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The Books of Ruth and Esther (The Pocket Canons #13)
by Joanna TrollopeThis volume presents the texts of two Old Testament books, Ruth and Esther, two of the very few biblical stories to focus on women. Ruth in particular has attracted much attention from feminist scholars, though it reinforces age-old notions of male dominance. With an introduction by Joanna Trollope
The Books of Jonah, Micah and Nahum (The Pocket Canons #17)
by Alasdair GrayThis text presents the books of Jonah, Micah and Nahum. The book of Jonah shows the people of Nineveh being forgiven, yet this overturns usual biblical narrative such as Micah and Nahum where Israel's enemies are expected to get their come-uppance. With an introduction by Alasdair Gray.
The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to The Corinthians (The Pocket Canons #11)
by Fay WeldonA figurehead of the early Christian church, Paul sets out some of his thoughts on strife and division, spirituality, the bond of marriage and hopes for his own immortality in this book. With an introduction by Fay Weldon
The Gospel According to Luke (The Pocket Canons #9)
by Richard HollowayThe Gospel According to Luke is the third, and longest, of the four gospels. It is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth and details the story of his life, from the events of his birth, to his crucifixion and the Ascension.
Ecclesiastes or, The Preacher (The Pocket Canons #5)
by Doris LessingAncient tradition suggests that this world-weary lament is the work of Solomon in old age. Casting its eye over the transient nature of life, the book questions the striving for wisdom and the truth, choosing instead to espouse the value of living for the moment. The text is introduced by Doris Lessing.
The Second Book of Moses, Called Exodus (The Pocket Canons #2)
by David GrossmanA central theme running through the Bible, Exodus tells of the mass movement of people, including the Israelites' escape from slavery, the wanderings of Moses and his followers and the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai. The text is introduced by author David Grossman.
The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to The Romans (The Pocket Canons #20)
by Ruth RendellPaul was the most influential figure in the early Christian church. In this epistle, written to the founders of the church in Rome, he sets out some of his ideas on the importance of faith in overcoming mankind's innate sinfulness and in obtaining redemption. With an introduction by Ruth Rendell
Revelation: A Revelation Of The Recent Past And The Distant Future (The Pocket Canons #12)
by Will SelfThe final book of the Bible, Revelation prophesies the ultimate judgement of mankind in a series of allegorical visions, grisly images and numerological predictions. According to these, empires will fall, the "Beast" will be destroyed and Christ will rule a new Jerusalem. With an introduction by Will Self.
The Song of Solomon: Song Of Solomon (The Pocket Canons #6)
by A.S. ByattThe only piece of erotic literature in the Bible, this book was regarded by earlier devotees as an allegory of God's love for his people. Taking the form of a poem, the song tells of two lovers praising each other's bodies. The text is introduced by A.S. Byatt
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
by Dinaw Mengestu[Amazon] Ethiopian émigré Dinaw Mengestu is a skilled observer of people who offers a colorful debut work of fiction. Insightful and swiftly paced, this novel evokes past and present in the course of its compelling narrative. It's the `70s, and one D.C. neighborhood is undergoing big changes. In the mix is Ethiopian grocery owner Sepha Stephanos - a man with a complex past who fled his homeland after seeing his father brutalized by themilitary. He hopes for new prospects in D.C.'s gentrification process, but his store is struggling. Next door to his apartment building lives Judith, a successful white woman working to renovate her house. As Sepha bonds with Judith and her biracial, 11-year-old daughter Naomi, he is inevitably subject to the mounting pressures of race and class that are in flux around them.
The Gargoyle
by Andrew DavidsonA young man is fighting for his life. Into his room walks a bewitching woman who believes she can save him. Their journey will have you believing in the impossible. The nameless and beautiful narrator of The Gargoyle is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and wakes up in a burns ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned. His life is over – he is now a monster. But in fact it is only just beginning. One day, Marianne Engel, a wild and compelling sculptress of gargoyles, enters his life and tells him that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly burned mercenary and she was a nun and a scribe who nursed him back to health in the famed monastery of Engelthal. As she spins her tale, Scheherazade fashion, and relates equally mesmerising stories of deathless love in Japan, Greenland, Italy and England, he finds himself drawn back to life – and, finally, to love.
