Sing goddess the anger of Peleus son Achilleus / & its devastation." For sixty years thats how Homer has begun the " Iliad" in English in Richmond Lattimores faithful translation--the gold standard for generations of students & general readers. This long-awaited new edition of Lattimores " Iliad" is designed to bring the book into the twenty-first century--while leaving the "poem" as firmly rooted in ancient Greece as ever. Lattimores elegant fluent verses--with their memorably phrased heroic epithets & remarkable fidelity to the Greek--remain unchanged but classicist Richard Martin has added a wealth of supplementary materials designed to aid new generations of readers. A new introduction sets the poem in the wider context of Greek life warfare society & poetry while line-by-line notes at the back of the volume offer explanations of unfamiliar terms information about the Greek gods & heroes & literary appreciation. A glossary & maps round out the book. The result is a volume that actively invites readers into Homers poem helping them to understand fully the worlds in which he & his heroes lived--and thus enabling them to marvel as so many have for centuries at Hektor & Ajax Paris & Helen & the devastating rage of Achilleus." ...

Taking the events & characters of the Iliad as his jumping- off point Dan Simmons has created an epic of time travel & savage warfare. Travellers from 40 000 years in the future return to Homers Greece & rewrite history forever their technology impacting on the population in a godlike fashion. This is broad scope space opera rich in classical & literary allusion from one of the key figures in 1990s world SF. Ilium marks a return to the genre for one of its greats. ...

This is a classic account by one of the officers who took part in one of the great escapades of WWII. In 1943 W. Stanley Moss & Patrick Leigh-Fermor both serving with Special Forces in the Middle East decided on a plan to kidnap General Kreipe Commander of the Sevastopol Division in Crete & bring him back to Allied occupied Cairo. This is the story of their adventures working with a fearsome band of partisans as they daringly capture the General in an ambush & struggle to evade pursuing German troops in the mountainous Cretan landscape to reach their rendezvous for evacuation to safety. ...

1793. John Pearce & his Pelicans are homeward bound determined to put the treacherous Captain Ralph Barclay in the dock. But first they must evacuate Toulon where the Republican Army & the threat of the guillotine wreak havoc. Pearce must keep his wits about him in order to survive. Barclay & his wife Emily are sharing the voyage home & Pearce must stay close to both
- difficult given his loathing for the captain & his feelings for Emily. Then she discovers the incriminating evidence Pearce holds against her husband papers that could destroy his career & potentially her security. Events put them in her possession. Back on British soil following a gruelling voyage the Pelicans hope their troubles are over but with the important documents missing their real concerns are just beginning. Emily holds the key but do her loyalties lie with her husband or her conscience?
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Some Weather Wardens control fire others control earth water or wind
- & the most powerful can control more than one element. Without
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Seventeen-year-old Unni has done something terrible. The only clue to his actions lies in a comic strip he has drawn which has fallen into the hands of his father Ousep
- a nocturnal anarchist with a wife who is fantasizing about his early death. Ousep begins investigating the extraordinary life of his son but as he circles closer & closer to the truth he unravels a secret that shakes his family to the core. Set in Madras in the 1990s where every adolescent male is preparing for the toughest exam in the world this is a powerful & darkly comic story involving an alcoholics probe into the minds of the sober an adolescent cartoonists dangerous interpretation of absolute truth an inner circle of talented schizophrenics & the pure love of a 12-year-old boy for a beautiful girl.
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Illumination
- the creation of elaborate decorated letters & initials
- reached its apogee in the monasteries of medieval Europe.

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The literary-philosophical works of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) rank among the most quietly influential of the post-war era though only since his death had Benjamin achieved the fame & critical currency outside his native Germany accorded him by a select few during his lifetime. Now he is widely held to have possessed one of the most acute & original minds of the Central European culture decimated by the Nazis. Illuminations contains his two most celebrated essays The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction & Theses on the Philosophy of History as well as others on the art of translation Kafka storytelling Baudelaire Brechts epic theatre Proust & an anatomy of his own obsession book collecting. The essay is Benjamins domain; those collected in this now legendary volume offer the best possible access to his singular & significant achievement. In a stimulating introduction Hannah Arendt reveals how Benjamins life & work are a prism to his times & identifies him as possessing the rare ability to think poetically. ...

Filled with sex & violence
- in & out of time & space
- the three books in this trilogy are only partly works of the imagination.

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Illusionology reveals the practical science of magic. Purportedly written in 1915 by one of Americas top scientists William Schafer the book is an expose of the tricks of the masters for new initiates of the Illusionists Guild. As well as revealing inside info about many famous tricks
- levitating a lady making things disappear & mind-reading among others
- & providing instructions it gives explanations of the science that makes the magic possible. In the course of the book we learn that Schafer has been perfecting a machine that exploits radiant matter to effect the full dematerialization of a person. On the final spread Schafer tries out the invention
- & is never seen again!


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