After the fall of Dorpat to the Sword Brothers in 1224 and the cessation of hostilities with Novgorod, Bishop Albert had established peace throughout Livonia and Estonia. His crusader kingdom had expanded to cover an area from the River Dvina north to the gates of Reval. But that place was still under Danish control and there was a festering resentment between the Danes and the Sword Brothers.Estonia may be at peace but Conrad Wolff, now a master of the Sword Brothers, seethes with anger against a wrong committed against him and his friends. The aftermath will lead to Livonia and Estonia being dragged into international politics as the Papacy intervenes in the affairs of the Sword Brothers and Livonia.Meanwhile a frustrating war continues against the pagan Lithuanians in the south, a conflict that puts a severe strain on the resources of the Sword Brothers. But it is in the north where a crisis suddenly develops, resulting in Conrad and his order facing annihilation in the freezing wastes. Against this dire backdrop Conrad is forced to make a decision that will have major ramifications for both him and the Sword Brothers. And in the aftermath of that decision a giant of the crusader kingdom in the Baltic leaves the stage.‘Master of Mayhem’ is the fourth volume of the Crusader Chronicles and continues the story of Conrad Wolff and the Baltic Crusade in the first half of the thirteenth century. Views: 92
Before this current age of broadcasting acquisitions and mergers, local TV stations were owned by the broadcasters, not investment firms. They lived to tell the stories of their communities. In Murder at Broadcast Park, the CBS station located in the rich resort town of Santa Barbara becomes it's own story. Views: 92
They were two little girls on a very big boat.In the 1930s, Ada and Leyla meet as children on a boat bringing migrants from Old Europe to the New World. They talk of seeing kangaroos yet end up living miles apart from each other in suburban Sydney. Their separations are often lengthy but their friendship endures across continents and decades and is a thread in this haunting story of writing, relationships and ageing.Ada (A.L. Ligeti) becomes an author, searching for a Utopian world, exploring aspects of patriarchy and gender in her groundbreaking feminist science fiction novel called Turn Left at Venus. That novel and its sequels are celebrated and much discussed by generations of fans. Memory and imagination fold seamlessly into one another as Ada keeps moving on, from relationships and places, living in hotels and rental spaces in Kings Cross, San Francisco, Ubud and elsewhere.Baranay's emotionally resonant portrait of the solitary and artistic life, lived adventurously... Views: 91
Book 9. In accordance with prophecy, Avalon’s existence is threatened in the year that stars stop shining and at the time when both the dark child and Merlin’s heir are to be revealed. Views: 91
Winner of the International Literature Prize, the new novel by Amos Oz is his first full-length work since the best-selling A Tale of Love and Darkness. Jerusalem, 1959. Shmuel Ash, a biblical scholar, is adrift in his young life when he finds work as a caregiver for a brilliant but cantankerous old man named Gershom Wald. There is, however, a third, mysterious presence in his new home. Atalia Abarbanel, the daughter of a deceased Zionist leader, a beautiful woman in her forties, entrances young Shmuel even as she keeps him at a distance. Piece by piece, the old Jerusalem stone house, haunted by tragic history and now home to the three misfits and their intricate relationship, reveals its secrets. At once an exquisite love story and coming-of-age novel, an allegory for the state of Israel and for the biblical tale from which it draws its title, Judas is Amos Oz's most powerful novel in decades. Views: 91
A young woman journeys from New Mexico to the Midwest, trying to make sense of her life as an artist and how it meshes with her family, faith, and inner selfNell Schwartz is a Brooklyn-born Jewish girl who reinvents herself in the communes of Taos, renaming herself Banana Rose—because she's bananas. But Nell struggles with her inner fears and desires, the demands of the artist's life, and the irrepressible call of home.While living in New Mexico, Nell falls in love with and marries a free-spirited horn player named Gauguin. They travel east to experience city life, and then to the Midwest to be closer to family, but their tempestuous relationship cools as Nell's free-spiritedness and Jewishness seem under constant scrutiny. For solace, Nell turns to her friend Anna, a writer who teaches Nell what it means to be an artist. Nell is slowly transformed by love, loss, and art, gaining a new sense of self.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Natalie... Views: 91
In 2010, Clive James was diagnosed with terminal leukemia. Deciding that "if you don't know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as well read until they do," James moved his library to his house in Cambridge, where he would "live, read, and perhaps even write." James is the award-winning author of dozens of works of literary criticism, poetry, and history, and this volume contains his reflections on what may well be his last reading list. A look at some of James's old favorites as well as some of his recent discoveries, this book also offers a revealing look at the author himself, sharing his evocative musings on literature and family, and on living and dying.As thoughtful and erudite as the works of Alberto Manguel, and as moving and inspiring as Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture and Will Schwalbe's The End of Your Life Book Club, this valediction to James's lifelong engagement with the written word is a captivating valentine from one of the... Views: 91
Throughout his career, Eduardo Galeano has turned our understanding of history and reality on its head. Isabelle Allende said his works "invade the reader's mind, to persuade him or her to surrender to the charm of his writing and power of his idealism." Mirrors, Galeano's most ambitious project since Memory of Fire, is an unofficial history of the world seen through history's unseen, unheard, and forgotten. As Galeano notes: "Official history has it that Vasco Núñez de Balboa was the first man to see, from a summit in Panama, the two oceans at once. Were the people who lived there blind??" Recalling the lives of artists, writers, gods, and visionaries, from the Garden of Eden to twenty-first-century New York, of the black slaves who built the White House and the women erased by men's fears, and told in hundreds of kaleidoscopic vignettes, Mirrors is a magic mosaic of our humanity. Views: 90
A collection of Clive James's 'Postcards' originally written for The Observer between the years 1976 and 1983 about his experiences travelling abroad, from Peking, Los Angeles and Sydney. Full of James's distinctive wit and satire, this is a timeless collection for the well, and not so well travelled. Views: 89
