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The Galliard: The Great Love Of Mary Queen Of Scots
by Margaret IrwinQueen of Scotland at six days old. Queen of France at seventeen years old. A widow at eighteen. The young and trusting Mary, Queen of Scots, is sailing home to her kingdom after years in exile. The danger from her cousin, the English Queen, has not lessened since then. Religious divides threaten to tear the nation apart and, across the border, Elizabeth keenly watches this new threat to her throne. Amid the furious turmoil and uncertainty in her Scottish kingdom, Mary finds she has one loyal servant James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, a glorious, rash and hazardous young man known to all as the Galliard. In Bothwell's courage and love for her, Mary finds serenity, and though fate works against them, no force can conquer their spirit. This stunning novel from the acclaimed author of Young Bess breathes new life into the little known story of the great love of Mary, Queen of Scots.
One Three One: A Time-Shifting Gnostic Hooligan Road Novel
by Julian Cope"Welcome to Sardinia: my hell, my home, my prison, my meditation these past sixteen years. What a place to die. But that's precisely why I was back."When drugged-up Time Traveller and '80s musical burnout Rock Section and his fellow English hooligans get kidnapped during Italia '90, there are ruinous implications. But now Rock has returned to Sardinia one final time to settle some scores and uncover the truth. He believes only Dutch cult leader Judge Barry Hertzog, still incarcerated on the island for the crime, can provide the answers. But through prescription drugs, the persistence of his driver Anna and a quest for the hidden ancient doorways strewn around Sardinia's only highway, the 131, Rock will discover that a greater truth awaits him. Judgement, consequences, hoodwinking on a grand scale, Gnosticism versus agnosticism...131 is a Gnostic whodunit that pursues readers' memories of all previous fiction into a peat bog and impales them with seven-foot-long pikes.
A Want of Kindness: A Novel of Queen Anne
by Joanne LimburgLonglisted for the Historical Writers Association debut novel award 2016.Every time I see the King and the Queen, I am reminded of what it is I have done, and then I am afraid, I am beyond all expression afraid. The wicked, bawdy Restoration court is no place for a child princess. Ten-year-old Anne cuts an odd figure: a sickly child, she is drawn towards improper pursuits. Cards, sweetmeats, scandal and gossip with her Ladies of the Bedchamber figure large in her life. But as King Charles's niece, Anne is also a political pawn, who will be forced to play her part in the troubled Stuart dynasty. As Anne grows to maturity, she is transformed from overlooked Princess to the heiress of England. Forced to overcome grief for her lost children, the political manoeuvrings of her sister and her closest friends and her own betrayal of her father, she becomes one of the most complex and fascinating figures of English history.
Every Note Played: From the bestselling author of Still Alice
by Lisa GenovaA virtuoso performance by the bestselling author of Still Alice, Lisa Genova delivers a stunning novel of finding harmony amidst the most tragic of situations.An accomplished concert pianist, Richard has already suffered many losses in his life: the acrimonious divorce from his ex-wife, Karina; the estrangement of his daughter, Grace; and now, a devastating diagnosis. ALS. The relentlessly progressive paralysis of ALS begins in the cruellest way possible - in his hands. As Richard becomes more and more locked inside his body and can no longer play piano or live on his own, Karina steps in as his reluctant caregiver. Paralysed in a different way, Karina is trapped within a prison of excuses and blame, stuck in an unfulfilling life as an after-school piano teacher, afraid to pursue the path she abandoned as a young woman. As Richard's muscles, voice and breath fade, the two struggle to reconcile their past before it's too late. With a strong musical sensibility and the staggering insight of Jojo Moyes' Me Before You, Lisa Genova has delivered a masterful exploration of what it means to find yourself within the most shattering of circumstances.
The Folly
by Ivan VladislavićMr and Mrs Malgas are going quietly about their lives when a mysterious squatter appears on the vacant plot next to their home. Arriving with portmanteau in hand and a head full of extraordinary ideas, the stranger at once begins to fashion tools and cutlery from old iron and rubbish. Soon he enlists Mr Malgas’s help: drawn in by the stranger's conviction, Mr Malgas clears the land, all the while struggling to catch sight of the grand mansion that is supposedly springing up around them. His vision, however, continues to fail him - until, one day, it doesn't. When The Folly appeared in South Africa in 1993, with its story of the seductive and dangerous illusions language can breed, it was read as an evocative allegory of the rise and fall of apartheid. Vladislavić’s remarkable first novel is sure to strike new chords for contemporary readers.
