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Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > General
A coming-of-age travel memoir that probes thorny spiritual
questions while taking the reader on a wild ride from the deep
American South to the Middle East, Europe, and the Far East. Once
the golden girl of her Arkansas town, Natalie finds herself
squeezed under small town shame and rejection after being kicked
out of church for getting a divorce. It's a hard fall off of a
sanctimonious high horse, and religious fundamentalism has left her
feeling broken and stuck. But she can't shake the 'wanderlust woes'
that have plagued her since childhood, so she runs away to the
Middle East. As a mostly-sheltered Southerner, she struggles to
adapt but is determined to be 'at home' in the world. Her journey
is more than a pilgrimage, it's a peregrination: a one-way ticket
to elsewhere in search of the place of her own resurrection. Within
these pages is a suspenseful adventure filled with love, loss,
laughter, tears, and a little bit of scandalous behavior, but at
the heart of it, Natalie walks squarely into the unknown to
confront the secret matters of the soul that we wrestle with at
night.
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Henry V
(Paperback)
Dan Jones
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R398
R369
Discovery Miles 3 690
Save R29 (7%)
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Ships in 9 - 17 working days
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Henry V reigned over England for only nine years and four months, and died at the age of just 35, but he looms over the landscape of the late Middle Ages and beyond. The victor of Agincourt was a model king for his successors. Shakespeare's version of Henry V saw his youthful folly redirected to sober statesmanship, and in the dark days of World War II, Henry's victories in France were recounted in British propaganda. Churchill called Henry 'a gleam of splendour in the dark, troubled story of medieval England', while for one modern medievalist, Henry was, quite simply, 'the greatest man who ever ruled England'. For Dan Jones, Henry is one of the most intriguing characters in all medieval history, but one of the hardest to pin down. He was a hardened, sometimes brutal, warrior, yet he was also creative and artistic, with a bookish temperament. He was a leader who made many mistakes, who misjudged his friends and family members, yet always seemed to triumph when it mattered. As king, he saved a shattered country from economic ruin, put down rebellions and secured England's borders; in foreign diplomacy, he made England a serious player once more. Yet through his conquests in northern France, he sowed the seeds for three generations of calamity at home, in the form of the Wars of the Roses. Dan Jones's life of Henry V provides unprecedented insight into the critical first 26 years of his life before he became king. Both a standalone biography and a completion of Dan's sequence of English medieval histories that began with The Plantagenets and The Hollow Crown, Henry V is a thrilling and unmissable life of England's greatest king from our best-selling medieval historian.
"As I sat on the side of Hamnafield on Foula in the Shetland
Islands, looking down at my 'enormous' 38-foot ferry stowed in its
cradle on the quay in Ham Voe, over 1,000 feet below me, I
reflected on a moderately successful career to date, and wondered
how on Earth I had ended up driving what was, in effect, a floating
dust cart" After 42 years at or connected with the sea, Jeremy
Walker ended up on the Shetland Island of Foula commanding and
running a small ferry to the mainland of Shetland. Throughout the
course of his career, firstly as a seagoing deck officer with a
large, but now defunct, British shipping company, then as a
Hovercraft Commander for four years, returning to sea for a brief
period as Master of two small coastal tankers and then for the
majority of his career as a Pilot on the River Humber, he
encountered many amusing situations. In this book he attempts to
relate these stories and to illustrate the lighter side of what was
a very difficult, responsible and, at times, incredibly stressful
job. And little did he know that his career was far from over and
new opportunities and challenges would take him on for a further 13
years to eventual retirement.
