Search results for ""arc""
HarperCollins Publishers Inc A Brief History of Intelligence: Humans, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains
Equal parts Sapiens, Behave, and Superintelligence, but wholly original in scope, A Brief History of Intelligence offers a paradigm shift for how we understand neuroscience and AI. Artificial intelligence entrepreneur Max Bennett chronicles the five “breakthroughs” in the evolution of human intelligence and reveals what brains of the past can tell us about the AI of tomorrow. In the last decade, capabilities of artificial intelligence that had long been the realm of science fiction have, for the first time, become our reality. AI is now able to produce original art, identify tumors in pictures, and even steer our cars. And yet, large gaps remain in what modern AI systems can achieve—indeed, human brains still easily perform intellectual feats that we can’t replicate in AI systems. How is it possible that AI can beat a grandmaster at chess but can’t effectively load a dishwasher? As Max Bennett compellingly argues, finding the answer requires diving into the billion-year history of how the human brain evolved; a history filled with countless half-starts, calamities, and clever innovations. Not only do our brains have a story to tell—the future of AI may depend on it.Now, in A Brief History of Intelligence, Bennett bridges the gap between neuroscience and AI to tell the brain’s evolutionary story, revealing how understanding that story can help shape the next generation of AI breakthroughs. Deploying a fresh perspective and working with the support of many top minds in neuroscience, Bennett consolidates this immense history into an approachable new framework, identifying the “Five Breakthroughs” that mark the brain’s most important evolutionary leaps forward. Each breakthrough brings new insight into the biggest mysteries of human intelligence. Containing fascinating corollaries to developments in AI, A Brief History of Intelligence shows where current AI systems have matched or surpassed our brains, as well as where AI systems still fall short. Simply put, until AI systems successfully replicate each part of our brain’s long journey, AI systems will fail to exhibit human-like intelligence.Endorsed and lauded by many of the top neuroscientists in the field today, Bennett’s work synthesizes the most relevant scientific knowledge and cutting-edge research into an easy-to-understand and riveting evolutionary story. With sweeping scope and stunning insights, A Brief History of Intelligence proves that understanding the arc of our brain’s history can unlock the tools for successfully navigating our technological future.
£26.00
Peeters Publishers Un berbérisant de terrain: Arsène Roux (1893-1971): Écrits et inédits
Le fonds d’archives berbères inédites `Arsène Roux’ déposé à la Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l'Homme (MMSH, Médiathèque) à Aix-en-Provence (France) est d’une richesse exceptionnelle. S’il a attiré plusieurs berbérisants s'intéressant à la langue, à la littérature et aux manuscrits, et si quelques publications ont déjà été réalisées, seule une très faible partie de ce fonds a été exploitée jusqu’ici. Une collaboration régulière a été mise en place depuis plusieurs années entre l’IREMAM d’Aix et l’IRCAM de Rabat en vue de l’exploitation et de la valorisation de ce fonds – elle est bien sûr largement ouverte à tous les chercheurs. La qualité et la pertinence des écrits d'Arsène Roux, disséminés dans des revues aujourd'hui difficilement accessibles, et l'originalité des matériaux linguistiques recueillis et exploités, ont amené les éditeurs à regrouper tous ses articles, communications et comptes-rendus dans le présent ouvrage intitulé Un berbérisant de terrain: Arsène Roux (1893-1971). Écrits et inédits. On y a également intégré un certain nombre de rapports et notes internes relatifs à l’enseignement du berbère pendant la période du Protectorat, ainsi que le fac-similé de quelques travaux d’élèves, tous particulièrement éclairants sur l’activité pédagogique d’A. Roux. Car la carrière d'Arsène Roux a été marquée par un domaine de prédilection : celui de l'enseignement, aussi bien du berbère que de l'arabe. Sa bibliothèque foisonne de documents relatifs à ce champ d'intérêt, fondés le plus souvent sur des corpus authentiques collectés auprès de ses informateurs, essentiellement Si Brahim Akenku et ses élèves du Collège berbère d’Azrou. Le fonds documentaire Roux renferme également de précieux manuscrits en tachelhit en caractères arabes, désormais numérisés. Roux avait plus d'une corde à son arc. Son intérêt pour la langue berbère et pour son enseignement l'a amené à projeter d'élaborer des ouvrages de référence, en l'occurrence un dictionnaire et une grammaire pour le tachelhit et le tamazight. Les fichiers lexicographiques, les matériaux lexicaux ainsi que les diverses notes de linguistique sont les éléments d'un grand projet que Roux n'a pas eu le temps d'achever, pourtant tous les ingrédients étaient réunis pour sa réalisation. On espère que la publication de cet hommage posthume suscitera des vocations parmi les jeunes générations de berbérisants qui trouveront dans ce fonds des matériaux linguistiques, littéraires et ethnographiques considérables, divers et fiables.
£69.40
Bellevue Literary Press Starlight Detectives: How Astronomers, Inventors, and Eccentrics Discovered the Modern Universe
Julia Ward Howe Award Finalist NBC News "Top Science and Tech Books of the Year" selection Scientific American/FSG "Favorite Science Books of the Year" selection Nature.com "Top Reads of the Year" selection Kirkus Reviews "Best Books of the Year" selection Discover magazine "Top 5 Summer Read" "A masterful balance of science, history and rich narrative." --Discover magazine "Hirshfeld tells this climactic discovery of the expanding universe with great verve and sweep, as befits a story whose scope, characters and import leave most fiction far behind." --Wall Street Journal "Starlight Detectives is just the sort of richly veined book I love to read--full of scientific history and discoveries, peopled by real heroes and rogues, and told with absolute authority. Alan Hirshfeld's wide, deep knowledge of astronomy arises not only from the most careful scholarship, but also from the years he's spent at the telescope, posing his own questions to the stars." --DAVA SOBEL, author of A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos and Longitude In 1929, Edwin Hubble announced the greatest discovery in the history of astronomy since Galileo first turned a telescope to the heavens. The galaxies, previously believed to float serenely in the void, are in fact hurtling apart at an incredible speed: the universe is expanding. This stunning discovery was the culmination of a decades-long arc of scientific and technical advancement. In its shadow lies an untold, yet equally fascinating, backstory whose cast of characters illuminates the gritty, hard-won nature of scientific progress. The path to a broader mode of cosmic observation was blazed by a cadre of nineteenth-century amateur astronomers and inventors, galvanized by the advent of photography, spectral analysis, and innovative technology to create the entirely new field of astrophysics. From William Bond, who turned his home into a functional observatory, to John and Henry Draper, a father and son team who were trailblazers of astrophotography and spectroscopy, to geniuses of invention such as Leon Foucault, and George Hale, who founded the Mount Wilson Observatory, Hirshfeld reveals the incredible stories--and the ambitious dreamers--behind the birth of modern astronomy. Alan Hirshfeld, Professor of Physics at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and an Associate of the Harvard College Observatory, is the author of Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos, The Electric Life of Michael Faraday, and Eureka Man: The Life and Legacy of Archimedes.
£16.72
Springer A Treatise of Legal Philosophy and General Jurisprudence: Volume 12 Legal Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: The Civil Law World, Tome 1: Language Areas, Tome 2: Main Orientations and Topics
A Treatise of Legal Philosophy and General Jurisprudence is the first-ever multivolume treatment of the issues in legal philosophy and general jurisprudence, from both a theoretical and a historical perspective. The work is aimed at jurists as well as legal and practical philosophers. Edited by the renowned theorist Enrico Pattaro and his team, this book is a classical reference work that would be of great interest to legal and practical philosophers as well as to jurists and legal scholar at all levels. The work is divided in two parts. The theoretical part (published in 2005), consisting of five volumes, covers the main topics of the contemporary debate; the historical part, consisting of six volumes (Volumes 6-8 published in 2007; Volumes 9 and 10, published in 2009; Volume 11 published in 2011 and Volume 12 forthcoming in 2016), accounts for the development of legal thought from ancient Greek times through the twentieth century. Volume 12 Legal Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: The Civil Law WorldVolume 12 of A Treatise of Legal Philosophy and General Jurisprudence, titled Legal Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: The Civil-Law World, functions as a complement to Gerald Postema’s volume 11 (titled Legal Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: The Common Law World), and it offers the first comprehensive account of the complex development that legal philosophy has undergone in continental Europe and Latin America since 1900. In this volume, leading international scholars from the different language areas making up the civil-law world give an account of the way legal philosophy has evolved in these areas in the 20th century, the outcome being an overall mosaic of civil-law legal philosophy in this arc of time. Further, specialists in the field describe the development that legal philosophy has undergone in the 20th century by focusing on three of its main subjects—namely, legal positivism, natural-law theory, and the theory of legal reasoning—and discussing the different conceptions that have been put forward under these labels. The layout of the volume is meant to frame historical analysis with a view to the contemporary theoretical debate, thus completing the Treatise in keeping with its overall methodological aim, namely, that of combining history and theory as a necessary means by which to provide a comprehensive account of jurisprudential thinking.
£279.99
The University of Chicago Press Georg Forster: Voyager, Naturalist, Revolutionary
“Marvelous. . . . Wonderfully imaginative. . . . Sparkling.”—Wall Street Journal “Stunning. . . . Read this book: in equal measure it will give you hope and trouble your dreams.”—Laura Dassow Walls, author of Henry David Thoreau: A Life and Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt’s Shaping of America Georg Forster (1754–94) was in many ways self-taught and rarely had two cents to rub together, but he became one of the most dynamic figures of the Enlightenment: a brilliant writer, naturalist, explorer, illustrator, translator—and a revolutionary. Granted the extraordinary opportunity to sail around the world as part of Captain James Cook’s fabled crew, Forster touched icebergs, walked the beaches of Tahiti, visited far-flung foreign nations, lived with purported cannibals, and crossed oceans and the equator. Forster recounted the journey in his 1777 book A Voyage Round the World, a work of travel and science that not only established Forster as one of the most accomplished stylists of the time—and led some to credit him as the inventor of the literary travel narrative—but also influenced other German trailblazers of scientific and literary writing, most notably Alexander von Humboldt. A superb essayist, Forster made lasting contributions to our scientific—and especially botanical and ornithological—knowledge of the South Seas. Having witnessed more egalitarian societies in the southern hemisphere, Forster returned after more than three years at sea to a monarchist Europe entering the era of revolution. When, following the French Revolution of 1789, French forces occupied the German city of Mainz, Forster became a leading political actor in the founding of the Republic of Mainz—the first democratic state on German soil. In an age of Kantian reason, Forster privileged experience. He claimed a deep connection between nature and reason, nature and politics, nature and revolution. His politics was radical in its understanding of revolution as a natural phenomenon, and in this often overlooked way his many facets—as voyager, naturalist, and revolutionary—were intertwined. Yet, in the constellation of the Enlightenment’s trailblazing naturalists, scientists, political thinkers, and writers, Forster’s star remains relatively dim today: the Republic of Mainz was crushed, and Forster died in exile in Paris. This book is the source of illumination that Forster’s journey so greatly deserves. Tracing the arc of this unheralded polymath’s short life, Georg Forster explores both his contributions to literature and science and the enduring relationship between nature and politics that threaded through his extraordinary four decades.
£39.00
Workman Publishing Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables
Winner, James Beard Award for Best Book in Vegetable-Focused CookingNamed a Best Cookbook of the Year by the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Bon Appétit, Food Network Magazine, Every Day with Rachael Ray, USA Today, Seattle Times, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Library Journal, Eater, and moreFeatured in The Strategist 's Nonobvious Wedding Gift Guide"Of the many vegetable-focused cookbooks on the market, few espouse the dual goals of starting from square one and of deploying minimal ingredients for maximum enjoyment. Joshua McFadden's guide excels at both. These are recipes that every last relative around your holiday table would use because they're umami-rich and can be made on a weeknight." -USA Today, 8 Cookbooks for People Who Don't Know How to Cook"If you're finding pantry cooking to mean too many uninspired pots of beans, might I suggest Six Seasons? [It] both highlights a perfectly ripe plant . . . and shows you how to transform slightly less peak-season produce (yes, the cabbage lurking in the back of your fridge right now counts) with heat, spice, acid, and fat." -Epicurious "Never before have I seen so many fascinating, delicious, easy recipes in one book. . . . [Six Seasons is] about as close to a perfect cookbook as I have seen . . . a book beginner and seasoned cooks alike will reach for repeatedly."-Lucky Peach Joshua McFadden, chef and owner of renowned trattoria Ava Gene's in Portland, Oregon, is a vegetable whisperer. After years racking up culinary cred at New York City restaurants like Lupa, Momofuku, and Blue Hill, he managed the trailblazing Four Season Farm in coastal Maine, where he developed an appreciation for every part of the plant and learned to coax the best from vegetables at each stage of their lives. In Six Seasons, his first book, McFadden channels both farmer and chef, highlighting the evolving attributes of vegetables throughout their growing seasons-an arc from spring to early summer to midsummer to the bursting harvest of late summer, then ebbing into autumn and, finally, the earthy, mellow sweetness of winter. Each chapter begins with recipes featuring raw vegetables at the start of their season. As weeks progress, McFadden turns up the heat-grilling and steaming, then moving on to sautés, pan roasts, braises, and stews. His ingenuity is on display in 225 revelatory recipes that celebrate flavour at its peak.
£26.99
Yale University Press The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History
Winner of the 2023 National Book Award in Nonfiction • National Bestseller • A New Yorker Best Book of 2023 • A New York Times Notable Book of 2023 • A Washington Post Notable Work of Nonfiction of 2023 • An Esquire Best Book of 2023 • An NPR “Book We Love” for 2023 • A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2023 • A Tribal College Journal Best Native Studies Book of 2023 • A Michigan Notable Book of 2024 • A Powell’s Books “Best Books of 2023: Nonfiction” • A Barnes & Noble Best Book of 2023 A sweeping and overdue retelling of U.S. history that recognizes that Native Americans are essential to understanding the evolution of modern America “Eloquent and comprehensive. . . . In the book’s sweeping synthesis, standard flashpoints of U.S. history take on new meaning.”—Kathleen DuVal, Wall Street Journal “In accounts of American history, Indigenous peoples are often treated as largely incidental—either obstacles to be overcome or part of a narrative separate from the arc of nation-building. Blackhawk . . . [shows] that Native communities have, instead, been inseparable from the American story all along.”—Washington Post Book World, “Books to Read in 2023” The most enduring feature of U.S. history is the presence of Native Americans, yet most histories focus on Europeans and their descendants. This long practice of ignoring Indigenous history is changing, however, as a new generation of scholars insists that any full American history address the struggle, survival, and resurgence of American Indian nations. Indigenous history is essential to understanding the evolution of modern America. Ned Blackhawk interweaves five centuries of Native and non‑Native histories, from Spanish colonial exploration to the rise of Native American self-determination in the late twentieth century. In this transformative synthesis he shows that • European colonization in the 1600s was never a predetermined success; • Native nations helped shape England’s crisis of empire; • the first shots of the American Revolution were prompted by Indian affairs in the interior; • California Indians targeted by federally funded militias were among the first casualties of the Civil War; • the Union victory forever recalibrated Native communities across the West; • twentieth-century reservation activists refashioned American law and policy. Blackhawk’s retelling of U.S. history acknowledges the enduring power, agency, and survival of Indigenous peoples, yielding a truer account of the United States and revealing anew the varied meanings of America.
