In addition to being a great composer, Igor Stravinsky was one of the most fascinating personalities of his time. His life spanned an amazing range of events & places
- pre-revolutionary Russia, Europe in the years between the wars, & the United States between 1941 & his death in 1971. Such masterworks as The Firebird, Petrushka, The Rite of Spring & many others fixed his reputation as a leading composer; his friendships
- & often enmities
- with most of his great intellectual contemporaries were famous. His personal life, which involved a double life between his official family & his mistress, was seldom placid. Touchy, unpredictable, witty & unfailingly brilliant, he is an ideal subject for a deeply informed & sophisticated biography. The first volume of this definitive biography covers Stravinsky's life & work from his birth in 1882 through to 1934, with special focus on his Russian roots & his struggles to make his way in Switzerland & France. It draws upon a great deal of new material, including unpublished archival sources, to illuminate the genius of both the music & Stravinsky the man.


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Igor has a loud & distinctive voice, & he cannot sing in tune. He is drummed out of the Dawn Chorus for not being musical enough, so he takes singing lessons. But his teacher says that not only is he always out of tune, he has no rhythm either. Poor Igor. He goes off into the desert, where at least he can sing to himself without being asked to stop. He builds a nest on a big rock, & starts to sing. But the rock is in fact a gigantic bird
- a Dodo!
- who likes his music so much it wakes up in order to join in.

...

Igor has a loud & distinctive voice, & he cannot sing in tune. He is drummed out of the Dawn Chorus for not being musical enough, so he takes singing lessons. But his teacher says that not only is he always out of tune, he has no rhythm either. Poor Igor. He goes off into the desert, where at least he can sing to himself without being asked to stop. He builds a nest on a big rock, & starts to sing. But the rock is in fact a gigantic bird
- a Dodo!
- who likes his music so much it wakes up in order to join in.

...

When MI5 intelligence officer Liz Carlyle learns of a Russian government plot to kill super-rich Nikita Brunovsky
- a man who openly
...

Liz Carlyle has been transferred to Counter-Espionage, along with her research sidekick Peggy Kingsolving. Once the hub of MI5 operations, the department has been reduced in size since the end of the Cold War, & priority within the service is on counter-terrorism.

Yet there is plenty for Liz to do. In fact, there are more spies operating in London today than during the height of East-West hostilities. This

Includes:: Russian spies, who continue to operate in number. What



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Any newspaper anywhere in the world, any day, carries news about illegal migrants, drug busts, smuggled weapons, laundered money, or counterfeit goods The intense media coverage devoted to the war on terrorism has helped to obscure the other new wars of globalisation. Illicit international trade pits governments against agile, well-financed networks of highly dedicated individuals. Religious zeal or political goals drive terrorists, but profit is no less a motivator for murder, mayhem, & global insecurity than religious fanaticism.

Illicit is the first book to reveal the full scale of this dark underground. It uncovers the connections between illegal industries & shows how they join forces to breed new lines of business, feed off political instability, foster violence & enable terrorism. How do pirated movies or CD's find their way to illegal markets worldwide even before they are released? & how, in our free, modern world, have over 30 million women & children

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Vonny lives on the island of Martha's Vineyard with her husband Andre & son Simon. Their neighbour Elizabeth, a woman in her seventies, falls from an upstairs window & her granddaughter Jody is summoned to nurse her through her convalescence. So the players are assembled for a magical story of love & loneliness, of terror & human frailty, of the mystery & grace of ordinary experience. Alice Hoffman's ability to fuse the domestic & the mythic in a narrative of such gentle yet magnetic force confirms her stature as one of the most gifted of American novelists. ...

Isabel Merton is a renowned concert pianist whose playing is marked by rare intensity. At the height of her career, she feels increasingly torn between the expressive musical realm she inhabits, & the fragmented life she leads as an itinerant artist, with its frequent flights, anonymous hotels & arbitrary encounters.
Then Isabel meets Anzor Islikhanov, a political exile from war-torn Chechnya driven by a powerful desire to help & avenge his people. As their paths cross in several cities, they are drawn to each other
...

The literary-philosophical works of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) rank among the most quietly influential of the post-war era, though only since his death had Benjamin achieved the fame & critical currency outside his native Germany accorded him by a select few during his lifetime. Now he is widely held to have possessed one of the most acute & original minds of the Central European culture decimated by the Nazis. Illuminations contains his two most celebrated essays, ' The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' & ' Theses on the Philosophy of History', as well as others on the art of translation, Kafka, storytelling, Baudelaire, Brecht's epic theatre, Proust & an anatomy of his own obsession, book collecting. The essay is Benjamin's domain; those collected in this now legendary volume offer the best possible access to his singular & significant achievement. In a stimulating introduction, Hannah Arendt reveals how Benjamin's life & work are a prism to his times, & identifies him as possessing the rare ability to think poetically. ...

Isabel Merton is a renowned concert pianist, whose playing is marked by rare intensity, & for whom each performance is a plunge into the compelling world of the music. At the height of her career, she feels increasingly torn between the expressive musical realm she inhabits, & the fragmented life she leads as an itinerant artist, with its frequent flights, anonymous hotels & fortuitous, arbitrary encounters.

Away from her New York home on a European tour, Isabel meets Anzor Islikhanov, a political exile from war-torn Chechnya driven by a bitter sense of injustice & a powerful desire to help & avenge his people. As their paths cross in several cities, they are drawn to each other both by their differences, & their seemingly parallel passions

...