Monkeys with Typewriters: How to Write Fiction and Unlock the Secret Power of Stories
by Scarlett ThomasStories are everywhere... Exploring the great plots from Plato to The Matrix and from Tolstoy to Toy Story, this is a book for anyone who wants to unlock any narrative and learn to create their own. With startling and original insights into how we construct stories, this is a creative writing book like no other. It will show you how to read and write better.
The Origins of Elected Strongmen: How Personalist Parties Destroy Democracy from Within
by Erica Frantz Andrea Kendall-Taylor Joe WrightSince the end of World War II, democracies typically fell apart by coup d'?tat or through force. Today, however, they are increasingly eroding at the hands of democratically elected incumbents, who seize control by slowly chipping away at democratic institutions. To better understand these developments, this book examines the role of personalist political parties, or parties that exist primarily to further their leader's career as opposed to promote a specific policy platform. Using original data capturing levels of personalism in the parties of democratically elected leaders from 1991 to 2020, The Origins of Elected Strongmen shows that the rise of personalist parties around the globe is facilitating the decline of democracy. Personalist parties lack both the incentive and capacity to push back against a leader's efforts to expand executive power. As such, leaders backed by personalist parties are more likely to succeed in their efforts to dismantle institutional constraints on their rule. Such attacks on state institutions, in turn, reverberate throughout society, deepening political polarization and weakening supporters' commitment to democratic norms of behaviour. In these ways, ruling party personalism erodes horizontal and vertical constraints on a leader, ultimately degrading democracy and raising the risk of democratic failure.
Solidarity with Animals: Promises, Pitfalls, and Potential
by Alasdair Cochrane'Solidarity' has received considerable scholarly attention and is central in many social justice movements. It is striking, then, that solidarity's relevance, meaning and practical implications in the context of animal protection have not been systematically explored. This is particularly surprising given the recent so-called 'political turn' in animal ethics. Work in the political turn accepts claims about the moral status of animals and people's personal obligations towards them, but advances the field in at least two ways. First, thinkers emphasize that mutually beneficial human-animal relations cannot rely solely on personal transformation, but also require institutional transformation. Secondly, scholars claim that to meaningfully improve the lives of animals, we must not only change our political systems, but better understand various animals' own perspectives and political agency to feed into 'more-than-human politics'. But while much work in this political turn has been done on concepts like 'justice', 'agency', 'representation', etc., only very few animal scholars have talked about 'solidarity'. And those that have, have done so only in very specific contexts and frameworks. This lack of attention is also mirrored also within animal activism, where those few campaigners who have employed the term have done so only in a very loose way. This edited collection brings together the leading thinkers in the fields of animal ethics, politics, social philosophy, world religions, and the law to explore this lacuna and thus provide the first book length treatment of solidarity between the species.
The Origins of Elected Strongmen: How Personalist Parties Destroy Democracy from Within
by Erica Frantz Andrea Kendall-Taylor Joe WrightSince the end of World War II, democracies typically fell apart by coup d'?tat or through force. Today, however, they are increasingly eroding at the hands of democratically elected incumbents, who seize control by slowly chipping away at democratic institutions. To better understand these developments, this book examines the role of personalist political parties, or parties that exist primarily to further their leader's career as opposed to promote a specific policy platform. Using original data capturing levels of personalism in the parties of democratically elected leaders from 1991 to 2020, The Origins of Elected Strongmen shows that the rise of personalist parties around the globe is facilitating the decline of democracy. Personalist parties lack both the incentive and capacity to push back against a leader's efforts to expand executive power. As such, leaders backed by personalist parties are more likely to succeed in their efforts to dismantle institutional constraints on their rule. Such attacks on state institutions, in turn, reverberate throughout society, deepening political polarization and weakening supporters' commitment to democratic norms of behaviour. In these ways, ruling party personalism erodes horizontal and vertical constraints on a leader, ultimately degrading democracy and raising the risk of democratic failure.