£28.00
Transworld Publishers Ltd Great Circle: The soaring and emotional novel shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022 and shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2021
THE NEW YORK TIMES AND TIMES BESTSELLER_______________________'A gripping historical adventure that feels sharp, fresh and modern' STYLIST'So beautiful, so daring, so complete' TAYLOR JENKINS REID'A masterpiece' NIGELLA LAWSON'Extraordinary' NEW YORK TIMES'Wonderful' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING MAGAZINE_______________________A soaring, breathtakingly ambitious novel that weaves together the astonishing lives of a 1950s vanished female aviator and the modern-day Hollywood actress who plays her on screen.Marian Graves is driven by a need for freedom and danger. From her days as a wild child in prohibition America to the blitz and glitz of wartime London, she is determined to live an independent life.But it is an obsession with flight that consumes her most.Having become one of the most fearless pilots in her time, she sets out to do what no one has done before: to circumnavigate the globe from pole to pole.But shortly before completing the journey, her plane disappears, lost to history.Over half a century later, troubled film star Hadley Baxter is offered to play Marian in the comeback role of a lifetime. From the first pages of the script, Hadley is drawn inexorably to the female pilot.It is a role that will lead her to an unexpected discovery, throwing fresh and spellbinding light on the story of the unknowable Marian Graves._______________________WATERSTONES FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH JUNE 2022SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2021A ROYAL READING ROOM PICK 2023SHORTLISTED FOR THE HWA GOLD CROWN 2022TIME MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER MAY 2021TIMES BESTSELLER JUNE 2022_______________________'Full of adventure, passion and tragedy' THE TIMES'Soars from the very first page' SUNDAY EXPRESS'Luminous, masterful. Glides seamlessly through the 20th century' TELEGRAPH, Best Fiction of 2021'Breathtaking' OBSERVER'Truly exceptional storytelling, combining a sweeping arc of history with writing that, at sentence level, is near-flawless.' THE BOOKSELLER'A tour-de-force' DAILY EXPRESS'Impressive and gripping' SUNDAY TIMES'Surprising and moving at every turn' GUARDIAN'Audacious and Immersive' DAILY MAIL'Accomplished and ambitious' FINANCIAL TIMESReaders love GREAT CIRCLE:***** What a read! Immense story with beautifully created characters***** The story is so well researched and planned; historical fiction standing side by side with history itself***** This is a stunning achievement, my perspective feels fundamentally transformed through reading it***** A wonderful saga, covering a large chunk of the twentieth century
£9.99
WW Norton & Co Why Vegan?: Eating Ethically
Even before the publication of his seminal Animal Liberation in 1975, Peter Singer, one of the greatest moral philosophers of our time, unflinchingly challenged the ethics of eating animals. Now, in Why Vegan?, Singer brings together the most consequential essays of his career to make this devastating case against our failure to confront what we are doing to animals, to public health, and to our planet. From his 1973 manifesto for Animal Liberation to his personal account of becoming a vegetarian in “The Oxford Vegetarians” and to investigating the impact of meat on global warming, Singer traces the historical arc of the animal rights, vegetarian, and vegan movements from their embryonic days to today, when climate change and global pandemics threaten the very existence of humans and animals alike. In his introduction and in “The Two Dark Sides of COVID-19,” cowritten with Paola Cavalieri, Singer excoriates the appalling health hazards of Chinese wet markets—where thousands of animals endure almost endless brutality and suffering—but also reminds westerners that they cannot blame China alone without also acknowledging the perils of our own factory farms, where unimaginably overcrowded sheds create the ideal environment for viruses to mutate and multiply. Spanning more than five decades of writing on the systemic mistreatment of animals, Why Vegan? features a topical new introduction, along with nine other essays, including: • “An Ethical Way of Treating Chickens?,” which opens our eyes to the lives of the birds who end up on so many plates—and to the lives of their parents; • “If Fish Could Scream,” an essay exposing the utter indifference of commercial fishing practices to the experiences of the sentient beings they scoop from the oceans in such unimaginably vast numbers; • “The Case for Going Vegan,” in which Singer assembles his most powerful case for boycotting the animal production industry; • And most recently, in the introduction to this book and in “The Two Dark Sides of COVID-19,” Singer points to a new reason for avoiding meat: the role eating animals has played, and will play, in pandemics past, present, and future. Written in Singer’s pellucid prose, Why Vegan? asserts that human tyranny over animals is a wrong comparable to racism and sexism. The book ultimately becomes an urgent call to reframe our lives in order to redeem ourselves and alter the calamitous trajectory of our imperiled planet.
£13.06
University of Texas Press Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards
Winner, Coral Horton Tullis Memorial Prize, Texas State Historical Association, 2012 Liz Carpenter Award for Research in the History of Women, Texas State Historical Association, 2012When Ann Richards delivered the keynote of the 1988 Democratic National Convention and mocked President George H. W. Bush—“Poor George, he can’t help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth”—she instantly became a media celebrity and triggered a rivalry that would alter the course of American history. In 1990, Richards won the governorship of Texas, upsetting the GOP’s colorful rancher and oilman Clayton Williams. The first ardent feminist elected to high office in America, she opened up public service to women, blacks, Hispanics, Asian Americans, gays, and the disabled. Her progressive achievements and the force of her personality created a lasting legacy that far transcends her rise and fall as governor of Texas.In Let the People In, Jan Reid draws on his long friendship with Richards, interviews with her family and many of her closest associates, her unpublished correspondence with longtime companion Bud Shrake, and extensive research to tell a very personal, human story of Ann Richards’s remarkable rise to power as a liberal Democrat in a conservative Republican state. Reid traces the whole arc of Richards’s life, beginning with her youth in Waco, her marriage to attorney David Richards, her frustration and boredom with being a young housewife and mother in Dallas, and her shocking encounters with Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter. He follows Richards to Austin and the wild 1970s scene and describes her painful but successful struggle against alcoholism. He tells the full, inside story of Richards’s rise from county office and the state treasurer’s office to the governorship, where she championed gun control, prison reform, environmental protection, and school finance reform, and he explains why she lost her reelection bid to George W. Bush, which evened his family’s score and launched him toward the presidency. Reid describes Richards’s final years as a world traveler, lobbyist, public speaker, and mentor and inspiration to office holders, including Hillary Clinton. His nuanced portrait reveals a complex woman who battled her own frailties and a good-old-boy establishment to claim a place on the national political stage and prove “what can happen in government if we simply open the doors and let the people in.”
£12.99
Taylor & Francis Inc Respect for Authority: Authority Control, Context Control, and Archival Description
Groundbreaking ideas in archival description and control Archival authority control is an often ambiguous label that embraces a potentially wide scope. In this active and quickly-evolving field, new methods of clarification are essential for successful archive management. The articles in Respect for Authority: Authority Control, Context Control, and Archival Description offer an innovative approach by marking and exploring a clear distinction between conventional archival authority files and the broader concept of context control. Intended to not only answer important questions but raise worthy new ones as well, Respect for Authority: Authority Control, Context Control, and Archival Description reveals striking new perspectives in managing archival description more effectively. The engaging essays in this collection tackle key issues of archive authority control and offer sound proposals for advancing a new course. Comprehensive in its approach, this text takes an in-depth look at both the International Standard for Archival Authority Records (ISAAR) and the American standard, Describing Archives: a Content Standard (DACS) and considers the place of authority control in these two standards for archival description. In addition, contributors offer practical answers to the thorny issue of identifying the boundaries of a records-creating entity and present criteria for determining when a new entity is established. International in scope, this book presents groundbreaking case studies by archive professionals from Canada, the United States, Italy, and Australia that document the successes of different institutional applications that describe the records-creator first and then link this description to that of the records themselves. Respect for Authority: Authority Control, Context Control, and Archival Description also includes expert discussions of: the role of standards the nature of archives and their relationships with their creators resources necessary to fully document contextualized content the power of provenance possibilities available through a trinity of descriptive entitiesrecords, agents, and functions the potential of provenance rediscovery in American repositories postmodern archive theory, multiple provenance, and the reconceptualization of archive context using ISAAR to document records-creating environments challenges inherent in implementing series-based systems of arrangement and description the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the Archival Resource Catalog (ARC) digitizing and publishing registers and the development of the Online Heritage Resource Manager (OHRM) and many more! Ideal for archive professionals, manuscript librarians, students, and researchers of archival administration, Respect for Authority: Authority Control, Context Control, and Archival Description not only resolves important questions revealed by these new trends but opens new discussions of a major shift in descriptive practice.
£135.00
WW Norton & Co Pessoa: A Biography
Nearly a century after his wrenching death, the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) remains one of our most enigmatic writers. Believing he could do “more in dreams than Napoleon,” yet haunted by the specter of hereditary madness, Pessoa invented dozens of alter egos, or “heteronyms,” under whose names he wrote in Portuguese, English, and French. Unsurprisingly, this “most multifarious of writers” (Guardian) has long eluded a definitive biographer—but in renowned translator and Pessoa scholar Richard Zenith, he has met his match. Relatively unknown in his lifetime, Pessoa was all but destined for literary oblivion when the arc of his afterlife bent, suddenly and improbably, toward greatness, with the discovery of some 25,000 unpublished papers left in a large, wooden trunk. Drawing on this vast archive of sources as well as on unpublished family letters, and skillfully setting the poet’s life against the nationalist currents of twentieth-century European history, Zenith at last reveals the true depths of Pessoa’s teeming imagination and literary genius. Much as Nobel laureate José Saramago brought a single heteronym to life in The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, Zenith traces the backstories of virtually all of Pessoa’s imagined personalities, demonstrating how they were projections, spin-offs, or metamorphoses of Pessoa himself. A solitary man who had only one, ultimately platonic love affair, Pessoa used his and his heteronyms’ writings to explore questions of sexuality, to obsessively search after spiritual truth, and to try to chart a way forward for a benighted and politically agitated Portugal. Although he preferred the world of his mind, Pessoa was nonetheless a man of the places he inhabited, including not only Lisbon but also turn-of-the-century Durban, South Africa, where he spent nine years as a child. Zenith re-creates the drama of Pessoa’s adolescence—when the first heteronyms emerged—and his bumbling attempts to survive as a translator and publisher. Zenith introduces us, too, to Pessoa’s bohemian circle of friends, and to Ophelia Quieroz, with whom he exchanged numerous love letters. Pessoa reveals in equal force the poet’s unwavering commitment to defending homosexual writers whose books had been banned, as well as his courageous opposition to Salazar, the Portuguese dictator, toward the end of his life. In stunning, magisterial prose, Zenith contextualizes Pessoa’s posthumous literary achievements—especially his most renowned work, The Book of Disquiet. A modern literary masterpiece, Pessoa simultaneously immortalizes the life of a literary maestro and confirms the enduring power of Pessoa’s work to speak prophetically to the disconnectedness of our modern world.
£32.22
Discovery Walking Guides Ltd Walk! the Costa Blanca Mountains
Walk! Costa Blanca Mountains includes 37 fully detailed walking route itineraries. Each walking route itinerary includes:- - walking route summary - ratings for Effort, Time, Distance, Ascents/Descents, Refreshments and Vertigo risk - fully detailed walk description, including frequent timings to aid navigation and check your progress - GPS Waypoints at every key point on every route where there is good gps reception - full colour 1:40,000 scale map of the route - short walk and stroll alternatives There are some easy routes. There are some challenging routes for fit experts. With Charles Davis' excellent walk descriptions you'll know which routes are for you - and all of them are a true adventure. Contents The Author INTRODUCTION: Climbing Into Cliche; a Better Costa Blanca The Terrain, Castles, Arcs & Karst , Pathways to Pleasure, Valls & Sierras Using GPS in the Costa Blanca Symbols Rating Guide Map Information THE WALKS. SIERRAS 1 Xalo: PR7 Serra de Bernia 3 walker, 2.5 hrs, 7.9 km, ascents & descents 260 metres (circular). 2 Polop: Monte Ponoig 4 hrs, 9.3 km, ascents & descents 770 metres (linear) 3 Finestrat: Puig Campana 4 hrs, 10.1 km, ascents & descents 1020 metres, vertigo warning (circular). 4 Finestrat: Barranc de Sacarest 3 hours, 10.2 km, ascents & descents 545 metres (circular). 5 Sella: SL112 La Ruta del Aigua 1.5 hrs, 6.3 km, ascents & descents 200 metres (circular). 6 Sella: Barrancs del Xarquer and Arc 3.75 hours, 13 km, ascents & descents 400 metres (circular). 7 Confrides: Castell de Confrides 1 hr, 3.2 km, ascents & descents 130 metres (linear or circular). 8 Confrides: Cumbre de Aitana from Font de l'Arbre 3 hrs, 11 km, ascents & descents 450 metres (circular). 9 Benifato: Cumbre de Aitana from Font de Partagat 3.2 hrs, 10 km, ascents & descents 450 metres (circular). 10 Benimantell: Penyo Mulero 2.75 hrs, 10.7 km, ascents & descents 500 metres (circular). 11 Benimantell: Barrancs del Salt, Xarquer & Arc 3.5 hrs, 12.6 km, ascents & descents 500 metres (circular). 12 Benasu: El Recingle Alt 3 hrs, 11.5km, ascents & descents 500 metres (linear). 13 Quatredonteda: Els Frares (a) via Cami del Carrascal 50 mins one-way, 2.2 km one-way, ascents & descents 345 metres (linear). (b) via Cami des Clots 2.5 hrs, 6 km, ascents & descents 375 metres (linear). 14 Fageca: PR182 Pla de la Casa- Plus alternative access from the south 4.7 hrs, 9.4 km, ascents & descents 565 metres (circular). 15 Famorca: Little Wolf - Mallada del Llop 3.5 hrs, 7.5 km, ascents & descents 580 metres (linear). 16 Famorca: Big Wolf - Barranc de la Canal, Mallada del Llop, El Regall 4.3 hrs, 10.3 km, ascents & descents 660 metres (circular). 17 Castell de Castells: PR149 El Castellet 2.8 hrs, 8.5 km, ascents & descents 540 metres (circular). 18 Castell de Castells: Cumbre de Aixorta and Els Arcs 5.5 hrs, 20.8 km, ascents & descents 845 metres (circular). 19 Tarbena: PR145 Parelles and Serrals via Font dels Olbis 3.5 hrs, 13.5 km, ascents & descents 450 metres (circular). 20 Bolulla: Tour of Raco Roig 2.5 hrs, 7.4 km, ascents & descents 250 metres (circular). 21 Orxa: Serra La Safor and Raco del Duc 6.3 hrs, 18.4 km, ascents & descents 730 metres (circular). 22 Orxa: Cim de la Safor 1.7 hrs, 6.3 km, ascents & descents 320 metres (linear). LES VALLS 23 Vall de Planes: Barranc de l'Encantada 40 mins one-way, 2.3 km one-way, ascents & descents 100 metres (linear). 24 Vall de Gallinera (Benissili): Castillo de Benissili 1.8 hrs, 6.3 km, ascents & descents 315 metres (circular). 25 Vall de Gallinera (Benissiva): La Forada Linear: 1 hour one-way, 2.5 km one-way, ascents & descents 224 metres. Circuit: 2.75 hrs, 10.5 km, ascents & descents 300 metres. 26 Pego: Refugio de la Figuereta 2.25 hours, 7.35 km, ascents & descents 445 metres (circular). 27 Vall d'Alcala: Alcala de la Jovada to Es Pouet 3.3 hrs, 15.3 km, ascents & descents 340 metres (circular). 28 Vall d'Ebo: Travessia del Masset 2 walker, 1.3 hrs, 4.7 km, ascents & descents 210 metres (circular). 29 Tormos: Sender dels Pintors 2.25 hrs, 3.8 km, ascents & descents 300 metres (circular). 30 Tormos: Sender dels Poets 2.5 hrs, 8.6 km, ascents & descents 380 metres (linear). 31 Vall de Laguar (Fleix): PR147 La Catedral del Senderisme 3.75 hrs, 13.5 km, ascents & descents 845 metres (circular). 32 Vall de Laguar (Fleix): Barranc dels Racons 3.75 hrs, 11.5 km, ascents & descents 450 metres (circular). 33 Vall de Laguar (Campell): Presa d'Isbert & Barranc del Moro 2 hrs, 5.2 km, ascents & descents 285 metres (circular). 34 Vall de Laguar (Campell): Cavall Verd - the conventional circuit 2.5 hrs, 7. 6 km, ascents & descents 315 metres (circular). 35 Vall de Laguar (Benimaurell): Cavall Verd - the western loop 2 hrs, 6.6 km, ascents & descents 246 metres (circular). 36 Vall de Pop (Parcent): PR158 Sender de Parcent 4 hrs, 14.1 km, ascents & descents 700 metres (circular) 37 Vall de Pop (Pla de Petracos), Serra l'Alfaro and Barranc de Malafi 6 hrs, 20.5 km, ascents & descents 530 metres (circular). Gps waypoint files for all the walking routes are available as a free download from the Discovery Walking Guides website.
