`I started reading this & couldn`t stop. It`s a remarkable piece of work, & very revealing. A stirring rendition of a people`s revolution`- Noam Chomsky ` The deepest & most comprehensive account of Egypt`s revolution in the English language`
- Paul Mason Egypt is a nation in turmoil, caught in a cycle of revolution & counter-revolution. In The Egyptians: A Radical Story, Jack Shenker uncovers the historical roots of today`s unrest & reveals a land divided between two irreconcilable political orders: authoritarian power & grassroots resistance. Challenging conventional analyses that focus only on the battle between Islamists & secular forces, he travels the Arab World`s most populous country to explore other, far more important fault lines
- the communities waging war against transnational corporations, the people subverting long-established gender norms, the workers seizing control of their factories, & the novelists, graffiti artists & back-alley DJs defying their repressive regime. Showing that the revolution was no isolated episode but rather part of an ongoing struggle against state authority & economic exclusion, Shenker explains why recent events are so threatening to elites both inside Egypt & abroad. While Egyptian rulers seek to eliminate dissent, seeded within the politics of the young generation are forms of democracy, social justice & resistance that could yet change the world.

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From award-winning journalist Jack Shenker, The Egyptians is the essential book about Egypt & radical politics. In early 2011, Cairo`s Tahrir Square briefly commanded the attention of the world. Half a decade later, the international media has largely moved on from Egypt`s explosive cycles of revolution & counter-revolution
- but the Arab World`s most populous nation remains as volatile as ever, its turmoil intimately bound up with forms of authoritarian power & grassroots resistance that stretch right across the globe. In The Egyptians: A Radical Story, Jack Shenker uncovers the roots of the uprising that succeeded in toppling Hosni Mubarak, one of the Middle East`s most entrenched dictators, & explores a country now divided between two irreconcilable political orders. Challenging conventional analyses that depict contemporary Egypt as a battle between Islamists & secular forces, The Egyptians illuminates other, far more important fault lines: the far-flung communities waging war against transnational corporations, the men & women fighting to subvert long-established gender norms, the workers dramatically seizing control of their own factories, & the cultural producers (novelists, graffiti artists & illicit bedroom DJs) appropriating public space in defiance of their repressive & increasingly violent western-backed regime. Situating the Egyptian revolution in its proper context
- not as an isolated event, but as an ongoing popular struggle against a certain model of state authority & economic exclusion that is replicated in different forms around the world
- The Egyptians explains why the events of the past five years have proved so threatening to elites both inside Egypt & abroad. As Egypt`s rulers seek to eliminate all forms of dissent, seeded within the rebellious politics of Egypt`s young generation are big ideas about democracy, sovereignty, social justice & resistance that could yet change the world.


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From the start of its construction in 1887 until the flag was raised on the lightning rod at the top in 1889, the Eiffel Tower was a magnet for eager photographers. This landmark was photographed over & over again throughout the building process. Louis-Emile Durandelle`s pictures, structured by tracery, triangles & pyramids, emphasize the Tower`s form, while Henri Rivi, re produced tightly-composed high & low-angle shots of men working on the girders. Alongside them is the work of many other professional & amateur photographers documenting the Tower`s journey to completion & beyond. Around 1905, from a balcony in the Avenue du Trocad, ro, Gabriel Lopp, captured the tower striped with lightning flashes on a stormy night. In the 1930s, its geometrical forms inspired the near-abstract shots of German photo-journalist Else Thalemann. In the 1923 surreal classic Paris qui dort Ren, Clair placed his characters at the very top of the tower; he made a documentary about the landmark six years lat ...

In the 1960s, an American named John Harlin II changed the face of Alpine climbing. Harlin successfully summitted some of the most treacherous mountains in Europe. But it was the North Face of the Eiger that became Harlin`s obsession. John Harlin III was nine years old when his father put together a terrific team for an ill-fated direct ascent of the notorious Eiger. When Harlin`s rope broke, 2, 000 feet from the summit, he plummeted 4, 000 feet to his death. In the shadow of tragedy, young John Harlin III came of age possessed with the very same passion for risk that drove his father. For years, he successfully denied the siren call of the mountain that killed his father. But in 2005, John Harlin could resist no longer. With his daughter, Siena
- his very age at the time of his father`s death
- & with an IMAX Theatre filmmaking crew watching, he set off towards the Eiger. This is an unforgettable story about fathers & sons, climbers & mountains, & dreamers who dare to challenge the earth.

