history – using a truly innovative timeline-led approach. Savour iconic paintings such as Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper and Monet's Waterlilies, and discover less well-known artists, styles, and movements the world over – from Indigenous Australian art to the works of Ming-era China. And explore recurring themes, such as love and religion, and important genres from Romanesque to Conceptual art, along the way. Timelines of Art provides detailed analysis of the works of key artists, showing details of their technique – such as Leonardo's use of light and shade. It tells the story of avant-garde works like Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (Lunch on the Grass), which scandalized society, and it traces how certain artists, genres or movements informed the works of others – showing how the Impressionists were inspired by Gustave Courbet, for example, or how Van Gogh was influenced by Japanese prints.Comprehensive, accessible, and lavishly illustrated throughout, Timelines of Art is an essential guide to the pantheon of world art, so dive straight into discover: - An overview of each movement, including the social and cultural background of the period, grounds the works of art in the spirit of their times.- Turning-point paintings that triggered or epitomized each artistic movement are identified and explained, against a backdrop of influences – the technical advances, admired techniques of an earlier artist, and changes in society that enabled new directions in art.- Glossary of technical terms and comprehensive index help make this an indispensable work of reference for any art-lover.Timelines of Art is the perfect art history book for students of art and/or history, proving ideal for families, schools and libraries and doubling up as a great gift for the art lover in your life.

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The history of Soul music has been defined, first and foremost, by a succession of exceptional vocalists. It is impossible to conceive of the genre without them. This does not mean, however, that those who back singers, those who play instruments - bassists; drummers; guitarists; keyboardists; saxophonists - were reduced to nothing other than walk on parts. If Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding were able to move audiences, then their band members and arrangers, the likes of King Curtis and Booker T. Jones, played a key role in creating tracks that had commensurate emotional depth and technical ingenuity. These lesser known figures have heightened our listening pleasure. In Soul Unsung Kevin Le Gendre celebrates the contribution of players of instruments to soul. He analyses, in forensic detail, the inspiring creativity and imagination that several generations of musicians have brought to black pop, and highlights how they have broadened its sound canvas by adopting unusual stylistic approaches and embracing the latest available technology. Furthermore, the book offers insights into the state of contemporary soul and its relationship with jazz, rock and hip-hop. It is precisely because soul has not evolved in a vacuum that it has a canon that is enviably rich in variety. Soul Unsung shines a light on the plethora of mesmerising sounds that constitute this heritage and explains why they affect the listener as much as a great singer. Placing the focus squarely on the band, Le Gendre sets out to change perceptions of one of the great forms of expression to have marked popular culture in the 20th century, so that those who play are given, alongside those who sing, their rightful place in the pantheon of contemporary music.

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Proverbial wisdom might seem to be about the obvious, but not when your guides are the Orisha of the Yoruba pantheon. It’s not just that the Orisha don’t always agree – and the answer is often another question – but that gods like Esu face both ways and value ambivalence as a truth beyond any simple certainty, know that the world is built on contraries. There are false mentors, too, only too ready to deceive you; “Science” becomes a byword for the naively empirical, where the truth is always more complex, where things never just are or were, but becoming. It’s a world as ancient as the gods and as contemporary as Google maps, where there are always darker forces at work that have to be surmounted. It’s a world of contemporary hazard from, for instance, Islamist terror that makes relevant the ancient wisdom of not sparing baby pythons.Long based in Trinidad and Tobago, Funso Aiyejina might seem to be mostly writing about Nigeria – except that the sharp observations in these poems frequently acknowledge the visible and invisible links between Africa and the Caribbean. This dual resonance comments richly and ambiguously on the question of where home may be.It’s a collection in dialogue with literary ancestors such as Fagunwa, Tutuola, Okigbo, Soyinka and Achebe that takes the form of a journey through the day and the passages of a life, with the consciousness of legs losing “some of their youthful bounce”. There’s a serious and cryptically reflective mind behind these poems, but one that concludes that a mixture of laughter and ceremonious respect is the way to respond to life, that its goal is to write stories as “luminous white canes/ with which our children may tap-tap their ways out of any future darkness.”

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Reacher never backs down from a problem.And he's about to find a big one, on a deserted Arizona road, where a Jeep has crashed into the only tree for miles around. Under the merciless desert sun, nothing is as it seems.Minutes later Reacher is heading into the nearby border town, a backwater that has seen better days. Next to him is Michaela Fenton, an army veteran turned FBI agent, who is trying to find her twin brother. He might have got mixed up with some dangerous people.And Reacher might just need to pay them a visit.Their leader has burrowed his influence deep into the town. Just to get in and meet the mysterious Dendoncker, Reacher is going to have to achieve the impossible.To get answers will be even harder. There are people in this hostile, empty place who would rather die than reveal their secrets.But then, if Reacher is coming after you, you might be better off dead.Although the Jack Reacher novels can be read in any order, Better Off Dead is the 26th book in the internationally popular series.And be sure not to miss Reacher's newest adventure, no.27, No Plan B! ***OUT NOW***____Jack Reacher is today's James Bond, a thriller hero we can't get enough of.' Ken Follett'If you haven't read any Jack Reacher, you have a treat in store . . . a hitchhiker without a phone, a one-man force for good.' The Times'A contemporary version of the knight in shining armour . . . Reacher is a mythic figure.' Literary Review'Jack Reacher is a wonderfully epic hero; tough, taciturn, yet vulnerable... Irresistible.' People'Jack Reacher has long since earned his prominent place in the pantheon of cool, smart-talking American heroes.' New York Times

