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The richly atmospheric new historical thriller featuring John
Gower, poet and trader of secrets. Set in the turbulent 14th
Century, this is perfect for fans of C. J. Sansom. London, 1386:
young King Richard II faces the double threat of a French invasion
and growing unrest amongst his barons - and now there's evil afoot
in the City. Sixteen corpses have been discovered in a sewer, their
wounds like none ever seen before. One thing is clear: whoever
threw the bodies into the sewer knew they would be found - and was
powerful enough not to care. Enter John Gower, poet and
intellectual whose 'peculiar vocation' is dealing in men's secrets.
Against the backdrop of medieval London with its grand palaces and
churches, dark alleys and mean backstreets, Gower pursues his
dangerous quarry. Seeking insights from his friend Geoffrey Chaucer
and using his network of contacts, Gower comes to the shocking
belief that the men have been killed by a new and deadly weapon of
war. Known as 'the handgonne', it would put untold power into the
hands of whoever perfected its design. But who has commissioned
this weapon? A man who would stop at nothing to achieve his secret
goal.
'Tense, claustrophobic, and all too imaginable' Diane Chamberlain,
author of The Last House on the Street 'A gripping, full-throttle
page-turner' Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
_________________________________________ An adrenaline-fuelled
story of lives upended and privilege lost in a swiftly changing
world. Daphne Larsen-Hall has every reason to believe that her life
as an artist in a luxury Miami house with her surgeon husband,
Brantley, and their family, will carry on forever. But Luna - the
world's first Category 6 hurricane - changes everything. With
Brantley missing in the aftermath of the massive storm, Daphne and
their children find themselves in a vast shelter for the displaced
a thousand miles from home, their finances abruptly cut off. As
days turn into weeks, the family confronts losses and circumstances
they never imagined, and a world that has changed beneath their
feet. When tensions in the shelter reach a breaking point, Daphne's
resilience is put to the ultimate test as she realises 'normal'
will never return - and faces the shocking truths that threaten to
tear her family apart once more.
_________________________________________ Praise for Bruce
Holsinger's The Gifted School: 'More than a touch of Liane
Moriarty's Big Little Lies' Observer 'An incisive inspective of
privilege, race and class' New York Times 'Snapping with tension,
this is a book for our times' Shari Lapena 'Exposes how easily a
mix of good intentions, self-delusions and minor sins can escalate'
The New Yorker
A stunning debut historical thriller set in the turbulent 14th
Century for fans of CJ Sansom, The Name of the Rose and An Instance
of the Fingerpost. London, 1385. A city of shadows and fear, in a
kingdom ruled by the headstrong young King Richard II, haunted by
the spectre of revolt. A place of poetry and prophecy, where power
is bought by blood. For John Gower, part-time poet and full-time
trader in information, secrets are his currency. When close
confidant, fellow poet Geoffrey Chaucer, calls in an old debt,
Gower cannot refuse. The request is simple: track down a missing
book. It should be easy for a man of Gower's talents, who knows the
back-alleys of Southwark as intimately as the courts and palaces of
Westminster. But what Gower does not know is that this book has
already caused one murder, and that its contents could destroy his
life. Because its words are behind the highest treason - a
conspiracy to kill the king and reduce his reign to ashes...
A sweeping exploration of the shaping role of animal skins in
written culture and human imagination over three millennia "Richly
detailed and illustrated. . . . An engaging exploration of book
history."-Kirkus Reviews For centuries, premodern societies
recorded and preserved much of their written cultures on parchment:
the rendered skins of sheep, cows, goats, camels, deer, gazelles,
and other creatures. These remains make up a significant portion of
the era's surviving historical record. In a study spanning three
millennia and twenty languages, Bruce Holsinger explores this
animal archive as it shaped the inheritance of the
Euro-Mediterranean world, from the leather rolls of ancient Egypt
to the Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom. Holsinger
discusses the making of parchment past and present, the nature of
the medium as a biomolecular record of faunal life and
environmental history, the knotty question of "uterine vellum," and
the imaginative role of parchment in the works of St. Augustine,
William Shakespeare, and a range of Jewish rabbinic writers of the
medieval era. Closely informed by the handicraft of contemporary
makers, painters, and sculptors, the book draws on a vast array of
sources-codices and scrolls, documents and ephemera, works of craft
and art-that speak to the vitality of parchment across epochs and
continents. At the center of On Parchment is the vexed relationship
of human beings to the myriad slaughtered beasts whose remains make
up this vast record: a relationship of dominion and compassion, of
brutality and empathy.
