Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free. Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear. It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire's impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They've seen what happens to those who do. But when Laia's brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for ... |
|
|
Wilde's only novel, first published in 1890, is a brilliantly designed puzzle, intended to tease conventional minds with its exploration of the myriad interrelationships between art, life, and consequence. From its provocative Preface, challenging the reader to believe in 'art for art's sake', to its sensational conclusion, the story self-consciously experiments with the notion of sin as an element of design. Yet Wilde himself underestimated the consequences of his experiment, and its capacity to outrage the Victorian establishment. Its words returned to haunt him in his court appearances in 1895, and he ... |
|
|
Complete and unabridged. A pocket sized book - 10 x 15.5 cm. ... Lily Bart is twenty-nine, beautiful and charming. She has expensive tastes, loves to gamble and socializes with the wealthy upper-class families of New York. But her meagre finances are dwindling and her place in society is slipping away from her. Her only hope of security is to find a suitable husband. However, Lily has an independence of spirit that stands in the way of her committing to the suitors available to her. As her options diminish, her friends become her enemies and her situation grows increasing perilous. In "The House of Mirth", ... |
|
|
An Anthology of Plants, Gardens and Gardeners Selected and edited by Elizabeth Jane Howard. ... Elizabeth Jane Howard, acclaimed author of the Cazalet Chronicles, once said that she would certainly have been a gardener had she not become a writer first. In Green Shades: An Anthology of Plants, Gardens and Gardeners, she brings together a diverse and fascinating selection of garden writing that spans the centuries, the seasons and the species. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library ; a series of stunning, pocket-sized classics with ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book ... |
|
|
With an introduction by Rachel Cusk. Complete and unabridged. A pocket sized book - 10 x 15.5 cm. ... Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Age of Innocence", is both a poignant story of frustrated love and an extraordinarily vivid, delightfully satirical record of a vanished world. Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library ; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features an introduction by award-winning novelist, Rachel Cusk. As the scion ... |
|
|
In traditional societies, the individual exists only as far as taking its place in a group, a place that is often destined from birth in a social hierarchy. It is governed by the collective beliefs, rules and norms shared by all present that are not in dispute, because they come "from above" - transcendence based on social connections and "pre" - mythical past and valuable. The modern man of the XXI-the century chooses his preferred beliefs and values in a pluralistic world, where conflicting values co-exist and are subject to the critique of reason. The past is no longer a perfect world, ... |
|
|
A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War and the Evolution of Us. ... What makes us human? Waging war? Sex for pleasure? Creating art? Mastery of fire? In this thrilling tour of the animal kingdom, Adam Rutherford tells the story of how we became the unique creatures we are today. Illuminated by the latest scientific discoveries, THE BOOK OF HUMANS is a dazzling compendium of what unequivocally fixes us as animals, and reveals how we are extraordinary among them."Charming, compelling." Peter Frankopan "Intriguing... entertaining." Observer "This superbly accessible discussion about who we ... |
|
|
Because the missing pieces matter. ... Angie considers herself unremarkable. She likes history and science, running hard, grilled cheese with burned edges. But today, everything will change. A photo in an old box, in a drawer. Of her teenage mother with a boy she's never seen before - and yet Angie knows instantly that it's her father. The father who died before she was born. But Angie begins to understand that there are things she has not been told. Things that Angie now needs to know, more than anything. And so she sets off in search of her father's story. Her mother's story. And her own story. Because, ... |
|
|
Complete and unabridged. A pocket sized book - 10 x 15.5 cm. ... It is 1941 and bombs have turned London into the front line of a world war. In the shadows of the Blitz, Hitler's agents are running a blackmail operation to obtain documents that could bring the nation to instant defeat. Arthur Rowe, a man once convicted of a notorious mercy killing, stumbles onto a German spy operation in Bloomsbury and must be silenced. But even with his memory taken from him, he is still a very dangerous witness. A taut thriller and a haunting exploration of pity, love, and guilt, The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene is ... |
|
|
To the outside world Alice, Jake and Harry have little in common. Alice is a social outsider: reclusive, middle-aged, and with only 850,000 honeybees for company. Jake, following an accident at a high school party, is grappling with life in a wheelchair and dashed dreams of music school. And Harry is an aimless twenty-four-year-old suffering from debilitating social anxiety. But when Alice nearly crashes her pick-up truck, packed with thousands of honeybees, into Jake, the last thing she expects is to find that Jake has a gift: he can hear her bees buzzing as a form of music. And when Harry also arrives at Alice's ... |
|
|
Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure. This elegant edition features an afterword by Dr Keith Carabine, specialist in American literature and former chair of the Joseph Conrad society. One night on the Thames, Charles Marlowe tells his fellow sailors the vivid and brutal tale of his time as a riverboat captain in the Belgian Congo. From the mists of London we are whisked to the darkness of Africa's colonial heart - and into the thrall of the ... |
|
|
When her father dies just before her eighteen birthday, Aderyn inherits the role of Protector of Atratys, a dominion in a kingdom where nobles can transform into birds. Aderyn's ancestral bird is a swan. But she has not been able to transform for years, not since witnessing the death of her mother. Aderyn must venture into the malevolent heart of the Citadel in order to seek the truth about the attack that killed her mother and to fight for the land she has vowed to protect. An epic story about broken loyalties, hidden secrets and daring courage. "Together, the transformed nobles follow the blazing boat out to ... |
