835 results for "History"

The Lost Cause

Cory Doctorow
It’s thirty years from now. We’re making progress, mitigating climate change, slowly but surely. But what about all the angry old people who can’t let go? For young Americans a generation from now, climate change isn't controversial. It's just an overwhelming fact of life. And so are the great efforts to contain and mitigate it. Entire cities are being moved inland from the rising seas. Vast clean-energy projects are springing up everywhere. Disaster relief, the mitigation of floods and superstorms, has become a skill for which tens of millions of people are trained every year. The effort is global. It employs everyone who wants to work. Even when national politics oscillates back to right-wing leaders, the momentum is too great; these vast programs cannot be stopped in their tracks. But there are still those Americans, mostly elderly, who cling to their red baseball caps, their grievances, their huge vehicles, their anger. To their "alternative" news sources that reassure them that their resentment is right and pure and that "climate change" is just a giant scam. And they're your grandfather, your uncle, your great-aunt. And they're not going anywhere. And they’re armed to the teeth. The Lost Cause asks: What do we do about people who cling to the belief that their own children are the enemy? When, in fact, they're often the elders that we love?
Tor Publishing Group 2024-09-03 368 pages

Notes on a scandal

Heller, Zoë
From the first day that the beguiling Sheba Hart joins the staff at St George's, history teacher Barbara Covett is convinced that she has found a kindred spirit. Barbara's loyalty to her new friend is passionate and unstinting and when Sheba is discovered to be having an illicit affair with one of her young pupils, Barbara quickly elects herself as Sheba's chief defender. But all is not as it first seems in this dark story and, as Sheba will soon discover, a friend can be just as treacherous as any lover. Now a major motion picture starring Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett and Bill Nighy.
Viking 2007 256 pages

The weight of ink

Kadish, Rachel
"An intellectual and emotional jigsaw puzzle of a novel for readers of A. S. Byatt's Possession and Geraldine Brooks's People of the Book Set in London of the 1660s and of the early twenty-first century, The Weight of Ink is the interwoven tale of two women of remarkable intellect: Ester Velasquez, an emigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history. As the novel opens, Helen has been summoned by a former student to view a cache of seventeenth-century Jewish documents newly discovered in his home during a renovation. Enlisting the help of Aaron Levy, an American graduate student as impatient as he is charming, and in a race with another fast-moving team of historians, Helen embarks on one last project: to determine the identity of the documents' scribe, the elusive"Aleph."Electrifying and ambitious, sweeping in scope and intimate in tone, The Weight of Ink is a sophisticated work of historical fiction about women separated by centuries, and the choices and sacrifices they must makein order to reconcile the life of the heart and mind"--
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2017 567 pages

Front lines

Grant, Michael
Exclusive Front Lines story, Dead of Night to be 2017 World Book Day book. Just when you thought Michael Grant's GONE series had taken us to the darkest limits of his imagination, the evil genius of young adult fiction is back to take you to the Front Lines of terror. In the tradition of The Book Thief, Code Name Verity and Between Shades of Gray, Front Lines gives the experience of WWII a new immediacy while playing with the 'what ifs?' of history. It's WWII, but not as you remember it from history lessons! This time the girls aren't stitching socks for the brave boys at the front. Meet 17-year-old Rio Richlin and her friends Frangie Marr and Rainy Schulterman, three of the newest recruits in the US Armed Forces. They stand shoulder to shoulder with the boys from home as they take on Hitler's army. In the face of reluctant colonels and sceptical sergeants, the teenage soldier girls must prove their guts, strength, and resourcefulness as soldiers. Rio has grown up in a world where men don't cry and girls are supposed to care only about 'money and looks'. But she has always known that there is something wrong with this system and something else in her. Far from home and in the battlefields, Rio discovers exactly who she is and what she can accomplish The first in an exciting new young adult trilogy. Front Lines is the saga of a modern teenage heroine in an alternate past that could only have come from the man who gave us GONE, BZRK and Messenger of Fear. Don't miss Silver Stars, the second book in the Front Lines series. Michael Grant also has a World Book Day book, Dead of Night, which is set in the Front Lines universe and written exclusively for World Book Day 2017. Rio, Frangie and Rainy will delight fans of The Hunger Games' Katniss Everdeen. But this is a book for anyone who thought they were more! The young adult fiction that Michael Grant is calling his best yet. Praise for GONE: 'These are exciting, high-tension stories told in a driving, torrential narrative that never lets up ... This is great fiction.' Stephen King. Michael Grant has lived an exciting, fast-paced life. He moved in with his wife Katherine after only 24 hours. He has co-authored over 160 books but promises that everything he writes is like nothing you've ever read before!
Electric Monkey 2016 465 pages

