Search results for ""notorious""
Beaufort Books A Small Earnest Question
Finalist for the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards! It's spring on Washington Island. Despite her concerns about Roger's desire to bartend, Elisabeth is eager to plan a grand opening for their newly remodeled hotel, but she quickly realizes that she may also need to make accommodations for Roger's proposed goat yoga classes. Bored and lonely, Oliver Robert joins bartender Eddie in forming a great books club at Nelsen's, and Emily Martin, determined to make her mark on the community, forms a new Committee of the Concerned. When Emily decides that the Island needs a literary festival, complete with a famous author, she imprudently seeks out a notorious celebrity, hoping, as always, to enhance her own prestige. Real estate agent Marcie Landmeier confides that an unknown someone is buying up the Island's shoreline, newly-appointed Fire Chief Jim Freeberg contends with a string of suspicious fires, and Pali and Ben have a spiritual encounter that will change them both. Meanwhile, drawn once more into local controversy, and awash in suspicion herself, Fiona Campbell must determine the answers to questions that will affect her future, and the future of the entire Island. A Small Earnest Question is Book Four in the award-winning North of the Tension Line series, set on a remote island in the Great Lakes. Called a modern-day Jane Austen, author J.F. Riordan creates wry, engaging tales and vivid characters that celebrate the beauty and mysteries of everyday life.
£17.99
Beaufort Books A Small Earnest Question
Finalist for the 2020 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards! It's spring on Washington Island. Despite her concerns about Roger's desire to bartend, Elisabeth is eager to plan a grand opening for their newly remodeled hotel, but she quickly realizes that she may also need to make accommodations for Roger's proposed goat yoga classes. Bored and lonely, Oliver Robert joins bartender Eddie in forming a great books club at Nelsen's, and Emily Martin, determined to make her mark on the community, forms a new Committee of the Concerned. When Emily decides that the Island needs a literary festival, complete with a famous author, she imprudently seeks out a notorious celebrity, hoping, as always, to enhance her own prestige. Real estate agent Marcie Landmeier confides that an unknown someone is buying up the Island's shoreline, newly-appointed Fire Chief Jim Freeberg contends with a string of suspicious fires, and Pali and Ben have a spiritual encounter that will change them both. Meanwhile, drawn once more into local controversy, and awash in suspicion herself, Fiona Campbell must determine the answers to questions that will affect her future, and the future of the entire Island. A Small Earnest Question is Book Four in the award-winning North of the Tension Line series, set on a remote island in the Great Lakes. Called a modern-day Jane Austen, author J.F. Riordan creates wry, engaging tales and vivid characters that celebrate the beauty and mysteries of everyday life.
£21.95
New Directions Publishing Corporation Selected Letters, Volume ll: 1945-1957
Volume I of The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams ends with the unexpected triumph of The Glass Menagerie. Volume II extends the correspondence from 1946 to 1957, a time of intense creativity which saw the production of A Streetcar Named Desire, The Rose Tattoo, Camino Real, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Following the immense success of Streetcar, Williams struggles to retain his prominence with a prodigious outpouring of stories, poetry, and novels as well as plays. Several major film projects, including the notorious Baby Doll, bring Williams and his collaborator Elia Kazan into conflict with powerful agencies of censorship, exposing both the conservative landscape of the 1950s and Williams’ own studied resistance to the forces of conformity. Letters written to Kazan, Carson McCullers, Gore Vidal, publisher James Laughlin, and Audrey Wood, Williams’ resourceful agent, continue earlier lines of correspondence and introduce new celebrity figures. The Broadway and Hollywood successes in the evolving career of America’s premier dramatist vie with a string of personal losses and a deepening depression to make this period an emotional and artistic rollercoaster for Tennessee. Compiled by leading Williams scholars Albert J. Devlin, Professor of English at the University of Missouri, and Nancy M. Tischler, Professor Emerita of English at the Pennsylvania State University, Volume II maintains the exacting standard of Volume I, called by Choice: “a volume that will prove indispensable to all serious students of this author…meticulous annotations greatly increase the value of this gathering.”
£19.53
New Directions Publishing Corporation The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams, Volume II: 1946-1957
Volume I of The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams ends with the unexpected triumph of The Glass Menagerie. Volume II extends the correspondence from 1946 to 1957, a time of intense creativity which saw the production of A Streetcar Named Desire, The Rose Tattoo, Camino Real, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Following the immense success of Streetcar, Williams struggles to retain his prominence with a prodigious outpouring of stories, poetry, and novels as well as plays. Several major film projects, including the notorious Baby Doll, bring Williams and his collaborator Elia Kazan into conflict with powerful agencies of censorship, exposing both the conservative landscape of the 1950s and Williams' own studied resistance to the forces of conformity. Letters written to Kazan, Carson McCullers, Gore Vidal, publisher James Laughlin, and Audrey Wood, Williams' resourceful agent, continue earlier lines of correspondence and introduce new celebrity figures. The Broadway and Hollywood successes in the evolving career of America's premier dramatist vie with a string of personal losses and a deepening depression to make this period an emotional and artistic rollercoaster for Tennessee. Compiled by leading Williams scholars Albert J. Devlin, Professor of English at the University of Missouri, and Nancy M. Tischler, Professor Emerita of English at the Pennsylvania State University, Volume II maintains the exacting standard of Volume I, called by Choice: "a volume that will prove indispensable to all serious students of this author...meticulous annotations greatly increase the value of this gathering."
£31.99
Astra Publishing House The Dragons of Deepwood Fen
This 1st book in a new fantasy series from the author of the acclaimed Song of the Shattered Sands series follows an unlikely pair as they expose the secrets at the heart of the mountain city of Ancris.Lorelei Aurelius is the smartest inquisitor in the mountain city of Ancris. When a mysterious tip leads her to a clandestine meeting between the Church and the hated Red Knives, she uncovers a plot that threatens not only her home but the empire itself.The trail leads her to Rylan Holbrooke, a notorious thief posing as a dragon singer. Rylan came to Ancris to solve the very same mystery she stumbled onto. Knowing his incarceration could lead to the Red Knives’ achieving their goals, Lorelei makes a fateful decision: she frees him.Now branded as traitors, the two flee the city on dragonback. In the massive forest known as the Holt, they discover something terrible. The Red Knives are planning to awaken a powerful demigod in the holiest shrine in Ancris, and for some reason the Church is willing to allow it. It forces their return to Ancris, where the unlikely allies must rally the very people who’ve vowed to capture them before it’s too late.Explore the mountain city of Ancris, where fast-paced adventure and intrigue abound. in this new offering from the author of the acclaimed Song of the Shattered Sands series.
£26.10
Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc The Ransomware Hunting Team: A Band of Misfits' Improbable Crusade to Save the World from Cybercrime
Scattered across the world, an elite team of code-cracking techies is working tirelessly on your behalf to thwart the most notorious cyber scourge of our time. You’ve probably never heard of them. But if you work for a school, a business, a hospital, or a municipal government, especially if its cybersecurity is imperfect, chances are that you’re painfully familiar with the group’s sworn enemy: ransomware. Again and again, these ordinary people, mostly self-taught and often struggling to make ends meet, have outwitted the shadowy networks of hackers and criminal gangs that lock computer networks and extort huge payments in return for the key. The Ransomware Hunting Team is the incredible true story of a band of misfits who have used their extraordinary skills to save millions of ransomware victims from paying billions of dollars to criminals. Working in their free time from bedrooms and back offices, they offer their services pro bono to those whom the FBI, other government agencies, and the private sector are unwilling or unable to help. This book follows the teammates as they respond to dire calls for help — and tracks the ups and downs of their work as they race to rescue precious files and communicate directly with their adversaries. Urgent, uplifting, and entertaining, Renee Dudley and Daniel Golden’s The Ransomware Hunting Team is a real-life technological thriller set in a dangerous new era of cybercrime.
