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  Swift Blaze of Fire - The Life...

  Lin Clark

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   Celebrated in song by Christy Moore and affectionately recalled in many memoirs, Robert "Bob" Hilliard, the author's grandfather, is one of Ireland's best-known International Brigadistas. His short life blazed with a rare intensity; his death in Spain left a dark shadow hanging over his family. This book unravels Hilliard's enigmas to bring us an absorbing character and a fresh understanding of the times that shaped him.  
   Hilliard was radicalised at school by the Irish revolution. Variously a journalist, an Olympic boxer for Ireland and a Church of Ireland priest, he became a communist and anti-fascist in London, fought with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War and died of wounds sustained at the Battle of Jarama. Eloquent and colourful, he inspires puzzlement as well as admiration. Why was his life so full of contradictions? One question haunted the author's mother: how could he leave his children?  
   Lin Rose Clark sets out to find answers. Through meticulous research and a deeply personal exploration of her family's past, she brings together an engrossing picture of the man and a tale of flawed romance, passionate commitment and war, portraying Hilliard as part of a turbulent history that still reverberates today.  

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  Love Letter from John Keats to...

  John Keats

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  Actor Rahul Bose lends his golden voice to some ethereal love letters written by some great personalities from the bygone era.
  
  The story of John Keats, a leading poet of the nineteenth century, and his beloved Fanny Brawne started with hope but ended on a tragic note. Keats met Fanny in November' 1818 and fell in love with her instantly, much to the dismay of both her family and his contemporaries. The couple became secretly engaged soon after. However, in the winter of 1820 Keats became very ill. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Keat's health progressively declined and in a final effort to save his own life, he moved to Italy. In 1821, at the age of 25, he was laid to rest. Buried with him, close to his heart, was an unopened letter from Fanny.
  
  Wednesday Morng. [Kentish Town, 1820]
  
  My Dearest Girl,
  
  I have been a walk this morning with a book in my hand, but as usual I have been occupied with nothing but you: I wish I could say in an agreeable manner. I am tormented day and night. They talk of my going to Italy. 'Tis certain I shall never recover if I am to be so long separate from you: yet with all this devotion to you I cannot persuade myself into any confidence of you….
  
  You are to me an object intensely desirable — the air I breathe in a room empty of you in unhealthy. I am not the same to you — no — you can wait — you have a thousand activities — you can be happy without me. Any party, anything to fill up the day has been enough.
  
  How have you pass'd this month? Who have you smil'd with? All this may seem savage in me. You do no feel as I do — you do not know what it is to love — one day you may — your time is not come….
  
  I cannot live without you, and not only you but chaste you; virtuous you. The Sun rises and sets, the day passes, and you follow the bent of your inclination to a certain extent — you have no conception of the quantity of miserable feeling that passes through me in a day — Be serious! Love is not a plaything — and again do not write unless you can do it with a crystal conscience. I would sooner die for want of you than…
  
  Yours forever!
  
  J. Keats

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  Age of Secrets - The Conspiracy...

  Gerald Bellett

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  Fleeing from the world's most powerful intelligence agency, John Meier is hunted by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in his attempts to expose the Deep State and corruption at the highest levels of the U.S. Government in this riveting true story. 
  Includes revealing information on the Assassination of U.S. Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) and Critical Comments by New York Times bestselling author Jim Hougan. 
  NARRATED BY ACTOR DENNIS BOUTSIKARIS (THE BOURNE LEGACY / BETTER CALL SAUL / SUGAR) WHO HAS WON 8 AUDIE AWARDS 
  Immerse yourself in the International Political Thriller that exposes the illegal activites of the CIA, the real reason for Watergate, the 20th Century's most notorious political scandal and the biggest political scandal in U.S. History, and the hidden death of Howard Hughes, the world's wealthiest individual, in this Biography of John Meier, the U.S. Senate Candidate who was the right-hand man to Howard Hughes. 
  THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE IN DEVELOPMENT ‘MEIERGATE’ IS ABOUT THE LIFE STORY OF JOHN MEIER 
  Meier had Top Secret security clearance with the U.S. Government and has been referred to in the media as the man who brought down U.S. President Richard Nixon in Watergate and was the first person to expose the CIA’s involvement with the Hughes Organization and the only person to call for a congressional hearing into the death of Howard Hughes. 
  The CIA's worldwide pursuit of Meier to destroy him, in order to prevent him from exposing their illicit actives, included framing him for a number of offences including murder, and attempting to assassinate him 
  In the book Meier sums up his politically motivated battle by saying “My story is one of a man devastated by a corrupt system. Our governments are increasingly disrespectful of basic human rights such that we can no longer legitimately call our nations democracies. I hope that this story will contribute to changing this course”.