Time Present and Time Past
by Deirdre MaddenFintan Buckley is a pleasant, rather conventional and unimaginative man, who works as a legal adviser in an import/export firm in Dublin. He lives in Howth and is married to Colette. They have two sons who are at university, and a small daughter. As he goes about his life, working and spending time with his family, Fintan begins to experience states of altered consciousness and auditory hallucinations, which seem to take him out of a linear experience of time. He becomes interested in how we remember or imagine the past, an interest trigged by becoming aware of early photography, particularly early colour photography. He also finds himself thinking more about his own past, including time spent holidaying in the north of Ireland as a child with his father's family. Over the years he has become distanced from them, and in the course of the novel this link is re-established and helps to bring him understanding and peace, although in a most unexpected way. Time Present and Time Past, Deirdre Madden's eighth novel for adults, is about time: about how not just daily life and one's own, or one's family's past, intersect with each other.
Anda (The\college Collection #3)
by Georgina JonasAnda is half Dutch and she has lived all over the world. Will she want to stay put when she goes to college?
Alone in Berlin (Modern Plays)
by Alistair BeatonA gripping portrait of life in wartime Berlin and a vividly theatrical study of how paranoia can warp a society gripped by the fear of the night-time knock on the door.Based on true events, Hans Fallada's Alone In Berlin follows a quietly courageous couple, Otto and Anna Quangel who, in dealing with their own heartbreak, stand up to the brutal reality of the Nazi regime. With the smallest of acts, they defy Hitler's rule with extraordinary bravery, facing the gravest of consequences.Translated and Adapted by Alistair Beaton (Feelgood, The Trial Of Tony Blair), this timely story of the moral power of personal resistance sees the Gestapo launch a massive hunt for the perpetrators and Otto and Anna finding themselves players in a deadly game of cat and mouse.This edition was published to coincide with the world premiere at Royal and Derngate Theatre in February 2020.
Robert B. Parker's Blood Feud (A Sunny Randall Mystery)
by Mike LupicaThe seventh Sunny Randall mysteryRobert B. Parker's iconic and irresistible PI Sunny Randall is back, and the stakes are higher than ever as she races to protect her ex-husband - and his Mafia family - from the vengeful plan of a mysterious rival.Sunny Randall is 'on' again with Richie Burke, the ex-husband she never stopped loving and never seemed to be able to let go, despite her discomfort with his Mafia connections. When Richie is shot and nearly killed, Sunny is dragged into the thick of his family's business as she searches for answers and tries to stave off a mob war. But as the bullets start flying in Boston's mean streets, Sunny finds herself targeted by the deranged mastermind of the plot against Richie's family, whose motive may be far more personal than she could have anticipated...'Lupica, an award-winning sports columnist, author of 40 books, and longtime friend of the late Parker, nails the Sunny Randall character and the Boston criminal milieu that Parker created' - Booklist'Parker can spin a tale with the best of them - most of the time, he is the best of them' - New York TimesLook out for the rest of the Sunny Randall mysteries: Family Honour, Perish Twice, Shrink Rap, Melancholy Baby, Blue Screen and Spare Change, plus two brand new additions to the series by Mike Lupica, Robert B. Parker's Blood Feud and Robert B. Parker's Grudge MatchFinished all the Sunny Randall mysteries? Search for the Spenser series and the Jesse Stone series to meet Robert B. Parker's other iconic detectives!
Murder at the British Museum: London's famous museum holds a deadly secret… (Museum Mysteries Ser. #2)
by Jim EldridgeLONDON’S FAMOUS MUSEUM HOLDS A DEADLY SECRET...1894, London. Professor Lance Pickering had been due to give a talk on the British Museum’s Age of King Arthur exhibition, when his brutally stabbed body is discovered. Having forged a strong reputation working on the infamous Jack the Ripper case, Daniel Wilson is called in to solve the mystery, and he brings his expertise and archaeologist Abigail Fenton with him.But it isn’t long before the museum becomes the site of another fatality and the pair face mounting pressure to deliver results. With their investigation hampered by persistent journalists, local vandals and a fanatical society, Wilson and Fenton must race against time to salvage the reputation of the museum and catch a murderer desperate for revenge.
