Search results for ""zuleika""

'Set against the magical backdrop of Florence, this clever, subtle, fearless book is one to be relished.' Charlotte Mosley In the early summer of 1983, John Forde, a 24 year old American, arrives in Florence to begin work on a dissertation. He at once seeks out an immensely distinguished art historian, Sir Christopher Noble-Nolan, nearly half a century older than himself, by whom he has long been obsessed. By the end of that summer, John finds himself working for, living with and passionately in love with Sir Christopher. Without qualm, John definitively severs all ties to his past, the parched landscape of his middle-class childhood in Providence, Rhode Island and the oppressive pedantry of graduate school in New York and allies himself to the empyrean realm of Sir Christopher's large, art-filled, book-laden apartment in a Renaissance palace. From his first sighting of Sir Christopher, imposingly perched on a dais whilst delivering a lecture on Botticelli's illustrations to the Divine Comedy, John is convinced that 'he finally beheld his master and author', and there is no length to which he will not go to, no lie he will not tell, no debasement to which he will not submit in order to realise his dream of becoming Sir Christopher's beloved disciple. Told with brutal honesty and constructed with architectural precision, The Disciple unfolds over more than a decade, behind a veil of arch intellectual calm. It depicts a vanished world, yet menacingly lurking behind this civilised facade, seethes the underworld of John Forde's inchoate ambition, festering rancour and unvoiced longing. The Disciple is a tale of the inextricably entwined emotions of loyalty and betrayal, pedagogy and lies, trust and suspicion, love and hatred.

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The Stalker’s Tale follows three storylines (two set in fashionable, contemporary London, a third in 1930’s bohemian Fitzrovia & 1940’s post-occupation Paris), representing three lives, simultaneously estranged, yet entwined in a decades long tale of Stalking. Successful modern day portrait painter, Bianca Johnson, is forced to warily defend herself against relentless stalker, wealthy entrepreneur, Hesketh James (since married, with a disabled nine year old son), with whom she had a brief affair twenty-five years earlier. Bianca is determined, meanwhile, to boldly claim the freedom to live an unorthodox, secretive life with her frequently absent Italian film director husband, Leonardo Vescarro, while at the same time conducting a clandestine affair with her very first love, the London publisher, Stephen Marchant, to whom she was once engaged to be married. The novel’s numerous complex dramas are set against her fraught, sorrowful relationship with her estranged mother, the beautiful, turbulent Anya, whose wartime affair with the Parisian aristocrat, Charles de Courcelles, had led to the breakdown of her marriage to Bianca’s father, the water-colourist painter, William Johnson, who made his reputation in the 1930’s, followed by his war years in the Middle East. These three storylines plait together evenly throughout the novel, creating suspense, as Hesketh’s increasingly desperate and erratic behaviour finally culminates in an incoherent explosion of violence.

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The Queen has been associated with Windsor throughout her life and reign. She stayed at Windsor with her grandparents, King George V and Queen Mary, for Easter every year from 1928 to 1935, and she and Princess Margaret spent most of the Second World War there. Windsor had a special significance for The Queen and Prince Philip: they stayed at the Castle for weekends, for the Easter court, Ascot, and other times of the year. They settled there for the Covid-19 pandemic and Windsor is now The Queen's main residence. The Queen and Windsor showcases local photographer Gill Heppell's remarkable photographs of Windsor - of the Castle, the Park, the town and St. George's Chapel - and never before published images of Her Majesty The Queen at events in and around the town. The book also includes a chapter of photographs and commentary on the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, in June 2022. The book is introduced by an essay by celebrated Royal historian, Hugo Vickers, on the history of The Queen's relationship with Windsor. The photographs are also accompanied by contributions from key Windsor figures: Sir James Perowne (former Constable and Governor of the Castle), The Right Reverend David Conner (Dean of Windsor), Charlotte Manley (Chapter Clerk, College of St. George), Peter Wilkinson (The Queen's Cameraman), Terry Pendry (Her Majesty's Stud Groom and Manager), Paul Sedgwick (Deputy Ranger of Windsor Great Park) and The Reverend Canon Martin Poll (Domestic Chaplain to The Queen and Chaplain of The Great Park).

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David Ambrose’s fascination with the world of entertainment began aged five sitting under the stairs of an isolated rural cottage, listening to the radio. He realised there was a life out there beyond anything on offer in bleak post-war Lancashire. His enthusiasm for theatre and film failed to be derailed by a law degree from Oxford, where his first plays were performed while he was still an undergraduate. Three years later he was sitting with Orson Welles and Laurence Harvey shooting a major Roman epic for which he had written the screenplay. An international career followed, taking in theatre, films, and eventually a series of mind-bending novels which have been described as ‘Hitchcock meets Hawking’. Fifty years on Ambrose is still trying to work out how it all happened to that kid under the stairs with his radio. A Fate Worse than Hollywood is his attempt at an answer.

