Thrall


Mary SanGiovanni - 2011
    Tucked away in the wilds of the northwestern corner of the state, Thrall has always been a very strange place to live. The town was a poison that affected people's minds, their souls, their bodies, and their perspectives. So Jesse abandoned his friends and the one woman he loved, and left everything behind.Seven years later, Jesse has found a reason to return — a reason that, in spite of his best attempts otherwise, he can't ignore. His old love, Mia Dalianis, has left him a voicemail message begging him to come back, if not for her, then for the daughter Jesse never knew he had. Jesse needs to go back. He's been running for a long time — from relationships, friendships, everything he is afraid of and feels guilty over. He realizes that the nightmares will never stop until he goes to Thrall. With help from Nadia Richards and some old surviving friends from Thrall, Jesse intends to find his daughter or die trying. He goes looking for redemption, but what he discovers about his old hometown may destroy him and everyone he's ever cared about.Black Voltage Series #7

Izanami's Choice


Adam Heine - 2016
    Heine does a great job of building a world replete with rules and history and uses both to construct a mystery with an awful lot of intrigue and surprise." - Nerds on EarthSamurai vs. robots. In 1901, the Meiji Restoration has abolished the old ways and ushered in a cybernetic revolution. Androids integrate into society at all levels, following their programming for the betterment of every citizen, as servants, bodyguards, and bureaucrats. Jinzou are the future. Japan is at the threshold of a new tomorrow!As a ronin steeped in the old ways, Itaru wants nothing more to do with the artificial creations posing as human. But when a jinzou is suspected of murder, he's pulled into a mystery that could tear the nation apart.​Malfunction or free will? When is a machine more than just a machine?IZANAMI'S CHOICE is an alternate history sci-fi novella set in Meiji Era Japan. It's samurai vs. robots as the author explores how Japan might grapple with the rise of artificial intelligence.

Cosmic Ghost Rider #1


Donny Cates - 2018
    A deal with the devil made him Ghost Rider. A deal with Galactus made him cosmic. A deal with Thanos made him…DEAD?!? Not to worry, he’s coming back, and he’s got a plan to make the universe a better place that’s going to lead him into an even CRAZIER adventure than he’s ever been in! Join hot new comic (and cosmic?) writer Donny Cates (THANOS, DOCTOR STRANGE) as he pushes his wildest creation past the breaking point!

Contraband


Dennis Wheatley - 1936
    From the moment we meet the beautiful Sabine during La Grande Semaine at Deauville until the last page which discloses the end of her romance the reader is caught up and lives for breathless hours through scene after scene of swift action and stealthy secret work at night. We meet again that sinister figure of twisted body and twisted brain Lord Gavin Fortescue who escaped all penalty for the havoc and suffering he wrought in Such Power is Dangerous; and pitted against him we find that cynical but charming egoist Gregory Sallust whose courage and imagination saved his friends in the dark hours of Black August.The story is told with all the skill and speed and plausibility which have delighted readers of Wheatley's tales of romance and adventure all over the world. .‎

A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe Summary & Study Guide


BookRags - 2010
    54 pages of summaries and analysis on A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe.This study guide includes the following sections: Plot Summary, Chapter Summaries & Analysis, Characters, Objects/Places, Themes, Style, Quotes, and Topics for Discussion.

Fire in the City: Savonarola and the Struggle for the Soul of Renaissance Florence


Lauro Martines - 2006
    Lauro Martines, whose decades of scholarship have made him one of the most admired historians of Renaissance Italy, here provides a remarkably fresh perspective on Girolamo Savonarola, the preacher and agitator who flamed like a comet through late fifteenth-century Florence. The Dominican friar has long been portrayed as a dour, puritanical demagogue who urged his followers to burn their worldly goods in the bonfire of the vanities. But as Martines shows, this is a caricature of the truth--the version propagated by the wealthy and powerful who feared the political reforms he represented. In fact, Savonarola emerges as a complex and subtle man: compassionate, wise, a poet and scholar, and even, at critical moments, a force for moderation. The friar, a mesmerizing preacher, set the city afire with his message of Christian charity wedded to republican ideals. It is this reality--of Savonarola as both religious and civic leader--that Martines captures in all its complexity, showing how he inspired an outpouring of political debate in a city newly freed from the tyranny of the Medici. In the end, the volatile passions he unleashed--and the powerful families he threatened--sent the friar to his own fiery death. But the fusion of morality and politics that he represented would leave a lasting mark on Renaissance Florence. For the many readers fascinated by histories of Renaissance Italy--such as Brunelleschi's Dome or Galileo's Daughter, and Martines's acclaimed April Blood--Fire in the City offers a vivid portrait of one of the most memorable characters from that dazzling era.

