What constitutes beauty in wine, and how do we appreciate it? What role does wine play in a soulful, sensual life? Can wines of place survive in a world of globalized styles and 100-point scoring systems? In his highly approachable style, Theise describes how wine can be a portal to aesthetic, emotional, even mystical experience—and he frankly asserts that these experiences are most likely to be inspired by wines from artisan producers. Along the way, Theise tells us a little about how he got where he is today, explores the meaning of wine in the lives of vintners he has known, and praises particular grape varieties. Reading between the Wines is a passionate tribute to wine—and to what it can say to us once we learn to listen.

    [and] the most complete history we have of the Irish female experience. -- Labor History

    Today, they live on the roadside in trailers and in government-built camps. Told largely in her own voice, Nan's saga begins in 1919 with her birth in a tent in the Irish Midlands; it follows her life in Ireland and England, in countryside and city slums, through adversity and adventure. Gmelch brings to her task not only the resources of anthropology, but the skill of a sensitive writer and a warmth that allows her to see Nan as a person, not a subject. What emerges is a human story, filled with cruelty and compassion, sorrow and humor, bad luck and good.

    Reviled by its enemies and lionized by its allies, Saint Patrick’s Battalion will fight under an emerald green flag with the fury of the proud and the damned. And as James Alexander Thom’s extraordinary new novel reaches a shattering climax, the reader hurtles into a collision between true loyalty and true betrayal–and between the best and basest reasons for war.Narrated by two soldiers on opposite sides of the Mexican-American War of 1846, Saint Patrick’s Battalion tells the true but little-known story of an Irish immigrant who deserted from the U.S. Army and was joined across enemy lines by hundreds of comrades. Driven by the abuses of Protestant West Point—trained officers and the realization that they were attacking fellow Catholics, John Riley and his San Patricios abandoned their adopted country and took their place proudly alongside the dashing Hidalgo horsemen and stolid native Indians who were being used by the Mexican army as cannon fodder against the foreign invaders. Though hopelessly misled by the vainglorious Santa Ana, and facing such future military legends as a brooding young Ulysses S. Grant and the brilliant captain Robert E. Lee, Riley and his fighters were responsible for an enormous number of American casualties–and would eventually pay a brutal price for their treachery.Its narrative foreshadowing America’s Civil War, Saint Patrick’s Battalion asks haunting questions about American expansionism, racism, and the machinations of a war that began before it was declared. From horrific depictions of cannonade warfare to the quiet corners of doubt, courage, and love in men’s hearts and minds, James Alexander Thom’s novel takes us on an astounding adventure into beautiful, harsh Mexico–and dramatically chronicles a crucial, bloody chapter in the making of America.

    A dashing young orator during the Great Hunger of the 1840s, Thomas Francis Meagher led a failed uprising against British rule, for which he was banished to a Tasmanian prison colony for life. But two years later he was “back from the dead” and in New York, instantly the most famous Irishman in America. Meagher’s rebirth included his leading the newly formed Irish Brigade in many of the fiercest battles of the Civil War. Afterward, he tried to build a new Ireland in the wild west of Montana—a quixotic adventure that ended in the  great mystery of his disappearance, which Egan resolves convincingly at last.

    She uncovers a wealth of material from the people who knew her.1905: Eight-year-old Adele Austerlitz moves from her humble home in Omaha, Nebraska, with her five-year-old brother Fred, to New York to begin training at a professional stage academy. They undertake a gruelling schedule of rehearsals and touring, setting the foundations of what will be the most famous and sought-after dance partnership on 1920s Broadway.1928: Patricia Ryan, a no-nonsense Irish girl takes a job as a housemaid at Lismore Castle in County Waterford, Ireland. All of their lives will intersect, weaving the tale of one of the most famous women of her time – charismatic entertainer, celebrity, fashion icon, muse to artists and writers, and favourite of royalty.

