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Daedalus Books
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«From the author of the bestseller «A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian» comes a tender and hilarious novel about a crew of migrant workers from three continents who are forced to flee their English strawberry field for a journey across England in pursuit of a better future.» |
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Women have participated in war throughout history, but their experience in Russia during the First World War was truly exceptional. Between the war's beginning and the October Revolution of 1917, approximately 6,000 women answered their country's call. These courageous women became media stars throughout Europe and America, but were brushed aside by Soviet chroniclers and until now have been largely neglected by history. Laurie Stoff draws on deep archival research into previously unplumbed material, including many first-person accounts, to examine the roots, motivations, and legacy of these women. She reveals that Russia was the only nation in World War I that systematically employed women in the military, marking the first time that a government run by men had organized women for combat. And although they were originally envisioned as propaganda — promoting patriotism and citizenship to inspire the thousands of males who had been deserting or refusing to fight — Russian women also proved themselves more than capable in combat. Describing the formation, provisioning, and training of the units, Stoff sheds light on their social and educational backgrounds, while recounting a number of amazing individual stories. She tells how Maria Bochkareva, commander of the First Russian Women's Battalion of Death, and her unit met its baptism of fire in combat and how Bochkareva later traveled to the U.S. and met President Wilson. We also meet Maria Bocharnikova, who served with the First Petrograd Women's Battalion that defended the Winter Palace during the Bolshevik Revolution. Stoff also chronicles the exploits of the Second Moscow Women's Battalion of Death, Third Kuban Women's Shock Battalion, and the First Women's Naval Detachment. Stoff's remarkable account rescues from oblivion an important but still little-known aspect of Russia's experience in World War I. It also provides new insights into gender roles during a pivotal period of Russia's development and resonates with the current debates over the role of women in warfare. |
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«In her latest installment of The Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice brings readers the story of Armand — eternally young, with the face of a Botticelli angel — who first appeared in his dark glory in «Interview with the Vampire». Moving through scenes of luxury, of ambush, fire, and devil worship to 19th-century Paris and toady's New Orleans, this romantic hero is forced to choose between his twilight immortality and the salvation of his immortal soul.» |
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Murder doesn't get more peculiar than this. A lonely hearts killer is targeting middle-aged women at some of England's most well-known pubs. What's even more peculiar, Arthur Bryant happened to see the latest victim only moments before her death — at a pub torn down eighty years ago! It's only the beginning of a case littered with clues that defy everything the veteran detectives know about the profiles of serial killers and the methodology of crime. What do the Knights Templars, the secret history of English pubs, and the discovery of an astounding religious relic have to do with this recent crime spree? More important, do the Peculiar Crimes Units two living legends have enough life left in them to stop a murderous conspiracy...and a deadly cupid targeting one of their own? |
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«Interweaving past and present, Sweden and Zambia, «The Eye of the Leopard» draws on bestselling author Mankell's deep understanding of the two worlds he has inhabited for more than 20 years.» |
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Israel Armstrong, one of literature's most unlikely detectives, returns for more crime solving adventure in this hilarious third novel from the Mobile Library series. Israel has been invited to attend the Mobile Meet in London, the annual mobile library convention, with his irascible companion Ted Carson. Back in the UK, Israel is reunited with his family, and there is much eating of paprika chicken, baklava and the drinking of good coffee. But within only twenty-four hours of their arrival, the mobile library has been nicked. Who on earth would want to steal a thirty-year old rust-bucket of a van, and who can the two men turn to for assistance? Can Mr and Mrs Krimholz, the parents of Israel's childhood rival Adam Krimholz, help them out? Amidst all this mayhem, will Israel and Ted, one of literature's oddest oddball couples, ever make it to the Mobile Meet? In this, his most puzzling, personal and problematic case yet, Israel has never had it so bad! neither has his library. |
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Precious Ramotswe, that cheerful Botswanan private investigator of 'traditional build', is well-known to millions across the world through the best-selling No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. Those who have been following her exploits in five previously published novels will soon be able to savour the next instalment, in which, as usual, circumstances are never as straightforward as they seem and events take a more than unexpected turn. Precious Ramotswe, is now married to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. The Agency is busy, but Mma Ramotswe cannot ignore the plea which is made to her by a woman who comes to her with a tale of particular misfortune. Unfortunately, her attempts to help are interrupted by a close encounter between her tiny white van and a bicycle, and by a spectacular disagreement between her assistant, Mma Makutsi, and one of the apprentices at the garage. This apprentice has found a fancy girlfriend who drives a large silver Mercedes-Benz. How can he be rescued from his folly? And as for Mma Makutsi, she has found a dancing class, and a man who may not be able to dance very well but who admires her greatly. And all of this happens against a background of quiet sessions of bush tea, and of a land that stretches out forever under mile upon mile of empty sky. |
