![]() ![]() From revolution and Lenin to Stalin’s Great Terror, from World War II to Gorbachev’s perestroika policies, this is a lively, authoritative distillation of seventy-five years of communist rule and the collapse of an empire. Here is an irresistible entree to a sweeping history. ![]() More than a hundred years after the Russian Revolution, the tumultuous history of the Soviet Union continues to fascinate us and influence global politics. Soviet Russia arrived in the world accidentally and departed unexpectedly. ![]() The story of an empire made and an empire undone by one of the world’s leading authorities on Soviet Russia. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() Locke’s treatment of its people is at once loving and shrewd. ![]() It comes as no surprise that the town had once been a plantation. ![]() Lark is a backwater darkened by poverty and simmering with racial tensions. These grisly discoveries lead him into an investigation that ultimately threatens all he holds sacred. It is while on suspension from the force that he learns two bodies have washed up in the bayou in the tiny town of Lark – the first, that of a black male lawyer from Chicago, the second, of a local white waitress. He is also a black man who must negotiate these two often conflicting identities: “He got confused sometimes, on which side of the law he belonged, couldn’t always remember when it was safe for a black man to follow the rules.” As a native of East Texas, with strong ties to home, Darren offers aid to an old friend, a move that jeopardises both his marriage and the job he loves. But Bluebird, Bluebird is a true original in the way it twists these conventions into a narrative of exhilarating immediacy.ĭarren Matthews is a Texas Ranger, working in a division of state law enforcement tasked with investigating everything from political corruption to murder. L ocke’s mesmerising new novel bears all the hallmarks of modern crime fiction: the alcoholic protagonist with the damaged marriage the townsfolk who close rank against outsiders the small-town law enforcement agent with murky loyalties. ![]() ![]() ![]() Silverstein is a gifted storyteller whose animated - and undeniably creepy - voice can light up a room. ![]() You will talk with Broiled Face, and find out what happens when Somebody steals your knees, you get caught by the Quick-Digesting Gink, a Mountain snores, and They Put a Brassiere on the Camel.Ĭome on up to the attic of Shel Silverstein and let the light bring you home. Like an Edward Gorey illustration come to life, this wonderfully imaginative collection of poems, songs, and post-60s hippie rhetoric bristles with unguarded enthusiasm and Willy Wonka-esque grandstanding. Here in the attic you will find Backward Bill, Sour Face Ann, the Meehoo with an Exactlywatt, and the Polar Bear in the Frigidaire. This digital edition also includes twelve poems previously only available in the special edition hardcover.Ī Light in the Attic delights with remarkable characters and hilariously profound poems in a collection readers will return to again and again. With the functions of a full-sized toaster oven, you will certainly love to. ![]() From New York Times bestselling author Shel Silverstein, the creator of the beloved poetry collections Where the Sidewalk Ends, Falling Up, and Every Thing On It, comes an imaginative book of poems and drawings-a favorite of Shel Silverstein fans young and old. Shel Silversteins A Light in the Attic is an amazing book for many reasons. ![]() ![]() For centuries to come, the people who would become the nation of France were the leaders of Christian civilization in Western Europe. The royal couple made Paris their capital, and from Belgium to the Mediterranean they founded churches and monasteries. King Clovis and Queen Clothilde unified the various peoples under Frankish rule by spreading the Catholic faith. Raised as a Christian by her mother, the princess was wed at the age of eighteen to Clovis, King of the Franks, who the legends say fell in love with her beauty. Honored by the Catholic Church as a saint, Clothilde was the daughter of the King of Burgundy. and get the best deals for Saint Clothilde : The First Christian Queen of. Though it reads like a diary, all of the historical facts have been thoroughly researched and verified by reliable sources. In this book for young people, Queen Clothilde tells the exciting story of her life from her point of view. Thanks to the prayers and good example of his young wife, Clothilde, the fierce barbarian Clovis experienced a miraculous conversion on the field of battle and became a Christian in 496, forever changing the destiny of France. ![]() Raised as a Christian by her mother, the princess was wed at the. Encourages children to love the stories of the saints Honored by the Catholic Church as a saint, Clothilde was the daughter of the King of Burgundy. ![]() ![]() (Be prepared-we're going to talk about Star Trek a bunch.) And these crazy kids use this new technology to get rid of their parents. That's Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt" in a nutshell: it's the story of a couple of kids who have an awesome new tech toy-a virtual reality room, like the holodeck on Star Trek. No need to go hunting nearby alleys for strays. ![]() And once you have the Internet, you can spend hours looking at LOLcats in the comfort of your own home. Think about it: once you have radio, you don't have to go out to see a concert to hear music and you can get the news without waiting for tomorrow's newspaper. New technology can completely change people's lives (though it doesn't always kill us). The printing press, radio, atomic bombs, Google-as soon as you invent one of those, people are going to-you guessed it-freak out.