Ambitious parents, wilful kids, and the pursuit of prestige - no
matter the cost... A gripping page-turner, perfect for fans of Big
Little Lies. 'More than a touch of Liane Moriarty's Big Little
Lies' The Observer In the peaceful, privileged community of
Crystal, Colorado, a group of close friends are raising their
families in harmony. Until one day, news begins to spread that a
'gifted school' will be opening its doors in their town. There are
only a few prestigious places, and the competition will be
ferocious. As parents and children begin to compete, cracks start
to show in this picturesque community. Fault lines appear between
friends and siblings, in marriages and careers, as old resentments
start to simmer and long-buried secrets threaten to detonate under
the pressure... Just how far will these parents go to give their
children a good education, and what will be the ultimate price?
Praise for The Gifted School . . . 'Wise and addictive... an
incisive inspection of privilege, race and class' NEW YORK TIMES
'Snapping with tension, this is a book for our times. It will push
a lot of buttons for a lot of people' SHARI LAPENA, AUTHOR OF THE
COUPLE NEXT DOOR 'Like Big Little Lies with standardized testing...
a deeply pleasurable read' MEG WOLITZER, AUTHOR OF THE FEMALE
PERSUASION 'Exposes how easily a mix of good intentions,
self-delusions, and minor sins can escalate' THE NEW YORKER 'The
summer read that predicted the college-admissions scandal' THE WALL
STREET JOURNAL 'Timely and relevant' OPRAHMAG.COM 'A (hilariously)
timely book that explores the lengths to which privileged parents
will go to get their kids a top education' NEW YORK POST 'On the
pulse of modern times' MAGIC BOOK CLUB 'If you loved the
shananigans of the pushy parents in TV hit Big Little Lies you'll
love this scorching novel . . . bitingly dark' PETERBOROUGH
TELEGRAPH 'Relevant and relatable' I PAPER
Ambitious parents, wilful kids, and the pursuit of prestige... A
gripping page-turner, perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty's Big
Little Lies. 'More than a touch of Liane Moriarty's Big Little
Lies' OBSERVER How far would you go to protect your child's future?
In the peaceful, privileged community of Crystal, Colorado, a group
of close friends are raising their families in harmony. Until one
day, news begins to spread that a 'gifted school' will be opening
its doors in their town. There are only a few places, and the
competition will be ferocious. As parents and children begin to
compete, cracks start to show in their picturesque community as
long-buried secrets threaten to detonate under the pressure...
Praise for The Gifted School: 'Snapping with tension' SHARI LAPENA
'Wise and addictive' NEW YORK TIMES 'Timely and relevant' OPRAHMAG
'On the pulse of modern times' MAGIC BOOK CLUB 'Relevant and
relatable' i PAPER 'Exposes how easily a mix of good intentions,
self-delusions, and minor sins can escalate' THE NEW YORKER
"The Premodern Condition" identifies and explains a surprising
affinity for medievalism and medieval studies among the leading
figures of critical theory. Drawing on a wide range of
philosophical, literary-critical, and sociological works produced
within the French "nouvelle critique" of the 1960s, Holsinger
argues for reconceiving these discourses, in part, as a brilliant
amalgamation of medievalisms.
Holsinger shows that the preoccupation with medieval cultures and
practices among Bataille, Derrida, Lacan, Barthes, Bourdieu, and
their cohorts was so wide ranging that it merits recognition as one
of the most significant epiphenomena of postwar French thought. Not
simply an object of nostalgic longing or an occasional source of
literary exempla, the medieval epoch was continually mined by these
thinkers for specific philosophical vocabularies, social
formations, and systems of thought.
To supplement its master thesis, "The Premodern Condition" also
contains original essays by Bataille and Bourdieu--translated here
for the first time into English--that testify in various ways to
the strange persistence of medievalisms in French postwar
avant-garde writings. What results is an important and original
work that will be a touchstone for specialists in medieval studies
and critical theory alike.
Historical Fiction Now brings together prominent authors, scholars,
and critics of historical fiction to explore the genre's character,
fortunes, and potential in the twenty-first century. Gathering
together the voices of novelists, critics, academics, and several
authors writing across these categories, the volume explores the
nature of reading, writing, and writing about historical fiction in
the present moment while meditating on some of the myriad contexts
of the genre. What inspires writers to choose particular moments,
events, and personalities as the subjects of their fictional
imaginings, and with what implications for their readers'
understanding of the present? How do contemporary scholars approach
the making and reception of historical fiction, and how do these
approaches resonate with writers' own preoccupations in the process
of invention? What might scholars of a genre with a long and
complex history learn from its contemporary practitioners?
