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Only in India - Stories Untold
India. An exotic land of characteristics and historical tales like no other. From an exposition on chili peppers to an introduction to comedic bridesmaids rituals, from tragic examples of socio-economic prejudices to ironic demonstrations of bureaucratic powers, and from personal reflections on kite flying to factual and clinical addresses on opium, Dr. Jas Singh shows India only as a son of the country can.Only in India—Stories Untold begins with the journey of a young Indian boy learning the differences between men and women, and harboring hopes of seeing movies and experiencing grand adventures in a historical fort. As we follow Singh from his childhood to his teenage years, then his college career, bits of political and war-time lessons, explanations of cultural expectations, and glimpses of life after the independence of British rule are interwoven in this all-encompassing exposure to a country that has been tested, redefined, left behind, missed, but never forgotten.
£15.99 -
Olive
Olive is a story of human endurance spanning over four generations; from the end of the 19th century through to WW-II, during the almost-total destruction of Southampton, a port city in southern England.Olive is the spine of this historical novel. Ostracised at birth by her family, Olive's life is that of an opportunist and black marketeer. She uses her sex, guile and music skills to move up, but there is a price to be paid and the children bear the cost.Olive demonstrates the impact one woman had on those whose lives she touched.
£12.99 -
Napoleon: Uprising
Amidst the turmoil of chaos and revolution, a young Napoleon Bonaparte leaves the safety of his Corsican homeland to be thrust into the corruption of the French aristocracy as he pursues a career in the artillery. Facing riot and rebellion throughout France, Napoleon must fight to protect a society that sees him as an outsider. As the world threatens to crumble around him, Napoleon must prove himself in order to protect his family from those who would destroy all he loves. This outsider, shunned and despised, may well prove to be France’s only hope.
£14.99 -
Into the Skies: A World War I Aviator Story
This story portrays an American who gets caught up in World War One as an ‘aviator' from the beginning to the end, an unusual achievement, which makes for an absorbing tale. The author has taken elements from the memoirs of aviation pioneers, most of which began in the last years of the war, modified them to reflect changes that occurred from 1914 to 1918, and added other adventures. The back story includes some instances from the infancy of flight and the inspiration it provided a boy as he grew up in Dayton, Ohio. As a ‘memoir' of the Great War the book is an exciting and enjoyable read, whilst also providing a chronology of the War from the point of view of a German-American pilot who joined the French Aéronautique Militaire and flew on the side of the French for the duration of the conflict.
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Breaking the Flood
In Breaking the Flood, the first of four novels about the fall of Constantinople, Niccolo Gritti, a nineteen year-old scion of an aristocratic merchant dynasty in mid-15th century Venice, recounts his upbringing, his family’s impoverishment and his decision to take ship in a trading fleet to the eastern Mediterranean. Ambushed by corsairs, Niccolo is pressed as a galley slave. Soon, a fellow oarsman identifies himself as Demetrius Angelos, member of a distinguished military family in Constantinople. Demetrius is desperate to return there, threatened as his city is by the bellicose ruler of the Ottomans, Mehmet II. Eventually, the two young men escape the corsairs’ clutches and Niccolo decides to throw in his lot with Demetrius, journeying with him to the decayed Byzantine capital. At once, Bildungsroman and quest narrative, Breaking the Flood is both vivid and haunting, recreating a forgotten world with cinematic and at times hallucinatory clarity.
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A Village Betrayed
A poignant story of the impact of war on a defenceless French village during the Second World War. Four courageous villagers join the Maquis, the Resistance in Vichy occupied France, to protect their families. They are swept into a treacherous conflict where one false word or brave action can result in the torture and death of people they know and love. One old man and a young girl survive the savage destruction that wipes out the whole community.This novel uses the recorded history of the devastation of many rural villages in the Aveyron, Lot and Tarn departments of the Midi-Pyrénées. Oradour-sur-Glane in the Haute-Vienne Department is a famous memorial to the brutality of the Second World War.
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A Time to Live
1936. Clouds are looming over Europe. Uncertainty hangs in the air. It’s been less than 20 years since The Great War and there’s talk of still darker times ahead.A young Englishman caught in the middle of the Italo-Abyssinian War joins up with the Red Cross Humanitarian Ambulance Team to do what he can to help in the war effort, and forges bonds that will carry with him through the darkest days of Spanish Civil War and beyond. Bonds that will stay forged for the rest of his life.