Solidarity with Animals: Promises, Pitfalls, and Potential
'Solidarity' has received considerable scholarly attention and is central in many social justice movements. It is striking, then, that solidarity's relevance, meaning and practical implications in the context of animal protection have not been systematically explored. This is particularly surprising given the recent so-called 'political turn' in animal ethics. Work in the political turn accepts claims about the moral status of animals and people's personal obligations towards them, but advances the field in at least two ways. First, thinkers emphasize that mutually beneficial human-animal relations cannot rely solely on personal transformation, but also require institutional transformation. Secondly, scholars claim that to meaningfully improve the lives of animals, we must not only change our political systems, but better understand various animals' own perspectives and political agency to feed into 'more-than-human politics'. But while much work in this political turn has been done on concepts like 'justice', 'agency', 'representation', etc., only very few animal scholars have talked about 'solidarity'. And those that have, have done so only in very specific contexts and frameworks. This lack of attention is also mirrored also within animal activism, where those few campaigners who have employed the term have done so only in a very loose way. This edited collection brings together the leading thinkers in the fields of animal ethics, politics, social philosophy, world religions, and the law to explore this lacuna and thus provide the first book length treatment of solidarity between the species.
The Human Factor: The Demography of the Roman Province of Hispania Citerior/Tarraconensis
by Alejandro Sinner C?sar Carreras Pieter HoutenThe Human Factor establishes a foundation for the study of ancient demography in the Iberian Peninsula, focusing on its largest province, Hispania Citerior/Tarraconensis. The authors take a multidisciplinary approach, compiling archaeological, epigraphic, architectonic, osteological, and genetic datasets. This comprehensive and detailed study of a single province is necessary to generate accurate demographic estimates and to compare it with datasets from other regions and historical periods. By examining the province of Hispania Citerior/Tarraconensis in depth, the authors provide a detailed understanding of demographic patterns, urbanism, and urbanization rates over time, and link them with the social, cultural, and economic factors that affected the Iberian Peninsula and the Western Mediterranean from the fourth century BC until the end of the Roman period. For instance, population size was a significant indicator of economic growth and performance, and the distribution of people between urban and rural areas played a vital role in the negotiation of collective identities. Additionally, human mobility promoted cultural change and mediated information and technological flows. This is the first comprehensive , state-of-the-art demographic analysis of the Iberian Peninsula from the Iron Age down to the end of the Roman period, and the authors' integration and interpretation of data provide cutting-edge research and methodology, and fill a gap in the scholarly literature, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of the ancient Mediterranean.
Gun Baby Gun: A Bloody Journey into the World of the Gun
by Iain OvertonSHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA NON-FICTION DAGGER In some places, it's easier to get a gun than a glass of water. In some places, you are allowed to carry concealed firearms into schools. In some places, there are more guns than people to shoot them. There are almost one billion guns across the globe today - more than ever before. Every minute of every day, someone somewhere is shot. Gun Baby Gun is a hard-hitting and urgent investigation into the gun's lifespan, into our hugely complex relationship with firearms and their undeniable, long-reaching and often hidden impact. Along the way, award-winning journalist Iain Overton unearths some stark truths about the everyday human cost of gun crime.
