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Undertones of War (Chicago Guides To Academic Life Ser.)
by Edmund Blunden“I took my road with no little pride of fear; one morning I feared very sharply, as I saw what looked like a rising shroud over a wooden cross in the clustering mist. Horror! But on a closer study I realized that the apparition was only a flannel gas helmet. . . . What an age since 1914!” In Undertones of War, one of the finest autobiographies to come out of World War I, the acclaimed poet Edmund Blunden records his devastating experiences in combat. After enlisting at the age of twenty, he took part in the disastrous battles at the Somme, Ypres, and Passchendaele, describing them as “murder, not only to the troops but to their singing faiths and hopes.” All the horrors of trench warfare, all the absurdity and feeble attempts to make sense of the fighting, all the strangeness of observing war as a writer—of being simultaneously soldier and poet—pervade Blunden’s memoir. In steely-eyed prose as richly allusive as any poetry, he tells of the endurance and despair found among the men of his battalion, including the harrowing acts of bravery that won him the Military Cross. Now back in print for American readers, the volume includes a selection of Blunden’s war poems that unflinchingly juxtapose death in the trenches with the beauty of Flanders’s fields. Undertones of War deserves a place on anyone’s bookshelf between Siegfried Sassoon’s poetry and Robert Graves’s Goodbye to All That.
Undertones of War: With A New Pref. By The Author (Twentieth Century Classics Ser.)
by Edmund Blunden“I took my road with no little pride of fear; one morning I feared very sharply, as I saw what looked like a rising shroud over a wooden cross in the clustering mist. Horror! But on a closer study I realized that the apparition was only a flannel gas helmet. . . . What an age since 1914!” In Undertones of War, one of the finest autobiographies to come out of World War I, the acclaimed poet Edmund Blunden records his devastating experiences in combat. After enlisting at the age of twenty, he took part in the disastrous battles at the Somme, Ypres, and Passchendaele, describing them as “murder, not only to the troops but to their singing faiths and hopes.” All the horrors of trench warfare, all the absurdity and feeble attempts to make sense of the fighting, all the strangeness of observing war as a writer—of being simultaneously soldier and poet—pervade Blunden’s memoir. In steely-eyed prose as richly allusive as any poetry, he tells of the endurance and despair found among the men of his battalion, including the harrowing acts of bravery that won him the Military Cross. Now back in print for American readers, the volume includes a selection of Blunden’s war poems that unflinchingly juxtapose death in the trenches with the beauty of Flanders’s fields. Undertones of War deserves a place on anyone’s bookshelf between Siegfried Sassoon’s poetry and Robert Graves’s Goodbye to All That.
Undertones of War
by Edmund Blunden“I took my road with no little pride of fear; one morning I feared very sharply, as I saw what looked like a rising shroud over a wooden cross in the clustering mist. Horror! But on a closer study I realized that the apparition was only a flannel gas helmet. . . . What an age since 1914!” In Undertones of War, one of the finest autobiographies to come out of World War I, the acclaimed poet Edmund Blunden records his devastating experiences in combat. After enlisting at the age of twenty, he took part in the disastrous battles at the Somme, Ypres, and Passchendaele, describing them as “murder, not only to the troops but to their singing faiths and hopes.” All the horrors of trench warfare, all the absurdity and feeble attempts to make sense of the fighting, all the strangeness of observing war as a writer—of being simultaneously soldier and poet—pervade Blunden’s memoir. In steely-eyed prose as richly allusive as any poetry, he tells of the endurance and despair found among the men of his battalion, including the harrowing acts of bravery that won him the Military Cross. Now back in print for American readers, the volume includes a selection of Blunden’s war poems that unflinchingly juxtapose death in the trenches with the beauty of Flanders’s fields. Undertones of War deserves a place on anyone’s bookshelf between Siegfried Sassoon’s poetry and Robert Graves’s Goodbye to All That.
