I have read them with the greatest interest. To them I am indebted for about all the historical knowledge I have." Considered what we would now call "young adult" literature, this collection, first published between 1848 and 1871, was designed to present a clear, distinct, connected narrative of the lives of the great figures of world history, those people who have been most influential, at least as American author and educator JACOB ABBOTT (1803-1879) saw it from his 19th-century perspective. Wildly popular and republished many times under different collected names, this replica set mimics the 1904 reprint known as the "Makers of History" series. It will delight students of history as well as show the scholar how history telling has changed over the last few centuries. More than 30 other volumes in the series are also available from Cosimo Classics. This volume, dating from 1861, covers Margaret of Anjou (1430-1482)-the wife of King Henry VI of England and an influential figure in that nation's War of the Roses-from her courtship with the king to the plots and schemes of her reign and her eventual exile, and more.

    Prompted by the prophecies of three mysterious witches and goaded by his ambitious wife, the Scottish thane Macbeth murders Duncan, King of Scotland, in order to succeed him on the throne. This foul deed soon entangles the conscience-stricken nobleman in a web of treachery, deceit and more murders that ultimately spells his doom.

    He explores the boundaries of human fallibility both in candid personal poems, such as the title piece—a plea for his father, a victim of Alzheimer’s wandering the hallway at night—and in his passionate encounters with classic poetic texts, as when Dante’s Inferno enters his bedroom:When you read Canto Five aloud last night in your naked, singsong, fractured Italian, my sweet compulsion, my carnal appetite, I suspected we shall never be forgiven for devouring each other body and soul . . . From the lighting of a Yahrzeit candle to the drawings by the children of Terezin, Hirsch longs for transcendence in art and in the troubled history of his faith. In “The Hades Sonnets,” the ravishing series that crowns the collection, the poet awakens full of grief in his wife’s arms, but here as throughout, there is a luminous forgiveness in his examination of our sorrows. Taken together, these poems offer a profound engagement with our need to capture what is passing (and past) in the incandescence of language.From the Hardcover edition.

    Most, but not all. A Kilo of String is the story-so-far of this not-particularly-plucky couple’s often bewildering experiences among the descendants of Sophocles, Plato and Nana Mouskouri with occasional digressions into total irrelevances. This is a book which is almost guaranteed not to change your life, but what it will do is answer many of the fundamental questions about life in Greece, such as: How do you avoid ordering a double tomato for your pine marten when booking a hotel room? Should olive harvesting be registered with the Dangerous Sports Association? Why are chicken livers useful (other than to the chickens themselves)? Oh yes, and there are some serious bits too about how life in Greece has changed since the beginning of the economic crisis.

    He has been there ever since.People would run to the mountains to escape the warplanes and found asylum within their chestnut forests...This book is the result. Laboriously tapped out on a mobile phone and translated from the Farsi. It is a voice of witness, an act of survival. A lyric first-hand account. A cry of resistance. A vivid portrait through five years of incarceration and exile.Do Kurds have any friends other than the mountains?

    Boom tells the story of an elderly woman and her property agent son in Singapore, who are struggling over the potential en bloc sale of their home. Their destinies become interwoven with that of an idealistic civil servant, Jeremiah, who is facing the greatest challenge of his career—persuading a reluctant corpse to yield its memories. Boom is a quirky yet poignant tale about the relocation of both dead and living, and how personal stories get left behind in the inexorable march of progress.Written by economist-turned-playwright Jean Tay, Boom was conceptualised at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2007, and developed and staged by the Singapore Repertory Theatre in September 2008. It was nominated for Best Original Script for The Straits Times’ Life! Theatre Awards in 2009 and is now an O- and N-Level Literature text in Singapore schools.“Jean Tay is one of the most gifted playwrights I have come across in years.” —Gaurav Kripalani, Artistic Director, Singapore Repertory Theatre

    Bound in a deluxe, maroon, leather edition, this collectible hardcover makes a perfectly elegant gift for any occasion.Though originally written as a gift from a father to a son, its simple message has been enjoyed by men and women of all ages."Most of us already know how to live a successful and purposeful life," says the author. "We know we should be understanding and thoughtful, responsible, courageous, and appreciative. It's just that we sometimes need reminding." Life's Little Instruction Book is that reminder.

    A New Yorker, trying not to be jaded, accompanies a cash-strapped pot grower to a “clothing optional resort” in California. A nerdy high-schooler has her first sexual experience at Geology Camp. A college student, on the night of her father’s funeral, watches a video of her bat mitzvah, hypnotized by the image of the girl she used to be . . . Frank and irreverent, Rebecca Schiff’s stories offer a singular view of growing up (or not) and finding love (or not) in today’s ever-uncertain landscape. In its bone-dry humor, its pithy observations, and its thrilling ability to unmask the most revealing moments of human interaction—no matter how fleeting—The Bed Moved announces a new talent to be reckoned with.

    Bergin.Illustrated with drawings by Aldo Salvadori

    Despite her flapping arms and shaking legs, she continued to speak clearly and was able to finish her speech. It was as if she had suddenly become two people: a calm orator and a shuddering wreck. Then the seizures happened again and again. The Shaking Woman tracks Hustvedt’s search for a diagnosis, one that takes her inside the thought processes of several scientific disciplines, each one of which offers a distinct perspective on her paroxysms but no ready solution. In the process, she finds herself entangled in fundamental questions: What is the relationship between brain and mind? How do we remember? What is the self?During her investigations, Hustvedt joins a discussion group in which neurologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and brain scientists trade ideas to develop a new field: neuropsychoanalysis. She volunteers as a writing teacher for psychiatric in-patients at the Payne Whitney clinic in New York City and unearths precedents in medical history that illuminate the origins of and shifts in our theories about the mind-body problem. In The Shaking Woman, Hustvedt synthesizes her experience and research into a compelling mystery: Who is the shaking woman? In the end, the story she tells becomes, in the words of George Makari, author of Revolution in Mind, “a brilliant illumination for us all.”