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A Blade of Black Steel (The Crimson Empire #2)
by Alex MarshallThe sequel to Alex Marshall's A Crown for Cold Silver, an outstanding, game-changing epic adventure featuring an unforgettable warrior. After five hundred years, the Sunken Kingdom has returned, and brought with it a monstrous secret that threatens to destroy every country on the Star. As an inhuman army gathers on its shores, poised to invade the Immaculate Isles, the members of the Cobalt Company face an ugly choice: abandon their dreams of glory and vengeance to combat a menace from another realm, or pursue their ambitions and hope the Star is still there when the smoke clears. Five villains. One legendary general. A battle for survival.
A Blade of Grass: A Novel
by Lewis DeSotoMärit Laurens is a young woman of British descent who comes to live with her husband, Ben, on their newly purchased farm along the border of South Africa. Shortly after her arrival, violence strikes at the heart of Märit's world. Devastated and confused but determined to run the farm on her own, Märit finds herself in a simmering tug of war between the local Afrikaner community and the black workers who live on the farm, both vying for control over the land in the wake of tragedy. Märit's only supporter is her black housekeeper, Tembi, who, like Märit, is alone in the world. Together, the women struggle to hold on to the farm, but the quietly encroaching civil war brings out conflicting loyalties that turn the fight for the farm into a fight for their lives.Thrilling to read, A Blade of Grass is a wrenching story of friendship and betrayal and of the trauma of the land that has shaped post-colonial Africa.
A Blaze of Autumn Sunshine: The Last Diaries
by Tony BennIn this final volume of diaries, Tony Benn reflects on the compensations and the disadvantages of old age. With the support of a small circle of friends and his extended family, he continues his activities on behalf of social justice, peace and accountability in public life, to a background of political change and the international economic crisis. Following an illness in 2009 the diaries, kept for over sixty years, cease. Published here alongside these last diaries are Tony Benn’s highly personal insights into the challenges of old age and failing health, of widowhood,and of moving out of the family home after sixty years. Finally, we share in Tony Benn's hopes for the future based on his years of experience and his natural optimism.
A Blaze of Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh (the Civil War in the West #1)
by Jeff Shaara"[An] exciting read . . . [Jeff] Shaara returns to the U.S. Civil War in this first book of a new trilogy. . . . This novel is meticulously researched and brings a vivid reality to the historical events depicted."--Library Journal NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERSpring 1862. The Confederate Army in the West teeters on the brink of collapse. General Albert Sidney Johnston is forced to abandon the critical city of Nashville and rally his troops in defense of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Hot on Johnston's trail are two of the Union's best generals: Ulysses Grant and Don Carlos Buell. If their combined forces can crush Johnston's army and capture the railroad, the war in the West likely will be over. There's just one problem: Johnston knows of the Union plans and is poised to launch an audacious surprise attack on Grant's encampment--a small settlement in southwestern Tennessee anchored by a humble church named Shiloh. Drawing on meticulous research, Jeff Shaara dramatizes the key decisions of the commanders on both sides of the conflict--and brings to life the junior officers, conscripts, and enlisted men who gave their all for the cause. With stunning immediacy, Shaara takes us inside the maelstrom of Shiloh as no novelist has before. "Brilliant . . . riveting . . . a work to be embraced."--BookreporterIncludes a preview of Jeff Shaara's next Civil War novel, A Chain of Thunder.aps the war itself.
A Blessed Company
by John K. NelsonIn this book, John Nelson reconstructs everyday Anglican religious practice and experience in Virginia from the end of the seventeenth century to the start of the American Revolution. Challenging previous characterizations of the colonial Anglican establishment as weak, he reveals the fundamental role the church played in the political, social, and economic as well as the spiritual lives of its parishioners. Drawing on extensive research in parish and county records and other primary sources, Nelson describes Anglican Virginia's parish system, its parsons, its rituals of worship and rites of passage, and its parishioners' varied relationships to the church. All colonial Virginians--men and women, rich and poor, young and old, planters and merchants, servants and slaves, dissenters and freethinkers--belonged to a parish. As such, they were subject to its levies, its authority over marriage, and other social and economic dictates. In addition to its religious functions, the parish provided essential care for the poor, collaborated with the courts to handle civil disputes, and exerted its influence over many other aspects of community life. A Blessed Company demonstrates that, by creatively adapting Anglican parish organization and the language, forms, and modes of Anglican spirituality to the Chesapeake's distinctive environmental and human conditions, colonial Virginians sustained a remarkably effective and faithful Anglican church in the Old Dominion.
