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Showing 1 - 20 of 12382 items
By Enid A. Goldberg, Norman Itzkowitz. 2007
Loyalty meant nothing to Vlad Dracula, a Transylvanian prince who'd sacrifice anything to stay in power. He ruled with a…
thirst for blood so terrible that the most famous vampire in literature was named after him.By Michael Crichton. 1970
By Vachel Lindsay.
By Axel Munthe. 1929
This `dream-laden and spooked? (Marina Warner, London Review of Books) story is to many one of the best-loved books of…
the twentieth century. Munthe spent many years working as a doctor in Southern Italy, labouring unstintingly during typhus, cholera and earthquake disasters. It was during this period that he came across the ruined Tiberian villa of San Michele, perched high above the glittering Bay of Naples on Capri. With the help of Mastro Nicola and his three sons, and with only a charcoal sketch roughly drawn on a garden wall to guide them, Munthe devoted himself to rebuilding the house and chapel. Over five long summers they toiled under a sapphire-blue sky, their mad-cap project leading them to buried skeletons and ancient coins, and to hilarious encounters with a rich cast of vividly-drawn villagers. The Story of San Michele reverberates with the mesmerising hum of a long, hot Italian summer. Peopled with unforgettable characters, it is as brilliantly enjoyable and readable today as it was upon first publication. The book quickly became an international bestseller and has now been translated into more than 30 languages; it is today an established classic, and sales number in the millions.By Jessica Queller. 2008
A timely, affecting memoir from the front lines of medical science: When genetics can predict how we may die, how…
then do we decide how to live? Eleven months after her mother succumbs to cancer, Jessica Queller has herself tested for the BRCA “breast cancer” gene mutation. The results come back positive, putting her at a terrifyingly elevated risk of developing breast cancer before the age of fifty and ovarian cancer in her lifetime. Thirty-four, unattached, and yearning for marriage and a family of her own, Queller faces an agonizing choice: a lifetime of vigilant screenings and a commitment to fight the disease when caught, or its radical alternative—a prophylactic double mastectomy that would effectively restore life to her, even as it would challenge her most closely held beliefs about body image, identity, and sexuality. Superbly informed and armed with surprising wit and style, Queller takes us on an odyssey from the frontiers of science to the private interiors of a woman’s life. Pretty Is What Changesis an absorbing account of how she reaches her courageous decision and its physical, emotional, and philosophical consequences. It is also an incredibly moving story of what we inherit from our parents and how we fashion it into the stuff of our own lives, of mothers and daughters and sisters, and of the sisterhood that forms when women are united in battle against a common enemy. Without flinching, Jessica Queller answers a question we may one day face for ourselves: If genes can map our fates and their dark knowledge is offered to us, will we willingly trade innocence for the information that could save our lives?By Brian Taylor, Florian Freistetter. 2018
A blunt and humorous profile of Isaac Newton focusing on his disagreeable personality and showing that his offputting qualities were…
key to his scientific breakthroughs.Isaac Newton may have been the most important scientist in history, but he was a very difficult man. Put more bluntly, he was an asshole, an SOB, or whatever epithet best describes an abrasive egomaniac. In this colorful profile of the great man--warts and all--astronomer Florian Freistetter shows why this damning assessment is inescapable.Newton's hatred of fellow scientist Robert Hooke knew no bounds and he was strident in expressing it. He stole the work of colleague John Flamsteed, ruining his career without a second thought. He carried on a venomous battle with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over the invention of calculus, vilifying him anonymously while the German scientist was alive and continuing the attacks after he died. All evidence indicates that Newton was conniving, sneaky, resentful, secretive, and antisocial. Compounding the mystery of his strange character is that he was also a religious fanatic, a mystery-monger who spent years studying the Bible and predicted the apocalypse.While documenting all of these unusual traits, the author makes a convincing case that Newton would have never revolutionized physics if he hadn't been just such an obnoxious person. This is a fascinating character study of an astounding genius and--if truth be told--an almighty asshole as well.By George Mackay Brown. 2001
These unknown and sometimes unexpected poems by the Orcadian master have all his characteristic simplicity and power.In these poems readers…
will find new ideas previously unexplored, but they will also find those qualities that made George Mackay Brown different from anyone else.By George Brown. 1992
A compilation of poetry written by George Mackay Brown over a 30-year period, which represents his favourite work. These poems…
reflect the richness of the Orkney Island community where he lives, a community permeated with its past and still close to the natural world.By Matthew Strickland. 2016
This first modern study of Henry the Young King, eldest son of Henry II but the least known Plantagenet monarch,…
explores the brief but eventful life of the only English ruler after the Norman Conquest to be created co-ruler in his father's lifetime. Crowned at fifteen to secure an undisputed succession, Henry played a central role in the politics of Henry II's great empire and was hailed as the embodiment of chivalry. Yet, consistently denied direct rule, the Young King was provoked first into heading a major rebellion against his father, then to waging a bitter war against his brother Richard for control of Aquitaine, dying before reaching the age of thirty having never assumed actual power. In this remarkable history, Matthew Strickland provides a richly colored portrait of an all-but-forgotten royal figure tutored by Thomas Becket, trained in arms by the great knight William Marshal, and incited to rebellion by his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine, while using his career to explore the nature of kingship, succession, dynastic politics, and rebellion in twelfth-century England and France.By A. C. Seward.
