Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  Executions of British and French...

  Editors Charles River

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  Over 450 years after his reign, Henry VIII is still the most famous and recognizable King of England, but it’s for all the wrong reasons. Though well regarded by contemporaries as a learned King and "one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne", he is best remembered today for his gluttony and multiple marriages, particularly the gruesome way in which he was widowed on more than one occasion. Naturally, that was the focus of the popular ShowTime drama series centered around his life, The Tudors.  
  	While Henry’s reign is not considered as favorably as his daughter’s, Queen Elizabeth I would ultimately sentence a queen to death herself. Mary, Queen of Scots’ fame as a monarch lies less in her personality or achievements than in her position within the dynastic maneuvers and political-religious upheavals taking place in northwest Europe in the 16th century. Most monarchs spend their early years learning in preparation to rule and then spend the latter part of their lives wielding power and status, but Mary was thrust upon the throne when she was only a week old, and she ceased to be queen nearly 20 years before her death. 
  	With French society in open revolt by the late 1780s, the King appeared indecisive at a number of crucial moments, including during a famous attempted escape that was thwarted at Vergennes, and he had to literally run for his life when a mob stormed the royal palace at Tuileries. Soon after, he was stripped of his dignity and his royal name, convicted of high treason in a sham trial as Citizen Louis Capet. Ironically, in death, some historians have asserted that his execution and the sympathy it engendered helped bring about the Restoration a generation later.  
  	Nearly 220 years after she was put to the guillotine, Marie Antoinette is more famous than ever, fairly or unfairly coming to epitomize royalty and everything that was wrong with it. 

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  Austin Osman Spare - The Life...

  Phil Baker, Alan Moore

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  London has harbored many curious characters, but few more curious than the artist and visionary Austin Osman Spare (1886–1956). 
   
   
   
  A controversial enfant terrible of the Edwardian art world, the young Spare was hailed as a genius and a new Aubrey Beardsley, while George Bernard Shaw reportedly said "Spare's medicine is too strong for the average man." 
   
   
    
  But Spare was never made for worldly success and he went underground, falling out of the gallery system to live in poverty and obscurity south of the river. Absorbed in occultism and sorcery, voyaging into inner dimensions, and surrounding himself with cats and familiar spirits, he continued to produce extraordinary art while developing a magical philosophy of pleasure, obsession, and the subjective nature of reality. 
   
   
    
  Today Spare is both forgotten and famous, a cult figure whose modest life has been much mythologized since his death. This groundbreaking biographical study offers wide-ranging insights into Spare's art, mind, and world, reconnecting him with the art history that ignored him and exploring his parallel London; a bygone place of pub pianists, wealthy alchemists, and monstrous owls.

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  Dispatches from the Couch - A...

  Stacey Hettes

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  "Hettes' writing verges on the poetic as she describes the heartbreaking fear that her suffering is permanent . . . the memoir includes moments of humor and hope, and it is inspiring to chart Hettes' journey from despair to a degree in "self-studies." A moving recollection filled with wisdom and unabashed emotion." - Kirkus Reviews  
  "This is a book for everyone who toys with walling themselves off to live with loneliness." - Betsy Teter, founder of Hub City Press 
  "It's easy enough to label child sexual abuse as horrific, but the acts themselves are only part of the problem. Hettes reveals the crushing, long-term consequences of sexual violation and our culture's collective failure to address it." - Sheri Reynolds, NYT bestselling author of The Rapture of Cannan 
  Stacey is living exactly the right life before she hits the psychological equivalent of a patch of black ice. 
  As Professor Hettes, her classes focus as much on neuroscience's beauty and wonder as its facts and theories. Fellow faculty members see her as a fair but outspoken leader on a campus steeped in the blended patriarchies of academia and southern gentility. 
  At an emotionally charged forum on sexual violence, she takes a stand against a colleague's reckless verbal assault, outing herself as a sexual abuse survivor in the process. Professor Hettes must continue her work even as Stacey finds herself resubmerged in the sights, sounds, and smells of her memories with Mr. Jay, a Pentecostal church deacon. 
  With exceptional candor, Dispatches from the Couch invites readers to take a seat beside her in the office of her new therapist, Piper. This debut memoir reveals the laborious, complex, but promising work of revisiting the past in order to extract its remnants of shame and loneliness from the present.

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  Violette Szabo - The Life That I...

  Susan Ottaway

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  The story of Violette Szabo is one of the most extraordinary in the annals of World War II espionage and covert operations. 
   
   
   
  Totally fearless and a dead shot, Violette Szabo volunteered to become part of the Special Operations Executive, Britain's premier sabotage and subversion organization of the time. On June 7, 1944, Violette left behind a two-year-old daughter to parachute into France on a special mission. 
   
   
   
  Szabo and other British agents were assigned to organize French resistance fighters to hinder the advance of the SS Das Reich Division to the Normandy beaches. Unfortunately, Szabo's party was soon ambushed by the SS. 
   
   
   
  Unable to walk due to a twisted ankle, Szabo covered the retreat of her comrades with machine-gun fire. Captured, she went through a series of interrogations and changes of confinement before ending up at Ravensbruck, the German all-women's concentration camp. She was finally executed on January 26, 1945. She was twenty-three years old. 
   
   
   
  This exceptional work has been written with the assistance of Violette Szabo's daughter Tanya and unravels fact and fiction about one of the most fascinating characters of World War II.

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  Before I Lose My Own Mind -...

  Beverly E. Thorn

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  Both a practical guide and a deeply personal memoir from a psychologist, neuroscientist, and end-of-life doula, Before I Lose My Own Mind helps dementia caregivers find ways to support their loved ones—while centering their own well-being.When Dr. Beverly E. Thorn became a caregiver for her husband, Walt, she joined a massive army. Worldwide, unpaid dementia caregiving requires the equivalent of forty million full-time workers, and that number will only grow. But navigating dementia caregiving can feel like trying to climb a mountain in the dark—and few resources exist to support caregivers in finding their way.In Before I Lose My Own Mind, Thorn—a psychologist, neuroscientist, and end-of-life doula—provides an honest vision of caregiving that is tender, openhearted, and genuinely useful. Filled with resources and insights on financial planning, advance care directives, clinical trials, support groups, death with dignity, grief, recovery, and more, this book is a roadmap for all caregivers, whether they're family or friends, spouses or children, professionals or novices. For those coping with the grief, exhaustion, and loneliness of a challenge they never expected, help is out there. Surviving dementia caregiving is a team effort. Consider this book a part of your support crew.

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  Crisis and Renewal - Reflections...

  S. Steven Pan

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  Crisis and Renewal is a deeply personal yet universally resonant account of what it takes to lead with empathy and resilience through times of disruption.

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