Book picks similar to
Beowulf and Lejre by John D. Niles


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How to Get a Grip


Matthew Kimberley - 2011
    'How To Get a Grip' offers lessons in life in a language that you will appreciate.

London. Portrait of a City


Reuel Golden - 2012
    London is a vast sprawling metropolis, constantly evolving and growing, yet throughout its complex past and shifting present, the humor, unique character, and bulldog spirit of the people has stayed constant. This book salutes all those Londoners, their city, and its history. In addition to the wealth of images included in this book, many previously unpublished, London’s history is told through hundreds of quotations, lively essays, and references from key movies, books, and records. From Victorian London to the Swinging 60s; from the Battle of Britain to Punk; from the Festival of Britain to the 2012 Olympics; from the foggy cobbled streets to the architectural masterpieces of the millennium; from rough pubs to private drinking clubs; from Royal Weddings to raves, from the charm of the East End to the wonders of the Westminster; from Chelsea girls to Hoxton hipsters; from the power to the glory: in page after page of stunning photographs, reproduced big and bold like the city itself, London at last gets the photographic tribute it deserves. Photography by: Eve Arnold, Bill Brandt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Donovan, Walker Evans, Roger Fenton, Bert Hardy, Evelyn Hofer, Tony Ray Jones, Nadav Kander, Roger Mayne, Linda McCartney, Don McCullin, Norman Parkinson, Martin Parr, Irving Penn, Rankin, Grace Robertson, Lord Snowdon, William Henry Fox Talbot, Juergen Teller, Wolfgang Tillmans, and many, many others.

Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone!


Craig Schuftan - 2009
    HEY, NIETZSCHE! is the first book to uncover the hidden roots of rock and roll in the romantic movement. Schuftan picks up a clue in My Chemical Romance's 'Welcome the Black Parade', and follows it into a world where Keats meets the Cure, Wordsworth hangs with Weezer, and Byron exchanges haughty glances with Bowie. From Schopenhauer's darkest days to Queen's greatest hits, HEY, NIEtZSCHE! is a wild ride through the nineteenth century with the best mix-tape in the world on the car stereo.

Fat Chance


Nick Spalding - 2014
    Greg's rugby-playing days are well and truly behind him, thanks to countless pints of beer and chicken curry.When Elise, a radio DJ and Zoe's best friend, tells them about a new competition, it seems like the perfect opportunity to turn their lives around. Fat Chance will pit six hefty couples against one another to see who can collectively lose the most weight and walk away with a £50,000 prize.So begins six months of abject misery, tears, and frustration--that just might turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to them--in another laugh-out-loud look at the way we live now from bestselling author Nick Spalding.

The School: The ups and downs of one year in the classroom


Brendan James Murray - 2021
    One school. One year.Brendan James Murray has been a high school teacher for more than ten years. In that time he has seen hundreds of kids move through the same hallways and classrooms - boisterous, angry, shy, big-hearted, awkward - all of them on the journey to adulthood.In The School, he paints an astonishingly vivid portrait of a single school year, perfectly capturing the highs and lows of being a teenager, as well as the fire, passion and occasional heartbreak of being their teacher. Hilarious, heartfelt and true, it is a timeless story of a teacher and his classes, a must-read for any parent, and a tribute to the art of teaching.ck

The Initiate Brother Duology


Sean Russell - 1991
    Among those out of favor with the new liege is the Order of the Botahist Monks, whose mystical powers have enabled them to hold positions as Spiritual Advisers to the Imperial court for nearly ten centuries. But Emperor Akantsu fears none so greatly as he does Lord Shonto, the brilliant leader of the most important of the Old Families, whose influence could rally the Great Houses against the throne, and whose adopted daughter, the beautiful and talented Lady Nishima, is the last surviving member of the old royal family. Sent to be military Governor of a northern border province long threatened by barbarian invaders, Lord Shonto knows he is being lured to his death. But Akantsu has underestimated his foe, for not only is Lord Shonto the greatest military genius of the age, but he has with him a Spiritual Adviser from the Botahist Order—a young man gifted with extraordinary martial arts skills and magical abilities, Initiate Brother Shuyun. And even Lord Shonto does not realize the true potential of this young monk. Only time will reveal that Shuyun’s magical powers have not seen their equal in nearly a thousand years—not since the Perfect Master himself walked the paths of the Empire…

The Rip


Robert Drewe - 2008
    Set against a backdrop - the Australian coast - as randomly and imminently violent as it is beautiful, The Rip reveals the fragility of relationships between husbands and wives, children and parents, friends and lovers. You will find yourself set down in a modern Garden of Eden with a disgraced Adam seeking his Eve; sharing the fears of a small boy in a coastal classroom as a tsunami approaches; in an English gaol cell with an Australian surfer on drug charges; watching an American film scout confront his masculinity on a Pacific island; and witnessing a middle-aged farmer contemplating murdering the hippie who stole his wife. Written in a variety of moods, always compassionate, wry and razor-sharp, these dazzling stories are crafted with all the weight and resonance of Drewe's longer fiction as well as the incisive wit, passion and pathos of his Australian classic, The Bodysurfers.