£23.99
Bonnier Books Ltd There's Been A Life!: My Autobiography
Since his first tentative steps on stage, Alex Norton’s career has been both highly colourful and eventful beyond his wildest dreams. His journey from the streets of Glasgow’s notorious Gorbals to blockbuster Hollywood movies has rarely been smooth, but in a career spanning six decades he has pretty much seen it all - and done most of it. When the teenage Alex discovered acting was a great way to meet girls, he was hooked for life and embarked on an adventure that has taken him from kids’ TV to radical theatre and from panto to Hollywood, working with a host of famous faces along the way. As a jobbing actor in the late sixties Alex met and played guitar with young Davy Jones on a movie set - the next time he saw him, David Bowie had hit the big time. Alex has appeared in iconic movies like Local Hero, Gregory’s Girl and Braveheart; nearly killed Clint Eastwood on a movie shoot in South Africa; had whale for dinner in Moscow with John Voight; been named by Dudley Moore as the funniest actor he’d ever worked; starred alongside Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest; and made an everlasting mark on British television as DCI Matt Burke in Taggart. Uproariously funny and highly entertaining, in There’s Been A . . . Life! Alex Norton takes us on an irreverent journey behind the scenes of a showbiz life very well lived.
£14.60
Transworld Publishers Ltd The Wolf: From the author of the Richard & Judy bestseller I’m Travelling Alone
‘Written in Bjork’s habitual cool prose, it’s an absorbing, twisty novel’ Sunday Times'A chilling and ingenious tale of cat and mouse where the hunter doesn't realise that they have become the hunted' Yours Magazine‘Her name is Mia Kruger, and it is she who makes this superb story very special indeed. Genuinely gripping and with a wonderful heroine, it is sensational’ Daily Mail___It was one of Sweden's most notorious unsolved cases: two young boys abducted and murdered, their bodies brutally, artistically arranged.But eight years later, when two other boys are found in similar circumstances, it looks like the killer might be back - this time in neighbouring Norway.Led by veteran detective Holger Munch, the investigating police are baffled. There are no clues, no leads to follow. In desperation, Munch drafts in a trainee from the Police Academy, Mia Kruger, a young woman with an uncanny ability to see beyond the facts. Little does he know that Mia is battling her own demons and will soon find that her life and that of the case are entwined in ways no one could have imagined....From the internationally bestselling author of I'm Travelling Alone, comes another mesmerically chilling psychological tale of cat and mouse where the hunter may not know that they have become the hunted before it's too late...___Readers love Samuel Bjork:'Ingenious''Simply terrific''Intelligent and gripping''Perfect for Scandi-Noir lovers'
£14.99
Atlantic Books Night for Day
A feverish vision of McCarthy-era Hollywood...Los Angeles, 1950. Over the course of a single day, two friends grapple with the moral and professional uncertainties of the escalating Communist witch-hunt in Hollywood. Director John Marsh races to convince his actress wife not to turn informant for the House Committee on Un-American Activities, while leftist screenwriter Desmond Frank confronts the possibility of exile to live and work without fear of being blacklisted. As Marsh and Frank struggle to complete shooting on their film She Turned Away, which updates the myth of Orpheus to the gritty noir underworld of post-war Los Angeles, the chaos of their private lives pushes them towards a climactic confrontation with complicity, jealousy, and fear. Night for Day conjures a feverish vision of one of the country's most notorious periods of national crisis, illuminating the eternal dilemma of both art and politics: how to make the world anew. At once a definitively American novel, echoing Philip Roth and Raymond Chandler, it also nods to the mythic landscapes of Dante and the iconoclastic playfulness of James Joyce. With as much to say about the early years of the Cold War as about the political and social divisions that continue to divide the country today, Night for Day is expansive in scope and yet tenderly intimate, exploring the subtleties of belonging and the enormity of exile-not only from one's country but also from one's self.
£9.99
Fonthill Media Ltd Escape and Liberation, 1940-1945: The Classic Escapes from Nazi Germany
The gripping stories of RAF escapes and evasions as detailed in Escape and Liberation, 1940-45 illustrate some of the difficulties and problems facing the prisoners of war. In the first chapter, an attempt was made to compare the conditions and problems experienced by prisoners in the 1940 war with those met by prisoners in the First World War. With the exception of Von Werra's adventure, these stories were told to the author by the men themselves and prior to this book no other record existed of their experiences. Included are descriptions of the escapes of F./Lt. H. N. Fowler, Captain A. D. Taylor, Private Gordon Instone, Wing-Commander Basil Embry, F./Lt. W. P. F. Treacy and Pilot Officer B. J. A. Rennie. The second part of the book looks at 'The Liberation of Westertimke and Barth', 'Neu Brandenburg' and 'Neu Brandenburg Re-visited'. Escape and Liberation, 1940-45 chronicles these brave men who attempted the 'Home Run', the escape from German prisoner of war camps. The author, Alfred John Evans, fled from a German camp in the First World War after being shot down over the trenches. In turn, Evans inspired many prisoners, and he, in turn, took up his pen to narrate many of the famous escapes of the Second World War, including prisoners from the notorious Colditz Castle. Escape was the first problem, the second was to succeed in evasion.
£16.99
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Child of Another Century: Recollections of a High Court Judge
The 20th century saw a period of enormous legal and social change in Britain. In these engaging memoirs Ronald Waterhouse, who sat as one of Britain's leading High Court Judges, provides fascinating frontline insights into the complex British legal system. Waterhouse took silk in 1969 and became a High Court judge in 1978 in the Family Division, transferring to the Queen's Bench in 1988 where he presided over well-known trials such as those of Ken Dodd and Derek Hatton. Libel, including reading libel for Private Eye with Richard Ingrams and Paul Foot, civil and personal injury work were a prominent part of his practice. After his retirement, he was appointed Chairman of the Tribunal of Inquiry into Child Abuse in North Wales Children's Homes in 1996. It was during this time that he went onto lead the biggest inquiry into child abuse ever held in Britain, publishing the highly significant and influential report 'Lost in Care' in 2000. From his early career as a barrister at Middle Temple, which saw his involvement in high-profile cases such as the notorious Moors Murders in the 1960s and Slater Walker in the 1970s, to his later work as a Judge, Waterhouse here presents a detailed and authoritative narrative of British jurisprudence in the second half of the 20th century. This unique insider's view will fascinate general readers and prove essential reading for specialists.