£12.99
Inner Traditions Bear and Company The Twilight of Pluto: Astrology and the Rise and Fall of Planetary Influences
An examination of the waxing and waning influence of demoted planets • Explains in detail how the demotion or proved nonexistence of a planet marks the beginning of a roughly 30-year period in which that planet’s influence wanes • Explores Pluto’s arc of influence on individual and collective life in depth, from its discovery in 1930 to the end of its influence in 2036 • Offers examples from other demoted planets, such as Ceres, whose fifty-year reign as a planet corresponds very closely to the Romantic Era of history Recent research in astrology has shown that the discovery of a new planet correlates with the emergence of a new set of influences in individual and collective life. As John Michael Greer reveals, the opposite is also true: the demotion of a planet correlates with the decline of a set of influences into the background. Although there are several instances of this over the last two centuries, Pluto, downgraded to minor planet status in 2006, is the most striking example. Exploring the waxing and waning of planetary influences in astrology, Pluto in particular, Greer explains in detail how the demotion or proved nonexistence of a planet marks the beginning of a roughly 30-year period in which that planet’s influence fades out. He examines several examples of planet demotion, including Ceres, whose fifty-year reign as a planet corresponds closely to the Romantic Era of history. Ceres’s influence began to take shape some 30 years before its discovery in 1801 and gradually faded over the three decades following its demotion in the 1850s. Examining Pluto’s astrological influence in depth, from the beginning of the search for “Planet X” in 1900 to the end of its influence in 2036, the author shows how during the Plutonian era the concept of cosmos--from the ancient Greek meaning “that which is beautifully ordered”--was in eclipse. Pluto’s influence led to the rejection of unity, beauty, and order, exemplified through the splitting of the atom by physicists, the splitting of the individual into conscious and subconscious halves by psychoanalysts, and the splitting of the world into warring camps by politicians. Offering an essential guide not only to the astrology of the future but to the twilight of the Plutonian era, Greer shows how as Pluto’s influence fades out in the years ahead, a great many disruptive phenomena of the recent past will fade with it and the notion of cosmos--beautiful order--will regain its traditional role in our individual and collective worlds.
£11.69
The University of Chicago Press Henry David Thoreau: A Life
“Walden. Yesterday I came here to live.” That entry from the journal of Henry David Thoreau, and the intellectual journey it began, would by themselves be enough to place Thoreau in the American pantheon. His attempt to “live deliberately” in a small woods at the edge of his hometown of Concord has been a touchstone for individualists and seekers since the publication of Walden in 1854. But there was much more to Thoreau than his brief experiment in living at Walden Pond. A member of the vibrant intellectual circle centered on his neighbor Ralph Waldo Emerson, he was also an ardent naturalist, a manual laborer and inventor, a radical political activist, and more. Many books have taken up various aspects of Thoreau’s character and achievements, but, as Laura Dassow Walls writes, “Thoreau has never been captured between covers; he was too quixotic, mischievous, many-sided.” Two hundred years after his birth, and two generations after the last full-scale biography, Walls restores Henry David Thoreau to us in all his profound, inspiring complexity. Walls traces the full arc of Thoreau’s life, from his early days in the intellectual hothouse of Concord, when the American experiment still felt fresh and precarious, and “America was a family affair, earned by one generation and about to pass to the next.” By the time he died in 1862, at only forty-four years of age, Thoreau had witnessed the transformation of his world from a community of farmers and artisans into a bustling, interconnected commercial nation. What did that portend for the contemplative individual and abundant, wild nature that Thoreau celebrated? Drawing on Thoreau’s copious writings, published and unpublished, Walls presents a Thoreau vigorously alive in all his quirks and contradictions: the young man shattered by the sudden death of his brother; the ambitious Harvard College student; the ecstatic visionary who closed Walden with an account of the regenerative power of the Cosmos. We meet the man whose belief in human freedom and the value of labor made him an uncompromising abolitionist; the solitary walker who found society in nature, but also found his own nature in the society of which he was a deeply interwoven part. And, running through it all, Thoreau the passionate naturalist, who, long before the age of environmentalism, saw tragedy for future generations in the human heedlessness around him. “The Thoreau I sought was not in any book, so I wrote this one,” says Walls. The result is a Thoreau unlike any seen since he walked the streets of Concord, a Thoreau for our time and all time.
£19.00
Lonely Planet Global Limited Lonely Planet Pocket Paris
Lonely Planet's Pocket Paris is your guide to the city's best experiences and local life - neighbourhood by neighbourhood. Wonder at the city's museums and architecture, stroll through the Pere Lachaise and dine on rich French cuisine; all with your trusted travel companion. Uncover the best of Paris and make the most of your trip!Inside Lonely Planet's Pocket Paris:Full-colour maps and travel photography throughoutHighlights and itineraries help you tailor a trip to your personal needs and interestsInsider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spotsEssential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, pricesHonest reviews for all budgets - eating, sightseeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks missConvenient pull-out Paris map (included in print version), plus over 8 colour neighbourhood mapsUser-friendly layout with helpful icons, and organised by neighbourhood to help you pick the best spots to spend your timeCovers Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides, Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Elysees, Louvre, Tuileries and Opera, Sacre-Coeur and Montmartre, Centre Pompidou and Le Marais, Notre Dame and the Islands, The Latin Quarter, Musee d'Orsay and St Germain des Pres and moreThe Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet's Pocket Paris, an easy-to-use guide filled with top experiences - neighbourhood by neighbourhood - that literally fits in your pocket. Make the most of a quick trip to Paris with trusted travel advice to get you straight to the heart of the city. Looking for a comprehensive guide that recommends both popular and offbeat experiences, and extensively covers all of Paris's neighbourhoods? Check out Lonely Planet's Paris city guide and Experience Paris guide.Looking for more extensive coverage? Check out Lonely Planet's France guide for a comprehensive look at all that the country has to offer.About Lonely Planet: Lonely Planet is a leading travel media company, providing both inspiring and trustworthy information for every kind of traveller since 1973. Over the past four decades, we've printed over 145 million guidebooks and phrasebooks for 120 languages, and grown a dedicated, passionate global community of travellers. You'll also find our content online, and in mobile apps, videos, 14 languages, armchair and lifestyle books, ebooks, and more, enabling you to explore every day.'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' New York Times'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' Fairfax Media (Australia)
£8.23
University of California Press David Park: A Retrospective
This generously illustrated volume is the first comprehensive publication devoted to the powerfully expressive work of David Park (1911–60). Best known as the founder of Bay Area Figurative art, Park moved from Boston to California at the age of seventeen and spent most of his adult life in and around San Francisco. In the immediate postwar years, like many avant-garde American artists, he engaged with Abstract Expressionism and painted non-objectively. In a moment of passion in 1949, he made the radical decision to abandon nearly all of his abstract canvases at the Berkeley city dump and return to the human figure, in so doing marking the beginning of the Bay Area Figurative movement. The astonishingly powerful paintings he made in the decade that followed brought together his long-held interest in classic subjects such as portraiture, domestic interiors, musicians, rowers, and bathers with lush, gestural paint handling and an extraordinary sense of color. In 1958–59 Park reached his expressive peak, reveling in the sensuous qualities of paint to create intensely physical, psychologically charged, and deeply felt canvases. This fertile period cut short by illness in 1960, Park transferred his creative energy to other mediums when he could no longer work on canvas. In the last months of his life, bedridden, he produced an extraordinary thirty-foot-long felt-tip-pen scroll and a poignant series of gouaches. Published to accompany the first major museum exhibition of Park’s work in more than thirty years, David Park: A Retrospective traces the full arc of the artist’s career, from his early social realist and cubist-inspired efforts of the 1930s to his mature figurative paintings of the 1950s and his astounding final works on paper. An overview of Park’s full body of work by Janet Bishop, SFMOMA’s Thomas Weisel Family Curator of Painting and Sculpture, will be joined by approximately ninety full-color plates of paintings and works on paper; an essay by Tara McDowell on the figure drawing sessions held by Park, Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff, Frank Lobdell, and others in their studios starting in 1953; short essays on Park’s scroll, his gouaches, and the portraits that Imogen Cunningham and Park made of each other; and an illustrated chronology. Published in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Exhibition schedule: Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth: June 2–September 8, 2019 Kalamazoo Institute of Arts: December 21, 2019–March 15, 2020 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: October 4, 2020–January 18, 2021
£30.60
Little, Brown Book Group Silent Voices: Detective Lottie Parker, Book 9
She lay so still, blue eyes shining, blonde hair fanned out, her mouth stuck forever open in a soundless scream...When Rachel Mullen is found dead by her only sister Beth, her body twisted in an arc of pain, Detective Lottie Parker knows that she has been murdered the minute she enters the bedroom. Lottie's heart aches for Beth, all alone in the world, whose last memory of her sister will forever be the brutal way she was taken. And when Lottie finds a shard of glass placed in the young girl's throat, she fears that Rachel may be just the first victim.The night before, Rachel had attended a party at a luxurious new restaurant in Ragmullin, and Lottie wastes no time in tracking down the other guests. But there are several things troubling her: Rachel's handbag and keys are nowhere to be found, and no one at the party seems to have seen her leave.Just as Lottie thinks she's onto something, her worst fears are confirmed: another woman is found murdered... with glass in her throat. The brilliant, young doctor wasn't a guest at the party and Lottie is forced to question everything.Desperate to find proof of what really happened that night, Lottie gets close to the hostess of the party, whose two daughters were friends with Rachel. But Lottie's hunt for the truth must be getting under the killer's skin, because then her beloved fiancé, Boyd, goes missing.Can Lottie get in the mind of this twisted killer before it's too late? Or will the man she loves be silenced forever?What everyone is saying about Silent Voices:'A new book in this series is like waking up on your birthday and looking forward to opening your gifts! It's book number 9 and I would not mind reading a hundred more of them with this great DI and her team.' B for Book Review, FIVE STARS'This was utterly fantastic I loved every page. A great storyline that had me hanging on to every word... holding my breath and that ending! Everything about this book was brilliant; if I could give it more than five stars I would it was awesome.' Bonnie's Book Talk, FIVE STARS'Mesmerizing! Utterly thrilling! Unputdownable! One of the best series I have ever read. It seems like nothing can stop Patricia Gibney. Her writing is excellent. The story flows like a river with no dams, but many waterfalls, and several dangerous currents. Highly recommended!' The World is Ours to Read, FIVE STARS
£14.99
City Lights Books Notes on the Assemblage
The Books We Love in 2016 - The New Yorker Best Poetry Collections of 2015 - The Washington Post Best Books 2015: Poetry - Library Journal Best Books of 2015 - NPR Books 16 Best Poetry Books of 2015 - BuzzFeed Books Juan Felipe Herrera, the first Latino Poet Laureate of the United States and son of Mexican immigrants, grew up in the migrant fields of California. Exuberant and socially engaged, reflective and healing, this collection of new work from the nation's first Latino Poet Laureate is brimming with the wide-open vision and hard-won wisdom of a poet whose life and creative arc have spanned chasms of culture in an endless crossing, dreaming and back again. "[This year] Juan Felipe Herrera's Notes on the Assemblage has been a ladder of hope ..."--Ada Limon, The New Yorker "Juan Felipe Herrera's family has gone from migrant worker to poet laureate of the United States in one generation. One generation. I am an adamant objector to the Horatio Alger myth of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, but Herrera's story is one of epic American proportions. The heads carved into my own Mount Rushmas would be Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Frida Kahlo, El Chapulin Colorado, Selena, and Juan Felipe Herrera. Notes from the Assemblage further carves out Herrera's place in American letters."--David Tomas Martinez "At home with field workers, wage slaves, the homeless, little children, old folks, artists, traditionalists, the avant-garde, students, scholars and prisoners, the bilingual Juan Felipe Herrera is the real thing: a populist treasure. He will fulfill his appointment as U.S. Poet Laureate with the same high energy, savvy, passion, compassion, commitment and playfulness that his art and life's have always embodied. Bravo! Bravo!"--Al Young "While reporters can give you the what, when, and where of a war, a poet with the enormous gifts of Juan Herrera can give you its soul."--Ishmael Reed "I am proud that Juan Felipe Herrera has been appointed U.S. Poet Laureate, bringing his truthful, beautiful voice to all of us universally. As the first Chicano Laureate, he will empower all diverse cultures."--Janice Mirikitani "Herrera is ...a sometimes hermetic, wildly inventive, always unpredictable poet, whose work commands attention for its style alone . ..Many poets since the 1960s have dreamed of a new hybrid art, part oral, part written, part English, part something else: an art grounded in ethnic identity, fueled by collective pride, yet irreducibly individual too. Many poets have tried to create such an art: Herrera is one of the first to succeed."--The New York Times "Herrera has the unusual capacity to write convincing political poems that are as personally felt as poems can be."--National Public Radio
£12.22
Merrell Publishers Ltd Ed Kluz: The Lost House Revisited
The artist Ed Kluz has a fascination for the sites of lost buildings. Kluz grew up in the wilds of the Yorkshire Dales, surrounded by the landscape of the past, and the sense of remoteness he felt there sparked an interest in forgotten places, such as country houses and follies. Once-celebrated houses that were abandoned to ruin, burned or deliberately destroyed have now become the haunting subject matter of his distinctive collages.Kluz is meticulous in his research. He spends hours at a site, sketching, taking photographs and generally 'getting to the heart of a place'. Then, in a process in which he likens himself to a collector of fragments or relics, he gathers all the material he can find before adding a little invention of his own to revive or reimagine the house. His highly original works are a combination of watercolour and layer upon layer of delicate painted collage elements, the tension between colour and texture achieving a sense of depth and light. Kluz's lost houses conjure up the vanished buildings in all their pomp, perched on stark, treeless plains under threatening skies, as if briefly illuminated in the glare of lightening or the beam of an arc light. In his introduction to the book, the art and architectural historian Tim Knox describes Kluz's views of houses, with their concentration on the filigree architecture and silhouette of building itself, as heirs to the highly finished perspective drawings produced by professional architectural artists in the early nineteenth century, but he also draws parallels with the bold graphic tradition of Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden. Kluz himself, too, explains that his aim is to evolve the long tradition of country-house painting - a tradition that began in Britain in the sixteenth century and continued into the 1800s, only declining with the advent of photography. Over recent decades, public interest in lost country houses has been growing; there are an increasing number of books and websites devoted to the theme. In his search for information about his often elusive subjects, Kluz has made full use of these sources, presenting in this book a wide range of materials - engravings, paintings, plans, maps, written accounts and his own preparatory sketches - before the final spread in each chapter unveils the finished collage. Ten English houses are featured in depth, among them the Tudor palace of Holdenby House in Northamptonshire, the magnificent mansion of Hamstead Marshall in Berkshire, Vanbrugh's Claremont in Surrey, and the grandiosely Gothic Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire. Each house is introduced by the architectural historian Olivia Horsfall Turner, who details its history and fate. As Knox concludes, one yearns to have all the houses back, 'But in a sense we have, in Kluz's scenographic visions.'
