After the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars of south-west France in 1208, a Spanish monk - later canonized as St Dominic - took up the cudgels by establishing a kind of secret police to ferret out heresy - thus began the infamous Inquisition. Baigent and Leigh tell the whole extraordinary story, taking it on into the nineteenth century and showing how after the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility in 1870 the Vatican attempted to establish new authorities that were an intellectual equivalent of the Inquisition. The Inquisition offers a fascinating narrative account of one of the most influential and horrifying movements in the history of western Europe. Views: 44
Dirty Bertie - the boy with nose-pickingly disgusting habits - is back for another helping of comic chaos! Join Bertie as he struggles to escape from the clutches of Angela Nicely, looks after the elderly class hamster, ends up with a star solo trumpet performance, even though he's never played one before... Views: 44
For readers of Unbroken and The Boys in the Boat comes an unforgettable tale of courage from America's "forgotten war" in Korea, by the New York Times bestselling author of A Higher Call. Devotion tells the inspirational story of the U.S. Navy's most famous aviator duo: Lieutenant Tom Hudner, a white New Englander from the country-club scene, and Ensign Jesse Brown, an African American sharecropper's son from Mississippi. Tom passed up Harvard to fly fighter planes for his country. Jesse became the navy's first black carrier pilot to defend a nation that wouldn't even serve him in a bar. While much of America remained divided by segregation, Jesse and Tom joined forces as wingmen in Fighter Squadron 32. Adam Makos takes us into the cockpit as these bold young aviators cut their teeth at the world's most dangerous job--landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier--a line of work that Jesse's young wife,... Views: 44
When Alexander McQueen committed suicide in February 2010, aged just 40, a shocked world mourned the loss of its most visionary fashion designer. McQueen had risen from humble beginnings as the youngest child of an East London taxi driver to scale the heights of fame, fortune and glamour. He designed clothes for the world's most beautiful women including Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. In business he created a multi-million pound luxury brand that became a favourite with both celebrities and royalty, most famously the Duchess of Cambridge who wore a McQueen dress on her wedding day. But behind the confident facade and bad-boy image, lay a sensitive soul who struggled to survive in the ruthless world of fashion. As the pressures of work intensified, so McQueen became increasingly dependent on the drugs that contributed to his tragic end. Meanwhile, in his private life, his failure to find lasting love with a string of boyfriends only added to his despair. And then there were... Views: 44
In the tradition of Friday Night Lights and Outcasts United, ONE GOAL tells the inspiring story of the soccer team in a town bristling with racial tension that united Somali refugees and multi-generation Mainers in their quest for state—and ultimately national—glory.When thousands of Somali refugees resettled in Lewiston, Maine, a struggling, overwhelmingly white town, longtime residents grew uneasy. Then the mayor wrote a letter asking Somalis to stop coming, which became a national story. While scandal threatened to subsume the town, its high school's soccer coach integrated Somali kids onto his team, and their passion began to heal old wounds. Taking readers behind the tumult of this controversial team-and onto the pitch where the teammates become state champions and achieved a vital sense of understanding-ONE GOAL is a timely story about overcoming the prejudices that divide us. Views: 44
The Mounties don't always get their man. There is a folk legend living in Bay Bulls, on the Southern Shore of Newfoundland, by the name of Leo Crockwell. He ranks up there with legends like D. B. Cooper and Albert Johnson, the Mad Trapper of Rat River. This is the story of how Leo Crockwell took on one of the most revered police forces in the world, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and walked away unscathed.On December 4, 2010, Leo Crockwell, fifty-five, an electrical technician and lifetime resident of Bay Bulls, barricaded himself in his mother's house in Bay Bulls after an altercation with his sister involving a firearm. Chris "Dutch" Ryan, a friend and neighbour of Leo's, watched as for the next eight days the RCMP utilized every tool at its disposal to extract Leo from the house and bring the standoff to a peaceful end. But no one expected it to end like it did. Views: 44
Never has there been a more graphic account of the SAS in action, never a thriller so authentically grounded in the twists and turns of undercover warfare. Geordie Sharp, a sergeant in the SAS, is struggling to pick up the threads of his army career. Wounded in the Gulf War, he returns to Hereford to find his home life in tatters. As he trains with Northern Ireland Troop, a murder in his family fires him with personal hatred of the IRA. Posted to Belfast, he discovers that his adversary is Declan Farrell, a leading player in the Provisional IRA. Sharp sets out to stalk and kill his man. Relentlessly exciting and completely unoutdownable, Chris Ryan's Stand By, Stand By is as exciting as the military thriller can be. Views: 44
This epic story opens at the hour the Greatest Generation went to war on December 7, 1941, and follows four U.S. Navy ships and their crews in the Pacific until their day of reckoning three years later with a far different enemy: a deadly typhoon. In December 1944, while supporting General MacArthur's invasion of the Philippines, Admiral William "Bull" Halsey neglected the Law of Storms—the unofficial bible of all seamen since the days of sail—placing the mighty U.S. Third Fleet in harm's way.Drawing on extensive interviews with nearly every living survivor and rescuer, many families of lost sailors, transcripts and other records from two naval courts of inquiry, ships' logs and action reports, personal letters, and diaries, Bruce Henderson offers the most thorough and riveting account to date of one of the greatest naval dramas of World War II. Views: 44
This long-awaited re-publication of the first Arab-American novel--inspiration for Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet--deals with Arab/American relations, religious conflict and the American immigrant experience.Told with great good humor and worldly compassion, and with illustrations by Kahlil Gibran, The Book of Khalid recounts the adventures of two young men, Khalid and Shakib, who leave Lebanon for the United States to seek their fortune in turn-of-thecentury New York. Together, they face all the difficulties of poor immigrants--the passage by ship, admittance through Ellis Island and the rough immigrant life. Khalid, always the dreamer, tries to participate in the political and cultural life of the teeming city--to often humiliating and comic result.Tiring of their sojourn, he convinces Shakib they should return to Lebanon. But their heads are now full of New World ideas. And Khalid, trying to improve his brethren, turns his understanding of... Views: 44
"I tell you what I'll do," he said. "The stage won't be no good to me until Powder Keg amounts to somethin' . . . I'll bet a coach and team against what's on the table, draw and show down."His offer was a sufficient warning of his strength. However, I still liked my aces. A pair of them pack a lot of power in a two-handed game, and I had the feeling that my luck had not run out . . .I counted my aces as casually as pounding pulses would permit. "Can you beat 'em?"His face showed me he could not . . . "How about loanin' me your pony?" Views: 44