£50.00
Pan Macmillan The Exhibitionist
THE TIMES NOVEL OF THE YEARA GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF 2022A GOOD HOUSEKEEPING BOOK OF THE YEAR'It takes the most ferocious intelligence, skill, and a deep reservoir of sadness to write a novel as funny as this. I adored it' - Meg Mason, author of Sorrow & Bliss'A devastating treat of a novel: funny, furious, dark and delicious' - Sarah Waters, author of FingersmithMeet the Hanrahan family, gathering for a momentous weekend as famous artist and notorious egoist Ray Hanrahan prepares for a new exhibition of his art – the first in many decades – and one he is sure will burnish his reputation for good.His three children will be there: beautiful Leah, always her father’s biggest champion; sensitive Patrick, who has finally decided to strike out on his own; and insecure Jess, the youngest, who has her own momentous decision to make . . .And what of Lucia, Ray’s steadfast and selfless wife? She is an artist, too, but has always had to put her roles as wife and mother first. What will happen if she decides to change? For Lucia is hiding secrets of her own, and as the weekend unfolds and the exhibition approaches, she must finally make a choice.The longer the marriage, the harder truth becomes . . .The Exhibitionist is the extraordinary fifth novel from Charlotte Mendelson, a dazzling exploration of art, sacrifice, toxic family politics, queer desire, and personal freedom. 'Delicious, heartbreaking . . . Fabulously written and utterly compelling' - Marian Keyes, author of Grown-Ups
£16.99
Pan Macmillan Mr Smiley: My Last Pill and Testament
Howard Marks is the most famous drug smuggler of his age, and a hero to a generation. On his release from one of America's toughest prisons, Howard made a promise to himself to go straight. No more drugs, no more smuggling, no more fake passports. He would retire to a quiet life with his family in the Balearic Islands of Spain. It didn't quite work out that way.This was the mid-nineties, the height of the ecstasy and clubbing boom, and Ibiza was at the very centre of the vortex for the 'E generation'. Pills had taken the place of marijuana, Paul Oakenfold had replaced The Rolling Stones as the music of the masses, but some people are just born for life on the other side of the law.It wasn't long before Howard found himself trying pure ecstasy and rubbing shoulders with some of the king-pins of the pill trade. These included some of Britain's most notorious gangsters, who were laundering millions of pounds of gold stolen from the legendary Brink's-Mat bullion raid. As Britons descended on Ibiza ahead of one of the greatest summers of the nineties, Howard was preparing for his most outrageous operation yet.Incredibly funny, moving and scabrous, Howard Marks' Mr Smiley follows a journey to the heartland of the clubbing and British crime scene. It is also a fitting last word from one of Britain's best loved bad boys.
£10.99
Cornell University Press Creative Union: The Professional Organization of Soviet Composers, 1939–1953
Why did the Stalin era, a period characterized by bureaucratic control and the reign of Socialist Realism in the arts, witness such an extraordinary upsurge of musical creativity and the prominence of musicians in the cultural elite? This is one of the questions that Kiril Tomoff seeks to answer in Creative Union, the first book about any of the professional unions that dominated Soviet cultural life at the time. Drawing on hitherto untapped archives, he shows how the Union of Soviet Composers established control over the music profession and negotiated the relationship between composers and the Communist Party leadership. Central to Tomoff's argument is the institutional authority and prestige that the musical profession accrued and deployed within Soviet society, enabling musicians to withstand the postwar disciplinary campaigns that were so crippling in other artistic and literary spheres. Most accounts of Soviet musical life focus on famous individuals or the campaign against Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth and Zhdanov's postwar attack on musical formalism. Tomoff's approach, while not downplaying these notorious events, shows that the Union was able to develop and direct a musical profession that enjoyed enormous social prestige. The Union's leadership was able to use its expertise to determine the criteria of musical value with a degree of independence. Tomoff's book reveals the complex and mutable interaction of creative intelligentsia and political elite in a period hitherto characterized as one of totalitarian control.
£28.99
Union Square & Co. Enchanted Hill: A Novel
Escape to Enchanted Hill in this historical mystery where two people with a dark, shared past collide while working undercover at a glittering mansion on the California coast. The year is 1930 and Cora McCavanagh is posing as a maid at Hollywood magnate Truman Byrd’s legendary estate. She’s closing in on the damning evidence she needs for a high-profile client. An aspiring PI, Cora was trained by her father, a former prison guard at the notorious Pelican Island, where Cora grew up surrounded by hardened criminals. Which is why she recognizes Jack Yates as soon as he walks through the door. The last time she saw him was on an ill-fated night that changed the course of her life and still haunts her more than a decade later. Cora never expected to see Jack again—and now a single misstep could cause both their secret identities to come crashing down. They strike a tentative truce to help each other during a week of parties overflowing with champagne and caviar. But there are puzzles hidden in every corner of Truman Byrd’s labyrinthine estate, and if Cora is to finally learn the truth about Jack Yates, she must unravel a sinister history that the rich and powerful will do anything to keep concealed. Filled with intrigue and Old Hollywood glamour, Enchanted Hill is an unforgettable, sweepingly romantic novel set in a world you won’t want to leave.
£8.99
Hodder & Stoughton Shame and the Captives
On the edge of a small town in New South Wales, far from the battlefields of the Second World War, lies a prisoner-of-war camp housing Italian, Korean and Japanese soldiers. For their guards and the locals, many with loved ones away fighting, captive or dead, it is hard to know how to treat them - with disdain, hatred or compassion? Alice, a young woman leading a dull life on her father-in-law's farm, is one of those with a husband held prisoner in Europe. When Giancarlo, an Italian POW and anarchist, is assigned to work on the farm, she hopes that being kind to him will somehow influence her husband's treatment. What she doesn't anticipate is how dramatically Giancarlo will expand her outlook and self-knowledge. But what most challenges Alice and the town is the foreignness of the Japanese inmates and their culture, which the camp commanders fatally misread. Mortified by being taken alive, they plan an outbreak, to shattering and far-reaching effect.In a career spanning half a century, Tom Keneally has proved a master at exploring ordinary lives caught up in extraordinary events. With this gripping and profoundly thought-provoking novel, inspired by a notorious incident in 1944, he once again shows why he is celebrated as a writer who 'looks into the heart of the human condition with a piercing intelligence that few can match' - Sunday Telegraph.
£18.99
Hodder & Stoughton Deadline
Number One New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown returns with another suspenseful thrillerA journalist is hot on the trail of a pair of domestic terrorists who for decades have eluded capture.Dawson Scott is a well-respected journalist recently returned from Afghanistan. Haunted by everything he experienced, he's privately suffering from battle fatigue which is a threat to every aspect of his life. But then he gets a call from a source within the FBI. A new development has come to light in a story that began 40 years ago. It could be the BIG story of Dawson's career one in which he has a vested interest.Soon, Dawson is covering the disappearance and presumed murder of former Marine Jeremy Wesson, the biological son of the pair of terrorists who remain on the FBI's Most Wanted list. As Dawson delves into the story, he finds himself developing feelings for Wesson's ex-wife, Amelia, and her two young sons. But when Amelia's nanny turns up dead, the case takes a stunning new turn, with Dawson himself becoming a suspect. Haunted by his own demons, Dawson takes up the chase for the notorious outlaws. . .and the secret, startling truth about himself. Praise for Sandra Brown 'Suspense that has teeth' Stephen King 'Lust, jealousy, and murder suffuse Brown's crisp thriller' Publishers Weekly 'An edge-of-the-seat thriller that's full of twists . . . Top stuff!' Star
£10.04
The History Press Ltd Queen of the Courtesans: Fanny Murray
Fanny Murray was an incomparable Georgian beauty and the most desired courtesan of the 1750s. The daughter of an impoverished musician from Bath, she took London society by storm, not only as the most prized ‘purchaseable beauty’ of her day, but also as a fashion icon and muse to poets, writers and artists. She counted princes, aristocrats and politicians among her friends and lovers, but relished the company of rogues, fraudsters and ne’er-do-wells. Barbara White presents evidence to suggest that Fanny Murray participated spiritedly in the sexual antics of the notorious ‘Monks of Medmenham’, the most infamous of the Hell-fire Clubs. After she retired from prostitution, Fanny Murray reinvented herself, entering a pragmatic marriage with the Scottish actor David Ross. Surprisingly, her virtues as a devoted and faithful wife became almost proverbial. Even so, Murray could not escape her disreputable past. In 1763, a scurrilous poem dedicated to her caused a national scandal that ended in the infamous trial of the radical politician John Wilkes for obscene libel. Barbara White’s portrait of Fanny Murray takes readers from the brothels of Covent Garden to sex romps at Medmenham Abbey, from refined drawing rooms in London to marital respectability in Edinburgh. This is an illuminating contribution to the scholarly understanding and popular appreciation of a complex and intriguing period of British history. Fanny Murray’s triumph – against almost insuperable odds – is a remarkable story, as rich in the telling as it is enthralling.