£31.50
WW Norton & Co Pessoa: A Biography
Nearly a century after his wrenching death, the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) remains one of our most enigmatic writers. Believing he could do “more in dreams than Napoleon,” yet haunted by the specter of hereditary madness, Pessoa invented dozens of alter egos, or “heteronyms,” under whose names he wrote in Portuguese, English, and French. Unsurprisingly, this “most multifarious of writers” (Guardian) has long eluded a definitive biographer—but in renowned translator and Pessoa scholar Richard Zenith, he has met his match. Relatively unknown in his lifetime, Pessoa was all but destined for literary oblivion when the arc of his afterlife bent, suddenly and improbably, toward greatness, with the discovery of some 25,000 unpublished papers left in a large, wooden trunk. Drawing on this vast archive of sources as well as on unpublished family letters, and skillfully setting the poet’s life against the nationalist currents of twentieth-century European history, Zenith at last reveals the true depths of Pessoa’s teeming imagination and literary genius. Much as Nobel laureate José Saramago brought a single heteronym to life in The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, Zenith traces the backstories of virtually all of Pessoa’s imagined personalities, demonstrating how they were projections, spin-offs, or metamorphoses of Pessoa himself. A solitary man who had only one, ultimately platonic love affair, Pessoa used his and his heteronyms’ writings to explore questions of sexuality, to obsessively search after spiritual truth, and to try to chart a way forward for a benighted and politically agitated Portugal. Although he preferred the world of his mind, Pessoa was nonetheless a man of the places he inhabited, including not only Lisbon but also turn-of-the-century Durban, South Africa, where he spent nine years as a child. Zenith re-creates the drama of Pessoa’s adolescence—when the first heteronyms emerged—and his bumbling attempts to survive as a translator and publisher. Zenith introduces us, too, to Pessoa’s bohemian circle of friends, and to Ophelia Quieroz, with whom he exchanged numerous love letters. Pessoa reveals in equal force the poet’s unwavering commitment to defending homosexual writers whose books had been banned, as well as his courageous opposition to Salazar, the Portuguese dictator, toward the end of his life. In stunning, magisterial prose, Zenith contextualizes Pessoa’s posthumous literary achievements—especially his most renowned work, The Book of Disquiet. A modern literary masterpiece, Pessoa simultaneously immortalizes the life of a literary maestro and confirms the enduring power of Pessoa’s work to speak prophetically to the disconnectedness of our modern world.
£25.12
Orion Publishing Co Bitterblue
Return to Kristin Cashore's captivating Graceling Realm with a heart-wrenching tale set eight years after the events of FireEight years have passed since the young Princess Bitterblue and her country were saved from the vicious King Leck. Now Bitterblue is the queen of Monsea, and her land is at peace.But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisers, who have run the country on her behalf since Leck's death, believe in a forward-thinking plan: to pardon all of those who committed terrible acts during Leck's reign; and to forget every dark event that ever happened. Monsea's past has become shrouded in mystery, and it's only when Bitterblue begins sneaking out of her castle - curious, disguised and alone - to walk the streets of her own city, that she begins to realise the truth. Her kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year long spell of a madman, and now their only chance to move forward is to revisit the past.Whatever that past holds.Two thieves, who have sworn only to steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck's reign. And one of them, who possesses an unidentified Grace, may also hold a key to her heart ...Readers love Bitterblue:'Bitterblue features a cast of well-written, compelling side characters, a hilarious appendix written by an actual character, a cast that is around 70% queer and 90% characters of colour, a f***ing glorious slow-burn mystery, a f***ing glorious character arc for a young woman in a tight space, and a narrative around colonialism that sticks out in my mind to this day. I cannot get past how much I adore this book' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'This book! It was so wonderful and so sad at the same time! The feels..................... I love Queen Bitterblue so much!' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'Bitterblue met all of my hopes and expectations (and they were high, let me tell you) . . . I can truthfully say Kristin Cashore is one of my favorite authors ever, and I will wholeheartedly devour anything she writes' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'This series breaks my heart and patches it all back together again' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐'Bitterblue is near perfect. I haven't been this captivated while reading in a long, long time' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
£10.99
Abbeville Press Inc.,U.S. Chivalry and Courtesy: Medieval Manners for Modern Life
"Playful, learned, and bursting with golden nuggets of information―a joyful book that shows us how medieval history still matters in surprising ways." — Dan Jones, New York Times best-selling author and presenter of Netflix’s Secrets of Great British Castles "A must read for anyone who wants to brush up on the finer points of etiquette, or who just wants to be a better human being." — Eleanor Janega, author of The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society and creator of the blog Going Medieval "Daniele Cybulskie has done it again: no one is better at bringing the medieval world to life… There’s so much to learn from the Middle Ages, and this wonderful book―supremely elegant, witty, expert, and wise―is the ideal guide." — Helen Castor, medieval historian, broadcaster, and author of She-Wolves and Joan of Arc ... "With wit and insight, Danièle draws on a wide variety of primary sources, from courtiers’ handbooks to romantic poems." — Medievalists.net A surprising look at how medieval etiquette can improve our lives today, from the author of the popular How to Live Like a Monk. Medieval people are often portrayed as having poor hygiene and table manners — licking their knives or throwing chicken bones on the floor. In the Middle Ages, however, such behaviour was not tolerated. Medieval society cherished order in nearly every facet of life, from regular handwashing to daily prayer. There were consequences if you didn’t adhere to the rules of good behaviour: you wouldn’t be invited to the lord’s next dinner, you wouldn’t win the battle, and you wouldn’t win the lady. Author Danièle Cybulskie explores the world of etiquette from the time of Chaucer to the court of Elizabeth I, encompassing table manners and interpersonal relationships as well as running a household and ruling a kingdom. With wit and insight, Cybulskie draws on a wide variety of primary sources, from courtiers’ handbooks to romantic poems. Though we may no longer need best practices for things like duelling or ordering about our servants, the principles of generosity, kindness, and respect still apply today. After all, it’s a good reminder to “be companionable no matter who you are with” and to not “chew on bones because that is what dogs do.” Illustrated with original drawings by Anna Lobanova as well as 80 medieval artworks, Chivalry and Courtesy is full of good advice for everyone, whether you are a peasant or a knight, a student or a CEO, a king or a queen.
£17.99
HarperCollins Publishers Inc Let Me Be Frank: A Book About Women Who Dressed Like Men to Do Shit They Weren't Supposed to Do
In this entertaining and eye-opening collection, writer, actor, and feminist Tracy Dawson showcases trailblazers throughout history who disguised themselves as men and continuously broke the rules to gain access and opportunities denied them because they were women.“This book will surprise, astonish, and hopefully anger you on the lengths women have had to go to pursue their dreams. Tracy has such a gift for storytelling and making history leap off the page. Her book has a wit that suggests it was written by a man since everyone knows women aren't this funny.”—Kay Cannon, writer, producer, director (the Pitch Perfect films, Cinderella)“A smart, funny journey through history that introduces us to the rule breakers who made history worth traveling through.”—Patton Oswalt, comedian, actor and author“I came up with Tracy as a fellow sketch comedian on the vomit-soaked stages of the Toronto comedy scene. And like the brilliant, resourceful, rule-breaking, damn-well-stubborn sisters in Let Me Be Frank, Tracy is someone who gets the job done, and gets it done well.”—Samantha Bee, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee Let Me Be Frank illuminates with a wry warmth the incredible stories of a diverse group of women from different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds who have defied the patriarchy, refusing to allow men or the status quo to define their lives or break their spirit. An often sardonic and thoroughly impassioned homage to female ingenuity and tenacity, the women profiled in this inspiring anthology broke the rules to reach their goals and refused to take “no” for an answer. These women took matters into their own hands, dressing—sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively—as men to do what they wanted to do. This includes competing in marathons, publishing books, escaping enslavement, practicing medicine, tunneling deep in the earth as miners, taking to the seas as pirates and serving on the frontlines in the military, among many other pursuits. Not only did these women persist, many unknowingly made history and ultimately inspired later generations in doing so. This compendium is an informative and enthralling celebration of these revolutionary badasses who have changed the world and our lives.Let Me Be Frank is filled with more than two dozen specially commissioned, full-color illustrations and hand-lettering by artist Tina Berning, whose multi-award-winning work has been published in numerous publications and anthologies worldwide, and is designed by Alex Kalman.WOMEN PROFILED INCLUDE: Jeanne Baret * Anne Bonny and Mary Read * Christian Caddell * Ellen Craft * Catalina De Erauso * Louise Augustine Gleizes * Hatshepsut * Annie Hindle and Florence Hines* Pili Hussein * Joan of Arc * Rena “Rusty” Kanokogi * Margaret King * Dorothy Lawrence * Tarpé Mills * Hannah Snell * Kathrine Switzer * Maria Toorpakai * Dr. Mary Edwards Walker * Cathay Williams
£18.00
Hodder & Stoughton Tunnel 29: Love, Espionage and Betrayal: the True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall
'Merriman excels at recreating the physicality of their experiences: the smell of dense clay, the click-clack of a woman walking down the street above in high heels... Merriman has burrowed her way deep into interviews, news reports and Stasi files to fashion an impressive real life page-turner.' Guardian'An audacious and compelling tale, told with narrative tension and novelistic drive, creating a fascinating portrayal of life in Berlin in the early days of the Wall.' Observer'A fantastic story, exceedingly well told...more gripping than a thriller. The story arc, through betrayal and disaster to triumph, is perfect...a cracking tale that deserves retelling.' The Times'Helena Merriman's book is a tour de force... The chapters on the day of the escape are possibly the most suspenseful I have ever read, in fiction as well as nonfiction.' Scotsman'its skilful blend of a dynamic protagonist, intrigue, spooks, deception, and a love divided imbues Tunnel 29 with all the qualities of a taut Cold War spy thriller.' Sunday Business Post'Captivating... Ms Merriman's well-crafted book does justice to the extraordinary bravery of her characters.' Economist'This new book... allows readers to slip into Joachim's shoes as if living this extraordinary experience... This is a remarkable tale, beautifully told and utterly compelling.' BBC History Magazine-------------------------He's just escaped from one of the world's most brutal regimes.Now, he decides to tunnel back in.It's summer, 1962, and Joachim Rudolph, a student, is digging a tunnel under the Berlin Wall. Waiting on the other side in East Berlin - dozens of men, women and children; all willing to risk everything to escape.From the award-winning creator of the acclaimed BBC Radio 4 podcast, Tunnel 29 is the true story of the most remarkable escape tunnel dug under the Berlin Wall. Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews with the survivors, and thousands of pages of Stasi documents, Helena Merriman brilliantly reveals the stranger-than-fiction story of the ingenious group of student-diggers, the glamorous red-haired messenger, the American News network which films the escape, and the Stasi spy who betrays it. For what Joachim doesn't know as he burrows closer to East Germany, is that the escape operation has been infiltrated. As the escapees prepare to crawl through the cold, wet darkness, above them, the Stasi are closing in.Tunnel 29 is about what happens when people lose their freedom - and how some will do anything to win it back.Acclaim for the TUNNEL 29 podcast:'Combining the fun of a thriller that we know will end happily with grim perspective on history and tyranny... stunning.' New Yorker'Reminiscent of a savvy Netflix block buster series.' Evening Standard'A truly exciting yarn... creates a sense for the listener of being right there in the tunnel, experiencing the dangers.' Observer
£10.99
Baen Books Collapsium
In the eighth decade of the Queendom of Sol, three commodities rule the day. The first is wellstone, a form of programmable matter capable of emulating almost any substance: natural, artificial, even hypothetical. The second is collapsium, a deadly crystal composed of miniature black holes, vital for the transmission of information and matter — including humans — throughout the solar system. The third is the bitter rivalry between Her Majesty's top scientists. Bruno de Towaji, famed lover and statesman, dreams of building an arc de fin, an almost mythical device capable of probing the farthest reaches of spacetime. Marlon Sykes, de Towaji's rival in both love and science, is meanwhile hard at work on a vast telecommunications project whose first step is the construction of a ring of collapsium around the sun. But when a ruthless saboteur attacks the Ring Collapsiter and sends it falling into the sun, the two scientists must put aside personal animosity and combine their prodigious intellects to prevent the destruction of the solar system... and every living thing within it. About The Collapsium: “Ingenious and witty . . . as if Terry Pratchett at his zaniest and Larry Niven at his best had collaborated.”—Booklist "Fresh and imaginative. From a plausible yet startling invention, McCarthy follows the logical lines of sight, building in parallel the technological and societal innovations. 'Our Pick.' I wanted to visit this Queendom and meet these people."—Science Fiction Weekly "The future as McCarthy sees it is a wondrous place. While there are amusing attributes and quirks to McCarthy's characters, the greater pleasures of this novel lie in its hard science extrapolations. McCarthy plays us his technical strengths by providing a useful appendix and glossary for the mathematically inclined reader." —Publishers Weekly "[McCarthy] studs his narrative with far-out scientific concepts that he defends in a series of appendices. He certainly has a sense of humor. [Protagonist] Bruno de Towaji . . . is surely speaking for his creator when he assures another character, 'Imagination really is the only limit.'"—The New York Times About Wil McCarthy: "McCarthy is an entertaining, intelligent, amusing writer, with Heinlein's knack for breakneck plotting and, at the same time, Clarke's thoughtfulness."—Booklist “‘Imagination really is the only limit.’”—The New York Times “The future as McCarthy sees it is a wondrous place.”—Publishers Weekly "A bright light on the SF horizon.”—David Brin “Wil McCarthy demonstrates that he has a sharp intelligence, a galaxy-spanning imagination, and the solid scientific background to make it all work.”—Connie Willis “In nearly every passage, we get another slice of the science of McCarthy’s construction, and a deeper sense of danger and foreboding... McCarthy develops considerable tension.”—San Diego Union-Tribune “An ingenious yarn with challenging ideas, well-handled technical details, and plenty of twists and turns.”—Kirkus
£14.50
Encounter Books,USA Clarence Thomas and the Lost Constitution
When Clarence Thomas joined the Supreme Court in 1991, he found with dismay that it was interpreting a very different Constitution from the one the framers had written—the one that had established a federal government manned by the people’s own elected representatives, charged with protecting citizens’ inborn rights while leaving them free to work out their individual happiness themselves, in their families, communities, and states. He found that his predecessors on the Court were complicit in the first step of this transformation, when in the 1870s they defanged the Civil War amendments intended to give full citizenship to his fellow black Americans. In the next generation, Woodrow Wilson, dismissing the framers and their work as obsolete, set out to replace laws made by the people’s representatives with rules made by highly educated, modern, supposedly nonpartisan “experts,” an idea Franklin Roosevelt supersized in the New Deal agencies that he acknowledged had no constitutional warrant. Then, under Chief Justice Earl Warren in the 1950s and 1960s, the Nine set about realizing Wilson’s dream of a Supreme Court sitting as a permanent constitutional convention, conjuring up laws out of smoke and mirrors and justifying them as expressions of the spirit of the age. But Thomas, who joined the Court after eight years running one of the myriad administrative agencies that the Great Society had piled on top of FDR’s batch, had deep misgivings about the new governmental order. He shared the framers’ vision of free, self-governing citizens forging their own fate. And from his own experience growing up in segregated Savannah, flirting with and rejecting black radicalism at college, and running an agency that supposedly advanced equality, he doubted that unelected experts and justices really did understand the moral arc of the universe better than the people themselves, or that the rules and rulings they issued made lives better rather than worse. So in the hundreds of opinions he has written in more than a quarter century on the Court—the most important of them explained in these pages in clear, non-lawyerly language—he has questioned the constitutional underpinnings of the new order and tried to restore the limited, self-governing original one, as more legitimate, more just, and more free than the one that grew up in its stead. The Court now seems set to move down the trail he blazed. A free, self-governing nation needs independent-minded, self-reliant citizens, and Thomas’s biography, vividly recounted here, produced just the kind of character that the founders assumed would always mark Americans. America’s future depends on the power of its culture and institutions to form ever more citizens of this stamp.
