Paul Koudounaris` ” Empire of Death” is a dark, macabre, & intriguing look into Ossuaries & Charnel Houses. Visitors to the Paris catacombs were once greeted with a sign telling them that they were entering ”THE EMPIRE OF DEATH”, & this book goes some way in explaining why. This riveting book takes the reader on a tour of these macabre masterpieces with specially taken photographs & a commentary meticulously researched from a a variety of sources. Starting in the early modern period & continuing to the 19th century, elaborately decorated charnels, tombs & chapels were constructed with the focus on human bone.A fascinating look at a side of cultures not usually seen by all. ...

The Roman Empire was the largest & most enduring of the ancient world. From its zenith under Augustus & Trajan in the first century AD to its decline & fall amidst the barbarian invasions of the fifth century, the Empire guarded & maintained a frontier that stretched for 5, 000 kilometres, from Carlisle to Cologne, from Augsburg to Antioch, & from Aswan to the Atlantic. Far from being at the periphery of the Roman world, the frontier played a crucial role in making & breaking emperors, creating vibrant & astonishingly diverse societies along its course which pulsed with energy while the centre became enfeebled & sluggish. This remarkable new book traces the course of those frontiers, visiting all its astonishing sites, from Hadrian`s Wall in the north of Britain to the desert cities of Palmyra & Leptis Magna. It tells the fascinating stories of the men & women who lived & fought along it, from Alaric the Goth, who descended from the Danube to sack Rome in 410, to Zenobia the desert queen, who almost snatched the entire eastern provinces from Rome in the third century. It is at their edges, in time & geographical extent, that societies reveal their true nature, constantly seeking to recreate & renew themselves. In this examination of the places that the mighty Roman Empire stopped expanding, Philip Parker reveals how & why the Empire endured for so long, as well as describing the rich & complex architectural & cultural legacy which it has bequeathed to us. ...

Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) is the most important woman in Chinese history. She ruled China for decades & brought a medieval empire into the modern age. At the age of sixteen, in a nationwide selection for royal consorts, Cixi was chosen as one of the emperor`s numerous concubines & sexual partners. When he died in 1861, their five-year-old son succeeded to the throne. Cixi at once launched a palace coup against the regents appointed by her husband & made herself the real ruler of China
- behind the throne, literally, with a silk screen separating her from her officials who were all male. In this groundbreaking biography, Jung Chang vividly describes how Cixi fought against monumental obstacles to change China. Under her the ancient country attained virtually all the attributes of a modern state: industries, railways, electricity, telegraph, & an army & navy with up-to-date weaponry. It was she who abolished gruesome punishments like `death by a thousand cuts` & put an end to foot-binding. She inaugurated women`s liberation, & embarked on the path to introduce parliamentary elections to China. Jung Chang comprehensively overturns the conventional view of Cixi as a diehard conservative & cruel despot. Cixi reigned during extraordinary times & had to deal with a host of major national crises: the Taiping & Boxer Rebellions, wars with France & Japan
- & the invasion by eight allied powers including Britain, Germany, Russia & the United States. Jung Chang not only records the Empress Dowager`s conduct of domestic & foreign affairs, but also takes the reader into the depths of her splendid Summer Palace & the harem of Beijing`s Forbidden City, where she lived surrounded by eunuchs
- with one of whom she fell in love, with tragic consequences. The world Jung Chang describes here, in fascinating detail, seems almost unbelievable in its extraordinary mixture of the very old & the very new. Based on newly available, mostly Chinese, historical documents such as court records, official & private correspondence, diaries & eye-witness accounts, this biography will revolutionise historical thinking about a crucial period in China`s
- & the world`s
- history. Packed with drama, fast-paced & gripping, it is both a panoramic depiction of the birth of modern China & an intimate portrait of a woman: as the concubine to a monarch, as the absolute ruler of a third of the world`s population, & as a unique stateswoman.




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In the captivating stories that make up ” The Empty Family” Colm Toibin delineates with a tender & unique sensibility lives of unspoken or unconscious longing, of individuals, often willingly, cast adrift from their history. `I imagined lamplight, shadows, soft voices, clothes put away, the low sound of late news on the radio. & I thought as I crossed the bridge at Baggot Street to face the last stretch of my own journey home that no matter what I had done, I had not done that.` From the young Pakistani immigrant who seeks some kind of permanence in a strange town to the Irish woman reluctantly returning to Dublin & discovering a city that refuses to acknowledge her long absence each of Toibin`s stories manage to contain whole worlds: stories of fleeing the past & returning home, of family threads lost & ultimately regained. ” Exquisite... The chief reason to read these stories is the peculiar power of Colm Toibin`s prose”. (” Telegraph”). ” Astonishingly precise, depicting complex & conflicted states of mind with rare clarity”. (” Observer”). ” Beautifully observed”. (” Sunday Times”). Colm Toibin was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of five other novels, including ” Brooklyn”, ” The Blackwater Lightship” & ” The Master”, both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize, & a collection of stories, ” Mothers & Sons”. ...

