Search results for ""Author Gold"

Beautiful, independent Jana strikes out on her own to build a homestead with her sister in the rugged Dakota wilderness—but instead falls in love with a widowed lawman in this evocative, romantic tale.On the golden plains of a new frontier, a smart young schoolteacher teaches a single father a lesson—in the power of love. A scandalous newcomer . . . Only the boldest of women would set off for the Dakota Territory without a man by her side. But schoolteacher Jana Hartmann is determined to build a new life for herself and her frail sister, Greta. True to her courageous spirit, Jana takes the only job she can find in the town of Bismarck—modeling dresses in a shop window—which has every man staring and every woman gossiping. Adding fuel to the fire, she’s agreed to help raise money in the annual kissing booth, where one handsome cowboy wants to buy every kiss for himself. A scorching attraction . . . Drew Malone is a lawyer, rancher, and father of two little boys. Although Jana is immediately attracted to the handsome and helpful Drew, she fights it, torn between a budding romance and her responsibility to Greta. But Drew persists and sweeps her away for a romantic Christmas at Rimfire Ranch in the Badlands, where Jana finds herself having to win over the toughest critics of all— Drew’s young sons. As Greta becomes more independent, Jana lets down her guard and opens her heart to the three Malone men. But when the boys are kidnapped on her watch, Jana blames herself and flees to the frontier. Drew must race against the clock to get back his sons . . . and to make Jana his Rimfire bride.

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This title features over 30 inspiring projects for decorating your Christmas tree with innovative eye-catching ornaments. It offers inspirational craft ideas to help you to create innovative and exciting decorations for your Christmas tree. It features more than 30 projects that include baubles, pomanders, tassels, edible ornaments, gilded stars, festive figures, glittering cones, and many more. Techniques and projects are shown in more than 160 close-up step-by-step photographs and diagrams, making the stages absolutely clear and easy to follow. Templates are provided for many of the basic shapes. Ornaments in every style will appeal to both traditional and modern tastes. A choice of projects is available, including decorations with papier mache, salt dough, embroidery and gilding. Decorating the tree is an opportunity to gather with family, children and friends to adorn the branches with dazzling decorations. These small, yet significant details provide the backdrop to the approaching festivities and set the style and feel of your Christmas, whether traditional or modern. And what decorations can better sum up the individual spirit of Christmas than those you have made yourself? Whether you want sparkling baubles glistening on every branch, or a country-style angel to top the tree, this book shows you how to make original adornments to personalize your tree with style. Packed with practical projects, there is something here for everyone's taste and budget: delicate silver snowflakes cut from shiny paper, edible gingerbread figures, gilded baubles and a classic golden star are just a few of the ideas for seasonal decorations the whole family will enjoy.

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Court painter to King Philip IV of Spain, Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (June 1599 – August 6, 1660) is not only a leading light of the Spanish Golden Age, but among the most celebrated masters in all Western art history. Monet and Renoir, Corot and Courbet, Degas and Dalí all hailed his influence. Picasso was so inspired by his masterpiece Las Meninas that he painted 44 variations of it. Velázquez’s importance is found particularly in his naturalist approach, in contrast to the more ubiquitous idealized manner of his age. Early works included numerous “bodegones”, genre scenes of everyday life in early 17th century Spain, in which warm, rich tones and textures set off the most ordinary of subjects and humble of faces, such as Old Woman Frying Eggs. Later, his portraiture for the Royal Court brought the same naturalism to the highest echelons of society, marking a profound shift in the depiction of royalty with softer, more relaxed poses that offered his subjects a human warmth and character as much as a sense of grandeur. Velázquez’s most famous work, Las Meninas, was also painted in the royal court, but in its enigmatic composition raises many broader questions about reality and illusion and the relationship between the painter, painting, and viewer. This fresh TASCHEN Basic Art 2.0 edition introduces Velázquez through key works from throughout his career. From humble genre scenes to the royal portraits, the exquisite Rokeby Venus nude, and the ever-mysterious Las Meninas, we explore his exceptional attention to composition, masterful handling of tone, and his remarkable influence as, in Manet’s words, “the greatest painter of all.”

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This Handbook presents state-of-the-art methodological guidance and discussion of international practice related to the integration of biodiversity and ecosystem services in impact assessment, featuring contributions from leading researchers and practitioners the world over. Its multidisciplinary approach covers contributions across five continents to broaden the scope of the field both thematically and geographically. A multifaceted variety of case studies provide examples of the use of information on biodiversity and ecosystem services in different types of impact assessment to improve decisions at all levels, from strategic choices to individual projects. In addition to its discussion of how biodiversity and ecosystem services can improve the salience and effectiveness of impact assessment, this Handbook presents a range of applications and possible solutions to challenges in key policy and planning sectors, including urban development, land use, energy, marine areas, infrastructure, agriculture, forestry, health and tourism. This Handbook's combination of cutting-edge literature and methodological guidance supports researchers, practitioners and students in developing and implementing biodiversity and ecosystem services-inclusive impact assessment processes, which can contribute to better decisions about the use of our lands and waters. As such it will appeal not only to scholars of impact assessment but of environmental sciences, environmental engineering, natural sciences, planning and economics as well.Contributors include: C. Albert, A. Antón, M. Ashley, J. Azcarate, B. Balfors, S. Brownlie, L. Bulling, C. Cortinovis, R.T.T. Forman, S. Frank, C. Fürst, D. Geneletti, J. Goldstein, T. Hooper, P. Horwitz, M. Hughes, P. Itkonen, M. Jimenez, M. Karlson, L. Karrasch, C.M. Kennedy, J.M. Kiesecker, J. Köppel, L. Kopperoinen, O. Langmead, D. Maia de Souza, L. Mandle, L. Milà i Canals, U. Mörtberg, D. Newsome, S. Odelius Gordon, M.W. Parkes, K. Pietzsch, F. Pietzsch, A. Rajvanshi, D. Roe, D.A. Rozas Vásquez, M. Ruckelshaus, H. Tallis, L. Tardieu, F. Teillard, J. Treweek, J. Wu, L. Zardo

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An overview of the history of yachting in its social, cultural, political and economic contexts. Shortlisted for the Maritime Foundation's Mountbatten Award 2018 This book, by a leading expert in the field, is the first major history of yachting for over a quarter of a century. Setting developments within political,social and economic changes, the book tells the story of yachting from Elizabethan times to the present day: the first uses of yachts, by monarchs, especially Charles II; yacht clubs and yacht racing in the eighteenth century; the early years of the Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes and an analysis of the America Cup challenges; the pioneering developments in Ireland and the exporting of yachting to the colonies and trading outposts of the Empire; the expansion of yachting in Victorian times; the Golden Age of Yachting in the years before the First World War, when it was the sport of the crowned heads of Europe; the invention of the dinghy and the keelboat classes and, after the Second World War, the massive numbers of home-built dinghies; the breaking of new boundaries by risk-taking single-handers from the mid-1960s; the expansion of leisure sailing that came in the 1980s with the use of moulded plastic yachts; and current trends and pressures within the sport. Well-referenced yet highly readable, this book will be of interest both to the scholar and the sailing enthusiast. MIKE BENDER is an experienced yachtsman and qualified Ocean Yachtmaster, with some forty thousand miles, mostly singlehanded, under the keel. He is an Honorary Research Fellow in History at the University of Exeter.

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'Jackie Higgins’s lyrical, literate style will charm you while her book stuns your imagination with strange, other-worldly truths' Richard DawkinsSentient assembles a menagerie of zoological creatures – from land, air, sea and all four corners of the globe – to understand what it means to be human. Through their eyes, ears, skins, tongues and noses, the furred, finned and feathered reveal how we sense and make sense of the world, as well as the untold scientific revolution stirring in the field of human perception. The harlequin mantis shrimp can throw a punch that can fracture aquarium walls but, more importantly, it has the ability to see a vast range of colours. The ears of the great grey owl have such unparalleled range and sensitivity that they can hear twenty decibels lower than the human ear. The star-nosed mole barely fills a human hand, seldom ventures above ground and poses little threat unless you are an earthworm, but its miraculous nose allows it to catch those worms at astonishing speed – as little as one hundred and twenty milliseconds. Here, too, we meet the four-eyed spookfish and its dark vision; the vampire bat and its remarkable powers of touch; the bloodhound and its hundreds of millions of scent receptors, as well as the bar-tailed godwit, the common octopus, giant peacocks, cheetahs and golden orb-weaving spiders. Each of these extraordinary creatures illustrates the sensory powers that lie dormant within us. In this captivating book, Jackie Higgins explores this evolutionary heritage and, in doing so, enables us to subconsciously engage with the world in ways we never knew possible.