Unloved: The True Story of a Stolen Childhood
by Peter RocheThis story begins and ends with a photograph taken when I was two years old. Finding it was like discovering that I really did exist after all . It was as if someone was saying ‘No, it wasn’t all in your imagination, that childhood really did happen, and it happened to you.’ Brought up in South London by violent and abusive parents, the Roche children knew only cruelty, neglect, starvation and squalor. As one of ten and regularly beaten, Peter searched dustbins for food and slept rough when he couldn't face going home. It was survival at all costs, every child for itself. Expelled from school at the age of 14, Peter’s life of petty crime landed him in borstal – and exposed him to yet more sickening abuse.Then, years later, a chance meeting with a social worker led to his discovery of a photograph - a portrait, taken by Lord Snowdon, of a toddler dressed in rags. It was an image that had shocked the world. The boy in the picture was Peter. Unloved is a harrowing account of a shattered childhood, told by a man who has finally found the courage to speak out. This is his story.
A Venture in Africa: The Challenges of African Business
by Andrew SardanisA vivid personal history of an international business career. 'A Venture in Africa' takes the reader through the twists and turns of doing business with African states and leaders in the turbulent 1970s and later. Drawing on his long experience of modern Africa and international business, Sardanis portrays the crises, disasters and personalities he has encountered in the contintent. He shows how the old Africa of corruption, despotism and nepotism is being replaced by a new Africa in which a rising generation of business leaders is emerging - with practical technical and professional skills and free from the post-colonial mentality. A hugely intriguing and entertaining story which shows that Africa, despite the bad press, presents an immensely important and a rich source of commercial opportunities for the successful businessman.
The Vixen Diaries
by Karrine SteffansKarrine Steffans continues to share the much-sought-after details of her star-studded life in this juicy tell-all—and dishes on the celebrity men that helped her get where she needed to be.This titillating expose chronicles the personal and professional adventures of this tabloid-laden socialite, dispelling some rumors, while confirming others.Diaries unveils the heavily shrouded Hollywood backrooms and its coveted secrets. Offering her ardent fans answers to burning questions and presenting lessons learned, this book will surely not disappoint.Karrine draws you in to get an up-close and personal look at the Hollywood life of fast money and sex; all the things that make for a great movie. She discusses her interactions with people after the release of Confessions of a Video Vixen and how she copes with it all.
Waiting for Daisy: The True Story of One Couple's Quest to Have a Baby
by Peggy OrensteinBuffeted by one jaw-dropping obstacle after another, Orenstein seeks answers both medical and spiritual, all the while trying to save a marriage threatened by cycles, appointments, procedures, and disappointments. Her journey takes her around America and as far as East Asia - on the way she visits an ex-boyfriend who now has fifteen children; encounters 'parasite singles' in Tokyo, women who are rejecting marriage and motherhood in favour of shopping sprees and foreign travel; and shares stories with survivors of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The world's professional women are only now beginning to become aware of the risks and realities of 'having it all', and Orenstein's saga unfolds as infertility is developing into a boom industry, with over a million women a year seeking treatment. Waiting for Daisy is a profoundly honest, wryly funny report from the front, a story about doing all the things you swore you'd never do to get something you hadn't even been sure you wanted; it's about being a woman, about trying to become a mother, and above all, about the ambivalence, obsession and sacrifice that characterises the struggles of so many modern couples.
Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Rom
by Peggy OrensteinPeggy Orenstein's widely hailed and bestselling memoir of her quest for parenthood begins when she tells her new husband that she's not sure she ever wants to be a mother; it ends six years later after she's done almost everything humanly possible to achieve that goal. Buffeted by one obstacle after another, Orenstein seeks answers both medical and spiritual in America and Asia, all the while trying to hold on to a marriage threatened by cycles, appointments, procedures, and disappointments. Waiting for Daisy is both an intimate page-turner and a wrly funny report from the front.
