Thrust into the closed society that is seventeenth-century Japan, a land where the line between life and death is razor-thin, Blackthorne must negotiate not only a foreign people, with unknown customs and language, but also his own definitions of morality, truth, and freedom. As internal political strife and a clash of cultures lead to seemingly inevitable conflict, Blackthorne's loyalty and strength of character are tested by both passion and loss, and he is torn between two worlds that will each be forever changed.Powerful and engrossing, capturing both the rich pageantry and stark realities of life in feudal Japan, Shōgun is a critically acclaimed powerhouse of a book. Heart-stopping, edge-of-your-seat action melds seamlessly with intricate historical detail and raw human emotion. Endlessly compelling, this sweeping saga captivated the world to become not only one of the best-selling novels of all time but also one of the highest-rated television miniseries, as well as inspiring a nationwide surge of interest in the culture of Japan. Shakespearean in both scope and depth, Shōgun is, as the New York Times put it, "...not only something you read--you live it." Provocative, absorbing, and endlessly fascinating, there is only one: Shōgun.

    

    The acclaimed biography of Alexander the Great.

    And Csardas is a deftly plotted saga of great power, beauty, and historical authenticity that follows the changing fortunes of three aristocratic European families--spanning two world wars and four countries, and brimming with richly drawn, unforgettable characters. Trying to found a dynasty against the inflexible caste system of the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire, stern Jewish banker Zsignmond Ferenc had married Marta Bogozy, a gay, charming woman of noble birth. Their daughters, "The two enchanting Ferenc sisters," Malie and Eva, are the most sought-after young women in their small society. Little do they realize that their secure world of privilege is soon to be consumed in the holocaust of the First World War and subsequent events.Masterfully, Diane Pearson interweaves the story of Malie and Eva with the lives of the other Ferencs, their relatives, and the history of the troubled times--the socialist, fascist, and finally communist regimes; the scattering of the family and its struggle simply to survive; and the joyous reunion after World War II of those who do.This is a superbly written, poignant epic of war and peace--the brave, dignified, and sometimes cruel story of living, breathing characters whose hopes, failures, and triumphs will entrance readers everywhere.

    It is the story of a spirited young woman of eighteen who has left an unhappy, uncertain past in England and made a new life for herself as a trapeze artist in a small touring circus...But that forgotten past will stumble upon her one day, beside a stream in Hungary, where the circus has pitched its tents for a time. It will come in the form of a mysterious young man-handsome, appealing, yet curiously remote-whose appearance is the beginning of a strange, dangerous intrigue that involves deception, romance, disappearance and, in the end, the revelations of a family's darkest secrets.

    It was a strange sound that somehow sent my blood pulsing more quickly and made me wish I could stand up and dance round and round the fire, but this I knew would not be fitting. Of a sudden I was aware of someone beside me, and turning, saw Ted Leister easing himself down to the ground. I thought it best to say nothing of the disagreement he and t'other Ted had, so I spoke of the singing."It nigh makes me giddy," I said. "'Tis not at all like English singing.""If it makes you giddy, lie back and close your eyes," Ted Leister told me. "'Twill soon pass."I did as he suggested, and I could feel the very earth under me throbbing from the beat and beat and beat of the voices and hands. My eyes were closed, but the dizziness got no better and I moved to sit up when I felt Ted's hand push me gently back again, and then he kissed me.

    — Scotland at the end of the 13th century was a blood-torn country under the harsh domination of a tyrant usurper, the hated Plantagenet, Edward Longshanks. During the appalling violence of those unsettled days one man rose as leader of the Scots. That man was William Wallace. Motivated first by revenge for his father's slaughter, Wallace then vowed to cleanse his country of the English and set the rightful king, Robert the Bruce, upon the Scottish throne.Though Wallace was a heroic figure, he was but a man -- and his chosen path led him through grievous danger and personal tragedy before the final outcome...

    The first allowed her to indulge in her life's passion. Without the second, the mummy's curse would have made corpses of them all.

    Trained and educated with the young braves, she develops strength and courage, and soon she will succeed the tribal chief—that is if she can at last overcome a series of ordeals which prove her worthy of the Scarlet Feather.

     Two young people compete in the game of love… 1814, Bath “I promise you, she’s the most delightful creature, with a quirky sense of humour very like your own. As for the other qualities you mention – birth, breeding, experience of managing a household of consequence – she has them all, with amiability and common sense besides!” So Henrietta Melville is described to the Honourable Julian Aldwyn, who is on the look-out for a wife who will prove restful after an earlier, disastrous love-affair. But there’s much more to Miss Melville than meets the eye. Although she is a spirited and intelligent heiress, at twenty-six and still unmarried, she’s considered to be on the shelf. Julian is certain his offer will not be refused. But then comes a whirlwind month in Bath, a dastardly rake, secrets from the past ... all calculated to turn any woman’s head. Could Henrietta become the conformable wife Julian is looking for? Or will someone else catch her eye…? A CONFORMABLE WIFE is a classic historical novel by Alice Chetwynd Ley: a traditional British, post Regency romance novel set in nineteenth century England. ‘Alice Chetwynd Ley's books were my favourite regency romances. I still have every one of her books on my keeper shelf with The Beau and the Bluestocking and The Jewelled Snuffbox in pride of place’ – Historical and Regency Romance UK ‘These vintage Regency romances hover somewhere between Jane Austen and the genre as we know it today. I really enjoy them.’ - Sonya’s Stuff

