Georgette Heyer's Regency World


Jennifer Kloester - 2005
    A fun read for any Heyer fan.

The Pigeon Pie Mystery


Julia Stuart - 2012
    Though rumored to be haunted, Alexandrina and her lady's maid, Pooki, have no choice but to take the Queen up on her offer.     Aside from the ghost sightings, Hampton Court doesn't seem so bad. The princess is soon befriended by three eccentric widows who invite her to a picnic with all the palace's inhabitants, for which Pooki bakes a pigeon pie. But when General-Major Bagshot dies after eating said pie, and the coroner finds traces of arsenic in his body, Pooki becomes the #1 suspect in a murder investigation.      Princess Alexandrina isn't about to let her faithful servant hang. She begins an investigation of her own, and discovers that Hampton Court isn't such a safe place to live after all.     With her trademark wit and charm, Julia Stuart introduces us to an outstanding cast of lovable oddballs, from the palace maze-keeper to the unconventional Lady Beatrice (who likes to dress up as a toucan—don't ask), as she guides us through the many delightful twists and turns in this fun and quirky murder mystery. Everyone is hiding a secret of the heart, and even Alexandrina may not realize when she's caught in a maze of love.

eYE Marty: The Newly Discovered Autobiography of a Comic Genius


Marty Feldman - 2012
    Marty was a professional writer, and considered himself a writer first, and an actor second. Feldman created a number of immensely successful and influential shows such as Marty, The Frost Report and sketches for Monty Python. He was one of the most essential creative forces in British comedy embodied also by his close friends and creative partners from Beyond the Fringe (especially Peter Cook and Dudley Moore) and Monty Python (especially John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Eric Idle).Marty played the fool, often very happily and with tremendous talent and volcanic, anarchic energy, for his entire life. His face is what many people most immediately remember. It was a face that David Frost, one of his bosses, characterised as 'too grotesque' for television - see what Feldman has to say about Frost, and Francis Bacon, and John Lennon...Marty Feldman finished, and set aside eYE Marty soon before travelling to Mexico to shoot his final film. He did not know that he would die there, although he certainly felt he might die soon, and was haunted by the notion. The book is exactly as Feldman wrote it: Mark Flanagan had it transcribed, with even the photos inserted where Feldman had noted they should go. Hilarious, deeply charming, aphoristic, ironic, charged throughout with lust for life and filled with scenes of great vanished eras and and portraits of other performers and friends, eYE Marty is the amazing discovery of the story of a man who was at the heart of the British comedy revolution.

Sacred Treasure - The Cairo Genizah: The Amazing Discoveries of Forgotten Jewish History in an Egyptian Synagogue Attic


Mark Glickman - 2010
    He had entered the synagogue's genizah--its repository for damaged and destroyed Jewish texts--which held nearly 300,000 individual documents, many of which were over 1,000 years old.Considered among the most important discoveries in modern religious history, its contents contained early copies of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, early manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, and other sacred literature. The importance of the genizah's contents rivals that of the Rosetta Stone, and by virtue of its sheer mass alone, it will continue to command our attention indefinitely.This is the first accessible, comprehensive account of this astounding discovery. It will delight you with its fascinating adventure story--why this enormous collection was amassed, how it was discovered and the many lessons to be found in its contents. And it will show you how Schechter's find, though still being "unpacked" today, forever transformed our knowledge of the Jewish past, Muslim history and much more.

William the Conqueror


Edward Augustus Freeman - 2011
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Courtesans: Money, Sex and Fame in the Nineteenth Century


Katie Hickman - 2003
    In doing so they took control of their lives -- and those of other people -- and made the world do their will.Extremely accomplished, well-educated, and unusually literate, courtesans exerted an incredible influence as leaders of society. They were not received at court, but inhabited their own parallel world -- the demimonde -- complete with its own hierarchies, etiquette, and protocol. They were queens of fashion, linguists, musicians, accomplished at political intrigue, and, of course, possessors of great erotic gifts. Even to be seen in public with one of the great courtesans was a much-envied achievement.

Between Two Worlds: How the English Became Americans


Malcolm Gaskill - 2014
    Whether they settled in Jamestown, Salem, or Barbados, these migrants -- entrepreneurs, soldiers, and pilgrims alike -- faced one incontrovertible truth: England was a very, very long way away. In Between Two Worlds, celebrated historian Malcolm Gaskill tells the sweeping story of the English experience in America during the first century of colonization. Following a large and varied cast of visionaries and heretics, merchants and warriors, and slaves and rebels, Gaskill brilliantly illuminates the often traumatic challenges the settlers faced. The first waves sought to recreate the English way of life, even to recover a society that was vanishing at home. But they were thwarted at every turn by the perils of a strange continent, unaided by monarchs who first ignored then exploited them. As these colonists strove to leave their mark on the New World, they were forced -- by hardship and hunger, by illness and infighting, and by bloody and desperate battles with Indians -- to innovate and adapt or perish. As later generations acclimated to the wilderness, they recognized that they had evolved into something distinct: no longer just the English in America, they were perhaps not even English at all. These men and women were among the first white Americans, and certainly the most prolific. And as Gaskill shows, in learning to live in an unforgiving world, they had begun a long and fateful journey toward rebellion and, finally, independence

Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit, and Sound


Brian Peterson - 2009
    Burning Fight draws upon the memories of more than 150 individuals, many who played influential roles in the nineties hardcore scene, to understand what made this era so unique in its ability to synthesize music, politics, social issues and spirituality into a powerful counter-cultural movement. Includes interviews with Los Crudos, Unbroken, Earth Crisis, Inside Out, Avail, Shelter, Texas Is The Reason, Mouthpiece, Trial, Swing Kids, Coalesce, Burn, & many more.

