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Showing 1 - 25 of
67 matches in All Departments
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How I Live Now (DVD)
Saoirse Ronan, Tom Holland, Anna Chancellor, George Mackay, Corey Johnson, …
1
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R24
Discovery Miles 240
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Ships in 10 - 20 working days
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British action drama starring Saoirse Ronan. Understandably cold
and aggressive after being shipped off to Britain from America to
stay with her distant relatives, Daisy (Ronan) is initially weary
of her new home in the English countryside, but as a relationship
develops between Daisy and her cousin Edmond (George MacKay), she
starts warming to her new surroundings. Left to their own devices
while her Aunt Penn (Anna Chancellor) is abroad involved in peace
negotiations, the group enjoy their idyllic surroundings and
isolation from parental influence. However, when World War Three
breaks out over Europe and Britain is taken over by military
forces, the group is split up and detained in prisoner-of-war
camps. With nothing left to lose, Daisy begins planning her escape
in the hope of reuniting with her lover, but with war taking its
toll on everyone throughout the country, she grows fearful of what
she may find...
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Vinland (Paperback)
George Mackay Brown
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R331
Discovery Miles 3 310
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Vinland, George Mackay Brown's fourth novel, follows the turbulent
life of Ranald Sigmunson, a young boy born into the Dark Ages, when
Orkney was torn between its Viking past and its Christian future.
Lore and legend, the elemental pull of the sea and the land, the
sweetness of the early religion and the darker, more ancient rites,
weave through this exquisite celebration of Orcadian history and
the inexorable seasons of life.
George Mackay Brown was a master of the short story form and
produced a steady stream of short fiction collections, starting
with A Calendar of Love (1967) and include A Time to Keep (1969)
and Hawkfall (1974), as well as his poetry collections and novels.
In this selection, edited and introduced by Malachy Tallack, we
explore the author's Orkney and the ups and downs of the crofters
and fishermen there. These magical stories, drawn from ancient lore
and modern life, strip life down to the essentials.
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Greenvoe (Paperback, Reissue)
George Mackay Brown; Introduction by Ali Smith
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R283
R257
Discovery Miles 2 570
Save R26 (9%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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Greenvoe, the tight-knit community on the Orcadian island of
Hellya, has existed unchanged for generations, but Operation Black
Star requires the island for unspecified purposes and threatens the
islanders' way of life. A whole host of characters - The Skarf,
failed fishermen and Marxist historian; Ivan Westray, boatman and
dallier; pious creeler Samuel Whaness; drunken fishermen Bert
Kerston; earth-mother Alice Voar, and meths-drinker Timmy Folster -
are vividly brought to life in this sparkling mixture of prose and
poetry. In the end Operation Black Star fails, but not before it
has ruined the island; but the book ends on a note of hope as the
islanders return to celebrate the ritual rebirth of Hellya.
Vinland follows the turbulent life of Ranald Sigmundson, a young
boy born into the Dark Ages when Orkney was torn between its Viking
past and its Christian future. Struggling to understand the
conflicts of his home, Ranald seeks adventure and knowledge across
the seas, his journeys taking him as far as Norway, Iceland and
Ireland. Through Ranald's story, many elements of early mediaeval
life - of seamanship, marriage customs, beliefs and traditions -
are brought vibrantly to life, and the traditional poetry
interwoven through the prose adds a richness and poignancy to the
tales he tells. In Vinland, Mackay Brown's fourth novel, lore and
legend, the elementary pull of the sea and the land, the sweetness
of the early religion and the darker, more ancient rites, create an
exquisite celebration of Orcadian history.
In this new Selected Poems, Kathleen Jamie explores the
multi-faceted world of George Mackay Brown's Orkney, the poet's
lifelong home and inspiration. George Mackay Brown's concerns were
the ancestral world, the communalities of work, the fables and
religious stories which he saw as underpinning mortal lives. Brown
believed from the outset that poets had a social role and his true
task was to fulfil that role. This is not the attitude of a
shrinking violet, tentatively exploring his 'voice'. Art was sprung
from the community, and his role as poet to know that community, to
sing its stories. But there was also room for introspection; the
poet's task was simultaneously to 'interrogate silence'.
