Book picks similar to
The Days Before Yesterday by Frederick Spencer Hamilton
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Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History
Tori Telfer - 2017
But what about Tillie Klimek, Moulay Hassan, and Kate Bender? The narrative we're comfortable with is one where women are the victims of violent crime-not the perpetrators. In fact, serial killers are thought to be so universally male that, in 1998, FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood infamously declared that There are no female serial killers. Inspired by Telfer's Jezebel column of the same name, Lady Killers disputes that claim and offers fourteen gruesome examples as evidence. Although largely forgotten by history, female serial killers rival their male counterparts in cunning, cruelty, and appetite. Each chapter explores the crimes and history of a different female serial killer and then proceeds to unpack her legacy and her portrayal in the media as well as the stereotypes and sexist cliches that inevitably surround her.
Talleyrand
Duff Cooper - 1932
He was a world-class rogue who held high office in five successive regimes. A well-known opportunist and a notorious bribe taker, Talleyrand's gifts to France arguably outvalued the vast personal fortune he amassed in her service. Once a supporter of the Revolution, after the fall of the monarchy, he fled to England and then to the United States. Talleyrand returned to France two years later and served under Napoleon, and represented France at the Congress of Vienna. Duff Cooper's classic biography contains all the vigor, elegance, and intellect of its remarkable subject.
The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown
Claire Ridgway - 2012
The coup against the Queen results in the brutal executions of six innocent people - Anne Boleyn herself, her brother, and four courtiers - and the rise of a new Queen. Drawing on sixteenth century letters, eye witness accounts and chronicles, Claire Ridgway leads the reader through the sequence of chilling events one day at a time, telling the true story of Anne Boleyn's fall. The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown is presented in a diary format, allowing readers to dip in, look up a particular date, or read from start to finish. Special features include mini biographies of those involved, a timeline of events and full referencing. Claire Ridgway, creator of The Anne Boleyn Files website and author of The Anne Boleyn Collection, continues her mission to share the real truth about Anne Boleyn.
A Change of Climate
Hilary Mantel - 1994
Set in both the windswept countryside of Norfolk and the violent townships of South Africa, this is a story of what happens when trust is broken, secrets become buried and lives torn apart.
Fatal Flight: The True Story of Britain's Last Great Airship
Bill Hammack - 2017
The British expected R.101 to spearhead a fleet of imperial airships that would dominate the skies as British naval ships, a century earlier, had ruled the seas. The dream ended when, on its demonstration flight to India, R.101 crashed in France, tragically killing nearly all aboard.Combining meticulous research with superb storytelling, Fatal Flight guides us from the moment the great airship emerged from its giant shed—nearly the largest building in the British Empire—to soar on its first flight, to its last fateful voyage. The full story behind R.101 shows that, although it was a failure, it was nevertheless a supremely imaginative human creation. The technical achievement of creating R.101 reveals the beauty, majesty, and, of course, the sorrow of the human experience.The narrative follows First Officer Noel Atherstone and his crew from the ship’s first test flight in 1929 to its fiery crash on October 5, 1930. It reveals in graphic detail the heroic actions of Atherstone as he battled tremendous obstacles. He fought political pressures to hurry the ship into the air, fended off Britain’s most feted airship pilot, who used his influence to take command of the ship and nearly crashed it, and, a scant two months before departing for India, guided the rebuilding of the ship to correct its faulty design. After this tragic accident, Britain abandoned airships, but R.101 flew again, its scrap melted down and sold to the Zeppelin Company, who used it to create LZ 129, an airship even more mighty than R.101—and better known as the Hindenburg. Set against the backdrop of the British Empire at the height of its power in the early twentieth century,Fatal Flight portrays an extraordinary age in technology, fueled by humankind’s obsession with flight.
Trains and Buttered Toast
John Betjeman - 2006
He saw his country being devastated by war & progress & he waged a private war to save it. His only weapons were words - the poetry for which he is best known &, even more influential, the radio talks that first made him a phenomenon.
The Making of Australia
David Hill - 2014
Told through the key figures who helped build it into the thriving nation it is today, David Hill once again offers up Australian history at its most entertaining and accessible. In his latest book, David Hill traces the story of our nation from its European beginnings to Federation. When James Cook landed on the east coast of Australia, the rest of the world had some idea of how empty, vast and wild this continent was, but so little was known of it that in 1788 most people thought it was two lands. In the subsequent years, its coastline was charted, its interior opened up, and its cities, laws and economy developed. In this riveting, wide-ranging history, David Hill traces how this happened through the key figures who built this country into the thriving nation it is today: from its prescient and fair-minded first governor, Arthur Phillip, to the unpopular William Bligh, the victim of the country's first and only military coup; from the visionary builder and law-maker Lachlan Macquarie to William Wentworth, the son of a convict who secured Australia's first elected parliament; from Henry Parkes, the grand old man of politics who started the fraught process of Federation, to the first prime minister, Edmund Barton. It was Barton who formed the first Australian government just in time for the inaugural celebrations on 1 January 1901, when the nation of Australia was born! David Hill is one of our most popular writers of Australian history. His previous books, The Forgotten Children, 1788, The Gold Rush and The Great Race have all been bestsellers.
Decline and Fail: Read in Case of Political Apocalypse
John Crace - 2019
That's what the country is crying out for.'
