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  The Graeco-Roman Era - 431BCE-63BCE

  Pericles, Julius Caesar, ...

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  Five speeches from the legendary orators Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Cicero, and Pericles. 
  431 BCE: Pericles’ Funeral Oration is a valedictory and eulogy for the great age of Athenian democracy. Reported by Thucydides, it was given at the first annual public funeral for casualties of the Peloponnesian War. That war ended twenty-seven years later with the democratic government of Athens overthrown by an oligarchy known as The Four Hundred.  
  324BCE: Two speeches by Alexander the Great, reported by the historian Arrian in his Anabasis. Both speeches are a direct address to his army on embarking on a new campaign.  
  The first was given in Opis, Mesopotamia, when rallying his armies to start a new campaign into Persia. The army took heart, and successfully conquered the Persian Empire, adding it to Alexander’s many existing conquests. The second speech is given after the first campaign is over. This time Alexander is ready to move into the Indian subcontinent.  
  After travelling across the known world, the entire army took the offer to quit fighting and go home. This leaves Alexander understandably upset, and produces history’s most finely worded example of saying “After all I’ve done for you! Well, you can all get stuffed then, you bunch of ingrates. I hope you choke.” 
  In 63BCE, the Cataline Conspiracy shook Rome. It was a deep shock to the Roman system, and risked civil war. Included here are speeches by the Consul Cicero and the only extant speech of Julius Caesar. 
  Cicero’s First Speech is a rabble-rousing, impassioned, and slightly unhinged attack upon Cataline and his associates. It speaks to the outrage of the body politic and the masses. 
  Caesar’s speech is a jurisprudential appeal to create no new laws to punish these crimes. Caesar argues that the republic would be ultimately harmed if they were not punished only under existing laws, as people remember the punishment but not the crime.

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  Rate of Climb - Thrilling...

  AFC Air Commodore Rick...

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  Rick Peacock-Edwards has led different lives at different times, but through it all has used a bonus in life nowadays often overlooked: he has consistently enjoyed himself. One of three brothers of outstanding South African Battle of Britain pilot F/O S. R. "Teddy" Peacock-Edwards, his subtle and compassionate regard for a generation of wartime aircrew is clear: "As the proud son of one of the 'Few', their selfless daring has inspired me throughout my life. Importantly, they influenced my decision to become an airman in the Royal Air Force, to become a fighter pilot like my father, and to live life with spirit as they had lived their lives. It is essential that their experiences live on." Rate of Climb, his original and continually entertaining biography, drawing on previously unpublished family and archival material, shows Rick in complete command of his primary subject: flying. This is an action-packed account of a foremost flyer's life with endless good stories, and a colorful cast of characters to match. Rick's compelling recollections in Rate of Climb reveal a life of considerable achievement, in a very personal book capturing the ties of airmanship that the author has been privileged to share. A must for all lovers of derring-do in the air.

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  Alone in Wonderland

  Christine Reed

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  Winner of the Indie National Excellence Award for Nonfiction Category.Christine discovered long distance backpacking while surfing the internet at work. She decided that day to attempt to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. One adventure led to another and a few years later she set out on the Wonderland Trail in Mt Rainier National Park.Her Rugged Outdoors Woman persona started as a joke, a nod to the outdoor adventurer that she wished to be. But in the years since, she has come into her own as a backpacker, rock climber, and trail runner. This book is a testament to the decision to name who you want to be and make it so.

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  The Lives of Erich Fromm -...

  Lawrence J. Friedman, Anke M....

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  This “brilliantly comprehensive study” explores the influential thinker’s contributions to psychology, philosophy and more—“academic biography at its best” (Kirkus, starred review).   Erich Fromm was a political activist, psychologist, psychoanalyst, philosopher, and one of the most important intellectuals of the twentieth century. Known for his theories of personality and political insight, Fromm dissected the sadomasochistic appeal of populist dictators. He eloquently championing the virtues of love rooted in joyful contact with others and humanity at large. Admired all over the world, Fromm continues to inspire with his message of universal brotherhood. In the first systematic study of Fromm's influences and achievements, Lawrence J. Friedman revisits the thinker's most important works, including Escape from Freedom and The Art of Loving. He also recounts Fromm's political activism as a founder of Amnesty International, the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, and other peace groups. Friedman also reveals Fromm's support for anti-Stalinist democratic movements in Central and Eastern Europe and his efforts to revitalize American democracy.   Friedman elucidates Fromm's key intellectual contributions, especially his innovative concept of "social character," in which social institutions and practices shape the inner psyche, and he clarifies Fromm's conception of love as an acquired skill. Taking full stock of the thinker's historical and global accomplishments, Friedman portrays a man of immense authenticity and spirituality who made life in the twentieth century more humane than it might have been.

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  Tolkien and the Great War - The...

  John Garth

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  How the First World War influenced the author of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy: “Very much the best book about J.R.R. Tolkien that has yet been written.” —A. N. Wilson As Europe plunged into World War I, J. R. R. Tolkien was a student at Oxford and part of a cohort of literary-minded friends who had wide-ranging conversations in their Tea Club and Barrovian Society. After finishing his degree, Tolkien experienced the horrors of the Great War as a signal officer in the Battle of the Somme, where two of those school friends died. All the while, he was hard at work on an original mythology that would become the basis of his literary masterpiece, the Lord of the Rings trilogy.   In this biographical study, drawn in part from Tolkien’s personal wartime papers, John Garth traces the development of the author’s work during this critical period. He shows how the deaths of two comrades compelled Tolkien to pursue the dream they had shared, and argues that the young man used his imagination not to escape from reality—but to transform the cataclysm of his generation. While Tolkien’s contemporaries surrendered to disillusionment, he kept enchantment alive, reshaping an entire literary tradition into a form that resonates to this day.   “Garth’s fine study should have a major audience among serious students of Tolkien.” —Publishers Weekly   “A highly intelligent book . . . Garth displays impressive skills both as researcher and writer.” —Max Hastings, author of The Secret War   “Somewhere, I think, Tolkien is nodding in appreciation.” —San Jose Mercury News   “A labour of love in which journalist Garth combines a newsman’s nose for a good story with a scholar’s scrupulous attention to detail . . . Brilliantly argued.” —Daily Mail (UK)   “Gripping from start to finish and offers important new insights.” —Library Journal   “Insight into how a writer turned academia into art, how deeply friendship supports and wounds us, and how the death and disillusionment that characterized World War I inspired Tolkien’s lush saga.” —Detroit Free Press

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  Still Hunting - A Memoir

  Martin Hunter

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  In the 1960s, Toronto was a city of shifting societal dynamics, and this engrossing memoir perfectly captures the essence of this exhilarating and tumultuous time. It begins with Martin Hunter returning to his birthplace, where he marries his teenage sweetheart, goes to work for the family paper company, fathers three children, and settles into a conventional life. But this comfortable bourgeois existence is disrupted with the arrival of the Swinging Sixties and the wild parties and flamboyant characters that accompanied the famously iconoclastic decade. After writing a racy, award-winning play about the city's changing social climate, the University of Toronto offers him a position as playwright-in-residence, thus plunging him into Toronto's vibrant theatre scene and setting the stage for many adventures to follow. Skillfully written and full of unforgettable characters, this book chronicles Hunter's adventures in Europe and the Middle East, reveals his stories of working in the theatre, and shares tales of his spirited friends, colleagues, and loved ones.

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