James Joyce

James Joyce

A major new biography that reveals how politics profoundly shaped Joyce's life, thought and writingsThe young James Joyce (1882–1941) was forged in the smithy of Irish political controversies, and he took into his European exile a depth of political insight unrivalled among his fellow modernists. In this biography of Joyce in his youth and early exile, acclaimed Irish historian and biographer Frank Callanan reveals a Joyce who is markedly more politically conscious, informed and complex than the Joyce of Richard Ellmann's classic account. Written in a sparkling style and rich with historical insights, Callanan's deeply researched biography is the first sustained account of how Joyce's Irish and European political and cultural context shaped his life, thought, and writings.Joyce was eight years old in 1890 when the O'Shea divorce scandal tore Irish nationalism apart, leading to the split in the Irish Parliamentary Party, the death of nationalist leader...
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Conquistadora

Conquistadora

Esmeralda Santiago

Esmeralda Santiago

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An epic novel of love, discovery, and adventure by the author of the award-winning, bestselling memoir When I Was Puerto Rican. • “Santiago’s storytelling is thrilling.... A triumph.” —The Washington Post As a young girl growing up in Spain, Ana Larragoity Cubillas is powerfully drawn to Puerto Rico by the diaries of an ancestor who traveled there with Ponce de León. And in handsome twin brothers Ramón and Inocente—both in love with Ana—she finds a way to get there. She marries Ramón, and in 1844, just eighteen, she travels across the ocean to a remote sugar plantation the brothers have inherited on the island.Ana faces unrelenting heat, disease and isolation, and the dangers of the untamed countryside even as she relishes the challenge of running Hacienda los Gemelos. But when the Civil War breaks out in the United States, Ana finds her...
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Las Madres

Las Madres

Esmeralda Santiago

Esmeralda Santiago

From the award-winning, best-selling author of When I Was Puerto Rican, a powerful novel of family, race, faith, sex, and disaster that moves between Puerto Rico and the Bronx, revealing the lives and loves of five women and the secret that binds them togetherThey refer to themselves as “las Madres,” a close-knit group of women who, with their daughters, have created a family based on friendship and blood ties.Their story begins in Puerto Rico in 1975 when fifteen-year-old Luz, the tallest girl in her dance academy and the only Black one in a sea of petite, light-skinned, delicate swans, is seriously injured in a car accident. Tragically, her brilliant, multilingual scientist parents are both killed in the crash. Now orphaned, Luz navigates the pressures of adolescence and copes with the aftershock of a brain injury, when two new friends enter her life, Ada and Shirley. Luz’s days are consumed with aches and pains, and her memory of the accident...
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The Sky Chart

The Sky Chart

Paul Stewart

Science Fiction & Fantasy / Children's Books / Young Adult

A digital exclusive short story starring Quint, from Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell's bestselling Edge Chronicles.Quint is in urgent need to money to repair his skyship, the Stormchaser. So when Multinius Gobtrax offers him a job creating a sky chart of the Deepwoods, he eagerly accepts - on the condition that his wife Maris can go with him. But Maris has a secret that she must keep hidden from their superstitious new captain at any cost. After all, it is considered very bad luck to give birth onboard a skyship . . .
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Returning

Returning

Compulsive, shattering, if not fundamentally disruptive, Returning emerges as one of the most important and searingly honest family sagas of our time.Nicholas Lemann, a veteran New Yorker correspondent, grew up in New Orleans, the son of German Jews in a world of gilded privilege. Yet in contrast to his parents' generation, which always sought to downplay their religious background, Lemann was intrigued by his roots, thinking he wanted to be like Jack Burden, the ever-curious reporter in Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men.And like his fictional hero, who gets drawn into a web of Southern political intrigue, Lemann in Returning delves deeply into the family story—from their arrival in the 1830s as peddlers from Germany, to their becoming plantation owners and department store owners after the Civil War, to their emergence as aspirants in the aristocratic world of New Orleans, where they could never quite...
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Mozart's Women

Mozart's Women

Mozart was fascinated, amused, aroused, hurt, and betrayed by women. He loved and respected them, composed for them, performed with them. This unique biography looks at his interaction with each, starting with his family (his mother, Maria Anna and beloved and talented sister, Nannerl), and his marriage (which brought his 'other family', the Weber sisters). His relationships with his artists are examined, in particular those of his operas, through whose characters Mozart gave voice to the emotions of women who were, like his entire female acquaintance, restrained by the conventions and structures of eighteenth-century society. This is their story as well as his — and shows once again that a great part of the composer's genius was in his understanding and musical expression of human nature. Evocative and beautifully written, Mozart's Women illuminates the music, the man, and above all the women who inspired him. 'Jane Glover has pulled off a coup des livres with...
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Mozart in Italy

Mozart in Italy

At thirteen years old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy who had captured the hearts of northern Europe, but his father Leopold was now determined to conquer Italy. Together, they made three visits there the last when Mozart was seventeen, all vividly recounted here by acclaimed conductor Jane Glover.Father and son travelled from the theatres and concert salons of Milan to the church-filled streets of Rome to Naples, poorer and more dangerous than the prosperous north, and to Venice, the carnivalesque birthplace of public opera. All the while Mozart was absorbing Italian culture, language, style and art, and honed his craft. He met the challenge of writing Italian opera for Italian singers and audiences and provoked a variety of responses, from triumph and admiration to intrigue and hostility: in a way, these Italian years can be seen as a microcosm of his whole life.Evocative, beautifully written and with a profound understanding of eighteenth-century...
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On the Trail of a Killer

On the Trail of a Killer

Jane Godman

Jane Godman

His most urgent mission yet... A serial killer is on the loose, and true-crime filmmaker Esmée da Costa is on the case. K-9 cop Brayden Colton, the prime suspect's half brother, works hard to stop her prying, but sparks fly as he falls for Esmée and her son. When Esmée and Brayden's little family comes under siege, can they save all they love? Previously published as Colton and the Single Mom
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Going, Going, Gone

Going, Going, Gone

Nasheema Lennon

Nasheema Lennon

Once the hammer comes down, there's no getting out... 20 years ago, Imani's best friend Kaitlin vanished. Now, Kaitlin's crumbling childhood home is up for auction. Buying this house is Imani's chance to finally resolve her grief. It might even ease her guilty conscience surrounding Kaitlin's disappearance. But fixer-uppers always come with nasty surprises. And as Imani throws herself into the renovations, she discovers secrets that make her question all her memories of Kaitlin, and of the night she never came home. Could restoring no.6 Church Street really help Imani uncover the truth? Or will winning the auction prove to be a dangerous – even deadly – mistake? REVIEWS 'Full of twists, turns and hold-your-breath moments. I was hooked from the start!' Jonathan Whitelaw, author of ALL AT SEA
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