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A wide-ranging exploration of the relationship between history and literatureThis issue of Alif explores the relationship between literature and history. What do history and literature have to say to each other? What can literature say that history cannot, and vice versa? Do they work with or against each other? How does the literary dimension of history affect its status, and how does the historicity of literature, in turn, shape its being? What would it mean to speak of a “literariness of history” today? The terms “literature” and “history” in our title are intended to be construed in the broadest possible sense and to cover the widest possible range of genres and modalities of literary and historical writing. The recent proliferation of epithets and sub-disciplines in the study of both literature and history has fundamentally changed both fields while raising further questions about the possibility of scholarly debates that traverse them.Contributors- Balthazar I. Beckett, American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt- Mohamed Birairi, Beni-Suef University, Beni-Suef, Egypt, and the American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt- Ziad Dallal, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, USA- Karim Elsaiad, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt- Itzea Goikolea-Amiano, SOAS, University of London, London, UK- Rebecca Ruth Gould, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK- Magdi Guirguis, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafr al-Sheikh, Egypt- Isabelle Hesse, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia- Abdullah Ibrahim, literary critic- Madonna Kalousian, independent scholar- Céza Kassem, independent scholar- Ahmed F. Khaleel, University of York, York, UK- Tarif Khalidi, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon- Peter Kornicki, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK- Wen-chi Li, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland- Azza Madian, Cairo Conservatoire and American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt- Francesca Orsini, SOAS, University of London, London, UK- Daniel Rivet, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France- Anne C. Vila, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

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Superb Yokai images from the world's leading museums and private collections!Japan's vast pantheon of supernatural creatures includes demons (yokai), monsters, ogres (oni), ghosts (yurei) and magicians—mythical beings from folklore and popular culture which continue to thrill readers of traditional stories and manga today.This richly illustrated book by Andreas Marks, the leading authority on Japanese woodblock prints, presents authentic illustrations and descriptions of 100 different creatures, including: Bakeneko: Monster cats in human form who lick lamp oil and prey on humans born in the year of the Rat Han'nya: Female demons with sharp and pointed horns, metallic eyes and a smirking smile Hihi: Large ape-like monsters who live in the mountains and have superhuman strength, enabling them to kidnap and kill humans Mikoshi-nyudo: Yokai with an enormously extended necks who appear only at night And many more! The striking visual examples in this book are drawn from the rich canon of early Japanese prints, books, and paintings—sourced from leading museums, libraries and private collections worldwide. They show the "original" forms and appearances of the creatures which form the basis for all subsequent depictions.Also included are two long handscrolls from the Minneapolis Institute of Art (A Collection of Monsters and Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) which are reproduced here for the very first time.Prints and Paintings sourced from the following list of museums, libraries and private collections:Art Institute of ChicagoChristie's, London & New YorkThe Cleveland Museum of ArtHarold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young UniversityKyoto University, Main LibraryLibrary of CongressLos Angeles County Museum of ArtThe Metropolitan Museum of ArtMinneapolis Institute of ArtNational Museum of Japanese HistoryPrinceton University LibraryRijksmuseum, AmsterdamSmithsonian Libraries

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The legend of Jean-Michel Basquiat is as strong as ever. Synonymous with 1980s New York, the artist first appeared in the late 1970s under the tag SAMO, spraying caustic comments and fragmented poems on the walls of the city. He appeared as part of a thriving underground scene of visual arts and graffiti, hip hop, post-punk, and DIY filmmaking, which met in a booming art world. As a painter with a strong personal voice, Basquiat soon broke into the established milieu, exhibiting in galleries around the world. Basquiat’s expressive style was based on raw figures and integrated words and phrases. His work is inspired by a pantheon of luminaries from jazz, boxing, and basketball, with references to arcane history and the politics of street life—so when asked about his subject matter, Basquiat answered “royalty, heroism and the streets.” In 1983 he started collaborating with the most famous of art stars, Andy Warhol, and in 1985 was on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. When Basquiat died at the age of 27, he had become one of the most successful artists of his time. First published in an XXL edition, this unprecedented insight into Basquiat’s art is now available in a compact, accessible volume in celebration of TASCHEN’s 40th anniversary. With pristine reproductions of his most seminal paintings, drawings, and notebook sketches, it offers vivid proximity to Basquiat’s intricate marks and scribbled words, further illuminated by an introduction to the artist from editor Hans Werner Holzwarth, as well as an essay on his themes and artistic development from curator and art historian Eleanor Nairne. Richly illustrated year-by-year chapter breaks follow the artist’s life and quote from his own statements and contemporary reviews to provide both personal background and historical context.

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A gripping, funny, joyful account of how the books you read shape your own life in surprising and profound ways. Bookworms know what scholars of literature are trained to forget: that when they devour a work of literary fiction, whatever else they may be doing, they are reading about themselves. Read Shakespeare, and you become Cleopatra, Hamlet, or Bottom. Or at the very least, you experience the plays as if you are in a small room alone with them, and they are speaking to your life, your sensibility. Drawing on fifty years as a Shakespearean, Leonard Barkan has produced a captivating book that asks us to reconsider what it means to read. Barkan violates the rule of distance he was taught and has always taught his students. He asks: Where does this brilliantly contrived fiction actually touch me? Where is Shakespeare in effect telling the story of my life? King Lear, for Barkan, raises unanswerable questions about what exactly a father does after planting the seed. Mothers from Gertrude to Lady Macbeth are reconsidered in the light of the author’s experience as a son of a former flapper. The sonnets and comedies are seen through the eyes of a gay man who nevertheless weeps with joy when all the heterosexual couples are united at the end. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is interpreted through the author’s joyous experience of performing the role of Bottom and finding his aesthetic faith in the pantheon of antiquity. And the exquisitely poetical history play Richard II intersects with, of all things, Ru Paul’s Drag Race. Full of engrossing stories, from family secrets to the world of the theater, and written with humor and genuine excitement about literary experiences worthy of our attention and our love, Reading Shakespeare Reading Me makes Shakespeare’s plays come alive in new ways.

