Daedalus Books

Gaiman Neil, 2010

The two stories in this exciting novella follow the adventures of the intrepid young Viking Odd. As a brave and solitary twelve-year-old, in the first tale, he endeavours to free three Norse Gods trapped in the bodies of an eagle, a bear and a fox; then, in the second, a few years older, taller and stronger he sets off on a testing and epic journey to the Holy City of Jerusalem. But of course with Neil Gaiman's wit and style the stories transcend the normal and become humorous, rich and layered tales of a life lived courageously. Подробнее

Poe: A Life Cut Short

Ackroyd Peter, 2009

Gothic, mysterious, theatrical, fatally flawed, and dazzling, the life of Edgar Allan Poe, one of America's greatest and most versatile writers, is the ideal subject for Peter Ackroyd. Poe wrote lyrical poetry and macabre psychological melodramas; invented the first fictional detective; and produced pioneering works of science fiction and fantasy. His innovative style, images, and themes had a tremendous impact on European romanticism, symbolism, and surrealism, and continue to influence writers today. In this essential addition to his canon of acclaimed biographies, Peter Ackroyd explores Poe's literary accomplishments and legacy against the background of his erratic, dramatic, and sometimes sordid life. Ackroyd chronicles Poe's difficult childhood, his bumpy academic and military careers, and his complex relationships with women, including his marriage to his thirteen-year-old cousin. He describes Poe's much-written-about problems with gambling and alcohol with sympathy and insight, showing their connections to Poe's childhood and the trials, as well as the triumphs, of his adult life. Ackroyd's thoughtful, perceptive examinations of some of Poe's most famous works shed new light on these classics and on the troubled and brilliant genius who created them. Подробнее

The Second World War: A Military History

Corrigan Gordon, 2010

This is a landmark reassessment of the Second World War, of its origins and prosecution. It looks set to become the definitive single-volume military history. In this major new history, Gordon Corrigan argues that what we call the Second World War was in fact two separate conflicts: one against Germany (and, for a while, Italy) in Western Europe, Soviet Russia and North Africa; the other against Japan in the Far East and Pacific. Each conflict had distinct causes and had to be fought in different ways against very different enemies, who rarely, if ever, coordinated their efforts. This is a new and cogent account of an immense, exhausting six-year conflict that continues to fascinate. Corrigan examines the agendas of the warring nations and offers fresh and vivid interpretations; Britain's own part in the war comes in for particularly close scrutiny: militarily, the British suffered an agonising series of defeats before the tide turned. The country emerged economically broken, with the loss of her empire a virtual certainty. The Second World War is vast in its erudition and epic in its execution. It will change forever the way we think about the titanic conflicts that dominated the years 1939 to 1945. It is suitable for fans of Gordon Corrigan's Mud, Blood and Poppycock and Blood, Sweat and Arrogance, and Andrew Roberts' The Storm of War, as well as Anthony Beevor, Max Hastings, and Richard Holmes. Подробнее

The Book of the Dead: Lives of the Justly Famous and the Undeservedly Obscure

Mitchinson John, 2010

The team behind the New York Times bestseller The Book of General Ignorance turns conventional biography on its head — and shakes out the good stuff. Following their Herculean -or is it Sisyphean? — efforts to save the living from ignorance, the two wittiest Johns in the English language turn their attention to the dead. As the authors themselves say, The first thing that strikes you about the Dead is just how many of them there are. Helpfully, Lloyd and Mitchinson have employed a simple — but ruthless — criterion for inclusion: the dead person has to be interesting. Here, then, is a dictionary of the dead, an encyclopedia of the embalmed. Ludicrous in scope, whimsical in its arrangement, this wildly entertaining tome presents pithy and provocative biographies of the no-longer-living from the famous to the undeservedly and — until now — permanently obscure. Spades in hand, Lloyd and Mitchinson have dug up everything embarrassing, fascinating, and downright weird about their subjects' lives and added their own uniquely irreverent observations. Organized by capricious categories — such as dead people who died virgins, who kept pet monkeys, who lost limbs, whose corpses refused to stay put — the dearly departed, from the inventor of the stove to a cross-dressing, bear-baiting female gangster finally receive the epitaphs they truly deserve. Подробнее