George's memory is inseparable from Orkney, where he was born the
youngest child of a poor family and which he rarely left. His
mother was a beautiful woman who spoke only Gaelic and his father
was a wit, mimic and singer, who also doubled as postman and
tailor. Tuberculosis framed George's early life and kept him in a
kind of limbo. He discovered alcohol which gave him insights into
the workings of the mind. While attending the University of
Edinburgh he came into contact with Goodsir Smith, MacDiarmid and
Norman MacCaig - and Stella Cartwright with whom perhaps all of
them were in love. By the time of his death in 1996 he was
recognised as one of the great writers of his time and country.
Bestowed at birth with two gifts, an ivory flute and a bag of
silver and gold coins, a young girl wanders through time. She is
destined to pursue the dragon of war and before he consumes the
world in flames, subdue him not with violence but music. Moving
across the battlefields from East to West, the girl bears witness
to the suffering and brutality of war throughout history ...
These two long stories are set, like most of George Mackay Brown's
work, in Orkney and in a period, the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, when the pattern of island life, little changed since
Viking times, was beginning to be threatened. The Golden Bird tells
the story of the slow decline of an island community: a scattered
village dependant on the sea for its livelihood and at risk from
it, a place subject to the peculiar tensions of isolation and the
unsettling influence of new values. The Life and Death of John Voe
looks at the life of a typical young Orkney man: after whaling and
sailing and gold-mining he comes home to devote the rest of his
days to a beautiful country girl. These stories are the creation of
a very rich imagination, of a practised and skillful writer, but
they also have the power and simplicity of the traditional ballad.
They will delight Mackay Brown's fans.
When the shopkeeper gives Jenny a skinny, black kitten she has no
idea who she has adopted. Fankle is no ordinary cat. The fiercely
clever feline has lived six lives so far: lives of adventure,
danger, fortune and poverty. He's stared down angry pirates,
started a blood feud, won a war, advised an empress and leapt onto
the moon. Fankle tells Jenny tales of his former lives -- with the
king of pirates, in ancient Egypt and even with the Empress of
China. So what is he doing living in a crofter's cottage in Orkney?
This classic novel by George Mackay Brown is a rich and rewarding
read for adults and children alike.
Thorfinn Ragnarson is the daydreaming son of a tenant farmer,
avoiding both work and school despite the best efforts of family,
friends and neighbours. Instead, the boy dreams up elaborate
historical fantasies of himself as a Viking traveller, a
freedom-fighter for Bonnie Prince Charlie and the colleague of a
Falstaffian knight who participates in the Battle of Bannockburn.
He is then hurled into the future as Thor, who returns to the
Orkneys as an adult and recalls his internment in a German POW
camp, where he discovered his writing skills. Thor also reflects on
the history of Orkney, the links between dreaming and writing and
the whims of fate. In this beautiful and haunting novel, Brown's
lyrical descriptions and gift for local colour capture, as ever,
the myth-drenched magic of his native islands.
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An Orkney Tapestry (Paperback)
Linden Bicket, Kirsteen McCue; George Mackay Brown
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R403
R364
Discovery Miles 3 640
Save R39 (10%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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First published in 1969, An Orkney Tapestry, George Mackay Brown's
seminal work, is a unique look at Orkney through the eye of a poet.
Originally commissioned by his publisher as an introduction to the
Orkney Islands, Brown approached the writing from a unique
perspective and went on to produce a rich fusion of ballad, folk
tale, short story, drama and environmental writing. The book,
written at an early stage in the author's career, explores themes
that appear in his later work and was a landmark in Brown's
development as a writer. Above all, it is a celebration of Orkney's
people, language and history. This edition reproduces Sylvia
Wishart's beautiful illustrations, commissioned for the original
hardback. Made available again for the first time in over 40 years,
this new edition sits alongside Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain
as an important precursor of environmental writing by the likes of
Kathleen Jamie, Robert Macfarlane, Malachy Tallack and, most
recently, Amy Liptrot.
First published in 1973 by the Hogarth Press, Magnus is George
Mackay Brown's tour de force - his most poetic and innovative book.
He links the twelfth-century story of the saintly Earl Magnus of
Orkney's brutal murder at the hands of his cousin Hakon Paulson, to
that of the philosopher Dietrich Bonhoeffer, murdered by the Nazis
during World War II. This is a unique exploration of the eternal
questions of guilt, goodness and personal sacrifice.
Set in the Orkneys on the fictitious island of Norday, a young poet
daydreams the history of the island and its people. He travels back
in time to Viking adventures at the court of the Byzantine Emperor
in Constantinople. Part of the 1995 Scottish Book Fortnight
promotion.