    Robert Blair Mayne is still regarded as one of the greatest soldiers in the history of military special operations. He was the most decorated British soldier of the Second World War, receiving four DSOs, the Croix de Guerre, and the Legion d'honneur, and he pioneered tactics used today by the SAS and other special operations units worldwide. Rogue Warrior of the SAS tells the remarkable life story of "Colonel Paddy," whose exceptional physical strength and uniquely swift reflexes made him a fearsome opponent. But his unorthodox rules of war and his resentment of authority would deny him the ultimate accolade of the Victoria Cross. Drawing on personal letters and family papers, declassified SAS files and records, together with the Official SAS Diary compiled in wartime and eyewitness accounts, this is the true story of the soldier.

    Mostly set in the rural Irish midlands, on a small family farm not far from the river Shannon. This book tracks the final years of Maleney's grandfather's life, and looks at his experience with Alzheimer's disease, as well as the experiences of the people closest to him. Using his grandfather's memory loss as a spur, the essays ask what it means to call a place home how we establish ourselves in a place, and how we record our experiences of a place. The nature of familial and social bonds, the way a relationship is altered by observing and recording it, the influence of tradition and history, the question of belonging - these are the questions which come up again and again. Using episodes from his own life, and drawing on the works of artists like Pat Collins, Seamus Heaney, John Berger and Brian Eno, Maleney examines how certain ways of listening and looking might bring us closer to each other, or keep us apart. Minor Monuments is a thought provoking and quietly devastating meditation on family, and how even the smallest story is no minor event.

    One of four innocent people convicted of a terrorist bombing in Guildford, England, tells of the miscarriage of justice that resulted in imprisonment for himself and members of his family, including his father, and describes the struggle to clear his name and gain his freedom.

    Filled with useful information for the traveler, this guide includes three-dimensional drawings, floor plans, detailed neighborhood maps with a street-finder index, and even historical timelines.

    Immediately, strange and lurid rumors began circulating the neighborhood about what had happened. Some said she ran off with an egg seller; others supposed it was an aristocratic foxhunter who had taken young Bridget away. Swirling amid rumors was the barely whispered, but widely held, belief that Bridget had gone with no mortal man; rather, she had gone off with the fairies. The mystery deepened when seven days later her body was discovered, bent, broken and badly burned in a shallow grave. Within a few days, the unimaginable truth came to light: for almost a week before her death Bridget had been confined, ritually starved, threatened, physically and verbally abused, exorcised, and, finally, burned to death by her husband, Michael Cleary, her father, and extended family who confused bronchitis with a "fairy dart." They had all become convinced that "their Bridgie" had been taken from them and her fairy-possessed body left behind to deceive them. In The Cooper's Wife Is Missing, Joan Hoff and Marian Yeates make sense of this ancient, rarely publicized, ritual exorcism and explain how the incident went on to become a national and international incident. Set against a backdrop of renewed Irish nationalism, a Church crackdown on lingering pagan practices and the ongoing British humiliation of Catholic Ireland, the authors deftly map the dislocating anxieties that beset the rural peasantry in late nineteenth-century Ireland. Bewildered and frightened by the changes occurring all around them, pulled in all directions by their politicians, priests, landlords and English overlords, the Clearys were not alone in retreating to the relative comfort of pagan ritual. Drawing on first-hand accounts, contemporary newspaper reports, police records, trial testimony and a rich wealth of folklore, the authors weave a mesmerizing tale that touches upon magic, madness and mystery as it details, day by day, Bridget's ordeal and the resulting investigation. This is narrative history at its evocative best. It fascinates as it illuminates.

    Duignan describes how, two years ago, he staged a dramatic escape from the elite paramilitary group at the core of the Church, the Sea Organization, and how he narrowly evaded pursuit by the Office of Special Affairs. He looks back on the 22 years he served in the Church's secret army and describes the hours of sleep deprivation, brain-washing and intense religious counseling he endured, as he was molded into a soldier of Scientology. He talks about the money-making-machine at the heart of the Church, the Scientology goal to Clear the Planet and Get Ethics In, and the punishments meted out to anyone who transgresses. We follow his journey through the Church and the painful investigation that leads to his eventual realization that there is something very wrong at Scientology's core.--From publisher description.

