Other books that might interest you

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  Four Weeks in the Trenches

  Fritz Kreisler

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  A brief record of the fighting on the Eastern front in the great war by a participant in that great conflict(Summary by FNH)

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  Strangers in the Storm - Love...

  Jared Rund, Diane McKenney

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  When strangers Jared Rund and Diane McKenney met on Mount Rainier in Washington state, neither of them knew where the next few days on one of the most dangerous peaks in North America would lead them. Caught in a blizzard and detached from the rest of their party, the two are forced to spend a bewildering and frightening night high on the 14,411 foot peak with nothing to save them except their own will and preparation. But sometimes it is the toughest of times that lead to the best. And for Jared and Diane, if a mountain blizzard couldn't stop them then nothing would. Read this amazing story of survival against the odds, and of a love that couldn't be overcome by a deadly storm or the thousand miles that would later separate them.

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  Decreasing Snowfall Sends...

  PBS NewsHour

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  While winter storms have blasted parts of the Midwest and Northeast, a lack of steady and deep snow -- less accumulation and faster melt -- has had serious effects for the ski industry. Hari Sreenivasan reports on how winter sports businesses are navigating the season as part of the Coping with Climate Change series.

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  The Twelve Caesars

  Robert Graves

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  This ancient biographical history of Roman rulers from Julius Caesar to Domitian is translated by the acclaimed classicists and author of I, Claudius.   As personal secretary to Emperor Hadrian, the second century scholar Suetonius had unlimited access to the Roman Imperial archives. Drawing on this wealth of source material, he wrote a sweeping account of the lives of Rome’s first twelve emperors. From the empire’s most accomplished leaders, such as Julius Caesar and Augustus, to its most depraved and doomed rulers, such as Caligula and Nero, this ancient biographical study presents an enlightening and colorful picture of these historical figures from remote antiquity.    This edition of The Twelve Caesars is translated from the Latin by the renowned classicist, historian, and historical novelist Robert Graves. With his expertise in classical history and talent for telling a lively story, Graves presents an excellent translation that makes this classic work accessible to modern audiences

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  A Van of One's Own - A Winter...

  Biddy Wells

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  'Portugal is not all that far away, or exotic, or dangerous, but it felt like a huge stretch for me to leave my partner, family, job and home and just go off. An overland solo trip lasting months in an ancient little campervan was not the kind of thing I did. But it was something I was about to do.' 
  In her debut memoir A Van of One's Own, Biddy Wells tells the story of how, propelled by a thirst for peace and quiet, for a modest adventure and, perhaps, for freedom, she left for Portugal on her own, with only her old campervan, Myfanwy, and her GPS, Tanya, for company. Having left just about everything behind, her solo trip forces her to face her fears, her past, and herself. The road provides the perfect canvas to connect the dots between a past breakdown and her present need for freedom, as she reflects on her own life, her relationship, her family and the world around her - to see whether her life still has room for her in it. As she meets wise and not-so- wise people, members of the campervan community and friendly locals, her outlook on life begins to shift, and a chance meeting in a bar leads to the person who will put her on the right track.But will she go back home, to Wales?And what is the meaning of 'home? 
  A Van of One's Own is a journey through the breath-taking scenery of France, Spain, and finally Portugal, populated by colourful characters and the roar of the ocean, the taste of fresh fish and the grind of the asphalt; but more importantly, it is a journey through past memories and present conflicts to inner peace.

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  British Short Story The - Volume...

  Anthony Trollope, George Eliot,...

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  These British Isles, moored across from mainland Europe, are more often seen as a world unto themselves.  Restless and creative, they often warred amongst themselves until they began a global push to forge a World Empire of territory, of trade and of language. 
   
  Here our ambitions are only of the literary kind.  These shores have mustered many masters of literature. So this anthology’s boundaries includes only those authors who were born in the British Isles - which as a geographical definition is the UK mainland and the island of Ireland - and wrote in a familiar form of English. 
   
  Whilst Daniel Defoe is the normal starting point we begin a little earlier with Aphra Behn, an equally colourful character as well as an astonishing playwright and poet.  And this is how we begin to differentiate our offering; both in scope, in breadth and in depth.  These islands have raised and nurtured female authors of the highest order and rank and more often than not they have been sidelined or ignored in favour of that other gender which usually gets the plaudits and the royalties. 
   
  Way back when it was almost immoral that a woman should write.  A few pages of verse might be tolerated but anything else brought ridicule and shame.  That seems unfathomable now but centuries ago women really were chattel, with marriage being, as the Victorian author Charlotte Smith boldly stated ‘legal prostitution’.  Some of course did find a way through - Jane Austen, the Brontes and Virginia Woolf but for many others only by changing their names to that of men was it possible to get their book to publication and into a readers hands.  Here we include George Eliot and other examples. 
   
  We add further depth with many stories by authors who were famed and fawned over in their day.  Some wrote only a hidden gem or two before succumbing to poverty and death. There was no second career as a game show guest, reality TV contestant or youtuber. They remain almost forgotten outposts of talent who never prospered despite devoted hours of pen and brain. 
   
  Keeping to a chronological order helps us to highlight how authors through the ages played around with characters and narrative to achieve distinctive results across many scenarios, many styles and many genres. The short story became a sort of literary laboratory, an early disruptor, of how to present and how to appeal to a growing audience as a reflection of social and societal changes.  Was this bound to happen or did a growing population that could read begin to influence rather than just accept? 
   
  Moving through the centuries we gather a groundswell of authors as we hit the Victorian Age - an age of physical mass communication albeit only on an actual printed page.  An audience was offered a multitude of forms: novels (both whole and in serialised form) essays, short stories, poems all in weekly, monthly and quarterly form.  Many of these periodicals were founded or edited by literary behemoths from Dickens and Thackeray through to Jerome K Jerome and, even some female editors including Ethel Colburn Mayne, Alice Meynell and Ella D’Arcy. 
   
  Now authors began to offer a wider, more diverse choice from social activism and justice – and injustice to cutting stories of manners and principles.  From many forms of comedy to mental meltdowns, from science fiction to unrequited heartache.  If you can imagine it an author probably wrote it.  
   
  At the end of the 19th Century bestseller lists and then prizes, such as the Nobel and Pulitzer, helped focus an audience’s attention to a books literary merit and sales worth. Previously coffeehouses, Imperial trade, unscrupulous overseas printers ignoring copyright restrictions, publishers with their book lists as an appendix and the gossip and interchange of polite society had been the main avenues to secure sales and profits.

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