Collection of poetry about witches, ghosts and the like. Read by Sandy Toksvig and Nigel Planer. Accompanied by audio effects. For everybody who loves English. British English.
Коллекция стихов о ведьмах, привидениях и прочем таком. Читают Сэнди Токсвиг и Найджел Плэйнер. Сопровождается звуковыми эффектами. Для всех, кто любит английский. Британский английский.
Jordan Buchanan is thrilled that her brother and best friend are tying the knot. The wedding is a lavish affair–for the marriage of Dylan Buchanan and Kate MacKenna is no ordinary occasion. It represents the joining of two family dynasties. The ceremony and reception proceed without a hitch–until a crasher appears claiming to be a MacKenna guest. The disheveled and eccentric professor of medieval history warns that there’s “bad blood” between the couple’s clans, stemming from an ancient feud that originated in Scotland, and involving the Buchanan theft of a coveted MacKenna treasure.
The Dogs of War
(1974) is a war novel by Frederick Forsyth chronicling a company of European mercenary soldiers hired by a British industrialist to depose the government of the African country of Zangaro. An eponymous film was released in 1981, based upon the novel and directed by John Irvin.
The mercenary protagonists, (like the protagonist the author's earlier novel The Day of the Jackal [1971]) are professional killers — ruthless, violent men, heroic only in the word's loosest sense, thus, they are anti-heroes. The Irishman Carlo Alfred Thomas "Cat" Shannon, commander of the mercenary group, is the exception; the others are life's losers, emotionally impoverished, expendable men.
The story details a geologist's mineral discovery, and the preparations for the attack: soldier recruitment, training, reconnaissance, and the coup d'йtat logistics (buying weapons, transport, payment). Like most of Forsyth's work, the novel is more about the protagonists' occupational tradecraft than their characters. The Dogs of War title is a term from line 270, scene 1, Act III: Cry, 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war, from the play Julius Caesar (1599), by William Shakespeare.
Novelist Forsyth draws upon his journalistic experiences in reporting the Biafran War between Biafra and Nigeria; though fictional, the Central African 'Republic of Zangaro', is based upon Equatorial Guinea, a former Spanish colony . The novels's dedication — five named men and "the others in the unmarked graves" concludes: "at least we tried" — clearly alludes to Forsyth's time in Biafra; the dark tone and cynical plot of the story stem from the same source.
The Red Fairy Book
Edited by Andrew Lang
37 familiar ("Rapunzel," "Jack and the Beanstalk," "The Golden Goose,") and not-so-familiar stories ("The Voice of Death," "The Enchanted Pig," and "The Master Thief")
The Crimson Fairy Book
Edited by Andrew Lang
36 stories from Hungary, Russia, Finland, Iceland, Tunisia, the Baltic: "The Cottager and His Cat," "The Crab and the Monkey," "Little Wildrose," "The Gold-bearded Man," and more.
