This deeply engaging book introduces the reader to the creative chaos of the tiny Parisian studio of the great sculptor Alberto Giacometti from the moment he & his brother Diego arrived in 1927 with all their possessions in a wheelbarrow until Alberto's death in 1966. Michael Peppiatt relates how the artist first worked there as a member of the Surrealist movement & then how he gradually made his mark on Paris' artistic literary & intellectual worlds. After an enforced wartime exile in Geneva in a miserable hotel he returned to Paris & to the same broken-down little shed of a studio behind Montparnasse where he struggled to realize his pared-down vision of mankind & which became a magnet for many of the great artists & writers of the time (from Picasso & Braque to Balthus from Breton & Genet to Beckett). Peppiatt prefaces his story with a poignant personal narrative of how as a young man he arrived in Paris with an introduction from Francis Bacon to Giacometti; the encounter was forestalled by the artist's very recent death but Peppiatt instead got to know the key people in Giacometti's world. He explains how the studio now dismantled seems to be both Giacometti's most important artwork encompassing countless complete or unfinished works & the archive of years of struggle. With Giacometti's death it became his greatest achievement containing as it did the traces of a lifetime's search for truth. This vivid exploration of one of the most evocative & influential spaces in 20th-century art connects us with both a unique career & an entire outstanding moment in French culture. ...

Film is a communal dream in which our fears & fantasies are revealed. It has influenced our behaviour intertwined with our politics helped to forge national identity galvanise communities against a wartime enemy or warn of social upheaval. It has burrowed deep into our psyche changing perceptions of history & memory & even raised our romantic expectations. Despite decades of rapid change we are still hypnotised & seduced by the power of cinema; it remains our most persuasive mass entertainment. In this fascinating entertaining & illuminating book Francine Stock takes us on a personal journey through a glorious century of cinema from the Lumiere brothers flickering train to the 3D excesses of Avatar showing in vivid detail how film both reflects & remakes our world. ...

Denounced by the Vatican as 'fanciful & absurd' this classic of investigative reporting is now available in a new revised edition. Yallop's ground-breaking investigation into Pope John Paul I's death just 33 days after his election is a tale of intrigue murder & corruption. It reveals the dark heart of the Vatican via a trail of evidence that connects the papacy the masons Opus Dei & the mafia. ...

This ambitious interdisciplinary book seeks to explain the origins of religion using our knowledge of the evolution of cognition. A cognitive anthropologist & psychologist Scott Atran argues that religion is a by-product of human evolution just as the cognitive intervention cultural selection & historical survival of religion is an accommodation of certain existential & moral elements that have evolved in the human condition. ...

I dont feel sorry for myself. Today everything is all right. I look at it is this way it cant ever be as bad as it was then.... Sean Hogan was just eight years old when he was confined in the notorious Artane Industrial School under the brutal regime of the Christian Brothers. In & out of care throughout his childhood Sean was so badly neglected by his alcoholic parents that he never even knew what day his birthday fell on or how old he was
- things he only learned as an adult. But when he arrived at Artane instead of receiving the care he so desperately needed he entered into months of horrific sexual abuse at the hands of some of the brothers. Now for the first time he feels able to tell his story
- & reveal the devastating truth of what really happened in Irelands industrial schools. In Harms Way" is a powerful & moving story of astonishing hardship & near despair but also of triumph over terrible adversity."

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What would you do if your past came back to haunt you? This is a dark thrilling novel for fans of Kate Morton & Victoria Hislop. From the author of The Screts Between Us part of the 2012 Richard & Judy Summer Reads comes this dark thrilling novel that is perfect for your book group. It's set twenty years ago against a backdrop of dreamy Cornish summers a place where childhood friendship becomes young love where love becomes obsession & where obsession ultimately ends in betrayal & a tragic death. This magical novel traces a web of memories back through the years from the present day ultimately showing that no matter how much you might try to forget the past the past never forgets you... ...

Its an impossibly difficult & painful time; someone you love has just died & you have very quickly to choose an appropriate & moving reading for the funeral. In an increasingly secular age people often look for a poem or piece of prose which will celebrate the life of the person who has just died & as well as inspiring religious poems Sally Emersons anthology

Includes:: secular words of comfort celebration & mourning. This is also an anthology in its own right & offers insight into universal emotions. These pieces will help to express grief & anger but also help to understand grieving & the gradual repair of life after losing a loved one.

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Bruce Stevens is a young buyer for a big discount house when he meets the recently divorced Susan Faine. She suggests that he might like to manage her ailing typewriter store & he leaps at the suggestion. Then he realizes that Susan was his teacher when he was in fifth grade. In spite of that they are married within days. & then the odd compulsions & instabilities start to interfere with their plans. Milton Lumky the paper salesman in whose area they live is uneasy about their future.. . ...

Concentrating upon her family & their life in Holland before the war this inspiring & revealing book describes in moving detail living above the family watch shop in Harlem & her memories of the family together before their lives changed for ever with the advent of war & persecution. Corrie believed that this life helped prepare them for carrying out God's work later & gave her the strength to survive the war brutal hardship & persecution & begin her worldwide ministry. This much loved book is being re-issued in B format with a contemporary cover. ...

Turn the colourful pages of this irresistible board book to discover just what makes a little bunnys meadow so happy. Is it the soft grass? Is it the bubbling stream? No its his family! Bright pictures a sweet reassuring message & an adorable finger puppet fill this book with reading & playtime fun. ...