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Piece of My Heart
Shuggie Bain
Burnt Sugar: Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020
Get Out of Your Head: Stopping the Spiral of Toxic Thoughts
The Cousins
A Time to Lie
Dark Tides: The compelling new novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Tidelands
The Crown: The Official History Behind Season 3: Political Scandal, Personal Struggle and the Years
The Harpy
Anything is Possible: Be Brave, Be Kind and Follow Your Dreams
'Vivam' is the very last word of Ovid's masterpiece, the Metamorphoses: 'I shall live.' If we're still reading it two millennia after Ovid's death, this is by definition a remarkably accurate prophecy. Ovid was not the only ancient author with aspirations to be read for eternity, but no poet of the Greco-Roman world has had a deeper or more lasting impact on subsequent literature and art than he can claim. In the present day no Greek or Roman poet is as accessible, to artists, writers, or the general reader: Ovid's voice remains a compellingly contemporary one, as modern as it seemed to his contemporaries in Augustan Rome. But Ovid was also a man of his time, his own story fatally entwined with that of the first emperor Augustus, and the poetry he wrote channels in its own way the cultural and political upheavals of the contemporary city, its public life, sexual mores, religion, and urban landscape, while also exploiting the superbly rich store of poetic convention that Greek literature and his Roman predecessors had bequeathed to him. Llewelyn Morgan explores Ovid's immense influence on later literature and art, spanning from Shakespeare to Bernini. Throughout, Ovid's poetry is revealed as enduringly scintillating, his personal story compelling, and the issues his life and poetry raise of continuing relevance and interest.
Show moreThe definitive account of pop music in the mid-eighties, from Prince and Madonna to the underground hip-hop, indie rock, and club scenes Everybody knows the hits of 1984 - pop music's greatest year. From 'Thriller' to 'Purple Rain,' 'Hello' to 'Against All Odds,' 'What's Love Got to Do with It' to 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,' these iconic songs continue to dominate advertising, karaoke nights, and the soundtracks for film classics (Boogie Nights) and TV hits (Stranger Things). But the story of that thrilling, turbulent time, an era when Top 40 radio was both the leading edge of popular culture and a moral battleground, has never been told with the full detail it deserves - until now. Can't Slow Down is the definitive portrait of the exploding world of mid-eighties pop and the time it defined, from Cold War anxiety to the home-computer revolution. Big acts like Michael Jackson (Thriller), Prince (Purple Rain), Madonna (Like a Virgin), Bruce Springsteen (Born in the U.S.A.), and George Michael (Wham!'s Make It Big) rubbed shoulders with the stars of the fermenting scenes of hip-hop, indie rock, and club music. Rigorously researched, mapping the entire terrain of American pop, with crucial side trips to the UK and Jamaica, from the biz to the stars to the upstarts and beyond, Can't Slow Down is a vivid journey to the very moment when pop was remaking itself, and the culture at large - one hit at a time.
Show moreGeneral George S. Patton was America's antihero of the Second World War. Driven by an innate sense of duty, both to his family's great military tradition and to his country, he was fixated on the notion of reaching the status of a military legend and driven by outdated notions of honor. Simultaneously brilliant and deeply flawed, he could be daring and noble and then petulant and cruel, lacking in the diplomatic grace and tact that defined many of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, he was the kind of guy the Allies needed to get the dirty work done on the ground, all the while also being the kind of guy they wanted to get rid of or silence once the fighting was over. Outspoken about the conduct of the war and eager to identify the Soviet Union as the next great threat to American democracy and world peace, he was relieved of command, and he vowed to "take the gag off" after the war and tell the intimate truth about controversial decisions. In this historical analysis, Robert Orlando explores whether a man of such flawed character could have been right about his claim that the Cold War was inevitable and investigates the questions that still abound about Patton's rise and fall-including his suspicious death.
Show morePierre Clostermann DFC was one of the oustanding Allied aces of the Second World War. A Frenchman who flew with the RAF, he survived over 420 operational sorties, shooting down scores of enemy aircraft while friends and comrades lost their lives in the deadly skies above Europe. The Big Show, his extraordinary account of the war, has been described as the greatest pilot's memoir of WWII.