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More commonly known as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Victor Hugo's Romantic novel of dark passions and unrequited love, Notre-Dame de Paris, is translated with an introduction by John Sturrock in Penguin Classics.In the vaulted Gothic towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral lives Quasimodo, the hunchbacked bellringer. Mocked and shunned for his appearance, he is pitied only by Esmerelda, a beautiful gypsy dancer to whom he becomes completely devoted. Esmerelda, however, has also attracted the attention of the sinister archdeacon Claude Frollo, and when she rejects his lecherous approaches, Frollo hatches a plot to destroy her, that only Quasimodo can prevent. Victor Hugo's sensational, evocative novel brings life to the medieval Paris he loved, and mourns its passing in one of the greatest historical romances of the nineteenth century.John Sturrock's clear, contemporary translation is accompanied by an introduction discussing it as a passionate novel of ideas, written in defence of Gothic architecture and of a burgeoning democracy, and demonstrating that an ugly exterior can conceal moral beauty. This revised edition also includes further reading and a chronology of Hugo's life.Victor Hugo (1802-85) was a forceful and prolific writer. He wrote volumes of criticism, Romantic costume dramas, lyrical and satirical verse and political journalism but is best remembered for his novels, especially Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) and Les Miserables (1862) which was adapted into one of the most successful musicals of all time. Though exiled to the Channel Islands by Napoleon III, Hugo returned to Paris in 1870 and remained a great public figure until his death: his body lay in state under the Arc de Triomphe, and he was later buried in the Panthéon.If you enjoyed Notre-Dame de Paris, you might like Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera.'A great writer - inventive, witty, sly, innovatory'A. S. Byatt, author of Possession

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New essays providing fresh insights into the great 20th-century American poet Lowell, his writings, and his struggles. Robert Lowell (1917-1977) holds a place of unchallenged prominence in the poetic pantheon of the twentieth-century United States. He is an essential focal point for understanding the connection between poetry and American history,social justice, and personal identity. A recent spate of publications both by and about him, as well as allusions to him in the work of major American poets such as Wanda Coleman and Claudia Rankine, attest to his continued relevance. In March 2017, leading Lowell scholars from Europe and America gathered at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland in commemoration of his 100th birthday. The essays deriving from the conference and presented here aftercareful revision reveal new aspects of Lowell: for instance, the poet's influence on his peers, discussed by Thomas Travisano, the biographer of Elizabeth Bishop; or echoes of Milton in Lowell's work, discussed by Saskia Hamilton, editor of the forthcoming Dolphin Letters between Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick. Other essays examine Lowell's struggles with bipolar illness, with marriage, and with money; his economic views and his early personality issues with respect to his poetic production; his extended sojourn in Amsterdam; and his special relationship with Ireland. Several essays focus on his 1961 volume Imitations, his major poetic engagement with the European tradition, unjustly neglected in the US. The essays will appeal to the wide audience that Lowell scholarship continues to command. Contributors: Steven Gould Axelrod, Massimo Bacigalupo, Philip Coleman, Ian D. Copestake, Astrid Franke, Jo Gill, Saskia Hamilton, Frank J. Kearful, Grzegorz Kosc, Diederik Oostdijk, Francesco Rognoni, Thomas Travisano, Boris Vejdovsky. Thomas Austenfeld is Professor of American Literature at the University of Fribourg.

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During the rise of New York from the capital of an upstart nation to a global metropolis, the visual language of Greek and Roman antiquity played a formative role in the development of the city’s art and architecture. This compilation of essays offers a survey of diverse reinterpretations of classical forms in some of New York’s most iconic buildings, public monuments, and civic spaces. Classical New York examines the influence of Greco-Roman thought and design from the Greek Revival of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries through the late-nineteenth-century American Renaissance and Beaux Arts period and into the twentieth century’s Art Deco. At every juncture, New Yorkers looked to the classical past for knowledge and inspiration in seeking out new ways to cultivate a civic identity, to design their buildings and monuments, and to structure their public and private spaces. Specialists from a range of disciplines—archaeology, architectural history, art history, classics, and history— focus on how classical art and architecture are repurposed to help shape many of New York City’s most evocative buildings and works of art. Federal Hall evoked the Parthenon as an architectural and democratic model; the Pantheon served as a model for the creation of Libraries at New York University and Columbia University; Pennsylvania Station derived its form from the Baths of Caracalla; and Atlas and Prometheus of Rockefeller Center recast ancient myths in a new light during the Great Depression. Designed to add breadth and depth to the exchange of ideas about the place and meaning of ancient Greece and Rome in our experience of New York City today, this examination of post-Revolutionary art, politics, and philosophy enriches the conversation about how we shape space—be it civic, religious, academic, theatrical, or domestic—and how we make use of that space and the objects in it.

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In the pantheon of freedom fighters, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has pride of place. His fame and influence extend far beyond India and are nowhere more significant than in South Africa. "India gave us a Mohandas, we gave them a Mahatma," goes a popular South African refrain. Contemporary South African leaders, including Mandela, have consistently lauded him as being part of the epic battle to defeat the racist white regime. The South African Gandhi focuses on Gandhi's first leadership experiences and the complicated man they reveal—a man who actually supported the British Empire. Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed unveil a man who, throughout his stay on African soil, stayed true to Empire while showing a disdain for Africans. For Gandhi, whites and Indians were bonded by an Aryan bloodline that had no place for the African. Gandhi's racism was matched by his class prejudice towards the Indian indentured. He persistently claimed that they were ignorant and needed his leadership, and he wrote their resistances and compromises in surviving a brutal labor regime out of history. The South African Gandhi writes the indentured and working class back into history. The authors show that Gandhi never missed an opportunity to show his loyalty to Empire, with a particular penchant for war as a means to do so. He served as an Empire stretcher-bearer in the Boer War while the British occupied South Africa, he demanded guns in the aftermath of the Bhambatha Rebellion, and he toured the villages of India during the First World War as recruiter for the Imperial army. This meticulously researched book punctures the dominant narrative of Gandhi and uncovers an ambiguous figure whose time on African soil was marked by a desire to seek the integration of Indians, minus many basic rights, into the white body politic while simultaneously excluding Africans from his moral compass and political ideals.