Mary Coin A Novel

Marisa Silver
Bestselling author Marisa Silver takes Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother photograph as inspiration for a story of two women—one famous and one forgotten—and their remarkable chance encounter. In 1936, a young mother resting by the side of the road in central California is spontaneously photographed by a woman documenting migrant laborers in search of work. Few personal details are exchanged and neither woman has any way of knowing that they have produced one of the most iconic images of the Great Depression. In present day, Walker Dodge, a professor of cultural history, stumbles upon a family secret embedded in the now-famous picture. In luminous prose, Silver creates an extraordinary tale from a brief event in history and its repercussions throughout the decades that follow—a reminder that a great photograph captures the essence of a moment yet only scratches the surface of a life.
Penguin 2014-02-25 336 pages

English Fairy Tales

Joseph Jacobs
Classic fairy tales endure from generation to generation. The source of countless adaptations and reimaginings, this collection is remarkable in its scale and diversity. Featuring familiar tales like "Jack and the Beanstalk," "The History of Tom Thumb," and "The Story of the Three Little Pigs," as well as more obscure gems like "The Old Woman and Her Pig" and "Childe Rowland," this anthology is a treasure trove of outstanding children's literature.
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2018-06-24 118 pages

The Harlot by the Side of the Road

Jonathan Kirsch
Sex. Violence. Scandal. These are words we rarely associate with the sacred text of the Bible. Yet in this brilliant new book, Jonathan Kirsch shows that the Old Testament is filled with some of the most startling and explicit stories in all of Western literature. These tales of seduction and rape, voyeurism and exhibitionism, intermarriage and illegitimacy, assassination and murder have been suppressed by religious authorities throughout history precisely because they are so shocking. "You mean that's in the Bible?" is the common reaction of the contemporary reader to the stories that Kirsch retells and explores. In The Harlot by the Side of the Road, Kirsch recounts these suppressed and mistranslated tales in the grand storytelling tradition. Here is the tale of Dinah, the young Israelite daughter raped by a princely suitor. The price for her hand in marriage? The circumcision of every man in his kingdom. Here, too, is the story of Lot's daughters, who, when faced with the possibility that they are the last survivors on earth, must copulate with their drunken father to continue their race. And the story of Tamar, the harlot by the side of the road, who must disguise herself as a prostitute and seduce her father-in-law in order to bear the child who has been promised her. Kirsch places each story within the political and social context of its time, and delves into the latest biblical scholarship to explain why each story was originally censored. He also brings to light when and where each story was first written down, and how it found its way into the Bible. And he shows how these stories have something important to say to contemporary readers who might never pick up a Bible. Kirsch reveals that the Bible's real power lies in its unflinching lessons in human nature. And he illuminates the surprising modernity of the Bible's characters: these were, like us, people delicately balanced between their destructive and generous natures. Certain to excite controversy and ignite intellectual debate, The Harlot by the Side of the Road will undoubtedly be one of the year's most talked-about books.
Random House Publishing Group 1997-04-16

Fear of Flying

Erica Jong
Originally published in 1973, the groundbreaking, uninhibited story of Isadora Wing and her desire to fly free caused a national sensation. In "The New York Times," Henry Miller compared it to his own classic, "Tropic of Cancer" and predicted that "this book will make literary history..." It has sold more than twelve million copies. Now, after thirty years, the revolutionary novel known as "Fear of Flying" still stands as a timeless tale of self-discovery, liberation, and womanhood.
Penguin Publishing Group 1974-11 305 pages

The man who folded himself

Gerrold, David
This classic work of science fiction is widely considered to be the ultimate time-travel novel. When Daniel Eakins inherits a time machine, he soon realizes that he has enormous power to shape the course of history. He can foil terrorists, prevent assassinations, or just make some fast money at the racetrack. And if he doesn't like the results of the change, he can simply go back in time and talk himself out of making it! But Dan soon finds that there are limits to his powers and forces beyond his control.
BenBella Books 2003-06-10 127 pages