The Human Factor: The Demography of the Roman Province of Hispania Citerior/Tarraconensis
by Alejandro Sinner C?sar Carreras Pieter HoutenThe Human Factor establishes a foundation for the study of ancient demography in the Iberian Peninsula, focusing on its largest province, Hispania Citerior/Tarraconensis. The authors take a multidisciplinary approach, compiling archaeological, epigraphic, architectonic, osteological, and genetic datasets. This comprehensive and detailed study of a single province is necessary to generate accurate demographic estimates and to compare it with datasets from other regions and historical periods. By examining the province of Hispania Citerior/Tarraconensis in depth, the authors provide a detailed understanding of demographic patterns, urbanism, and urbanization rates over time, and link them with the social, cultural, and economic factors that affected the Iberian Peninsula and the Western Mediterranean from the fourth century BC until the end of the Roman period. For instance, population size was a significant indicator of economic growth and performance, and the distribution of people between urban and rural areas played a vital role in the negotiation of collective identities. Additionally, human mobility promoted cultural change and mediated information and technological flows. This is the first comprehensive , state-of-the-art demographic analysis of the Iberian Peninsula from the Iron Age down to the end of the Roman period, and the authors' integration and interpretation of data provide cutting-edge research and methodology, and fill a gap in the scholarly literature, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of the ancient Mediterranean.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches
by Matsuo Basho'It was with aweThat I beheldFresh leaves, green leaves,Bright in the sun'When the Japanese haiku master Basho composed The Narrow Road to the Deep North, he was an ardent student of Zen Buddhism, setting off on a series of travels designed to strip away the trappings of the material world and bring spiritual enlightenment. He writes of the seasons changing, the smell of the rain, the brightness of the moon and the beauty of the waterfall, through which he sensed the mysteries of the universe. These writings not only chronicle Basho's travels, but they also capture his vision of eternity in the transient world around him.Translated with an Introduction by Nobuyuki Yuasa
Friday's Child: Gossip, scandal and an unforgettable Regency romance (Regency Romances Ser. #6)
by Georgette HeyerIf you love Bridgerton, you'll love Georgette Heyer!'The greatest writer who ever lived' Antonia Fraser'Absolutely delicious tales of Regency heroes. . . Utter, immersive escapism' Sophie Kinsella'One of my perennial comfort authors. Heyer's books are as incisively witty and quietly subversive as any of Jane Austen's' Joanne Harris'Heart-stoppingly gorgeous' Harriet Evans'Georgette Heyer is second to none' Sunday Times___________Hero Wantage is desperate to change her fate.When the dashing Lord Sherry proposes out of the blue, Hero is overjoyed - she'll escape a life as a governess and, once they wed, he can finally claim his inheritance.But as Hero attempts to social climb in glamorous London society, Sherry is concerned that her naivety will ruin them both and takes drastic action.The chaos that follows will push friendships - and hearts - to breaking point.___________Readers love Friday's Child ...***** 'This novel is all fun, cuteness, laughter, warmness, goodness and awesomeness. Definitely a top favourite!!'***** 'Recommended for.... anyone who loves to read and be entertained!'***** 'I could just not keep the book down once I started.'***** 'This is one of my top 3 Georgette Heyer books.'***** 'Absolutely delightful!'
Venetia: Gossip, scandal and an unforgettable Regency romance (Regency Romances Ser. #18)