Waiting for the Call: From Preacher's Daughter to Lesbian Mom
by Jacqueline Taylor“Well-written, absorbing, and a great pleasure to read . . . will appeal to Christians struggling to square their traditional beliefs with acceptance of homosexuality as well as to all those interested in adoption, lesbian marriage, and the changing shape of America’s families.” —Elizabeth C. Fine, Virginia Tech University Waiting for the Call takes readers from the foothills of the Appalachians—where Jacqueline Taylor was brought up in a strict evangelical household—to contemporary Chicago, where she and her lesbian partner are raising a family. In a voice by turns comic and loving, Taylor recounts the amazing journey that took her in profoundly different directions from those she or her parents could have ever envisioned. Taylor’s father was a Southern Baptist preacher, and she struggled to deal with his strictures as well as her mother’s manic-depressive episodes. After leaving for college, Taylor finds herself questioning her faith and identity, questions that continue to mount when—after two divorces, a doctoral degree, and her first kiss with a woman—she discovers her own lesbianism and begins a most untraditional family that grows to include two adopted children from Peru. Even as she celebrates and cherishes this new family, Taylor insists on the possibility of maintaining a loving connection to her religious roots. While she and her partner search for the best way to explain adoption to their children and answer the inevitable question, “Which one is your mom?” they also seek out a church that will unite their love of family and their faith. Told in the great storytelling tradition of the American South, full of deep feeling and wry humor, Waiting for the Call engagingly demonstrates how one woman bridged the gulf between faith and sexual identity without abandoning her principles.
Warriors of Medieval Japan (General Military Ser.)
by Stephen TurnbullCombines material previously published as Warrior 29: Ashigaru 1467-1649, Warrior 64: Ninja AD 1460-1650, Warrior 70: Japanese Warrior Monks AD 949-1603, with a new section on Samurai, new images, and a new introduction and conclusion. Driven by strict codes of honour and bound by deep allegiances of rank, family or religion, the elite warriors of medieval Japan were bold fighters, loyal comrades and deadly enemies, With rare material from Japanese sources and lavish artwork and photography, this book examines the military lives, beliefs and battle experience of four formidable warrior types – samurai, ninja, warrior monk and ashigaru foot soldier – resulting in a highly authoritative account of Japan's warrior elite.
Wasted
by Mark JohnsonMark Johnson's father had 'LOVE' tattooed across his left hand, but that didn't stop the beatings. The Johnson children would turn up to school with broken fingers and chipped teeth, but no one ever thought of investigating their home life. Mark just slipped through the cracks, and kept on falling. For years. Constantly in trouble at school, Mark began stealing at the age of seven, was drinking by the age of eight, and took his first hit of heroin aged eleven. A sensitive, intelligent boy, he could never stay on the right path, and though Art College beckoned, he ended up in Portland prison instead. With searing honesty, WASTED documents Mark's descent into the depths of addiction and criminality. Homeless, hooked on heroin and crack, no one - least of all Mark - believed he would survive. And yet - astonishingly - he somehow pulled himself through, and now runs his own thriving tree surgery business, employing and helping other recovering addicts. His story is at once shocking and inspiring - a compelling account of his struggle to save himself, and help save others in the process.
Wayne Rooney: The Way It Is
by Wayne RooneyWayne Rooney, the most talked about footballer in Britain, tells his own remarkable story, from his early years with his family growing up on the streets of Croxteth, about his relationship with Coleen McLoughlin, and about life in Manchester.
Ways Of Escape (Twentieth Century Classics Ser.)
by Graham GreeneWith superb skill and feeling, Graham Greene retraces the experiences and encounters of his extraordinary life. His restlessness is legendary; as if seeking out danger, Greene travelled to Haiti during the nightmare rule of Papa Doc, Vietnam in the last days of the French, Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion. With ironic delight he recalls his time in the British Secret Service in Africa, and his brief involvement in Hollywood. He writes, as only he can, about people and places, about faith, doubt, fear and, not least, the trials and craft of writing.