A Blessed Journey: A Life Story of a Dreamer from Kenya
by John Nganga WamatuWhen John was young, he discovered himself and realized he was on the road and a journey. The journey seemed full of excitement, naivety, and hope. As he grew older, he went through a brutal period of hard work to achieve the goals he set for himself. Toward the end, John reaches a point of reflection and slows down to allow the next generation to continue the journey and tell new stories. In telling the story about his life, he attempts to mention some events he observed along the way. In this memoir, John shows that he came from a humble background and went through multiple blessed moments to reach a place where he can look back and call his life a blessed journey. When reading A Blessed Journey, you are invited to read and appreciate the author's life story by sharing the experiences that brought him varied emotions.
A Blessing and a Curse: Oil, Politics, and Morality in Bolivarian Venezuela
by Matt WildeA Blessing and a Curse examines the lived experience of political change, moral uncertainty, and economic crisis amid Venezuela's controversial Bolivarian Revolution. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in an urban barrio over the course of a decade, Matt Wilde argues that everyday life in this period was intimately shaped by a critical contradiction: that in their efforts to capture a larger portion of oil money and distribute it more widely among the population, the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro pursued policies that ultimately entrenched Venezuela in the very position of dependency they sought to overcome. Offering a new synthesis between anthropological work on energy, politics, and morality, the book explores how the use of oil money to fund the revolution's social programs and political reforms produced profound cultural anxieties about the contaminating effects of petroleum revenues in everyday settings. Tracing how these anxieties rippled out into community life, family networks, and local politics, Wilde shows how questions about how to live a good life came to be intimately shaped by Venezuela's contradictory relationship with oil. In doing so, he brings a vital perspective to contemporary debates about energy transitions by proposing a new way of thinking about the political and moral economies of natural resources in postcolonial settings.
A Blessing on the Moon
by Joseph SkibellJoseph Skibell’s magical tale about the Holocaust—a fable inspired by fact—received unanimous nationwide acclaim when first published in 1997. At the center of A Blessing on the Moon is Chaim Skibelski. Death is merely the beginning of Chaim’s troubles. In the opening pages, he is shot along with the other Jews of his small Polish village. But instead of resting peacefully in the World to Come, Chaim, for reasons unclear to him, is left to wander the earth, accompanied by his rabbi, who has taken the form of a talking crow. Chaim’s afterlife journey is filled with extraordinary encounters whose consequences are far greater than he realizes. Not since art Spiegelman’s Maus has a work so powerfully evoked one of the darkest moments of the twentieth century with such daring originality.
A Blight of Mages (Kingmaker, Kingbreaker)
by Karen MillerHundreds of years before the great Mage War, a land lies, unknowing, on the edge of catastrophe...Barl is young and impulsive, but she has a power within that calls to her. In her city, however, only those of noble blood and with the right connections learn the ways of the arcane. Barl is desperate to learn-but her eagerness to use her power leads her astray and she is banned from ever learning the mystic arts.Morgan holds the key to her education. A member of the Council of Mages, he lives to maintain the status quo, preserve the mage bloodlines, and pursue his scholarly experiments. But Barl's power intrigues him-in spite of her low status.Together, he realizes they can create extraordinary new incantations. Morgan's ambition and Barl's power make a potent combination. What she does not see is the darkness in him that won't be denied. A Blight of Mages is the new novel set in the world of Karen Miller's bestselling debut The Innocent Mage.