The World to Come

Dara Horn
Former child prodigy Ben Ziskind—5'6", 123 pounds and legally blind—steals a Marc Chagall painting at the end of an alienating singles cocktail hour at a local museum, determined to prove that its provenance is tainted and that it belongs to his family. With surety and accomplishment, Horn telescopes out into Ziskind's familial history through an exploration of Chagall's life; that of Chagall's friend the Yiddish novelist Der Nister; 1920s Soviet Russia and its horrific toll on Russian Jews; the nullifying brutality of Vietnam (where Ben's father, Daniel, served a short, terrifying stint); and the paradoxes of American suburbia, a place where native Ben feels less at home than the teenage Soviet refugee Leonid Shcharansky. Ben's relationship with his pregnant twin sister, Sara, a painter who eventually tries to render a forgery of the painting to return to the museum, is a damply compelling exposition of what it means to have someone biologically close but emotionally distant.
Hamish Hamilton 2006 401 pages

Amongst our weapons

Aaronovitch, Ben
THE BRAND NEW NOVEL IN THE #1 BESTSELLING RIVERS OF LONDON SERIES There is a world hidden underneath this great city... The London Silver Vaults - for well over a century, the largest collection of silver for sale in the world. It has more locks than the Bank of England and more cameras than a celebrity punch-up. Not somewhere you can murder someone and vanish without a trace - only that's what happened. The disappearing act, the reports of a blinding flash of light and memory loss amongst the witnesses all make this a case for Detective Constable Peter Grant and the Special Assessment Unit. Alongside their boss DCI Thomas Nightingale, the SAU find themselves embroiled in a mystery that encompasses London's tangled history, foreign lands and, most terrifying of all, the North! And Peter must solve this case soon because back home his partner Beverley is expecting twins any day now. But what he doesn't know is that he's about to encounter something - and somebody - that nobody ever expects... Effortlessly original, endlessly inventive and hugely entertaining - step into the world of the much-loved, Number One bestselling Rivers of London series. * * * * * PRAISE FOR BEN AARONOVITCH & THE RIVERS OF LONDON SERIES: 'Highly entertaining' SUNDAY EXPRESS 'Charming, witty, exciting' THE INDEPENDENT 'Ben Aaronovitch has created a wonderful world full of mystery, magic and fantastic characters. I love being there more than the real London' NICK FROST 'As brilliant and funny as ever ... Masterfully crafted - gives the late, great Terry Pratchett a run for his money' THE SUN 'An incredibly fast-moving magical joyride for grown-ups' THE TIMES 'Funny and wildly inventive' MAIL ON SUNDAY Discover why this incredible series has sold over two million copies worldwide. If you're a fan of Terry Pratchett, you will love the imaginative, irreverent and all-round irresistible RIVERS OF LONDON books.
Orion Books 2022-04-07 404 pages

The Stars, Like Dust

Isaac Asimov
The first book in the Galactic Empire series, the spectacular precursor to the classic Foundation series, by one of history's most influential writers of science fiction, Isaac Asimov His name was Biron Farrill and he was a student at the University of Earth. A native of one of the helpless Nebular Kingdoms, he saw his home world conquered and controlled by the planet Tyrann--a ruthless, barbaric Empire that was building a dynasty of cruelty and domination among the stars. Farrill's own father had been executed for trying to resist the Tyrann dictatorship and now someone was trying to kill Biron. But why? His only hope for survival lay in fleeing Earth and joining the rebellion that was rumored to be forming somewhere in the Kingdoms. But once he cast his lot with the freedom fighters, he would find himself guarding against treachery on every side and facing the most difficult choice of all: to betray either the woman he loved or the revolution that was the last hope for the future.
Ballantine books 1986 231 pages