Pink Mist
by Owen SheersWinner of Wales Book of the Year Pink Mist is a verse-drama about three young soldiers from Bristol who are deployed to Afghanistan. School friends still in their teens, Arthur, Hads and Taff each have their own reasons for enlisting. Within a short space of time they return to the women in their lives (a mother, a wife, a girlfriend), all of whom must now share the psychological and physical aftershocks of their service. A work of great dramatic power, documentary integrity and emotional intensity, Pink Mist uses everyday yet heightened speech to excavate the human cost of modern warfare. Drawing upon interviews with soldiers and their families, as well as ancient texts such as the medieval Welsh poem Y Gododdin, it is the first extended lyric narrative to emerge from the devastating conflict in Afghanistan.
British Fiction of the 1990s
by Nick BentleyThe 1990s proved to be a particularly rich and fascinating period for British fiction. This book presents a fresh perspective on the diverse writings that appeared over the decade, bringing together leading academics in the field. British Fiction of the 1990s: traces the concerns that emerged as central to 1990s fiction, in sections on millennial anxieties, identity politics, the relationship between the contemporary and the historical, and representations of contemporary space offers distinctive new readings of the most important novelists of the period, including Martin Amis, Beryl Bainbridge, Pat Barker, Julian Barnes, A.S. Byatt, Hanif Kureishi, Ian McEwan, Iain Sinclair, Zadie Smith and Jeanette Winterson shows how British fiction engages with major cultural debates of the time, such as the concern with representing various identities and cultural groups, or theories of ‘the end of history’ discusses 1990s fiction in relation to broader literary and critical theories, including postmodernism, post-feminism and postcolonialism. Together the essays highlight the ways in which the writing of the 1990s represents a development of the themes and styles of the post-war novel generally, yet displays a range of characteristics distinct to the decade.
Shakespeare, Authority, Sexuality: Unfinished Business in Cultural Materialism (Accents on Shakespeare)
by Alan SinfieldShakespeare, Authority, Sexuality is a powerful reassessment of cultural materialism as a way of understanding textuality, history and culture, by one of the founding figures of this critical movement. Alan Sinfield examines cultural materialism both as a body of ongoing argument and as it informs particular works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, especially in relation to sexuality in early-modern England and queer theory. The book has several interlocking preoccupations: theories of textuality and reading the political location of Shakespearean plays and the organisation of literary culture today the operation of state power in the early-modern period and the scope for dissidence the sex/gender system in that period and the application of queer theory in history. These preoccupations are explored in and around a range of works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Throughout the book Sinfield re-presents cultural materialism, framing it not as a set of propositions, as has often been done, but as a cluster of unresolved problems. His brilliant, lucid and committed readings demonstrate that the ‘unfinished business’ of cultural materialism - and Sinfield’s work in particular - will long continue to produce new questions and challenges for the fields of Shakespeare and Renaissance Studies.
Ozma of Oz: Classic-illustrated -the Oz Books #3 (Oz #3)
by Frank L. BaumReaders of all ages will welcome the chance to be reunited with Dorothy Gale and other beloved characters in the third Oz book by L. Frank Baum. Dorothy and her trusty hen, Billina, are washed ashore in the Land of Ev after a shipwreck. At first Dorothy is delighted to find lunch grows on trees in lunchboxes. But soon she realises there is a darker side to the Land of Ev. On the seashore, Dorothy encounters the Wheelers, terrifying creatures with wheels instead of hands and feet, but luckily manages to escape to a nearby cave. Here she befriends Tik-Tok, a loyal, robot-like creature who needs to be wound up like a toy to function. He warns her to stay away from the Wheelers and tells her the story of the Land of Ev. The royal family of Ev have been dethroned by the evil Nome King of the neighbouring kingdom. Tik-Tok explains to Dorothy that her friend Princess Ozma of Oz is travelling to Ev by magic carpet to help save the royal family. But before Dorothy can begin to help Ozma and the royal family, she is seized by Princess Langwidere and imprisoned in a tall tower. Poor Dorothy is terrified by the strange heads that Princess Langwidere keeps in her palace and is desperate for Ozma to come and rescue her. But will Princess Ozma of Ozma make it to the Land of Ev, and if she does, what will she be able to free Dorothy?