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  Kickflip Boys - A Memoir of...

  Neal Thompson

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  “With a dispassionate but tender eye, Thompson captures the ache, fizz, yearning and frustration of being the father of adolescent boys—and of adolescence itself, observed and remembered.” —Michael Chabon 
  What makes a good father, and what makes one a failure? Does less-is-more parenting inspire independence and strength, or does it encourage defiance and  trouble? Kickflip Boys is the story of a father’s struggle to understand his willful skateboarder sons, challengers of authority and convention, to accept his role as a vulnerable “skate dad,” and to confront his fears that the boys are destined for an unconventional and potentially fraught future. 
  With searing honesty, Neal Thompson traces his sons’ progression through all the stages of skateboarding: splurging on skate shoes and boards, having run-ins with security guards, skipping classes and defying teachers, painting graffiti, drinking and smoking, and more. As the story veers from funny to treacherous and back, from skateparks to the streets, Thompson must confront his complicity and fallibility. He also reflects on his upbringing in rural New Jersey, and his own adventures with skateboards, drugs, danger, and defiance.  
  A story of thrill-seeking teens, of hope and love, freedom and failure, Kickflip Boys reveals a sport and a community that have become a refuge for adolescent boys who don’t fit in. Ultimately, it’s the survival story of a loving modern American family, of acceptance, forgiveness, and letting go.

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  Head Above Water - Reflections...

  Shahd Alshammari

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  This lyrical hybrid memoir revisits a lifetime's worth of personal journals to slowly piece together a narrative of chronic illness—a moving account of survival, memory, loss, and hope. 
   
   
   
  Shahd Alshammari is just eighteen when she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and told by her neurologist that she would not make it past age thirty. Despite what she is told, by thirty, she has become a professor of literature, and has managed to navigate education systems in both Kuwait and the United Kingdom and inspire generations of students. 
   
   
   
  Head above Water is the intimate, philosophical memoir of Shahd Alshammari's life of triumph and resistance, as a woman marked "ill" by society and as a lifelong reader, student, and teacher. Charting her journey with raw honesty, Alshammari explores disability, displacement, and belonging—not only of the body, but of culture, gender, and race, and imparts wisdom of profound philosophical value throughout. It is people, human connections, that keep us afloat, she argues—"and in storytelling we have the power to gain a sense of agency over our lives."

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  Greatest Conquerors of the...

  Editors Charles River

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  The most famous man of the Middle Ages was probably Charlemagne, and few would argue that he was also the most important man during those centuries. Upon the death of his father, Pepin the Short, in 768, Charlemagne became King of the Franks, and he proceeded to create one of the largest European empires since the collapse of Rome. Through his conquests across Western Europe and Italy, Charlemagne became the first Holy Roman Emperor after a famous imperial coronation by Pope Leo III. In becoming the first Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne essentially established the new order on the European continent. 
  In a world fascinated by men like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan is one of history’s greatest and most famous conquerors. No man, before or since, has ever started with so little and gone on to achieve so much. From a noble family but raised in poverty that drove him to the brink of starvation, Genghis Khan rose to control the second-largest empire the world has ever known (the largest being, arguably, the British Empire of the 18th and 19th centuries), and easily the largest empire conquered by a single man.  
  Saladin is widely considered one of the greatest generals in history and one of the most famous leaders of the Middle Ages, but he remains a paradox, both in personal and in historical terms. A military genius, he first served other generals and was overshadowed, late in life, by his greatest rival, Richard I of England. He was far more admired by his Christian enemies, who extolled his chivalry, than some of his Muslim rivals, who fought him for control of Egypt and Syria in the 12th century. His Christian enemies continued his name long after it was forgotten in the Middle East, only to spark a revival of his reputation in Arab culture in the 20th century. 

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