6 results for "Holidays"

Portrait of an Unknown Woman

Daniel Silva
In a spellbinding new masterpiece by #1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva, Gabriel Allon undertakes a high-stakes search for the greatest art forger who ever lived Legendary spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon has at long last severed ties with Israeli intelligence and settled quietly in Venice, the only place where he has ever truly known peace. His beautiful wife, Chiara, has taken over the day-to-day management of the Tiepolo Restoration Company, and their two young children are discreetly enrolled in a neighborhood scuola elementare. For his part, Gabriel spends his days wandering the streets and canals of the watery city, bidding farewell to the demons of his tragic, violent past. But when the eccentric London art dealer Julian Isherwood asks Gabriel to investigate the circumstances surrounding the rediscovery and lucrative sale of a centuries-old painting, he is drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse where nothing is as it seems. Gabriel soon discovers that the work in question, a portrait of an unidentified woman attributed to Sir Anthony van Dyck, is almost certainly a fiendishly clever fake. To find the mysterious figure who painted it--and uncover a multibillion-dollar fraud at the pinnacle of the art world--Gabriel conceives one of the most elaborate deceptions of his career. If it is to succeed, he must become the very mirror image of the man he seeks: the greatest art forger the world has ever known. Stylish, sophisticated, and ingeniously plotted, Portrait of an Unknown Woman is a wildly entertaining journey through the dark side of the art world--a place where unscrupulous dealers routinely deceive their customers and deep-pocketed investors treat great paintings as though they were just another asset class to be bought and sold at a profit. From its elegant opening to the shocking twists of its climax, the novel is a tour de force of storytelling and one of the finest pieces of heist fiction ever written. And it is still more proof that, when it comes to international intrigue and suspense, Daniel Silva has no equal.
HarperCollins Publishers 2023-02-14 464 pages

The Great Book of King Arthur And His Knights of the Round Table

John Matthews,Neil Gaiman
Foreword by Neil Gaiman The world's leading Arthurian authority reimagines one of the most beloved and influential legends--the story of King Arthur and his Knights--for a new century in this gorgeous keepsake edition, illustrated with luminous full-color paintings and drawings by internationally acclaimed Tolkien artist John Howe. The stories of King Arthur and Merlin, Lancelot and Guinevere, Galahad, Gawain, Tristan and the rest of the Knights of the Roundtable, and the search for the Holy Grail have been beloved for centuries and are the inspiration of many modern fantasy novels, films, and shows. These legends began when an obscure Celtic hero named Arthur stepped on to the stage of history sometime in the sixth century, generating a host of oral tales that would be inscribed some 900 years later by Thomas Malory in his classic Morte D'Arthur (The Death of Arthur). The Great Book of King Arthur brings these legends into the modern age, using accessible prose for contemporary readers for the first time. In addition to the stories in Morte D'Arthur, John Matthews includes many tales of Arthur and his knights either unknown to Malory or written in other languages, such as the story of Avenable, the girl brought up as a boy who becomes a famous knight; Morien, whose adventures are as fantastic and exciting as any found in Malory's work; and a retelling of the life of Round Table favorite Gawain, from his strange birth to his upbringing among the poor to his ascension to the highest position--Emperor of Rome. In addition, there are some of the earliest tales of Arthur, deriving from the tradition of Celtic storytelling. The epic hero is represented in such powerful stories as "The Adventures of Eagle-boy" and "The Coming of Merlin," which is based on the early medieval text Vita Merlini and tells a completely new version of the great enchanter's story. The Great Book of King Arthur includes 15 full-color paintings and 25 pencil drawings.
HarperCollins Publishers 2022 512 pages

Dear Canada: a Time for Giving: Ten Tales of Christmas

Jean Little,Sarah Ellis,Ruby Slipperjack,Carol Matas,Karleen Bradford,Susan M. Aihoshi,Barbara Haworth-Attard,Janet McNaughton,Norah McClintock
Featuring stories from nine outstanding Canadian authors, this anthology is the perfect Christmas gift for Dear Canada readers, both old and new! A Time for Giving includes ten tales of Christmas, following the most recent Dear Canada diarists "the Christmas after" their diary ends. Johanna Leary is reunited with her brother after they were separated at Grosse-Île; Mary Kobayashi spends a second Christmas at a Japanese internment camp; Rose Rabinowitz finds some surprising challenges in her new country, and many more! A Special Gift is a story from Ojibwe writer Ruby Slipperjack to preview her upcoming Dear Canada (coming in Fall 2016!), set the winter before the diarist is sent to Residential School. Contributors include Jean Little (Exiles from the War and All Fall Down), Barbara Haworth- Attard (To Stand on My Own), Sarah Ellis (That Fatal Night), Susan Aihoshi (Torn Apart), Norah McClintock (A Sea of Sorrows), Karleen Bradford (A Country of Our Own), Janet McNaughton (Flame and Ashes), Carol Matas (Pieces of the Past), and Ruby Slipperjack.
Scholastic Canada 2015-09 216 pages

Fine Weather Woman A Story of British Columbia

Anthony Robinson
Before Europeans arrived in British Columbia, the coastal Indians lived in an environment where there was no want. The fish and fur-bearing mammals in the sea fed and clothed them, they were sheltered in post-and-beam houses, and they travelled around is sturdy canoes. They plundered and waged war against their enemies, and they captured slaves. There's was a world filled with superstition and magic, with supernatural creatures such as the raven, the gluttonous trickster, that could assume human form. The Europeans brought with them smallpox and other communicable diseases to which the Indians had no immunity, and they died by the thousands. The Haida of the Queen Charlotte Islands (since renamed Haida Gwai) were particularly hard hit, their numbers reduced from an estimated 14,000 to 800. Ignoring the rights of the Indians, the Europeans established government, first as a crown colony of Great Britain, then as a province of the Dominion of Canada. The jurisdiction was sustained at first by gold strikes, but when the gold ran out, the mainstay of the economy became the forests. The ones on the coast, with huge trees nudging 300 feet in height and some exceeding 12 feet in diameter, were the first to be exploited. There arose a stalwart band of men known as loggers, who harvested the big trees. One of them, whose name was Bill Clayton, became a legend in his lifetime for his strength and ability to do the work, and they called him "Logger Bill." At the end of the depression, when he is just 16 years old, Bill is unable to find work in Queen Charlotte City. He is forced to leave his Haida sweetheart and go to a remote logging camp, where the only holidays come at Christmas time, and only last for two weeks. She find she is pregnant, and marries her cousin, a common practice among the Haida. Bill is crushed when he hears the news, and sublimates himself in the logging business.Through tragedy and triumph, Bill works his way through life, with four loves and three illegitimate offspring, and through a living history of forest management in BC. He meets a premature death, and his three sons eventually find out about their ancestry. Throughout, the raven appears from time to time, giving rise to the feeling that he may still have some magic in him.
Independently Published 2017-06-29 478 pages