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Comics have conquered America. From our cinemas, where Marvel and DC movies reign supreme, to our television screens, where comics-based shows like The Walking Dead have become among the most popular in cable history, to convention halls, best-seller lists, Pulitzer Prize-winning titles and MacArthur Fellowship recipients, comics shape American culture, in ways high and low, superficial and deeply profound. In American Comics, Columbia professor Jeremy Dauber takes readers through their incredible but little-known history, starting with the Civil War and cartoonist Thomas Nast, creator of the lasting and iconic images of Uncle Sam and Santa Claus; the golden age of newspaper comic strips and the first great superhero boom; the moral panic of the Eisenhower era, the Marvel Comics revolution, and the underground comix movement of the 1960s and ’70s, before turning finally into the twenty-first century, taking in the grim and gritty Dark Knights and Watchmen alongside the brilliant rise of the graphic novel by acclaimed practitioners like Art Spiegelman and Alison Bechdel. Dauber’s story shows not only how comics have changed over the decades but how American politics and culture have changed them. Throughout, he describes the origins of beloved comics, champions neglected masterpieces and argues that we can understand how America sees itself through whose stories comics tell. Striking and revelatory, American Comics is a rich chronicle of the last 150 years of American history through the lens of its comic strips, political cartoons, superheroes, graphic novels and more.

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This book studies the nature of Venetian rule over the Slavs of Dalmatia during the eighteenth century, focusing on the cultural elaboration of an ideology of empire that was based on a civilizing mission toward the Slavs. The book argues that the Enlightenment within the “Adriatic Empire” of Venice was deeply concerned with exploring the economic and social dimensions of backwardness in Dalmatia, in accordance with the evolving distinction between “Western Europe” and “Eastern Europe” across the continent. It further argues that the primitivism attributed to Dalmatians by the Venetian Enlightenment was fundamental to the European intellectual discovery of the Slavs. The book begins by discussing Venetian literary perspectives on Dalmatia, notably the drama of Carlo Goldoni and the memoirs of Carlo Gozzi. It then studies the work that brought the subject of Dalmatia to the attention of the European Enlightenment: the travel account of the Paduan philosopher Alberto Fortis, which was translated from Italian into English, French, and German. The next two chapters focus on the Dalmatian inland mountain people called the Morlacchi, famous as “savages” throughout Europe in the eighteenth century. The Morlacchi are considered first as a concern of Venetian administration and then in relation to the problem of the “noble savage,” anthropologically studied and poetically celebrated. The book then describes the meeting of these administrative and philosophical discourses concerning Dalmatia during the final decades of the Venetian Republic. It concludes by assessing the legacy of the Venetian Enlightenment for later perspectives on Dalmatia and the South Slavs from Napoleonic Illyria to twentieth-century Yugoslavia.

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The first English translation of a Kalmyk epic nearly lost to history. This is the first English translation of Jangar, the heroic epic of the Kalmyk nomads, who are the Western Mongols of Genghis Khan’s medieval empire in Europe. Today, Kalmykia is situated in the territory that was once the Golden Horde, founded by the son of Genghis Khan, Juchi. Although their famed khanates and cities have long since disappeared under the sands of the Great Eurasian Steppe, the Kalmyks have witnessed, memorized, and orally transmitted some of the most transformative developments, both victorious and tragic, in the history of civilizations. A tribute to the protectors of the mythical country Bumba, Jangar reflects the hopes and aspirations of the Kalmyk people as well as their centuries-long struggle for their cultural existence. This new English translation is more than a tribute to the artistic creativity and imagination of the Kalmyk people—it is also an important step in their struggle for cultural survival. It was only after centuries of oral transmission that the songs and stories surrounding Jangar were written down. When the first translation, into Russian, finally appeared, Stalin had the entire Kalmyk population deported to Siberia and ordered that their national literature be eliminated from the published world. This Soviet repression has had enormous consequences for world literature, silencing nomadic voices and keeping hidden their distinctive contributions. Making Jangar available in English is a landmark event, bringing a lost classic to the world’s attention and restoring the voices of an almost-erased tradition at the heart of the history of Eurasia.

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We all live our daily lives surrounded by the products of technology that make what we do simpler, faster, and more efficient. These are benefits we often just take for granted. But at the same time, as these products disburden us of unwanted tasks that consumed much time and effort in earlier eras, many of them also leave us more disengaged from our natural and even human surroundings. It is the task of what Gene Moriarty calls focal engineering to create products that will achieve a balance between disburdenment and engagement: “How much disburdenment will be appropriate while still permitting an engagement that enriches one’s life, elevates the spirit, and calls forth a good life in a convivial society?”One of his examples of a focally engineered structure is the Golden Gate Bridge, which “draws people to it, enlivens and elevates the human spirit, and resonates with the world of its congenial setting. Humans, bridge, and world are in tune.” These values of engagement, enlivenment, and resonance are key to the normative approach Moriarty brings to the profession of engineering, which traditionally has focused mainly on technical measures of evaluation such as efficiency, productivity, objectivity, and precision. These measures, while important, look at the engineered product in a local and limited sense. But “from a broader perspective, what is locally benign may present serious moral problems,” undermining “social justice, environmental sustainability, and health and safety of affected parties.” It is this broader perspective that is championed by focal engineering, the subject of Part III of the book, which Moriarty contrasts with “modern” engineering in Part I and “pre-modern” engineering in Part II.

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While critics have long disparaged commercial television as a vast wasteland, TV has surprising links to the urbane world of modern art that stretch back to the 1950s and '60s. During that era, the rapid rise of commercial television coincided with dynamic new movements in the visual arts - a potent combination that precipitated a major shift in the way Americans experienced the world visually. "TV by Design" uncovers this captivating story of how modernism and network television converged and intertwined in their mutual ascent during the decades of the cold war.Whereas most histories of television focus on the way older forms of entertainment were recycled for the new medium, Lynn Spigel shows how TV was instrumental in introducing the public to the latest trends in art and design. Abstract expressionism, pop art, art cinema, modern architecture, and cutting-edge graphics were all mined for staging techniques, scenic designs, and an ever-growing number of commercials. As a result, TV helped fuel the public craze for trendily modern products, such as tailfin cars and boomerang coffee tables, that was vital to the burgeoning postwar economy. And along with influencing the look of television, many artists - including Eero Saarinen, Ben Shahn, Saul Bass, William Golden, and Richard Avedon - also participated in its creation as the networks put them to work designing everything from their corporate headquarters to their company cufflinks.Dizzy Gillespie, Ernie Kovacs, Duke Ellington, and Andy Warhol all stop by in this imaginative and winning account of the ways in which art, television, and commerce merged in the first decades of the TV age.

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This is the indispensable cook's guide to potatoes, featuring a variety list and over 150 delicious recipes. It is a feast of over 150 recipes including traditional, classic and popular potato dishes from around the world. It includes an extensive introduction that covers potato preparation and cooking techniques - from golden potato chips and dreamy piles of fluffy mashed potato to hasselbacks and fanned potatoes. A comprehensive directory contains photographs of the world's most popular potato varieties with information on appearance, taste, texture and cooking methods. It is beautifully photographed, with 800 pictures in total, including step-by-step sequences for all the recipes. It shows you how to create the best-ever fish pie, crispy hash browns, perfect creamed potatoes and wonderful potato bread. This definitive guide covers everything the cook needs to know about this universally loved vegetable, from selecting the right potato to enjoying the perfect dish. There is a directory of the best potatoes around the world, from the nutty little Anya to Jersey Royal and Kerr's Pink. The heart of the book is a recipe section with 150 ideas for adding vibrant taste to this simple vegetable. Potatoes make an excellent base for soups, appetizers and snacks, salads, side dishes, scones, breads and wonderful main dishes from Irish stew to turkey croquettes. Leek and potato soup, potato latkes, roast potatoes and classic fish pie are just a few of the great dishes the book has to offer. This indispensable reference and source of culinary inspiration celebrates the amazing versatility of the potato.

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‘I adored this book. It’s so Geena and so inspiring and such a wonderful read’ Emma Thompson A Times Film and Theatre Book of the Year 2022 From two-time Academy Award winner and screen icon Geena Davis, Dying of Politeness is the candid, surprising tale of her journey from her epically polite childhood to the roles that put her in the spotlight and gave her the strength to become a powerhouse in Hollywood. At three years old, Geena announced she was going to be in movies. Now, with a slew of iconic roles and awards under her belt, she has surpassed her childhood dream, but her journey has been one of fits and starts, with a pothole or two along the way. In this hilarious memoir, Geena regales us with tales of a career playing everything from an amnesiac assassin to the parent of a rodent in Stuart Little; a soap star in her underwear to a housewife turned road warrior in Thelma & Louise; a baseball phenomenon in A League of Their Own to the first female President of the United States in Commander in Chief, and more. She is frank about her eccentric childhood; her many relationships, including her spontaneous Las Vegas wedding to Jeff Goldblum; her archery exploits which led her to the Olympic trials; and how she became a tireless advocate for women and girls, founding her own institute which engages film and TV creators to better represent women and actors from diverse backgrounds. Dying of Politeness is a touching account of one woman’s journey to fight for herself, and ultimately fighting for women all around the globe.