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Christmas Stories (Hardcover)
George Mackay Brown; Edited by William Peterson
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R468
R382
Discovery Miles 3 820
Save R86 (18%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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The potato is economically a very important crop in many parts of
the world. All improvements through potato breeding or
biotechnology must be based on a thorough knowledge of potato
genetics. This book fills a major gap in the current literature for
an up-to-date account of this topic and its implications for crop
improvement. Written by authorities from the UK, USA, Canada, Peru,
Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Poland, this major reference work
will be indispensible for workers in plant genetics, breeding and
biotechnology.
Towns, villages, islands, mountains, lochs and rivers of Scotland -
all are listed, and the derivation of their names - some curious -
some extraordinary - is given throughout. All have a story to tell,
and Scotland's rich history is apparent in these place names.
Celtic, Nordic and Anglo-Saxon influences that span 2,000 years
from the beginning of the Common or Christian Era to the 11th
century are shown. And as the incoming Celts did not find an empty
land, some names can be traced to Pictish times. With the arrival
of the Scots in the 6th century, Gaelic names began to appear, and
then, a century later, Anglian names appeared from the south, to
later be influenced by French and Dutch, becoming the 'Scots'
tongue of the Middle Ages. The advent of the Norsemen in the 9th
century produced Norse names in the North, the Northern and Western
Isles and the South-West. Many names are Scots transliterations of
Gaelic. Auchenshuggle, long thought of as an appropriate
destination for Glasgow's tramcars is simply a Scots version of the
Gaelic for 'rye field'. The book explains how, over successive
generations with political, economic and cultural changes, while
Scots became established, place names were not renewed or
translated - they were merely Scotticised. And so today, with
English as the common tongue, we can be reminded of the past at
just about every turn. This book provides a fascinating journey
that might take you from Aberbrothock to the Butt of Lewis,
Cruachan to Dunnet, on to Ecclefechan and Friockheim, Gretna, Hoy,
Ibrox, John o' Groats, Kells, pausing at Lanark before seeking out
Mealfuarvounie, Nick, Oxgangs, Patna, Quanterness, Rum, Sciennes,
Talisker, Uig,Voe, Waterloo, Yell and Zetland - your journey has
just begun!
"The Encyclopedia of Animals" is a lavishly illustrated,
authoritative, and comprehensive exploration of the rich and
intriguing world of animals. Written by an international team of
specialists, spectacularly adorned with a gallery of more than
2,000 color illustrations, and supplemented with distribution maps,
detailed and beautifully rendered diagrams, and some of the world's
finest wildlife photographs, this volume will become the standard
by which all others are measured. Each page is expertly laid out to
enhance either browsing or in-depth study. Readers will find
detailed coverage of all sorts of animals, including mammals,
birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and invertebrates. "The
Encyclopedia" includes an introductory overview of animal
evolution, biology, behavior, classification, habitats, and current
conservation issues. An extensive encyclopedic survey of the
animals follows, with special attention given to endangered and
vulnerable species. All information is completely up-to-date, with
the most recent scientific and conservation data. Elegant graphics
put a broad selection of information at readers' fingertips,
including classification information, scientific and common names,
distribution maps for all animal groups, conservation panels that
focus on threatened species, accurate and detailed anatomical
drawings, and illustrations of multiple species. Each section is
color coded for easy identification of animal groups. Feature pages
explore topics of particular interest and provide insights into
animal behavior. With its expansive scope, richly detailed
information, and inviting design, this will be the ideal reference
for a broad range of uses. This title is completely up-to-date,
with the most recent scientific information and conservation data.
It includes a gallery of more than 2,000 illustrations. It features
authoritative text contributed by a team of international
specialists. It includes lavish color photographs from leading
wildlife photographers. It also includes distribution maps for all
animal groups. It features detailed explanatory scientific
diagrams. It includes feature pages that explore topics of
particular interest and provide insights into animal behavior.
This is a guide to names used in Scotland - Scots, Gaelic,
international, ancient, modern, and timeless - and their origins
and meanings. These names are either popular in modern Scotland, or
are chosen because they have some special significance or
historical link to the country. With Gaelic pronunciations, and
historical and geographical references to the origin of first names
and surnames, this book both helps parents choose a name for their
baby, and also guides the reader to the history of Scotland's most
common surnames. Find out whether you have Scots ancestry in this
fascinating compilation.
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R398
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