|
Showing 1 - 25 of
115 matches in All Departments
A Times History Book of the Year 2022 A TLS Book of the Year 2022
‘Exhilarating and whip-smart’ THE SUNDAY TIMES From
award-winning writer Edward Wilson-Lee, this is a thrilling true
historical detective story set in sixteenth-century Portugal. A
History of Water follows the interconnected lives of two men across
the Renaissance globe. One of them – an aficionado of mermen and
Ethiopian culture, an art collector, historian and expert on
water-music – returns home from witnessing the birth of the
modern age to die in a mysterious incident, apparently the victim
of a grisly and curious murder. The other – a ruffian, vagabond
and braggart, chased across the globe from Mozambique to Japan –
ends up as the national poet of Portugal. The stories of Damião de
Góis and LuÃs de Camões capture the extraordinary wonders that
awaited Europeans on their arrival in India and China, the
challenges these marvels presented to longstanding beliefs, and the
vast conspiracy to silence the questions these posed about the
nature of history and of human life. Like all good mysteries,
everyone has their own version of events.
A Times History Book of the Year 2022 A TLS Book of the Year 2022
'Exhilarating and whip-smart' THE SUNDAY TIMES From award-winning
writer Edward Wilson-Lee, this is a thrilling true historical
detective story set in sixteenth-century Portugal. A History of
Water follows the interconnected lives of two men across the
Renaissance globe. One of them - an aficionado of mermen and
Ethiopian culture, an art collector, historian and expert on
water-music - returns home from witnessing the birth of the modern
age to die in a mysterious incident, apparently the victim of a
grisly and curious murder. The other - a ruffian, vagabond and
braggart, chased across the globe from Mozambique to Japan - ends
up as the national poet of Portugal. The stories of Damiao de Gois
and Luis de Camoes capture the extraordinary wonders that awaited
Europeans on their arrival in India and China, the challenges these
marvels presented to longstanding beliefs, and the vast conspiracy
to silence the questions these posed about the nature of history
and of human life. Like all good mysteries, everyone has their own
version of events.
1949: William Catesby returns to London in disgrace, accused of
murdering a 'double-dipper' the Americans believed to be one of
their own. His left-wing sympathies have him singled out as a
traitor. Henry Bone throws him a lifeline, sending him to
Marseille, ostensibly to report on dockers' strikes and keep tabs
on the errant wife of a British diplomat. But there's a catch. For
his cover story, he's demobbed from the service and tricked out as
writer researching a book on the Resistance. In Marseille, Catesby
is caught in a deadly vice between the CIA and the mafia, who are
colluding to fuel the war in Indochina. Swept eastwards to Laos
himself, he remains uncertain of the true purpose behind his
mission, though he has his suspicions: Bone has murder on his mind,
and the target is a former comrade from Catesby's SOE days. The
question is, which one.
WINNER OF THE 2019 PEN HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZE The fascinating
history of Christopher Columbus's illegitimate son Hernando,
guardian of his father's flame, courtier, bibliophile and catalogue
supreme, whose travels took him to the heart of 16th-century
Europe' Honor Clerk, Spectator, Books of the Year This is the
scarcely believable - and wholly true - story of Christopher
Columbus' bastard son Hernando, who sought to equal and surpass his
father's achievements by creating a universal library. His father
sailed across the ocean to explore the known boundaries of the
world for the glory of God, Spain and himself. His son Hernando
sought instead to harness the vast powers of the new printing
presses to assemble the world's knowledge in one place, his library
in Seville. Hernando was one of the first and greatest visionaries
of the print age, someone who saw how the scale of available
information would entirely change the landscape of thought and
society. His was an immensely eventual life. As a youth, he spent
years travelling in the New World, and spent one living with his
father in a shipwreck off Jamaica. He created a dictionary and a
geographical encyclopaedia of Spain, helped to create the first
modern maps of the world, spent time in almost every major European
capital, and associated with many of the great people of his day,
from Ferdinand and Isabel to Erasmus, Thomas More, and Durer. He
wrote the first biography of his father, almost single-handedly
creating the legend of Columbus that held sway for many hundreds of
years, and was highly influential in crafting how Europe saw the
world his father reached in 1492. He also amassed the largest
collection of printed images and of printed music of the age,
started what was perhaps Europe's first botanical garden, and
created by far the greatest private library Europe had ever seen,
dwarfing with its 15,000 books every other library of the day.