£18.00
Edinburgh University Press Extreme Asia: The Rise of Cult Cinema from the Far East
How shrewd marketing engineered the East Asian cult film boom in the UK. Japanese horror. South Korean revenge thrillers. The new Hong Kong crime film. Western audiences have experienced a boom in cult cinema from East Asia over the last decade, discovering films that have provoked passion and outrage in equal measure. This book charts the history of the recent cult Asian film invasion, covering a five year period and focusing on the activities of the distribution company Metro Tartan and their incredibly influential 'Asia Extreme' brand. Through a series of case studies of individual film releases and other exhibition events, Extreme Asia examines strategies of film promotion and consumption in the context of theories of horror cinema, movie marketing, reception studies, and Orientalism. It covers the rise and fall of the Asia Extreme label, and the enduring legacy of an unforgettable wave of cult cinema from Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea. Provides clear timeline of the key points and film releases in the UK, demonstrating the movement's growing popularity and cultural impact on a film by film basis; based on extensive research and exclusive access to marketing materials and interviews; explains the cultural and economic factors behind the rise of the most notorious East Asian horror and action films of the current generation and detailed case studies of such seminal cult hits as Battle Royale, Oldboy, Audition, Infernal Affairs, Ring, and The Isle.
£90.00
Yale University Press Jackson Pollock
A compelling look at Jackson Pollock's vibrant, quintessentially American art and the turbulent life that gave rise to it Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) not only put American art on the map with his famous "drip paintings," he also served as an inspiration for the character of Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire—the role that made Marlon Brando famous. Like Brando, Pollock became an icon of rebellion in 1950s America, and the brooding, defiant persona captured in photographs of the artist contributed to his celebrity almost as much as his notorious paintings did. In the years since his death in a drunken car crash, Pollock's hold on the public imagination has only increased. He has become an enduring symbol of the tormented artist—our American van Gogh.In this highly engaging book, Evelyn Toynton examines Pollock's itinerant and poverty-stricken childhood in the West, his encounters with contemporary art in Depression-era New York, and his years in the run-down Long Island fishing village that, ironically, was transformed into a fashionable resort by his presence. Placing the artist in the context of his time, Toynton also illuminates the fierce controversies that swirled around his work and that continue to do so. Pollock's paintings captured the sense of freedom and infinite possibility unique to the American experience, and his life was both an American rags-to-riches story and a darker tale of the price paid for celebrity, American style.
£16.07
Columbia University Press Our Savage Art: Poetry and the Civil Tongue
The most notorious poet-critic of his generation, William Logan has defined our view of poets good and bad, interesting and banal, for more than three decades. Featured in the New York Times Book Review, the Times Literary Supplement, and the New Criterion, among other journals, Logan's eloquent, passionate prose never fails to provoke readers and poets, reminding us of the value and vitality of the critic's savage art. Like The Undiscovered Country: Poetry in the Age of Tin, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, Our Savage Art features the corrosive wit and darkly discriminating critiques that have become the trademarks of Logan's style. Opening with a defense of the critical eye, this collection features essays on Robert Lowell's correspondence, Elizabeth Bishop's unfinished poems, the inflated reputation of Hart Crane, the loss of the New Critics, and a damning-and already highly controversial-indictment of an edition of Robert Frost's notebooks. Logan also includes essays on Derek Walcott and Geoffrey Hill, two crucial figures in the divided world of contemporary poetry, and an attempt to rescue the reputation of the nineteenth-century poet John Townsend Trowbridge. Short reviews consider John Ashbery, Anne Carson, Billy Collins, Rita Dove, Louise Gluck, Jorie Graham, Robert Hass, Seamus Heaney, and dozens of others. Though he might be called a cobra with manners, Logan is a fervent advocate for poetry, and Our Savage Art continues to raise the standard of what the critic can do.
£79.20
The University of Chicago Press Seeing Green: The Use and Abuse of American Environmental Images
American environmentalism is defined by its icons: the "Crying Indian," who shed a tear in response to litter and pollution; the cooling towers of Three Mile Island, site of a notorious nuclear accident; the sorrowful spectacle of oil-soaked wildlife following the ExxonValdez spill; and, more recently, Al Gore delivering his global warming slide show in An Inconvenient Truth. These images, and others like them, have helped make environmental consciousness central to American public culture. Yet most historical accounts ignore the crucial role images have played in the making of popular environmentalism, let alone the ways that they have obscured other environmental truths. Finis Dunaway closes that gap with Seeing Green. Considering a wide array of images-including pictures in popular magazines, television news, advertisements, cartoons, films, and political posters-he shows how popular environmentalism has been entwined with mass media spectacles of crisis. Beginning with radioactive fallout and pesticides during the 1960s and ending with global warming today, he focuses on key moments in which media images provoked environmental anxiety but also prescribed limited forms of action. Moreover, he shows how the media have blamed individual consumers for environmental degradation and thus deflected attention from corporate and government responsibility. Ultimately, Dunaway argues, iconic images have impeded efforts to realize-or even imagine-sustainable visions of the future. Generously illustrated, this innovative book will appeal to anyone interested in the history of environmentalism or in the power of the media to shape our politics and public life.
£26.96
Oxford University Press Dante: A Very Short Introduction
In this Very Short Introduction, Peter Hainsworth and David Robey take a different approach to Dante, by examining the main themes and issues that run through all of his work, ranging from autobiography, to understanding God and the order of the universe. In doing so, they highlight what has made Dante a vital point of reference for modern writers and readers, both inside and outside Italy. They emphasize the distinctive and dynamic interplay in Dante's writing between argument, ideas, and analysis on the one hand, and poetic imagination on the other. Dante was highly concerned with the political and intellectual issues of his time, demonstrated most powerfully in his notorious work, The Divine Comedy. Tracing the tension between the medieval and modern aspects, Hainsworth and Robey provide a clear insight into the meaning of this masterpiece of world literature. They highlight key figures and episodes in the poem, bringing out the originality and power of Dante's writing to help readers understand the problems that Dante wanted his audience to confront but often left up to the reader to resolve. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
£9.99
Sourcebooks, Inc Dreaming of the Wolf
A hot paranormal shifter romance full of action, adventure, mystery, and passion from USA Today bestselling author Terry Spear. Perfect for readers of Christine Feehan, Patricia Briggs, and Nalini Singh:Jake Silver has gotten himself into some trouble, and to appease the Silver Town pack leaders, he needs the money he can make selling his photography to local art galleries. When he spies a woman in town sneaking around and taking surreptitious photographs, his intrigue turns into wolfish protectiveness…Alicia Greiston is in a rut. She's determined to turn the town's notorious mobsters over to the police. This kind of work comes with a price—and not just the bounty money. But Jake is just too persuasive to stay away from, and against both their better judgments, she allows herself to be swept under his spell. He's sexy, alpha, and totally irresistible...This special edition includes a brand-new bonus novella and letter from the author!Praise for the Silver Town Wolf series:"Sensual, passionate and very well written… Terry Spear's writing is pure entertainment."—The Long and Short of It Reviews for Wolf Fever"With non-stop action, thrilling suspense, danger, a beautiful setting, well-drawn characters, this story will keep readers guessing right up to the very satisfying ending."—Romance Junkies for Silence of the Wolf"Terry Spear weaves paranormal, suspense, and romance together in one non-stop rollercoaster of passion and adventure."—Love Romance Passion for Destiny of the Wolf
£7.21
Cornerstone Lady Of Quality: Gossip, scandal and an unforgettable Regency romance
If you love Bridgerton, you'll love Georgette Heyer!'The greatest writer who ever lived' ANTONIA FRASER'A rollicking good read that will be of particular joy to Bridgerton viewers ... the permanent glister of scandal [...] ties the whole thing together' INDEPENDENT'[My] generation's Julia Quinn' ADJOA ANDOH, star of Bridgerton____________________Annis Wychwood delights in her independence.Beautiful, rich and far too busy for love, she has turned down the advances of many a hopeful suitor.But when she becomes entangled in the affairs of a runaway heiress, she encounters the girl's guardian, the notorious Oliver Carleton.While Oliver may be a reckless and uncivil rogue, Annis can't help but be drawn towards his wild ways . . .____________________'One of my perennial comfort authors. Heyer's books are as incisively witty and quietly subversive as any of Jane Austen's' JOANNE HARRIS'Elegant, witty and rapturously romantic' KATIE FFORDE'Utterly delightful' GUARDIAN'Georgette Heyer's Regency romances brim with elegance, wit and historical accuracy, and this is one of her finest and most entertaining ... Escapism of the highest order' DAILY MAIL'If you haven't read Georgette Heyer yet, what a treat you have in store!' HARRIET EVANS____________________Readers love Lady of Quality ...***** 'I was immediately hooked.'***** 'Smart, entertaining and totally enjoyable.'***** 'Anyone looking for a fun and quick read and also wants some quality conversations and dialogues, this is the book for you.'***** 'This is one of my favourite Heyers.'***** 'I fear I will never find something quite like it.'