Drifting House
by Krys LeeA haunting and unforgettable debut spanning the last seventy years of Korean history, including the BBC Short Story Prize shortlisted story 'The Goose Father'.Alternating between the lives of Koreans struggling through seventy years of turbulent, post-World War II history in their homeland and the communities of Korean immigrants grappling with assimilation in the United States, Krys Lee's haunting debut story collection Drifting House weaves together intricate tales of family and love, abandonment and loss on both sides of the Pacific.In the title story, children escaping famine in North Korea are forced to make unthinkable sacrifices to survive. The tales set in America reveal the immigrants' unmoored existence, playing out in cramped apartments and Koreatown strip malls, from the abandoned wife in 'A Temporary Marriage' who enters into a sham marriage to find her kidnapped daughter to the makeshift family in 'At the Edge of the World' which is fractured when a shaman from the old country moves in next door.
The Puzzle Cube
by Sarah ClarkCan you solve the riddles of the mysterious Puzzle Cube?Tom and his sister, Sophie, think they can. They’ve accepted a challenge to find its magical pieces. Join them on a thrilling, time travelling adventure to discover the secrets of the Puzzle Cube and locate its rightful owner.
Rilke in Paris: The Works Of His 1907 Exhibition In Paris As Frequented, Contemplated, And Described By Rainer Maria Rilke: 57 Paintings And Watercolors By Paul Cezanne And 33 Letters By Rainer Maria Rilke (Pickpockets Ser. #No. 6)
by Rainer Maria Rilke Maurice BetzRainer Maria Rilke offers a compelling portrait of Parisian life, art, and culture at the beginning of the 20th centuryIn 1902, the young poet Rainer Maria Rilke travelled to Paris to write a monograph on the sculptor Auguste Rodin. He returned many times over the course of his life, by turns inspired and appalled by the city's high culture and low society, and his writings give a fascinating insight into Parisian art and culture in the last century.This book brings together Rilke's sublime poetic meditations on existence Notes on the Melody of Things and the first English translation of Rilke's experiences in Paris as observed by his French translator Maurice Betz.Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) is considered the most important poet in the German language of the modern age. A master of both poetry and prose, he is best known for Duino Elegies, Sonnets to Orpheus and his existential exploration of Paris in The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.Maurice Betz (1898–1946) was a writer and prolific translator of Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig and Thomas Mann. He worked closely with Rilke on the French translations of his works.
The Faber Book of Twentieth-Century German Poems
by Michael HofmannRilke, Sachs, Brecht, Celan: German has produced some of the giants of 20th century European poetry. In this new selection, complete with many new translations, Michael Hofmann guides us through the poems, poets and themes of German verse. Meticulously researched but eminently approachable, The Faber Book of Twentieth Century German Poems is an essential new addition to any poetry bookshelf.'Michael Hofmann has a skeptical intelligence, an observant eye, a compulsion to speak the unspeakable, and the useful wariness of the displaced person.' Helen Vendler, New York Review of Books'It is probably impossible to produce poetry of this quality that is tuned more precisely to the timbre of the present than Michael Hofmann's. Rapture is the only adequate response.' Geoff Dyer, Guardian
A Short History of Ireland's Writers (Pocket Bks.)
by Prof. A. Norman JeffaresAn introduction to all the leading Irish writers and some of the lesser known playwrights, novelists, short story writers, poets, placing them in context and providing a list of their works. Commentaries give brief but telling insights into their work. The story of Irish writing is followed, beginning with Swift, and working through playwrights Synge and O’Casey to Beckett and Friel; from nineteenth-century poetry through Yeats to Seamus Heaney and Paul Durcan; in novels, from Maria Edgeworth, through Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, Kate O’Brien, Flann O’Brien to contemporaries Julia O’Faolain, Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright.
The Lough Neagh Monster
by Sam McBratneyWhen NESSIE arrives from Scotland to visit her monster cousin NOBLETT there is bound to be trouble. Noblett loves his peaceful secret garden and has little time for his troublesome cousin from Loch Ness.