When Daddy Comes Home
by Toni MaguireSHE FINALLY THOUGHT SHE WAS SAFE… Toni Maguire, author of Don't Tell Mummy, takes up the story of her tragic childhood where she left off, revealing the awful truth about what happened when her father, sent to jail for abusing her, was released, and came home…
Where the Road Leads: An Australian woman's journey of love and determination
by Jean CalderFor almost three decades, Jean Calder has been working with children with disabilities in Lebanon, Egypt and the Gaza Strip.In 1981 Jean Calder left a comfortable life in Queensland and a respected academic career to work as a volunteer in Lebanon. When the war broke out and many foreigners fled, Jean stayed and cared for a group of children in Beirut. They spent weeks sleeping on floors, sheltering under a hospital staircase and being held at gunpoint. Three of these children wood change the course of her life forever. Jean has made her home in the Gaza Strip, where she deals each day with the ongoing fighting. Yet for the last ten years she has built up a rehabilitiation program that has improved the lives of hundreds of children with disabilities. In 2005 her outstanding work was recognised when she received our highest civilian honour, the Companion of the Order of Australia. In WHERE THE ROAD LEADS Jean shares her life story and offers a rare insight into the daily existence of people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Motivated by a passionate desire to help those around her, Jean brings hope to people living in some of the most dangerous areas of the Middle East.
Who is it that can tell me who I am?: The Journal Of A Psychotherapist
by Jane HaynesIn this searingly honest memoir, Jane Haynes recalls to her psychotherapist her extraordinary story. Having overcome her strange childhood, overshadowed by her mother's absence and father's descent into madness, the real diagnosis of which the family concealed, she attempts, vividly but without sentimentality, to understand the construction of her own life.Now a psychotherapist in her own right, Haynes opens up her case files, which include a gifted young man on the cusp of a nervous breakdown; the middle-aged woman tormented by suicidal thoughts; the pornography addict, unable to connect emotionally with his girlfriend. Tragedy is brought home to her when her son-in-law is murdered. Her account powerfully demonstrates the resilience and life force of human nature.'I recommend it to anyone concerned with the life of the imagination'Hilary Mantel
Why Mrs Blake Cried: William Blake and the Erotic Imagination
by Marsha Keith SchuchardMuch has been written about the work of William Blake and some of the religious beliefs that influenced him, but there is a secret history which, until now, has been kept deep beneath the surface in the mystical underground of England in the eighteenth-century. Here, leading Blake scholar Marsha Keith Schuchard reveals an altogether more intriguing and controversial picture of the poet and artist.The discovery of Blake family documents took Schuchard on a journey of detection that led her to a cast of radical characters including Cagliostro, Zinzendorf and the mystic Swedenborg, and to a world of waking visions, sexual-spiritual experimentation, kabbalistic magic, tantric sex and free love.Why Mrs Blake Cried offers a new insight into the work of Blake and takes us on an extraordinary journey through secret societies and ancient rituals.
Wicked Whispers
by Jessica Callan"If you think I'm going to lift the lid on what it is like to be paid to misbehave with celebrities, travel the world and get legless with rock stars; if you hope I'll reveal how gossip columns really operate behind the scenes; if you think I'm going to tell you what Jude Law, Guy Ritchie and Jordan are really like - well, you're right. "When the 3AM column first appeared in the Daily Mirror, it changed the rules. The message behind the column was clear: celebrities were to watch out, because any drunken moves and misdemeanors on their part would be reported and made known to the world the very next day by the all-seeing Jessica and her co-writers Polly and Eva. Gossipy, funny and fabulously indiscreet, Wicked Whispers is Jessica Callan's inside account of what life as a 3AM girl was like: the debauched parties, the drunken celebs, the lecherous paparazzi, and the tabloid tricks. But it wasn’t all fun all the time. Jessica recounts the sometimes harsh and pressured reality of the job, from getting dumped by boyfriends who couldn't handle her crazy lifestyle to finding herself at the heart of a scandal of her own making...
Wild Mary: The Life Of Mary Wesley
by Patrick MarnhamMary Wesley published her first novel at seventy and went on to write a further nine bestsellers, including the legendary The Camomile Lawn, in a style best described as arsenic without the old lace. Many of her stories were inspired by her experiences during the Blitz, and by her marriages: the first to an aristocrat, a brief and conventional affair, and the second to a penniless writer she adored.A remarkable book about a remarkable woman, Patrick Marnham's brilliantly researched and wonderfully impartial book disentangles truth from rumour, highlighting the links between Wesley's real life and her fiction.