Bridge of Spies: A True Story of the Cold War

Whittell Giles, 2010

Who were the three men the American and Soviet superpowers exchanged at Berlin's Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie in the first and most legendary prisoner exchange between East and West? Bridge of Spies vividly traces their paths to that exchange on February 10, 1962, when their fate helped to define the conflicts and lethal undercurrents of the most dangerous years of the Cold War. Bridge of Spies is the true story of three extraordinary characters — William Fisher, alias Rudolf Abel, a British born KGB agent arrested by the FBI in New York City and jailed as a Soviet superspy for trying to steal America's most precious nuclear secrets; Gary Powers, the American U-2 pilot who was captured when his plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission over the closed cities of central Russia; and Frederic Pryor, a young American graduate student in Berlin mistakenly identified as a spy, arrested and held without charge by the Stasi, East Germany's secret police. By weaving the three strands of this story together for the first time, Giles Whittell masterfully portrays the intense political tensions and nuclear brinkmanship that brought the United States and Soviet Union so close to a hot war in the early 1960s. He reveals the dramatic lives of men drawn into the nadir of the Cold War by duty and curiosity, and the tragicomedy of errors that eventually induced Khrushchev to send missiles to Castro. Two of his subjects — the spy and the pilot — were the original seekers of weapons of mass destruction. The third, an intellectual, fluent in German, unencumbered by dependents, and researching a Ph.D. thesis on the foreign trade system of the Soviet bloc, seemed to the Stasi precisely the sort of person the CIA should have been recruiting. He was not. In over his head in the world capital of spying, he was wrongly charged with espionage and thus came to the Agency's notice by a more roundabout route. The three men were rescued against daunting odds by fate and by their families, and then all but forgotten. Yet they laid bare the pathological mistrust that fueled the arms race for the next 30 years. Drawing on new interviews conducted in the United States, Europe and Russia with key players in the exchange and the events leading to it, among them Frederic Pryor himself and the man who shot down Gary Powers, Bridge of Spies captures a time when the fate of the world really did depend on coded messages on microdots and brave young men in pressure suits. The exchange that frigid day at two of the most sensitive points along the Iron Curtain represented the first step back from where the superpowers had stood since the building of the Berlin Wall the previous summer — on the brink of World War III. Подробнее

Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Laclos Choledos de, 2006

A series of intimate letters chronicles the amorous misadventures of the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont — two rivals who use their bodies as weapons in the war of the sexes. Set in the final days of the Ancien Regime, Laclos' dark and erotic epistolary milestone has been a bountiful source of inspiration for filmmakers and stage producers. Подробнее

The Death of King Arthur: The Immortal Legend

Malory Sir Thomas, 2011

Acclaimed biographer Peter Ackroyd vibrantly resurrects the legendary epic of Camelot in this modern adaptation. The names of Arthur, Merlin, Lancelot, Guinevere, Galahad, the sword of Excalibur, and the court of Camelot are as recognizable as any from the world of myth. Although many versions exist of the stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory endures as the most moving and richly inventive. In this abridged retelling the inimitable Peter Ackroyd transforms Malory's fifteenth-century work into a dramatic modern story, vividly bringing to life a world of courage and chivalry, magic, and majesty. The golden age of Camelot, the perilous search for the Holy Grail, the love of Guinevere and Lancelot, and the treachery of Arthur's son Mordred are all rendered into contemporary prose with Ackroyd's characteristic charm and panache. Just as he did with his fresh new version of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, Ackroyd now brings one of the cornerstones of English literature to a whole new audience. Подробнее

Frost/Nixon: Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews

Frost Dr David, 2007

Following the resounding success of the eponymous West End and Broadway hit play, Frost/Nixon tells the extraordinary story of how Sir David Frost pursued and landed the biggest fish of his career — and how the series drew larger audiences than any news interview ever had in the United States, before being shown all over the world. This is Frost's absorbing story of his pursuit of Richard Nixon, and is no less revealing of his own toughness and pertinacity than of the ex-President's elusiveness. Frost's encounters with such figures as Swifty Lazar, Ron Ziegler, potential sponsors, and Nixon as negotiator are nothing short of hilarious, and his insight into the taping of the programs themselves is fascinating. Frost/Nixon provides the authoritative account of the only public trial that Nixon would ever have, and a revelation of the man's character as it appeared in the stress of eleven grueling sessions before the cameras. Including historical perspective and transcripts of the edited interviews, this is the story of Sir David Frost's quest to produce one of the most dramatic pieces of television ever broadcast, described by commentators at the time as a catharsis for the American people. Подробнее

Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World

Harman Claire, 2010

Mention Jane Austen and you'll likely incite a slew of fervent opinions from anyone within earshot. Regarded as a brilliant social satirist by scholars, Austen also enjoys the sort of popular affection usually reserved for girl-next-door movie stars, leading to the paradox of an academically revered author who has served as the inspiration for chick lit (The Jane Austen Book Club) and modern blockbusters (Becoming Jane). Almost two hundred years after her death, Austen remains a hot topic, and the current flare in the cultural zeitgeist echoes the continuous revival of her works, from the time of original publication through the twentieth century. In Jane's Fame, Claire Harman gives us the complete biography — of both the author and her lasting cultural influence — making this essential reading for anyone interested in Austen's life, works, and remarkably potent fame. Подробнее