Conversely, how do novelists understand their own historical
fictions (if at all) in relation to the theoretical and critical
traditions shaping the work of their academic colleagues? The
collection features an original essay by Hilary Mantel on the
making of the Wolf Hall trilogy as well as contributions from
internationally known novelists such as George Saunders, Namwali
Serpell, Maaza Mengiste, and Téa Obreht, among others.
President Bush was roundly criticized for likening America's
antiterrorism measures to a "crusade" in 2001. Far from just a
gaffe, however, such medievalism has become a dominant paradigm for
comprehending the identity and motivations of America's perceived
enemy in the war on terror. Yet as Bruce Holsinger argues here,
this cloying post-9/11 rhetoric has served to obscure the more
intricate ideological machinations of "neomedievalism," the global
idiom of the non-state actor: non-governmental organizations,
transnational corporate militias, and terrorist organizations such
as al Qaeda.
"Neomedievalism, Neoconservatism, and the War on Terror" addresses
the role of neomedievalism in contemporary politics. While
international-relations theorists promote neomedievalism as a model
for understanding emergent modes of global sovereignty,
neoconservatives exploit its conceptual slipperiness for their own
tactical ends. Holsinger concludes with a careful parsing of the
Bush administration's torture memos, which enlist neomedievalism's
model of feudal sovereignty on behalf of the abrogation of human
rights.
'Tense, claustrophobic, and all too imaginable' Diane Chamberlain,
author of The Last House on the Street 'A gripping, full-throttle
page-turner' Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
_________________________________________ An adrenaline-fuelled
story of lives upended and privilege lost in a swiftly changing
world. Daphne Larsen-Hall has every reason to believe that her life
as an artist in a luxury Miami house with her surgeon husband,
Brantley, and their family, will carry on forever. But Luna - the
world's first Category 6 hurricane - changes everything. With
Brantley missing in the aftermath of the massive storm, Daphne and
their children find themselves in a vast shelter for the displaced
a thousand miles from home, their finances abruptly cut off. As
days turn into weeks, the family confronts losses and circumstances
they never imagined, and a world that has changed beneath their
feet. When tensions in the shelter reach a breaking point, Daphne's
resilience is put to the ultimate test as she realises 'normal'
will never return - and faces the shocking truths that threaten to
tear her family apart once more.
_________________________________________ Praise for Bruce
Holsinger's The Gifted School: 'More than a touch of Liane
Moriarty's Big Little Lies' Observer 'An incisive inspective of
privilege, race and class' New York Times 'Snapping with tension,
this is a book for our times' Shari Lapena 'Exposes how easily a
mix of good intentions, self-delusions and minor sins can escalate'
The New Yorker
In classic Marxism, the Middle Ages represent something of a
paradox: both a prelapsarian pastoral in which peasants are "bound
to the soil" with the "guarantees of existence" offered by
feudalism, and an expropriative economy that adumbrates the most
extreme exploitative tendencies of industrial capitalism. This
special issue of the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies
is devoted to a general rethinking of the Marxist premodern: its
contours, its literary and cultural effects, its theoretical
afterlife, and its limitations.Contributors. Andrew Cole, Valerie
Forman, Bruce Holsinger, Ethan Knapp, Maura B. Nolan, John Parker,
Stephen H. Rigby, D. Vance Smith
"The Premodern Condition" identifies and explains a surprising
affinity for medievalism and medieval studies among the leading
figures of critical theory. Drawing on a wide range of
philosophical, literary-critical, and sociological works produced
within the French "nouvelle critique" of the 1960s, Holsinger
argues for reconceiving these discourses, in part, as a brilliant
amalgamation of medievalisms.
Holsinger shows that the preoccupation with medieval cultures and
practices among Bataille, Derrida, Lacan, Barthes, Bourdieu, and
their cohorts was so wide ranging that it merits recognition as one
of the most significant epiphenomena of postwar French thought. Not
simply an object of nostalgic longing or an occasional source of
literary exempla, the medieval epoch was continually mined by these
thinkers for specific philosophical vocabularies, social
formations, and systems of thought.
To supplement its master thesis, "The Premodern Condition" also
contains original essays by Bataille and Bourdieu--translated here
for the first time into English--that testify in various ways to
the strange persistence of medievalisms in French postwar
avant-garde writings. What results is an important and original
work that will be a touchstone for specialists in medieval studies
and critical theory alike.
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