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Little Wonder is the story of Brian Flynn, the stylish yet tenacious midfielder from Port Talbot who, in the 1970s and '80s, enjoyed a successful top flight playing career with Burnley and Leeds United - where is still held in great affection by fans of both clubs - before moving on to Cardiff City, Doncaster Rovers, Bury, Limerick and finally to Wrexham as player manager. Flynn also won 66 caps for Wales and played a pivotal role when the rejuvenated national team reached the quarter-finals of the 1976 European Championships and were denied a place at the 1978 World Cup by Joe Jordan's infamous 'hand of god' at Anfield. Lovingly crafted by Leon Barton, Little Wonder is also the story of Flynn's 12 years as a club manager with Wrexham where, with solid team-building and cup heroics, he left a legacy that was subsequently squandered, and his two-year spell at Swansea City when he saved the club from relegation from the Football League and whose immense contribution was subsequently built upon to stunning effect. It is Brian Flynn's managerial legacy to Welsh international football, however, that has won him the plaudits of fellow managers, former teammates, the players themselves, and the Welsh nation when, as intermediate team manager under John Toshack, Flynn identified, nurtured and developed the 'golden generation', a group of talented teenagers and Welsh 'Anglos' who went on to become, at Euro 2016, most successful Welsh team in 140 years. Brian Flynn may only stand at 5 foot and 4 inches, but this small man from the town of steel has made a giant contribution to football and Little Wonder is his story.

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Before she knew she was Ukranian, Soviet, or Jewish, Inna Faliks knew she was a musician. Growing up in the city of Odessa, the piano became her best friend, and she explored the brilliant, intricate puzzles of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and learned to compose under her mother’s watchful eye. At ten, Faliks and her parents moved to Chicago as part of the tide of Jewish refugees who fled the USSR for the West in the 1980s. During the months-long immigration process, she would silently practice on kitchen tables while imagining a full set of piano keys beneath her fingertips. In Weight in the Fingertips, Faliks gives a globe-trotting account of her upbringing as a child prodigy in a Soviet state, the perils of immigration, the struggle of assimilating as an American, years of training with teachers, and her slow and steady rise in the world of classical music. With a warm and playful style, she helps non-musicians understand the experience of becoming a world-renowned concert pianist. The places she grew up, the books she read, the poems she memorized as a child all connect to her sound at the piano, and the way she hears and shapes a musical phrase illuminate classical music and elite performance. She also explores how a person’s humanity makes their art honest and their voice unique, and how the life-long challenge of retaining that voice is fueled by a balance between being a great musician and being a human being. Throughout, Faliks provides powerful insights into the role of music in a world of conflict, change, and hope for a better tomorrow.

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After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Asia became an important theater of World War II—and because the Japanese had boxed in China, a key U.S. ally, and blocked the Burma Road out of India, the United States began looking for other ways to supply the war effort in China. In April 1942, the first American flights out of India launched in order to supply gasoline and other materiel to Allied fighting forces over the Himalayas and into China. Mountains over ten thousand feet. Unpredictable weather. Devasting crashes. Long odds. Perhaps the worst assignment for American pilots during World War II. For the next forty-two months, pilots—men including Gene Autry and Barry Goldwater—flew The Hump despite the difficulty of the terrain, the conditions, and the weather, throwing an important lifeline to the war in China, which helped bog down more than a million Japanese soldiers in China and kept them from the Pacific islands where the main American war effort was focused. By war’s end, some 5,000 American airmen delivered more than 650,000 tons of materiel to Chiang Kai-Shek’s Chinese forces and to the U.S. forces in China. This is the story of how a group of inexperienced pilots flew through some of the most challenging conditions in the world—and helped win World War II.Aluminum Alley is based on interviews with the last survivors of The Hump, oral histories, photos, reports, and other firsthand resources. It is a narrative with the immediacy and intimacy of memoir but the big-picture analysis of the best military history.

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From the very beginnings of cinema in America the Western has been a central genre. The hazardous lives of the settlers, their conflict with Native Americans ('the Indians'), the lawless frontier towns, outlaws and cattle rustlers, all found their way into the new medium of film. Folk heroes and heroines, such as Jesse and Frank James, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley, were all eagerly seized on by filmmakers. Writers, from the very popular to the very literary, from Zane Grey to Owen Wister and James Fennimore Cooper, were plundered for storylines. The Western became popular worldwide too because it offered escape, adventure, stunning landscapes and romance; also themes that concerned people everywhere including survival, law and order, defence of family, and dreams of a new and better world. David Carter's book, The Western, starts with an introduction to the real American West and its famous historical figures, and traces the development of the genre from popular literature, through the early silent films, the sound era, the Golden Age of classic Westerns, TV and 'spaghetti westerns', to the self-reflexive and revisionist Westerns of recent decades. This book provides a basic work of reference for all the major directors and noteworthy films of the genre. The great Hollywood directors are all here, such as John Ford, Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, Michael Curtiz, Sam Peckinpah and Henry Hathaway, and great stars including John Wayne, James Stewart, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Russell and Clint Eastwood.

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Ancient architects and artists had a way of striking resonant chords in the viewers of their work. This book points to a possible way of returning a sense of unity to the visual arts through a combination of theoretical ideas and practical methods, of narrative description and visual exercises.Proportion, the use of number and geometry as design tools, is seen in the context of the search for the beautiful. From the theoretic, symbolic mathematics of the Pythagoreans, Platonists, and Neo-Platonists, the book proposes an aesthetic theory, a way of approaching beauty, rooted in the idea of psyche and expressed through the ancient sciences of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Topics treated include: an explanation of the concept of symbolic or qualitative number; an introduction to Pythagorean and Platonic numerical philosophy; the nature of beauty and its relation to number; the derivation of the ancient musical octave; the Golden Section, its mathematics, geometry, and relation to philosophy, particularly its role as a geometrical logos; and the connection of these ideas to the numerical-geometrical canons of classical architecture. These concepts are illustrated step by step as applied to the elements and archetypal compositions of classical architecture, such as the order and portico, using arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic ratio methods.The proportional idea is illustrated with reconstructions of exemplary buildings based on the methods described, following through the historical periods of Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Middle ages, the Italian Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. Though the book is focused on architecture, the methods presented may be used by artists and designers in any visual field. The book suggests several pathways on which contemporary designers might move toward creating a sane and beautiful world through a merger of art and science.

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Winner of the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize 2023. Shortlisted for the National Translation Award in Poetry 2023 by the American Literary Translators Association. The Poetry Book Society Spring 2022 Translation Choice. Chinese poetry is unique in world literature in that it was written for the best part of 3,000 years by exiles, and Chinese history can be read as a matter of course in the words of poets. In this collection from the Tang Dynasty are poems of war and peace, flight and refuge but above all they are plain-spoken, everyday poems; classics that are everyday timeless, a poetry conceived "to teach the least and the most, the literacy of the heart in a barbarous world," says the translator. C.D. Wright has written of Wong May's work that it is "quirky, unaffectedly well-informed, capacious, and unpredictable in [its] concerns and procedures," qualities which are evident too in every page of her new book, a translation of Du Fu and Li Bai and Wang Wei, and many others whose work is less well known in English. In a vividly picaresque afterword, Wong May dwells on the defining characteristics of these poets, and how they lived and wrote in dark times. This translator's journal is accompanied and prompted by a further marginal voice, who is figured as the rhino: "The Rhino in Tang China held a special place," she writes, "much like the unicorn in medieval Europe - not as conventional as the phoenix or the dragon but a magical being; an original spirit", a fitting guide to China's murky, tumultuous Middle Ages, that were also its Golden Age of Poetry, and to this truly original book of encounters, whose every turn is illuminating and revelatory.

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'A treasure of recollections and reactions, talking heroes, controversies and big themes' i paper'Brearley is at his best in these quirky, delightful essays when he is exploring the human qualities of humbler players . . . Brearley's admiration for his friends' decency, craftsmanship and modesty seems to recall a golden age of country cricket' The Times'Brearley has a knack for paying respect to the past without denigrating the present and for calmly considering the future' Mail on SundayMike Brearley was arguably one of England's finest cricket captains; not just for his outstanding record leading his country but also for the way he orchestrated, during the 1981 Ashes series, one of the most extraordinary reversals in sporting history.In this collection of sparkling essays, Brearley reflects on the game he has come to know so well. He ranges from the personal - the influence of his Yorkshire father and the idols of his youth - to controversial aspects of the professional game, including cheating, corruption, and innovation, the latter often being on a borderline between genius and rebellion.Brearley also evaluates his heroes (amongst them Viv Richards, Bishan Bedi and Dennis Lillee), the game changers, the outstanding wicketkeepers, the 'Indian-ness' of four generations of Indian batsmen and the important commentators (including Harold Pinter, John Arlott and Ian Chappell). The Ashes, the most sustained love-hate relationship in the history of sport and key to Brearley's test-playing career, are raked over. Central to the book is an important section on race and cricket, and the legacy of C. L. R. James.Insightful and humorous, On Cricket is an intelligent exposition of the game's idiosyncratic culture and its enduring appeal.