The First Bohemians: Life and Art in London's Golden Age


Vic Gatrell - 2013
    It was the world's first creative 'Bohemia'. The nation's most significant artists, actors, poets, novelists, and dramatists lived here. From Soho and Leicester Square across Covent Garden's Piazza to Drury Lane, and down from Long Acre to the Strand, they rubbed shoulders with rakes, prostitutes, market people, craftsmen, and shopkeepers. It was an often brutal world full of criminality, poverty and feuds, but also of high spirits, and an intimacy that was as culturally creative as any other in history. Virtually everything that we associate with Georgian culture was produced here.

Damn His Blood: Being a True and Detailed History of the Most Barbarous and Inhumane Murder at Oddingley and the Quick and Awful Retribution


Peter Moore - 2012
    This is a nail-biting true story of brutality, greed and ruthlessness which brings an elusive society vividly back to life.

Frederick the Great: King of Prussia


Timothy C.W. Blanning - 2015
    From early in his reign he was already a legendary figure - fascinating even to those who hated him. Tim Blanning's brilliant biography recreates a remarkable era, a world which would be swept away shortly after Frederick's death by the French Revolution. Equally at home on the battlefield or in the music room at Frederick's extraordinary miniature palace of Sanssouci, Blanning draws on a lifetime's obsession with the 18th century to create a work that is in many ways the summation of all that he has learned in his own rich and various career. Frederick's spectre has hung over Germany ever since: an inspiration, a threat, an impossible ideal - Blanning at last allows us to understand him in his own time.

Byzantium


Robert Wernick - 2016
    Here, too, are the stories of the extraordinary emperors and generals who brought the empire into being and ultimately presided over its demise. We witness the glittering city of Constantinople from its rise to greatness through its deadly conclusion. Though Byzantium has faded away, its everlasting contributions to our world today are revealed in this fascinating history.

Before Enigma (A Kindle Single)


David Boyle - 2015
    But there is one other crucial factor, which is much less well known. The same team had done it before. The truth is that many of those most closely involved in cracking the Enigma code – Alistair Denniston, Frank Birch, Dilly Knox – had wrestled with German naval codes for most of the First World War. By the end of the war they had been successfully cracking a new code every day, from their secret Room 40 at the Old Admiralty Building, in a London blacked out for Zeppelin Raids.The techniques they developed then, the ideas that they came to rely on, the people they came to trust, had been developed the hard way, under intense pressure and absolute secrecy during World War I. Before Enigma tells their story and explains how they managed to crack the supposedly indecipherable code. The book outlines the capture of the Magdeburg and the Hobart, discusses the use of cracked codes to bring German fleets to battle at Dogger Bank and Jutland, and focuses on individuals such as Winston Churchill and Admiral Sir Reginald ‘Blinker’ Hall and their importance in the development of a British naval code tradition. Praise for David Boyle ‘Exhilarating’ - Daily Mail David Boyle is a British author and journalist who writes mainly about history and new ideas in economics, money, business and culture. He lives in Crystal Palace, London. His books include Alan Turing: Unlocking the Enigma, Operation Primrose, Rupert Brooke: England’s Last Patriot, Peace on Earth: The Christmas Truce of 1914, Jerusalem: England’s National Anthem and Unheard Unseen: Warfare in the Dardanelles .Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

Intractable Heart: The Story of Katheryn Parr and Henry VIII


Judith Arnopp - 2014
    The Tudor court is a tangible place, filled with real people and gives us a sixth wife of Henry VIII that stands out in Tudor fiction." Nancy Bilyeau, The Crown "An evocative and compelling story of Tudor intrigue, set in the final years of King Henry VIII." Tony Riches 1537. England. Henry VIII is in conflict with the Pope and the country is divided. A contingent of people in the north embark upon the Pilgrimage of Grace, to compel their monarch to bring him back into the fold. But the unyielding Henry sends an army to quell the uprising. In Yorkshire, Lady Katheryn Latimer, and her step-children, Margaret and John, are held under siege at Snape Castle. Henry proves victorious, although his victory doesn't wholly heal the divisions in the country. A few years later, widowed for the second time, Katheryn joins the household of Lady Mary Tudor where she encounters an old sweetheart, Thomas Seymour. But they are forced to cancel their plans to marry when King Henry VIII makes Katheryn an offer that she is unable to refuse. Haunted by the fates of Henry’s previous wives, Katheryn becomes the king’s trusted consort. But the court is treacherous and Katheryn wins more enemies than friends. . It is not until the Henry's death that Katheryn is finally able to follow the desires of her heart. Judith Arnopp is the author of numerous bestselling historical novels, including The Kiss of the Concubine, written from the perspective of Tudor women, from all walks of life.

The Little Book of the Tudors


Annie Bullen - 2013
    This volume explores all aspects of life in the Tudor age, from life at court (and at the grand country estates where Queen Elizabeth paused during her famous ‘progresses’) to the day-to-day activities at the teeming taverns and plague-ridden cities of the Tudor kingdom.With chapters on the people, palaces and pastimes of the age, some amusing secrets of the Tudor medicine cabinet and closet, and stories from some of the most fabulous, eccentric and opulent entertainments of the age, it will delight anyone with an interest in Tudor history – or indeed, in British history as a whole.