Silver stars

Grant, Michael
The second novel in the epic new young adult series that Michael Grant is calling his best yet! It's WWII but not as you know it from school. This time the girls are on the Front Lines and not on the Home Front. Summer 1943. The enemy has been bloodied, but Nazi Germany is very far from beaten. Now the American army is moving on to their next target: the Italian island of Sicily. With heavy memories of combat, the three young soldier girls - Rio, Frangie and Rainy - now know what they are willing to do to save themselves, and understand the consequences of those actions. On the front lines, they will again come face to face with the brutality of war until they win or die, while simultaneously fighting their own personal battles. No one will emerge unscathed. In the tradition of The Book Thief, Code Name Verity and Between Shades of Gray, Front Lines gives the experience of WWII a new immediacy while playing with the 'what ifs?' of history. Exclusive Front Lines story, Dead of Night to be 2017 World Book Day book. Praise for Front Lines: "What if American women had fought alongside men in World War II? Michael Grant gives us a magnificent alternate history that feels so real and right and true it seems impossible that it wasn't. Every one of these fictional soldiers has wrapped herself around my heart.... (Elizabeth Wein, award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Code Name Verity) "Michael Grant is a master of twists that not only tear at his readers' consciences, they hold a mirror up to our here and now and insist we consider what might otherwise be. Front Lines is a masterpiece of speculative story crafting.... (Andrew Smith, Printz Honor winning author of Grasshopper Jungle) Front Lines was shortlisted for Feminist Book of the Year in the Maximum Pop Bookish Awards. Michael Grant has lived an exciting, fast-paced life. He moved in with his wife Katherine after only 24 hours. He has co-authored over 160 books including the bestselling GONE series but promises that everything he writes is like nothing you've ever read before!
Electric Monkey 2017 477 pages

Terminal City

Linda Fairstein
Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper returns in the new breakneck thriller by the New York Times bestselling author of Death Angel who once again captures the essence of New York City--its glamour, its history, its possibilities, and its endless capacity for darkness. Grand Central Station is hiding more than just an underground train system. When the body of a young woman is found in the tower suite of the Waldorf Astoria, Assistant DA Alex Cooper and Detective Mike Chapman find themselves hunting for a killer whose only signature is a carefully drawn symbol carved into his victims' bodies, a symbol that bears a striking resemblance to train tracks. After a second body is discovered in a terminal alleyway, attention shifts to the iconic transportation hub and the potential for a bigger attack. With the President of the United States set to arrive for a United Nations meeting, Alex and Mike must contend with Grand Central's expansive underground tunnels and century-old dark secrets--as well as their own changing relationship--to find a killer who's cutting a deadly path straight to the heart of the city.
Penguin 2015-08-04 512 pages

Lies Sleeping

Ben Aaronovitch
The seventh book of the bestselling Rivers of London series returns to the adventures of Peter Grant, detective and apprentice wizard, as he solves magical crimes in the city of London. The Faceless Man, wanted for multiple counts of murder, fraud, and crimes against humanity, has been unmasked and is on the run. Peter Grant, Detective Constable and apprentice wizard, now plays a key role in an unprecedented joint operation to bring him to justice. But even as the unwieldy might of the Metropolitan Police bears down on its foe, Peter uncovers clues that the Faceless Man, far from being finished, is executing the final stages of a long term plan. A plan that has its roots in London's two thousand bloody years of history, and could literally bring the city to its knees. To save his beloved city Peter's going to need help from his former best friend and colleague--Lesley May--who brutally betrayed him and everything he thought she believed in. And, far worse, he might even have to come to terms with the malevolent supernatural killer and agent of chaos known as Mr Punch....
Penguin 2019-10-29 336 pages

Silent Mercy

Linda A. Fairstein
New York Times bestselling author Linda Fairstein is at her explosive best as she plunges into the byzantine world of New York City's most powerful and sacred institutions--and unearths the most sinister of secrets... Prosecutor Alexandra Cooper has been called to a Harlem Baptist Church, where a woman has been decapitated and set on fire on the church steps--with the imprint of a Star of David necklace seared into her flesh. Then a second body is found at a cathedral in Little Italy. Alex is blind to the sick and inconceivable motives feeding a particularly vicious serial killer--until she mines the depths of the city's vast and serpentine religious history. What Alex follows is a dangerous path that takes her far beyond the scope of her investigation, and directly into the path of a frightening and inescapable truth.
Signet Select 2012 466 pages

Death Angel

Linda A. Fairstein
New York City. Central Park. For thousands of residents and tourists who fill it every day, it's an enormous urban sanctuary. For one killer it's the perfect hunting ground. A young girl has been found dead in the Ramble, a secluded section of the park made up of winding paths, dense woods, and dead ends. Is she the first victim of a psychopath? Or a clue to other missing women in years past whose remains have never been found? For the answer, Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper and Detective Mike Chapman follow a twisting trail of evidence that takes them deep into the city's dark history--and deeper into the mind of killer whose work has only just begun.
Penguin Publishing Group 2014-05-06 512 pages