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While the myth of Soviet benevolence has now largely been discredited, the idea that Stalin's Soviet Union was a peaceful power that sought to prevent the war through all kinds of means - including an ill-fated non-aggression treaty with Hitler - remains popular to this day. Indeed, this narrative is not only promoted by Putin`s propaganda but also by a host of Western intellectuals and even historians who take public declarations at face value. Drawing on a host of internal Soviet Politburo discussions, memoranda and speeches, this book shows that the Soviet Union was a heavily militarized state that incessantly planned to unleash a great, ideologically motivated war against the rest of the world. In fact, its entire political life revolved around the question of war, especially following the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, which convinced Soviet leaders of the imminent collapse of the capitalist system abroad. Thus, both the collectivization as well as the terror that followed in its wake were done with the coming war in mind - even though there was no tangible danger of war. Slowed down by countless devastating setbacks, Stalin was nevertheless able to amass a gigantic army by the late 1930s. When Hitler approached Stalin in 1939 asking for Soviet neutrality in his planned invasion of Poland, Stalin sensed a golden opportunity: by supporting Hitler, he could turn the European powers against each another, allowing him to intervene once they were sufficiently weakened. However, Stalin miscalculated: Hitler beat both Poland and France in less than a year and then turned against Moscow in 1941, long before Stalin was ready for his own attack.

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A Cocktail in Paris transports you to the elegant world of the Parisian bar scene and shows you how to create the drinks that have inspired the creativity of numerous writers, thinkers and artists. Is there any better city to drink in than Paris? Whether you're sipping a Mimosa over brunch on a terrace on the Boulevard Montparnasse, enjoying an Américano before dinner at Les Deux Magots or indulging in a late-night cognac digestif at Harry's Bar, the drinking holes of the City of Light have been working their magic for decades. A Cocktail in Paris features 50 recipes divided into chapters covering all-day cocktails; aperitifs; gin and vodka-based cocktails; rum, Cognac and whisky-based cocktails; and digestifs and late-night classics; along with 15 recipes for the most soignée small bites to serve alongside them. You'll find Belle Epoque classics from the heyday of the Moulin Rouge, like the original Champagne Cocktail, alongside the drinks beloved by Ernest Hemingway during les années folles of the 1920s. During the Prohibition era in the US, many bartenders left New York to set up bars in Europe, resulting in the now-legendary cocktail creations of Harry McElhone at Harry's New York Bar in Paris, such as the Bloody Mary and the Sidecar. Discover, too, the resurgence in popularity of cocktails in the modern-day bar scene of the Marais district. A Cocktail in Paris is also packed with tips on how to improve your cocktail-making prowess and fascinating stories from the days of decadence, helping you to capture the sophisticated spirit of golden-age Paris, that most inspiring city of cocktails.

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During William L. Dwyer's fifteen-year tenure as a U.S. District Court judge, he presided over many complex and groundbreaking cases. In one of his most controversial rulings, he engaged environmentalists and the timber industry in a heavily publicized and emotionally fraught battle over the territory of the northern spotted owl, ultimately approving the bird for “threatened species” status and forcing the Forest Service to substantially reduce logging in owl-habitat areas. Before his appointment to the district court in 1987, Dwyer had spent more than thirty years as a trial lawyer, never shying away from the most difficult cases. He argued the libel suit of accused Communist sympathizer John Goldmark; he represented newspaper employees in the contested proposal for a joint-operating agreement between the Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer; and he brought a suit against baseball's American League that resulted in the return of the Mariners to Seattle. The fifteen speeches in this volume cover a span from 1978 to 2002 and reveal the breadth and scope of Dwyer's legal wisdom. He championed libraries as keepers of our language, ideas, and history; he taught students the history and philosophy of litigation; and he challenged members of the legal profession to do more pro bono work. His respect for the rule of law and his belief in the necessary contribution of lawyers to society come through clearly in his own words, whether he was speaking to the American Library Association, the Federal Bar Association, or first-year law students. The volume includes several speeches that express Dwyer's hopes for the American legal system. “If we use our heads,” Dwyer avers, “we have the collective ability to survive and to let the rest of life survive with us.”

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At once historically and theoretically informed, these essays invite the reader to think of religion dynamically, reconsidering American religious history in terms of practices that are linked to specific social contexts. The point of departure is the concept of "lived religion." Discussing such topics as gift exchange, cremation, hymn-singing, and women's spirituality, a group of leading sociologists and historians of religion explore the many facets of how people carry out their religious beliefs on a daily basis. As David Hall notes in his introduction, a history of practices "encompasses the tensions, the ongoing struggle of definition, that are constituted within every religious tradition and that are always present in how people choose to act. Practice thus suggests that any synthesis is provisional." The volume opens with two essays by Robert Orsi and Daniele Hervieu-Leger that offer an overview of the rapidly growing study of lived religion, with Hervieu-Leger using the Catholic charismatic renewal movement in France as a window through which to explore the coexistence of regulation and spontaneity within religious practice. Anne S. Brown and David D. Hall examine family strategies and church membership in early New England. Leigh Eric Schmidt looks at the complex meanings of gift-giving in America. Stephen Prothero writes about the cremation movement in the late nineteenth century. In an essay on the narrative structure of Mrs. Cowman's Streams in the Desert, Cheryl Forbes considers the devotional lives of everyday women. Michael McNally uses the practice of hymn-singing among the Ojibwa to reexamine the categories of native and Christian religion. In essays centering on domestic life, Rebecca Kneale Gould investigates modern homesteading as lived religion while R. Marie Griffith treats home-oriented spirituality in the Women's Aglow Fellowship. In "Golden- Rule Christianity," Nancy Ammerman talks about lived religion in the American mainstream.

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In the last two decades, innovation, data analysis and technology have driven a tectonic shift in the sports business. Game of Edges is the story of how sports franchises evolved, on and off the field, from raggedly run small businesses into some of the most systematically productive companies around. In today’s game, everyone from the owners to the marketing staff are using information—data—to give their team an edge. For analysts, an edge is their currency. Figuring out that bunting hurts your offence? That’s an edge. So is discovering metrics that can predict the career arc of your free agent shooting guard. Or combing through a decade of ticket-buying data to target persuadable fans. These small, incremental steps move a sports franchise from merely ordinary to the leading edge. Franchises today are more than just sports; they integrate a whole suite of other businesses—television and digital content, gambling and real estate, fashion and clothing, entertainment, catering and concessions and much more. But an optimised franchise has no room for error. Teams must do what the numbers say, reducing the element of chance, limiting those random moments of athletic heroism that make sports thrilling to watch. Optimisation also means the franchise’s main goal isn’t championships anymore; it’s keeping you, the viewer, engaged with the product. Drawing on extensive interviews with franchise owners, managers, executives and players, Bruce Schoenfeld introduces dynamic leaders who are radically reimagining the operations of these decades-old teams—and producing mind-boggling valuations. He joins the architects of the Golden State Warriors dynasty for an exclusive reception before tip-off. He stands among the faithful at Anfield, watching Liverpool’s analytics guru size up a prized midfielder. And he watches the president of the Chicago Cubs break ground on a new DraftKings gambling parlour at Wrigley Field, not ten miles from the site of the original Black Sox betting scandal. Essential reading for anyone interested in sports, business or technology Game of Edges explores a world where winning the game is only the beginning.

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You thought he was retired, even dead? No, he is back! At the age of 86, Mike Tomkies is back doing what he does best - observing our rarest and most dramatic wildlife, unsuspected and from close quarters, and writing about it with the kind of intimate detail that has earned high acclaim from critics and conservationists. Within days of arriving back from five years of studying bears, wolves and lynxes in Spain, he is up a wild cliff in Cornwall watching three peregrine falcon chicks from hatching to flying stage. We can follow his astounding adventures over the next ten years as he obsessively searches all through Britain for that elusive 'small wild paradise' so many of us would also like to find. He lives in, but finally loses, no less than six new homes in that time and the complications and reasons why are both hilarious and sad. Even more fascinating is his continual obsessive quest to get up close and personal with nesting goshawks, buzzards and ospreys, as well as mammals like fishing otters, a fox family and he even feeds wild badgers by hand. At one remote farmhouse in the Borders, he learns how to handle a bulldozer, digs out his own 70-yard lake and stocks it with trout. Over three years there he raises ten barn owl chicks and establishes three breeding pairs in areas where they had long been absent. It was the most successful barn owl release at the time. There are many amusing anecdotes such as when he dreaded taking some of Prince Harry's classmates to 'otter bay' and then saw far more otters than when he had gone there on his own! Transcending all are his new studies and descriptions of hunting and nesting golden eagles, during which he passed his 3,050th hour in one of his home-made 'invisible' hides, and a huge female allowed him to bring much-needed meat to her chicks in their eyrie. The book ends with triumphant filming of the magnificent white-tailed sea eagles on Mull, hunting and sailing into their high nest with prey and feeding their chicks. Mike also achieved valuable publicity for the pioneering public sea eagle hide project on Mull.