Edward Wilson-Lee has written the first major modern biography of
Hernando - and the first of any kind available in English. In a
work of dazzling scholarship, The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books
tells an enthralling tale of the age of print and exploration, a
story with striking lessons for our own modern experiences of
information revolution and Globalisation.
Edward Ashdown Bunyard (1878-1939) was England's foremost
pomologist (student of apples) and a significant gastronome and
epicure in the 1920s and 30s. He wrote three books of national
significance: "A Handbook of Hardy Fruits" (1920-25) "The Anatomy
of Dessert" (1929), and "The Epicure's Companion" (1937, edited
with his sister, Lorna). His family were the owners of one of
England's most significant fruit nurseries, founded in 1796 in
Kent. In his written work, Bunyard was important for his trenchant
and enlightening explication of the charm of apples, surely
England's most noble garden product, as well as pears and other
fruits. There is probably no better contemplation of the last
course of dinner than "The Anatomy of Dessert". Bunyard's life
ended tragically with his suicide in 1939. This volume of essays,
written for the most part by Edward Wilson, English scholar and
fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, but with important
contributions by Joan Morgan (currently England's foremost
authority on the history of apples and the place of dessert in
Victorian dining), Alan Bell (biographer of Sydney Smith, formerly
Librarian of the London Library) and Simon Hiscock (Senior Research
Fellow in Botany at Worcester College, Oxford) topped and tailed by
poems from Arnd Kerkhecker and U.A. Fanthorpe. The studies include
a biographical essay on Edward Bunyard and chapters about his
friendship with Norman Douglas; his literary tastes; his scientific
work in plant genetics; his relationship with the epicurian
society, The Saintsbury Club; his work seen in the context of
inter-war gastronomic writing; and his contribution to the
horticultural world, particularly as a pomologist and enthusiast of
English roses. It closes with a full bibliography of works by, and
about, Bunyard.
The brilliant opening novel of the Catesby series, by a former
special forces officer and 'the thinking person's John le Carre'
'Edward Wilson seems poised to inherit the mantle of John le Carre'
Irish Independent 'More George Smiley than James Bond, Catesby will
delight those readers looking for less blood and more intelligence
in their spy thrillers' Publishers Weekly London, 1956. The height
of the Cold War. On the face of it, Kit Fournier is a senior
diplomat at the US embassy in Grosvenor Square. But that's not the
full story. He is also CIA Chief of Station. With the nuclear arms
race looming large, Kit goes undercover to meet with his KGB
counterpart to pass on secret information about British spies. In a
world where truth means deception and love means honey trap, sexual
blackmail and personal betrayal are essential skills. As the H-bomb
apocalypse hangs over London, Kit Fournier faces a crisis of the
soul. The unveiling of his own dark personal secrets will prove
more deadly than any of his coded dispatches. 'A glorious, seething
broth of historical fact and old-fashioned spy story' The Times 'A
sophisticated, convincing novel that shows governments and their
secret services as cynically exploitative and utterly ruthless'
Sunday Telegraph Praise for Edward Wilson: 'Stylistically
sophisticated . . . Wilson knows how to hold the reader's
attention' W.G. Sebald 'A reader is really privileged to come
across something like this' Alan Sillitoe
|
Parochial Sermons
Edward Wilson
|
R1,679
Discovery Miles 16 790
|
Ships in 10 - 15 working days
|
A spy thriller that will change your view of the Cold War forever,
by a former special forces officer who is 'poised to inherit the
mantle of John le Carre' 'Edward Wilson seems poised to inherit the
mantle of John le Carre' Irish Independent 'More George Smiley than
James Bond, Catesby will delight those readers looking for less
blood and more intelligence in their spy thrillers' Publishers
Weekly August, 1956. A generation of British spies is haunted by
the ghosts of friends turned traitor. Whitehall spymaster Henry
Bone has long held Butterfly to be the Holy Grail of Cold War
Intelligence. His brain is an archive of deadly secrets - he can
identify each and every traitor spy as well as the serving British
agents who helped them. And now Bone learns that Butterfly plans to
defect to the Americans. Unless Bone gets to him first. William
Catesby, a spy with his reputation in tatters, is pressured into
posing as a defector in order to track down Butterfly. His quest
leads him from Berlin, through a shower of Molotov cocktails in
Budapest, to dinner alone with the East German espionage legend
Mischa Wolf. 'A gripping Cold War story centred on a Berlin
seething with agents and counterspies' Mail on Sunday 'Smart,
finely written' Publishers Weekly Starred Review 'All you could
want in a spy thriller' Oliver James Praise for Edward Wilson:
'Stylistically sophisticated . . . Wilson knows how to hold the
reader's attention' W.G. Sebald 'A reader is really privileged to
come across something like this' Alan Sillitoe
A thrilling SOE spy novel by a former special forces officer who is
'poised to inherit the mantle of John le Carré' 'Edward Wilson
seems poised to inherit the mantle of John le Carré' Irish
Independent 'More George Smiley than James Bond, Catesby will
delight those readers looking for less blood and more intelligence
in their spy thrillers' Publishers Weekly Cambridge, 1941. A
teenage William Catesby leaves his studies to join the war effort.