A Blind Goddess (A\billy Boyle Wwii Mystery Ser. #8)
by James R. BennMarch, 1944: US Army Lieutenant Billy Boyle, back in England after a dangerous mission in Italy, is due for a little R&R, and also a promotion. But the now-Captain Boyle doesn't get to kick back and enjoy his leisure time because two upsetting cases fall into his lap at once. The first is a personal request from an estranged friend: Sergeant Eugene "Tree" Jackson, who grew up with Billy in Boston, is part of the 617th Tank Destroyers, the all-African American battalion poised to make history by being the US Army's first combatant African American company. But making history isn't easy, and the 617 faces racism at every turn. One of Tree's men, a gunner named Angry Smith, has been arrested for a crime he almost certainly didn't commit, and faces the gallows if the real killer isn't found. Tree knows US top brass won't care about justice in this instance, and asks Billy if he'll look into it.But Billy can't use any of his leave to investigate, because British intelligence agent Major Cosgrove puts him on a bizarre and delicate case. A British accountant has been murdered in an English village, and he may or may not have had some connection with the US Army--Billy doesn't know, because Cosgrove won't tell him. Billy is supposed to go into the village and investigate the murder, but everything seems fishy--he's not allowed to interrogate certain key witnesses, and his friends and helpers keep being whisked away. Billy is confused about whether Cosgrove even wants him to solve the murder, and why. The good news is the mysterious murder gives Billy an excuse to spend time in and around the village where Tree and his unit are stationed. If he's lucky, maybe he can get to the bottom of both mysteries--and save more than one innocent life.From the Hardcover edition.
A Blind Man’s Map of Mumbai
by Vivek TandonThis is about Mumbai, its immigrants from different corners of India and the world due to its cosmopolitan culture.
A Blood Red Morning: A Henri Lefort Mystery (Henri Lefort Mysteries #3)
by Mark PryorIn this unputdownable WWII series, Paris detective Henri Lefort, must solve a complex case when a man is murdered on the policeman's own doorstep.January 1941: It's cold and still dark when Paris Detective Henri Lefort wakes up to an empty apartment, irritated with his roommate for not even starting the coffee.Irritation turns to suspicion when he starts his walk to work and spots a large blood stain in front of the building. At the office his boss, chief of homicide, is incredulous that Henri didn't hear the gunshot that killed a man right outside his apartment. On the plus side, this means that Henri isn't a witness and can investigate the case.It first appears that the dead man is a nobody—but Henri soon finds out he's a nobody with a classified police file. Henri confronts his bosses and then the Germans, but is stonewalled. So he turns his investigation to the other tenants in his building. Coincidentally, each resident claims ignorance. When Henri learns that the dead man was a German agent, he must face the real possibility that one of his friends and neighbors is a killer. It's his job to find the truth no matter what, but when he does he faces the biggest dilemma of his career—whether in times like these the rules of justice should be, just sometimes, trumped by the rules of war.
A Blood-Dimmed Tide: The Battle of the Bulge by the Men Who Fought It
by Gerald AstorDrawing on firsthand accounts by survivors of the bloody Battle of the Bulge, diaries, letters, and official documents, this study describes the events of the campaign, hardships faced by the soldiers, the battle's horrifying costs, and the controversy surrounding the campaign.
A Bloodless Victory: The Battle of New Orleans in History and Memory (Johns Hopkins Books On The War Of 1812 Ser.)
by Joseph F. Stoltz IIIThis study of military historiography examines the changing narrative of the Battle of New Orleans through two centuries of commemoration.Once celebrated on par with the Fourth of July, the anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans is no longer a day of reverence for most Americans. The United States’ stunning defeat of the British army on January 8th, 1815, gave rise to the presidency of Andrew Jackson, the Democratic Party, and the legend of Jean Laffite. Yet the battle has not been a national holiday since 1861.Joseph F. Stoltz III explores how generations of Americans have consciously revised, reinterpreted, and reexamined the memory of the conflict to fit the cultural and social needs of their time. Combining archival research with deep analyses of music, literature, theater, and film across two centuries of American popular culture, Stoltz highlights the myriad ways in which politicians, artists, academics, and ordinary people have rewritten the battle’s history.From Andrew Jackson’s presidential campaign to the occupation of New Orleans by the Union Army to the Jim Crow era, the continuing reinterpretations of the battle alienated whole segments of the American population from its memorialization. Thus, a close look at the Battle of New Orleans offers an opportunity to explore not just how events are collectively remembered across generations but also how a society discards memorialization that is no longer necessary or palatable.