£9.99
Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press The Corsair
Text in Arabic. It's the early part of the nineteenth century and the Arabian Peninsula and the waters surrounding it are ablaze. Piracy in the Gulf threatens global maritime trade routes while the Wahabbi strain of Islam is conquering followers town by town across the region. Britain, eager to reinforce its presence in the Middle East and protect the East India Company's ships, has a plan: send a man-of-war from England to quash the pirates while persuading Egypt to join an international alliance with Oman and Persia to fight the Wahabbis. At the center of it all lies a priceless Indian sword, a gift from the British monarch to the Egyptian Pasha. But Erhama bin Jaber, a historical figure and one of the most notorious pirates in the Gulf, has his own agenda and his own vendettas. When the Arabian corsair and his gang attack a ship carrying the sword, Britain's complex strategy goes terribly awry. As the pirates and British officials shuttle between ports throughout the region, plans and alliances are made and unmade as quickly as a rainstorm in the desert. In a grueling trudge across Arabia, an unlikely friendship is forged between Erhama's rebellious son and a British army major. This story of high-seas piracy and political intrigue, of unexpected kinship and personal betrayal, portrays the conflicting interests and human drama of these historic events in the Arabian Peninsula.
£11.99
Pallas Athene Publishers Marriage of Inconvenience
Effie Gray was an innocent victim of a male-dominated society, repressed and mistreated. Or was she? John Ruskin, the greatest art critic and social reformer of his time, was a callous misogynist and upholder of the patriarchy. Or was he? John Everett Millais, boy genius, rescued the heroine from the tyrannical clutches of the husband who left his wedding unconsummated for six years. Or did he? What really happened in the most scandalous love triangle of the 19th century? Was it all about impotence and pubic hair? Or was it about money, power and freedom? If so, whose? And what possibilities were there for these young people caught in a world racked by social, financial and political turmoil? The accepted story of the Ruskin marriage has never lost its fascination. History books, novels, television series, operas and now a star-filled film by Emma Thompson have all followed this standard line. It seems to offer an easy take on the Victorians and how we have moved on. But the story isn't true. In Marriage of Inconvenience Robert Brownell uses extensive documentary evidence - much of it never seen before, and much of it hitherto suppressed - to reveal a story no less fascinating and human, no less illuminating about the Victorians and far more instructive about our own times, than the myths that have grown up about the most notorious marriage of the 19th century.
£26.99
John Blake Publishing Ltd You're Going Home in a F*****g Ambulance: Hooligan Wars - The Inside Story
In his latest book, bestselling author Cass Pennant takes an engaging and unparalleled look at some of the most volatile and violent scenes of fans following their football clubs to have unfolded over the past five decades, and examines the lengths to which many will go to put one over their local rivals.Here is history that also examines everything from the changing face of football violence, to who gets involved - and why. It looks, too, at how the' firms' operate, both home and away, and at the effects of the football establishment's often counter-productive attempts to contain hooliganism on the psychology of supporters. Has the war on hooliganism been successfully stamped out? Can it ever be won? This remarkable and informative book gives a frank examination of football violence to show how different inter-club and inter-regional rivalries have evolved - and features many first-hand accounts of incidents that make chilling reading. It builds up to provide the most comprehensive look behind the match-day madness and the activities of some of British football's most notorious hooligans, to give answers as to why these games are so important to supporters. The history of such infamous 'firms' as the ICF, the Bushwackers, the Headhunters, and the Red Army has never been fully documented . . . until now.You're Going Home in a F*cking Ambulance is an eye-opening study of a problem that refuses to go away, by a writer who knows his subject inside-out.
£9.18
John Blake Publishing Ltd Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell?: A powerful true story of love and survival
An incredible tale of one man's adversity and defiance, for readers of The Tattooist of Auschwitz.Horace Greasley escaped over 200 times from a notorious German prison camp to see the girl he loved. This is his incredible true story.A Sunday Times Bestseller - over 60,000 copies sold.Even in the most horrifying places on earth, hope still lingers in the darkness, waiting for the opportunity to take flight.When war was declared Horace Greasley was just twenty-years old. After seven weeks' training with the 2/5th Battalion, the Royal Leicestershire Regiment, Horace found himself facing the might of the German Army in a muddy field south of Cherbourg, in northern France, with just thirty rounds in his ammunition pouch.Horace's war didn't last long. . . On 25 May 1940 he was taken prisoner and so began the harrowing journey to a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland. Those who survived the gruelling ten-week march to the camp were left broken and exhausted, all chance of escape seemingly extinguished.But when Horace met Rosa, the daughter of one of his captors, his story changed; fate, it seemed, had thrown him a lifeline. Horace risked everything in order to steal out of the camp to see his love, bringing back supplies for his fellow prisoners. In doing so he offered hope to his comrades, and defiance to one of the most brutal regimes in history.
£10.40
Profile Books Ltd Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves
From the author of the international Bestseller Breath Covering a diving championship in Greece on a hot and sticky assignment for Outside magazine, James Nestor discovered free diving. He had stumbled on one of the most extreme sports in existence: a quest to extend the frontiers of human experience, in which divers descend without breathing equipment, for hundreds of feet below the water, for minutes after they should have died from lack of oxygen. Sometimes they emerge unconscious, or bleeding from the nose and ears, and sometimes they don't come up at all. The free divers were Nestor's way into an exhilarating and dangerous world of deep-sea pioneers, underwater athletes, scientists, spear fishermen, billionaires and ordinary men and women who are poised on the brink of some amazing discoveries about the ocean. Soon he was visiting the scientists who live 60ft underwater (and are permanently high on nitrous dioxide), swimming with the notorious man-eating sharks of Réunion and descending thousands of feet in a homemade submarine. And on the way down, he learnt about the amazing amphibious reflexes activated in the human body under deep-water conditions, why dolphins were injected with LSD in an attempt to teach them to talk, and why sharks like AC/DC. The sea covers seventy per cent of Earth's surface, and still contains answers to questions about the world we are only beginning to ask: Deep blends science and adventure to uncover its amazing secrets.