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Thank you for the music... It's 1939 and the war in Europe casts a long, all-encompassing shadow. In a sleepy town in Suffolk, the generous and determined widow, La, forms an amateur orchestra to entertain the locals and soothe her own broken heart. She recruits Felix, a refugee from Poland, to play the flute, and a touching friendship emerges. When the war is over and the orchestra disbands, La is left pondering her next move. What role can she play in her community now the war is over? And can she let herself love again? La's Orchestra is another delightful story celebrating friendship and the healing power of music, told with the warmth and charm we've come to love from one of the nation's favourite storytellers. |
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From Doris Lessing, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, one of her finest collections of short stories. Doris Lessing is unrivalled in her ability to capture the truth from the complexities of relationships and the stories in this wonderful collection have lost none of their original power. Two marriages, both middle class, liberal and 'rather literary', share a shocking flaw, a secret 'cancer'. A young, beautiful woman from a working class family is courted by a very eligible, very upmarket man. An ageing actress falls in love for the first time but can only express her feelings through her stage performances because her happily married lover is unobtainable. A dedicated, lifelong rationalist is tempted, after the death of his father, by the comforts of religious belief. In this magnificent collection of stories, which spans four decades, Doris Lessing's unique gift for observation, her wit, her compassion and remarkable ability to illuminate the complexities of human life are all remarkably displayed. |
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The World According to Bertie is the fourth in the series and revolves around the many colourful characters that come and go at No. 44 Scotland Street. McCall Smith handles the characters with his customary charm and deftness — the stalwart Tory chartered surveyor, the pushy mother, and, most importantly in this novel, the beleaguered Italian-speaking prodigy, Bertie. This is classic McCall Smith — clever, witty and entertaining — and beautifully illustrated. A chance encounter with Armistead Maupin in San Francisco inspired Alexander McCall Smith to write this series of novels based around the fictional No. 44 Scotland Street in Edinburgh's New Town. |
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Our close bond with Great Britain seems inevitable, given our shared language and heritage. But as distinguished historian Kathleen Burk shows in this groundbreaking history, the close international relationship was forged only recently, preceded by several centuries of hostility and conflict that began soon after the first English colony was established on the newly discovered continent. Burk, a fourth-generation Californian and a professor of history in London, draws on her unrivaled knowledge of both countries to explore the totality of the relationship — the politics, economics, culture, and society — that both connected the two peoples and drove them apart. She tells the story from each side, beginning with the English exploration of the New World and taking us up to the present alliance in Iraq. She reveals the real motivations for settling North America, the factors that led to Britain's losing the colonies, and the reasons why hawks in Congress took the two countries to war again in 1812. Indeed, war between Britain and the United States loomed again later in the nineteenth century, and it took common enemies to bring them together in the twentieth. But the anchor of the alliance was human. Nineteenth-century British writers celebrated American energy while scorning its vulgarity; American writers appreciated the British sense of tradition while criticizing its aristocracy. Yet social reformers on both sides of the ocean worked together to end slavery and achieve female suffrage. Since 1945, the world has watched and wondered at the close bonds of the leaders — Kennedy and Macmillan, Reagan and Thatcher, and Bush and Blair. The first joint history of its kind, Old World, New Worldis a vivid, absorbing, and surprising story of one of the longest international love-hate relationships in modern history. |
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The excitement and wonder of a mid-winter sled ride — seen through the vivid imagination of a young child — allows readers to follow along as the child transforms into a queen, observes colorful soldiers in formation, visits a gypsy camp, and goes wherever her lucid imagination takes her. |
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Mr J.L.B. Matekoni becomes involved in the agency's work when he investigates an errant husband. But can a man investigate such matters as competently as one of the ladies? Mma Ramotswe has her doubts. One thing, though, that she does not doubt is the good nature of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who stands for all that is solid and true in a shifting world. |