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A service and repair manual with generic model coverage, suitable for 50 t0 250 cc scooters with carburettor engines. It was revised in 2011 and includes a data section on the following models: Aprilia Leonardo 125, Mojito 50 and 125, Rally 50, Sonic, Sportcity One 50/125, Sportscity Cube 125/200, SR50; Derbi Boulevard 50/125/150/200; Gilera Ice 50, Runner 50, Runner FX125 and FXR180, Runner ST125/200, Runner VX125 and VXR180/200, SKP50 (Stalker); Honda FES125 Pantheon, FES250 Foresight, NES125 @125, SCV100 Lead, SES125 Dylan, SFX50, SGX50 Sky, SH50, SH125, SZX50 (X8R-S and X8R-X); Malaguti F12 Phantom 50, F12 Spectrum 50, F15 Firefox, Madison 125/150; MBK Doodo 125, Mach G 50, Nitro 50 and 100, Ovetto 50 and 100, Rocket, Skyliner 125, Stunt 50, Thunder 125; Peugeot Elyseo 50/100/125, Elystar 125 and 150, Jet C-Tech, Kisbee, Looxor 50/100/125/150, Ludix, LXR125, Speedfight 50 and 100, Sum-up 125, Trekker 50 and 100, Tweet 125 and 150, V-Clic, Vivacity 50/100/125, Zenith; Piaggio B125 (Beverly), Fly 50 and 125, Hexagon 125, Super Hexagon 125 and 180, Liberty 50 and 125, NRG MC2, NRG MC3, NRG Power, Skipper 125, Skipper ST125, Typhoon 50/80/125, X7 125, X8 125, X9 125, Zip 50, Zip 50 SP/RS, Zip 125; Sachs Bee 50 and 125, Speedjet R; Suzuki AN125, AP50, AY50 Katana, AY50W Katana R, UH125 Burgman; Vespa ET2 50, ET4 50, ET4 125, GT125 and 200, GTS125, GTV125, LX2 50 (LX50 2T), LX4 50 (LX50 4T), LX125, LXV125, S50 and S125; Yamaha CS50 JogR, CS50Z JogRR, CW/BW50, EW50 Slider, NXC125 Cygnus, XN125 Teo’s, XQ125 Maxster, YH50 Why, YN50 and 100 Neo’s, YP125R Majesty, YP250 Majesty, YQ50 and 100 Aerox

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Witness what the gods do after dark in the fourth volume of a stylish and contemporary reimagining of one of the best-known stories in Greek mythology from creator Rachel Smythe."I don't always get to do as I please."The rumor mill of Olympus is constantly churning, but Persephone and Hades are all anyone can talk about. With the constant gossip creating intense pressure on the pair, they decide to slow down their budding romance and focus on sorting out their own issues first.But that's easier said than done.Hades struggles to find support in his personal life, with Zeus trivializing his feelings and Minthe resorting to abusive patterns in their relationship. And while Hades tries to create healthier boundaries where he can-like finally putting a stop to his sporadic, revenge-fueled hookups with Hera-he still feels lonely and adrift.Persephone feels equally ostracized as her classmates shun her for her connection to Hades, and she can find no refuge at home, with Apollo constantly dropping by unannounced and pushing his unwelcome advances. And on top of it all, the wrathful god of war, Ares, has returned to Olympus to dredge up his sordid history with the goddess of spring, threatening to surface Persephone's dark and mysterious past and ruin her tenuous position in the land of the gods.Despite agreeing to take it slow, Persephone and Hades find themselves inextricably drawn toward each other once more amid the chaos. The pull of fate cannot be denied.This edition of Rachel Smythe's original Eisner-winning webcomic Lore Olympus features exclusive behind-the-scenes content and brings the Greek pantheon into the modern age in a sharply perceptive and romantic graphic novel.This volume collects episodes 76-102 of the #1 WEBTOON comic Lore Olympus.

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A deep dive into the creative world and personal archive of the master of horror Clive Barker, from Hellraiser and Candyman to today"I've seen the future of horror . . . and his name is Clive Barker." In the mid-1980s, Stephen King inducted a young English novelist into the world of great genre writers, and since then, this genius creator has only continued to expand his field of activity. Created by his two most loyal collaborators, Phil and Sarah Stokes, Clive Barker’s Dark Worlds is the first book to shed light on the massive scope of Barker’s creative work. With the help of Barker himself, this book contains exclusive insight from those who have worked with him creatively and professionally, alongside analyses of his works and comments over four decades from industry contemporaries and friends such as Ramsey Campbell, Quentin Tarantino, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville, Peter Straub, Armistead Maupin, J.G. Ballard, Wes Craven, and many more. The book spans Barker’s world, highlighting classics such as the character Pinhead, an icon in the pantheon of horror cinema; the Hellraiser series of ten films and a forthcoming HBO miniseries; and the cult films Nightbreed and Candyman, the latter of which was rebooted as a Jordan Peele production in 2021. In literature, Barker has written the horror anthology series Books of Blood, which was recently adapted by Hulu, as well as numerous fantasy sagas. Weaveworld and The Great and Secret Show have become instant genre classics, and Abarat is a beloved bestselling series for young adults. In the world of comics, Barker has partnered with major publishers such as Marvel and BOOM! Studios. This tireless creator has also dipped his toes into the worlds of toys, video games, and art, and his incredible collection of paintings, drawings, and photographs have been exhibited in galleries over the world.