    Made possible by the purest form of patriotism, led by a soldier whom everyone adored - George Washington - who, in turn, was guided by a caucus of political geniuses in Philadelphia - the Continental Congress - sturdy farmers raced from their plows to hurl themselves into conflict with British mercenaries. Never have so many great men, magnetic leaders, sprung from nowhere to guide a people infused with a beautiful enthusiasm for liberty.In this book, New York Times bestselling historian Thomas Fleming explodes this myth by examining all the dimensions of that year - particularly the least known aspects of the common, fallible humanity of the men and women of the Revolution.The year 1776 ended with both the Americans and the British stripped of their illusions. Both sides had been forced to abandon the myth of their invincibility and to confront the realities of human nature on the battlefield and in the struggle for allegiance to their causes.For the Americans, it had been a shock to discover that it was easy to persuade people to cheer for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but it was another matter to persuade them to take large risks, to make real sacrifices for these ideals. For the British, their goal of achieving proper subordination of America to England was frustrated forever.Seventeen seventy-six was a traffic year: Americans fighting in the name of liberty persecuted and sometimes killed fellow Americans who chose to remain loyal to the old order and its more circumscribed, yet sincere, commitment to freedom. Seventeen seventy-six was a heroic year: It brought forth the leaders who had the courage to fight for freedom. Seventeen seventy-six was a disgraceful year: Americans revealed a capacity for cowardice, disorganization, and incompetence.Here, in this masterful book, is the true story of 1776.

    She is a successful editor of books for young people at a New York publishing house. She has her own apartment with a wood-burning fireplace. She has the delightful Mike Andric eager to marry her.Not so enviable is the overwhelming sense of loss and loneliness she carries with her. Every year as April comes closer, she is subject increasingly to exhausting valleys of depression.She was brought up in Connecticut by her mother, who told her matter-of-factly when she was 12 that she had never married Miriam's father and that he had been killed in the war. With this brief recital, her mother considers the subject closed. Miriam only knows that the two grew up together in a small town in Maine. Throughout her adolescence she fixes on one hero after another and dreams that her father must have looked like them. When Miriam is 21 her mother dies in a bus accident. Much later, the young woman musters the courage to go through her mother's few personal possessions. They include her photograph albums, which Miriam had pored over as a child. They also include a few pieces of jewelry. When Miriam goes through them, she finds that the jewel box's moire bottom is a false one. Under it are three long letters, the last written to her mother shortly before her death. All are signed "Fern". A photograph in one of the albums shows a child named Fern in a clown suit.The letters are postmarked "Parmenter, Maine". An opportunity comes for Miriam to spend an extended period of time editing a manuscript away from her office. A fragment of poetry underlined in one of her mother's books... "Where the lost Aprils are, and the lost Mays..." haunts Miriam, and she heads for Parmenter to do her editorial work and to find her mother's lost Aprils.At Parmenter, in exorcising her own ghosts, she finds a good deal more, including arson and mayhem, in the suspenseful Ogilvie tradition.

    The year 1451, still only eight months old, had been a wonderful one for him. He was not only acknowledged as the premier knight in England, he was for once clear of debt and had a hundred pounds in hand. . .

    Here in the new land off the Canoe Coast, in what is now known as the Bay of Plenty, the people settled and prospered and here Maori society reached the zenith of its power and development.Then, as the people multiplied, the question of survival became inextricably interwoven with the concepts of mana and tribal honour. The delicately poised balance of power was easily upset so that bloody warfare, cannibalism and slavery prevailed.This electrifying novel is now in its fifth printing and is the first NZ historical novel to be written by a Maori . It is also the first serious attempt to show pre-European Maori people as the really were.

    It is the story of a woman who discovers that the man she loves is destined for a path which will ultimately lead him away from her, toward a great destiny...the story of a woman who courageously seeks - and finds - a path of her own. It is a novel of love, a passionate saga of spiritual quest, a beautifully detailed portrait of an ancient civilization, and a novel which reveals the unsung human dimension of a legendary figure: Yaśodhara, wife of Siddhartha, Gautama Buddha.

