Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  Great Southern Land - one man...

  Mark DK Berry

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  In this captivating memoir, Mark, in the throes of a mid-life crisis, embarks on a solo cycling odyssey across Australia’s vast and unforgiving outback. Newly emigrated from the UK, he sets out to discover where this new life should begin. 
  Navigating barren landscapes, he confronts the harsh realities of the Australian wilderness while reflecting on life and the challenges of adapting to the environment. His journey unveils a profound appreciation of Aboriginal Australian culture and the struggles of early European settlers. 
  Through on-the-road philosophising, Mark contemplates the life he has left behind in England with the daunting task of starting anew in an unknown land. Music becomes his emotional anchor, providing solace during the most demanding stretches. 
  As he battles extreme heat, sleep deprivation, aloneness, and countless other dangers, his journey develops into a spiritual pilgrimage. Grappling with the monotony of modern life, the allure of the open road, and the elusive concept of freedom, Mark seeks direction and healing from his mid-life crisis. 
  As his funds dwindle, the journey culminates in hard-won insights, until Mark must make a final decision on where and how to begin his new life in Australia.

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  W L George - A Short Story...

  W L George

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  Walter Lionel George was born to British parents on the 20th March 1882 in Paris, France. 
   
  It was not until he was a young man of 20 that he learned English.  In 1905 he moved to London to work in an office but soon found himself working as a journalist, and as a foreign correspondent, for various London newspapers. 
   
  By 1911, with the publication of his first novel ‘A Bed of Roses’, which portrayed the fall of a penniless young woman into prostitution, his efforts were rewarded, and he turned to literature as a full-time career. 
   
  His writings now sold well.  He added short stories to his offerings as well as literary essays and several tracts that discussed left-wing themes.  Some critics thought his subject matter to be difficult and poorly chosen. His political views gained him little credit amongst his peers although such luminaries as George Orwell praised both subject matter and style. 
   
  His personal life was also turbulent.  His three marriages left him widowed twice.  In 1908 he married Helen Porter who died in 1914.  Helen Agnes Moorhead followed in 1916 but died only 4 years later.  His last marriage was to Kathleen Geipel in 1921. 
   
  W. L George died on 30th January 1926.  He was 43.

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  Delusions of Paradise: Escaping...

  Maiwand Banayee

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  When Maiwand Banayee was 16, he wanted to become a suicide bomber for the Taliban. 
   
  In this inspiring tale of survival and self-discovery, the reader will follow Maiwand's journey down a dark path and his ultimate redemption. Growing up in Kabul amid the Afghan wars, he witnessed atrocities that no child should ever see - rotting corpses, starving families, a neighbourhood torn apart. He escaped to a refugee camp in Pakistan, where religious militants began the gradual grooming of Maiwand and other Afghan boys. These confused and traumatised children were indoctrinated, radicalised and prepared to die in the name of a religious war. But Maiwand escaped this life. Fleeing Afghanistan, he had a life-altering crisis of faith, confidence and meaning, finding new purpose and rebuilding himself. 
   
  Maiwand taught himself how to read and write in English, and here tells his astonishing story in crystalline prose. Delusions of Paradise offers a powerful warning about the dangers of radical religion, and is a stunning celebration of self-determination and redemption from an important new voice.

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  Living With My Century - A Memoir

  Eda Sagarra

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  Professor Eda Sagarra, born in 1933, has been a significant and influential figure in Irish and European academic policy-making, contributing to the early development of the Erasmus scheme. Now, aged nearly 88, this memoir gives striking evidence of her self-discipline and formidable energy. This substantial memoir by one of the foremost female academics in Ireland starts with Sagarra's own perspective on committing her life story to history during the pandemic lockdown of 2020:
  The following memoir recalls for those born in the present century and schooled without the strong sense of Irish history, which defined our people from the Great Famine of the 1840s until recent times, what it was like to grow up as a woman in the twentieth century and seek a career in a man's world. It tries to re-capture as much what it felt like to the person experiencing it as what was happening in society. Younger people today who read of the restrictions to which women were subject in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, will find it difficult to comprehend why our generation and the one that followed ours didn't challenge them. But probably the greatest contrast between the Ireland of then and now was the room for manoeuvre – or rather the absence of it. Today our lives are premised on a constantly changing world. Ireland is more connected across the globe than ever it was. Today most people are mobile. The Ireland when I was young was in almost every respect a static, hierarchical and paternalist society, one in which the accident of your birth would generally determine your whole life. No life is representative, but every person's experience is unique and worth recording for those who come after us. 
  A south Dublin convent girl, Sagarra probes childhood and family, schooling, and UCD — with a perceptive commentary on the Ireland of the 1930s and 1940s. Her remarkable memory and shrewd eye for detail present at times a painfully honest account of family and in the upper middle-class world of Catholic south Dublin, revealing the profound influence of Europe during her postgraduate years in post-war Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
  Running through this forensic account of her academic life is a keen awareness of the constant if subtle barriers to female advancement.
  
  For contemporary critics reconstructing the history of gender equality in Ireland and for readers of feminist history, this makes for essential reading. Her description of retirement since 1998 is colourful, poignant and revealing, and her reflections on old age and youth resonate.

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  Justinian I - Biography of the...

  Kelly Mass

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  Justinian I, known to history as Justinian the Great, ruled as the Byzantine emperor from 527 until his death in 565. His reign is marked by a series of ambitious efforts to revive the grandeur of the Roman Empire, although many of these goals were only partially realized. This vision, known as the renovatio imperii or "reinstatement of the Empire," encapsulated his drive to restore Roman territories lost to barbarian invasions and to reassert imperial authority across the Mediterranean world. 
  One of the most prominent aspects of Justinian's renovatio imperii was the partial reconquest of the western provinces of the fallen Roman Empire. His military campaigns, led by the brilliant general Belisarius, achieved remarkable successes. Belisarius swiftly captured the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa, establishing Byzantine control over the region. Shortly thereafter, he, along with other generals like Narses, waged a series of successful campaigns against the Ostrogoths in Italy, eventually reclaiming key territories such as Dalmatia, Sicily, Rome, and much of Italy. This marked the end of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, which had ruled for over fifty years. Additionally, under the leadership of the praetorian prefect Liberius, the Byzantines reasserted control over the Iberian Peninsula, establishing the province of Spania. These victories re-established Roman dominance in the western Mediterranean and brought in substantial annual revenues, estimated at over a million solidi.

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  The Wolves at the Door - The...

  Judith L. Pearson

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  This WWII espionage biography brings "one of America's greatest spies back to life" in a "story of derring-do and white knuckles suspense" (Patrick O'Donnell, author of Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs) 
  Virginia Hall left her comfortable Baltimore roots in 1931 with dreams of becoming a Foreign Service Officer, but her gender—and her wooden leg—kept her from pursuing politics. As Hitler advanced across Europe, she put her gift for languages to use with the British Special Operations Executive, a secret espionage organization. She was soon deployed to occupied France, where she located drop zones, helped prisoners of war flee to England, and secured safe houses for agents. 
  Soon, wanted posters appeared throughout France, offering a reward for Hall's capture. By 1942, Hall had to flee France via the only route possible: an arduous hike on foot through the frozen Pyrénées Mountains. Upon her return to England, the American espionage organization, the Office of Special Services, recruited her and sent her back to France disguised as an old peasant woman. While there, she was responsible for killing 150 German soldiers and capturing 500 others. Sabotaging communications and directing resistance activities, her brave work helped change the course of the war.

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