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Insight Guides RussiaTravel made easy. Ask local experts. Comprehensive travel guide packed with inspirational photography and fascinating cultural insights, now with free eBook.From deciding when to go, to choosing what to see when you arrive, this guide to Russia is all you need to plan your perfect trip, with insider information on must-see, top attractions like St Basil's, the Kremlin and Red Square, and cultural gems like wandering around Kizhi's magnificent churches, exploring the vast Lake Baikal and riding the epic Trans-Siberian Railway. Features of this travel guide to Russia:- Inspirational colour photography: discover the best destinations, sights and excursions, and be inspired by stunning imagery- Historical and cultural insights: immerse yourself in Russia's rich history and culture, and learn all about its people, art and traditions- Practical full-colour maps: with every major sight and listing highlighted, the full-colour maps make on-the-ground navigation easy- Editor's Choice: uncover the best of Russia with our pick of the region's top destinations- Key tips and essential information: packed full of important travel information, from transport and tipping to etiquette and hours of operation- The ultimate travel tool: download the free app and eBook to access this and bonus content from your phone or tablet- Covers: Moscow; The Golden Ring; St Petersburg; The European North; Southwest of Moscow; Along the Volga; The Urals; The European South; Siberia; Russian Far EastLooking for a specific guide to Moscow? Check out City Guide Moscow for a detailed and entertaining look at all the city has to offer.About Insight Guides: Insight Guides is a pioneer of full-colour guide books, with almost 50 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides with user-friendly, modern design. We produce around 400 full-colour print guide books and maps, as well as phrase books, picture-packed eBooks and apps to meet different travellers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.

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From 1989 through 2002 there was an unprecedented surge in American sitcoms featuring explicitly Jewish lead characters, thirty-two compared to seven in the previous forty years. Several of these—Mad About You, The Nanny, and Friends—were among the most popular and influential of all shows over this period; one program—Seinfeld—has been singled out as the “defining” series of the nineties. In addition, scriptwriters have increasingly created “Jewish” characters, although they may not be perceived to be by the show’s audience, Rachel Green on Friends being only one example.In Something Ain’t Kosher Here, Vincent Brook asks two key questions: Why has this trend appeared at this particular historical moment and what is the significance of this phenomenon for Jews and non-Jews alike? He takes readers through three key phases of the Jewish sitcom trend: The early years of television before and after the first Jewish sitcom, The Goldbergs’, appeared; the second phase in which America found itself “Under the Sign of Seinfeld”; and the current era of what Brook calls “Post- Jewishness.”Interviews with key writers, producers, and “showrunners” such as David Kohan, (Will and Grace), Marta Kauffman (Friends and Dream On), Bill Prady (Dharma and Greg), Peter Mehlman and Carol Leifer (Seinfeld), and close readings of individual episodes and series provoke the inescapable conclusion that we have entered uncharted “post-Jewish” territory. Brook reveals that the acceptance of Jews in mainstream white America at the very time when identity politics have put a premium on celebrating difference reinforces and threatens the historically unique insider/outsider status of Jews in American society. This paradox upsets a delicate balance that has been a defining component of American Jewish identity.The rise of the Jewish sitcom represents a broader struggle in which American Jews and the TV industry, if not American society as a whole, are increasingly operating at cross-purposes— torn between the desire to celebrate unique ethnic identities, yet to assimilate: to assert independence, yet also to build a consensus to appeal to the widest possible audience. No reader of this book will ever be able to watch these television programs in quite the same way again.

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Death is an inevitable fact of life. Throughout the centuries, humanity has sought to understand this sobering thought through art and ritual. The theme of memento mori informs medieval Danse Macabre, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Renaissance paintings of dissected corpses and “anatomical Eves,” Gothic literature, funeral effigies, Halloween, and paintings of the Last Judgment. Deceased ancestors are celebrated in the Mexican Day of the Dead, while the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead to secure their afterlife. A volume of unprecedented breadth and sinister beauty, Death: A Graveside Companion examines a staggering range of cultural attitudes toward death. The book is organized into themed chapters: The Art of Dying, Examining the Dead, Memorializing the Dead, The Personification of Death, Symbolizing Death, Death as Amusement, and The Dead After Life. Each chapter begins with thought-provoking articles by curators, academics, and journalists followed by gallery spreads presenting a breathtaking variety of death-related imagery and artifacts. From skulls to the dance of death, statuettes to ex libris, memento mori to memorabilia, the majority of the images are of artifacts in the astonishing collection of Richard Harris and range from 2000 BCE to the present day, running the gamut of both high and popular culture. Essays: Death in Ancient and Present-Day Mexico, Eva Aridjis,The Power of Hair as Human Relic in Mourning Jewelry - Karen Bachmann, Medusa and the Power of the Severed Head, Laetitia Barbier, Anatomical Expressionism, Eleanor Crook, Poe and the Pathological Sublime, Mark Dery, Eros and Thanatos, Lisa Downing, Death-Themed Amusements, Joanna Ebenstein, The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, Bruce Goldfarb, Theatre, Death and the Grand Guignol, Mel Gordon, Holy Spiritualism, Elizabeth Harper, Playing dead – A Gruesome Form of Amusement, Mervyn Heard, The Anatomy of Holy Transformation, Liselotte Hermes da Fonseca, Collecting Death, Evan Michelson, Art and Afterlife: Ethel le Rossignol and Georgiana Houghton, Mark Pilkington, The Dance of Death, Kevin Pyle, Art, Science and the Changing Conventions of Anatomical Representation, Michael Sappol, Spiritualism and Photography, Shannon Taggart, Playing with Dead Faces, John Troyer, Anatomy Embellished in the Cabinet of Frederik Ruysch, Bert van de Roemer 900 illustrations in color and black and white

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On July 4, 1939, Gehrig delivered what has been called "baseball's Gettysburg Address" at Yankee Stadium. There is, for now, no known, intact film of Gehrig's speech, but instead, just a swatch of the newsreel footage has survived, incorporating his opening and closing remarks: "For the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth," the last line, of course, having become one of the most famous, invoked, and inspiring, ever, anywhere. The New York Times account, the following day, called it "one of the most touching scenes ever witnessed on a ball field", that made even hard-boiled reporters "swallow hard." The scene and the story would likely have been largely lost to history, altogether, were it not for the film, Pride of the Yankees, best known for Gary Cooper, as the dying Lou Gehrig, movingly describing himself as "the luckiest man on the face of the earth," even as his body was being ravaged by the disease that was soon named after him. Here, now, in Pride of the Yankees and the Legend of Lou Gehrig by Richard Sandomir, New York Times sports columnist, is, for the first time, the full story behind the pioneering, seminal movie. Filled with larger than life characters and unexpected facts, Pride of the Yankees shows us how Samuel Goldwyn had no desire to making a baseball film but he was persuaded to make a quick deal with Lou's widow, Eleanor, not long after Gehrig had passed; Hollywood icon Cooper had zero knowledge of baseball and had to be taught to play; unknown parts of the screen treatment and screenplay that will be written about for the first time; and dishy letters to Eleanor from Christy Walsh, the pioneering business manager who represented the Gehrigs, from the Los Angeles set. Nostalgic, breezy and fun, Pride of the Yankees captures a lost time in film and sports history.

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"I wonder if you can help me." "Maybe I could, or maybe I couldn't," was the very Welsh reply. "What is it you are wanting?" "Would you happen to know of any boats for sale?" It was a question the young man had asked many times before, and always with the same result. Nothing suited. There was no shortage of boats, but every time there was a problem, either they were too big or too small or as one honest broker - and yes there is such a thing - remarked, "Don't buy her. She will kill you." It had been a long depressing catalogue of scrabbling about fusty old tore-outs (rotten timber gleaming with suspiciously fresh paint), ugly ducklings, and unspeakable lifeboat conversions. So there was no reason to suppose that this time would be any different. "What kind of boat is it you are looking for?" with barely concealed cupidity; for an outsider with money to burn in the wilds of the Isle of Anglesey was akin to manna from Heaven. "Something like that," said the innocent, pointing out a dainty white cutter on her mooring in Holyhead harbour. "Well," said he "I believe she may just be for sale." He may well have added - but this might just be imagining - "You had better be quick, she is not on the market yet." An Irish horse dealer could not have done it better. * * * * * So began, in 1973, Martin O'Scannall's love affair with 'Sauntress', voted in 2013 one of Classic Boat magazine's Top 250 Boats. Here, in a series of delightful, engaging episodes ranging from Anglesey to Galicia by way of the West Country, the East Coast, the Netherlands, Norway and south-west Ireland, is what it is like to restore and sail - and be possessed by - a modest yet glorious 28ft gaffer dating from the golden age of Edwardian yachting. 'For the Love of Sauntress' is illustrated with a gallery of outrageously beautiful photographs by Oscar Companioni, printed in monochrome and colour; these depict Sauntress in all her present-day glory, and were taken on a single, perfect August evening off the Galician coast during her annual match race with her local rival 'Abur'.

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The compelling biography of the beautiful, talented Garman sisters and the glittering, romantic era in which they lived. Each of the seven Garman sisters were strikingly beautiful, artistic and wild. Born around the turn of the nineteenth century, most of the siblings were to become involved in the radical literary and political circles of British life between the First and Second World Wars. Their morals were unconventional: bisexuality, unfaithfulness and illegitimate children were a matter of course. Nevertheless they were high-minded and intensely loyal. They were the last muses: women who were prepared to sideline their own talent, friendships, material comforts – even their own children – in order to beguile and inspire the men they loved. Cressida Connolly's family biography delves into the lives of three of the sisters in intense and revealing detail. Kathleen Garman, the father's favourite, ran away to London to study music. She was spotted by the American sculptor Jacob Epstein, who promptly fell in love with her, and remained his muse until his death. They had three children, she was shot in the shoulder by his first wife and she finally became Lady Epstein in 1955. Mary Garman came to London with Kathleen and studied art at the Slade. She married poet Roy Campbell, who was to become the scourge of the literary establishment by espousing General Franco's side during the Spanish Civil War. Finally there was Lorna Garman, the youngest and most beautiful of all the family. At sixteen she married the wealthy Ernest Wishart, a landowner, communist and founder of the socialist publishing house Laurence & Wishart, who spent most of his life turning a blind eye to his wife's infidelities. Lorna was the love of Laurie Lee's life and they had a daughter. Lucian Freud painted several pictures for her. Through Cressida Connolly’s skilfull retelling of these remarkable lives, we get an intimate portrait of a golden age of romance, passion and art that is an original, beguiling read.