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In 1348, King Edward III created Britain’s oldest order of chivalry, the Order of the Garter. As high minded as he was muscular, he also founded a charity for impoverished men-at-arms, who came to be known as the Alms Knights (or Poor Knights). In 1833, their name was changed by William IV to the Military Knights of Windsor. Over the centuries, there have been about six hundred and fifty such knights (far fewer than there have been the Knights of the Garter). Their backgrounds and careers have been very varied: one was a freed slave, another had to bind Casanova over to keep the peace. Most have had a military background (three have held the Victoria Cross) – but there have been astrologers, crusaders, mad baronets, politicians, artists, and con artists. Men-At-Alms tells their stories, set against the history of their times.

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New interpretations of an art form ubiquitious in the Middle Ages. English alabasters played a seminal role in the artistic development of late medieval and early modern Europe. Carvings made of this lustrous white stone were sold throughout England and abroad, and as a result many survived the iconoclasm that destroyed so much else from this period. They are a unique and valuable witness to the material culture of the Middle Ages. This volume incorporates a variety of new approaches to these artefacts, employing methodologies drawn from a number of different disciplines. Its chapters explore a range of key points connected to alabasters: their origins, their general history and their social, cultural, intellectual and devotional contexts. ZULEIKA MURAT is a Research Fellow and Lecturer in the History of Medieval Art at the University of Padua. Contributors: Jennifer Alexander, Jon Bayliss, Claire Blakey, Stephanie De Roemer, Rachel King, AndrewKirkman, Aleksandra Lipinska, Zuleika Murat, Luca Palozzi, Sophie Phillips, Nigel Ramsay, Christina Welch, Philip Weller, Kim Woods, Michaela Zöschg

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A Companion to Josephus presents a collection of readings from international scholars that explore the works of the first century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. Represents the first single-volume collection of readings to focus on Josephus Covers a wide range of disciplinary approaches to the subject, including reception history Features contributions from 29 eminent scholars in the field from four continents Reveals important insights into the Jewish and Roman worlds at the moment when Christianity was gaining ground as a movement Named Outstanding Academic Title of 2016 by Choice Magazine, a publication of the American Library Association

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Celebrated by Matthew Arnold as the "city of the dreaming spires", Oxford has a long and illustrious history as one of Europe's oldest university towns. Its colleges, libraries and museums, ranging from the medieval to the modern, testify to the city's academic traditions and the dominant influence of "gown" over "town". But there is another Oxford, the city of car factories and housing estates, high-tech research and alternative culture. The University City: the seat of learning, inside the colleges, river and gardens, dons and students, "town and gown" conflict, the other university The Writer's City: Oxford loved and hated by Dr Johnson, Oscar Wilde and CS Lewis; Alice in Wonderland, Zuleika Dobson, and Inspector Morse. The Other Oxford: cars and marmalade; saints and sinners, museums and mausoleums, tramps and tourists.

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FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER'Wildly entertaining, deeply affecting' Ali SmithLondinium, AD 211. Zuleika is a modern girl living in an ancient world. She's a back-alley firecracker, a scruffy Nubian babe with tangled hair and bare feet - and she's just been married off a fat old Roman. Life as a teenage bride is no joke but Zeeks is a born survivor. She knows this city like the back of her hand: its slave girls and drag queens, its shining villas and rotting slums. She knows how to get by. Until one day she catches the eye of the most powerful man on earth, the Roman Emperor, and her trouble really starts...Silver-tongued and merry-eyed, this is a story in song and verse, a joyful mash-up of today and yesterday. Kaleidoscoping distant past and vivid present, The Emperor's Babe asks what it means to be a woman and to survive in this thrilling, brutal, breathless world.

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FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF GIRL, WOMAN, OTHERWINNER OF THE NESTA FELLOWSHIP AWARD 2003'Wildly entertaining, deeply affecting' Ali Smith, author of How to be both and AutumnA coming-of-age tale to make the muses themselves roar with laughter and weep for pity -- sassy, razor-sharp and transformative.Londinium, AD 211. Zuleika is a modern girl living in an ancient world. She's a back-alley firecracker, a scruffy Nubian babe with tangled hair and bare feet - and she's just been married off a fat old Roman. Life as a teenage bride is no joke but Zeeks is a born survivor. She knows this city like the back of her hand: its slave girls and drag queens, its shining villas and rotting slums. She knows how to get by. Until one day she catches the eye of the most powerful man on earth, the Roman Emperor, and her trouble really starts . . .Silver-tongued and merry-eyed, this is a story in song and verse, a joyful mash-up of today and yesterday. Kaleidoscoping distant past and vivid present, The Emperor's Babe asks what it means to be a woman and to survive in this thrilling, brutal, breathless world.

