John Gibney proceeds from the beginning of Ireland’s modern period and continues through to virtually the present day, offering an integrated overview of the island nation’s cultural, political, and socioeconomic history. This succinct, scholarly study covers important historical events, including the Cromwellian conquest and settlement, the Great Famine, and the struggle for Irish independence. Gibney's book explores major themes such as Ireland’s often contentious relationship with Britain, its place within the British Empire, the impact of the Protestant Reformation, the ongoing religious tensions it inspired, and the global reach of the Irish diaspora. This unique, wide-ranging work assimilates the most recent scholarship on a wide range of historical controversies, making it an essential addition to the library of any student of Irish studies.

    Each chapter takes the title of a traditional tune, and as in a session played by brilliant improvising musicians, each tune leads into another, melodies and variations weaving in and out in a haze of talk and memory. Carson's inspired jumble of recording history, poetry, tall tales, and polemic captures the sound and vigor of a ruthlessly unsentimental music. A leading Irish poet who is also an accomplished flute player, he tells of his Belfast childhood, of learning to play music, of his travels in Ireland and America, of poteen, pub life, and the special pleasure taken in a well-made Fry "the morning after the night before." Loosely interpreted standards, as Carson points out, achieve a special kind of profundity and resonance - a tune can never be played the same way twice - so this is also a book about the poignancy of lost airs, about music as "a way of renegotiating lost time" and recognizing mortality.

    She's never short of advice, a kind word and a cup of tea (making sure to scald the teapot first, of course).Bring the coat anyway. If it's too hot you can take it off.Comedian Colm O'Regan explores the phenomenon of the Irish Mammy and what she might say about everything from the 'new mass' to the cardinal sin of not owning a cough bottle and the importance of airing clothes properly. The global influence of the Irish Mammy, through history, science, politics and literature, is undeniable. Did you know, for instance, that Hamlet had an Irish Mammy?So if you're an Irish Mammy, have one, know one or suspect you might be turning into one, this book will act as your guide. But be aware that though this book might think it knows it all, it doesn't, only Mammy knows it all.

    The band's driving beats and searing lyrics have garnered widespread acclaim, while their well-known work ethic has earned the industry's respect. Fans who attend Godsmack concerts are sure to be rewarded with a fiercely energetic show. The force behind the band comes largely from founder and front man Sully Erna. Onstage, growling into the microphone with characteristic intensity, he appears perfectly at home, and it's no wonder. Erna has been immersed in the world of rock ever since he got his first drum set at the age of five. Given his achievements, that early start might suggest that his career was a straight shot to the top. The truth is, Erna took so many detours during the years between his first drums and Godsmack's first contract that, more than once, he nearly forgot his destination. In The Paths We Choose, he relates the turbulent story of his life before the platinum albums and packed arenas. "The Lawrence I remember was full of murderers, thieves, and rapists and half the time those people were your next-door neighbors," Erna writes of his childhood hometown in the gritty Boston suburbs. Although the danger of the streets was a constant reality, young Sully's world really revolved around music. From the day he convinced his mom to pay for drum lessons, "beating the skins" was all he ever wanted to do. As he grew older, Erna began devoting all his energy to one band after another. Life as a marginally-successful (and sometimes downright unsuccessful) musician was always unpredictable, and Sully's good times were equally matched by his frustrations. He learned that talent and passion were not enough; he also had to know who to trust. Beautiful blondes attracted Erna like a moth to an open flame, and his affairs with them were intense and often unstable. Outwardly hardened, yet privately vulnerable, he couldn't open up. This, combined with his high-adrenaline lifestyle, seemed bound to catch up with him and did. Here, Sully delves with surprising sensitivity into the emotional struggles that almost forced him to abandon his ambitions. Musical fame was never a given for Sully Erna. He could easily have continued to be "just another punk on the streets." The extraordinary success he now enjoys with Godsmack only came by an unlikely combination of talent, sweat, lucky breaks, and hard falls. Any one of the decisions he made along the way could have brought him to a dead end. But that just might be the whole point. Sully's story shows us that whatever hardship we may face, ultimately, our choices determine our destiny. He's made the most of every advantage and obstacle he has faced, and reminds us that we can, too. But for Sully, career success is not an ultimate destination. Every day brings a new fork in the road another path to choose.

    From her early days as a journalist and feminist activist, Steinem's words have helped generations to empower themselves and work together.Covering topics from relationships ("Many are looking for the right person. Too few are trying to be the right person.") to the patriarchy ("Men are liked better when they win. Women are liked better when they lose. This is how the patriarchy is enforced every day.") and activism ("Revolutions, like trees, grow from the bottom up."), this is the definitive collection of Steinem's words on what matters most. Steinem sees quotes as "the poetry of everyday life," so she also has included a few favorites from friends, including bell hooks, Flo Kennedy, and Michelle Obama, in this book that will make you want to laugh, march, and create some quotes of your own. In fact, at the end of the book, there's a special space for readers to add their own quotes and others they've found inspiring. The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off! is both timeless and timely. It is a gift of hope from Steinem to readers, and a book to share with friends.

    Childhood tells the story of a misfit child's single-minded determination to become a poet; Youth describes her early experiences of sex, work, and independence. Dependency picks up the story as the narrator embarks on the first of her four marriages and goes on to describe her horrible descent into drug addiction, enabled by her sinister, gaslighting doctor-husband.Throughout, the narrator grapples with the tension between her vocation as a writer and her competing roles as daughter, wife, mother, and drug addict, and she writes about female experience and identity in a way that feels very fresh and pertinent to today's discussions around feminism. Ditlevsen's trilogy is remarkable for its intensity and its immersive depiction of a world of complex female friendships, family and growing up--in this sense, it's Copenhagen's answer to Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels. She can also be seen as a spiritual forerunner of confessional writers like Karl Ove Knausgaard, Annie Ernaux, Rachel Cusk and Deborah Levy. Her trilogy is drawn from her own experiences but reads like the most compelling kind of fiction.Born in a working-class neighborhood in Copenhagen in 1917, Ditlevsen became famous for her poetry while still a teenager, and went on to write novels, stories and memoirs before committing suicide in 1976. Having been dismissed by the critical establishment in her lifetime as a working-class, female writer, she is now being rediscovered and championed as one of Denmark's most important modern authors, with Tove fever gripping readers.