The Complete Calvin & Hobbes, Volume 1


Bill Watterson - 2012
    

The Palace


Wiesław Myśliwski - 1970
    The narrator, a Polish shepherd called Jacob, is deliberately a cipher, serving as a Polish everyman. After a bombing that signals the outbreak of an unnamed war, Jacob finds himself alone in the enormous palace of his master, the local lord. Everyone else has fled, and as Jacob wanders from room to room, he marvels at the wealth manifested there. He feels anger, too, and gives vent to an incongruously articulate monologue expressing his bitter resentment of the stratification of Polish society. Surveying portraits of the noble family, Jacob himself assumes the role of the lord of the manor--or perhaps several generations of lords, as this ``character'' has many voices. He personifies others as well, including a peasant girl who is treated as a sexual slave by the master of the estate. In his ramblings, Jacob portrays both classes unflatteringly-- the palace nobles as genuinely evil, the local peasants as little more than animals. Mysliwski is a master of literary pyrotechnics--Jacob's voices are grand opera, dramatic, exaggerated--and they are propelled by the author's moral outrage, which makes the destruction of the palace not only inevitable but justifiable. Yet the novel's sense of urgency seems to have been dispelled by time and intervening events.

River Cottage: Fruit Every Day!


Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - 2013
    I've written this book not to tell you why - I think that's obvious - but to show you how.' Includes many inventive fruit-including recipes - from pizzas to roasts to ice cream - divided by fruit type: Summer berries & currants, Rhubarb, Stone fruit, Apples, Pears & Quinces, Hedgerow fruit, Figs, Melons, Grapes & more, Tropical favourites, Citrus Fruit, Dried fruit, Uncommon fruits.

Never Greater Slaughter: Brunanburh and the Birth of England


Michael Livingston - 2021
    On one side stood the shield-wall of the expanding kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons. On the other side stood a remarkable alliance of rival kings – at least two from across the sea – who'd come together to destroy them once and for all. The stakes were no less than the survival of the dream that would become England. The armies were massive. The violence, when it began, was enough to shock a violent age. Brunanburh may not today have the fame of Hastings, Crécy or Agincourt, but those later battles, fought for England, would not exist were it not for the blood spilled this day. Generations later it was still called, quite simply, the 'great battle'. But for centuries, its location has been lost. Today, an extraordinary effort, uniting enthusiasts, historians, archaeologists, linguists, and other researchers – amateurs and professionals, experienced and inexperienced alike – may well have found the site of the long-lost battle of Brunanburh, over a thousand years after its bloodied fields witnessed history. This groundbreaking new book tells the story of this remarkable discovery and delves into why and how the battle happened. Most importantly, though, it is about the men who fought and died at Brunanburh, and how much this forgotten struggle can tell us about who we are and how we relate to our past.

The Age of the Gladiators: Savagery & Spectacle in Ancient Rome


Rupert Matthews - 2004
    This book looks at the savage spectacles of Rome and traces their development from entertainment to hysterical obsession until their eventual decline and disappearance.

Big Deal: One Year in the Life of a Professional Poker Player


Anthony Holden - 1990
    He spent days and nights in the poker paradise of Las Vegas, in Malta and Morocco, even shipboard, mingling with the legendary greats, sharpening his game, perfecting his repartee, and learning a great deal about himself in the process. Poker, Holden would insist, is not gambling. Like chess it is a paradigm of life at its most intense, a gladiatorial contest that brings out the best as well as the worst in people. Its heroes, its eccentrics and is comedians stalk the pages of this book, along with all the hair-raising, nail-biting excitement of the games themselves. The book is reissued with a new introduction by the author.

Egghead; or, You Can't Survive on Ideas Alone


Bo Burnham - 2013
    100 million people viewed those videos, turning Bo into an online sensation with a huge and dedicated following. Bo taped his first of two Comedy Central specials four days after his 18th birthday, making him the youngest to do so in the channel's history. Now Bo is a rising star in the comedy world, revered for his utterly original and intelligent voice. And, he can SIIIIIIIIING!In EGGHEAD, Bo brings his brand of brainy, emotional comedy to the page in the form of off-kilter poems, thoughts, and more. Teaming up with his longtime friend, artist, and illustrator Chance Bone, Bo takes on everything from death to farts in this weird book that will make you think, laugh and think, "why did I just laugh?"

Our Numbered Days


Neil Hilborn - 2015
    To date, it has been watched over 10 million times. Our Numbered Days is Neil’s debut full-length poetry collection, containing 45 of Neil’s poems including “OCD”, “Joey”, “Future Tense”, “Liminality”, “Moving Day”, and many, many never-before-seen poems.