The Crows of Pearblossom tells the story of Mr. & Mrs. Crow, who live in a cotton-wood tree at Pearblossom, California. Due to a hungry Rattlesnake living at the bottom of the tree, Mrs. Crow's eggs disappear before they hatch. After catching the snake eating her 297th egg that year (she does not work on Sundays), Mrs. Crow tells Mr. Crow go & kill the snake. Thinking better of it, Mr. Crow confers with his wise friend, Old Man Owl. Owl bakes mud into two stone eggs & paints them to resemble Mrs. Crows eggs. These dummy eggs are left in the nest to trick the Rattlesnake, who unwisely eats them the next day, causing the Rattlesnake such pain, that he thrashes about, tying himself in knots around the branches. Mrs. Crow goes on to hatch four families of seventeen children each & uses the snake as a clothesline on which to hang the little crows' diapers. ...

Arthur Miller`s classic parable of mass hysteria draws a chilling parallel between the Salem witch-hunt of 1692
- one of the strangest
...

Based on the author`s own vivid experiences, The Cruel Sea is the nail-biting story of the crew of HMS Compass Rose, a corvette assigned to protect convoys in World War Two. Darting back & forth across the icy North Atlantic, Compass Rose played a deadly cat & mouse game with packs of German U-boats lying in wait beneath the ocean waves. Packed with tension & vivid descriptions of agonizing U-boat hunts, this tale of the most bitter & chilling campaign of the war tells of ordinary, heroic men who had to face a brutal menace which would strike without warning from the deep... ...

From the bestselling & prize-winning author of `A Brilliant Little Operation` comes the long neglected D-Day story of the largest action by the French Resistance during WWII, published to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings. In early 1941, three separate groups of plotters
- one military, one political, one intellectual
- began to organise & plan on & around the forbidding mountainous plateau near Grenoble
- the Vercors. The aims of the groups were the same: to hasten the departure of the German occupiers; to restore the pride of France after its fall & the humiliations of the puppet Vichy government which followed; & to build a new France. The overwhelming desire to get rid of the Germans would unite them. Their different views of the France they hoped for in the future would divide them. Over the next three years these sparks of resistance would grow to challenge the might of the hated German occupiers. As the Allied troops stormed the D-Day beaches, the Vercors rose up to fight the Nazis in a planned rearguard action. It was to prove not only the largest Resistance action of the entire war but also, in the severity of the German response, the most brutal crushing of resistance forces in Western Europe. For the men & women of Vercors, aided & abetted by the Free French forces of General de Gaulle & SOE operatives from London, the events on the Vercors took them on a journey from early idealism through hope, misjudgement, folly, despair, sacrifice & slaughter to a kind of cruel victory. The tragedy drew the attention of those at the highest level of the Allied war effort & placed the Vercors deep into the heart of the history of modern France in a way which resonates still in the country`s daily life & politics. Long overlooked by English language histories, this magnificent book sets the story in the context of D-Day, the muddle of politics & many misjudgements of D-Day planners in both London & Algiers, &
- most importantly
- it gives voice to the many Maquisards fighters who fought to gain a voice in their country`s future.




...

In an early series of journalistic pieces for an American magazine, Motor, F. Scott Fitzgerald described a journey he took with his wife Zelda from Connecticut to Alabama in a clapped out automobile which he called the ` Rolling Junk`. It is a piece of writing whose style, in free-ranging alternation of fact & fiction, has been compared to Jerome K. Jerome`s Three Men in a Boat. This book collects together the articles as one text, illustrated with the original illustrations of Fitzgerald, Zelda & the ` Junk`. ...

Physical map of the Holy Land from Beirut in the north to Beersheva in the south, & east to the River Jordan. The political divisions are shown as they were at the time, with the contemporary towns & holy places. Names of places are generally in French. The map also

Includes:: diagrams showing the territorial changes to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Legend

Includes:: English.



...

Released to coincide with a major BBC TV documentary series on the crusades presented by the author. In the eleventh century, a vast Christian army, summoned to holy war by the pope, rampaged through the Muslim world of the eastern Mediterranean, seizing possession of Jerusalem, a city revered by both faiths. Over the two hundred years that followed this First Crusade, Islam & the West fought for dominion of the Holy L&, clashing in a succession of chillingly brutal wars, both firm in the belief that they were at God`s work. For the first time, this book tells the story of this epic struggle from the perspective of both Christians & Muslims, reconstructing the experiences & attitudes of those on either side of the conflict. Mixing pulsing narrative & piercing insight, it exposes the full horror, passion & barbaric grandeur of the crusading era. One of the world`s foremost authorities on the subject, Thomas Asbridge offers a vivid & penetrating history of the crusades, setting a new standard for modern scholarship. Drawing upon painstaking original research & an intimate knowledge of the Near East, he uncovers what drove Muslims & Christians alike to embrace the ideals of jihad & crusade, revealing how these holy wars reshaped the medieval world & why they continue to echo in human memory to this day. ...

European & Arab versions of the Crusades have little in common. For Arabs, the twelfth & thirteenth centuries were years of strenuous efforts to repel a brutal & destructive invasion by barbarian hordes. In ” The Crusades Through Arab Eyes”, Amin Maalouf has sifted through the works of a score of contemporary Arab chroniclers of the Crusades, eyewitnesses & often participants in the events. He retells their stories in their own vivacious style, giving us a vivid portrait of a society rent by internal conflicts, & shaken by a traumatic encounter with an alien culture. He retraces two critical centuries of Middle Eastern history, & offers fascinating insights into some of the forces that shape Arab & Islamic consciousness today. ...

He`s gone. & telling the truth won`t bring him back... When a baby goes missing on a lonely roadside in Australia, it sets off a police investigation that will become a media sensation & dinner-table talk across the world. Lies, rumours & guilt snowball, causing the parents, Joanna & Alistair, to slowly turn against each other. Finally Joanna starts thinking the unthinkable: could the truth be even more terrible than she suspected? & what will it take to make things right? The Cry is a dark psychological thriller with a gripping moral dilemma at its heart & characters who will keep you guessing on every page. ” Fitzgerald is dark, clever, highly inventive”. (Lovereading.co.uk). ” Fitz Gerald excels at twisting the reader`s expectations & turning our assumptions on their heads”. (The List). ...

Elise loves the farm that is her home. There is always tea in the silver teapot, gin & tonics are served on the veranda & her days are spent listening to stories of spirits & charms told by her nanny, Beauty. As a young white girl growing up in Zimbabwe, her life is idyllic. However, this dream-world of her childhood cannot last. As Elise gets older, her eyes are opened to the complexities of adult life, both through the arrival of her step-father, & through her growing understanding of the tensions in Zimbabwean society. As the privileged existence of the white farmers begins to crumble into anarchy & farm invasions begin, Elise is forced to confront difficult choices & the ancient unforgiving ghosts of the past. ...