    W. Rolleston masterfully retells the great Celtic myths and illuminates the world that spawned them. Focusing principally on Irish myths, the book first takes up the history and religion of the Celts, the myths of the Irish invasion and the early Milesian kings.What follows is pure enchantment as you enter the timeless world of heroic tales centered around the Ulster king Conor mac Nessa and the Red Branch Order of chivalry (Ultonian cycle). These are followed by the tales of the Ossianic cycle, which center on the figure of Finn mac Cumhal, whose son Oisín (or Ossian) was a poet and warrior, and the traditional author of most of the tales. Next comes a summary of the Voyage of Maeldūn, a brilliant and curious piece of invention that exemplifies the genre of "wonder-voyages" — adventures purely in the region of romance, out of earthly space and time. Finally, the author recounts a selection of the myths and tales of the Cymry (Welsh).In these pages, readers will delight in the favorite and familiar tales of Cuchulain, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the Grail, Deirdre, and many more figures that haunt the shadowy, twilight world of Celtic legend. The magic of that world is further brought to life in more than 50 imaginative full-page illustrations by Stephen Reid, Arthur G. Bell, and the famed illustrator J. C. Leyendecker. Reprinted here in its first paperback edition, Celtic Myths and Legends also includes several helpful genealogical tables: Gods of the House of Dōn, Gods of the House of Llyr, and Arthur and His Kin, as well as a useful glossary.

    Members of the Clan na Gael - agitators for an Irish republic - hatch a daring plan to free six Irish political prisoners from the most remote gaol on earth, Fremantle Prison in Western Australia. Under the guise of a whale hunt, Captain Anthony sets sail on the Catalpa, risking his life to rescue the men from the prison, known among the inmates as 'a living tomb'. What follows is one of history's greatest escape stories - a tale of courage and cunning that stands as an enormously significant event in the histories of no fewer than four nations.Americans were drawn to the story from the first, most particularly to its climactic moment. When the six escaped prisoners are found to be aboard an American whaler - The Catalpa.For Ireland, who had suffered English occupation for 700 years, a successful escape would be a call to arms. It would show the English that people capable of launching an escape on the other side of the world, really would stop at nothing. For the English the humiliation of an escape would mean the "Irish question" would not go away. And for the young Australia, the Catalpa Rescue was a demonstration that those seeking independence for their own country could triumph, that Great Britain was not unbeatable. Told with FitzSimons' trademark pace and verve, The Catalpa Rescue is a true story that has it all: adventure, politics, morality, colonialism, the fight for independence and, most importantly, the triumph of good men, against all odds.

    The murders were funded by American supporters of Irish independence and carried out by the Invincibles, a militant faction of republicans armed with specially-made surgeon's blades. They ended what should have been a turning point in Anglo Irish relations. A new spirit of goodwill had been burgeoning between British Prime Minister William Gladstone and Ireland's leader Charles Stewart Parnell, with both men forging in secret a pact to achieve peace and independence in Ireland--with the newly appointed Cavendish, Gladstone's protégé, to play an instrumental role in helping to do so. The impact of the Phoenix Park murders was so cataclysmic that it destroyed the pact, almost brought down the government, and set in motion repercussions that would last long into the 20th century.In a story that spans Donegal, Dublin, London, Paris, New York, Cannes and Cape Town, Julie Kavanagh thrillingly traces the crucial events that came before and after the murders. From the adulterous affair that caused Parnell's downfall; to Queen Victoria's prurient obsession with the assassinations; and the investigation spearheaded by Superintendent John Mallon, also known as the "Irish Sherlock Holmes," culminating in the eventual betrayal and clandestine escape of leading Invincible James Carey and his murder on the high seas, The Irish Assassins brings us intimately into this fascinating story that shaped Irish politics and engulfed an Empire. This is an unputdownable book from one of our most "compulsively readable" (Guardian) writers.