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The inspiration for the primetime ITV series on Great Britain, this is a spellbinding journey around Wales by bestselling author Christopher Winn. Packed full of legends, firsts, birthplaces, inventions and adventures, I Never Knew That About Wales visits the thirteen traditional Welsh counties and unearths the hidden gems that they each hold. Discover where history and legends happened; where people, ideas and inventions began; where dreams took flight; where famous figures were born and now rest. A glittering pantheon of writers and artists, thinkers and inventors, heroes and villains have lived and toiled in this small country. Remarkable events, noble (and dastardly) deeds and exciting adventures have all taken place with Wales as their backdrop. This book seeks out their heritage, their monuments, their memories and their secrets. You'll be able to visit Britain's smallest city, St David's with its glorious 12th-century cathedral slumbering in a sleepy hollow near the sea. Explore Britain's greatest collection of castles from the first stone fortress at Chepstow to Britain's finest concentric castle at Beaumaris and the magnificent Caernarvon, birthplace of the first Prince of Wales. Browse through the second hand book capital of the world, Hay-on-Wye, wander the glorious Gower peninsula, Britain's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Take a trip to Fishguard, where the last invasion of Britain took place in 1797. Marvel at Thomas Telford's Menai Bridge, the world's first iron suspension bridge or Pontcysyllte, the longest bridged aqueduct in Britain. This irresistible compendium of interesting facts and good stories will give you a captivating insight into the people, ideas and events that have shaped the individual identity of every place you visit, and will have you exclaiming again and again: 'Well, I never knew that!'

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***OVER A MILLION COPIES OF THE IRON DRUID BOOKS SOLD***'American Gods meets Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden' SFF WorldDiscover this action-packed collection of short stories featuring Atticus O'Sullivan - the two-thousand-year-old tattooed Irishman with extraordinary powers from Kevin Hearne's New York Times bestselling Iron Druid Chronicles.- In ancient Egypt, Atticus raids a secret chamber underneath the library of Alexandria, dodging deadly traps, only to learn that on-site security includes two members of the Egyptian pantheon . . .- During the Gold Rush, the avatar of greed himself turns the streets of San Francisco red with blood and upsets the elemental Sequoia. Atticus may have to fight fire with fire if he's going to restore balance . . . - In olde England, striking up a friendship with William Shakespeare lands both Atticus and the Bard in boiling hot water with a trio of infamous witches . . . Prepare to be besieged by these and other tantalizing tales of magic and adventure featuring bogeymen, vampire hordes, wrathful wraiths, and even a journey to the realm of the dead. Praise for the Iron Druid Chronicles:'Atticus and his crew are a breath of fresh air! . . . I love, love, love this series' My Bookish Ways'Entertaining, steeped in a ton of mythology, populated by awesome characters' Civilian Reader'This is one series no fantasy fan should miss. Mystery, suspense, magic and mayhem' SciFiChickThe Iron Druid ChroniclesHounded Hexed HammeredTrickedTrappedHuntedShatteredStakedScourgedBesieged (short stories)HAVE YOU TRIED...Kevin Hearne's epic fantasy novel A PLAGUE OF GIANTS - described by Delilah S. Dawson as 'a rare masterpiece that's both current and timeless . . . merging the fantasy bones of Tolkien and Rothfuss with a wide cast of characters who'll break your heart'. Out now!

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Chen Cheng naquit en 1365 sous le regne du dernier empereur mongol Shundi (1333-1367). Il connut dans son enfance les desordres de la fin des Yuan et l'avenement de la dynastie Ming (1368-1644). Laureat du concours du palais, il servit comme fonctionnaire du corps des envoyes diplomatiques sous les trois premiers empereurs Ming. Il mourut apres une longue retraite en 1457. Cette recherche vise a retrouver la trace de ce personnage pour lui redonner vie dans son epoque. Elle tente de presenter la vision des royaumes etrangers que pouvait avoir un voyageur chinois de cette epoque fortement marque par sa propre tradition. La politique de Yongle (1405-1424), fils du fondateur de la dynastie, tira son originalite d'une ouverture accrue sur le monde chinois, jusque vers un Occident lointain, ou les envoyes imperiaux se rendirent par voies de terre et de mer. La notoriete de Chen Cheng tient surtout a ses relations de voyages en Asie centrale. Sous le regne de Yongle, l'envoye imperial se rendit par trois fois aupres du fils de Tamerlan, Shahrukh, en sa capitale Herat. Au retour de sa premiere mission, en 1415, il presenta a la cour le "Journal de voyage dans les terres d'Occident" et le "Memoire sur les royaumes indigenes des terres d'Occident". Pour compenser la secheresse de son Journal et comme pour s'humaniser davantage a nos yeux, Chen Cheng nous offrit ses "Poemes de route". Si le chemin a travers les deserts et les montagnes n'est pas decrit minitieusement, on peut y suivre de loin en loin le cheminement mental de l'auteur et ressentir avec lui quelques emotions du voyage: joies, deconvenues, surprises, inquietudes mais aussi l'amusement de decouvrir. Chen Cheng n'est pas une figure dominante du pantheon des lettres chinois, mais il est surement representatif d'une elite talentueuse et cultivee de son temps, fidelement devouee a l'institution imperiale.

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The author of eighteen spellbinding detective novels set on the Navajo Nation, Tony Hillerman simultaneously transformed a traditional genre and unlocked the mysteries of the Navajo culture to an audience of millions. His best-selling novels added Navajo Tribal Police detectives Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee to the pantheon of American fictional detectives. Morris offers a balanced portrait of Hillerman’s personal and professional life and provides a timely appreciation of his work. In intimate detail, Morris captures the author’s early years in Depression-era Oklahoma; his near-death experience in World War II; his sixty-year marriage to Marie; his family life, including six children, five of them adopted; his work in the trenches of journalism; his affliction with PTSD and its connection to his enchantment with Navajo spirituality; and his ascension as one of America’s best-known authors of mysteries. Further, Morris uncovers the almost accidental invention of Hillerman’s iconic detective Joe Leaphorn and the circumstances that led to the addition of Jim Chee as his partner. Hillerman’s novels were not without controversy. Morris examines the charges of cultural appropriation leveled at the author toward the end of his life. Yet, for many readers, including many Native Americans, Hillerman deserves critical acclaim for his knowledgeable and sensitive portrayal of DinÉ (Navajo) history, culture, and identity. At the time of Hillerman’s death, more than 20 million copies of his books were in print, and his novels inspired Robert Redford to adapt them to film. In weaving together all the elements of the author’s life, Morris drew on the untapped collection of the author’s papers, extensive archival research, interviews with friends, colleagues, and family, as well as travel in the Navajo Nation. Filled with never-before-told anecdotes and fresh insights, Tony Hillerman will thrill the author’s fans and awaken new interest in his life and literary legacy.