Parachuted into Occupied France as an SOE officer, he witnesses
remarkable feats of bravery during the French Resistance. Yet he is
also privy to infighting and betrayal - some of the Maquisards are
more concerned with controlling the peace than fighting the war.
Double agents and informers abound, and with torture a certainty if
he is taken, Catesby knows there is no one he can trust. Passed
from safe house to safe house, with the Abwehr on his tail, he is
drawn towards Lyon, a city of backstreets and blind alleys. His
mission is simple: thwart an act of treachery that could shape the
future of France. 'Edward Wilson's excellent Portrait of the Spy as
a Young Man draws on his own special forces training' Independent
'Engaging . . . Dynamic . . . Wilson's fascination is as much with
how the spy betrays himself as with how he manipulates others' The
Times Praise for Edward Wilson: 'Stylistically sophisticated . . .
Wilson knows how to hold the reader's attention' W.G. Sebald 'A
reader is really privileged to come across something like this'
Alan Sillitoe 'All too often, amid the glitzy gadgetry of the spy
thriller, all the fast cars and sexual adventures, we lose sight of
the essential seriousness of what is at stake. John le Carré
reminds us, often, and so does Edward Wilson' Independent
A brilliant Cuban Missile Crisis spy thriller by a former special
forces officer who is 'poised to inherit the mantle of John le
Carre' 'Edward Wilson seems poised to inherit the mantle of John le
Carre' Irish Independent 'More George Smiley than James Bond,
Catesby will delight those readers looking for less blood and more
intelligence in their spy thrillers' Publishers Weekly October,
1962. If the Cuban gamble goes wrong and war breaks out, Britain
will cease to exist. Whitehall dispatches a secret envoy to defuse
the confrontation. Spawned in the bleak poverty of an East Anglian
fishing port, Catesby is a spy with an anti-establishment chip on
his shoulder. He loves his country, but despises the class who run
it. Though he is loathed by the Americans for his left-wing
sympathies, Catesby is sent to Havana and Washington to make
clandestine contacts. London has authorised Catesby to offer Moscow
a secret deal to break the deadlock. But before it can be sealed,
he meets the Midnight Swimmer, who has a chilling message for
Washington. 'An intellectually commanding thriller' Independent 'An
excellent spy novel . . . belongs on the bookshelf alongside
similarly unsettling works by le Carre, Alan Furst and Eric Ambler'
Huffington Post Praise for Edward Wilson: 'Stylistically
sophisticated . . . Wilson knows how to hold the reader's
attention' W.G. Sebald 'A reader is really privileged to come
across something like this' Alan Sillitoe 'All too often, amid the
glitzy gadgetry of the spy thriller, all the fast cars and sexual
adventures, we lose sight of the essential seriousness of what is
at stake. John le Carre reminds us, often, and so does Edward
Wilson' Independent
A captivating spy thriller taking the reader from 60s sex scandals
to the Vietnam War, by a former special forces officer who is
'poised to inherit the mantle of John le Carre' 'Edward Wilson
seems poised to inherit the mantle of John le Carre' Irish
Independent 'More George Smiley than James Bond, Catesby will
delight those readers looking for less blood and more intelligence
in their spy thrillers' Publishers Weekly London, 1957. Lady Somers
is beautiful, rich and the first woman to head up the Ministry of
Defence. She also has something to hide. Catesby's job is to
uncover her story and bury it forever. His quest leads him through
the sex scandals of Swinging-Sixties London and then on to Moscow,
where a shocking message changes everything. His next mission is a
desperate hunt through the war-torn jungles of Southeast Asia,
where he finally makes a heart-breaking discovery that is as
personal as it is political. It's a secret that Catesby may not
live to share. 'Espionage and geopolitical history rewritten by
Evelyn Waugh' Sunday Times 'We attempt to second-guess both Catesby
and his crafty creator, and are soundly outfoxed at every turn'