£12.99
Simon & Schuster Ltd Manson
After more than forty years, Charles Manson continues to mystify and fascinate us. One of the most notorious criminals in American history, Manson and members of his mostly female commune killed nine people, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate. Now, drawing on new information, bestselling author Jeff Guinn tells the definitive story of how this ordinary delinquent became a murderer. Mansonhelps us understand what obsessed him and, most terrifying of all, how he managed to persuade others to kill. Guinn interviewed Manson's sister and cousin, neither of whom has ever previously cooperated with an author. Childhood friends, cellmates, and even some members of the Manson Family have provided new information about Manson's life. Guinn has made discoveries about the night of the Tate murders, answering unresolved questions, such as why one person on the property was spared. There are even photographs of Manson's childhood and youth that have never previouslybeen seen outside private family albums. Putting Manson in the context of his times, the turbulent end of the Sixties, Guinn shows how Manson represented the dark side of a generation. He came to Los Angeles hoping to get a recording contract, and the murders were directly related to his musical ambitions, although he cloaked them in a bizarre race-war theory. He was, in the words of one person who knew him, just like many other rock star wannabes-except that he was a killer.
£9.99
HarperCollins Publishers Dead Man Walking
‘A compulsive thriller’ Ann Cleeves ‘Not to be missed!’ Daniel Sellers His team is compromisedAs dusk falls the night before the trial of notorious crime boss Thomas Unwin, the prosecution’s star witness is brutally murdered, his killer escaping in plain sight from a secure hotel. His girlfriend is in dangerDetective Rick Turner spent months building the case against Unwin, and he’s not willing to give up now. But Unwin has one final trick up his sleeve to turn the trial in his favour: he has Rick’s girlfriend, Jess, kidnapped in a plan to coerce Rick into throwing his own testimony. The biggest case of his life hangs in the balanceFaced with a stark choice, Rick must find Jess or give false testimony which would cost him his career and let Unwin walk free. But with the net closing in Rick must soon face a terrifying truth: the killer is closer to him than he ever expected, and as the case turns personal there is no one he can trust, not even his closest colleagues… Perfect for fans of Gytha Lodge, Michael Wood and Matt Brolly Readers LOVE Dead Man Walking ‘So many twists and surprises’ NetGalley reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘I read it in one sitting’ NetGalley reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Ticked all the boxes for a great thriller’ NetGalley reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Had me gripped’ NetGalley reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
£9.99
Little, Brown Book Group Sharon Osbourne Extreme: My Autobiography
'I have been kept awake for the past two nights, utterly gripped by Sharon's story . . . She makes Keith Richards, Kurt Cobain et all look like kiddies at a tea party, overdosing on fizzy drinks . . . she is radiant, confident, assertive and glamorous. And enormously successful, having turned Ozzy's career into a multimillion-dollar global industry, having recovered from colon cancer herself, and having finally seen her husband do a year without a drink. She is totally phenomenal' Sunday Independent (Ireland) Sharon Osbourne has lived - in her own words - 'fifty lives in fifty years'. As the daughter of notorious rock manager Don Arden, Sharon's childhood was a chaotic mix of glamour and violence, villains and diamonds. In rock star Ozzy Osbourne, Sharon found her soul mate, yet Ozzy's drug- and alcohol-fuelled excesses - which culminated in his attempt to strangle her - made their marriage a white-knuckle ride from the start; only her devotion to their three children gave her the will to survive. From the highs of The Osbournes and The X Factor to the lows of Ozzy's near-fatal quad-bike accident and her own colon cancer, Sharon's tenacity, honesty and humour have triumphed again and again. In her long-awaited autobiography, Sharon Osbourne reveals the truth behind the headlines in her characteristically frank, intimate and articulate way. Inspiring, heart-rending and full of love, EXTREME is the astonishing story of a truly remarkable woman.
£10.99
Transworld Publishers Ltd Rome: The Eagle Of The Twelfth: (Rome 3): A action-packed and riveting historical adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat
From the Sunday Times bestselling author Manda Scott, a captivating, stirring and breath-taking historical adventure full of honour, loyalty and bravery. Perfect for fans of Simon Scarrow, Robert Harris and Conn Iggulden."A tale that shines like the Eagle at its heart. I suspect that no one else writes like M. C. Scott. I'm certain plenty wish they could." -- GILES KRISTIAN"Enthralling...Gladiator meets Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in a baroque landscape." -- ROBERT LOWE"Compulsive reading" -- ***** Reader review"Truly consummate, well-written historical fiction" -- ***** Reader review***********************************THEY ARE KNOWN AS THE LEGION OF THE DAMNED...Throughout the Roman Army, the brutal XIIth Legion is notorious for its ill fortune. For one young man, Demalion of Macedon, joining it will be a baptism of fire. And yet, amid all of the violence and savagery of his life as a legionary, he will come to love the Twelfth and the bloody-minded, dark-hearted soldiers he calls his brothers.But during the punishing Judaean campaign, the Hebrew army inflict a catastrophic defeat upon the legion - not only decimating their ranks, but taking away their soul - the eagle.There is just one final chance to save the legion's honour - to steal it back. To do that, Demalion and his legionnaries must go undercover into Jerusalem, into the very heart of their enemy. Recovering their pride is paramount but discovery will mean the worst of deaths...
£11.55
Yale University Press The Literary Mafia: Jews, Publishing, and Postwar American Literature
An investigation into the transformation of publishing in the United States from a field in which Jews were systematically excluded to one in which they became ubiquitous “Readers with an interest in the industry will find plenty of insights.”—Publishers Weekly “From the very first page, this book is funnier and more gripping than a book on publishing has any right to be. Anyone interested in America’s intellectual or Jewish history must read this, and anyone looking for an engrossing story should.”—Emily Tamkin, author of Bad Jews In the 1960s and 1970s, complaints about a “Jewish literary mafia” were everywhere. Although a conspiracy of Jews colluding to control publishing in the United States never actually existed, such accusations reflected a genuine transformation from an industry notorious for excluding Jews to one in which they arguably had become the most influential figures. Josh Lambert examines the dynamics between Jewish editors and Jewish writers; how Jewish women exposed the misogyny they faced from publishers; and how children of literary parents have struggled with and benefited from their inheritances. Drawing on interviews and tens of thousands of pages of letters and manuscripts, The Literary Mafia offers striking new discoveries about celebrated figures such as Lionel Trilling and Gordon Lish, and neglected fiction by writers including Ivan Gold, Ann Birstein, and Trudy Gertler. In the end, we learn how the success of one minority group has lessons for all who would like to see American literature become more equitable.
£28.00
Oxford University Press Inc Vestiges of a Philosophy: Matter, the Meta-Spiritual, and the Forgotten Bergson
Vestiges of a Philosophy: Matter, the Meta-Spiritual, and the Forgotten Bergson covers a fascinating yet little known moment in history. At the turn of the twentieth century, Henri Bergson and his sister, Mina Bergson (also known as Moina Mathers), were both living in Paris and working on seemingly very different but nonetheless complementary and even correlated approaches to questions about the nature of matter, spirit, and their interaction. He was a leading professor within the French academy, soon to become the most renowned philosopher in Europe. She was his estranged sister, already celebrated in her own right as a feminist and occultist performing on theatre stages around Paris while also leading one of the most important occult societies of that era, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. One was a respectable if controversial intellectual, the other was a notorious mystic-artist who, together with her husband and fellow-occultist Samuel MacGregor Mathers, have been described as the "neo-pagan power couple" of the Belle Époque. Neither Henri nor Mina left any record of their feelings and attitudes towards the work of the other, but their views on time, mysticism, spirit, and art converge on many fronts, even as they emerged from very different forms of cultural practice. In Vestiges of a Philosophy, John Ó Maoilearca examines this convergence of ideas and uses the Bergsons' strange correlation to tackle contemporary themes in new materialist philosophy, as well as the relationship between mysticism and philosophy.