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Among maternal deities of the Greek pantheon, the Mother of the Gods was a paradox. She is variously described as a devoted mother, a chaste wife, an impassioned lover, and a virgin daughter; she is said to be both foreign and familiar to the Greeks. In this erudite and absorbing study, Mark Munn examines how the cult of Mother of the Gods came from Phrygia and Lydia, where she was the mother of tyrants, to Athens, where she protected the laws of the Athenian democracy. Analyzing the divergence of Greek and Asiatic culture at the beginning of the classical era, Munn describes how Kybebe, the Lydian goddess who signified fertility and sovereignty, assumed a different aspect to the Greeks when Lydia became part of the Persian empire. Conflict and resolution were played out symbolically, he shows, and the goddess of Lydian tyranny was eventually accepted by the Athenians as the Mother of the Gods, and as a symbol of their own sovereignty. This book elegantly illustrates how ancient divinities were not static types, but rather expressions of cultural systems that responded to historical change. Presenting a new perspective on the context in which the Homeric and Hesiodic epics were composed, Munn traces the transformation of the Asiatic deity who was the goddess of Sacred Marriage among the Assyrians and Babylonians, equivalent to Ishtar. Among the Lydians, she was the bride to tyrants and the mother of tyrants. To the Greeks, she was Aphrodite. An original and compelling consideration of the relations between the Greeks and the dominant powers of western Asia, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia is the first thorough examination of the way that religious cult practice and thought influenced political activities during and after the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.

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When Elf was first released in 2003 it was an instant hit, and has become one of the few films of the new millennium to earn its place in the pantheon of classic Christmas cinema. Now fans can enjoy the hilarious and heartwarming story in a whole new way. Buddy the Elf has more Christmas spirit than anyone, but he s never quite fit in with the other North Pole elves. It all makes sense when he learns he s actually a human and his father is on the naughty list! Determined to bring his father some Christmas cheer, Buddy sets out on an epic journey to New York City, where he discovers the joy of revolving doors, unmasks a fake department store Santa, and works in a shiny mailroom. But Buddy s dad only cares about money and work! When Santa encounters disaster on Christmas Eve, can Buddy count on his new family to help him save Christmas? Kim Smith s adorable illustrations give a classic feel to this modern holiday tale. Featuring all of the iconic moments and laugh-out-loud lines from the film, this story of infectious Christmas spirit in the face of cynicism is a must-have for Elf fans of all ages. Series Overview: The films and TV shows that families love are reimagined as lively, colorful picture books featuring the iconic moments and characters of the original. Simple words are paired with a kid-friendly storybook format that s perfect for bedtime or storytime, plus all-new illustrations done in classic picture book style to make this series a great way for parents to share their pop culture favorites with a new generation. Though the movie and TV versions came first, you ll wonder if they weren t adaptations of these books, instead of the other way around!

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***OVER A MILLION COPIES OF THE IRON DRUID BOOKS SOLD***'American Gods meets Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden' SFF WorldFor a two-thousand-year-old Druid, Atticus O'Sullivan is a pretty fast runner. Good thing, because he's being chased by not one but two goddesses of the hunt - Artemis and Diana - for messing with one of their own. Dodging their slings and arrows, Atticus, his apprentice Granuaile and his wolfhound Oberon are making a mad dash across modern-day Europe to seek help from a friend of the Tuatha Dé Danann. His usual magical option of shifting planes is blocked, so instead of playing hide and seek, the game plan is . . . run like hell.Crashing the pantheon marathon is the Norse god Loki. Killing Atticus is the only loose end he needs to tie up before unleashing Ragnarok - AKA the Apocalypse. Atticus and Granuaile have to outfox the Olympians and contain the god of mischief if they want to go on living - and still have a world to live in.Praise for the Iron Druid Chronicles:'Atticus and his crew are a breath of fresh air! . . . I love, love, love this series' My Bookish Ways'Entertaining, steeped in a ton of mythology, populated by awesome characters' Civilian Reader'This is one series no fantasy fan should miss. Mystery, suspense, magic and mayhem' SciFiChickThe Iron Druid ChroniclesHounded Hexed HammeredTrickedTrappedHuntedShatteredStakedScourgedBesieged (short stories)HAVE YOU TRIED . . . Kevin Hearne's epic fantasy novel A PLAGUE OF GIANTS - described by Delilah S. Dawson as 'a rare masterpiece that's both current and timeless . . . merging the fantasy bones of Tolkien and Rothfuss with a wide cast of characters who'll break your heart'. Out now!

