Search results for ""author michael dean""

A Diamond in the Dust is a fictionalised account of the life of Charles I from his birth to the age of twenty-eight. It shows England's most maligned monarch, Charles I, as he really was. Dominated by his debauched father, James I, he grew up a diffident, stuttering, dreamy figure, wracked by a crippling disease - rickets. But he was lifted and defined by his passion for all the arts, especially theatre and painting. Brutal real-life caught up with him, however, spinning him at the centre of a whirlwind of love, art, war and even murder, as he struggled unsuccessfully to keep control of his life and his kingdom. This first novel in the trilogy The Stuarts: Love, Art, War, shows Charles I growing up and finding love. It puts the vilified king in a different light. Under the wing of his precocious sister Elizabeth he blossoms and his interest in culture and the arts grows into a passion or some would say an obsession.

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Recommended for readers of Peter Ackroyd and Hilary Mantel, I, Hogarth charts the painter's life story, carefully blending the facts of his life with fiction, from a childhood in debtor's prison to his death in the arms of his wife.

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Set in Boston and London over sixteen years, True Freedom is a panoramic account of how America came to fight Britain for its freedom in the eighteenth century. The Boston scene is set though vignettes about the people who shaped its history. Thomas Hutchinson, sixth generation of Boston aristocracy, whose wealth is seeming unassailable. Self-taught medical doctor Thomas Young an idealist meeting his hero Samuel Adams, who is determined to have his revolution. Their Sons of Liberty and Mohucks play a key role, all the time supported from London by the radical politician John Wilkes. True Freedom is full of vivid period details, you can almost smell parliament in London or hear the clerks scribbling away in the American Department. So too, in Boston, you can picture Faneuil Hall, experience the might of the British navy in the harbour, and feel the grit and determination of the Boston people to defy parliament in London. Together they form facets of the main character: the Boston uprising. The facts are all there but by focussing on personal relationships especially the one between the brothers Pownall, Michael Dean takes us right to the heart of identity and sovereignty.

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The White Crucifixion starts with Chagall's difficult birth in Vitebsk 1887, in the present-day Belarus, and tells the unlikely story of how the eldest son of a herring schlepper became enrolled in art school where he quickly gained a reputation as `Moyshe, the painting wonder'. The novel paints an authentic picture of a Russian town divided by belief and wealth, rumours of pogroms never far away, yet bustling with talented young artists. In 1913 Chagall relished the opportunity to move to Paris to take up residence in the artist colony The Hive (La Ruche). The Yiddish-speaking artists (Ecole Juive) living there were all poor. The Hive had no electric light, or running water and yet many of its artists were to become famous, among them Amedeo Modigliani and Osip Zadkine. The novel vividly portrays the dynamics of an artist colony, its pettiness, friendships and the constant battle to find the peace and quiet to work. In 1914 Chagall and Bella make what's supposed to be a fleeting visit to his beloved Vitebsk, only to get trapped there by the outbreak of the first world war, the subsequent Russian revolution, and the establishment of the communist regime which is increasingly hostile towards artists like Chagall. Yet, Chagall keeps on painting, and the novel provides a fascinating account of what inspired some of his greatest painting. He manages to return to France and is reunited with his paintings only to be thwarted by yet another world war which proves disastrous for the people he knew in Vitebsk which include his uncle Neuch, the original `fiddler on the roof'. The White Crucifixion is a fictionalised account of the rollercoaster life of one of the most enigmatic artists of the twentieth century.

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"The most consistent of all series in terms of language control, length, and quality of story." David R. Hill, Director of the Edinburgh Project on Extensive Reading.

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An outspoken opponent of pro-Russian, authoritarian, and far-right streams in contemporary Czech society, Martin C. Putna received a great deal of media attention when he ironically dedicated the Czech edition of Rus–Ukraine–Russia to Miloš Zeman—the pro-Russian president of the Czech Republic. This sense of irony, combined with an extraordinary breadth of scholarly knowledge, infuses Putna’s book.Examining key points in Russian cultural and spiritual history, Rus–Ukraine–Russia is essential reading for those wishing to understand the current state of Russia and Ukraine—the so-called heir to an “alternative Russia.” Putna uses literary and artistic works to offer a rich analysis of Russia as a cultural and religious phenomenon: tracing its development from the arrival of the Greeks in prehistoric Crimea to its invasion by “little green men” in 2014; explaining the cultural importance in Russ of the Vikings as well as Pussy Riot; exploring central Russian figures from St. Vladimir the Great to Vladimir Putin.Unique in its postcolonial perspective, this is not merely a history of Russia or of Russian religion. This book presents Russia as a complex mesh of national, religious, and cultural (especially countercultural) traditions—with strong German, Mongol, Jewish, Catholic, Polish, and Lithuanian influences—a force responsible for creating what we identify as Eastern Europe.

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