Barry Forshaw, Independent 'This cynically complex plot is laid
over perfectly described settings, from London to Moscow to
Vietnam. Wilson's characters and their consciences come alive to
lend the book its power' Kirkus Reviews Praise for Edward Wilson:
'Stylistically sophisticated . . . Wilson knows how to hold the
reader's attention' W.G. Sebald 'A reader is really privileged to
come across something like this' Alan Sillitoe 'All too often, amid
the glitzy gadgetry of the spy thriller, all the fast cars and
sexual adventures, we lose sight of the essential seriousness of
what is at stake. John le Carre reminds us, often, and so does
Edward Wilson' Independent
A brilliant, eye-opening espionage thriller by a former special
forces officer 'now at the forefront of spy writing' 'Edward Wilson
seems poised to inherit the mantle of John le Carre' Irish
Independent 'More George Smiley than James Bond, Catesby will
delight those readers looking for less blood and more intelligence
in their spy thrillers' Publishers Weekly April, 1982. The British
prime minister and the Argentine president are both clinging to
power. Downing Street, having ignored alarm bells coming from the
South Atlantic, finds itself in a full-blown crisis when Argentina
invades the remote and forgotten British territory of the Falklands
Islands. Catesby is dispatched urgently to prevent Argentina from
obtaining more lethal Exocet missiles, by fair means or foul. From
Patagonia to Paris, from Chevening to the White House, he plays a
deadly game of diplomatic cat and mouse, determined to avert the
loss of life. The clock is ticking. Diplomats and statesmen race
for a last-minute settlement while the weapons of war are primed
and aimed. 'Absolutely fascinating' Literary Review 'Gets nearer to
the truth of what happened in the Falklands War than any of the
standard histories. Highly recommended' Clive Ponting 'A classic of
the genre . . . as good as espionage thriller writing gets' NB
Magazine 'A stunning and ingenious book' Crime Review Praise for
Edward Wilson: 'Stylistically sophisticated . . . Wilson knows how
to hold the reader's attention' W.G. Sebald 'A reader is really
privileged to come across something like this' Alan Sillitoe 'All
too often, amid the glitzy gadgetry of the spy thriller, all the
fast cars and sexual adventures, we lose sight of the essential
seriousness of what is at stake. John le Carre reminds us, often,
and so does Edward Wilson' Independent
A gripping espionage thriller about an establishment plot to take
control of 1970s Britain, by a writer who is 'poised to inherit the
mantle of John le Carre' 'Edward Wilson seems poised to inherit the
mantle of John le Carre' Irish Independent 'More George Smiley than
James Bond, Catesby will delight those readers looking for less
blood and more intelligence in their spy thrillers' Publishers
Weekly March, 1976. A secret plot unfolds on both sides of the
Atlantic to remove the British prime minister from power. 1947: As
a hungry Britain freezes through a harsh winter, a young cabinet
minister makes a deal with Moscow, trading jet engines for grain
and wood. 1951: William Catesby executes a Nazi war criminal in the
ruins of a U-boat bunker. The German turns out be a CIA asset. Both
men have made powerful enemies in Washington, and their fates
become entwined as one rises through MI6 and the other to Downing
Street. Now the ghosts of the past are returning to haunt them. A
coup d'etat is imminent, and only Catesby stands in its way. 'A
fantastic read' Culture Matters 'Le Carre fans will find a lot to
like' Publishers Weekly 'The best espionage story you'll read this
year or any other' Crime Review Praise for Edward Wilson:
'Stylistically sophisticated . . . Wilson knows how to hold the
reader's attention' W.G. Sebald 'A reader is really privileged to
come across something like this' Alan Sillitoe 'All too often, amid
the glitzy gadgetry of the spy thriller, all the fast cars and
sexual adventures, we lose sight of the essential seriousness of
what is at stake. John le Carre reminds us, often, and so does
Edward Wilson' Independent
|
|