K Blows Top: A Cold War Comic Interlude

Carlson Peter, 2009

Khrushchev's 1959 trip across America was one of the strangest exercises in international diplomacy ever conducted — a surreal extravaganza, as historian John Lewis Gaddis called it. Khrushchev told jokes, threw tantrums, sparked a riot in a San Francisco supermarket, wowed the coeds in a home economics class in Iowa, and ogled Shirley MacLaine as she filmed a dance scene in Can-Can. He befriended and offended a cast of characters including Nelson Rockefeller, Richard Nixon, Eleanor Roosevelt, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marilyn Monroe. Published for the fiftieth anniversary of the trip, K Blows Top is a work of history that reads like a Vonnegut novel. This cantankerous communist's road trip took place against the backdrop of the fifties in capitalist America, with the shadow of the hydrogen bomb hanging over his visit like the Sword of Damocles. As Khrushchev kept reminding people, he was a hot-tempered man who possessed the power to incinerate America. Подробнее

Mark Twain

Ward Geoffrey C., 2001

Ernest Hemingway called Huckleberry Finn the best book we've ever had. There was nothing before. There's been nothing as good since. Critical opinion of this book hasn't dimmed since Hemingway uttered these words; as author Russell Banks says in these pages, Twain makes possible an American literature which would otherwise not have been possible. He was the most famous American of his day, and remains in ours the most universally revered American writer. Here the master storytellers Geoffrey Ward, Ken Burns, and Dayton Duncan give us the first fully illustrated biography of Mark Twain, American literature's touchstone, its funniest and most inventive figure. This book pulls together material from a variety of published and unpublished sources. It examines not merely his justly famous novels, stories, travelogues, and lectures, but also his diaries, letters, and 275 illustrations and photographs from throughout his life. The authors take us from Samuel Langhorne Clemens's boyhood in Hannibal, Missouri, to his time as a riverboat worker — when he adopted the sobriquet Mark Twain — to his varied careers as a newspaperman, printer, and author. They follow him from the home he built in Hartford, Connecticut, to his peripatetic travels across Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. We see Twain grieve over his favorite daughter's death, and we see him writing and noticing everything. Twain believed that The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven. This paradox fueled his hilarity and lay at the core of this irreverent yet profoundly serious author. With essays by Russell Banks, Jocelyn Chadwick, Ron Powers, and John Boyer, aswell as an interview with actor and frequent Twain portrayer Hal Holbrook, this book provides a full and rich portrayal of the first figure of American letters. Подробнее

Monty Python Live

Chapman Graham, 2009

Just in time for the 40th anniversary of Monty Python comes this book that celebrates the incredibly popular British comedy phenomenon. Color photos throughout. Подробнее

People of the Book

Brooks Geraldine, 2008

From the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of March, the journey of a rare illuminated manuscript through centuries of exile and war In 1996, Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, which has been rescued from Serb shelling during the Bosnian war. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. When Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for her work, discovers a series of tiny artifacts in its ancient binding insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hairashe begins to unlock the book's mysteries. The reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past, tracing the book's journey from its salvation back to its creation. In Bosnia during World War II, a Muslim risks his life to protect it from the Nazis. In the hedonistic salons of fin-de-sicle Vienna, the book becomes a pawn in the struggle against the city's rising anti-Semitism. In inquisition-era Venice, a Catholic priest saves it from burning. In Barcelona in 1492, the scribe who wrote the text sees his family destroyed by the agonies of enforced exile. And in Seville in 1480, the reason for the Haggadah's extraordinary illuminations is finally disclosed. Hanna's investigation unexpectedly plunges her into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics. Her experiences will test her belief in herself and the man she has come to love. Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is at once a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity, an ambitious, electrifying work by an acclaimed and beloved author. Подробнее

The Red Army at War: Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives

Drabkin Artem, 2010

What was life in the Red Army like for the ordinary soldier during the Great Patriotic War, the fight between the Soviet Union and Germany on the Eastern Front? How far is the common perception of Red Army heroism and sacrifice borne out by historical reality? And what was the daily experience of the individual soldier caught up in this immense and ruthless conflict? The 160 contemporary photographs from the Russian archives that have been selected for this book give a striking insight into all sides of wartime service for the Soviet soldier. The whole range of military experience is portrayed here, from recruitment and the rigors of training to transport, marching and the ordeal of combat. Подробнее

Secrets of Dracula's Castle

Unstead Sue, 2009

Among the newest of Barron's fun activity kits for boys and girls holds the ingredients for an imaginary journey to the mysterious land of Transylvania and the spooky castle that is home to Count Dracula! Enclosed with an assortment of creepy vampire accessories is a 32-page illustrated book that retells Draculaas classic story. The box also contains a collection of items to enhance the scary surroundings, including: Vampire-style fanged teeth; Dracula's cloak; A spooky plastic bat; Washable white face paint; Capsules of imitation blood; A punch-out cardboard model of Dracula's castle to assemble. Kids can let their imaginations run wild as they dress up for Halloween or dramatize Dracula's delightfully chilling story at any time of the year. Подробнее