Show moreWomen have a long history of keeping the lights burning, from tending ancient altar flames or bonfires to modern-day lighthouse keeping. Yet most of their stories are little-known. Guiding Lights includes true stories from around the world, chronicling the lives of the extraordinary women who mind the world’s storm-battered towers. From Hannah Sutton and her partner Grant, the two caretakers living alone on Tasmania’s wild Maatsuyker Island, to Karen Zacharuk, the keeper in charge of Cape Beale on Canada’s Vancouver Island, where bears, cougars and wolves roam, the lives of lighthouse women are not for the faint of heart. Hear accounts spanning the history of lighthouse keeping, from the dramatic torching of Puysegur Point, one of NZ’s most inhospitable lighthouses; ‘haunted’ lighthouses across the US and their tragic tales; lighthouse accidents and emergencies around the world; and two of the world’s most legendary lighthouse women: Ida Lewis (US) and Grace Darling (UK), who risked their lives to save others. The book also explores our dual perception of lighthouses: are they comforting and romantic beacons symbolising hope and trust, or storm-lashed and forbidding towers with echoes of lonely, mad keepers? Whatever our perception, stories of women’s courage and dedication in minding the lights — then and now — continue to capture our imagination and inspire.
Show moreBlood and Money tells the story of money as a history of violence and human bondage. In most accounts of the origins of money we are offered pleasant tales in which it arises to the mutual benefit of all parties as a result of barter. In this groundbreaking study David McNally reveals the true story of money's origins and development as one of violence and human bondage. Money's emergence and its transformation are shown to be intimately connected to the buying and selling of slaves and the waging of war. Blood and Money demonstrates the ways that money has "internalized" its violent origins, making clear that it has become a concentrated force of social power and domination. Where Adam Smith observed that monetary wealth represents "command over labor," this paradigm shifting book amends his view to define money as comprising the command over persons and their bodies.
Show moreFrom the author of the No. 1 bestseller The Silk Roads: A New History of the World The First Crusade is one of the best-known and most written-about events in history but in this new book Dr Peter Frankopan asks vital questions that have never been posed before. ·This is the only book to address the history of the First Crusade from the perspective of the east, examining the role of the Byzantine Empire and its ruler, Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. ·Peter Frankopan's focus on the imperial city of Constantinople and events in Asia Minor is the result of a major reinterpretation of eastern sources which reveal the crucial role of Byzantium in the genesis and execution of the First Crusade. Frankopan's revelation of a close cooperation between the pope in Rome and the emperor in Constantinople constitutes an important revision and brand new evidence of the history of the Church. This book questions the traditional view that the Catholic and Orthodox churches had broken definitively in 1054. ·Rather than viewing the Crusades as a conflict between Christianity and Islam, the book reveals a complex triangular relationship between the west, Byzantium and the Muslim world. So, The First Crusade constitutes a paradigm shift - it radically re-shapes our understanding of the aims, expectations, and long-term implications of the First Crusade and the Crusades as a whole. Most importantly it answers why was there a First Crusade? "Scholarly and yet accessible, and unashamedly partisan, The First Crusade, as any vibrant history should, is bound to set a lot of feathers flying." DAILY TELEGRAPH Convincing and accessible, Sunday Times A nuanced and often counterintuitive story of power politics, international diplomacy and war and, ultimately that very rare thing - a truly fresh interpretation of an old story, Time Out Frankopan's qualities as a historian and writer are of a high order, BBC History Magazine The best book on the First Crusade ever written, Prof. Paul Chevedden
Show moreHistorians find the Middle Ages a period shrouded in mystery. On the one hand, sources speak of greedy kings and corrupt popes who flourished during a time of widespread hunger, disease and servitude. On the other, nobler thoughts began to flourish. Led by their blind faith in the word of god, holy orders of knights attempted to protect the weak. The most powerful was the Knights Templar, loved by the people and whose code was the epitome of honour. But the knights slowly succumbed to dark forces – if contemporary rumours are to be believed. The order made alliances with Muslim princes, performed devilish rituals and were corrupted by their immense wealth. And then one fateful day the knighthood’s most dangerous enemy decided to strike – with fatal consequences. This is the story of the rise and fall of the knights, their life on and off the battlefield, and the hunt for their legendary treasure. - World History invites you on a fascinating journey to bygone eras, allowing you to explore the greatest events in history. Take a trip back in time - to the frontlines of World War II, to the Viking raids, and the religious rituals of Ancient Egypt. World History is for everyone who would like to know more about the exciting and dramatic events of the past.
