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  Terence O'Neill

  Marc Mulholland

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  Terence O'Neill came to power as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland in 1963 with a bold plan to 'literally transform the face of Ulster'. For the next six years O'Neill proved himself to be Stormont's most controversial leader. Though born of the gentry, he was determined to break from the past. Motorways replaced railways, a New City was planned, and a New University built. By meeting with Taoiseachs of the Irish republic, O'Neill intended no less than to end the long cross-border Cold War. Most audaciously, he worked to end the centuries old political divide between catholic and protestant, even if this meant plunging his own Ulster Unionist Party into crisis. O'Neill stirred up passion and anger. While many saw him as Ireland's great hope, Ian Paisley denounced him as a traitor and Unionist ministers plotted his downfall. When the civil rights movement took to the streets in 1968, O'Neill's response was prophetic: 'it is a short step from the throwing of paving stones to the laying of tombstones.'Confronted by demonstrations and counter-demonstrations, pressure from London and rebellion in his own party, O'Neill gambled all on in a bid to re-cast the very shape of politics in the province. When finally he was 'literally blown from office' in April 1969, in the midst of rioting and loyalist bombs, thirty years of violence had begun. Marc Mulholland's study of O'Neill argues for the centrality of O'Neill to modern Irish history. Based upon exhaustive research, it brings to focus a period when Northern Ireland really did stand at the crossroads.

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  The Art of Death - Writing the...

  Edwidge Danticat

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  A moving reflection on a subject that touches us all, by the bestselling author of Claire of the Sea Light.  
  Edwidge Danticat's The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story is at once a personal account of her mother dying from cancer and a deeply considered reckoning with the ways that other writers have approached death in their own work. "Writing has been the primary way I have tried to make sense of my losses," Danticat notes in her introduction. "I have been writing about death for as long as I have been writing." The book moves outward from the shock of her mother's diagnosis and sifts through Danticat's writing life and personal history, all the while shifting fluidly from examples that range from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude to Toni Morrison's Sula. The narrative, which continually circles the many incarnations of death from individual to large-scale catastrophes, culminates in a beautiful, heartrending prayer in the voice of Danticat's mother.  
  A moving tribute and a work of astute criticism, The Art of Death is a book that will profoundly alter all who encounter it.

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  Ali Pasha Lion of Ioannina - The...

  Eugenia Russell, Quentin Russell

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  At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the life of a petty tyrant in an obscure corner of the Ottoman Empire became the stuff of legend. What propelled this cold-blooded archetype of Oriental despotism, grandly known as the Lion of Yanina and the Balkan Napoleon, into the consciousness of Western rulers and the general public? This book charts the rise of Ali Pasha from brigand leader to a player in world affairs and, ultimately, to a gruesome end.Ali exploited the internal weakness of the Ottoman Empire to carve out his own de facto empire in Albania and Western Greece. Although a ruthless tyrant guilty of cruel atrocities, his lavish court became an attraction to Western travelers, most famously Lord Byron, and his military prowess led Britain, Russia and France to seek his alliance during the Napoleonic Wars. His activities undermined the Sultans authority and ultimately led to the Greek War of Independence.Quentin and Eugenia Russell describe his remarkable life and military career as well as the legacy he bequeathed in his homeland as a nationalist hero and further afield as inspiration for writers and artists of the Romantic movement.

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  Everything Is Possible - Finding...

  Jen Bricker, Sheryl Berk

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  Born without Legs, She Inspires Others to OvercomeJen Bricker was born without legs. Shocked and uncertain they could care for her, her biological parents gave her up for adoption. In her loving adoptive home, there was just one simple rule: "Never say 'can't.'" And pretty soon, there was nothing this small but mighty powerhouse set her sights on that she couldn't conquer: roller-skating, volleyball, power tumbling, and spinning from silk ribbons thirty feet in the air.Everything Is Possible is her incredible story--a story of God working out his plan for her life from before day one. Readers follow Jen from the challenges of growing up different to holding captive audiences numbering in the tens of thousands. Everything Is Possible shows readers what they can accomplish when they remove the words coincidence and limitation from their vocabulary. Filled with heart and spirit, as well as Jen's wit, wisdom, and no-holds-barred honesty, this inspiring true story points the way to purpose and joy. Foreword by Nick Vujicic.

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  Soldier Soldier Squaddie Squaddie

  Christian Franks

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  This book has been written over thirty years, forgotten about and found in a box on a floppy disc in a garage. Floppy disc!? How things have changed! The book starts with a young lad of just seventeen-years-old; young, fit and unemployed. Then joining the British Army and ending up to be a fifty-five-year-old balding man with a beer belly, still adjusting to civilian life and the issues surrounding alcohol, relationships, anger and depression.

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  Carniepunk

  Rachel Caine, Seanan McGuire,...

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  A star-studded urban fantasy anthology starring bestselling authors Rachel Caine, Jennifer Estep, Kevin Hearne, Seanan McGuire, and Rob Thurman, and including Delilah S. Dawson, Kelly Gay, Mark Henry, Hillary Jacques, Jackie Kessler, Kelly Meding, Allison Pang, Nicole D. Peeler, and Jaye Wells, whose stories explore the creepy, mysterious, and, yes, sometimes magical world of traveling carnivals.Come one, come all! The Carniepunk Midway promises you every thrill and chill a traveling carnival can provide. But fear not! Urban fantasy’s biggest stars are here to guide you through this strange and dangerous world. . . .RACHEL CAINE’s vampires aren’t child’s play, as a naïve teen discovers when her heart leads her far, far astray in “The Cold Girl.” With “Parlor Tricks,” JENNIFER ESTEP pits Gin Blanco, the Elemental Assassin, against the Wheel of Death and some dangerously creepy clowns. SEANAN McGUIRE narrates a poignant, ethereal tale of a mysterious carnival that returns to a dangerous town after twenty years in “Daughter of the Midway, the Mermaid, and the Open, Lonely Sea.” KEVIN HEARNE’s Iron Druid and his wisecracking Irish wolfhound discover in “The Demon Barker of Wheat Street” that the impossibly wholesome sounding Kansas Wheat Festival is actually not a healthy place to hang out. With an eerie, unpredictable twist, ROB THURMAN reveals the fate of a psychopath stalking two young carnies in “Painted Love.”

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