£80.26
Pan Macmillan Homecoming: A Sweeping, Intergenerational Epic from the Multi-Million-Copy Bestselling Author
‘If you haven’t read Kate Morton before, do yourself a favour’ – Graham Norton, broadcaster and bestselling author of Home StretchA breathtaking mystery of love, lies and a cold case come back to life, Homecoming is an immersive, twisting epic from the bestselling Kate Morton, told with her trademark intricacy and beauty.Adelaide Hills, 1959. At the end of a scorching hot day, in the grounds of a grand country house, a local man makes a terrible discovery. Police are called, and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most mystifying murder investigations in the history of Australia.London, 2018. Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for nearly two decades, a phone call summons her back to Sydney, where her beloved grandmother, Nora, has suffered a fall and is seriously ill in hospital.Seeking comfort in her past, Jess discovers a true crime book at Nora’s house chronicling a long-buried police case: the Turner Family Tragedy of 1959. And within its pages she finds a shocking personal connection to this notorious event – a crime that has never truly been solved.An epic novel that spans generations, Homecoming asks what we would do for those we love and how we protect the lies we tell.Readers love Homecoming by Kate Morton . . .‘Will leave you glued to the very last page’‘Plenty of turns to keep you guessing’‘Heartbreaking, beautifully written and superbly constructed’
£9.99
Paizo Publishing, LLC Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Adventurer’s Guide
Wise adventurers don’t just march off into the wilderness to search for dragons to slay and wrongs to right, for to adventure without support is to invite disaster. The hardcover Pathfinder RPG Adventurer’s Guide presents information on 18 different organizations in need of brave and able adventurers. Be they forces for good, such as the virtuous Eagle Knights or the freedom fighters of the Bellflower Network, or agencies of sinister mien like the notorious Red Mantis Assassins or the infernally-inspired Hellknights, the one thing these groups all share in common is a need for powerful adventurers to serve as their agents in the world. To the adventurers who ally with them, these groups offer specialized training, powerful magical items, specialized magic, access to unusual gear or mounts, and more! Pathfinder RPG Adventurer’s Guide includes: • Details on the history, goals, and leadership for 18 of Golarion’s most famous (or infamous) organizations, including the Aldori Swordlords, the Aspis Consortium, the Cyphermages, the Gray Maidens, the Hellknights, the Lantern Bearers, the Magaambya, the Mammoth Lords, the Pathfinder Society, and the Red Mantis. • Each organization includes at least one prestige class and at least two archetypes for characters who seek to further specialize in the themes and powers offered by the organization. • Dozens and dozens of new spells, magic items, feats, and other unique character options of diverse nature, all themed to the various organizations presented in this book! • ... and much, much more!
£35.99
John F Blair Publisher Blackbeard the Pirate: A Reappraisal of His Life and Times
Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was one of the most notorious pirates ever to plague the Atlantic coast. He was also one of the most colorful pirates of all time, becoming the model for countless blood-and-thunder tales of sea rovers. His daring exploits, personal courage, terrifying appearance, and fourteen wives made him a legend in his own lifetime. The legends and myths about Blackbeard have become wilder rather than tamer in the 250 years since his gory but valiant death at Ocracoke Inlet. It is difficult for historians, and all but impossible for the general reader, to separate fact from fiction. Author Robert E. Lee has studied virtually every scrap of information available about the pirate and his contemporaries in an attempt to find the real Blackbeard. The result is a fascinating and authoritative study that reads like an exciting swashbuckler. Lee goes beyond the myths and the image Teach so carefully cultivated to reveal a new Blackbeard—infinitely more interesting as a man than as a legend. In the process, he has captured the spirit and character of a vanished age, "the golden age of piracy." Robert E. Lee was a former law professor who traced his own ancestry to a possible link with Blackbeard. A native of Kinston, North Carolina, he earned degrees from Wake Forest, Columbia, and Duke universities. The author of sixteen law books, Lee wrote the newspaper column "This is the Law".
£15.65
Louisiana State University Press Central Prison: A History of North Carolina's State Penitentiary
Gregory S. Taylor's Central Prison: A History of North Carolina's State Penitentiary is the first scholarly study to explore the prison's entire history, from its origins in the 1870s to its status in the first decades of the twenty-first century. Taylor addresses numerous features of the state's vast prison system, including chain gangs, convict leasing, executions, and the nearby Women's Prison, to describe better the vagaries of living behind bars in the state's largest penitentiary. He incorporates vital elements of the state's history into his analysis to draw clear parallels between the changes occurring in free society and those affecting Central Prison. Throughout, Taylor illustrates that the prison, like the state itself, struggled with issues of race, gender, sectionalism, political infighting, finances, and progressive reform. Finally, Taylor also explores the evolution of penal reform, focusing on the politicians who set prison policy, the officials who administered it, and the untold number of African American inmates who endured incarceration in a state notorious for racial strife and injustice. Central Prison approaches the development of the penal system in North Carolina from a myriad of perspectives, offering a range of insights into the workings of the state penitentiary. It will appeal not only to scholars of criminal justice but also to historians searching for new ways to understand the history of the Tar Heel State and general readers wanting to know more about one of North Carolina's most influential-and infamous-institutions.
£48.70
Princeton University Press Worshipping Walt: The Whitman Disciples
Despite his protests, Anne Gilchrist, distinguished woman of letters, moved her entire household from London to Philadelphia in an effort to marry him. John Addington Symonds, historian and theorist of sexual inversion, sent him avid fan mail for twenty years. And volunteer assistant Horace Traubel kept a record of their daily conversations, producing a nine-volume compilation. Who could inspire so much devotion? Worshipping Walt is the first book on the Whitman disciples--the fascinating, eclectic group of nineteenth-century men and women who regarded Walt Whitman not simply as a poet but as a religious prophet. Long before Whitman was established in the canon of American poetry, feminists, socialists, spiritual seekers, and supporters of same-sex passion saw him as an enlightened figure who fulfilled their religious, political, and erotic yearnings. To his disciples Whitman was variously an ideal husband, radical lover, socialist icon, or bohemian saint. In this transatlantic group biography, Michael Robertson explores the highly charged connections between Whitman and his followers, including Canadian psychiatrist R. M. Bucke, American nature writer John Burroughs, British activist Edward Carpenter, and the notorious Oscar Wilde. Despite their particular needs, they all viewed Whitman as the author of a new poetic scripture and prophet of a modern liberal spirituality. Worshipping Walt presents a colorful portrait of an era of intense religious, political, and sexual passions, shedding new light on why Whitman's work continues to appeal to so many.
£20.00
Tramp Press The Red Word
"The myths don't have a clue what to do with women. They have nothing to say about us whatsoever. We need to build our own f**king mythology." The battle of the sexes goes to college in this smart, thrilling debut by university English professor Sarah Henstra. University student Karen is swept up in back-to-school revelry and when she wakes up after a frat party lying on the lawn of Raghurst, a house of radical feminists, she gets a crash course in anti-frat activism on campus. GBC (‘Gang Bang Central’) is especially notorious, she learns, with several names featured on a list of date rapists compiled by female students. Despite continuing to party at GBC and even dating one of the brothers, Karen is seduced by the intellectual stimulation and indomitable spirit of the Raghurst women. As Karen finds herself caught between two increasingly polarized camps, her feminist housemates believe they have hit on the perfect way to expose and bring down the fraternity as a symbol of rape culture… but the war between the houses will exact a terrible price. The Red Word offers a lyrical yet eyes-wide-open account of the epic clash between fraternities’ time-honoured ‘right to party’ and young women’s demands for sexual safety and respect. With strains of The Marriage Plot and reminiscent of the work of Zadie Smith, Donna Tartt and Tom Wolfe, The Red Word arrives on the wings of furies.