£17.99
Continuum Publishing Corporation Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle
Despite Warner Brothers Records' conviction that it had mid-wifed the American equivalent of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, "Song Cycle" wasn't rock music, and it didn't sell like rock music. The album's arrangements taxed the storage capacity of multi-track tape and its lyrics allowed enquiring minds to follow a Joycean snakes-and-ladders path through multiple meanings, allusive wordplay and puns. "Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle" is an intelligent take on a classic left-field album. For good and for ill, the full arsenal of bouquets and brickbats available to music writers has been tossed at Van Dyke Parks during his tenure of forty years and more in the music business. The Mississippi native has been hailed as a great American original - Charles Ives in Groucho Marx's pajamas, was Rolling Stone's pull quote - and derided as a charlatan. He was among the first to achieve the questionable status of cult artist; defended by a vocal few, dismissed or ignored by the greater audience. His career arc, and indeed his own life invite parallel consideration with another maverick who made his name in Hollywood, the film director and actor Orson Welles. Both were immediately recognized as child prodigies and took full advantage of the status conferred upon them. Each had the mantle of genius conferred upon them; in both cases, the mantle was worn with increasing difficulty as the years progressed. Both men, perhaps unfairly, have been accused of never bettering their artistic debuts. The compounded triumph and debacle of Welles' Citizen Kane is the stuff of a crammed shelf of film history books. In Van Dyke Parks' case, his calling card and his bete noir both fit within the same cardboard sleeve, the one containing "Song Cycle". The album was released on Warner Brothers Records in 1968. It cost more than any recording made prior to that time (Warners would ultimately recoup its costs sometime in the early 90s). No one can say that the label didn't get its money's worth: "Song Cycle"'s arrangements taxed the storage capacity of multi-track tape and its lyrics allowed enquiring minds to follow a Joycean snakes-and-ladders path through multiple meanings, allusive wordplay and puns. Said lyrics were sung by their author, his piping tenor swathed in a galactic fog of studio effects. The rhythms veered from Broadway to box step, little or none cut from the cloth of psychedelic, blues-based turbulence that dominated the landscape of the late 60s. 'A growing Alexandria of rock criticism' - "Los Angeles Times", 2008. 'Ideal for the rock geek who thinks liner notes just aren't enough' - "Rolling Stone". 'One of the coolest publishing imprints on the planet' - "Bookslut". 'A brilliant series...each one a word of real love" - "NME" (UK). For more information on the series and on individual titles in the series, check out our blog.
£11.65
John Wiley & Sons Inc The Last Samurai: The Life and Battles of Saigo Takamori
The dramatic arc of Saigo Takamori's life, from his humble origins as a lowly samurai, to national leadership, to his death as a rebel leader, has captivated generations of Japanese readers and now Americans as well - his life is the inspiration for a major Hollywood film, The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe. In this vibrant new biography, Mark Ravina, professor of history and Director of East Asian Studies at Emory University, explores the facts behind Hollywood storytelling and Japanese legends, and explains the passion and poignancy of Saigo's life. Known both for his scholarly research and his appearances on The History Channel, Ravina recreates the world in which Saigo lived and died, the last days of the samurai. The Last Samurai traces Saigo's life from his early days as a tax clerk in far southwestern Japan, through his rise to national prominence as a fierce imperial loyalist. Saigo was twice exiled for his political activities -- sent to Japan's remote southwestern islands where he fully expected to die. But exile only increased his reputation for loyalty, and in 1864 he was brought back to the capital to help his lord fight for the restoration of the emperor. In 1868, Saigo commanded his lord's forces in the battles which toppled the shogunate and he became and leader in the emperor Meiji's new government. But Saigo found only anguish in national leadership. He understood the need for a modern conscript army but longed for the days of the traditional warrior. Saigo hoped to die in service to the emperor. In 1873, he sought appointment as envoy to Korea, where he planned to demand that the Korean king show deference to the Japanese emperor, drawing his sword, if necessary, top defend imperial honor. Denied this chance to show his courage and loyalty, he retreated to his homeland and spent his last years as a schoolteacher, training samurai boys in frugality, honesty, and courage. In 1876, when the government stripped samurai of their swords, Saigo's followers rose in rebellion and Saigo became their reluctant leader. His insurrection became the bloodiest war Japan had seen in centuries, killing over 12,000 men on both sides and nearly bankrupting the new imperial government. The imperial government denounced Saigo as a rebel and a traitor, but their propaganda could not overcome his fame and in 1889, twelve years after his death, the government relented, pardoned Saigo of all crimes, and posthumously restored him to imperial court rank. In THE LAST SAMURAI, Saigo is as compelling a character as Robert E. Lee was to Americans-a great and noble warrior who followed the dictates of honor and loyalty, even though it meant civil war in a country to which he'd devoted his life. Saigo's life is a fascinating look into Japanese feudal society and a history of a country as it struggled between its long traditions and the dictates of a modern future.
£27.00
APA Publications The Rough Guide to Switzerland (Travel Guide with Free eBook)
Practical travel guide to Switzerland with a free eBook points-of-interest structured lists of all sights and off-the-beaten-track treasures, with detailed colour-coded maps, practical details about what to see and to do in Switzerland, how to get there and around, pre-departure information, as well as top time-saving tips, like a visual list of things not to miss in Switzerland, expert author picks and itineraries to help you plan your trip. This guide book has been fully updated post-COVID-19 and it comes with a free eBook.The Rough Guide to Switzerland covers: Geneva, Lausanne and Lake Geneva, The Arc Jurassien, Basel and around, Bern and around, The Bernese Oberland, Valais, Lucerne and Central Switzerland, Zürich, Northeast Switzerland, Graubünden, Ticino.Inside this travel guide you'll find:RECOMMENDATIONS FOR EVERY TYPE OF TRAVELLER Experiences selected for every kind of trip to Switzerland, from off-the-beaten-track adventures in Geneva to family activities in child-friendly places, like Zürich or chilled-out breaks in popular tourist areas, like Lausanne.PRACTICAL TRAVEL TIPS Essential pre-departure information including Switzerland entry requirements, getting around, health information, travelling with children, sports and outdoor activities, food and drink, festivals, culture and etiquette, shopping, tips for travellers with disabilities and more.TIME-SAVING ITINERARIESCarefully planned routes covering the best of Switzerland give a taste of the richness and diversity of the destination, and have been created for different time frames or types of trip.DETAILED REGIONAL COVERAGEClear structure within each sightseeing chapter includes regional highlights, brief history, detailed sights and places ordered geographically, recommended restaurants, hotels, bars, clubs and major shops or entertainment options.INSIGHTS INTO GETTING AROUND LIKE A LOCALTips on how to beat the crowds, save time and money and find the best local spots for hiking, browsing markets and sampling wine. HIGHLIGHTS OF THINGS NOT TO MISSRough Guides' rundown of Basel, Bern and Lucerne's sights and top experiences helps to make the most of each trip to Switzerland, even in a short time.HONEST AND INDEPENDENT REVIEWSWritten by Rough Guides' expert authors with a trademark blend of humour, honesty and expertise, to help to find the best places in Switzerland, matching different needs.BACKGROUND INFORMATIONComprehensive 'Contexts' chapter features fascinating insights into Switzerland, with coverage of history, religion, ethnic groups, environment, wildlife and books, plus a handy language section and glossary.FABULOUS FULL COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHYFeatures inspirational colour photography, including the stunning Rathaus in Basel and the spectacular Bernese Oberland.COLOUR-CODED MAPPINGPractical full-colour maps, with clearly numbered, colour-coded keys for quick orientation in Valais, Ticino and many more locations in Switzerland, reduce the need to go online.USER-FRIENDLY LAYOUT With helpful icons, and organised by neighbourhood to help you pick the best spots to spend your time.FREE EBOOK Free eBook download with every purchase of a printed book allows you to access all of the content from your phone or tablet, for on-the-road exploration.