The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History


Robert Darnton - 1984
    When the apprentices of a Paris printing shop in the 1730's held a series of mock trials and then hanged all the cats they could lay their hands on, why did they find it so hilariously funny that they choked with laughter when they reenacted it in pantomime some twenty times? Why in the 18th century version of "Little Red Riding Hood" did the wolf eat the child at the end? What did the anonymous townsman of Montpelier have in mind when he kept an exhaustive dossier on all the activities of his native city? These are some of the provocative questions Robert Darnton attempts to answer in this dazzling series of essays that probe the ways of thought in what we like to call "The Age of Enlightenment."

Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde: In Aid of the Royal Theatrical Fund


Oscar WildeGeoffrey Palmer - 2010
    Additional narrators include Geoffrey Palmer O.B.E., Sir Donald Sinden, and Elaine Stritch. Music: 'Reverie De Sebastian' by Steve Davies.

GB84


David Peace - 2004
    Here he describes the entire civil war, with corruption from government to boardroom, and all the tumultuous violence, passion and dirty tricks.

The Complete Okko


Hub - 2016
    While most warriors shed blood on the battlefield for one clan or another, Okko the Ronin travels elsewhere on a more personal mission, hunting demons across the land. In his company are Noburo, an enigmatic giant who hides his face behind a red mask; Noshin, a whimsical monk and lover of saké with the power to commune with the spirits of nature; and the young fisherman Tikku, learning his way in the world.  From master storyteller Hub, The Complete Okko contains all five volumes of his ambitious fantasy series that explores one ronin’s journey of redemption across a world that is as beautful as it is violent. In addition, this completed collection includes over 120 pages of previously unreleased Okko story material.

Classroom Behaviour: A Practical Guide to Effective Teaching, Behaviour Management and Colleague Support


Bill A. Rogers - 2000
    Classroom Behaviour explores the relationship between effective teaching, behaviour management, discipline and colleague support.Bill Rogers also addresses issues such as: argumentative and challenging children students with emotional or behavioural disorders managing difficult classes anger management. This practical guide is written by someone well aware of how demanding teaching can be and is highly recommended for teachers at all levels, teaching assistants and newly-qualified teachers.

Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century, Vol. 1: The Structures of Everyday Life