The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science That Could Save Your Life

Sherwood Ben, 2010

This New York Times bestseller reveals the hidden side of surviving and thriving by combining astonishing true stories, scientific research, and the author's adventures inside the U.S. military's elite survival school. Подробнее

White House Diary

Carter Professor Jimmy, 2010

The edited, annotated diary of President Jimmy Carter — filled with insights into his presidency, his relationships with friends and foes, and his lasting impact on issues that still preoccupy America and the world Each day during his presidency, Jimmy Carter made several entries in a private diary, recording his thoughts, impressions, delights, and frustrations. He offered unvarnished assessments of cabinet members, congressmen, and foreign leaders; he narrated the progress of secret negotiations such as those that led to the Camp David Accords. When his four-year term came to an end in early 1981, the diary amounted to more than five thousand pages. But this extraordinary document has never been made public — until now. By carefully selecting the most illuminating and relevant entries, Carter has provided us with an astonishingly intimate view of his presidency. Day by day, we see his forceful advocacy for nuclear containment, sustainable energy, human rights, and peace in the Middle East. We witness his interactions with such complex personalities as Ted Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Joe Biden, Anwar Sadat, and Menachem Begin. We get the inside story of his so-called malaise speech, his bruising battle for the 1980 Democratic nomination, and the Iranian hostage crisis. Remarkably, we also get Carter's retrospective comments on these topics and more: thirty years after the fact, he has annotated the diary with his candid reflections on the people and events that shaped his presidency, and on the many lessons learned. Carter is now widely seen as one of the truly wise men of our time. Offering an unprecedented look at both the man and his tenure, this fascinating book will stand as a unique contribution to the history of the American presidency. Подробнее

1939: Countdown to War

Overy Richard J., 2010

A leading historian re-creates the final hours of peace in Europe. On August 24, 1939, the world held its collective breath as Hitler and Stalin signed the now infamous nonaggression pact, signaling an imminent invasion of Poland and daring Western Europe to respond. In this dramatic account of the final days before the outbreak of World War II, award-winning historian Richard Overy vividly chronicles the unraveling of peace, hour by grim hour, as politicians and ordinary citizens brace themselves for a war that could spell the end of European civilization. Nothing was entirely predictable or inevitable. The West hoped that Hitler would see sense if they stood firm. Hitler was convinced the West would back down. Moments of uncertainty alternated with those of confrontation; secret intelligence was used by both sides to support their hopes. The one constant feature was the determination of Poland, a country created only in 1919, to protect its newfound independence against a vastly superior enemy. 1939 documents a defining moment in the violent history of the twentieth century. Подробнее

The Annotated Peter Pan: Centennial Edition

Barrie J.M., 2011

One hundred years after J. M. Barrie published the novel Peter and Wendy, Maria Tatar revisits a story that, like Alice in Wonderland, bridges the generations, animating both adults and children with its kinetic energy. The adventures of the Darling children with Peter Pan and Tinkerbell in Neverland are the seminal tale of escape and fantasy. Inspired by Barrie's real-life adventures with the five Llewelyn Davies boys he adopted, the story of Peter Pan has a deep and controversial history of its own that comes alive in Tatar's new edition. This brilliantly designed volume with period photographs, full-color images by iconic illustrators, commentary on stage and screen versions, and an array of supplementary material, including Barrie's screenplay for a silent film will draw readers into worlds of incandescent beauty, flooding them with the radiance of childhood wonder and the poignancy of what we lose when we grow up. Подробнее

Ape House

Gruen Sara, 2010

After the extraordinary success of Water for Elephants, with 3 million copies shipped, Sara Gruen returns with another immensely charming, endlessly surprising, and engaging novel in which a family of apes teaches us what it means to be human. Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants has become one of the most beloved and bestselling novels of our time. Now Gruen has moved from a circus elephant to family of bonobo apes. When the apes are kidnapped from a language laboratory, their mysterious appearance on a reality TV show calls into question our assumptions about these animals who share 99.4% of our DNA. A devoted animal lover, Gruen has had a life-long fascination with human-ape discourse, and a particular interest in Bonobo apes, who share 99.4% of our DNA. She has studied linguistics and a system of lexigrams in order to communicate with apes, and is one of the few visitors who has been allowed access to the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, where the apes have come to love her. In bringing her experience and research to bear on this novel, she opens the animal world to us as few novelists have done. Ape House is a riveting, funny, compassionate, and, finally, deeply moving new novel that secures Sara Gruen's place as a master storyteller who allows us to see ourselves as we never have before. Подробнее

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