Show more'As a narrator, the reverence and tenderness Dyson communicates in his letters--addressed to victims of racist violence Elijah McClain, Emmett Till, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, Hadiya Pendleton, Sandra Bland, and the Rev. Clementa Pinckney--invoke the experience of listening in on a holy epistle. Don't miss this.' -- AudioFile Magazine This program is read by Michael Eric Dyson. From the New York Times bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop, a passionate call to America to finally reckon with race and start the journey to redemption. The night of May 25, 2020 changed America. George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed during an arrest in Minneapolis when a white cop suffocated him. The video of that night’s events went viral, sparking the largest protests in the nation’s history and the sort of social unrest we have not seen since the sixties. While Floyd’s death was certainly the catalyst, (heightened by the fact that it occurred during a pandemic whose victims were disproportionately of color) it was in truth the fuse that lit an ever-filling powder keg. Long Time Coming grapples with the cultural and social forces that have shaped our nation in the brutal crucible of race. In five beautifully argued chapters—each addressed to a black martyr from Breonna Taylor to Rev. Clementa Pinckney—Dyson traces the genealogy of anti-blackness from the slave ship to the street corner where Floyd lost his life—and where America gained its will to confront the ugly truth of systemic racism. Ending with a poignant plea for hope, Dyson’s exciting new book points the way to social redemption. Long Time Coming is a necessary guide to help America finally reckon with race. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press “Antiracist demonstrations have been like love notes to the martyrs of racist terror and anti-Blackness. Michael Eric Dyson writes out these love notes in this powerfully illuminating, heart-wrenching, and enlightening book. Long Time Coming is right on time.” —Ibram X. Kendi, bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist “Crushingly powerful, Long Time Coming is an unfiltered Marlboro of black pain.” —Isabel Wilkerson, author of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents 'Michael Eric Dyson is one of the nation’s most thoughtful and critical thinkers in social inequality and the demands of justice. Long Time Coming, his latest formidable, compelling book, has much to offer on our nation’s crucial need for racial reckoning and the way forward.' —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy
Show moreAn unforgettable history of French intelligence agents and courageous British pilots who risked everything in the fight against Hitler! From 1941 to 1944, Bignor Manor, a farmhouse in Sussex provided board and lodging for men and women of the French Resistance before they were flown by moonlight into occupied France. Barbara Bertram, whose husband was a conducting officer for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), became hostess for these daring agents and their pilots during their brief stopovers in their house. But who were these men and women that passed through the Bertram's house? And what activities did they conduct whilst in France that meant that so many of them never returned? Edward Wake-Walker charts the experiences of numerous agents, such as Gilbert Renault, Christian Pineau, and Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, and the networks of operatives that they created that provided top-secret intelligence on German defences and naval bases, U-boats, as well as Hitler,s devastating new weapons, the V-1 and V-2 flying bombs.
Show moreThe second volume in a new, immensely readable narrative of the rise and catastrophic fall of the Nazi regime by a respected expert on the Third Reich. At the beginning of 1940 Germany was at the pinnacle of its power. By May 1945 Hitler was dead and Germany had suffered a disastrous defeat. Hitler had failed to achieve his aim of making Germany a super power and had left her people to cope with the endless shame of the Holocaust. In The Hitler Years ~ Disaster 1940-1945, Professor Frank McDonough charts the dramatic change of fortune for the Third Reich, and challenges long-held accounts of the Holocaust and Germany's ultimate defeat. Despite Hitler's grand ambitions and the successful early stages of the Third Reich's advances into Europe, Frank McDonough argues that Germany was only ever a middle-ranking power and never truly stood a chance against the combined forces of the Allies. 2020 Head of Zeus
Show moreNuclear weapons have not been used in anger since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Yet even after the Cold War, the Bomb is still the greatest threat facing humankind. As President Bill Clinton's first secretary of defense, Les Aspin, put it: 'The Cold War is over, the Soviet Union is no more. But the post-Cold War world is decidedly not post-nuclear.' For all the efforts to reduce nuclear stockpiles, the Bomb is here to stay. This Very Short Introduction looks at the science of nuclear weapons and how they differ from conventional weapons. Tracing the story of the nuclear bomb, Joseph Siracusa chronicles the race to acquire the H-bomb, a thermonuclear weapon with revolutionary implications; and the history of early arms control, nuclear deterrence, and non-proliferation. He also tracks the development of nuclear weapons from the origins of the Cold War in 1945 to the end of Moscow-dominated Communism in 1991, and examines the promise and prospect of missile defense, including Ronald Reagan's 'Star Wars' and George W. Bush's National Missile Defense. This third edition includes a new chapter on the development of nuclear weapons and the policies they have generated since the end of the Cold War.
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