Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) was one of the finest & most distinctive of the Victorian painters. Dutch-born he moved to London in 1870 & became famous for his depictions of the luxury & decadence of the Roman Empire set in fabulous marbled interiors or against a backdrop of dazzling blue Mediterranean sea & sky. In this original study Rosemary Barrow presents an absorbing & often amusing portrait of an exuberant personality who carved out a brilliant career for himself at the heart of Londons artistic & cultural elite. But above all she subjects the paintings to a fresh scrutiny & reveals that Alma-Tadema a knowledgeable student of antiquity repeatedly used literary & archaeological allusions in his paintings to play a game of interpretation with his viewers. Time & again the seeming innocence of the scenes he depicts is subverted by a mischievously placed inscription or statue suggesting to the initiated a darker & usually risque meaning. Neglected after his death Alma-Tademas paintings are once again admired for their beauty & their remarkable mastery of light colour & texture. With its intriguing insights into his personality & intentions this book should provide a challenging reassessment of a major artist. ...

2012 marks the centenary of the birth of novelist & poet Lawrence Durrell one of the leading writers of the post-war years. Born in India & resident at various times in England Greece Egypt Cyprus & France Durrell was a cosmopolitan whose work was greatly influence by the Mediterranean places & cultures he experienced. His most famous work is The Alexandria Quartet a series of novels produced in rapid succession between 1957 & 1960. This disc contains a selection of previously unreleased historic BBC broadcasts in which Durrell reads his poetry & discusses his lfe & work together with a unique pair of private recordings of Durrell as jazz pianist & vocalist. ...

Cicero (Marcus Tullius 106-43 BCE) Roman lawyer orator politician & philosopher of whom we know more than of any other Roman lived through the stirring era which saw the rise dictatorship & death of Julius Caesar in a tottering republic. In his political speeches especially & in his correspondence we see the excitement tension & intrigue of politics & the part he played in the turmoil of the time. Of about 106 speeches delivered before the Roman people or the Senate if they were political before jurors if judicial 58 survive (a few of them incompletely). In the fourteenth century Petrarch & other Italian humanists discovered manuscripts containing more than 900 letters of which more than 800 were written by Cicero & nearly 100 by others to him. These afford a revelation of the man all the more striking because most were not written for publication. Six rhetorical works survive & another in fragments. Philosophical works include seven extant major compositions & a number of others; & some lost. There is also poetry some original some as translations from the Greek. The Loeb Classical Library edition of Cicero is in twenty-nine volumes. ...

The Laws of Spirit opens with the story of Dan Millmans encounter with a sage in the wooded hills near his home. Through stories tests & experiences in the wild the sage challenges Millman to examine 12 core principles that underlie human existence: balance choice process presence compassion faith expectation integrity action cycles surrender & unity. The book shows how these keys -- at the heart of every religion culture & moral system -- can lead to a deeper sense of meaning connection & harmony with the world. It also shows readers how these principles can transform relationships careers finance & health."ations & reminders from across the centuries inform & inspire readers as they accompany Millman on his journey. ...

Brian Laws has played in all four professional divisions of English football. He has also managed at every level. & he spent six years playing under the most charismatic manager the English game has ever seen the legendary Brian Clough. Yet even Cloughie was never at the centre of a bigger sensation than the day Laws as a young manager in his first job was embroiled in a dressing room bust-up that left his star striker with a broken cheekbone. Here for the first time Brian lifts the lid on his six years with Cloughie
- & reveals what really happened on the night a certain Italian striker called Ivano Bonetti ended up in hospital leaving his boss ambushed at home under siege from the media. It has never emerged either
- until now
- that Laws also engaged in a bout of fisticuffs with one of Nottingham Forest's top stars of the Clough era. & got thanked by his boss for hitting the player concerned! Life in a football dressing room is never dull; they were fun times for Laws at the City Ground. However there are also chilling reflections on being a Nottingham Forest player on the day of the Hillsborough Disaster. & of the replay anguish that left him the victim of a cruel put-down by John Aldridge a star on whom Laws was later to exact revenge
- using Bonetti as bait! In between times Laws has been a Wembley winner fulfilling all the boyhood dreams he nurtured at the famous Wallsend Boys Club. But above all this is the story of a life in football & how to survive in it. His journey takes us through Burnley Huddersfield Middlesbrough Nottingham Grimsby Scunthorpe Sheffield & Burnley again. Along the way Brian has endured career-threatening injuries managerial bust-ups & inevitably being sacked. But there have been plenty of laughs & besides he has repeatedly bounced back into the fray. Why? Because having grown up in the soccer hotbed of the North East he loves a game that has always been at the centre of his soul. Brian is not & would never claim to be one of the biggest names. But this is one big read for anyone who shares his passion for football.



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The Lucky Charm. The Sure Thing. The Long Shot. The Jinx. Beth Raymer came to Vegas to live the dream. instead she winds up waiting tables in a low-rent diner & living in a fleapit motel. Then she meets Dink the King of Last Vegas sports betting. Dink introduces her to the testorsterone fuelled underworld of high stakes gambling a dog-eat-dog realm of grifters & strippers wise-guys & hardened cons. New to the game but with big ambitions beth must get smart to get ahead. The real money is off-shore where gambling regulations dont count. But nor do other rules. In the free-wheeling caribbean Beth discovers that the difference between winning big & losing everything comes down to how sharp you play. ...

Renowned crafter Joanna Sheen has designed twenty beautiful layered cards you will want to make using simple techniques & gorgeous backing papers & toppers. This book

Features: twenty great designs; twenty alternative colour schemes; clear step-by-step instructions; & readily available materials. All the materials required to make the cards shown in this book are available worldwide with no shipping charge from the author's website.

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This book examines in detail each section of David Culps garden: the woodland garden the perennial border the kitchen garden the shrubbery & the walled garden. For readers who enjoyed Dear Christo David Culps garden is one of the most celebrated private gardens in the USA ...

The latest book from the bestselling author Kim Thittichai focuses on the range of ideas & techniques for layering your textiles. These layers can produce simple to extreme surfaces for stitch. Layering is a major feature of todays textile art whether to create relief colour texture or dimension. The author takes you through a number of key materials
- papers synthetic & natural fabric translucent materials wires paints & sprays
- that can be incorporated into layered textiles. Various techniques are combined with these materials from using heat guns soldering irons & lazer cutting to machine & hand stitch to give the reader endless ideas for their own creative work. As always the author has provided exercises for the creative process & the techniques but combined them with the work of the best textile artists around the world today. It provides the ultimate guide to the subject of layered textiles for readers looking to experiment with their own textile art.

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It's Kirsty's birthday & the girls are excited about going to the Wetherbury village fete. They head straight for the candyfloss stall
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