Other books that might interest you

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  Christmas Eve at a Cornish Manor...

  Clara Venn

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  The bookshelves of British literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors.  From these Isles their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure.  Among them is Clara Venn.

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  A Matter of Survival

  Lily Monadjemi

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  Starting in 1725, in a world where outwardly women were confined to Andaroons (hareems) and completely controlled by men, who had as many ‘wives’ as they wanted, Khatoon stands out as a highly influential member of the Royal Andaroon. It is through Khatoon’s eventful life that Lily Monadjemi, a great granddaughter of Nasser Al-Din shah Gajar who reigned in Iran for fifty years, begins this fascinating account of the history of her family, her people and her country. 
  In a meticulous analysis of the women’s roles, she extensively covers the lives of her female ancestors who had immense influence on their husbands and through them, on Iranian society. 
  Telling the fascinating history of this ancient society in personalized scenes through the centuries, Lily Monadjemi paints vivid pictures of the rises and falls of the various Shahs and their eventual downfall, giving way to the success of the 1979 Revolution and the retrograde steps of Ayatollah Khomaini and his Islamic Republic. 
  Within this is woven her own history and how these events affected her life and that of her immediate family.

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  Sho-Time - The Inside Story of...

  Jeff Fletcher

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  Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels is playing baseball like no other since the legendary Babe Ruth. Ohtani’s dominance as a two-way player, one that pitches and bats effectively, has taken the Major League by storm. Since entering the league, he won the 2018 AL Rookie of the Year, competed in the 2021 Home Run Derby, started in the 2021 All Star Game as both a pitcher and hitter (the first player to ever do so), won the 2021 Most Valuable Player award, and was named to Time 100’s list of most influential people of 2021. The question on everyone’s mind is this: How is this Japanese phenom doing this, and how far can he go? As the next generation of baseball superstars cement themselves, Ohtani, who can pitch a 100mph fastball and was a Top 3 home run leader at the end of the season, stands out amongst them all. Major League Baseball has found the new face of the sport. In Sho-time, Jeff Fletcher examines the player’s path from his early days in Japan, his transition to the MLB, and a start-to-finish inside look at his historic 2021 MVP season. Along the way, Fletcher details other players who have crossed over from Japan to the major leagues, how Ohtani brought his phenomenal talent to the game at a time when technology is exploding as a means toward maximizing performance, and the role that Ohtani and his otherworldly teammate Mike Trout are playing in helping to lead baseball into the next generation.

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  The Upper Berth - A sailor...

  F. Marion Crawford

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  Francis Marion Crawford, an only child, was born on 2nd August 1854 at Bagni di Lucca, Italy. He was a nephew to Julia Ward Howe, the American poet and writer of ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’.  
   
  Crawford was educated at St Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire and then on to Cambridge University, the University of Heidelberg and the University of Rome.  
   
  In 1879 he went to India, to study Sanskrit and then to edit The Indian Herald. In 1881 he returned to America to continue his Sanskrit studies at Harvard University. 
   
  His family became increasingly concerned about his employment prospects.  After an attempt at a singing career as a baritone was ruled out, he was encouraged to write.  
   
  In December 1882 his first novel, ‘Mr Isaacs’, was published and was an immediate hit as was his second novel ‘Dr Claudius’ in 1883.  
   
  In October 1884 he married Elizabeth Berdan and encouraged by his excellent start to a literary career they returned to Sant Agnello, Italy to make a permanent home, buying the Villa Renzi that then became Villa Crawford.  
   
  In the late 1890s, Crawford began work on his historical works which would later include ‘Corleone’, in 1897, the first major treatment of the Mafia in literature.  
   
  Crawford is also exceedingly popular and anthologized as a short story writer of bizarre and creepy tales.   
   
  In 1908 came his classic ‘The Screaming Skull’. Without doubt its unsettling nature is heightened as the reader/listener is drawn into to the story by its narrator.  Everything is explained and plausible until, of course, it isn’t. 
   
  Francis Marion Crawford died at Sorrento on Good Friday 1909 at Villa Crawford of a heart attack.  
   
  In this classic supernatural story by F Marion Crawford a man takes a room on a liner and discovers that its previous occupants have all committed suicide.  When his room mate on the Upper Berth also disappears the evidence points to some unearthly sequence of happenings.

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  Windfall - Viola MacMillan and...

  Tim Falconer

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  Viola MacMillan had it all: success, money, and respect. Influence, even. But in 1964, after three decades in the mining industry, one of the most fascinating women in Canadian business history was the central character in one of the country's most famous stock scandals. 
   
   
   
  MacMillan, who started out as a prospector in the '30s, had developed lucrative mines and put together big deals. But she still wanted "a major discovery." Early in July 1964, shares in Windfall Oil and Mines, a company she and her husband controlled, traded for around 56 cents. Then one day, the stock took off. In the absence of any information from the company about what it had found near Timmins on its claims, rumors and greed pushed the share price to a high of $5.70. MacMillan stayed quiet. Finally, after three weeks, Windfall admitted it had nothing. 
   
   
   
  So many small investors lost money when the stock crashed that the Ontario government appointed a royal commission to examine what had happened, which led to changes at the Ontario Securities Commission and the Toronto Stock Exchange. Although MacMillan spent a few weeks in prison, she later received a pardon and the Order of Canada.

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  Mission to Madagascar - The...

  David Mould

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  Radama— the young, savvy ruler of the rising military power in Madagascar. Robert Townsend Farquhar— governor of the British island colony of Mauritius, whose plantation economy depends on slave labor. James Hastie— an enterprising East India Company sergeant, ready to take on a risky mission. In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, as Britain and France face off in the southwest Indian Ocean, the destinies of these three characters intertwine. Will the British cut a deal to end the export of slaves from Madagascar, and if so at what cost? Will Radama, with Hastie by his side, win the internal power struggle against nobles and clan chieftains? Hastie' s previously unpublished journals offer the most comprehensive early 19th century account of Madagascar, its landscape, crops, industry, commerce, culture, and inhabitants, and weave a narrative of hazardous travel, byzantine court intrigue and colonial geopolitics. Sir Mervyn Brown, a former UK ambassador and historian of Madagascar, has described Hastie as " one of the most important and attractive figures in the history of Anglo-Malagasy relations."

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