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The phenomenal series set in a future New York City returns as NYPSD Lt. Eve Dallas hunts for the killer of a seemingly ordinary history teacher-and uncovers some extraordinary surprises. Craig Foster's death devastated his young wife, who'd sent him to work that day with a lovingly packed lunch. It shocked his colleagues at the private school, too, and as for the ten-year-old girls who found him in his classroom in a pool of bodily fluids-they may have been traumatized for life. Eve soon determines that Foster's homemade lunch was tainted with deadly ricin, and that Mr. Foster's colleagues have some startling secrets of their own. It's Eve's job to sort it out and discover why someone would have done this to a man who seemed so inoffensive, so pleasant... so innocent. Now Magdalena Percell... there's someone Eve can picture as a murder victim. Possibly at Eve's own hands. The slinky blonde-an old flame of her billionaire husband, Roarke-has arrived in New York, and she's anything but innocent. Roarke seems blind to Magdalena's manipulation, and he insists that the occasional lunch or business meeting with her is nothing to worry about... and none of Eve's business. Eve's so unnerved by the situation that she finds it hard to focus on her case. Still, she'll have to put aside her feelings, for a while at least-because another man has just turned up dead. Eve knows all too well that innocence can be a faAade. Keeping that in mind may help her solve this case at last. But it may also tear apart her marriage. |
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Julia Child single handedly awakened America to the pleasures of good cooking with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, but as she reveals in this bestselling memoir, she didn't know the first thing about cooking when she landed in France. Indeed, when she first arrived in 1948 with her husband, Paul, she spoke no French and knew nothing about the country itself. But as she dove into French culture, buying food at local markets and taking classes at the Cordon Bleu, her life changed forever. Julia's unforgettable story unfolds with the spirit so key to her success as a cook and teacher and writer, brilliantly capturing one of the most endearing American personalities of the last fifty years. |
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In her latest spellbinding escapade, Jane Austen arrives in London to watch over the printing of her first novel, and finds herself embroiled in a crime that could end more than her career. For it is up to Jane to tease a murderer out of the ton, lest she — and her country — suffer a dastardly demise... On the heels of completing Sense and Sensibility, Jane heads to Sloane Street for a monthlong visit with her brother Henry and his wife, Eliza. Hobnobbing with the Fashionable Great at the height of the Season, Jane is well aware of their secrets and peccadilloes. But even she is surprised when the intimate correspondence between a Russian princess and a prominent Tory minister is published in the papers for all to see. More shocking, the disgraced beauty is soon found with her throat slit on Lord Castlereagh's very doorstep. Everyone who's anyone in high society is certain the spurned princess committed the violence upon herself. But Jane is unconvinced. Nor does she believe the minister guilty of so grisly and public a crime. Jane, however, is willing to let someone else investigate — until a quirk of fate thrusts her and Eliza into the heart of the case... as prime suspects! Striking a bargain with the authorities, Jane secures seven days to save herself and Eliza from hanging. But as her quest to unmask a killer takes her from the halls of government to the drawing rooms of London's most celebrated courtesan, only one thing is sure: her failure will not only cut short her life. It could lead to England's downfall. A compulsively readable, uncommonly elegant novel of historical suspense, Jane and the Barque of Frailty once again proves Jane Austen a sleuth to be reckoned with. |
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An international cabal drives Volk back to blood-soaked Chechnya, where he confronts an old nemesis and reunites with his lost love in this gripping sequel to the acclaimed series debut. The headquarters of an American oil company hemorrhages chemical-pink smoke into the Moscow night, the aftermath of an apparent terrorist attack. A Russian army captain carrying a priceless Faberge egg and digital evidence of horrific wartime atrocities is murdered and relieved of both these prizes. And in the snowy mountains of southern Russia, a terrorist named Abreg — who once held Volk captive in a Chechen mud pit — hatches a plan to lure him back into his grasp. Volk's Shadow finds Colonel Alexei Volkovoy — covert agent of the Russian army and major player in the Moscow underworld — once again struggling to stay afloat in the swirling currents of Russian political and economic intrigue. This time, however, he is without his sidekick and lover, the ethereal Valya Novaskaya. Aching for the soul mate he pushed away, Volk begins to doubt himself, becoming even more detached from the brutality of his actions. When he takes out his inner pain on the wrong man, he gains a powerful enemy in the highest reaches of the Kremlin, and only after he travels back to Chechnya to eliminate his old nemesis, Abreg, is Volk's debt finally repaid. |
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Twenty selections include humorous, touching tales about life in the shtetl, lovingly translated from the Yiddish with all the warmth and spirit of the originals. Features Progress in Kasrilevke, Summer Romances, Birth, There's No Dead, Someone to Envy, Three Widows, Homesick, On America, A Home Away from Home, and more. |
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Illustrated survey with expert on Tiffany glass as its guide. Topics include traditional and stained glass items; Tiffany revival; varieties of glass and tools; soldering; cutting glass; design; window ornaments; lead cane lampshades; copper foil techniques. For crafters at every level of experience. 252 black-and-white illustrations. 8 full-color illustrations. Bibliography. Index. |
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This brilliant work by one of Russia's foremost novelists teems with greed, passion, depravity, and complex moral issues. Three brothers, involved in the brutal murder of their despicable father, find their lives irrevocably altered as they are driven by intense, uncontrollable emotions of rage and revenge. |
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