£15.29
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Leave the World Behind
NOW A MAJOR GLOBAL NETFLIX ADAPTATION STARRING JULIA ROBERTS, KEVIN BACON, ETHAN HAWKE AND MAHERSHALA ALI *A THE TIMES #1 BESTSELLER* *THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* *A BARACK OBAMA SUMMER READING PICK 2021* 'Easily the best thing I have read all year' KILEY REID, AUTHOR OF SUCH A FUN AGE 'Intense, incisive, I loved this and have still not quite shaken off the unease' DAVID NICHOLLS 'I was hooked from the opening pages' CLARE MACKINTOSH 'Simply breathtaking . . . An extraordinary book, at once smart, gripping and hallucinatory’ OBSERVER _______ A magnetic novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong Amanda and Clay head to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a holiday: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they've rented for the week. But with a late-night knock on the door, the spell is broken. Ruth and G. H., an older couple who claim to own the home, have arrived there in a panic. These strangers say that a sudden power outage has swept the city, and - with nowhere else to turn - they have come to the country in search of shelter. But with the TV and internet down, and no phone service, the facts are unknowable. Should Amanda and Clay trust this couple - and vice versa? What has happened back in New York? Is the holiday home, isolated from civilisation, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one another? _______ FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2020 FINALIST FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2021 A DAILY TELEGRAPH, GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, IRISH TIMES AND TIME BOOK OF THE YEAR Everyone is talking about LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND 'You will probably need to read it in as close to one sitting as possible’ Sunday Times 'A page-turner taking in themes of isolation, race and class’ Guardian ‘A book that could have been tailor-made for our times’ The Times ‘A literary page-turner that will keep you awake even after it ends’ Mail on Sunday 'An exceptional examination of race and class and what the world looks like when it's ending' Roxane Gay 'A thrilling book - one that will speak to readers who have felt the terror of isolation in these recent months and one that will simultaneously, as great books do, lift them out of it' Vogue 'Explores complex ideas about privilege and fate with miraculous wit and grace' Jenny Offill ‘For the reader, the invisible terror outside in Leave the World Behind echoes the sense of disquiet today in a world convulsed by the pandemic’ Financial Times 'Alam's achievement is to see that his genre's traditional arc, which relies on the idea of aftermath, no longer makes sense. Today, disaster novels call for something different' New Yorker 'Read it with the lights on' Jenna Bush Hager, October Book Club pick
£9.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Leave the World Behind: 'The book of an era' Independent
SOON TO BE A MAJOR GLOBAL NETFLIX ADAPTATION STARRING JULIA ROBERTS, KEVIN BACON, ETHAN HAWKE AND MAHERSHALA ALI *A THE TIMES #1 BESTSELLER* *THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* *A BARACK OBAMA SUMMER READING PICK 2021* 'Easily the best thing I have read all year' KILEY REID, AUTHOR OF SUCH A FUN AGE 'Intense, incisive, I loved this and have still not quite shaken off the unease' DAVID NICHOLLS 'I was hooked from the opening pages' CLARE MACKINTOSH 'Simply breathtaking . . . An extraordinary book, at once smart, gripping and hallucinatory’ OBSERVER _______ A magnetic novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong Amanda and Clay head to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a holiday: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they've rented for the week. But with a late-night knock on the door, the spell is broken. Ruth and G. H., an older couple who claim to own the home, have arrived there in a panic. These strangers say that a sudden power outage has swept the city, and - with nowhere else to turn - they have come to the country in search of shelter. But with the TV and internet down, and no phone service, the facts are unknowable. Should Amanda and Clay trust this couple - and vice versa? What has happened back in New York? Is the holiday home, isolated from civilisation, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one another? _______ FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2020 FINALIST FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2021 A DAILY TELEGRAPH, GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, IRISH TIMES AND TIME BOOK OF THE YEAR Everyone is talking about LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND 'You will probably need to read it in as close to one sitting as possible’ Sunday Times 'A page-turner taking in themes of isolation, race and class’ Guardian ‘A book that could have been tailor-made for our times’ The Times ‘A literary page-turner that will keep you awake even after it ends’ Mail on Sunday 'An exceptional examination of race and class and what the world looks like when it's ending' Roxane Gay 'A thrilling book - one that will speak to readers who have felt the terror of isolation in these recent months and one that will simultaneously, as great books do, lift them out of it' Vogue 'Explores complex ideas about privilege and fate with miraculous wit and grace' Jenny Offill ‘For the reader, the invisible terror outside in Leave the World Behind echoes the sense of disquiet today in a world convulsed by the pandemic’ Financial Times 'Alam's achievement is to see that his genre's traditional arc, which relies on the idea of aftermath, no longer makes sense. Today, disaster novels call for something different' New Yorker 'Read it with the lights on' Jenna Bush Hager, October Book Club pick
£9.99
Big Finish Productions Ltd Doctor Who - Ravenous 1
Having saved the universe and restored peace at home, the Doctor and Liv go in search of their friend, Helen. Following a trail of breadcrumbs through space and time they discover an unsavoury conspiracy, and an old enemy lurking in the shadows, waiting. 1.1 Their Finest Hour by John Dorney. In the early days of the Second World War a strange and elusive craft attacks British targets. Could it be a German superweapon? Churchill calls for the Doctor’s assistance and with the help of a squadron of Polish fighter pilots the TARDIS crew take to the skies to investigate. 1.2 How to Make a Killing in Time Travel by John Dorney. A disturbance in the vortex causes the TARDIS to land on the Scapegrace space station, where Cornelius Morningstar experiments in time-travel for nefarious purposes. But the Doctor’s plan to stop him winds dangerously out of control as the different agendas of criminals, murderers and alien dynasties conspire against him. 1.3 World of Damnation by Matt Fitton Rykerzon is a maximum-security planetoid designed to hold the most dangerous criminals in the star system. The Governor plans to reform its inmates, with the help of the Kandyman. But two prisoners prove particularly troublesome: the alien fugitives known as the Eleven, and Miss Helen Sinclair. The Doctor and Liv have finally tracked down their friend - but are they too late? 1.4 Sweet Salvation by Matt Fitton. The Eleven has the authorities in the palm of his hand and an entire world held to ransom when the Kandyman cooks up a deadly confection containing a secret ingredient. In a last - ditch attempt to prevent disaster Liv teams up with a desperate criminal, and the Doctor must decide whether Helen is still his friend. Big Finish have been producing Doctor Who audios since 1999, starring Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, David Tennant and John Hurt. Big Finish’s run of Eighth Doctor adventures star Paul McGann reprising his much loved portrayal of the Eighth incarnation of TV’s Time Lord, and cover both single adventures and epic boxed set arcs! Companion Liv Chenka is played by Nicola Walker, one of the busiest and most popular UK TV actors, with appearances over the last year alone in Collateral, Inside No. 9 and Unforgotten on BBC and ITV. This new set kicks off a fresh arc, and features a return for one of the Doctor’s most grisly foes: the Kandyman! CAST: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Nicola Walker (Liv Chenka), Hattie Morahan (Helen Sinclair), Mark Bonnar (The Eleven), Ian McNeice (Sir Winston Churchill), Laurence Dobiesz (Wilhelm Royzcki), Gyuri Sarossy (Jan Ostowicz), Tracy Wiles (Secretary / Grand Control), Beth Chalmers (The Heliyon), Roger May (Cornelius Morningstar / Verdarn), Judith Roddy (Stralla Cushing), Sarah Lambie (Gorl), Jane Booker (Dron / Yetana), Christopher Ryan (Macy), Nicholas Rowe (The Kandyman), Amerjit Deu (Governor), Charlie Condou (Crabhead / System / Jarl), Pippa Bennett-Warner (Ruzalla), Beth Goddard (Ludina Braskell).
£36.00
Hodder & Stoughton The Lost Café Schindler: One family, two wars and the search for truth
'Rigorously researched, The Lost Café Schindler successfully weaves together a compelling and at times deeply moving memoir and family history that also chronicles the wider story of the Jews of the Austro-Hungarian Empire... It distinguishes itself through its combination of mystery and reconciliation.' -- The Times T2'In tilling the past Meriel has uncovered the most fascinating - and devastating - family history. The Lost Cafe Schindler is not just a genealogical exploration, though; it sets out the wider experiences of the Jewish population of the Austro-Hungarian empire, weaving in the story of how antisemitism took root' -- Sunday Times'An impressively researched account of Jewish life in the Tyrol up to and during the Second World War' -- Evening Standard'An extraordinary story - so cadenced and so moving.' -- Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes'An extraordinary and compelling book of reckonings - a journey across a long, complex and deeply painful arc of history, grippingly told - a wonderful melding of the personal and the political, the family and the historical.' -- Philippe Sands, author of East West Street'A significant benefit for family historians is that her reading, sources and resources offer guidance that others might follow and use in their own research.' Who Do You Think You Are?'A well-researched account.' -- The Observer'The scale of the crimes committed during these years can never be fully comprehended, but through tales like these they become relatable and the sense of loss, shared.' -- Press Association'Compelling and beautifully written... a remarkable and inspiring story that attests to the strength and compassion of the human spirit in overcoming the tragedy of persecution... Fascinating family history.' - Daily Express'Schindler builds her story patiently, tracking her own journey in unravelling it' - i***Kurt Schindler was an impossible man. His daughter Meriel spent her adult life trying to keep him at bay. Kurt had made extravagant claims about their family history. Were they really related to Franz Kafka and Oscar Schindler, of Schindler's List fame? Or Hitler's Jewish doctor - Dr Bloch? What really happened on Kristallnacht, the night that Nazis beat Kurt's father half to death and ransacked the family home? When Kurt died in 2017, Meriel felt compelled to resolve her mixed feelings about him, and to solve the mysteries he had left behind. Starting with photos and papers found in Kurt's isolated cottage, Meriel embarked on a journey of discovery taking her to Austria, Italy and the USA. She reconnected family members scattered by feuding and war. She pieced together an extraordinary story taking in two centuries, two world wars and a family business: the famous Café Schindler. Launched in 1922 as an antidote to the horrors of the First World War, this grand café became the whirling social centre of Innsbruck. And then the Nazis arrived. Through the story of the Café Schindler and the threads that spool out from it, this moving book weaves together memoir, family history and an untold story of the Jews of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It explores the restorative power of writing, and offers readers a profound reflection on memory, truth, trauma and the importance of cake.
£10.99
Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd International Perspectives on Business Innovation and Disruption in the Creative Industries: Film, Video and Photography
Independent film makers and local media companies use the digital transformation of the business to find new ways for producing, funding and broadcasting their works of art. Their innovative ideas change the existing value chains and create new relations between artists and audiences that have previously been unimaginable. This is a great collection of chapters that give insight into a fascinating field of study: congratulations to the authors and editors!'- Kathrin M. Möslein, University Erlangen-Nuremberg and HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, Germany'At a time when the creative industries are becoming increasingly important for economic growth and employment prospects, this highly original and authoritative volume explores the digital disruptions and the related industry transformation in these sectors. The different studies bring to life the new sources of creative content, the new business models and value propositions emerging in different countries in a variety of creative industries associated with imagery. It is vital reading for all researchers and practitioners with a stake in understanding and contributing to a major force in the current economic transformation towards knowledge-based economies.'- Marcela Miozzo, The University of Manchester, UK'This excellent set of expert chapters covers all aspects of innovative change in the creative industries. What sets this volume apart is its strong focus on very recent developments and phenomena, like customer co-creation, crowdfunding, or managing long-tail markets. I found plenty of new ideas for my own research!'- Frank T. Piller, RWTH Aachen University, Germany and MIT, US'The film, video and photography industries have been transformed in recent years by digitisation, the emergence of new business models, and new modes of collaboration between 'the crowd' and professional practitioners in the financing, production and distribution of media content. Through multiple case and country studies, this book augments analysis of creative industries' dynamics and deepens understanding of business innovation and strategy in knowledge-based economies. This volume should be required reading for students, researchers and practitioners in media industries and management.'- Ben Goldsmith, ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, Australia.As knowledge-based economies continue to grow, creative fields are becoming increasingly important for economic growth and development. Within these fields, disruptive innovations are reshaping industry boundaries and challenging conventional business models. This highly original volume explores the digital disruptions and related industry transformations in film, video and photography.The authors highlight new sources of creative content and examine alternative business models and value propositions currently emerging in a number of different countries. The book incorporates work on disruption from innovation scholars in business schools as well as insights from academics and practitioners in other disciplines, including the broader social sciences.This authoritative volume is vital reading for scholars and researchers specializing in knowledge management and innovation, as well as practitioners working in a variety of image-based creative fields.Contributors: S. de Vinck, R. DeFillippi, C. Dumas, N. Escoffier, N. Ferrer-Roca, A. Finney, K. Hung, P. Hunt, R. Kimani, A. Kwok, T.-Y. Lau, S. Leminen, S. Lindmark, M.E. Luka, B. McKelvey, L. Naldi, Y. Roth, P. Roy, L. Sánchez, A. Serra, S. Sparviero, M.B. von Rimscha, N. Wakabayashi, M. Westerlund, P. Wikström, J.-I. Yamada, M. Yamashita
£109.00
Hodder & Stoughton The Lost Café Schindler: One family, two wars and the search for truth
'Rigorously researched, The Lost Café Schindler successfully weaves together a compelling and at times deeply moving memoir and family history that also chronicles the wider story of the Jews of the Austro-Hungarian Empire... It distinguishes itself through its combination of mystery and reconciliation.' -- The Times T2'In tilling the past Meriel has uncovered the most fascinating - and devastating - family history. The Lost Cafe Schindler is not just a genealogical exploration, though; it sets out the wider experiences of the Jewish population of the Austro-Hungarian empire, weaving in the story of how antisemitism took root' -- Sunday Times'An impressively researched account of Jewish life in the Tyrol up to and during the Second World War' -- Evening Standard'An extraordinary story - so cadenced and so moving.' -- Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes'An extraordinary and compelling book of reckonings - a journey across a long, complex and deeply painful arc of history, grippingly told - a wonderful melding of the personal and the political, the family and the historical.' -- Philippe Sands, author of East West Street 'Lingering tastes and luscious aromas permeate Meriel Schindler's affecting 'The Lost Café Schindler'' -- Wall Street Journal'A significant benefit for family historians is that her reading, sources and resources offer guidance that others might follow and use in their own research.' Who Do You Think You Are?'A well-researched account.' -- The ObserverBy reconstructing - through letters, photos and archival documents - the specific experiences of her family, Meriel articulates a revealing, often heart-breaking insider's perspective that illuminates the broader narrative.' -- Irish Examiner'The scale of the crimes committed during these years can never be fully comprehended, but through tales like these they become relatable and the sense of loss, shared.' -- Press Association'Compelling and beautifully written... a remarkable and inspiring story that attests to the strength and compassion of the human spirit in overcoming the tragedy of persecution... Fascinating family history.' - Daily Express'Schindler builds her story patiently, tracking her own journey in unravelling it' - i***Kurt Schindler was an impossible man. His daughter Meriel spent her adult life trying to keep him at bay. Kurt had made extravagant claims about their family history. Were they really related to Franz Kafka and Oscar Schindler, of Schindler's List fame? Or Hitler's Jewish doctor - Dr Bloch? What really happened on Kristallnacht, the night that Nazis beat Kurt's father half to death and ransacked the family home? When Kurt died in 2017, Meriel felt compelled to resolve her mixed feelings about him, and to solve the mysteries he had left behind. Starting with photos and papers found in Kurt's isolated cottage, Meriel embarked on a journey of discovery taking her to Austria, Italy and the USA. She reconnected family members scattered by feuding and war. She pieced together an extraordinary story taking in two centuries, two world wars and a family business: the famous Café Schindler. Launched in 1922 as an antidote to the horrors of the First World War, this grand café became the whirling social centre of Innsbruck. And then the Nazis arrived. Through the story of the Café Schindler and the threads that spool out from it, this moving book weaves together memoir, family history and an untold story of the Jews of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It explores the restorative power of writing, and offers readers a profound reflection on memory, truth, trauma and the importance of cake.
£20.00
Headline Publishing Group Justified: A sultry, enemy-to-lovers romance that will leave you desperate for more!