A Bloodless Victory: The Battle of New Orleans in History and Memory (Johns Hopkins Books on the War of 1812)
by Joseph F. Stoltz IIIExploring the changing narrative of the Battle of New Orleans through two centuries of commemoration.Once celebrated on par with the Fourth of July, January 8th—the anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans—is no longer a day of reverence for most Americans. Although the United States’ stunning 1815 defeat of the British army south of New Orleans gave rise to the presidency of Andrew Jackson, the Democratic Party, and the legend of Jean Laffite, the battle has not been a national holiday since 1861. Joseph F. Stoltz III explores how generations of Americans have consciously revised, reinterpreted, and reexamined the memory of the conflict to fit the cultural and social needs of their time. Combining archival research with deep analyses of music, literature, theater, and film across two centuries of American popular culture, Stoltz highlights the myriad ways in which politicians, artists, academics, and ordinary people have rewritten the battle’s history. While these efforts could be nefarious—or driven by political necessity or racial animus—far more often they were simply part of each generations’ expression of values and world view. From Andrew Jackson’s presidential campaign to the occupation of New Orleans by the Union Army to the Jim Crow era, the continuing reinterpretations of the battle alienated whole segments of the American population from its memorialization. Thus, a close look at the Battle of New Orleans offers an opportunity to explore not just how events are collectively remembered across generations but also how a society discards memorialization efforts it no longer finds necessary or palatable.
A Bloodsmoor Romance
by Joyce Carol OatesFinally returned to print, Joyce Carol Oates's lost classic: the satirical, often surreal, and beautifully plotted Gothic romance that follows the exploits of the audacious Zinn sisters, whose nineteenth-century pursuit of adventurous lives turns a lens on contemporary American culture When their sister is plucked from the shores of the Bloodsmoor River by an eerie black-silk hot air balloon that sails in through a clear blue sky, the lives of the already extraordinary Zinn sisters are radically altered. The monstrous tragedy splinters the family, who must not only grapple with the mysterious and shameful loss of their sister and daughter but also seek their way forward in the dawn of a new era—one that includes time machines, the spirit world, and the quest for women's independence. Breathlessly narrated in the Victorian style by an unnamed narrator who is herself shocked and disgusted by the Zinn sisters' sexuality, impulsivity, and rude rejection of the mores of the time, the novel is a delicious filigree of literary conventions, "a novel of manners" in the tradition of Austen, Dickens, and Alcott, which Oates turns on its head. Years ahead of its time, A Bloodsmoor Romance touches on murder and mayhem, ghosts and abductions, substance abuse and gender identity, women's suffrage, the American spiritualist movement, and sexual aberration, as the Zinn sisters come into contact with some of the nineteenth century's greatest characters, from Mark Twain to Oscar Wilde. Pure Oates in its mordant wit, biting assessment of the American landscape, and virtuosic transformation of a literary genre we thought we knew, A Bloodsmoor Romance is a compelling, hilarious, and magical antiromance, a Little Women wickedly recast for the present day.
A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury
by Edith PargeterFrom Edith Pargeter, who also wrote as Ellis Peters, A BLOODY FIELD BY SHREWSBURY is a vivid medieval tale of Henry IV's kingdom in crisis. 'Chivalry, treachery, conflict of loyalties... The clash of wills is as stirring as the clash of steel' Observer England, 1399. A treacherous plot has been hatched to depose King Richard and install Henry Bolingbroke on the English throne.With the aid of his powerful friend Hotspur, Henry is victorious. But, crowned Henry IV, he rules a kingdom in crisis. In Wales, rebellion threatens. Henry's heir, Hal, is named Prince of Wales but the Welsh have a prince of their own blood and he is calling them to arms.More dangerous still, a rift is opening between Henry, Hotspur and Hal. As tension mounts, the three men are inexorably drawn into a bloody collision on which the fate of the realm will hang...