The Empty Stocking is a brilliantly funny Christmas story by Richard Curtis & Rebecca Cobb. In this fantastically funny & heartwarming story by Richard Curtis, scriptwriter of Four Weddings & a Funeral & Love Actually, it`s Christmas Eve & there`s one very important question on everyone`s mind
- have you been good this year? For twins Sam & Charlie this is a big worry. Charlie has been especially naughty & everyone is sure that she won`t get any presents at all. But when Santa makes a mistake, it`s up to Charlie to put things right... Richard Curtis is an award-winning & international film-director & scriptwriter, & the creator of Four Weddings & a Funeral, Love Actually, Notting Hill & Mr Bean. Rebecca Cobb graduated from Falmouth College of Arts in 2004. She has collaborated with the Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson & Orange-Prize-winner Helen Dunmore. Rebecca has been shortlisted for the 2013 Waterstones Prize & the prestigious Kate Greenaway Award.
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With an introduction by Brenda Bowen. A notice in The Times addressed to ` Those Who Appreciate Wistaria & Sunshine` advertises a `small medieval Italian Castle to be let for the month of April`. Four very different women take up the offer: Mrs Wilkins & Mrs Arbuthnot, both fleeing unappreciative husbands; beautiful Lady Caroline, sick of being `grabbed` by lovesick men; & the imperious, ageing Mrs Fisher. On the shores of the Mediterranean, beauty, warmth & leisure weave their spell, & nothing will ever be the same again. Published alongside a modern version of the same story entitled Enchanted August. ...

Originally penned as a travelogue, Melville's writings form a series of evocative sketches of each of these equatorial islands. Recounting their myths & stories of old, he conjures up the spirit of each in astonishing detail. Read together they create a timeless classic, perfectly capturing the islands' eternal charm & mystery. ...

Leskov`s stories of Russian life are explosions of imagination. Peopled by outsized characters including serfs, princes, Gypsy girls, horse dealers, nomadic Tartars & garrulous storytellers, Leskov`s writing exuberantly fables the national character of his age. For the first time, Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky`s translation brings Leskov`s original storytelling & irresistible voice to life. ...

A deluxe hardback edition of this classic & magical Blyton adventure
- the perfect gift for every child! When Joe, Beth & Frannie
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*LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2008* From one of the world’s most famous living authors, Salman Rushdie, comes The Enchantress of Florence, a tale of historical intrigue, love & power. Longlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize, “ The Enchantress of Florence” may repeat the success of Midnight’s Children, Rushdie’s 1981 novel, recently voted the greatest Booker-winning novel in the award’s 40-year history. In The Enchantress of Florence, a tall, yellow-haired young European traveller calling himself ` Mogor dell’ Amore`, the Mughal of Love, arrives at the court of the real Grand Mughal, the Emperor Akbar, with a tale to tell that begins to obsess the whole imperial capital. The stranger claims to be the child of a lost Mughal princess, the youngest sister of Akbar’s grandfather Babar: Qara Köz, ` Lady Black Eyes`, a great beauty believed to possess powers of enchantment & sorcery, who is taken captive first by an Uzbeg warlord, then by the Shah of Persia, & finally becomes the lover of a certain Argalia, a Florentine soldier of fortune, commander of the armies of the Ottoman Sultan. When Argalia returns home with his Mughal mistress the city is mesmerized by her presence, & much trouble ensues. The Enchantress of Florence is the story of a woman attempting to command her own destiny in a man’s world. It brings together two cities that barely know each other
- the hedonistic Mughal capital, in which the brilliant emperor wrestles daily with questions of belief, desire & the treachery of sons, & the equally sensual Florentine world of powerful courtesans, humanist philosophy & inhuman torture, where Argalia’s boyhood friend “il Machia”
- Niccolò Machiavelli
- is learning, the hard way, about the true brutality of power. These two worlds, so far apart, turn out to be uncannily alike, & the enchantments of women hold sway over them both. But is Mogor’s story true? & if so, then what happened to the lost princess? & if he’s a liar, must he die?


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