£12.99
Stanford University Press Witnesses of the Unseen: Seven Years in Guantanamo
This searing memoir shares the trauma and triumphs of Lakhdar Boumediene and Mustafa Ait Idir's time inside America's most notorious prison. Lakhdar and Mustafa were living quiet, peaceful lives in Bosnia when, in October 2001, they were arrested and accused of participating in a terrorist plot. After a three-month investigation uncovered no evidence, all charges were dropped and Bosnian courts ordered their freedom. However, under intense U.S. pressure, Bosnian officials turned them over to American soldiers. They were flown blindfolded and shackled to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they were held in outdoor cages for weeks as the now-infamous military prison was built around them. Guantanamo became their home for the next seven years. They endured torture and harassment and force-feedings and beatings, all the while not knowing if they would ever see their families again. They had no opportunity to argue their innocence until 2008, when the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in their case, Boumediene v. Bush, confirming Guantanamo detainees' constitutional right to challenge their detention in federal court. Weeks later, the George W. Bush–appointed federal judge who heard their case, stunned by the absence of evidence against them, ordered their release. Now living in Europe and rebuilding their lives, Lakhdar and Mustafa are finally free to share a story that every American ought to know. Learn more at witnessesbook.com or donate to a crowdsourced restitution fund at GoFundMe.com/witnesses.
£16.99
Taylor & Francis Ltd Public Images: Celebrity, Photojournalism, and the Making of the Tabloid Press
The stolen snapshot is a staple of the modern tabloid press, as ubiquitous as it is notorious. The first in-depth history of British tabloid photojournalism, this book explores the origin of the unauthorised celebrity photograph in the early 20th century, tracing its rise in the 1900s through to the first legal trial concerning the right to privacy from photographers shortly after the Second World War. Packed with case studies from the glamorous to the infamous, the book argues that the candid snap was a tabloid innovation that drew its power from Britain's unique class tensions. Used by papers such as the Daily Mirror and Daily Sketch as a vehicle of mass communication, this new form of image played an important and often overlooked role in constructing the idea of the press photographer as a documentary eyewitness. From Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson to aristocratic debutantes Lady Diana Cooper and Margaret Whigham, the rage of the social elite at being pictured so intimately without permission was matched only by the fascination of working class readers, while the relationship of the British press to social, economic and political power was changed forever.Initially pioneered in the metropole, tabloid-style photojournalism soon penetrated the journalistic culture of most of the globe. This in-depth account of its social and cultural history is an invaluable source of new research for historians of photography, journalism, visual culture, media and celebrity studies.
£105.00
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters
There are few figures and leaders of recent American history of greater social and political consequence than Jesse Jackson, and few more relevant for America’s current political climate. In the 1960s, Jackson served as a close aide to Dr. Martin Luther King, meeting him on the notorious march to legitimate the American democratic system in Selma. He was there on the day of King’s assassination, and continued his political legacy, inspiring a generation of Black and Latino politicians and activists, founding the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, and helping to make the Democratic Party more multicultural and progressive with his historic runs for the presidency in the 1980s. In I Am Somebody, David Masciotra argues that Jackson’s legacy must be rehabilitated in the history of American politics. Masciotra has had personal access to Jackson for several years, conducting over one hundred interviews with the man himself, as well as interviews with a wide variety of elected officials and activists who Jackson has inspired and influenced. It also takes readers inside Jackson's negotiations for the release of hostages and political prisoners in Cuba, Iraq, and several other countries. As Democratic politics sees a return to radicalism and the rise of a new generation committed to racial and economic justice, this is a critical book for understanding where America in the 21st Century has come from and where it is going. Featuring a foreword by Michael Eric Dyson.
£15.05
University of Nebraska Press Bataan Death March: A Survivor's Account
The hopeless yet determined resistance of American and Filipino forces against the Japanese invasion has made Bataan and Corregidor symbols of pride, but Bataan has a notorious darker side. After the U.S.-Filipino remnants surrendered to a far stronger force, they unwittingly placed themselves at the mercy of a foe who considered itself unimpaired by the Geneva Convention. The already ill and hungry survivors, including many wounded, were forced to march at gunpoint many miles to a harsh and oppressive POW camp; many were murdered or died on the way in a nightmare of wanton cruelty that has made the term "Death March" synonymous with the Bataan peninsula. Among the prisoners was army pilot William E. Dyess. With a few others, Dyess escaped from his POW camp and was among the very first to bring reports of the horrors back to a shocked United States. His story galvanized the nation and remains one of the most powerful personal narratives of American fighting men. Stanley L. Falk provides a scene-setting introduction for this Bison Books edition. William E. Dyess was born in Albany, Texas. As a young army air forces pilot he was shipped to Manila in the spring of 1941. Shortly after his escape and return to the United States, Colonel Dyess was killed while testing a new airplane. He did not survive long enough to learn that he had been awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor.
£15.99
Cornell University Press Nobody's Angels: Middle-Class Women and Domestic Ideology in Victorian Culture
Victoria's accession to the throne in 1837 coincided with the birth of a now notorious gender stereotype—the "Angel in the House." Comparing the position of real women—from the Queen of England to middle-class housewives—with their status as household angels, Elizabeth Langland explores a complex image of femininity in Victorian culture. Langland offers provocative readings of nineteenth-century fiction as well as a rare glimpse into etiquette guides, home management manuals, and cookbooks. She traces the implications of a profound contradiction: although the home was popularly depicted as a private moral haven, running the middle-class household—which included at least one servant—was in fact an exercise in class management. Drawing on the work of Foucault, Benjamin, and Bourdieu, and of recent feminist theorists, Langland considers novels by Dickens, Gaskell, Oliphant. and Eliot, as well as the memoirs of Hannah Cullwick, a former domestic servant who married a middle-class man. Langland discovers that the middle-class wife assumed a more complex and important function than has previously been recognized. With her substantial power veiled in myth, the Victorian angel mastered skills that enabled her to support a rigid class system; at the same time, however, her achievements unobtrusively set the stage for a feminist revolution. Nobody's Angels reconstructs a disturbing picture of social change that depended as much on protecting class inequity as on promoting gender equality.
£31.00
Princeton University Press Programming the Absolute: Nineteenth-Century German Music and the Hermeneutics of the Moment
Programming the Absolute discusses the notorious opposition between absolute and program music as a true dialectic that lies at the heart of nineteenth-century German music. Beginning with Beethoven, Berthold Hoeckner traces the aesthetic problem of musical meaning in works by Schumann, Wagner, Liszt, Mahler, and Schoenberg, whose private messages and public predicaments are emblematic for the cultural legacy of this rich repertory. After Romanticism had elevated music as a language "beyond" language, the ineffable spurred an unprecedented proliferation of musical analysis and criticism. Taking his cue from Adorno, Hoeckner develops the idea of a "hermeneutics of a moment," which holds that musical meaning crystallizes only momentarily--in a particular passage, a progression, even a single note. And such moments can signify as little as a fleeting personal memory or as much as the whole of German music. Although absolute music emerged with a matrix of values--the integrity of the subject, the aesthetic autonomy of art, and the intrinsic worth of high culture--that are highly contested in musicology today, Hoeckner argues that we should not completely discard the ideal of a music that continues to offer moments of transcendence and liberation. Passionately and artfully written, Hoeckner's quest for an "essayistic musicology" displays an original intelligence willing to take interpretive risks. It is a provocative contribution to our knowledge about some of Europe's most important music--and to contemporary controversies over how music should be understood and experienced.
£85.50