Īnd they're not totally wrong to be upset. ![]() Seriously, the history of new technology is a history of people freaking out. ![]() ![]() Person B: Oh, no! We're all going to die! Ray Bradbury's The Veldt: Story Study Guide Introduction ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Superbly translated by Jennifer Croft, "Flights" is a witty, imaginative, hard-to-classify work that is in the broadest sense about travel. ![]() About a quarter of a way through this book, just out in America, I realized that I'd been overlooking a major international writer. And over the decades, Eastern Europe has continued to turn out writers whose work possesses an existential depth and an inventiveness that can make English language fiction look flimsy.Ī striking example of this is Olga Tokarczuk, a 56-year-old literary star in her native Poland who frankly I'd never even heard of until a few months ago when her book "Flights" won the Man Booker International Prize. Stripped of the peculiar glamour of oppression, they were no longer sexy. But with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the bottom seemed to fall out of the market for writers from the other Europe as a series edited by Philip Roth once dubbed them. They were political dissidents whose work mattered. Not only were they good, their careers came with a compelling backstory. JOHN POWERS, BYLINE: During the Cold War, Eastern European writers were a very big deal in the West. "Flights" is now being published in America by Riverhead Books, and our critic-at-large John Powers says it's a revelation. Earlier this year the Man Booker International Prize, given for the best book of the year translated into English, was given to "Flights," a work of fiction by the Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() “So let’s go find something that works better. “It began saying marriage is an anachronism: Look at all these people cheating and in unhappy marriages it’s a broken institution,” Strauss said in an interview at BuzzFeed. ![]() The popcorn orgy incident occurred after he cheated on his longtime girlfriend, tried sex addiction rehab, broke up with the girlfriend, gave up on monogamy, and set off on a series of adventures in polyamory. The Truth spans several years when the Rolling Stone writer and co-author of several celebrity autobiographies undertook a personal quest to understand the nature of relationships. If you can get kicked out of an orgy for anything, eating Trader Joe’s organic olive oil popcorn is the best possible reason. The best part, imho, of Neil Strauss’s new book The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships is a scene where after breaking up with his girlfriend because he has decided he can’t live a monogamous lifestyle, he gets kicked out of an orgy by its New Agey organizer for eating popcorn from the snacks table during the orgy. ![]() ![]() ![]() It is only after Matt meets the balloonist's granddaughter that he realizes that the man's ravings may, in fact, have been true, and that the creatures are completely real and utterly mysterious. One night he meets a dying balloonist who speaks of beautiful creatures drifting through the skies. It is the life Matt's always wanted convinced he's lighter than air, he imagines himself as buoyant as the hydrium gas that powers his ship. ![]() ![]() Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the Aurora, a huge airship that sails hundreds of feet above the ocean, ferrying wealthy passengers from city to city. I was keeping watch on a dark stack of nimbus clouds off to the northwest, but we were leaving it far behind, and it looked to be smooth going all the way back to Lionsgate City. We were two nights out of Sydney, and there'd been no weather to speak of so far. Sailing toward dawn, and I was perched atop the crow's nest, being the ship's eyes. ![]() ![]() ![]() Lizzie returns home covered in juices and pulp, and Laura, who is on the verge of death, sucks and drinks it from her until she is miraculously restored to life. ![]() Lizzie decides to go to the goblins to get more fruit for Laura she is violently attacked by the creatures who attempt to force-feed her their fruits, yet she remains steadfast and keeps her mouth closed until they give up. Having eaten she then craves for more, eventually growing sickly with yearning. They are accustomed to hearing the eerie calls of the goblin merchants selling their exotic fruits pass near the house, until one day Laura, despite her sister’s warnings, succumbs to curiosity and tastes the fruits. Its story follows two sisters, Laura and Lizzie, who live by themselves in a little house near a wood. It is a fairy tale, an allegory of sin and redemption and a feminist tribute to the powers and bonds of sisterly love all in one, though there have been many more critical interpretations besides. So begins Goblin Market, one of Christina Rossetti’s most popular and distinctive poems and an acknowledged classic of Victorian literature. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ‘Christina Rossetti’, September 1866 ![]() ![]() In all his adventures in both parts of the poem Faust is driven by the need to perceive, without the aid of revelation, a rational order as the framework of the world in which he lives. ![]() ![]() Despite his worldly accomplishments he is assailed by frustration because the traditional and conventional modes of thought that he has mastered cannot help him to discern a coherent purpose or form behind all the numerous and varied phenomena of life and nature. The Main Theme of Faust - A Metaphysical Questįaust is a learned German scholar who, at the beginning of the poem, is disillusioned and demoralized by his inability to discover life's true meaning.The Relationship of the Two Parts of Faust.Part 2: Act V: Mountain-Gorges, Forest, Cliff, Wilderness.Part 2: Act V: The Great Outer-Court of the Palace.Part 2: Act IV: The Rival Emperor's Tent.Part 2: Act III: Inner Courtyard of a Castle. ![]() Part 2: Act III: Before the Palace of Menelaus in Sparta.Part 2: Act II: Classical Walpurgis Night: Pharsalian Fields, By the Upper Peneus, By the Lower Peneus, By the Upper Peneus (II), Rocky Caves of the Aegean.Part 2: Act I: State Rooms and Baronial Hall.Part 2: Act I: Spacious Hall and Pleasure Garden. ![]() |