Wise often funny sometimes heartbreaking Persepolis The Story of a Childhood tells the story of Marjane Satrapi's life in Tehran from the ages of six to fourteen years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime the triumph of the Islamic Revolution & the devastating effects of war with Iraq The intelligent & outspoken child of radical Marxists & the great-grandaughter of Iran's last emperor Satrapi bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran & of the bewildering contradictions between home life & public life Amidst the tragedy Marjane's child's eye view adds immediacy & humour & her story of a childhood at once outrageous & ordinary beset by the unthinkable & yet buffered by an extraordinary & loving family is immensely moving It is also very beautiful; Satrapi's drawings have the power of the very best woodcuts Persepolis ends on a cliffhanger in 1984 just as fourteen-year-old Marjane is leaving behind her home in Tehran escaping fundamentalism & the war with Iraq to begin a new life in the West In Persepolis 2 The Story of a Return we follow our young intrepid heroine through the next eight years of her life an eye-opening & sometimes lonely four years of high school in Vienna followed by a supremely educational & heartwrenching four years back home in Iran Just as funny & heartbreaking as its predecessor
- with perhaps an even greater sense of the ridiculous inspired by life in a fundamentalist state
- Persepolis 2 is also as clear-eyed & searing in its condemnation of fundamentalism & its cost to the human spirit In its depiction of the universal trials of adolescent life & growing into adulthood
- here compounded by being an outsider both abroad & at home & by living in a state where you have no right to show your hair wear make-up run in public date or question authority
- it's raw honest & incredibly illuminating



...

CHOSEN BY EMMA WATSON FOR 'OUR SHARED SHELF' FEMINIST BOOK CLUBThe Story of a Childhood & The Story of a Return The intelligent & outspoken child of radical Marxists & the great-grandaughter of Iran's last emperor Satrapi bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran & of the bewildering contradictions between home life & public life This is a beautiful & intimate story full of tragedy & humour
- raw honest & incredibly illuminating
...

NOW A MAJOR TV SHOW ON NETFLIXPersepolis Rising is the seventh novel in the New York Times bestselling Expanse series In the thous&-sun network of humanity's expansion new colony worlds are struggling to find their way Every new planet lives on a knife-edge between collapse & wonder & the crew of the aging gunship Rocinante have their hands more than full keeping the fragile peace In the vast space between Earth & Jupiter the inner planets & the Belt have formed a tentative & uncertain alliance still haunted by a history of wars & prejudices On the lost colony world of Laconia a hidden enemy has a new vision for all of humanity & the power to enforce it New technologies clash with old as the history of human conflict returns to its ancient pattern of war & subjugation But human nature is not the only enemy & the forces being unleashed have their own price A price that will change the shape of humanity
- & of the Rocinante -unexpectedly & forever The Expanse series has sold over two million copies worldwide & is now a major television series The Expanse series Leviathan Wakes Caliban's War Abaddon's Gate Cibola Burn Nemesis Games Babylon's Ashes Persepolis Rising Praise for the Expanse ' The science fictional equivalent of A Song of Ice & Fire' NPR Books' As close as you'll get to a Hollywood blockbuster in book form' io 9com' Great characters excellent dialogue memorable fights' wiredcom' High adventure equalling the best space opera has to offer cutting-edge technology & a group of unforgettable characters Perhaps one of the best tales the genre has yet to produce' Library Journal' This is the future the way it's supposed to be' Wall Street Journal' Tense & thrilling' Sci Fi Now
...

Written just after the Second World War Perseus in the Wind (named after the constellation) is perhaps the most personal & haunting of all Freya Stark's writings She muses on the seasons the effect light has on a landscape at a particular time of day the smell of the earth after rain Muslim saints Indian temples war & old age Each chapter is devoted to a particular theme happiness (simple pleasures like her father's passion for the view from his cabin in Canada); education (to be able to command happiness recognize beauty value death increase enjoyment); beauty (incongruous flighty & elusive
- a description of the stars the burst of flowers in a park); death (a childhood awareness of the finality of time the meaningfulness of the end); memory (the jewelled quality of literature pleasure love an echo or a scent when aged by the passage of time) For those who have loved her travel writing Perseus in the Wind illuminates the motivations behind her journeys & the woman behind the traveller
...