Fernand Braudel - 1979
    Like everything he writes, it is new, stimulating and sparkles like champagne.Braudel's technique, it has been said, is that of a pointilliste. Myriads of separate details, sharp glimpses of reality experienced by real people, are seen miraculously to orchestrate themselves into broad rhythms that underlie and transcend the excitements and struggles of particular periods. Braudel sees the past as we see the present — only in a longer perspective and over a wider field.The perspective is that of the possible, of the actual material limitations to human life in any given time or place. It is the every¬day, the habitual — the obvious that is so obvious it has hitherto been neglected by historians — that Braudel claims for a new and vast and enriching province of history. Food and drink, dress and housing, demography and family structure, energy and technology, money and credit, and, above all, the growth of towns, that powerful agent of social and economic development, are described in all the richness and complexity of real life.The intensely visual quality of Braudel's understanding of history is brought into sharper focus by the remarkable series of illustrations that of themselves would make this book incomparableFERNAND BRAUDEL was born in 1902, received a degree in history in 1923, and subsequently taught in Algeria, Paris and Sao Paulo. He spent five years as a prisoner of war in Germany, during which time he wrote his grand thesis, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, which was published in 1949. In 1946 he became a member of the editorial board of Annates, the famous journal founded by Marc Bloch and Lucian Febvre, whom he succeeded at the College de France in 1949. He has been a member of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and since 1962 has been chief administrator of the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme. Professor Braudel holds honorary doctor¬ates from universities all over the world.Jacket painting: Detail from Breughel the Elder's The Fall of Icarus, from the Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels. (Giraudon)"Braudel deserves a Nobel Prize. . . . [This is] the most remarkable picture of human life in the centuries before the human condition was radically changed by the growth of industry that has yet been presented. A book of great originality, a masterpiece."—J. H. Plumb, The Washington Post"Braudel's books enthrall. ... He is brilliant in demonstrating how most history is written on the backs of most people."—John Leonard, The New York Times"Even a preliminary glance at The Structures of Everyday Life shows a book that has no obvious compeer either in scope of reference or level of accessibility to the general reader. ... Its broad authority remains deeply impressive."—Richard Holmes, Harper's"Here is vast erudition, beautifully arranged, presented with grace of style, with humility before life's complexity and warm humanist feeling. Braudel's subject is nothing less than every¬day life all over the world before the industrial revolution.... He succeeds triumphantly in his first purpose: 'if not to see everything, at least to locate everything, and on the requisite world scale.'"—Angus Calder, The Standard"On neither side of the Atlantic does there live a man or woman with so much knowledge of the past as Braudel, or with a greater sense of its aptness to the intellectual occasion in hand....You can't pick up this big fat book without having your attention transfixed by something or other, if only the great gallery of pictures. They are a masterpiece in themselves."—Peter Laslett, The Guardian"This new book is unarguably a brilliant survey of demog¬raphy, urbanisation, transport, technology, food, clothing, housing, money and business, social classes, state power and international trade in the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries."—Theodore Zeldin, The Listener-----By examining in detail the material life of preindustrial peoples around the world, Fernand Braudel significantly changed the way historians view their subject. Volume I describes food and drink, dress and housing, demography and family structure, energy and technology, money and credit, and the growth of towns.

The Court Society


Norbert Elias - 1939
    Ranging in date from Elias's teenage years before the First World War to the 1930s, the writings in this volume were previously unpublished in English.

Putting on the Style


Freda Lightfoot - 2006
    So the vibrant market of Champion Street is a source of many a tempting bargain – as well as all the local gossip.Dena loves her Saturday job at Belle Garside’s market café, and her ready smile makes her a universal favourite. She is soon in thrall to Belle’s two good-looking and dangerous sons. But fate has other plans in store when her younger brother is killed by a gang of thugs.Only when it is far too late does Dena begin to ask herself one terrifying question: has she fallen in love with her brother’s killer? A moving saga of second chances and forbidden love set around a bustling café in 1950s Manchester, perfect for fans of Kitty Neale and Ellie Dean. Praise for Putting on the Style 'You can’t put a price on Freda Lightfoot’s stories from Manchester’s 1950s Champion Street Market. They bubble with enough life and colour to brighten up the dreariest day and they have characters you can easily take to your heart’ Northern Echo‘A rattling good read to touch the heart of anyone who has loved someone they shouldn’t have’ Dorset Evening Echo‘Deftly chronicled’ Telegraph & Argus‘Freda Lightfoot’s talent for creating believable characters makes this a page-turning read’ Newcastle Evening Chronicle

A Wander Through the Village: The Greek Village Handbook / The Eastern Fly and Other Stories


Sara Alexi - 2016
    It’s a bold lie, but it might just work…’------------X------------A Wander Through the Village is the perfect companion to the Greek Village Series and is a must read for any enthusiasts of author Sara Alexi’s collection. In this guide to the Greek Village there is a selection of short stories in which we catch up with old friends from previous books, and are given the chance to meet some new ones. And just so we can keep on top of all the comings and goings of our favourite characters, there is a who’s who of all who have appeared in the books so far, along with a glossary of Greek phrases which are used to so vividly describe the culture.A Wander Through the Village is also packed full of Sara’s personal anecdotes from life in Greece, providing insight into the inspiration behind each novel. Stunning images of Greece chosen by Sara run throughout, and you will find maps of both the village and Orino Island, helping to transport you to your best-loved Greek destinations. There are even questions that can be used in book clubs - this guide has it all for book lovers everywhere.But newcomers to the series, please note, if you haven’t read all the books in the series then handle with care, as the handbook section includes spoilers!If you enjoyed A Wander Through the Village, you’ll love book nineteen in the series, A Stranger in the Village. Find it on Amazon now!