From the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal
bestselling author of The Radium Girls comes another dark and
dramatic but ultimately uplifting tale of a forgotten woman hero
whose inspirational journey sparked lasting change for women's
rights and exposed injustices that still resonate today. 1860: As
the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth
Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The
enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Her
husband of twenty-one years is plotting against her because he
feels increasingly threatened-by Elizabeth's intellect,
independence, and unwillingness to stifle her own thoughts. So he
makes a plan to put his wife back in her place. One summer morning,
he has her committed to an insane asylum. The horrific conditions
inside the Illinois State Hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois, are
overseen by Dr. Andrew McFarland, a man who will prove to be even
more dangerous to Elizabeth than her traitorous husband. But most
disturbing is that Elizabeth is not the only sane woman confined to
the institution. There are many rational women on her ward who tell
the same story: they've been committed not because they need
medical treatment, but to keep them in line-conveniently labeled
"crazy" so their voices are ignored. No one is willing to fight for
their freedom and, disenfranchised both by gender and the stigma of
their supposed madness, they cannot possibly fight for themselves.
But Elizabeth is about to discover that the merit of losing
everything is that you then have nothing to lose... Bestselling
author Kate Moore brings her sparkling narrative voice to The Woman
They Could Not Silence, an unputdownable story of the forgotten
woman who courageously fought for her own freedom-and in so doing
freed millions more. Elizabeth's refusal to be silenced and her
ceaseless quest for justice not only challenged the medical science
of the day, and led to a giant leap forward in human rights, it
also showcased the most salutary lesson: sometimes, the greatest
heroes we have are those inside ourselves. Praise for The Woman
They Could Not Silence: "Like Radium Girls, this volume is a
page-turner."-Library Journal, STARRED review "A veritable tour de
force about how far women's rights have come and how far we still
have to go...Put this book in the hands of every young
feminist."-Booklist, STARRED review "In Moore's expert hands, this
beautifully-written tale unspools with drama and power, and puts
Elizabeth Packard on the map at the most relevant moment
imaginable. You will be riveted-and inspired. Bravo!"-Liza Mundy,
New York Times bestselling author of Code Girls
"As I sat on the side of Hamnafield on Foula in the Shetland
Islands, looking down at my 'enormous' 38-foot ferry stowed in its
cradle on the quay in Ham Voe, over 1,000 feet below me, I
reflected on a moderately successful career to date, and wondered
how on Earth I had ended up driving what was, in effect, a floating
dust cart" After 42 years at or connected with the sea, Jeremy
Walker ended up on the Shetland Island of Foula commanding and
running a small ferry to the mainland of Shetland. Throughout the
course of his career, firstly as a seagoing deck officer with a
large, but now defunct, British shipping company, then as a
Hovercraft Commander for four years, returning to sea for a brief
period as Master of two small coastal tankers and then for the
majority of his career as a Pilot on the River Humber, he
encountered many amusing situations. In this book he attempts to
relate these stories and to illustrate the lighter side of what was
a very difficult, responsible and, at times, incredibly stressful
job. And little did he know that his career was far from over and
new opportunities and challenges would take him on for a further 13
years to eventual retirement.
In Eccentric Wealth, Alastair Scott traces the life of Lancashire
industrialist Sir George Bullough in this absorbing biography which
explores his family's connection with the Hebridean island of Rum,
particularly the building of Kinloch Castle, the most intact
preserve of Edwardian highliving to be found in Britain. Based on
new information, the book offers a fascinating insight into the
life and times of one of the great eccentrics of his age, including
the Bullough myths and scandals which continue to make
extraordinary reading more than a hundred years later.
An exercise in self examination. I hope it delves more deeply into
my life than those of whom I have written. Discretion is not the
better part of an autobiography, someone once wrote, but
identification where it is not necessary, has been my watchword.
Someone else wrote a Only when one has lost all curiosity about the
future has one reached the age to write an autobiographya . Curious
a " yes. But as I age the curiosity becomes less important. Only
today matters and the ones I love and have loved. Will there be
more? a | Ia d like to think so.
J. Michael Wilson (1916-1999), Soldier, Medical Doctor, Priest and
Academic, may be best known for his often ground-breaking
professional achievement, from working with lepers in Ghana to his
seminal work in Pastoral Studies. For all his successful
accomplishments, however, he thought accolades, titles and
qualifications were no more than vain baubles for obituary columns.
Becoming a fully human being was, he believed, best manifested in
community, through art, poetry, prayer and revelling in the wonders
of Nature. Here, finally, is your chance to share a merry dance
through his creative life and works...
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