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* Winner of the 2017 Strega Prize, the Strega Giovani Prize & the Prix Medicis etranger* The international sensation about two young Italian boys from different backgrounds who meet in the mountains every summer, & the men they grow to become. Pietro, a lonely city boy, spends his childhood summers in a secluded valley in the Alps. Bruno, the cowherd son of a local stonemason, knows the mountains intimately. Together they spend many summers exploring the mountains` meadows & peaks, discovering the similarities & differences in their lives. As time passes, the two boys come to find the true meaning of friendship & camaraderie even as their paths diverge, Bruno`s in the mountains & Pietro`s in cities across the globe. A modern Italian masterpiece, The Eight Mountains is a lyrical coming-of-age story spanning three decades; a novel about the power of male friendships & a meditation on loyalty, being in nature, & finding one`s place in the world. ...

One Day: Saturday 13 July 1985, nearly two billion people woke up with one purpose. Nearly a third of humanity knew where they were going to be that day. Watching, listening to, attending: Live Aid. One Decade: Britain in the Eighties was different. The culture was different, the politics were different, & our engagement with the world was different. & it was just one day in 1985 that showed how different it was. In One Day, One Decade Dylan Jones tells the story of the Eighties through that day at Wembley, sweeping backwards to the end of the Seventies, & forward to the start of the Nineties. It draws on his personal reminiscences & perspective of music, media, fashion, politics & all forms of pop culture to frame the decade. This is a big book but not a exhaustive & dry social history. Live Aid was the decade`s pinch point, when a nation`s attitudes & expectations were somehow captured & changed forever. The author suggests that before Live Aid, Britain was one place, & after Live Aid it was another. Britain in the Eighties was a juxtaposition of militancy & profligacy, a country where industry was being broken down, societies were being demolished, & unemployment became an inevitable lifestyle choice: yet the Eighties was also the apotheosis of pop culture, a decade where entertainment, opinion & subjectivity were more important than ever before. Dylan Jones was at the heart of the 1980s editing the seminal magazines i-D & The Face. He was one of the Blitz Kids & was both a commentator & one of the style-makers of the time. This is a controversial book, a story told from the inside by one who was at the centre of events. ...

Map No. 759, The Elbe
- Elster Land
- Niederlausitzer Heidelandschaft, in a series of hiking maps from Kompass providing extensive

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Part of a new series Legends from the Ancient North, The Elder Edda is one of the classic books that influenced JRR Tolkien`s The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings. ”I was in the East, battling giants, wicked-hearted women, who wandered the fells; great would be the giant-race, if they all lived: mankind would be nothing under, middle-earth. What did you do meantime, Grey-beard?” (J.R.R). Tolkien spent much of his life studying, translating & teaching the great epic stories of northern Europe, filled with heroes, dragons, trolls, dwarves & magic. He was hugely influential for his advocacy of Beowulf as a great work of literature &, even if he had never written The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings, would be recognised today as a significant figure in the rediscovery of these extraordinary tales. Legends from the Ancient North brings together from Penguin Classics five of the key works behind Tolkien`s fiction. They are startling, brutal, strange pieces of writing, with an elemental power brilliantly preserved in these translations. They plunge the reader into a world of treachery, quests, chivalry, trials of strength. They are the most ancient narratives that exist from northern Europe & bring us as near as we will ever get to the origins of the magical landscape of Middle-earth (Midgard) which Tolkien remade in the 20th century. ...

Can this shocking new feeling be love, or is it electrickery? In a lowly side-show fair in eighteenth-century Engl&, teenager Mim is struggling to find her worth as an act. Not white, but not black enough to be truly exotic, her pet parrot who speaks four languages is a bigger draw than her. But Alex, the one-armed boxer boy, sees her differently. & she, too, feels newly interested in him. But then Dr Fox arrives with his scientific kit for producing `electrickery`
- feats of electrical magic these bawdy audiences have never seen before. To complete his act, Fox chooses Mim to play the ` Electrical Venus`. Her popularity
- & the electric-shocking kisses she can provide for a penny
- mean takings are up, slop is off the menu & this spark between her & Fox must surely be love. But is this starring role her true worth, or is love worth more than a penny for an electrifying kiss? An intoxicating & atmospheric coming of age story set in the filth & thrill of a travelling show during the height of the Georgian Enlightenment.


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Rene is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building. She maintains a carefully constructed persona as someone uncultivated but reliable, in keeping with what she feels a concierge should be. But beneath this facade lies the real Rene: passionate about culture & the arts, & more knowledgeable in many ways than her employers with their outwardly successful but emotionally void lives. Down in her lodge, apart from weekly visits by her one friend Manuela, Rene lives with only her cat for company. Meanwhile, several floors up, twelve-year-old Paloma Josse is determined to avoid the pampered & vacuous future laid out for her, & decides to end her life on her thirteenth birthday. But unknown to them both, the sudden death of one of their privileged neighbours will dramatically alter their lives forever. By turns moving & hilarious, this unusual novel became the top-selling book in France in 2007. ...