'With a red-hot hero and emotional, unforgettable storyline, Crownover delivers the goods' Lori Wilde, New York Times bestselling authorFrom the New York Times bestselling author of the Marked Men series comes Jay Crownover's latest steamy Texan romance. Will Case and Aspen find their happy ending or are some grudges too much to overcome...'This tense, sensual romance is chock full of headstrong, admirable characters who will appeal to romance and suspense fans alike' Publishers WeeklyThe last thing Case Lawton wants to do is help the woman who cost him everything, but maybe Aspen isn't the heartless lawyer he thought he knew...Case Lawton comes from a family of criminals. So as the sheriff of Loveless, Texas, he's determined to do everything by the book - until he's called to Aspen Barlow's office after a so-called break-in. Although he's uninterested in helping the lawyer who caused him to lose custody of his son, Case is surprised by the Aspen he finds there, and starts to question his long-held grudge...Aspen is scared for her life, and Case is her last hope for protection. But she knows that to get him on her side, she'll have to reveal the painful truth from all those years ago. Now, as they work together to track down a dangerous criminal, Case and Aspen have to learn to trust each other. And as the threats escalate, it becomes clear there's a thin line between love and hate... and soon there's nothing Case wouldn't do to keep her safe...Includes It's All About That Cowboy, a bonus novella by Carly Bloom!Readers are loving Jay Crownover's latest!'A sultry, action-packed, wonderful addition to the Loveless, Texas series by Crownover that keeps you on your toes from start to finish, warms the heart, and definitely leaves you yearning for more' 5* reader review'Pairing an angsty, steamy enemies-to-lovers romance with a twisty, turny suspense arc, Justified was a riveting love story....Justified is Jay Crownover at the top of her game' 5* reader review'Justified is absolutely everything I love about Jay Crownover! Strong characters, some intrigue, some mystery, and a whole lot of sexiness make for a book I just did not want to put down!' 5* reader reviewFilled with heart, intrigue and cast of characters you'll fall for, don't miss out on the other titles in the Loveless, Texas series! Praise for Jay Crownover and the Loveless, Texas series:'I'm in love with Loveless, TX!!' 5* reader review'I always recommend any books written by Jay Crownover' 5* reader review'I've never read a Jay Crownover book that I have not loved' 5* reader review'Off the charts attraction, dramatic suspense, heartbreaking betrayal, deep emotion, and unforgettable romance will keep you turning the pages to the climactic end. Fans and new readers will devour this fantastic story. I couldn't put it down!' Jennifer Ryan, New York Times bestselling author'Once again, Jay Crownover proves why her words are so addictive! Her characters bleed life so tangibly, you feel like you're drowning in the emotions: in the best way possible. Five big huge stars for Justified! Don't miss this page turner!' Harper Sloan, New York Times bestselling author
£9.04
Michelin Editions des Voyages Streetwise Paris Map - Laminated City Center Street Map of Paris, France: City Plans
REVISED 2018 Streetwise Paris Map is a laminated city center map of Paris, France. The accordion-fold pocket size travel map has an integrated metro map including lines & stations. Coverage includes: Main Paris Map 1:14,000 Paris Metro Map Map of France Dimensions: 4" x 8.5" folded, 8.5" x 38" unfolded There are more clichés about Paris than there are tourists at the Louvre, but the fact is that underneath each overused hackneyed cliché is a glistening kernel of truth. The City of Light, the City of Love and the City of Romance, familiar platitudes, but once you experience it for yourself you understand why. There is a je ne sais quoi allure to this city that beguiles, but never completely reveals what makes it so universally appealing. Artists, poets, writers, and composers have tried to define exactly what it is about this place, and yet they succeed only to a point. Perhaps it is as elusive as defining love, for to be in Paris entails experiencing love, about someone, something, some place. There is so much to do - you know the big ones, the Louvre, Musee d’Orsay, Sacre Coeur, St. Germain des Pres, the Left Bank, the Right Bank, the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs Elysées, the Opéra- but don’t miss the fun of discovering the small ones, the ones off the beaten path. Nothing like taking your time strolling thru the turn of the century mansion that houses Musée Marmottan then enjoying a café and patisserie in the museums jewel box café. Wandering aimlessly is romantic. Getting lost isn’t romantic. In fact there are few things that can drain the romance out of a situation faster than realizing that you’re hopelessly lost. So take your travel map and put it away if you want to wander, but have no fear that your wandering will turn into a lost odyssey. You can always pull out the STREETWISE® Paris Map and get yourself pointed back in the right direction. Paris is not without faults. Sometimes people can be rude, but that’s the case anywhere in the world - be it a large city or small village. You get what you give. And in the case of Paris, as with any true love, you accept the flaws with the charms, the weaknesses with the strengths. In the end the true beauty of Paris will surpass any blemish. Life from a Parisian perspective is beautiful. But that’s another cliché, isn’t it? The pocket size map of Paris is laminated for durability and accordion folding for effortless use. To enhance your visit to Paris, pick up a Michelin Green Guide Paris which details sites and attractions using a star-rating system so you can prioritize your trip based on time and interest. For a selection of the best restaurants and hotels, buy the MICHELIN Guide Main Cities in Europe or the MICHELIN Guide Paris & ses environs (French only). For driving or to plan your trip to and from Paris, use the Michelin France Road and Tourist Map No. 721.
£8.78
Odyssey Publications,Hong Kong Mekong River: From Source to Sea Featuring Laos
This title includes: regional map of mighty Mekong river from source to sea; UNESCO World Heritage sites; French colonial Vientiane; exquisite Luang Prabang; Pak Ou Caves; Khone Pha Pheng Falls; and, coffee-growing regions. Laos has been discovered. Pristine and exotic in a changing world where other Asian cultures have been affected by rapid development, Laos is still green. The rivers mostly run free through sites well worth visiting, from the ancient Khmer temple of Vat Phou in the south to the former royal capital of Luang Prabang in the north. But if you want to see the old Laos you have to move fast. Luang Prabang, an exquisite little town on the banks of the life-giving Mekong, is a UNESCO World Heritage site and the main Mecca for tourists. The town is home to some of the finest Buddhist temples anywhere. Charming old colonial mansions are now hotels, trendy restaurants, or upscale boutiques. Al fresco restaurants serving spicy Lao fare line the riverside. A night bazaar with dozens of stalls offers high-quality woven silk scarves, silver jewellery, and embroidered Hmong bedspreads, just a few of the popular wares available. Laos has a long, rich tradition of silk weaving, and textiles are not just a "best buy" for tourists. They represent the most important craftwork done in the country and in some ways define the Lao nation. Also on the Mekong, the capital Vientiane still has the look of a French provincial town complete with tree-lined streets, fading colonial buildings, and sidewalk cafes. Its trendy restaurants offer fusion cuisine as a counterpoint to traditional fiery Lao fare. The city's most prominent monument, Patuxai, closely resembles the pride of Paris, the Arc de Triomphe. Upstream from Luang Prabang, at the confluence of the Ou River, are the Pak Ou Caves, an easy day trip by long-tail boat through pastoral countryside and jungle-covered mountains. The two caves, etched over millennia out of limestone karst cliffs, contain hundreds of images of the Buddha donated by generations of believers. To get away from the heat along the river, travellers head to the Bolaven Plateau, a fertile upland area known for its cooler climate, dramatic waterfalls, and (thanks to the French) some of the best coffee in the world. This is the gateway to the higher mountains to the east and the hill tribes. A trip to southern Laos should include a visit to the spectacular the Khone Pha Pheng Falls, where the usually languid Mekong boils and tumbles through eight miles of wild cataracts that effectively close the river to navigation. One of the key attractions of Laos is the people. Sixty percent of the population is ethnic Lao, who migrated from China a millennium ago. The rest are largely upland people representing about fifty hill tribes. The Lao are mostly Theravada Buddhists who live in the valleys and are famed for being easy-going, party-loving and affable. A precious pearl of a country blessed with pristine natural beauty, exotic flora and rare fauna, Laos hosts the mighty Mekong for a significant distance during its almost 5,000 kilometre journey from the Tibetan Plateau to the sea. Whether you chose to travel by land or by water or both, Odyssey's "Illustrated "Map will enhance your journey both as a pre-trip planner and as a post-trip souvenir. Unfolded map size 991mm x 686mm.
£10.43
Cornell University Press Mystic and Pilgrim: The Book and the World of Margery Kempe
Margery Kempe, a middle-class English housewife at the turn of the fifteenth century, was called to weep and to pray for her fellow Christians and to adopt an unconventional way of life. Separating herself from her husband and many children, she became a pilgrim travelling around England and as far away as Jerusalem. In old age, she dictated to scribes an autobiography that recounts her extraordinary intimacy with Christ as well as her intense, commotion-filled life. At first glance, she does not seem very saintly in character or disposition, and her spiritual experiences can easily appear to be extreme or egotistical. To appreciate and interpret Margery Kempe's life and spirituality properly, one must go beyond conventional categories of social and religious history. In Mystic and Pilgrim, Clarissa Atkinson does this from six perspectives: the character of Margery's autobiography, her mysticism and pilgrim way of life, her social and family environment, her relations with her church and its clergy, the tradition that shaped her piety, and the context of late medieval female sanctity. Margery's Book was shaped by the writings of famous holy women and by pressures on memory and motivation that come with age. The vocation that called Margery to mysticism and pilgrimage made her unusual, therefore open to suspicion. It required her to leave her husband and children, to dress in white (a color usually reserved for virgins), to go on pilgrimage as a way to participate in Christ's earthly life and death. It graced her with a conspicuous gift: tears she could not control or resist. Her domestic and social background (she came from a powerful merchant family) gave her the courage to persist in her strange vocation and unpopular way of life. She met scorn from most of her relatives, but found encouragement in Christ, the saints, and the representatives of the Church. During Margery's lifetime the Church displayed intense anxiety over the related issues of religious enthusiasm, discernment of spirits, and female visionaries. Yet many church officials, including Dame Julian of Norwich, advised Margery to accept what God sent her and judged her feelings to be "the work of the Holy Ghost." Having examined these aspects of Margery's life and piety, Atkinson goes on to make an original and significant contribution by explaining their specific spiritual context. It is in the tradition of affective piety and of late medieval female sanctity, she argues, that Margery's religious emotions and expressions can best be understood. From Anselm of Canterbury, through Francis of Assisi, to Nicolas Love, affective writers and preachers aimed to promote intense feelings. Principal among these were compassion and contrition. Margery incorporated these feelings in her own devotional life: identification with the human Christ, conspicuous humility inspired by Saint Francis, and "boistrous" emotion in sympathy with Mary grieving at the Cross. Against this background, the religious life of Margery Kempe seems neither aberrant nor even very unusual. Rather, it is her unique response to a tradition established by great saints. Among the saintly persons of late medieval Europe were many women: Catherine of Siena, Birgitta of Sweden, Joan of Arc, Julian of Norwich. They characteristically saw visions, communicated directly with God, found scribes or biographers who publicized their experiences. An increasing number of them were wives and mothers who struggled, like Margery, with the married state and eventually transcended it, becoming in effect "honorary" virgins through their holiness and by God's special favor. Traveling widely, speaking publicly, departing from traditional women's roles, these women were a new creation of the late Middle Ages.
£31.00
Cornell University Press Mystic and Pilgrim: The Book and the World of Margery Kempe
Margery Kempe, a middle-class English housewife at the turn of the fifteenth century, was called to weep and to pray for her fellow Christians and to adopt an unconventional way of life. Separating herself from her husband and many children, she became a pilgrim travelling around England and as far away as Jerusalem. In old age, she dictated to scribes an autobiography that recounts her extraordinary intimacy with Christ as well as her intense, commotion-filled life. At first glance, she does not seem very saintly in character or disposition, and her spiritual experiences can easily appear to be extreme or egotistical. To appreciate and interpret Margery Kempe's life and spirituality properly, one must go beyond conventional categories of social and religious history. In Mystic and Pilgrim, Clarissa Atkinson does this from six perspectives: the character of Margery's autobiography, her mysticism and pilgrim way of life, her social and family environment, her relations with her church and its clergy, the tradition that shaped her piety, and the context of late medieval female sanctity. Margery's Book was shaped by the writings of famous holy women and by pressures on memory and motivation that come with age. The vocation that called Margery to mysticism and pilgrimage made her unusual, therefore open to suspicion. It required her to leave her husband and children, to dress in white (a color usually reserved for virgins), to go on pilgrimage as a way to participate in Christ's earthly life and death. It graced her with a conspicuous gift: tears she could not control or resist. Her domestic and social background (she came from a powerful merchant family) gave her the courage to persist in her strange vocation and unpopular way of life. She met scorn from most of her relatives, but found encouragement in Christ, the saints, and the representatives of the Church. During Margery's lifetime the Church displayed intense anxiety over the related issues of religious enthusiasm, discernment of spirits, and female visionaries. Yet many church officials, including Dame Julian of Norwich, advised Margery to accept what God sent her and judged her feelings to be "the work of the Holy Ghost." Having examined these aspects of Margery's life and piety, Atkinson goes on to make an original and significant contribution by explaining their specific spiritual context. It is in the tradition of affective piety and of late medieval female sanctity, she argues, that Margery's religious emotions and expressions can best be understood. From Anselm of Canterbury, through Francis of Assisi, to Nicolas Love, affective writers and preachers aimed to promote intense feelings. Principal among these were compassion and contrition. Margery incorporated these feelings in her own devotional life: identification with the human Christ, conspicuous humility inspired by Saint Francis, and "boistrous" emotion in sympathy with Mary grieving at the Cross. Against this background, the religious life of Margery Kempe seems neither aberrant nor even very unusual. Rather, it is her unique response to a tradition established by great saints. Among the saintly persons of late medieval Europe were many women: Catherine of Siena, Birgitta of Sweden, Joan of Arc, Julian of Norwich. They characteristically saw visions, communicated directly with God, found scribes or biographers who publicized their experiences. An increasing number of them were wives and mothers who struggled, like Margery, with the married state and eventually transcended it, becoming in effect "honorary" virgins through their holiness and by God's special favor. Traveling widely, speaking publicly, departing from traditional women's roles, these women were a new creation of the late Middle Ages.
£42.30
Columbia University Press Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past, Volume 1 - Conflicts and Divisions
Archives, monuments, celebrations:there are not merely the recollections of memory but also the foundations of history. Symbols, the third and final volume in Pierre Nora's monumental Realms of Memory, includes groundbreaking discussions of the emblems of France's past by some of the nation's most distinguished intellectuals. The seventeen essays in this book consider such diverse "sites" of memory as the figures of Joan D'Arc and Decartes, the national motto of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity", the tricolor flag and the French language itself. Pierre Nora's closing essay on commemoration provides a culminating overview of the series. Offering a new approach on history, culture, French studies and the studies of symbols, Realms of Memory reveals how the myriad meanings we attach to places and events constitute our sense of history. A monumental collective endevour by some of France's most distinguished intellectuals, Realms of Memory explores how and why certain places, events, and figures became a part of France's collective memory, and reveals the intricate connection between memory and history. Symbols, the third and final volume, is the culmination of the work begun in Conflicts and Divisions and Traditions.Pierre Nora inaugurates this final volume by acknowledging that the whole project of Realms of Memory is oriented around symbols, claiming "only a symbolic history can restore to France the unity and dynamism not recognized by either the man in the street or the academic historian." He goes on to distinguish between two very different types of symbols - imposed and constructed. Imposed symbols may be official state emblems like the tricolor flag or 'La Marsaillaise', or may be monuments like the Eiffel Tower - symbols imbued with a sense of history. COnstructes symbols are produced over the passage of time, by human effort, and by history itself.They include figures such as Joan d'Arc, Descartes, and the Gallic cock.Past I, Emblems, traces the development of four major national symbols from the time of the Revolution: the tricolor flag, the national anthem (La Marsaillaise), the motto Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" and Bastille Day. Far from having fixed identities, these representations of the French nations are shown to have undergone transformations. As French republics rose and regimes changed, the emblems of the French state - and the meanings accosiated with them - were also altered.Part II, Major Sites, focuses on those cities and structures that act as beacons of France to both Frenchman and foreigner. These essays range from the prehistory paintings in Lascaux - that cave which, though not originally French in any sense, has become the very symbol of France's immemorial national memory - to Verdun, the site of the terrible World War I battle, now a symbol of the nation's heaviest sacrifice for the "salvation of the fatehrland" and the most powerful image of French national unity.Identifications, the final section, explores the ways in which the French think of themselves. From the cock - that "rustic and quintessentially Gallic bird" - to the figures of Joan of Arc and Descartes, to the nation's twin hearts - Paris and the French language - the memory of the French people is explored.This final installment of Realms of Memory provides a major contribution not only to study the French nation and culture, but also to the study of symbols as cultural phenomena, offering, as Nora observes, "the possibility of revelation."