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When the luxury liner Ile de France sailed into New York harbor for the first time in 1927, she brought to America the first great, coordinated example of what the French then called L'Art Moderne. The revolutionary Art Deco interiors found on the Ile de France were unlike anything previously seen on the North Atlantic and set a standard in ocean liner décor for decades to come. Her glittering passenger lists of the 1920s and 1930s were the envy of other shipping lines: Marlene Dietrich, Gloria Swanson, John D. Rockefeller, Buster Keaton, Barbara Hutton, Maurice Chevalier, Will Rogers, Cary Grant, Marie Curie and Arturo Toscanini were but a few of the luminaries that graced its salons. The Ile de France served heroically in World War II as a troopship, and in peacetime came to the rescue of other ships nine times during her career, most notably when she rescued more than 700 survivors from the stricken Andrea Doria following its collision with the Stockholm in 1956. In a last gasp of immortality, the Ile de France appeared in the epic disaster film The Last Voyage standing in for a fictional, stricken liner. Forgetting her ignoble end, the Ile de France is still held in awe and reverence both in her native France and by the maritime community worldwide. Although neither the fastest nor the largest liner of her time, one writer said of the Ile de France, “She was handsome without being grand, comfortable without being overstuffed, class-conscious without living by exclusions.” The penchant the Ile de France had for attracting the famous, the talented, the youthful, along with her special chic and verve insured her place in the pantheon of immortal Atlantic liners.

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WINNER OF INTERNATIONAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR AT THE 2021 TELEGRAPH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS'An intelligent and often beautifully observed book' Donald McRae, The Guardian'A must-read about a career which never dropped out of top gear' Racing Post'A thoroughly engaging memoir. I can't recommend this insightful autobiography enough' Horse & Hound'A superior story: an honest and self-searching account of the glories and thrills but also the doubt and barren spells that visit even rampantly successful jockeys' The Irish TimesThe riveting full-career autobiography of Barry Geraghty, one of the most successful jump jockeys in the sport's history. Now retired, Geraghty takes his rightful place in the pantheon of greats that includes AP McCoy, Richard Johnson and Ruby Walsh.Barry Geraghty is an Irish horseracing legend.From his first win in 1997 he has gone on to ride almost 2000 winners, making him the fourth most successful jumps jockey of all time. With the second most wins at Cheltenham in the sport's history, he has worked with all the greats - Moscow Flyer, Kicking King, Monty's Pass.Barry finally retired in July 2020, covered in scars. He has broken all of his limbs, his shoulders, his ribs, his nose. He has survived falls too numerous to recall, and spent most of 2019 with a metal cast on his leg. And yet, he kept getting back on the horse, for twenty-three years.His autobiography is about resilience, the mental power that enables the great to keep going despite the pain, despite the odds. It explores how Barry has developed the mind tools to continue to push himself, even when all seems lost. Containing startling revelations and a searingly honest insight into the life of a top jockey, this is a must-read for all sports fans.

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This is the story of Admiral Sir John Balchen, his life and career, and HMS _Victory_, the largest, finest ship-of-the-line in the Royal Navy at the time, which he commanded when both were lost, along with more than 1,000 crew, in an October storm in the English Channel in 1744\. This is not the _Victory_ of Trafalgar fame, however, but the First Rate built some thirty years earlier, the last Royal Navy three-decker to carry bronze cannons, and a ship whose poor design may well have contributed to her loss. It is also the story of Admiral John Balchen, a courageous, if not heroic, naval officer who saw major engagements and whose legacy in naval development deserves greater recognition. Indeed, the story of both the ship and her commander, their individual and remarkably parallel lives, can now be revealed as fundamental catalysts to the revolutionary reforms in naval shipbuilding, design and dockyard administration that transformed the Royal Navy after 1745\. They were indeed major foundation stones for a navy that delivered the glorious achievements of Nelson, Anson, Howe, Hood, Rodney, Boscawen and many more in the great pantheon of British naval history that followed their loss. The exciting discovery of the wreck of HMS _Victory_ in 2008, the subsequent and continuing public and political wrangling over possible salvage, and the 2019 display at Portsmouth of a mighty 42-pounder bronze gun retrieved from the wreck, have been the catalyst for this history of the admiral and his ship, and anyone with an interest in naval or maritime history, whether academic or popular, will be fascinated by the facts about the hitherto virtually unknown predecessor of Nelson's great flagship. This glorious man-and-ship odyssey, whose intrinsic importance to naval history can now be recognised, is richly and compelling told in this important new book.

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Feel is the story of how a small-time boy from humble beginnings in Louisiana rose to the pantheon of greats, to win the 500cc and 250cc GP Championship in the same year – an historic achievement over three decades ago which has never been repeated.Growing up at the time of the assassination of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Freddie judged by feel, not by colour. Blind to prejudice and discrimination, he formed dynamic connections with people and events, but only years later during his racing afterlife could Freddie come to understand the true power of the things he learned.Spencer is an articulate and compassionate guide as he describes the thrill and horror of racing in an era when death was a perennial threat. He recalls in pin-sharp detail the frenetic high-octane racing duels with the ‘King’ Kenny Roberts, but also describes a parallel internal journey as he struggled to make sense of it all. Driven by a search for the personal fulfilment that comes through finding your purpose, Freddie’s story is a universal one. In its message of hope, Feel transcends its genre to offer a story for everyone. Part thriller, part philosophical self-exploration, it is a remarkably insightful account of what it is like to have it all, but wonder why. “For the first time I will talk about the traumas of my childhood, the contrast between the leaf fire burns, the mistrust and discomfort and the peace and purpose I felt when riding my bike. I didn’t tell my parents about something that happened to me. Why? I felt ashamed, but when I rode I felt connected to everything and the pain in my hand and heart would go away. It gave me the feeling of hope”.