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‘After all this time Frankie Dettori still ranks amongst the all-time greats of the sport’ LESTER PIGGOTT ‘An autobiography as gripping as any Dick Francis thriller’ YORKSHIRE POST ‘Endearingly honest… a fastpaced, funny autobiography’ COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE Legendary jockey, Frankie Dettori, shares his remarkable life story in this astonishingly intimate autobiography. When Lanfranco ‘Frankie’ Dettori arrived on British shores in 1985, aged just 14, he couldn’t speak a word of English. Having left school just a year earlier and following in the footsteps of his father, he was eager to become a stable boy and apprentice jockey, willing to do everything it took to make it. This was his first, but certainly not his last, leap of faith. Despite his slight size, Frankie’s impact upon the British racing scene was immediate and significant. Brimming with confidence, charisma and personality, and with what was clearly a precocious talent, in 1990 he became the first teenager since Lester Piggot to win over 100 races in a single season. By 1996, Frankie was already established as a celebrity in the sport and an adopted national treasure, but it was his extraordinary achievement of winning all seven races in a single day at Ascot that cemented his reputation as the greatest rider of his generation. Nearly 25 years later, and having won the Longines World’s Best Jockey for three consecutive years running, Frankie has demonstrated an unparalled level of longevity at the pinnacle of his sport. But his story is not simply one of uninterrupted success, but also of personal anguish, recovery and restoration – both in and out of the saddle. Now, Frankie compellingly reveals the lows to his highs; the plane crash that nearly killed him, the drugs ban that nearly made him quit the sport, and the acrimonious split from Godolphin that threatened his future. But Leap of Faith is also a story of love – for the sport he continues to dominate to this day, the great horses of his era (Stradivarius, Golden Horn, and of course Enable), and most importantly for his family, who have supported him every step of the way. Heartfelt and poignant, this is not simply a memoir, but a celebration of perseverance and defying the odds.

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A gripping mystery about a woman trying to find out the truth behind the death of her best friend and introducing a brilliant detective duo - perfect for fans of Peter James, Angela Marsons and James Oswald. A DEAD GIRLA vulnerable young woman, fresh out of the care system, is trying to discover the truth behind the sudden death of her best friend.A MURDERED POLICE OFFICERThe charred body of a policeman - currently the subject of an internal investigation - is found in the burnt-out-shell of his car on the Southend seafront.A CRIME WORTH KILLING FOR?To DS Frank Pearson and DC Catherine Russell of the Essex Police Major Investigation Team, the two events seem unconnected. But as they dig deeper into their colleague's murder, dark secrets begin to emerge.Can Pearson and Russell solve both cases, before more lives are destroyed?A twisty, gripping novel that introduces a brilliant new detective duo. If you like Peter James, Angela Marsons and James Oswald, then you'll love this crime debut. TRULY EVIL, the gripping second book in the series is out now. ****Praise for Burned and Broken:'Immensely impressive' The Times'The investigation into a copper's dramatic death in downbeat Southend scoops a cast of equally downbeat characters into its net, and tensions rise as their stories fold around each other. An accomplished debut' Sunday Times'Emotional, intelligent, sensual and with such a strong voice, Burned and Broken by Mark Hardie is a crime debut that deserves huge success' Harry Illingworth (Goldsboro Books)'I absolutely LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this book and I would recommend it to anybody. I can't wait to read more investigations led by DS Frank Pearson and DC Cat Russell' Amanda Oughton (Ginger Book Geek)'The story is easy to follow without being too simple, and the novel really manages to evoke a sense of atmosphere and reality within its pages. I didn't find myself becoming distracted whilst reading at all, and raced through it in hours. I will certainly be reading any future novels, particularly in this series which I wholeheartedly enjoyed' Laura Naz (Snazzy Books)

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'A must for fans and rock buffs' The Sun'Fascinating read' PowerplayJudas Priest formed in Birmingham in 1969. With its distinctive twin-guitar sound, studs-and-leather image, and international sales of over 50 million records, Judas Priest became the archetypal heavy metal band in the 1980s. Iconic tracks like 'Breaking the Law', 'Living after Midnight', and 'You've Got Another Thing Coming' helped the band achieve extraordinary success, but no one from the band has stepped out to tell their or the band's story until now.As the band approaches its golden anniversary, fans will at last be able to delve backstage into the decades of shocking, hilarious, and haunting stories that surround the heavy metal institution. In Heavy Duty, guitarist K.K. Downing discusses the complex personality conflicts, the business screw-ups, the acrimonious relationship with fellow heavy metal band Iron Maiden, as well as how Judas Priest found itself at the epicentre of a storm of parental outrage that targeted heavy metal in the '80s. He also describes his role in cementing the band's trademark black leather and studs image that would not only become synonymous with the entire genre, but would also give singer Rob Halford a viable outlet by which to express his sexuality. Lastly, he recounts the life-changing moment when he looked at his bandmates on stage during a 2009 concert and thought, 'This is the last show'. Whatever the topic, whoever's involved, K.K. doesn't hold back.From the band at the very beginning until his retirement in 2011 (and even still as a member of the band's board of directors), Downing has seen it all and is now finally at a place in his life where he can also let it all go. Even if you're a lifelong fan, if you think you know the full story of Judas Priest, well, you've got another thing coming.

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In this provocative new work, Heather Cox Richardson argues that while the North won the Civil War, ending slavery, oligarchy, and giving the country a "new birth of freedom," the victory was short-lived. Settlers from the East pushed into the West, where the seizure of Mexican lands at the end of the Mexican-American War and treatment of Native Americans cemented racial hierarchies. The Old South found a new home in the West. Both depended on extractive industries--cotton in the former and mining, cattle, and oil in the latter--giving rise to a white ruling elite, one that thrived despite the abolition of slavery, the assurances provided by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, and the economic opportunities afforded by Western expansion. How the South Won the Civil War traces the story of the American paradox, the competing claims of equality and white domination that were woven into the nation's fabric from the beginning. Who was the archetypal "new American"? At the nation's founding it was Eastern "yeoman farmer," independent and freedom-loving, who had galvanized and symbolized the Revolution. After the Civil War the mantle was taken up by the cowboy, singlehandedly defending his land and his women against "savages," and protecting his country from its own government. As new states entered the Union in the late nineteenth century, western and southern leaders found common ground. Resources, including massive amounts of federal money, and migrants continued to stream into the West during the New Deal and World War II. "Movement Conservatives"--starting with Barry Goldwater--claimed to embody cowboy individualism, working with Dixiecrats to renew the ideology of the Confederacy. The "Southern strategy" worked. The essence of the Old South never died and the fight for equality endures.

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From ritual killings to subtle acts of self-denial, the practice and rhetoric of sacrifice has a special centrality in modern American literature. In a compelling interdisciplinary investigation, Susan Mizruchi portrays an episode in American cultural history when the literary movement of realism and the fledgling field of sociology both converged in the belief that sacrifice is basic to sociality. This is a book about the fascination that sacrifice held for writers--principally Herman Melville, Henry James, and W.E.B. Du Bois--and also for those who articulated the main tenets of modern social theory, an inquiry that eventually spans historical events such as public lynchings and the political scapegoating of immigrants a century ago. The execution in Billy Budd Sailor, the death of Du Bois's first-born son in The Souls of Black Folk, Henry James's preoccupation with renunciation and scapegoating, and the self-denying working classes of Norris and Stein all illustrate repeated stagings of sacrificial rituals from a Biblical past. For Mizruchi, the peculiar persistence of this aesthetic construct becomes a guide to a rich theological and social-scientific tradition distinctive to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and including such influential works as Smith's Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, Frazer's Golden Bough, and Ross's Sin and Society. The major features of sacrifice--its original association with spiritual doubt, its function as a form of spiritual economics that sustained divisions between the fortunate and the bereft, and its role in fixing boundaries between aliens and kin--held strong symbolic value for writers struggling to reconcile faith with rationalism, and communal coherence with capitalist expansion. Mizruchi eloquently demonstrates how the conceptual power of sacrifice made it a key mediator of cultural change, from the decline of sympathy and the significance of "race" in an emerging multicultural society to the revival of maternal self-sacrifice.