The Cambridge Philosophical Society collected this series of essays in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin…
and the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. Aiming to be accessible to the 'educated layman', the eminent contributors reviewed the impact of Darwin's ideas in many spheres. They addressed contemporary (1909) attitudes, Darwin's theories and their far-reaching implications, and the progress of new lines of research that had emerged from them. The diversity of views among biologists regarding both the origin of species and the best directions for further research is clearly evident. In his work, Darwin had sought only the truth, writing 'Absolute accuracy is the hardest merit to attain, and the highest merit. Any deviation is ruin.' However dramatic the controversies he stirred, what shines from these essays is profound admiration for both Darwin's intellect and the quality of his character.By Vicente Aleixandre, Lewis Hyde. 1979
By Sophie Chenoweth. 2016
This book is an ode to the fragrant, yet rough-hewn Australian bush. By delving into its pages, you will be…
transported to a parallel realm where flannel flowers sing, cockatoos choreograph and paperbark trees seduce. A memoir of sorts, this poignant and ethereal collection of poems celebrates the beauty, the harshness and the resilience of this ancient land and its unforgettable inhabitants. In addition, you'll be serenaded by harps and fairies, meander through time in a yellow dinghy and stand in quiet awe as a ballerina beguiles. Refreshingly honest, this waltz down memory lane is intensely emotional but has a lightness that will soothe even on the blusteriest of days. Illustrated with sensitively taken photographs, it is a keepsake you will cherish for many years to come.By Jennifer De Pippo. 2014
Three days before her eighth birthday, Jennifer De Pippo was nearly killed in a car accident which claimed the life…
of her mother and left her with brain injuries so severe that the doctors said she would never walk or talk again. Join Jennifer as she describes the highs and lows of her life-long struggle to prove the doctors wrong, and to rebuild herself into a functioning, fun-loving and fast-thinking adult.Through sheer determination, Jennifer has succeeded in achieving what was considered impossible, turning every day of her life into an unexpected miracle.By Jane Mead. 2016
Mead's fifth collection candidly and openly explores the long process that is death. These resonant poems discover what it means…
to live, die, and come home again. We're drawn in by sorrow and grief, but also the joys of celebrating a long life and how simple it is to find laughter and light in the quietest and darkest of moments.By Linnie M. Wolfe. 1973
Working closely with Muir’s family and with his papers, Wolfe was able to create a full portrait of her subject,…
not only as America’s firebrand conservationist and founder of the national park system, but also as husband, father, and friend. All readers who have admired Muir’s ruggedly individualistic lifestyle, and those who wish a greater appreciation for the history of environmental preservation in America, will be enthralled and enlightened by this splendid biography. The story follows Muir from his ancestral home in Scotland, through his early years in the harsh Wisconsin wilderness, to his history-making pilgrimage to California. This book, originally published in 1945 and based in large part on Wolfe’s personal interviews with people who knew and worked with Muir, is one that could never be written again. It is, and will remain, the standard Muir biography. Pulitzer Prize WinnerBy Michael Bloch. 1988
In this brilliant and authoritative work, based on their private correspondence and papers, Michael Bloch describes the feud which developed…
between the Duke of Windsor and the British royal establishment after the Abdication, the humiliations which were suffered by the ex-King and his wife, and the plots to ensure that they remained in exile.By Fannie Isabel Sherrick.
Girlhood, the dearest time of joy and love, The sunny spring of gladness and of peace, The time that joins…
its links with heaven above, And all that's pure below; a running ease Of careless thought beguiles the murmuring stream Of girlish life, and as some sweet, vague dream, The fleeting days go by; fair womanhood Comes oft to lure the girlish feet away, But by the brooklet still they love to stray, Nor long to seek the world's engulfing flood.By Ishmael Reed. 1988
By Ruth Rouff. 2016
Where is Pagan Heaven? It's all around us. In our unceasing fascination with a movie star who died over half…
a century ago. In an inner-city youth who muses over the meaning of the word philosophy. In a statue of the Virgin Mary sitting atop a Coke machine. On a street where Walt Whitman once lived. On a lesbian-only cruise ship off the coast of Alaska. In an unusual melding of narrative poetry and spot-on prose, Pagan Heaven offers a wry take on the absurdities of modern American life, all the while celebrating human uniqueness whenever, wherever, and however it's found.By Amiya Bhushan Majumdar, Kalpana Bardhan. 1997
The novel, which has at its heart an interwoven set of three different and exquisite love stories, is a sophisticated…
account of the subterranean power politics of transition in colonial Indian rule.