by Georgette HeyerIf you love Bridgerton, you'll love Georgette Heyer!'The greatest writer who ever lived' Antonia Fraser'[My] generation's Julia Quinn' Adjoa Andoh, star of Bridgerton'A rollicking good read that will be of particular joy to Bridgerton viewers ... the permanent glister of scandal [...] ties the whole thing together' Indepdendent'Heyer's books are as incisively witty and quietly subversive as any of Jane Austen's' Joanne Harris_______________In all her twenty-five years, Venetia Lanyon has never been further than Harrogate.Nor has she enjoyed the attentions of any man aside from her two wearisomely persistent suitors.Then, in one extraordinary encounter, she meets a neighbour she only knew by reputation - the infamous Jasper Damerel.Before she realises it, Venetia is encouraging a man whose way of life has scandalised the North Riding for years._______________Readers can't get enough of Venetia . . .***** 'One of my favorite Heyer romances.'***** 'One of my all-time favourite books.***** 'I've read it so many times by now that I lost count.'***** 'Venetia is, without question, my favourite of all Georgette Heyer’s Regency Romances.'***** 'I LOVED this book.'***** 'Stands up well as a charming and quite powerful Regency romance.'_______________'Elegant, witty and rapturously romantic' Katie Fforde'Utterly delightful' Guardian'Absolutely delicious tales of Regency heroes. . . Utter, immersive escapism' Sophie Kinsella'Georgette Heyer's Regency romances brim with elegance, wit and historical accuracy, and this is one of her finest and most entertaining ... Escapism of the highest order' Daily Mail'If you haven't read Georgette Heyer yet, what a treat you have in store!' Harriet Evans'Georgette Heyer is unbeatable.' Sunday Telegraph
Nine Perfect Strangers: The No 1 bestseller now a major Amazon Prime series
by Liane Moriarty**Read the addictive bestseller now a major Amazon Prime TV series starring Nicole Kidman, Melissa McCarthy, Regina Hall, Manny Jacinto, Bobby Cannavale and Luke Evans**PERFECT LIVES OR PERFECT LIES? THE UNPUTDOWNABLE SUNDAY TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER AND RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK, FROM THE AUTHOR OF HBO'S AWARD WINNING BIG LITTLE LIES'A super-suspenseful page-turner' Mail on Sunday_____________Nine perfect strangers, each hiding an imperfect life.A luxury retreat cut off from the outside world.Ten days that promise to change your life.But some promises - like some lives - are perfect lies . . .__________'Fantastic' Times'The twist blew my mind' Marian Keyes'The suspense keeps building in an enjoyably zany thriller' Guardian'Original, suspenseful, downright brilliant' Clare Mackintosh'One of the funniest, most original and well-written books I have read' 5***** Reader Review'Will grip you from the first page' Sunday Express'Had me utterly hooked' Daily Mail
Three Wishes: From the bestselling author of Big Little Lies, now an award winning TV series
by Liane MoriartyLose yourself in this wickedly addictive exploration of family, relationships and modern love from the bestselling author of the HBO sensation BIG LITTLE LIES'I adored it. Fresh, intelligent and entertaining' MARIAN KEYESThey say trouble always comes in threes . . .For sisters Lyn, Cat and Gemma Kettle, the year they turn thirty-three is no exception.Sensible Lyn is struggling to balance being a mother, wife and businesswoman without losing her mind.Cat, whose perfect marriage is the envy of all her friends, never suspected that her husband had been hiding a secret that will tear her life apart.Directionless Gemma, who changes jobs and boyfriends every few months, has just met a new man who could be the one to unlock her hidden past.The bonds of these sisters are strong enough to withstand whatever life throws at them.That is until the night of their thirty-fourth birthday dinner, when home truths are revealed and things are said that can't be taken back . . .'Funny and dramatic, with vibrant characters, it's a delight' Sunday MirrorPRAISE FOR LIANE MORIARTY'Moriarty writes vividly, wittily and wickedly' Sunday Express'Mistress of the razor-sharp observation' Kate Morton'An extraordinary talent' Nicole Kidman'Keeps you guessing to the very end - perfect summer read' Reese Witherspoon'Gripping, acutely observed, thought-provoking and funny' Marie Claire
Bonds of Cupidity: The sizzling romance from the bestselling author of The Plated Prisoner series (Heart Hassle #2)
by Raven KennedyShe found love. Now, she needs to try and keep it. She spent years in the Veil as an invisible cupid. Unable to talk, touch or love anyone, which made her a little bitter.Now, Emelle has a life . . . and a bounty on her head. The fae prince wants her dead, and her three gorgeous genfins are arrested. The royal culling trials are about to begin, but Emelle isn't going to let everything be taken from her without a fight.There's rebellion in the air, a princess who's not all she appears to be and a lamassu fae who claims to be Emelle's mate.Love is getting complicated.But to a cupid, it always is.Bonds of Cupidity is Book Two in the fun, addictive and sexy Heart Hassle seriesGild, Glint and Gleam, Sunday Times bestsellers, April 2023