A novel that fearlessly explores the line between principled defiance & blind fanaticism John Steinbecks In Dubious Battle" contains an introduction & notes by Warren French in " Penguin Modern Classics". This book is brutal. I wanted to be merely a recording consciousness Steinbeck said of " In Dubious Battle" which aroused immense controversy when first published in 1936. It follows the fortunes of Jim Nolan disenfranchised & alone his family destroyed by the system. Desperate to find his place in the world Jim joins the Communist Party & becomes entangled in a strike of migrant workers which spirals out of control unflinchingly detailing the apocalyptic violence that breaks out when the masses become the mob. This fast-paced compelling novel is at once a brilliant observation of social & political turmoil & a moving story of a young mans struggle for identity. " In Dubious Battle" explores & dramatises many of the ideas & themes key to Steinbecks writing. John Steinbeck (1902-68) winner of the Pulitzer Prize & the Nobel Prize for literature is remembered as one of the greatest & best-loved American writers of the twentieth century. During the Second World War Steinbeck served as a war correspondent his journalism later collected in " Once There Was a War" (1958) & he was awarded the Norwegian Cross of Freedom for his portrayal in " The Moon is Down" (1942) of Resistance efforts in northern Europe. His best-known works include the epics " The Grapes of Wrath" (1939) & " East of Eden" (1952) & his tragic novella " Of Mice & Men" (1937). John Steinbecks complete works are published in " Penguin Modern Classics". If you enjoyed " In Dubious Battle" you might also like Upton Sinclairs " The Jungle" also available in " Penguin Classics". " Sweeps along with the torrential impetus of a great natural fire impelled by a poetic energy". (" Guardian"). " Dramatically intense beautifully written. It is the real thing; it has a vigour of sheer storytelling that may sweep away many prejudices". (" New Republic")." ...

National Geographic Greatest Portraits tells the story of portrait photography through the eyes
- & words
- of five accomplished

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A childhood that saw her abandoned on the doorstep of a convent & then abused by her adoptive parents left Christine Hart vulnerable & desperate to find somewhere that she belonged. A quest to trace her real father led her along a confused & complex path to the prison cell of the notorious Moors murderer Ian Brady & thereafter to a life of espionage & subterfuge. Christine worked undercover for the British security services & then for a series of Fleet Street newspapers. She got to the core of notorious terrorist groups & witnessed first-hand the nefarious methods for which the UK media were to be vilified. Her continuing fascination with evil then drew her into the web of Los Angeles serial killer Ken Bianchi
- the notorious Hillside Strangler. In For the Kill is the remarkable absorbing & sometimes shocking story of the authors search for her own identity
- a quest that has taken her into the very heart of darkness.

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The tenth Richard Bolitho novel in Alexander Kents spectacularly successful series deals with Bolithos life as a young lieutenant aboard the Trojan an eighty-gun ship of the line. The year is 1777 when the revolution in America has erupted into a full-scale war. The navys main task is to prevent military supplies from reaching Washingtons armies & to destroy the fast-growing fleet of French & American privateers. As a junior officer Bolitho is often bewildered by swiftly changing events but in a ship of the line under a hard & determined captain he has little opportunity for uncertainty. At a time of shortages & sudden death even a lieutenant can find himself faced with tasks & decisions more suitably given to officers of greater experience
- & as the Trojan goes about her affairs the threat to Bolitho & his companions makes itself felt from New York to the Caribbean.
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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. ...

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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It is 1895 & the world is in turmoil. The Great Powers compete for resources & the latest technology & an undeclared & secret war rages between them all. This is battleground of the Adventuring Companies. These clandestine agents of the Great Powers operate in the shadows matching skills & wits in pursuit of the newest scientific formulae or powerful occult artifacts. In Her Majestys Name" sets these adventuring companies against each other in one-off encounters & in longer narrative campaigns. Companies are usually comprised of just 4-15 figures & two players could easily play three games in an evening making an on-going campaign a highly viable option. In " Her Majestys Name" has been designed to allow maximum versatility for the player
- if you can imagine it the system will help you build it. There is however a wealth of material provided in the book covering weird science mystical powers & a range of pre-generated adventuring companies including the British Explorers Club the Prussian Society of Thule the US Marine Corps the Legion Etrangere the revolutionaries of the Brick Lane Commune ancient Egyptian cults & the mysterious Black Dragon Tong."
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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... ...