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Sarah Golden and Jackie Larsen promised their partners they were out of the detective business. They declared “game over” after both of them almost lost their lives trying to solve their last medical mystery, and they’re happy with that decision: Sarah has finally allowed love and romance into her life, Jackie’s marriage is solid, and Jackie’s son, Wyatt, is still doing great with his year-old kidney transplant. So when they go on their dream trip to Cuba, they are not looking for trouble. But all their plans go out the window when a desperate plea from a Cuban transplant surgeon puts the duo in serious danger with the Cuban government on the same day the four most prominent immunologists in the world—doctors who were on the verge of solving the huge rejection issues that have plagued the transplant community for over fifty years—are killed in a car accident in Chicago. Soon, Sarah and Jackie find themselves dragged into the bowels of investigating venture capitalists and corporate greed—a terrain they know nothing about. As they uncover suspect clinical trials at major US transplant centers, including Sarah’s, their usual friends Biker Bob and Officer Handsome aren’t able to help them much, but they do receive assistance from an unlikely source: Sergio, who they helped to land in prison in Florida (and who is trying to win back his girlfriend), offers his help from the inside. Sarah and Jackie are armed with smarts, humor, and enough persistence to help them face the white-collared demons of corporate America—but with dangerous players gunning for them and death threats being made against their families, will they be able to solve this mystery before someone else gets hurt?

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"A jewel of Baroque architecture, the Castelluccio Palace is the spotlight of a beautiful book retracing its history, its long restoration and its precious ornaments. These photographs reflect the Sicilian Golden Age." —Fanny Guenon des Mesnards, AD France "This monograph is an invitation to visit the Palazzo Di Lorenzo del Castelluccio."—Italian Vogue "A Palace in Sicily: A Masterpiece Restored doesn’t just pull back the curtain on the finished palace, it details the four-year-long process through an elaborate array of photos..." —Architectural Digest, and Yahoo With its sun-drenched sands and Mediterranean waters, Sicily has been a favoured destination of travellers for centuries. History is alive on this island, from ancient accounts of the Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Normans; to the journals of wealthy young European men embarking on the Grand Tour. This book captures the sun-steeped aesthetic of the island, while detailing the restoration of one of its finest attractions: the Di Lorenzo del Castelluccio palace. Marquis de Castelluccio was one of the last "servals" or “leopards” of Sicily – wealthy aristocrats who flooded the island with luxury. Following his death, his home fell to ruin. A half-century later, Jean-Louis Remilleux fell in love with this dilapidated 18th-century palace and made it his mission to restore it. Unveiled for the first time in this beautifully illustrated book, the Di Lorenzo del Castelluccio palazzo is one of the finest testaments to Sicilian architecture and art. Today, lush green palm trees welcome you to the palace’s imposing front façade. Frescoes, arabesques, masks, imitation marble, ceilings and wainscoting have all restored to their former glory, over decades of elaborate work. This book charts the restoration process and celebrates the astonishing end results. It contains an album’s worth of photographs that capture the beauty of this palace beneath the Mediterranean sun.

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Thirty years ago five L.A. punks unleashed their debut album upon the atrophied and decadent rock charts of Reagan's America. Within weeks ÊAppetite for DestructionÊ ascended to number one on the U.S. charts; to date ÊAppetiteÊ has sold more than thirty million copies making it the bestselling U.S. debut album of all time. To say that Guns N' Roses redefined rock 'n' roll is akin to asserting that Jimi Hendrix revolutionized surf music ä a statement that while technically true does more to conceal the truth than elucidate it. GN'R turned back the tide of MTV-spawned New Wave/synth pop by infusing the blistering hard rock of Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith with a punk sensibility that hearkened back to the onstage anarchy of the Stooges New York Dolls and Sex Pistols. In ÊGuns N' Roses FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the Bad Boys of Sunset StripÊ Rich Weidman charts the amazing journey of this seminal record and the band behind it. From the gutters of West Hollywood to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame from ÊAppetiteÊ to ÊThe Spaghetti Incident?Ê these 400 pages of hedonistic nihilism salacious debauchery and raw unadulterated rock are guaranteed to turn your head blow out your eardrums obliterate your comfort zone and leave you begging for more.ÞWritten in Backbeat's popular FAQ format ÊGuns N' Roses FAQÊ breaks the band's story into a series of chapters equally suitable for a straight-through read or piecemeal consumption. Weidman's treasure trove of facts trivia stories and photographs touch on every topic imaginable. Subjects explored include the band's earliest influences and venues most notorious concerts and opening acts highlights from their seemingly endless ÊAppetite for DestructionÊ and ÊUse Your IllusionÊ tours bizarre TV appearances (like the time they destroyed the set of MTV's ÊHeadbangers Ball!Ê) public and private feuds music videos best and worst covers (Pat Boone anyone?) and much more. From the golden years of the late eighties and early nineties to the outrageous antics and self-destructive tendencies that to irreconcilable inner turmoil from the band's West Hollywood club days to the reunion of three of the five classic band members during the 2016 Not in This Lifetime Tour ÊGuns N' Roses FAQÊ paints a portrait replete with sheer talent raw power dangerous rivalries rock excess and sudden reconciliation that's simply unrivaled by anything else on the market.

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Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and National Humanities Medalist Krista Tippett has interviewed the most extraordinary voices examining the great questions of meaning for our time. The heart of her work on her national public radio program and podcast, On Being, has been to shine a light on people whose insights kindle in us a sense of wonder and courage. Scientists in a variety of fields; theologians from an array of faiths; poets, activists, and many others have all opened themselves up to Tippett's compassionate yet searching conversation. In Becoming Wise, Tippett distills the insights she has gleaned from this luminous conversation in its many dimensions into a coherent narrative journey, over time and from mind to mind. The book is a master class in living, curated by Tippett and accompanied by a delightfully ecumenical dream team of teaching faculty. The open questions and challenges of our time are intimate and civilizational all at once, Tippett says - definitions of when life begins and when death happens, of the meaning of community and family and identity, of our relationships to technology and through technology. The wisdom we seek emerges through the raw materials of the everyday. And the enduring question of what it means to be human has now become inextricable from the question of who we are to each other. This book offers a grounded and fiercely hopeful vision of humanity for this century - of personal growth but also renewed public life and human spiritual evolution. It insists on the possibility of a common life for this century marked by resilience and redemption, with beauty as a core moral value and civility and love as muscular practice. Krista Tippett's great gift, in her work and in Becoming Wise, is to avoid reductive simplifications but still find the golden threads that weave people and ideas together into a shimmering braid. One powerful common denominator of the lessons imparted to Tippett is the gift of presence, of the exhilaration of engagement with life for its own sake, not as a means to an end. But presence does not mean passivity or acceptance of the status quo. Indeed Tippett and her teachers are people whose work meets, and often drives, powerful forces of change alive in the world today. In the end, perhaps the greatest blessing conveyed by the lessons of spiritual genius Tippett harvests in Becoming Wise is the strength to meet the world where it really is, and then to make it better.

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Broadway musicals are one of America’s most beloved art forms and play to millions of people each year. But what do these shows, which are often thought to be just frothy entertainment, really have to say about our country and who we are as a nation? Now in a new second edition, The Great White Way is the first book to reveal the racial politics, content, and subtexts that have haunted musicals for almost one hundred years from Show Boat (1927) to Hamilton (2015). This revised edition includes a new introduction and conclusion, updated chapters, as well as a brand-new chapter that looks at the blockbuster musicals The Book of Mormon and Hamilton. Musicals mirror their time periods and reflect the political and social issues of their day. Warren Hoffman investigates the thematic content of the Broadway musical and considers how musicals work on a structural level, allowing them to simultaneously present and hide their racial agendas in plain view of their audiences. While the musical is informed by the cultural contributions of African Americans and Jewish immigrants, Hoffman argues that ultimately the history of the American musical is the history of white identity in the United States. Presented chronologically, The Great White Way shows how perceptions of race altered over time and how musicals dealt with those changes. Hoffman focuses first on shows leading up to and comprising the Golden Age of Broadway (1927–1960s), then turns his attention to the revivals and nostalgic vehicles that defined the final quarter of the twentieth century. He offers entirely new and surprising takes on shows from the American musical canon—Show Boat (1927), Oklahoma! (1943), Annie Get Your Gun (1946), The Music Man (1957), West Side Story (1957), A Chorus Line (1975), and 42nd Street (1980), among others. In addition to a new chapter on Hamilton and The Book of Mormon, this revised edition brings The Great White Way fully into the twenty-first century with an examination of jukebox musicals and the role of off-Broadway and regional theaters in the development of the American musical. New archival research on the creators who produced and wrote these shows, including Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Stephen Sondheim, and Edward Kleban, will have theater fans and scholars rethinking forever how they view this popular American entertainment.