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A River by the Window: China Remembered
A River by the Window: China Remembered is a family saga of life during China’s tumultuous history from the late 1950s. Set amidst the purges and denunciations and exiles, and the terror of the Great Cultural Revolution through to the so-called ‘Great 1980s’, are the human stories of how families and individuals coped with the crises that overtook them. Human life went on; there were births and deaths and marriages, loves bloomed and friendships formed, careers were pursued and happiness sought. It traverses China from north to south, from east to west, to the ‘Open Door’ policies of Deng Xiaoping. This allowed China access to much western culture, with its liberal values and social trends, such as an appreciation of individualism, sexual liberation, western music and fashions, all fertile soil for germinating the seeds of democratic values and ideas, with this, in turn, leading to further gradual social change.
£19.99 -
50 Plus Recent Events which Helped Shape or Shocked the Nation
What Would Make Your List?Writer Roger Knowles has assembled a comprehensive list of the most critical events which have created modern British society. From the tumultuous political events which saw war hero Churchill being replaced by ‘peacetime politician' Attlee to the ramifications of the Poll Tax, this book seeks to tell the story of contemporary England in small, enjoyable vignettes. Written in clear prose, the 50 Plus Recent Events Which Helped Shape or Shocked the Nation is a book which educates, explains and elucidates some of the biggest tragedies and victories to befall Britain.
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The Journey
On Christmas night 1879 my 19-year-old Great Uncle, John Diver left his thatched home, Whinpark Inishowen. He walked the eighteen miles to Derry Quay. He boarded the SS Devonian. The Statute of Liberty Ellis Island Foundation confirms its arrival on 1st January 1880. Why did someone so young embark, alone, on such a hazardous journey?By chance John, a skilled facilitator, met other young people who were forced into that miserable, morose migration of the largely unreported ‘an Gorta Beag’ (small Famine).These included the enthralling James Feely, who found unlikely inspiration from the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. This led to the discovery of his psychic powers. He meets the recently deceased Paul Cullen, Ireland’s first Cardinal, hears divinations from Thomas FitzGerald the 10th Earl of Kildare about a meeting with the most beautiful Empress in Europe and the Three Magi who predicted the miraculous Apparitions at Knock. Who, if anyone, does he dare tell? We meet the troubled Matthew and his resolute sister Mary. After Maggie, their teenage unmarried sister, gave birth they resolved to travel to America to find her displaced infant. What caused one of the siblings to have a change of heart?Church Martin, a gifted musician and mystic, follows that ancient Celtic tradition of using music to enchant and distract an enemy rather than entertain. He demonstrates this by stopping the movement of the ship mid Atlantic to becalm the vessel. Will Church and Mary discover the angst of an unrequited love? Jack Turner is a young man with a hidden past. Will he too find unexpected friendship? The story, a unique blend of fiction and non-fiction, culminates in the friction of a frantic, frenzied pursuit for survival to avoid an enforced asylum admission and deportation.The unfolding personal revelations become a fascinating intrigue - a compelling timeless Irish Tale that is more than a match for The Canterbury Tales.Atlantic Anecdotes and Dark Disclosures en route from the Inishowen Peninsula to the Port of New York.
£35.99 -
Trevelyan
It is the end of the 18th century and the end of schooling for four Cornish youngsters. They share their aspirations for the future, not realising there is a price to be paid.
Cornwall is the land of mystery, legends, folktale and myths. Tiny villages with narrow winding streets nestle around rocky cover ideal for landing and distributing contraband. The fishermen are dependent upon the sea in all its moods and are forced to subsidise their catch with smuggled French brandy, tobacco, tea, and silk. The only other possible occupations, the tin mines and the farmed estates, are in the hands of the wealthy few, like Lord Trevelyan. For most Cornishmen life is harsh.
To fulfil her own hopes of a better life, one young girl Karenza, discovers there are secrets to be concealed and seemingly impossible promises to be honoured, played out against an austere and merciless Cornish landscape and the ongoing hostility of the French.
£13.99 -
Treasures of War
Leningrad, 1941.
Germany’s Operation Barbarossa is tightening its noose around the city. The Neva River and Lake Ladoga freeze. Few supplies reach the city. Thousands suffer from cold and starvation.
Katuska and Nina Koslov, young daughters of a dedicated museum employee, shelter in the basement of the great Hermitage Museum—once the palace of Tsars. As insulation to meagre coats, their mother sews ‘found’ canvases into the linings.
Upon the death of their parents, the girls begin a new chapter in their lives with the hidden paintings cherished as mementos of parental love.
We accompany Katuska and Nina on an obstacle-filled journey through war and its challenging aftermath. We accompany the ‘found’ paintings, also known to some as ‘stolen art’, on journeys through Europe, England, the US and the Soviet Union.
£13.99