The Secret History of Here

Author: Alistair Moffat
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 1838851151
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 343

Book Description
The Secret History of Here is the story of a single place in the Scottish Borders. The site on which Alistair Moffat’s farm now stands has been occupied since prehistoric times. Walking this landscape you can feel the presence and see the marks of those who lived here before. But it is also the story of everywhere. In uncovering the history of one piece of land, Moffat shows how history is all around us, if only we have the eyes to see it. Taking the form of a journal of a year, this is a walk through the centuries as much as the seasons, offering a glimpse into the lives of those who came before, as well as those who live here now.

The Secret History

Author: Donna Tartt
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307765695
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 537

Book Description
A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK • INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A contemporary literary classic and "an accomplished psychological thriller ... absolutely chilling" (Village Voice), from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Goldfinch. Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality. “A remarkably powerful novel [and] a ferociously well-paced entertainment.... Forceful, cerebral, and impeccably controlled.” —The New York Times

The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live

Author: Danielle Dreilinger
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324004509
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Book Description
The surprising, often fiercely feminist, always fascinating, yet barely known, history of home economics. The term “home economics” may conjure traumatic memories of lopsided hand-sewn pillows or sunken muffins. But common conception obscures the story of the revolutionary science of better living. The field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and providing jobs as professors, engineers, chemists, and businesspeople. And it has something to teach us today. In the surprising, often fiercely feminist and always fascinating The Secret History of Home Economics, Danielle Dreilinger traces the field’s history from Black colleges to Eleanor Roosevelt to Okinawa, from a Betty Crocker brigade to DIY techies. These women—and they were mostly women—became chemists and marketers, studied nutrition, health, and exercise, tested parachutes, created astronaut food, and took bold steps in childhood development and education. Home economics followed the currents of American culture even as it shaped them. Dreilinger brings forward the racism within the movement along with the strides taken by women of color who were influential leaders and innovators. She also looks at the personal lives of home economics’ women, as they chose to be single, share lives with other women, or try for egalitarian marriages. This groundbreaking and engaging history restores a denigrated subject to its rightful importance, as it reminds us that everyone should learn how to cook a meal, balance their account, and fight for a better world.

To the Island of Tides

Author: Alistair Moffat
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 1786896338
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
In To the Island of Tides, Alistair Moffat travels to – and through the history of – the fated island of Lindisfarne. Known by the Romans as Insula Medicata and famous for its monastery, it even survived Viking raids. Today the isle maintains its position as a space for retreat and spiritual renewal. Walking from his home in the Borders, through the historical landscape of Scotland and northern England, Moffat takes us on a pilgrimage in the footsteps of saints and scholars, before arriving for a secular retreat on the Holy Isle. To the Island of Tides is a walk through history, a meditation on the power of place, but also a more personal journey; and a reflection on where life leads us.

Ash

Author: Mary Gentle
Publisher: Gateway
ISBN: 0575128763
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1244

Book Description
For the beautiful young woman Ash, life has always been arquebuses and artillery, swords and armour and the true horrors of hand-to-hand combat. War is her job. She has fought her way to the command of a mercenary company, and on her unlikely shoulders lies the destiny of a Europe threatened by the depredations of an Infidel army more terrible than any nightmare. Winner of the BSFA Award for best novel, 2000

The Hidden Ways

Author: Alistair Moffat
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 1786891026
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
Shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards In The Hidden Ways, Alistair Moffat traverses the lost paths of Scotland. Down Roman roads tramped by armies, warpaths and pilgrim routes, drove roads and rail roads, turnpikes and sea roads, he traces the arteries through which our nation's lifeblood has flowed in a bid to understand how our history has left its mark upon our landscape. Moffat's travels along the hidden ways reveal not only the searing beauty and magic of the Scottish landscape, but open up a different sort of history, a new way of understanding our past by walking in the footsteps of our ancestors. In retracing the forgotten paths, he charts a powerful, surprising and moving history of Scotland through the unremembered lives who have moved through it.

Paris

Author: Andrew Hussey
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608192377
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 696

Book Description
If Adam Gopnik's Paris to the Moon described daily life in contemporary Paris, this book describes daily life in Paris throughout its history: a history of the city from the point of view of the Parisians themselves. Paris captures everyone's imaginations: It's a backdrop for Proust's fictional pederast, Robert Doisneau's photographic kiss, and Edith Piaf's serenaded soldier-lovers; a home as much to romance and love poems as to prostitution and opium dens. The many pieces of the city coexist, each one as real as the next. What's more, the conflicted identity of the city is visible everywhere-between cobblestones, in bars, on the métro. In this lively and lucid volume, Andrew Hussey brings to life the urchins and artists who've left their marks on the city, filling in the gaps of a history that affected the disenfranchised as much as the nobility. Paris: The Secret History ranges across centuries, movements, and cultural and political beliefs, from Napoleon's overcrowded cemeteries to Balzac's nocturnal flight from his debts. For Hussey, Paris is a city whose long and conflicted history continues to thrive and change. The book's is a picaresque journey through royal palaces, brothels, and sidewalk cafés, uncovering the rich, exotic, and often lurid history of the world's most beloved city.

The Little Friend

Author: Donna Tartt
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 030787348X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 642

Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Goldfinch comes an utterly riveting novel set in Mississippi of childhood, innocence, and evil. • “Destined to become a special kind of classic.” —The New York Times Book Review The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents’ yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin’s sister Harriet—unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets out to unmask his killer. Aided only by her worshipful friend Hely, Harriet crosses her town’s rigid lines of race and caste and burrows deep into her family’s history of loss. Filled with hairpin turns of plot and “a bustling, ridiculous humanity worthy of Dickens” (The New York Times Book Review), The Little Friend is a work of myriad enchantments by a writer of prodigious talent.

The Secret History of Fantasy

Author: Peter S. Beagle
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
ISBN: 9781892391995
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 379

Book Description
Tired of the same old fantasy? Here are nineteen much-needed antidotes to clichâed tales of swords and sorcery. Fantasy is back, and it's better than ever!

A Secret History of the Ollie

Author: Craig B. Snyder
Publisher: Pioneers of Skateboarding
ISBN: 9781930287006
Category : Popular culture
Languages : en
Pages : 912

Book Description
Every culture has a creation myth, and skateboarding is no different. The Ollie forged a new identity for skateboarding after its invention in the 1970s, and it lies at the root of nearly every significant move in street skating today. This groundbreaking no-handed aerial has also affected the evolution of surfing and snowboarding, and has left a permanent impression upon popular culture and language. This, then, is the story of the Ollie, the history and technology that set the stage for its creation, the pioneers who made it happen, and the skaters who used it to start a revolution.