Companions of the Day and Night
by Wilson Harris'He ascended, eyes riveted, nailed to the steps leading up to the top of the pyramid of the sun. How many human hearts he wondered had been plucked from bodies there to feed the dying light of the sun and create an obsession with royal sculptures, echoing stone?... It was time to take stock of others as hollow bodies and shelters into which one fell...'In Companions of the Day and Night (first published in 1975) Wilson Harris revives figures from his earlier Black Marsden - chiefly Clive Goodrich, the 'editor' of this text, who constructs a narrative from the papers of a figure known as Idiot Nameless: a wanderer between present and past, taking an Easter sojourn in Mexico that lasts both for days and for centuries. The results have the strangely hypnotic power characteristic of Wilson Harris's fiction.
Yes Prime Minister: a play
by Antony Jay Jonathan LynnYes, Minister, and the equally successful sequel Yes, Prime Minister captured a niche in the political consciousness of the nation. First broadcast thirty years ago, the original writers of these classic series have reunited to create a bang up to date Yes, Prime Minister for the stage. Spin, blackberries, sexed-up dossiers, sleaze, global warming and a country on the brink of financial meltdown form the backdrop to mayhem at Chequers as the Foreign Minister of Kumranistan makes a seriously compromising offer of salvation. Prime Minister Jim Hacker remains in power with his coterie of close advisors including Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby and Principal Private Secretary Bernard Woolley, but for how long? They govern a whole new world. Yes, Prime Minister premiered in the Festival Theatre, Chichester, in May 2010.
Second Violin: An Inspector Troy Thriller (Inspector Troy series #6)
by John LawtonWritten by 'a sublimely elegant historical novelist as addictive as crack' (Daily Telegraph), the Inspector Troy series is perfect for fans of Le Carré, Philip Kerr and Alan Furst.1938.The Germans take Vienna without a shot being fired. Covering Austria for the English press is a young journalist named Rod Troy. Back home his younger brother joins the CID as a detective constable. Two years later tensions are rising and 'enemy aliens' are rounded up in London for internment. In the midst of the chaos London's most prominent rabbis are being picked off one by one and Troy must race to stop the killer.
The Minor Outsider
by Ted McDermottA love story for theVICEgenerationEd and Taylor, both aspiring young writers, fall in love during a summer of aimless drinking and partying in their university town of Missoula, Montana. Lonely and looking for love, they connect despite their profound differences: Ed is brooding, ambitious and self-destructive, living in denial of a mysterious tumour spreading from his limbs to his brain. Beautiful Taylor is a pure soul, positive, full of hope and emotional generosity. Their difficult relationship is intense, exciting yet doomed from the start, complicated further when Taylor falls pregnant. As Ed resists the harmony she brings to his life, Taylor's need to protect herself and their child also grows, until a dramatic finale.Ted McDermott's stark writing speaks truthfully and with a touch of dark humour for and to today's generation of young people trying to find hope in what feels to many like an existential void.The Minor Outsiderwill be read as the young literary voice of our dark times.Ted McDermott was born in Delaware in 1982, grew up in South Carolina, and now lives with his wife in Philadelphia. He has worked as a cook, a mover, a baker, a college instructor, an encyclopedist and a reporter for an alternative weekly. His fiction and non-fiction have appeared inVICE,Believer,Portland Review,Minus Timesand elsewhere. In 2009, he was nominated for The Essay Prize.The Minor Outsideris his first novel.
Mama Dada: Gertrude Stein's Avant-Garde Theatre (Studies in Modern Drama)
by Sarah Bay-ChengMama Dada is the first book to examine Gertrude Stein's drama within the history of the theatrical and cinematic avant-gardes. Since the publication of Stein's major writings by the Library of America in 1998, interest in her dramatic writing has escalated, particularly in American avant-garde theaters. This book addresses the growing interest in Stein's theater by offering the first detailed analyses of her major plays, and by considering them within a larger history of avant-garde performance. In addition to comparing Stein's plays and theories to those generated by Dadaists, Surrealists, and Futurists, this study further explores the uniqueness of Stein via these theatrical movements, including discussions of her interest in American life and drama, which argues that a significant and heretofore unrecognized relationship exists among the histories of avant-garde drama, cinema, and homosexuality. By examining and explaining the relationship among these three histories, the dramatic writings of Stein can best be understood, not only as examples of literary modernism, but also as influential dramatic works that have had a lasting effect on the American theatrical avant-