    Written in potent, raw prose that propelled the author to celebrity upon publication, the book has become almost completely forgotten.In the early 20th century, MacLane's name was synonymous with sexuality; she is widely hailed as being one of the earliest American feminist authors, and critics at the time praised her work for its daringly open and confessional style. In its first month of publication, the book sold 100,000 copies—a remarkable number for a debut author, and one that illustrates MacLane's broad appeal.Now, with a new foreword written by critic Jessa Crispin, I Await The Devil's Coming stands poised to renew its reputation as one of America's earliest and most powerful accounts of feminist thought and creativity.

    Its telling plunges the reader down the dark alleys of 18th-century London's underworld, a realm populated by tavern owners, pimps, punters, card sharps, and of course, a colorful range of prostitutes and brothel-keepers.

    After giving birth to a son, John, Bridie's child was taken away from her, and she was sent to one of Ireland's infamous Magdalene Laundries. This was only the beginning... They took her freedom. They took her innocence. They took her child. But they couldn't take her spirit.

    White asks uncomfortable questions about the lived reality of womanhood in the 21st century, and the fear that must be internalised in order to find your path through it. White balances vivid storytelling with sharp-witted observations about the horrors of grief, mental illness, and the casual and sometimes hilarious cruelty of life.

    "Startlingly candid".--People. Includes never-before-seen photographs.

    En route, John Cleese describes his nerve-racking first public appearance, at St Peter’s Preparatory School at the age of eight and five-sixths; his endlessly peripatetic home life with parents who seemed incapable of staying in any house for longer than six months; his first experiences in the world of work as a teacher who knew nothing about the subjects he was expected to teach; his hamster-owning days at Cambridge; and his first encounter with the man who would be his writing partner for over two decades, Graham Chapman. And so on to his dizzying ascent via scriptwriting for Peter Sellers, David Frost, Marty Feldman and others to the heights of Monty Python.Punctuated from time to time with John Cleese’s thoughts on topics as diverse as the nature of comedy, the relative merits of cricket and waterskiing, and the importance of knowing the dates of all the kings and queens of England, this is a masterly performance by a former schoolmaster.

     In this illuminating biographical novel, Sherry Jones brings to life Josephine's early years in servitude and poverty in America, her rise to fame as a showgirl in her famous banana skirt, her activism against discrimination, and her many loves and losses. From 1920s Paris to 1960s Washington, to her final, triumphant performance, one of the most extraordinary lives of the twentieth century comes to stunning life on the page. With intimate prose and comprehensive research, Sherry Jones brings this remarkable and compelling public figure into focus for the first time in a joyous celebration of a life lived in technicolor, a powerful woman who continues to inspire today.

    The name of the detention centre -- Auschwitz.It was only after arriving at the camp that he started to discover the Nazi’s terrifying designs. Over the next two and half years, Witold forged an underground army that smuggled evidence of Nazi atrocities to the West, culminating in the mass murder of over a million Jews. His reports from the camp were to shape the Allies response to the Holocaust - yet his story was all but forgotten for decades.This is the first major account of his amazing journey, drawing on exclusive family papers and recently declassified files as well as unpublished accounts from the camp’s fighters to show how he saved hundreds of thousands of lives.The result is a enthralling story of resistance and heroism against the most horrific circumstances, and one man’s attempt to change the course of history.

    To this day, many survivors–most of whom are in their eighties–still cannot talk about their experiences without unearthing terrible memories. Surviving the Sword gives voice to these tens of thousands of Allied POWs and offers us a powerful reminder of the terror and depravations of war and the resilience of the human spirit. In this important book, Brian MacArthur draws on the diaries of American, British, Dutch, and Australian Fepows (Far Eastern prisoners of war), some of whose recollections are published here for the first time. These soldiers wrote and kept their diaries, in secret, because they were determined that to record for posterity how they were starved and beaten, marched almost to death, or transported on “hellships”; how their fellows were summarily executed by guards or felled by the thousands by tropical diseases; and how they were used as slave labor–most notoriously on the Burma-Thailand railway, as depicted in The Bridge on the River Kwai. The diaries excerpted in this book make plain why the Fepows believed that their brutal treatment by Japanese and Korean guards was, literally, incomprehensible to those who did not live it. The prisoners whose stories appear here risked torture and execution to keep diaries and make sketches and drawings that they hid from the guards wherever they could, sometimes burying them in the graves of lost comrades. The survivors’ narratives reveal not just a litany of horrors, but are a moving testament to the nobler instincts of humanity as well, detailing how the POWs prevailed over horrible conditions, even finding or creating a precious few creature comforts and sustaining the rudiments of culture, learning, and play. Forced into solidarity by inhuman conditions, the soldiers showed incredible compassion for one another, improvising ingenious ways to care for the sick, boost morale by subtly mocking their jailers’ authority, or even turn meager rations into the occasional feast. Countless thousands died in Japanese prison camps during World War II. Those fortunate enough to emerge from their ordeal were never the same again. Surviving the Sword at last fills a notable historical gap in our understanding, while also commemorating and memorializing the Fepows’ struggle and sacrifice.