A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury
by Edith PargeterFrom Edith Pargeter, who also wrote as Ellis Peters, A BLOODY FIELD BY SHREWSBURY is a vivid medieval tale of Henry IV's kingdom in crisis. 'Chivalry, treachery, conflict of loyalties... The clash of wills is as stirring as the clash of steel' Observer England, 1399. A treacherous plot has been hatched to depose King Richard and install Henry Bolingbroke on the English throne.With the aid of his powerful friend Hotspur, Henry is victorious. But, crowned Henry IV, he rules a kingdom in crisis. In Wales, rebellion threatens. Henry's heir, Hal, is named Prince of Wales but the Welsh have a prince of their own blood and he is calling them to arms.More dangerous still, a rift is opening between Henry, Hotspur and Hal. As tension mounts, the three men are inexorably drawn into a bloody collision on which the fate of the realm will hang...
A Blue Sea of Blood: Deciphering the Mysterious Fate of the USS Edsall
by Donald M. Kehn Jr.On the morning of March 1, 1942, the WWI-era destroyer USS Edsall--under orders to deliver some forty Army Air Force fighter crews to the beleaguered island of Java--split off from the USS Whipple and the tanker Pecos and was never seen again by Allied forces. Despite the later discovery of bodies identified as Edsall crewmembers near a remote airfield on the coast of Celebes, what happened to the ship remains a matter of mystery and, perhaps, deliberate obfuscation.This book explores the many puzzling facets of the Edsall’s disappearance in order to finally tell the full story of the fate of the vessel and her crew. Based on exhaustive research of the historical record--including newly deciphered Japanese documents and previously unrevealed material from the crew’s family members--Upon a Blue Sea of Blood offers a painstaking reconstruction of the ship’s history. The book investigates not only the Edsall’s mysterious final action, but also her wide-ranging pre-war career and the curious uses to which her story was put--generally under false pretenses--first by the pre-war U.S. Navy and then by the Japanese wartime propaganda machine. And finally, military historian Donald Kehn considers the circumstances surrounding the curious obscurity of the Edsall’s heroic service and final battle in American histories. Redressing six decades of official indifference, Kehn’s account recovers a significant chapter missing from the history of World War II--and tells a long-overdue story of courage and tragic loss.
A Bluebird Will Do
by Loula Grace ErdmanOrphaned in San Francisco during gold rush days, a sixteen-year-old girl travels east by way of the Isthmus of Panama to seek out relatives in New Orleans.
A Blueprint for War: FDR and the Hundred Days that Mobilized America (The Henry L. Stimson Lectures Series)
by Susan Dunn&“Dunn shows how FDR&’s Third Hundred Days were critical to overcoming isolationism and rebuilding American leadership in an age of global turmoil.&” (E.J. Dionne Jr., New York Times bestselling co-author of One Nation After Trump) In the cold winter months that followed Franklin Roosevelt&’s election in November 1940 to an unprecedented third term in the White House, he confronted a worldwide military and moral catastrophe. Almost all the European democracies had fallen under the ruthless onslaught of the Nazi army and air force. Great Britain stood alone, a fragile bastion between Germany and American immersion in war. In the Pacific world, Japan had extended its tentacles deeper into China. Susan Dunn dramatically brings to life the most vital and transformational period of Roosevelt&’s presidency: the hundred days between December 1940 and March 1941, when he mobilized American industry, mustered the American people, initiated the crucial programs and approved the strategic plans for America&’s leadership in World War II. As the nation began its transition into the preeminent military, industrial, and moral power on the planet, FDR laid out the stunning blueprint not only for war but for the American Century. &“Dunn&’s achievement is to make the view of FDR&’s accomplishment clear.&” —The Boston Globe &“Susan Dunn is one of the great Roosevelt historians of our time.&” —Michael Beschloss, New York Times bestselling author of Presidents of War &“Superbly researched and written.&” —James T. Patterson, Bancroft Prize-winning author of Grand Expectations &“The definitive telling of a pivotal episode in American history.&” —Edward J. Larson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Return of George Washington
A Blues Singer to Redeem Him: Step into a 1920s speakeasy...
by Elle JacksonNights at the speakeasy…Spark a dangerous romance Evelyn Laroque&’s performances at Lorenzo De Luca&’s Kansas City blues club draw even bigger crowds than his bootleg whiskey. And every time he hears her voice, Lorenzo falls a little harder for the achingly beautiful blues singer. When Evelyn becomes a target for the KKK, Lorenzo faces an impossible choice. Will this son of a gangster turn to the mob if it&’s the only way to protect the woman he loves? From Harlequin Historical: Your romantic escape to the past.