There is now only one certainty in life. When things can't possibly get any worse, they absolutely will. And so, after three years of Maybot malfunctioning and Brexit bungling, welcome to BoJo the clown's national circus - where fun for literally none of the family is guaranteed. Fear not, however: Decline and Fail is your personal survival guide to the ongoing political apocalypse. This unremittingly entertaining collection of John Crace's lifegiving political sketches will get you through the darkest of days - or failing that, will at least make you laugh a bit. Miss it at your peril...
Princess Helena
John Van der Kiste - 2013
A steady, dependable young woman, known as ‘Lenchen’ within the family, she was particularly ‘useful’ to her demanding and recently widowed mother, who could not bear to lose her to a marriage which would oblige her to move and live abroad with her husband. In 1866 she married Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, a kindly but penniless bachelor fifteen years older than her. Despite the difference in ages, it was the only marriage among the Queen’s children in which both partners lived long enough to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. For nearly sixty years Helena was a tireless supporter of good causes, particularly in the field of nursing and education. This concise biography examines her life, work and relationships with her family.
The Ophelia Girls
Jane Healey - 2021
Drawn to the cold depths of the river by Ruth’s house, the girls pretend to be the drowning Ophelia, with increasingly elaborate tableaus. But by the end of that fateful summer, real tragedy finds them along the banks. Twenty-four years later, Ruth returns to the suffocating, once grand house she grew up in, the mother of young twins and seventeen-year-old Maeve. Joining the family in the country is Stuart, Ruth’s childhood friend, who is quietly insinuating himself into their lives and gives Maeve the attention she longs for. She is recently in remission, unsure of her place in the world now that she is cancer-free. Her parents just want her to be an ordinary teenage girl. But what teenage girl is ordinary? Alternating between the two fateful summers, The Ophelia Girls is a suspense-filled exploration of mothers and daughters, illicit desire, and the perils and power of being a young woman.
84 Charing Cross Road / The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
Helene Hanff - 1973
For 20 years, an outspoken New York writer and a rather more restrained London bookseller carried on an increasingly touching correspondence. In her first letter to Marks & Co., Helene Hanff encloses a wish list, but warns, "The phrase 'antiquarian booksellers' scares me somewhat, as I equate 'antique' with expensive." Twenty days later, on October 25, 1949, a correspondent identified only as FPD let Hanff know that works by Hazlitt and Robert Louis Stevenson would be coming under separate cover. When they arrive, Hanff is ecstatic--but unsure she'll ever conquer "bilingual arithmetic." By early December 1949, Hanff is suddenly worried that the six-pound ham she's sent off to augment British rations will arrive in a kosher office. But only when FPD turns out to have an actual name, Frank Doel, does the real fun begin. Two years later, Hanff is outraged that Marks & Co. has dared to send an abridged Pepys diary. "i enclose two limp singles, i will make do with this thing till you find me a real Pepys. THEN i will rip up this ersatz book, page by page, AND WRAP THINGS IN IT." Nonetheless, her postscript asks whether they want fresh or powdered eggs for Christmas. Soon they're sharing news of Frank's family and Hanff's career.
The Rise of the Iron Men
Misha Glenny - 2020
Free for members. You can download all 6 episodes to your Library now.©2020 Audible, Ltd. (P)2020 Audible, Ltd.
Highlander's Love in Captivity
Lydia Kendall - 2018
But her uncle is none other than the notorious Earl of Compton, the man responsible for the death and suffering of many local highlanders, including Laird Bhaltair McColl’s most dear ones - his beloved wife and father. Blinded by hatred, Bhaltair and his bloodthirsty clan abduct Jane and her father the night of her coming-out ball. Captivity brings the two heroes more close than apart, but there is one thing Jane keeps buried in her heart that the handsome Highlander must never know. This secret is Jane’s only weapon to escape…but also the path to her eternal imprisonment. *Highlander's Love in Captivity is a Scottish historical romance novel of 80,000 words (around 400 pages). No cheating, no cliffhangers, lots of steam and a happy ending. Get this book for free with Kindle Unlimited!
Love Laughter
Lilian Harry - 1998
But it is not only streets, businesses and homes that have been laid waste. Lives, too, have been devastated. Marriages have been disrupted, family life shattered, and now the inhabitants must find their own way back to normality - if they can remember what that is.Lucy Pengelly is just one woman whose life has been torn apart by the war. What will happen when her husband returns from the POW camp in the Far East? And what of the growing friendship between Lucy and her friend David, who played such an important part in their lives during the Blitz?
Called to the Fire: A Witness for God in Mississippi; The Story of Dr. Charles Johnson
Chet Bush - 2013
As the key African American witness to take the stand in the trial famously dubbed the Mississippi Burning case by the FBI, Dr. Charles Johnson, a young preacher fresh out of Bible College, became a voice for justice and equality in the segregated south. Unwittingly thrust into the heart of a national tragedy - the murder of three civil rights activists - Dr. Johnson overcame fear and adversity to become a leader in the civil rights movement. He played a vital role for the Federal Justice Department, offering clarity to the event that led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And, in a shocking turn of events, Johnson offered a path of reconciliation for one of the convicted killers. A story of love, conviction, adversity, and redemption, Called to the Fire is a riveting account of a life in pursuit of the call of God and the fight for justice and equality.