Wilfred Thesiger: The Life Of The Great Explorer
by Alexander MaitlandWilfred Thesiger, the last of the great gentlemen explorer-adventurers, became a legend in his own lifetime. This authorised biography by a longstanding friend and associate delves into his little-known character and motivations, as well as recounting the details of his extraordinary life.
William Wallace
by Andrew FisherWilliam Wallace set an example of constancy and perseverance and became the Guardian of Scotland. Even his terrible death in London in 1305 can be seen as a victory as it provided inspiration for continuance of struggle against English domination. This book investigates various aspects of Wallace's life and character.
Willie Nelson: The Outlaw
by Graeme ThomsonIn this intimate and engaging biography, Graeme Thomson interviews Nelson himself, his band and those who knew him best en route to discovering the real Willie Nelson. The Outlaw brilliantly describes a complex and compelling man whose life and music reflect something fundamental at the heart of twentieth-century America. Thomson's revealing portrait is a timely reminder of the stature and achievements of a true living legend. Covering everything from dirt poor beginnings in Texas, global fame in the 70s, four marriages, the death of a son and affairs with Amy Irving and Candice Bergen up to his current position as a 73-year-old pot smoking man of the road, Thomson's account emerges as the first detailed, clear-eyed account of Nelson's fascinating life.
Winnie And Wolf: A Novel
by A. N. WilsonWinnie and Wolf is the story of the extraordinary relationship between Winifred Wagner and Adolf Hitler that took place during the years 1923-40, as seen through the eyes of the secretary at the Wagner house in Bayreuth. Winifred, an English girl, brought up in an orphanage in East Grinstead, married at the age of eighteen to the son of Germany's most controversial genius, is a passionate Germanophile, a Wagnerian dreamer, a Teutonic patriot. In the debacle of the post-Versailles world, the Wagner family hope for the coming, not of a warrior, a fearless Siegfried, but of a Parsifal, a mystic idealist, a redeemer-figure. In 1923, they meet their Parsifal - a wild-eyed Viennese opera-fanatic in a trilby hat, a mac and a badly fitting suit. Hitler has already made a name for himself in some sections of German society through rabble-rousing and street corner speeches. It is Winifred, though, who believes she can really see his poetry. Almost at once they drop formalities and call one another 'Du' rather than 'Sie'. She is Winnie and he is Wolf. Like Winnie, Hitler was an outsider. Like her, he was haunted by the impossibility of reconciling the pursuit of love and the pursuit of power; the ultimate inevitability, if you pursued power, of destruction. Both had known the humiliations of poverty. Both felt angry and excluded by society. Both found each other in an unusual kinship that expressed itself through a love of opera.
Winning Is Not Enough
by Sir Jackie StewartSir Jackie Stewart is one of the most highly regarded names in global sport - winner of three F1 World Championships, 27 Grands Prix and ranked in the top five drivers of all time. On retiring from the circuit, he went on to build an equally impressive international business career. In the 1960s and into the 70s, with his black cap, sideburns and aviator shades Jackie Stewart was an unmistakable icon in a glorious era of style, glamour and speed. On the track, his story is one of drama, excitement, tragedy, controversy, celebrity, danger and massive success. Beyond the sport his life is a compelling tale of battling against the odds and achieving world-wide recognition as an outstanding sportsman, a role model and a highly accomplished and respected businessman.
Wogan's Twelve: A Sharp Eye and a Witty Word to Mark the Passing Year
by Sir Terry Wogan OBEA year in the life of Britain's most popular entertainer, and George Clooney look alike, Sir Terry Wogan...What is it like to live the life of Sir Terry Wogan KBE? WOGAN'S TWELVE puts you in the passenger seat as Terry journeys through a helter-skelter year. From radio to TV studio, from hosting a charity event to experiencing the thrills of a Eurovision Song Contest, to sitting in the garden of his French chateau waiting for the rain to stop, there's no denying that Terry Wogan does more in one year than most people do in a lifetime.With diary entries and specially commissioned Matt cartoons through the months, this is a wonderfully witty, off-the-wall account of the year's highlights, the lunacies of the modern world, and of course the Eurovision Song Contest. It's a perceptive insight, warm with Terry's distinctive voice, and a must-have for his millions of fans.