The sequel to the book The Pillars of the Earth. ... A childhood lost. 1327 and four children slip away from the cathedral city of Kingsbridge. It is All Hallow's Day and their lives are forever changed when they see two men-at-arms killed. At the behest of the man responsible they vow never to speak of it again. A never-forgotten secret. Lives forever entwined, one boy travels the world, one eye always on Kingsbridge; the other becomes a powerful, corrupt nobleman. One girl defies the might of the medieval church; whilst the other pursues an impossible love. As ambition, love, greed and revenge reign, those living ... |
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A mason with a dream. 1135 and civil war, famine and religious strife abound. With his family on the verge of starvation, mason Tom Builder dreams of the day that he can use his talents to create and build a cathedral like no other. A monk with a burning mission. Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, is resourceful, but with money scarce he knows that for his town to survive it must find a way to thrive, and so he makes the decision to build within it the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has ever known. A world of high ideals and savage cruelty. As Tom and Philip meet so begins an epic tale of ambition, anarchy and absolute ... |
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After years of fierce battle, the Emperor Charlemagne's army is finally on the brink of victory over the Saracens in Spain. Having proposed his stepfather Ganelon for the perilous task of serving as Charlemagne's envoy in the negotiations over the surrender of the Saracen king Marsile, Count Roland gets a taste of his own medicine when, with peace secured, Ganelon suggests that Roland should lead the rearguard of the army on the difficult return journey over the mountain passes to France. Yet Marsile's forces are massing, and Roland is unaware of just how deep Ganelon's treachery runs. Probably written ... |
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If I told you that I'd killed a man with a glance, would you wait to hear the rest? The why, the how, what happened next? Monster. Man-hater. Murderess. Forget everything you've been told about Medusa. Internationally bestselling author Jessie Burton flips the script in this astonishing retelling of Greek myth, illuminating the woman behind the legend at last. Exiled to a far-flung island after being abused by powerful Gods, Medusa has little company other than the snakes that adorn her head instead of hair. Haunted by the memories of a life before everything was stolen from her, she has no choice but to make ... |
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The unnamed narrator of the novel, a former government official, has decided to retire from the world and lead a life of inactivity and contemplation. His fiercely bitter, cynical and witty monologue ranges from general observations and philosophical musings to memorable scenes from his own life, including his obsessive plans to exact revenge on an officer who has shown him disrespect and a dramatic encounter with a prostitute. Seen by many as the first existentialist novel and showcasing the best of Dostoevsky's dry humour, Notes from Underground was a pivotal moment in the development of modern literature and has ... |
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer charts the escapades of a thirteen-year-old boy growing up on the banks of the Mississippi. Testing the patience of his aunt Polly, the bold and sharp-witted Tom Sawyer frequently skips school in search of excitement, and the scrapes he gets into with his friend Huckleberry Finn range from innocent japes to more serious events such as the witnessing of a murder. One of the most popular and influential American novels, Mark Twain's masterpiece is at the same time a highly entertaining romp which celebrates youth and freedom and a more profound investigation of his times, touching on ... |
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Controversial, scandalous, erudite and funny, Ulysses is undisputedly a landmark of twentieth-century modernism. It charts one day - 16th June 1904 - in the lives of three inhabitants of Dublin: the advertising salesman Leopold Bloom, the artist Stephen Dedalus and Bloom's wife Molly. Their peregrinations, thoughts and encounters form the basis of the narrative, which becomes a celebration of all human experience through the lives of specific individuals in a specific place at a specific time. Ulysses is both an experimental novel and a book intimately concerned with the events of modern life. A lively repository of ... |
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"Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." Blind, broken by the death of his wife and bitterly disappointed by the Restoration, Milton dictated his sweeping biblical epic Paradise Lost to a series of helpers. While the struggle between God and Satan rages across the cosmos, the human tragedy of Adam and Eve - the temptation and fall - is movingly depicted in language unsurpassed in its musicality and beauty. A staggering and audacious undertaking - seeking, in Milton's words, to justify the ways of God to men - Paradise Lost has been revered since its initial publication, inspiring writers from Mary ... |
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Dorian Gray is having his picture painted by Basil Hallward, who is charmed by his looks. But when Sir Henry Wotton visits and seduces Dorian into the worship of youthful beauty with an intoxicating speech, Dorian makes a wish he will live to regret: that all the marks of age will now be reflected in the portrait rather than on Dorian's own face. The stage is now set for a masterful tale about appearance, reality, art, life, truth, fiction and the burden of conscience. Oscar Wilde's only full-length novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray is a lasting gem of sophisticated wit and playfulness, which brings together ... |
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Based on lectures given at Cambridge colleges and first published by the Hogarth Press in 1929, A Room of One's Own is an extended essay about the predicament of female writers and a stirring call for autonomy and recognition. As well as settling scores with reactionary critics and laying the foundations of a history of women's literature, the text is also a triumph of imagination, with a celebrated passage envisaging the fate of a fictional sister of Shakespeare's. A seminal, widely studied feminist polemic that touches on both literature and politics, A Room of One's Own is essential reading for those ... |
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This thesis is the result of research on the 13th-century dream journal of the Buddhist monk Myōe (1173 - 1232), founder and principal of Kōzan-ji temple (⾼⼭寺) in Kyoto. Why are the dream records of this Buddhist monk so important? Myōe was an influential priest in his time. However, his dream records, known under the title Yumeki 夢記, had not been accorded much attention in the past. Yet in recent years, a thorough study of the Kōzan-ji Temple's art collection has revealed evidence concerning their value in understanding the metaphysical world of this monk, as ... |
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This book is the result of several journeys from Sofia to Prague in the 1990s. It's based on the notes I kept during my travels. The borders had just opened, people were emigrating en masse, I stayed behind. That was my first time leaving the prison of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, and I traveled by bus. A journey out into the world and into myself. I discovered Prague, though the search for myself continues. Sometimes Prague is here, sometimes it is there, and the same is true for Sofia."Where would you like to go? Out into the world. It's not a question of the direction, but of the journey itself, ... |