Other books that might interest you

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  The Children of Athena - Greek...

  Charles Freeman

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  A compelling and fascinating portrait of the continuing intellectual tradition of Greek writers and thinkers in the Age of Rome. 
   
  In 146 BC, Greece yielded to the military might of the Roman Republic; sixty years later, when Athens and other Greek city-states rebelled against Rome, the general Lucius Cornelius Sulla destroyed the city of Socrates and Plato, laying waste to the famous Academy where Aristotle had studied. However, the traditions of Greek cultural life would continue to flourish during the centuries of Roman rule that followed, in the lives and work of a distinguished array of philosophers, doctors, scientists, geographers, travellers and theologians. 
   
  Charles Freeman's accounts of such luminaries as the physician Galen, the geographer Ptolemy and the philosopher Plotinus are interwoven with contextual 'interludes' that showcase a sequence of unjustly neglected and richly influential lives. Like the author's The Awakening, The Children of Athena is a cultural history on an epic scale: the story of a rich and vibrant tradition of Greek intellectual inquiry across a period of more than five hundred years, from the second century BC to the start of the fifth century AD.

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  The Kaiser's Escapees - Allied...

  Philip D. Chinnery

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  Following on from the his first well-received book 'The Kaisers First POWs' Philip Chinnery now turns his attention to the attempts by allied prisoners of war to escape the Kaiser's clutches and return to their homeland. As the war progressed, the treatment of allied prisoners worsened as the blockade of Germany reduced the amount of food and material coming into the country. The majority of the prisoners were too weak or ill-equipped to attempt to escape, but there were others who were determined to pit their wits against their jailers. These included the officers at Holzminden prison, who dug a tunnel allowing twenty-eight of their number to escape; men like Canadian Private Simmons, who escaped and was recaptured twice before his third attempt saw him gain his freedom; men who jumped from moving trains or marched brazenly out of the camp gates disguised as German officers.Although Holland and Switzerland were neutral countries during the First World War, escaping from their camps, crossing miles of enemy territory and outwitting the sentries guarding the frontiers taxed even the strongest individuals. But many men did make the attempt and more than a few of them were successful. This is their story.

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  One Fair Wage - Ending...

  Saru Jayaraman

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  Before the COVID-19 pandemic devastated the country, more than six million people earned their living as tipped workers in the service industry. They served us in cafes and restaurants, they delivered food to our homes, they drove us wherever we wanted to go, and they worked in nail salons for as little as $2.13 an hour—the federal tipped minimum wage since 1991—leaving them with next to nothing to get by. 
   
   
   
  These workers, unsurprisingly, were among the most vulnerable workers during the pandemic. As businesses across the country closed down or drastically scaled back their services, hundreds of thousands lost their jobs. As in many other areas, the pandemic exposed the inadequacies of the nation's social safety net and minimum-wage standards. 
   
   
   
  One of New York magazine's "Influentials" of New York City, one of CNN's Visionary Women in 2014, and a White House Champion of Change in 2014, Saru Jayaraman is a nationally acclaimed restaurant activist and the author of the bestselling Behind the Kitchen Door. In her new book, One Fair Wage, Jayaraman shines a light on these workers, illustrating how the people left out of the fight for a fair minimum wage are society's most marginalized. They epitomize the direction of our whole economy, reflecting the precariousness and instability that is increasingly the lot of American labor.

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  Pumpkinflowers - A Soldier's...

  Matti Friedman

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  “A book about young men transformed by war, written by a veteran whose dazzling literary gifts gripped my attention from the first page to the last.” —The Wall Street Journal “Friedman’s sober and striking new memoir . . . [is] on a par with Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried -- its Israeli analog.” —The New York Times Book Review It was just one small hilltop in a small, unnamed war in the late 1990s, but it would send out ripples that are still felt worldwide today. The hill, in Lebanon, was called the Pumpkin; flowers was the military code word for “casualties.” Award-winning writer Matti Friedman re-creates the harrowing experience of a band of young Israeli soldiers charged with holding this remote outpost, a task that would change them forever, wound the country in ways large and small, and foreshadow the unwinnable conflicts the United States would soon confront in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.Pumpkinflowers is a reckoning by one of those young soldiers now grown into a remarkable writer. Part memoir, part reportage, part history, Friedman’s powerful narrative captures the birth of today’s chaotic Middle East and the rise of a twenty-first-century type of war in which there is never a clear victor and media images can be as important as the battle itself. Raw and beautifully rendered, Pumpkinflowers will take its place among classic war narratives by George Orwell, Philip Caputo, and Tim O’Brien. It is an unflinching look at the way we conduct war today.

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  Woodland Folk Tales of Britain...

  Lisa Schneidau

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  Once upon a time, most of Britain and Ireland was covered in woodland. Many of the trees have been cleared, but our connection with the wildwood remains. It is a place of danger, adventure and transformation, where anything could happen. Here is a collection of traditional folk tales of oak, ash and thorn, of hunting forests and rebellion, timber and triumph in battle, wild ghosts and woodwoses. Lisa Schneidau retells some of the old stories and relates them to the trees and forests in the landscape of our islands today.

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  Riding

  Pardis Mahdavi

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  In Riding, Pardis Mahdavi meditates on the lessons learned over a lifetime of horseback riding and the falling, failing, and joy it brings. At once a history of Caspian horses, an exploration of Mahdavi's Iranian-American identity and family history, and a consideration of the capacity for self-reflection and self-compassion through human-animal relationships, Riding offers a roadmap for learning to live in harmony with the self and the environment around us. Mahdavi shows how her relationship with horses gives her insights into intergenerational strength and tools for healing intergenerational trauma. Riding from the mountains of Iran to the beaches of California, Mahdavi shares her love affair with horses, rediscovers a homeland she longs for, and ultimately finds her strength.

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