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The Beautiful Music All Around Us presents the extraordinarily rich backstories of thirteen performances captured on Library of Congress field recordings between 1934 and 1942 in locations reaching from Southern Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta and the Great Plains. Including the children's play song "Shortenin' Bread," the fiddle tune "Bonaparte's Retreat," the blues "Another Man Done Gone," and the spiritual "Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down," these performances were recorded in kitchens and churches, on porches and in prisons, in hotel rooms and school auditoriums. Documented during the golden age of the Library of Congress recordings, they capture not only the words and tunes of traditional songs but also the sounds of life in which the performances were embedded: children laugh, neighbors comment, trucks pass by.Musician and researcher Stephen Wade sought out the performers on these recordings, their families, fellow musicians, and others who remembered them. He reconstructs the sights and sounds of the recording sessions themselves and how the music worked in all their lives. Some of these performers developed musical reputations beyond these field recordings, but for many, these tracks represent their only appearances on record: prisoners at the Arkansas State Penitentiary jumping on "the Library's recording machine" in a rendering of "Rock Island Line"; Ora Dell Graham being called away from the schoolyard to sing the jump-rope rhyme "Pullin' the Skiff"; Luther Strong shaking off a hungover night in jail and borrowing a fiddle to rip into "Glory in the Meetinghouse."Alongside loving and expert profiles of these performers and their locales and communities, Wade also untangles the histories of these iconic songs and tunes, tracing them through slave songs and spirituals, British and homegrown ballads, fiddle contests, gospel quartets, and labor laments. By exploring how these singers and instrumentalists exerted their own creativity on inherited forms, "amplifying tradition's gifts," Wade shows how a single artist can make a difference within a democracy.Reflecting decades of research and detective work, the profiles and abundant photos in The Beautiful Music All Around Us bring to life largely unheralded individuals--domestics, farm laborers, state prisoners, schoolchildren, cowboys, housewives and mothers, loggers and miners--whose music has become part of the wider American musical soundscape. The hardcover edition also includes an accompanying CD that presents these thirteen performances, songs and sounds of America in the 1930s and '40s.

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Former WWE head writer Brian Gewirtz brings readers behind the scenes for an unprecedented look at the chaotic, surreal, unbelievable backstage world of the WWE.With untold stories from a career spanning over 15 years and featuring the biggest names and controversial moments in wrestling history, THERE'S JUST ONE PROBLEM is an honest, unflinching look on how an introverted life-long fan unexpectedly became one the most powerful men in all of professional wrestling.For decades wrestling was shrouded in secrecy. It had larger than life personalities, bone crunching physicality and jaw-dropping theatrics but backstage it was an industry devoid of outsiders. Then in 1999, after working together on a special for MTV, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson turned to 26-year old television writer Brian Gewirtz and asked "You ever consider writing for WWE?" That question, and its answer, would have a profound effect on both of their lives for years to come.THERE'S JUST ONE PROBLEM is a story about perseverance, tenacity, and steel chairs. Most writers in the WWE last for a matter of months; Gewirtz was there for over 15 years, writing some of most memorable and infamous storylines in WWE history (covering the "Attitude Era", the "Ruthless Aggression Era" and into the "PG" and "Reality" eras). Throughout this journey Gewirtz found himself becoming both friend and antagonist to some of the biggest names in WWE history - Stone Cold Steve Austin, John Cena, Stephanie McMahon, Bill Goldberg, Paul Heyman, Chris Jericho, Shawn Michaels, and the two men who he worked the most closely with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. These men not only shaped his life professionally but also personally, forcing him to grow and change both as a writer and a human being. So how does a lifelong fan and outsider break through to become the ultimate insider? How does a low-key personality deal directly with his boss, the most brash, unpredictable "alpha male" on the planet, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon? How does one gain respect in a locker room that wants nothing more than to see him disappear? Where does one go when every year in wrestling takes you further away from the writing career you always wanted? Taking advice from his idol, the late "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, when you're so full of fear, there's only one way to push through: become fearless.

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2017 SHORTLISTED FOR THE FOOTBALL BOOK OF THE YEAR, SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2018 The full story of the man who brought unprecedented – and since unmatched – success to Liverpool FC. Bob Paisley was the quiet man in the flat cap who swept all domestic and European opposition aside and produced arguably the greatest club team that Britain has ever known. The man whose Liverpool team won trophies at a rate-per-season that dwarfs Sir Alex Ferguson’s achievements at Manchester United and who remains the only Briton to lead a team to three European Cups. From Wembley to Rome, Manchester to Madrid, Paisley’s team was the one no one could touch. Working in a city which was on its knees, in deep post-industrial decline, still tainted by the 1981 Toxteth riots and in a state of open warfare with Margaret Thatcher, he delivered a golden era – never re-attained since – which made the city of Liverpool synonymous with success and won them supporters the world over. Yet, thirty years since Paisley died, the life and times of this shrewd, intelligent, visionary, modest football man have still never been fully explored and explained. Based on in-depth interviews with Paisley’s family and many of the players whom he led to an extraordinary haul of honours between 1974 and 1983, Quiet Genius is the first biography to examine in depth the secrets of Paisley’s success. It inspects his man-management strategies, his extraordinary eye for a good player, his uncanny ability to diagnose injuries in his own players and the opposition, and the wicked sense of humour which endeared him to so many. It explores the North-East mining community roots which he cherished, and considers his visionary outlook on the way the game would develop. Quiet Genius is the story of how one modest man accomplished more than any other football manager, found his attributes largely unrecorded and undervalued and, in keeping with the gentler ways of his generation, did not seem to mind. It reveals an individual who seemed out of keeping with the brash, celebrity sport football was becoming, and who succeeded on his own terms. Three decades on from his death, it is a football story that demands to be told.

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'Powerful and profound.' - Matthew Syed'Anyone interested in motivation should read this book and think deeply.’ - Margaret Heffernan ***Selected as one of the Financial Times's Best Business Books of 2020******THE PEOPLE' BOOK PRIZE 2022/23 SHORTLISTED TITLE***In this fascinating examination of our widespread obsession with winning, Cath Bishop draws on her personal experience of high-performance environments to trace the idea of winning through history, language and thought to explore how it has come to be a defining concept in fields from sport to business, from politics to education. Faced with the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century, Cath offers a new, broader approach – The Long Win. Cath competed as a rower at three Olympic Games, becoming the first British woman to win the World Championships and an Olympic medal in the coxless pairs event. As a senior diplomat, Cath worked on policy and negotiations, specializing in stabilization policy for conflict-affected parts of the world. In business, Cath has acted as a coach and consultant, advising on team and leadership development and organizational culture, and teaches on the Executive Education Faculty at the Judge Business School, Cambridge University.In this book she brings that extraordinary mix of experience to examine what winning has come to mean to society and to us as individuals and offers a fresh perspective on how we might redefine success – personal and professional - for the longer-term.‘Looking at life from a different point of view is a rare skill. Built on in-depth research and broad experience as well as original thought, this book will change your outlook on everything.’ - Clare Balding OBE‘This book is so relevant, timely and exciting for any person or organization wanting to investigate what success means to them. It couldn’t be a more relevant book right now and Cath’s exceptional ability in so many areas of life make it a gripping read with a lot of key takeaways whatever your area of interest. I wish every leader could immediately read this book as the world would be a better place if they did!’ - Goldie Sayers, Olympic Medallist in the Javelin, Coach‘I love this book. It is a must-read for educators, business executives, policy makers, politicians and indeed anyone who wants to understand why we need a new narrative around winning and success. We need a lot more Long-Win Thinking in our homes, businesses and institutions and Cath’s book is the place to go to find out why – and how we get there.’ - Dame Helena Morrissey

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A "gripping and poignant" (Wall Street Journal) account of the coming of the American Civil War, showing the crucial role of slaves who escaped to Mexico The Underground Railroad to the North promised salvation to many American slaves before the Civil War. But thousands of people in the south-central United States escaped slavery not by heading north but by crossing the southern border into Mexico, where slavery was abolished in 1837. In South to Freedom, prize-winning historian Alice L. Baumgartner tells the story of why Mexico abolished slavery and how its increasingly radical antislavery policies fueled the sectional crisis in the United States. Southerners hoped that annexing Texas and invading Mexico in the 1840s would stop runaways and secure slavery's future. Instead, the seizure of Alta California and Nuevo México upset the delicate political balance between free and slave states. This is an essential new perspective on antebellum America and the causes of the Civil War. Winner of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award Winner of the California Book Award for Nonfiction Winner of the Caughey Western History Prize Winner of the Willie Lee Rose Prize Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Nonfiction Finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize Finalist for the California Independent Booksellers Alliance's Golden Poppy Award

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How science fiction films in the 1950s were marketed and helped create the broader genre itself. For Hollywood, the golden age of science fiction was also an age of anxiety. Amid rising competition, fluid audience habits, and increasing government regulation, studios of the 1950s struggled to make and sell the kinds of films that once were surefire winners. These conditions, the leading media scholar J. P. Telotte argues, catalyzed the incredible rise of science fiction. Though science fiction films had existed since the earliest days of cinema, the SF genre as a whole continued to resist easy definition through the 1950s. In grappling with this developing genre, the industry began to consider new marketing approaches that viewed films as fluid texts and audiences as ever-changing. Drawing on trade reports, film reviews, pressbooks, trailers, and other archival materials, Selling Science Fiction Cinema reconstructs studio efforts to market a promising new genre and, in the process, shows how salesmanship influenced what that genre would become. Telotte uses such films as The Thing from Another World, Forbidden Planet, and The Blob, as well as the influx of Japanese monster movies, to explore the shifting ways in which the industry reframed the SF genre to market to no-longer static audience expectations. Science fiction transformed the way Hollywood does business, just as Hollywood transformed the meaning of science fiction.

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