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Elizabeth Lawrence occupies a secure place in the pantheon of twentieth-century gardening writers that includes Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville-West of Great Britain and Katherine S. White of the United States. Her books, such as A Southern Garden (1942) and The Little Bulbs (1957), remain in print, continuing to win praise from criticis and to delight an ever-widening circle of readers. In Gardening for Love, Lawrence reveals another world of garden writing, the world of the rural women of the South with whom she corresponded extensively from the late 1950s into the mid-1970s in responce to their advertisements for herbs and ornamental perennials in several market bulletins (published by state departments of agriculture for the benefit of farmers).It was Eudora Welty who awakened Elizabeth Lawrence's interest in this fascinating topic by putting her name on the mailing list of The Mississippi Market Bulletin, a twice-monthly collection of classified advertisements founded in 1928 and still published today. Lawrence soon discovered market bulletins from the Carolinas and other Southern states, as well as similar bulletins published privately in the North. She began ordering plants from the bulletins, and there ensued a lively exchange of letters wit the women who sold them.Gardening for Love is Lawrence's exploration of this little-known side of American horticulture and her affectionate tribute to country people who shared her passion for plants. Drawing on the letters she received, sometimes a great many of them from the same persons over many years, she delves into traditional plant lore, herbal remedies, odd and often highly poetic vernacular plant names peculiar to particular regions of the South, and the herb collectors of the mountains of the Carolinas and Georgia. She focuses primarily on the Southeast and the Deep South, but her wide knowledge of both literature and botany gives Gardening for Love a dimension that transcends the category of regional writing.

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From the author of the million-copy selling Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation and the bestselling John Lennon: The Life comes a revealing portrait of George Harrison, the most undervalued and mysterious Beatle. Despite being hailed as one of the best guitarists of his era, George Harrison, particularly in his early decades, battled feelings of inferiority. He was often the butt of jokes from his bandmates owing to his lower-class background and, typically, was allowed to contribute only one or two songs per Beatles album out of the dozens he wrote. Now, acclaimed Beatles biographer Philip Norman examines Harrison through the lens of his numerous self-contradictions. Compared to songwriting luminaries John Lennon and Paul McCartney he was considered a minor talent, yet he composed such masterpieces as ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’, and his solo debut album ‘All Things Must Pass’ achieved enormous success, appearing on many lists of the 100 best rock albums ever. Modern music critics place him in the pantheon of Sixties guitar gods alongside Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards and Jimmy Page. Harrison railed against the material world yet wrote the first pop song complaining about income tax. He spent years lovingly restoring his Friar Park estate as a spiritual journey, but quickly mortgaged the property to help rescue a film project that would be widely banned as sacrilegious, Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Harrison could be fiercely jealous, but not only did he stay friends with Eric Clapton when Clapton fell in love with Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd, the two men grew even closer after Clapton walked away with her.Unprecedented in scope and filled with numerous colour photos, this rich biography captures George Harrison at his most multi-faceted: devoted friend, loyal son, master guitar-player, brilliant songwriter, cocaine addict, serial philanderer, global philanthropist, student of Indian mysticism, self-deprecating comedian and, ultimately, iconic artist and man beloved by millions.

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From the author of the million-copy selling Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation and the bestselling John Lennon: The Life comes a revealing portrait of George Harrison, the most undervalued and mysterious Beatle. Despite being hailed as one of the best guitarists of his era, George Harrison, particularly in his early decades, battled feelings of inferiority. He was often the butt of jokes from his bandmates owing to his lower-class background and, typically, was allowed to contribute only one or two songs per Beatles album out of the dozens he wrote. Now, acclaimed Beatles biographer Philip Norman examines Harrison through the lens of his numerous self-contradictions. Compared to songwriting luminaries John Lennon and Paul McCartney he was considered a minor talent, yet he composed such masterpieces as ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’, and his solo debut album ‘All Things Must Pass’ achieved enormous success, appearing on many lists of the 100 best rock albums ever. Modern music critics place him in the pantheon of Sixties guitar gods alongside Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards and Jimmy Page. Harrison railed against the material world yet wrote the first pop song complaining about income tax. He spent years lovingly restoring his Friar Park estate as a spiritual journey, but quickly mortgaged the property to help rescue a film project that would be widely banned as sacrilegious, Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Harrison could be fiercely jealous, but not only did he stay friends with Eric Clapton when Clapton fell in love with Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd, the two men grew even closer after Clapton walked away with her.Unprecedented in scope and filled with numerous colour photos, this rich biography captures George Harrison at his most multi-faceted: devoted friend, loyal son, master guitar-player, brilliant songwriter, cocaine addict, serial philanderer, global philanthropist, student of Indian mysticism, self-deprecating comedian and, ultimately, iconic artist and man beloved by millions.

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A full-life portrait of the man Tolstoy immortalized, Stalin lionized, and Russian history has manipulated and mythologized beyond recognition. Every Russian knows him purely by his patronym. He was the general who triumphed over Napoleons Grande Armée during the Patriotic War of 1812, not merely restoring national pride but securing national identity. Many Russians consider Field Marshal Mikhail Illarionovich Golenischev-Kutuzov the greatest figure of the 19th century, ahead of Pushkin, Tchaikovsky, even Tolstoy himself. Immediately after his death in 1813, Kutuzovs remains were hurried into the pantheon of heroes. Statues of him rose up across the Russian empire and later the Soviet Union. Over the course of decades and centuries he hardened into legend. As award-winning author Alexander Mikaberidze shows in this fascinating, often startling, and wholly humanizing new biography, Kutuzovs story is far more compelling and complex than the myths that have encased him. An unabashed imperialist who rose in the ranks through his victories over the Turks and the Poles, Kutuzov was also a realist and a skeptic about military power. When the Russians and their allies were routed by the French at Austerlitz he was openly appalled by the incompetence of leadership and the sheer waste of life. Over his long careermarked equally by victory and defeat, embrace and ostracism—he grew to despise those whose concept of war had devolved to mindless attack. Here, at last, is Kutuzov as he really was—a master and survivor of intrigue, moving in and out of royal favor, committed to the welfare of those under his command, and an innovative strategist. When, reluctantly and at the 11th hour, Czar Alexander I called upon him to lead the fight against Napoleons invading army, Kutuzov accomplished what needed to be done not by a heroic charge but by a strategic retreat. Across the generations, portraits of Kutuzov have ranged from hagiography to dismissal, with Tolstoys portrait of him in War and Peace perhaps the most indelible of all. This immersive biography returns a touchstone figure in Russian history to human scale.

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