£55.80
City Lights Books A Quilt for David
The hidden history of a vulnerable gay man whose life and death were turned into tabloid fodder.In the early 1990s, eight people living in a small conservative Florida town alleged that Dr. David Acer, their dentist, infected them with HIV. David's gayness, along with his sickly appearance from his own AIDS-related illness, made him the perfect scapegoat and victim of mob mentality. In these early years of the AIDS epidemic, when transmission was little understood, and homophobia rampant, people like David were villainized. Accuser Kimberly Bergalis landed a People magazine cover story, while others went on talk shows and made front page news.With a poet's eulogistic and psychological intensity, Steven Reigns recovers the life and death of this man who also stands in for so many lives destroyed not only by HIV, but a diseased society that used stigma against the most vulnerable. It's impossible not to make connections between this story and how the twenty-first century pandemic has also been defined by medical misinformation and cultural bias.Inspired by years of investigative research into the lives of David and those who denounced him, Reigns has stitched together a hauntingly poetic narrative that retraces an American history, questioning the fervor of his accusers, and recuperating a gay life previously shrouded in secrecy and shame."Much too long, suffering has been part of our collective queer legacy. We weather the storm of insult to character and seemingly irreconcilable injustice in tandem with the hope that the arc of time will bend towards justice; our time is now. A Quilt for David is a posthumous journal of vindication."—Brontez Purnell, author of 100 Boyfriends"A stunning homage to people with AIDS."—Sarah Schulman, author of Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993"I found this an incredibly moving book. Reigns deals in hard truths, revisioning one man's life and death, and our collective queer history."—Justin Torres, author of We the Animals"A Quilt for David is amazing and so powerful, filled with anger and frustration . . . It's an unforgettable book."—Marie Cloutier, Greenlight Bookstore, Brooklyn, NY"Told in short, occasionally haiku-like entries, Reigns has done what literature should: put the reader into the mind, the suffering, of another human being."—Andrew Holleran, author of Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited"Steven Reigns lifts David Acer thirty years after his death to show the naked cost of violent, unexamined public opinion around the catastrophe of AIDS. This poetry masterfully documents the tangle of hatred and lies haunting a generation of survivors. I am often grateful for what poems give to me, most especially the ones in this book."—CAConrad, author of AMANDA PARADISE: Resurrect Extinct Vibration"This writing is energetic, alive, and uncensored. Through poetry and prose we glean a deep understanding of a life misunderstood and mischaracterized. Reigns goes to the mat to find out what really happened, and with his expert pacing we're right there with him."—Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones"One of the most important roles a poet can assume is that of emotional historian. Reigns certainly understands that notion in this necessary and genre-bending book."—Richard Blanco, 2013 Presidential Inaugural Poet, author of How to Love a Country
£12.99
City Lights Books No Fascist USA!: The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today’s Movements
The story of how a national grassroots network fought a resurgence of the KKK and other fascist groups during the Reagan years, laying the groundwork for today’s anti-fascist/anti-racist movements."Smash fascism! Read this book!"—Tom Morello, songwriter and guitarist with Rage Against the Machine"Studying the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee will give readers an understanding of the complexity of deconstructing the weapon of white supremacy from the inside out. Thank you Hilary and James for the precision of this analysis, and the true north of this star."—adrienne maree brown, author of Pleasure Activism and Emergent StrategyIn June 1977, a group of white anti-racist activists received an alarming letter from an inmate at a New York state prison calling for help to fight the Ku Klux Klan's efforts to recruit prison staff and influence the people incarcerated. Their response was to form the first chapter of what would eventually become a powerful, nationwide grassroots network, the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, dedicated to countering the rise of the KKK and other far-right white nationalist groups.No Fascist USA! tells the story of that network, whose efforts throughout the 1980s—which included exposing white supremacists in public office, confronting neo-Nazis in street protests, supporting movements for self-determination, and engagement with the underground punk scene—laid the groundwork for many anti-racist efforts to emerge since. Featuring original research, interviews with former members, and a trove of graphic materials, their story offers battle-tested lessons for those on the frontlines of social justice work today.Praise for No Fascist USA!:"Hilary Moore and James Tracy have written a magnificent book that not only corrects the record but helps explain the mercurial rise of white supremacist organizations in the 1970s, how the Klan was (temporarily) defeated, and why this period has been largely ignored. No Fascist USA! radically shifts our perspective, challenging the prevailing wisdom that racist terrorism rises in response to economic downturns, white downward mobility, or in a vacuum created by progressive alternatives. I love this book."—Robin D.G. Kelley, from the foreword"No Fascist USA! is not only timely, but also essential in the present period of accelerated white supremacist activity and anti-racist organizing to combat it. In telling the story of the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, the authors, without romanticizing or condemning, draw important lessons from the fifteen-year history of the group."—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment“With its savvy blend of youth culture and street confrontation, the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee tried to stop Trumpism before Trump. They confronted the rise of white nationalism in prisons, workplaces, and music scenes when precious few paid attention to it . . . Hilary Moore and James Tracy have gifted us with an urgent read.”—Dan Berger, author of Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era“James Tracy and Hilary Moore deliver a searing, bold new work that examines another painful and complicated chapter in American race relations. In an eye-opening account, They are able to connect the dots of the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, a band of contemporary predominantly white activists, and its efforts to expose white supremacist organizations. With a fresh eye and new research, their book uncovers with stunning precision how these groups remain active and exposes some of their unlikely alliances.”—Laurens Grant, filmmaker, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution and Freedom Riders“We learned from history. You can too!”—Terry Bisson, author of Fire on the Mountain and former member of the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee"This book is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the roots of what happened in Charlottesville, and the burgeoning white nationalist membership lists in the U.S. today. We cannot possibly take on the challenges we face without learning from the past. This book is a necessary and long overdue contribution to inform the way forward."—Carla F. Wallace, co-founder, Showing Up for Racial Justice"I've waited thirty years for this book! Our emergency hearts have always driven uprisings to stop white terrorism, but it always takes more than black-bloc tactics in the streets to stop fascists. No Fascist USA! firmly connects today's militant anti-fascist street-fighting movements with important living radical histories to disrupt the cycles that keep the spectre of fascism alive in the modern era. The struggles faced by the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee continue today in our difficult arc towards collective liberation."—scott crow, author of Setting Sights: Histories and Reflections on Community Armed Self-Defense
£12.99
JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck) Judaism for Gentiles: Reading Paul beyond the Parting of the Ways Paradigm
For almost two millennia, readers of the New Testament have been trying to figure out Paul. The struggle with his words begins already within the canon itself. While Acts portrays with ease a Torah-observant, Pharisaic-messianic Paul working in partnership with James and other leaders in Jerusalem, the author of 2 Peter famously admitted that the apostle to the nations is difficult to understand. From that moment on debate has ebbed and flowed on all things Pauline; on women as leaders in assemblies and on the status of Jews and Gentiles in God's plan, just to mention two of the contentious topics associated with Paul. For clergy, scholar, and lay person, Paul's letters hold weight and continue to draw in new readers. Anders Runesson seeks to listen to the voice of the historical Paul - a Jew proclaiming a form of Judaism to non-Jews to save them from divine wrath - but also to probe what it means to breathe new life into this historical figure in the twenty-first century. "The Paul-within-Judaism movement is here to stay, and Anders Runesson is arguably its most hermeneutically sophisticated spokesperson. In this remarkable book, Runesson expertly guides us through difficult questions of social history, exegesis, ancient reception history, and modern constructive theology, all of which we need in order to understand Paul ‘beyond the parting of the ways paradigm.’" Matthew V. Novenson, University of Edinburgh "In this compelling book, Anders Runesson incarnates Roman-period types of Judaism—thus, the seedbed of later Christianities—within their institutional matrix, the ancient synagogue. Radically reconceiving the so-called “parting of the ways,” he traces a developmental arc from Paul through Theodosius I to explore how and why this apocalyptic Jewish movement, with its odd outreach to ethnic others, became the anti-Jewish arm of the late Roman state. If new ideas are food for thought, Runesson has served a feast." Paula Fredriksen, author of "Paul, the Pagans’ Apostle" "This is the mature fruit of intensive research over a significant period of time, drawing together Runesson’s explorations on Paul and Pauline theology, locating him firmly within his Jewish context on the one hand, and taking seriously that he is addressing gentiles. The historical depth and methodological rigor as well as the key awareness of hermeneutical presuppositions render this a rich and challenging source for scholars and students alike. But this is not only another academic contribution to the important field of Pauline studies, Runesson demonstrates how this approach to Paul is also relevant for theologizing in contemporary churches and interreligious interaction today. Thus the volume is a must for all engaged in Pauline Studies as well as in contemporary church and interreligious work." Kathy Ehrensperger, Abraham Geiger Kolleg, Potsdam "In recent years, Anders Runesson has emerged as a leading voice in the (distinct but related) projects of reading Matthew and Paul "within Judaism." In this significant volume on Paul, he draws on material from a number of his previous articles and book chapters, working it into a cohesive and comprehensive account of Paul's "Judaism for gentiles" and its place within a larger interpretive horizon. Over against approaches that see Paul as the architect of a "parting of the ways," Runesson understands him as working towards a "joining of the ways"-mixed groups of Jewish and gentile Christ-believers existing within the larger environment of Jewish diaspora synagogues. An impressive achievement, highly recommended." Terence L. Donaldson, Professor Emeritus, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto "In these important essays, Anders Runesson provides readers with an account of a thoroughly embodied and socially embedded Paul, a first-century Jewish Messiah follower seeking to live in the Roman world. The volume is a must read for anyone interested in thinking about the historical Paul." Matthew Thiessen, McMaster University, Hamilton "Anders Runesson takes his readers beyond the familiar constructions of Paul, significantly advancing the discussion of how to understand him and his movement. Historical and textual details are interrogated with clear, methodological discipline. The investigation is thoughtful, engaging, and accessible to informed non-specialists as well as scholars." Mark D. Nanos, PhD, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, author of "Reading Paul within Judaism" "Anders Runesson's essays impress for three reasons: First, by breaking with classical models of explanation, his handling of the reconstruction of early Christianity is not only innovative, but when set against the backdrop of historical and hermeneutical considerations, opens up further approaches and new perspectives. Second, because he is well-versed in dealing with literary and archaeological sources, Runesson is skillfully able to reorganize and interpret these factors. And finally, his contributions provide such a welcome interest in historical and theological research that even those who do not agree with all the results are constantly challenged to revisit well-trodden paths in search of fresh insights." Markus Öhler, University of Vienna
£151.20
Simon & Schuster Ltd The Greatest Story Ever Told...So Far
‘Probably the most readable, exciting and authoritative writer on science we have. A new Lawrence Krauss book always goes to the top of the curious mind’s wish list.’ Stephen Fry “I loved the fight scenes and the sex scenes were excellent.” (Eric Idle) 'In the span of a century, physics progressed from skepticism that atoms were real to equations so precise we can predict properties of subatomic particles to the tenth decimal place. Lawrence Krauss rightly places this achievement among the greatest of all stories, and his book—at once engaging, poetic and scholarly—tells the story with a scientist’s penetrating insight and a writer’s masterly craft.' (Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe, and Director, Center for Theoretical Physics, Columbia University) "Unlike some very clever scientists, Lawrence Krauss is not content to bask on the Mount Olympus of modern physics. A great educator as well as a great physicist, he wants to pull others up the rarefied heights to join him. But unlike some science educators, he doesn’t dumb down. In Einstein’s words, he makes it 'as simple as possible but no simpler.'" (Richard Dawkins, author of The Magic of Reality) “In every debate I’ve done with theologians and religious believers their knock-out final argument always comes in the form of two questions: Why is there something rather than nothing? and Why are we here? The presumption is that if science provides no answers then there must be a God. But God or no, we still want answers. In A Universe From Nothing Lawrence Krauss, one of the biggest thinkers of our time, addressed the first question with verve, and in The Greatest Story Ever Told he tackles the second with elegance. Both volumes should be placed in hotel rooms across America, in the drawer next to the Gideon Bible." (Michael Shermer, Publisher Skeptic magazine, columnist Scientific American, Presidential Fellow Chapman University, author The Moral Arc.) "A Homeric tale of science, history, and philosophy revealing how we learned so much about the universe and its tiniest parts." (Sheldon Glashow, Nobel Laureate, 1979 in physics) “The Greatest Story Ever Told—So Far ranges from Galileo to the LHC and beyond. It's accessible, illuminating, and surprising—an ideal guide for anyone interested in understanding our accidental universe.” (Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction) “College students, hippies, squares, Christians, Muslims, democrats, republicans, libertarians, theists, even atheists—all of us—sit around BS-ing like: ‘So, how did all this, I mean everything, all of us, the whole universe, you know, man, everything, how did this all get here?’ While we were doing that, Lawrence Krauss and people like him were doing the work to figure it out. Then Krauss wrote this great book about it. ‘Wow, man, you mean, like we’re getting closer to really knowing? I guess we’ll have to go back to talking about politics and sex.’” (Penn Jillette, author of Presto!) “Discovering the bedrock nature of physical reality ranks as one of humanity’s greatest collective achievements. This book gives a fine account of the main ideas and how they emerged. Krauss is himself close to the field, and can offer insights into the personalities who have led the key advances. A practiced and skilled writer, he succeeds in making the physics ‘as simple as possible but no simpler.’ I don’t know a better book on this subject.” (Martin Rees, author of Just Six Numbers) “It is an exhilarating experience to be led through this fascinating story, from Galileo to the Standard Model and the Higgs boson and beyond, with lucid detail and insight, illuminating vividly not only the achievements themselves but also the joy of creative thought and discovery, enriched with vignettes of the remarkable individuals who paved the way. It amply demonstrates that the discovery that ‘nature really follows the simple and elegant rules intuited by the 20th- and 21st-century versions of Plato’s philosophers’ is one of the most astonishing achievements of the human intellect.” (Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor & Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus), MIT) “Charming... Krauss has written an account with sweep and verve that shows the full development of our ideas about the makeup of the world around us... A great romp.” (Walter Gilbert, Nobel Award, Chemistry, 1980) “History of science with an edge—humorous, personal, passionate, yet intellectually serious and authoritative.” (Frank Wilczek, Nobel Laureate, Physics)In the beginning there was light but more than this, there was gravity. After that, all hell broke loose... This is how the story of the greatest intellectual adventure in history should be introduced - how humanity reached its current understanding of the universe, one that is far removed from the realm of everyday experience. Krauss connects the world we know with the invisible world all around us, which is removed from intuition and direct sensation. He explains our current understanding of nature and the struggle to construct the greatest theoretical edifice ever assembled, the Standard Model of Particle Physics -- and then to understand its implications for our existence. Writing in the critically acclaimed style of A Universe from Nothing, Krauss celebrates the beauty and wonders of the natural world and details our place within it and how this shapes our understanding of it. Krauss makes this story accessible through profiles of the scientists responsible for these advances, and clear explanations of their discoveries. Krauss takes us on a tour of science and the brilliant personalities who shaped it, often against political and religious indoctrination, enduring persecution and ostracism. Krauss creates a captivating blend of research and narrative to invite us into the lives and minds of these figures,creating a landmark work of scientific history.
£9.99