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Thames aficionado Robert Gibbings once wrote that ‘the quiet of an age-old river is like the slow turning of the pages of a well-loved book’. Writing the Thames tells a much-loved river’s story through the remarkable prose, poetry and illustration that it has inspired. In eight themed chapters it features historical events such as Julius Caesar’s crossing in 55 BCE and Elizabeth I’s stand against the Spanish at Tilbury, explorations of topographers who mapped, drew and painted the river and the many congenial riverside retreats for authors ranging from Francis Bacon, Thomas More and Alexander Pope to Thomas Love Peacock, William Morris and Henry James. A chapter on messing about in boats tells the story of William Hogarth’s impulsive five-day river trip with four inebriated friends and features satirical novels making fun of frenetic rowers (Zuleika Dobson) and young London men-about-town on camping holidays (Three Men in a Boat). The river has also inspired some of the best children’s literature (The Wind in the Willows) and naturalists such as Richard Jeffries and C.J. Cornish (A Naturalist on the Thames) have recorded the richness of its wildlife. But there are also dark undercurrents: Charles Dickens’s use of its waters as a symbol of death, Sax Rohmer’s Limehouse villain Dr Fu Manchu, and the many fictional criminals who dispose of corpses in its sinister depths in detective novels ranging from Sherlock Holmes to Inspector Morse. Beautifully illustrated, this book celebrates the writers who have helped to make England’s greatest river an enduring legend.

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'Generous, enjoyable and well informed.' Observer'500 expertly potted plots and personal comments on a wide range of pop and proper prose fiction.' The Times___________________________________________________________Ranging all the way from Aaron's Rod to Zuleika Dobson, via The Devil Rides Out and Middlemarch, literary connoisseur and sleuth John Sutherland offers his very personal guide to the most rewarding, most remarkable and, on occasion, most shamelessly enjoyable works of fiction ever written.He brilliantly captures the flavour of each work and assesses its relative merits and demerits. He shows how it fits into a broader context and he offers endless snippets of intriguing information: did you know, for example, that the Nazis banned Bambi or that William Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying on an upturned wheelbarrow; that Voltaire completed Candide in three days, or that Anna Sewell was paid £20 for Black Beauty? It is also effectively a history of the novel in 500 or so wittily informative, bite-sized pieces.Encyclopaedic and entertaining by turns, this is a wonderful dip-in book, whose opinions will inform and on occasion, no doubt, infuriate.__________________________________________________'Anyone hooked on fiction should be warned: this book will feed your addiction.' Mail on Sunday'A dazzling array of genres, periods, styles and tastes... chatty, insightful, unprejudiced (but not uncritical) and wise.' Times Literary Supplement

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From an Islamic perspective, although the ownership of wealth is with God, humans are gifted with wealth to manage it with the objective of benefiting the human society. Such guidance means that wealth management is a process involving the accumulation, generation, purification, preservation and distribution of wealth, to be conducted carefully in permissible ways. This book is the first to lay out a coherent framework on how wealth management should be conducted in compliance with guiding principles from edicts of a major world religion. The book begins by defining wealth from both a secular perspective, and an Islamic perspective, before describing how wealth needs to be earned in lawful ways, preserved and used to benefit the needs of community, with a small part of the wealth given away to charity, and the remainder managed in accordance with laws and common practices, as established by a majority consensus of scholars of the religion in historical times. Each section of the book has relevant chapters that discuss the theory, as well as the application and the challenges in Islamic wealth management in real and financial markets. This book will appeal to students and researchers of Islamic wealth management, certainly Islamic economics and finance in general; policy makers; and a range of industry practitioners, such as investment managers, financial planners, accountants and lawyers.Contributors include: S.O. Alhabshi, M. Ariff, G.Ç. Dolgun, M.H. Dolgun, M. El Khatib, J. Farrar, F. Habib, A. Lahsasna, Z. Mahomed, A. Mirakhor, S. Mohamad, M.I.A. Mohsin, E.S. Rasid, S.H.A. Razak, S.A. Rosly, Z.M. Sori, J.A. Thahir, A. Zuleika

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