One hundred & fourteen years & no Scottish Cup for Hibernian It could be considered the biggest curse in football Cock-up after near-miss after not-a-hope Over the years Hearts fans have even tried to get the term Hibsing it'
- to chuck away a vital game from a favourable position
- included in the dictionary Every year would come the mention of 1902 the last time Hibs had won the cup 1902 when Buffalo Bill still alive & the bra was newly invented & then came 2016 & a run all the way to the final at Hampden Hibs couldn't finally at long long last win the infernal blasted thing could they? Aidan Smith takes us on the turbulent journey that was Hibs' 2016 Scottish Cup Campaign through a season of peaks & troughs which despite everything finally delivered that elusive Cup victory Hibs fans have craved for so long

...

Machine washable Garantiee Elegant materials & wonderful details In accordance with to the most stringent safety regulations Italian Design ...

In 480 BC Xerxes the King of Persia led an invasion of mainland Greece Its success should have been a formality For seventy years victory
- rapid spectacular victory
- had seemed the birthright of the Persian Empire In the space of a single generation they had swept across the Near East shattering ancient kingdoms storming famous cities putting together an empire which stretched from India to the shores of the Aegean As a result of those conquests Xerxes ruled as the most powerful man on the planet Yet somehow astonishingly against the largest expeditionary force ever assembled the Greeks of the mainland managed to hold out The Persians were turned back Greece remained free Had the Greeks been defeated at Salamis not only would the West have lost its first struggle for independence & survival but it is unlikely that there would ever have been such & entity as the West at all Tom Holland's brilliant new book describes the very first 'clash of Empires' between East & West Once again he has found extraordinary parallels between the ancient world & our own There is no competing popular book describing these events

...

Thirty years after Xerxes invaded Greece the Achaemenid Persian Empire ended its long war with Athens For the next four decades the Persians tolerated Athenian control of their former tributaries the Ionian Greek cities of western Anatolia But during the Peloponnesian War Persia reclaimed Ionia & funded a Spartan fleet to overthrow Athenian power It took eight long years for Persia to triumph & Sparta then turned on its benefactors prompting Persia to transfer aid to Athens in the Corinthian War The peace of 386 reiterated imperial control of Ionia & compelled both Sparta & Athens to endorse a Persian promise of autonomy for Greeks outside Asia In Persian Interventions John O Hyland challenges earlier studies that assume Persia played Athens against Sparta in a defensive balancing act He argues instead for a new interpretation of Persian imperialism one involving long-term efforts to extend diplomatic & economic patronage over Greek clients beyond the northwestern frontier Achaemenid kings he asserts were less interested in Ionia for its own sake than in the accumulation of influence over Athens Sparta or both which allowed them to advertise Persia's claim to universal power while limiting the necessity of direct military commitment The slow pace of intervention resulted from logistical constraints & occasional diplomatic blunders rather than long-term plans to balance & undermine dangerous allies Persian Interventions examines this critical period in unprecedented depth providing valuable new insights for the study of Achaemenid Persia & classical Greece Its conclusions will interest not only specialists in both fields but also students of ancient & modern comparative historical imperialism ...

Are we the same I wonder when all our surroundings association acquaintances are changed? I conclude that it is not the person who danced with you at Mansfield St who writes to you today from Persia Yet there are dregs English sediment at the bottom of my sherbet & perhaps they flavour it more than I think I write to you of Persia I am not me that is my only excuse I am only I am merely pouring out for you some of what I have received in the last two months When Gertrude Bell's uncle was appointed Minister in Tehran in 1891 she declared that the great ambition of her life was to visit Persia Several months later she did & so began a lifetime of travel & a lifelong enchantment with what she saw as the romance of the East which evolved into a deep understanding of its cultures & people This vivid & impressionistic series of sketches her first foray into writing is an evocative meditation that moves between Persia's heroic past & its long decline; the public face of Tehran & the otherworldly 'secret mysterious life of the East' the lives of its women its lush enclosed gardens; from the bustling cities to the lonely wastelands of Khorasan ...

Still little known in the West Persian poetry offers extraordinary riches While celebrating the beauty of the world in poems about love wine & poetry itself or telling anecdotes of everyday life Persian poetry set these themes in the wider religious & philosophical context of Islam Omar Rumi Saadi Sanai Attar Hafez & Jami
- the great lyric & didactic poets of medieval Persia
- are all represented in this selection of translations spanning almost two hundred & fifty years

...