Publisher: Charles River Editors
John Buchan was a Scottish writer and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada. Buchan wrote a vast amount of books including the Richard Hannay novels that have recently been turned into a popular British television show. This edition of The Half-Hearted includes a table of contents.
The Serpent of Division features murder and mystery, a charming pirate, Oxford colleges and libraries, a buxom bookseller reminiscent of the Wife of Bath and a Persian physician with a fondness for Rumi. All have a part to play, as the granddaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer fights for survival against her ruthless neighbour Sir Robert Harcourt and the machinations of Elizabeth Wydeville, descendant of the serpent fairy Melusine and queen of Edward IV. It is set during the politically rocky final years of the Wars of the Roses.Show book
This Stunning Novel is set near the end of the Civil War in the mountainous farm country of North Carolina—bordering on the Hiwassee River—a region where neighbor turned on neighbor and helpless families were preyed on by deserters from both armies and by violent gangs pretending to be military units. Madison Curtis and his wife Sarah live on a plantation that lies in the path of a gang of Union partisans, led by a vicious bushwhacker named Bridgeman. The Curtises are hiding their eldest son Andy, who was wounded in the Confederate Army. They risk torture and death to protect him from Bridgeman. We meet also the Curtis's younger sons, Jack and Howell, who are caught up in the great battle of Chickamauga, far away in Georgia, and we are offered a unique glimpse of war as the common soldier saw it—confusing, monotonous and terrifying by turns and without any discernible meaning. There too is the rebel soldier Oliver Price, a poor kindly shoemaker who hardly ever met a black man, much less owned one, but fought on to the end for his home, long after many others with much more at stake had lost heart and quit. This is a perfect little gem of a novel: beautifully written, historically accurate and shedding light on a little-known corner of the Civil War behind the lines of the Border South. Once read, it will never be forgotten.Show book
To forge a new trail, a cowboy ventures into a frightening wilderness Glen Wycherly’s ranch holds two thousand cattle on ten thousand acres, and there is no one who knows the land better than Ray Hardin. But in all his years working for old man Wycherly and his ungrateful children, there is still one place that Ray has never been: an Apache stronghold just off Wycherly’s property, where settlers fear to tread. Now the army claims that the area is secure, and Wycherly wants to use it to drive cattle through. It’s up to Hardin to blaze a trail. With his best friend at his side, Hardin rides into the unexplored territory, fearing Apache, bandits, and the dreadful twists of fate that threaten every traveler in the West. By the time this journey is done, either the trail will be broken or Hardin will be.Show book
Kenneth Grahame was born on 8th March 1859 in Edinburgh. At age 5 his mother succumbed to puerperal fever. His father, who had a drinking problem, now sent his 4 children to live with their grandmother at her large house in Cookham, Berkshire. Here the children lived in large open grounds next to the river. These early experiences would in later years, be retold in his writing through a myriad of characters. Grahame loved being a pupil at St Edward's School, Oxford and wanted to enroll at the university there but his guardian demurred on account of the cost. Instead, a banking career was chosen for him, starting in 1879 at the Bank of England, where he rose steadily to the rank of its Secretary until retiring, with a pension, in 1908 due to ill health. Alongside his commercial career Grahame had written and published various stories and essays in several periodicals. Some were anthologized as ‘Pagan Papers’ in 1893, and two years later ‘The Golden Age’ and later still ‘Dream Days’ and its masterpiece ‘The Reluctant Dragon’ became part of many home libraries. His ability to view life through the lens of a young and curious child was superb, enabling the reader to easily identify with the character. Grahame married Elspeth Thomson in 1899 and they had one child; Alastair, born semi-blind and plagued by health problems. In a heart-rending tragedy he would later take his own life whilst attending Oxford University in 1920. In 1908 Grahame reworked many of the bedtime stories he had fashioned for his son into the enduring favourite; ‘The Wind in the Willows’, describing the heart-warming adventures of Mr Toad and his friends. Kenneth Grahame died in Pangbourne, Berkshire, on 6th July 1932. 01 - Kenneth Grahame - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 02 - A Saga of the Seas by Kenneth Grahame 03 - Dies Irae by Kenneth Grahame 04 - The Magic Ring by Kenneth Grahame 05 - Mutabile Semper by Kenneth Grahame 06 - The Inquity of Oblivion by Kenneth GrahameShow book
"It’s both transfixing and destabilizing. It’s the best thing I listened to all winter." —Alexis Gunderson, PASTE MagazineThe startling, witty, highly anticipated second novel from Rivka Galchen, the critically acclaimed author of Atmospheric Disturbances.The story begins in 1618, in the German duchy of Württemberg. Plague is spreading. The Thirty Years' War has begun, and fear and suspicion are in the air throughout the Holy Roman Empire. In the small town of Leonberg, Katharina Kepler is accused of being a witch.Katharina is an illiterate widow, known by her neighbors for her herbal remedies and the success of her children, including her eldest, Johannes, who is the Imperial Mathematician and renowned author of the laws of planetary motion. It's enough to make anyone jealous, and Katharina has done herself no favors by being out and about and in everyone's business.So when the deranged and insipid Ursula Reinbold (or as Katharina calls her, the Werewolf) accuses Katharina of offering her a bitter, witchy drink that has made her ill, Katharina is in trouble. Her scientist son must turn his attention from the music of the spheres to the job of defending his mother. Facing the threat of financial ruin, torture, and even execution, Katharina tells her side of the story to her friend and next-door neighbor Simon, a reclusive widower imperiled by his own secrets.Drawing on real historical documents but infused with the intensity of imagination, sly humor, and intellectual fire for which Rivka Galchen is known, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch will both provoke and entertain. The story of how a community becomes implicated in collective aggression and hysterical fear is a tale for our time. Galchen's bold new novel touchingly illuminates a society and a family undone by superstition, the state, and the mortal convulsions of history.A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and GirouxShow book
An estranged brother is forced to return to his home and face up to his past. Malcolm Gage walked out of his brother’s life sixteen years ago when they both wanted to marry the same woman. Malcolm lost that battle, and he’s never forgiven his brother for it, preferring to live in poverty as a schoolmaster rather than swallow his pride and go home. But now an unusual condition in a will pushes him back into the family fold. If he can teach his nephew well enough to admit him to the Society of Gentleman Linguists, he will inherit a fortune and will never be poor again. The only catch — he has to stay under his brother’s roof for three months. But there’s an unexpected benefit to his return to Great Maeswood, in the delightful shape of Marie Fournier, a French lady’s maid. She speaks no English, and no one else in the village has bothered to get to know her. But Malcolm sees in her a kindred spirit, another outsider, and recruits her to help him with his teaching. As he gets to know her better, however, he begins to wonder if she’s all she seems to be… This is a complete story with a happy ever after. Book 2 of a 6 book series. A traditional Regency romance, drawing room rather than bedroom.Show book