    

    

    

    Here is the uncensored reality of the war."--Gilbert A. Harrison, former editor-in-chief, New RepublicThis book is the moving story of nine American soldiers and pilots who were captured and held prisoner for five years. It could only be told in their own words; so author Zalin Grant interviewed each of the men and wove their accounts together to form a single, compelling narrative of war and survival. They describe the details of their daily existence in a Vietcong jungle prison as the war ebbed and flowed around them: the rats, the terror of American bombing raids, the sickness, starvation, and torture. Through the juxtaposition of their individual stories we see the subtle, destructive tensions that operate on a group of men in such desperate circumstances. Marched up the Ho Chi Minh trail to Hanoi, the prisoners' physical ordeal gave way to an agonizing moral dilemma. Should they join the "Peace Committee," a group of POWs protesting the war? Or should they resist their captors by all possible means as ordered by the secret American commander of the Hanoi prison? After years in the jungle on the edge of survival, each man had to answer the questions: Who am I? What do I believe? These men form a cross section of the army we sent to Vietnam. Their words illuminate not only their individual background and experience, but also the meaning of this war for all of us.

    

    She had wild black hair and topaz-coloured eyes, and a power over men which she scarcely understood. When she left her home in Welsh mountains for the prospect of gold and a silken gown in London, one man said that she was of those who carry their fate in their eyes. Before long another saw beneath her sweetness something cold, some capacity for evil-though she was not evil herself. Yet she loved Sir Harry Falcon, and he loved her more than he did his gentle wife, and he took her home with him to Kent. But with Margred's coming to Kingsmead an evil seed was sown that would affect many generations of the Falcon family.

    She'd all but given up hope of surviving on her artistic talents, when a mysterious letter arrived, informing her that she had been highly recommended to the grand Palazzo Murano.Baffled but heartened, Mary arrived at the Palazzo and was instantly ensconced in the household. Only then did she discover her unknown benefactor to be none other than Todaro del Doria, a nobleman whose amorous adventures were infamous but whose quiet personal affairs were too dangerous to reveal, a man she didn't know - but with whom she'd soon share an intrigue of the heart that could cost them both their lives...

    Yet even this will not make me feel ashamed. For I know that as long as the ideas remain unchanged within me, there will always be the possibility that, one day, I shall burst out and say everything that I wish to say - in a loud and thunderous voice.' In this collection of some of the finest writings by Nat Nakasa, that loud and thunderous voice speaks with such clarity and insight as to create a book that has been read and reread since its first appearance in 1975.

    Illustrations.

    John, U.S. Virgin Islands formerly St. Jan, Danish West Indies. Weeks passed and tensions mounted on St. Jan; and as more and more slaves escaped, one could hear more and more often the sounds of their drums, sending messages throughout the island in tongues meant only for African ears. And then one night the drums fell silent. The time had come. Rebellion was at hand. This is the story of daily life in 1733 on a tiny Caribbean Island only 24 square miles in area. The astonishing story of an isolated slave-sugar colony erupting in bloody rebellion and the inexorable destruction of the rebels is told by the author as he paints powerful portraits of the European and the African actors. He evokes a tangible sense of the land which he clearly knows so well. The slaves were the masters of communications within the islands. Their talking drums could even reach across the waters to St. Thomas. The slaves evaluated that the total Danish force against them was insufficient to hold them down. They did not know about the organized maritime power that could be transported from elsewhere to restore slavery. Freshly transported from Africa, they did not understand the system that had caught them up. When the rebellion failed most of the rebels killed themselves. No slave rebellion on a small Caribbean Island ever did succeed. The book is the timeless story of humanity in microcosm: a compelling picture of the evil and the good that men can do. The more powerfully so because it is a painstakingly, accurately detailed reconstruction of the real and true events. In 1935, John Lorenzo Anderson and his wife spent their honeymoon on the then almost inaccessible island of St. John. He heard fragments of the story of the slave rebellion. To say that he was intrigued is an understatement. He learned to read nine different languages all in 18th century handscript. He traveled widely in search of material which he found in several important collections of Danish or Danish West Indi

    Coverage of Rome's enemies includes Gallic, British, Pictish, Scots/Irish, German, Dacian, Sarmatian, Frankish, Saxon, Vandal, Visigothic, Ostrogothic, Hunnic, Pontic, Parthian, Armenian, Jewish, Palmyran, Sassanid and Blemye armies. It examines tactics and strategy, organisation and formations and orders of battle as well as providing a detailed guide to the dress and equipment of the armies of the period. Comprehensive illustrations by Ian Heath complement Phil Barker's text and the result is a wealth of information for anyone interested in the warfare of the time. Long out of print, the book has been a source of inspiration to wargamers and academic historians alike. It is reprinted here in its complete 1981 fourth edition with an updated bibliography.

    Interesting sequel tells of Maria's new life in American, her surprisingly-difficult adjustment to freedom after the tyranny of Nazi rule, and her wonderful insights on our country.

    Arnold Barton has contributed to Letters from the Promised Land: Swedes in America, 1840–1914 as an author. H. Arnold Barton, professor of history at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, is the author of The Search for Ancestors: A Swedish-American Family Saga, and Scandinavia in the Revolutionary Era, 1760–1815.