A Bluestocking's Guide to Decadence (Lucky Lovers of London #3)
by Jess EverleeLove can make even the most buttoned-up bluestocking come undone…London, 1885A lesbian in a lavender marriage, Jo Smith cuts a dashing figure in pin-striped trousers, working in her bookshop and keeping impolite company. But her hard-earned stability is about to be upended thanks to her husband&’s pregnant paramour, who needs medical attention that no reputable doctor will provide.Enter Dr. Emily Clarke, a tantalizing bluestocking working at a quaint village hospital outside the city. Emily has reservations about getting mixed up in Jo&’s scandalous arrangement, but her flustered, heart-racing response to Jo has her agreeing to help despite herself.There&’s a world of difference between Jo&’s community of underground clubs and sapphic societies and Emily&’s respectable suburbs. Perhaps it&’s a gap that even fervent desire can&’t bridge.But for those bold enough to take the risk, who knows what delicious adventures might be in store…Lucky Lovers of LondonBook 1: The Gentleman's Book of VicesBook 2: A Rulebook for Restless RoguesBook 3: A Bluestocking's Guide to Decadence
A Boal Companion: Dialogues on Theatre and Cultural Politics
by Jan Cohen-Cruz Mady SchutzmanThis carefully constructed and thorough collection of theoretical engagements with Augusto Boal’s work is the first to look ’beyond Boal’ and critically assesses the Theatre of the Opressed (TO) movement in context. A Boal Companion looks at the cultural practices which inform TO and explore them within a larger frame of cultural politics and performance theory. The contributors put TO into dialogue with complexity theory – Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas, race theory, feminist performance art, Deleuze and Guattari, and liberation psychology – to name just a few, and in doing so, the kinship between Boal’s project and multiple fields of social psychology, ethics, biology, comedy, trauma studies and political science is made visible. The ideas generated throughout A Boal Companion will: expand readers' understanding of TO as a complex, interdisciplinary, multivocal body of philosophical discourses provide a variety of lenses through which to practice and critique TO make explicit the relationship between TO and other bodies of work. This collection is ideal for TO practitioners and scholars who want to expand their knowledge, but it also provides unfamiliar readers and new students to the discipline with an excellent study resource.
A Body Made of Glass: A Cultural History of Hypochondria
by Caroline CramptonPart cultural history, part literary criticism, and part memoir, A Body Made of Glass is a definitive biography of hypochondria.Caroline Crampton’s life was upended at the age of seventeen, when she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a relatively rare blood cancer. After years of invasive treatment, she was finally given the all clear. But being cured of the cancer didn’t mean she felt well. Instead, the fear lingered, and she found herself always on the alert, braced for signs that the illness had reemerged. Now, in A Body Made of Glass, Crampton has drawn from her own experiences with health anxiety to write a revelatory exploration of hypochondria—a condition that, though often suffered silently, is widespread and rising. She deftly weaves together history, memoir, and literary criticism to make sense of this invisible and underexplored sickness. From the earliest medical case of Hippocrates to the literary accounts of sufferers like Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust to the modern perils of internet self-diagnosis, Crampton unspools this topic to reveal the far-reaching impact of health anxiety on our physical, mental, and emotional health.At its heart, Crampton explains, hypochondria is a yearning for knowledge. It is a never-ending attempt to replace the edgeless terror of uncertainty with the comforting solidity of a definitive explanation. Through intimate personal stories and compelling cultural perspectives, A Body Made of Glass brings this uniquely ephemeral condition into much-needed focus for the first time.