The Fabled Coast

Author: Sophia Kingshill
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1409038459
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 533

Book Description
Pirates and smugglers, ghost ships and sea-serpents, fishermen’s prayers and sailors’ rituals – the coastline of the British Isles plays host to an astonishingly rich variety of local legends, customs, and superstitions. In The Fabled Coast, renowned folklorists Sophia Kingshill and Jennifer Westwood gather together the most enthralling tales and traditions, tracing their origins and examining the facts behind the legends. Was there ever such a beast as the monstrous Kraken? Did a Welsh prince discover America, centuries before Columbus? What happened to the missing crew of the Mary Celeste? Along the way, they recount the stories that are an integral part of our coastal heritage, such as the tale of Drake’s Drum, said to be heard when England was in peril, and the mythical island of Hy Brazil, which for centuries appeared on sea charts and maps to the west of Ireland. The result is an endlessly fascinating, often surprising journey through our island history.

The Fabled Coast

Author: Sophia Kingshill
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781847947864
Category : Coasts
Languages : en
Pages : 510

Book Description

The Gold Coast

Author: Nelson DeMille
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 0759522626
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 552

Book Description
The Great Gatsby meets The Godfather in this #1 New York Times bestselling story of friendship and seduction, love and betrayal. "[Demille is] a true master." - Dan Brown, #1 bestselling author of The Da Vinci Code Welcome to the fabled Gold Coast, that stretch on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America. Here two men are destined for an explosive collision: John Sutter, Wall Street lawyer, holding fast to a fading aristocratic legacy; and Frank Bellarosa, the Mafia don who seizes his piece of the staid and unprepared Gold Coast like a latter-day barbarian chief and draws Sutter and his regally beautiful wife, Susan, into his violent world. Told from Sutter's sardonic and often hilarious point of view, The Gold Coast is Nelson DeMille's captivating story laced with sexual passion and suspense.

The Lore of Scotland

Author: Sophia Kingshill
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 140906171X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 596

Book Description
Scotland's rich past and varied landscape have inspired an extraordinary array of legends and beliefs, and in The Lore of Scotland Jennifer Westwood and Sophia Kingshill bring together many of the finest and most intriguing: stories of heroes and bloody feuds, tales of giants, fairies, and witches, and accounts of local customs and traditions. Their range extends right across the country, from the Borders with their haunting ballads, via Glasgow, site of St Mungo's miracles, to the fateful battlefield of Culloden, and finally to the Shetlands, home of the seal-people. More than simply retelling these stories, The Lore of Scotland explores their origins, showing how and when they arose and investigating what basis - if any - they have in historical fact. In the process, it uncovers the events that inspired Shakespeare's Macbeth, probes the claim that Mary King's Close is the most haunted street in Edinburgh, and examines the surprising truth behind the fame of the MacCrimmons, Skye's unsurpassed bagpipers. Moreover, it reveals how generations of Picts, Vikings, Celtic saints and Presbyterian reformers shaped the myriad tales that still circulate, and, from across the country, it gathers together legends of such renowned figures as Sir William Wallace, St Columba, and the great warrior Fingal. The result is a thrilling journey through Scotland's legendary past and an endlessly fascinating account of the traditions and beliefs that play such an important role in its heritage.

Coastlines

Author: Patrick Barkham
Publisher: Granta Books
ISBN: 1847088988
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Book Description
Told through a series of walks beside the sea, this is a story of the most beautiful 742 miles of coastline in England, Wales and Northern Ireland: their rocks, plants and animals, their views, walks and history, and the people who have made their lives within sight of the waves. As he travels along coastal paths, visits beaches and explores coves, Barkham reflects on the long campaign to protect our shoreline from tidal erosion and human damage and weaves together fascinating tales about every aspect of the coast - from ancient conquests and smuggler's routes, to exotic migratory birds and bucket-and-spade holidays - to tell a more profound story about our island nation and the way we are shaped by our shores.

The Outer Beach: A Thousand-Mile Walk on Cape Cod's Atlantic Shore

Author: Robert Finch
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 132400052X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
"Finch is today’s best, most perceptive Cape Cod writer in a line extending all the way back to Henry David Thoreau." —Christian Science Monitor Weaving together Robert Finch’s collected writings from over fifty years and a thousand miles of walking along Cape Cod’s Atlantic coast, The Outer Beach is a poignant, candid chronicle of an iconic American landscape anyone with an appreciation for nature will cherish.

Down the Wild Cape Fear

Author: Philip Gerard
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469602075
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
Down the Wild Cape Fear: A River Journey through the Heart of North Carolina

Salt On Your Tongue

Author: Charlotte Runcie
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 1786891204
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
'An ode to the ocean, and the generations of women drawn to the waves or left waiting on the shore' Guardian In Salt On Your Tongue, Charlotte Runcie explores what the sea means to us, and particularly what it has meant to women through the ages. In mesmerising prose, she explores how the sea has inspired, fascinated and terrified us, and how she herself fell in love with the deep blue. This book is a walk on the beach with Turner, with Shakespeare, with the Romantic Poets and shanty-singers. It’s an ode to our oceans – to the sailors who brave their treacherous waters, to the women who lost their loved ones to the waves, to the creatures that dwell in their depths, to beachcombers, swimmers, seabirds and mermaids. Navigating through ancient Greek myths, poetry, shipwrecks and Scottish folktales, Salt On Your Tongue is about how the wild untameable waves can help us understand what it means to be human.

The Coasts of Illusion

Author: Clark Barnaby Firestone
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Geographical myths
Languages : en
Pages : 472

Book Description

Maiden Voyages

Author: Mary Morris
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307766470
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 581

Book Description
This is a collection of women's travel writings, including work by Joan Didion, Edith Wharton, Mildred Cable, Willa Cather, Isak Dinesen, and others. In wry, lyrical, and sometimes wistful voices, they write of disguising themselves as men for safety, of longing for family left behind or falling in love with people met along the way, and of places as diverse as icy Himalayan passes and dusty American pioneer towns, the darkly wooded Siberian landscape and the lavender-covered hills of Provence. Yet even as their voices, experiences, and paths vary, they share with one another--and with us as readers--reflections upon their gender as it is illuminated by unfamiliar surroundings. Edited and with an Introduction by Mary Morris, in collaboration with Larry O'Connor. Contributors and writings include: Mary Wollstonecraft, "Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark"; Flora Tristan, "Peregrinations of a Pariah"; Frances Trollope, from "Domestic Manners of the Americans"; Eliza Farnham, from "Life in Prairie Land'; Isabella Bird, from "A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains"; Margaret Fountaine, from "Love Among the Butterflies"; Gertrude Bell, from "The Desert and the Sown"; Edith Wharton, from "In Morocco"; Willa Cather, from "Willa Cather in Europe'; Isak Dinesen, from "Out of Africa"; Kate O'Brien, from "Farewell Spain"; Rebecca West, from "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon"; Ella Maillart, from "The Cruel Way"; Emily Hahn, from "Times and Places"; M.F.K. Fisher, from "Long Ago in France"; Joan Didion, from "The White Album"; Christina Dodwell, from "Travels with Fortune: An African Adventure"; Annie Dillard, from "Teaching a Stone to Talk'; Gwendolyn MacEwen, from "Noman's Land".