London, 1969 – and the headstrong and beautiful Isabella Courtney dazzles all.

Yet the years that follow will test Isabella to the extreme of her endurance.
They will be years of hardship and bitter pain, hidden behind the masks of affluence and success. It will be a time in which brother is pitted against brother, as they are drawn into the lair of the golden fox.
Golden Fox irresistibly sweeps the reader through the heart of London society, the grandeur of Europe and the searing heat of a divided Africa.
Once again, Wilbur Smith combines his unique talents for electric story-telling, meticulous research and compassion for places and their people in a novel of adventure, romantic obsession, deceit and desire, in a world where betrayal demands the ultimate sacrifice...
This is the fourth volume in the Courtney series, Second Sequence

TTC - Between the Rivers: The History of Ancient Mesopotamia

What pieces of a distant past drift before our mind's eye when ancient Mesopotamia is mentioned?

Do we see the temples known as ziggurats, thrust toward the sky by stepped platforms that would bring worshippers closer to the gods they honored? Entire populations paralyzed by fear before a dreaded invader, their dreams haunted by images of their own severed heads held aloft? Priests making sacrifices to the gods who ruled over and protected their city? Or the fabled Hanging Gardens of Babylon, their terraces as shadowed by mystery as they are set alight by color?

Any of these, of course, may come to mind. Perhaps all of them. And with the exception of Babylon's fabled gardens, whose existence has never actually been confirmed, they are all true—each a part of the legacy of a region from which our own culture has drawn so many essential aspects, including writing, the first code of law, the idea of cities, and even the first epic poem. All cultures lie in the shadow of Mesopotamia.

 

Communication is at the heart of all religions. As an essential aspect of religion, communication occurs between believers, between religious leaders and followers, between proponents of different faiths, and even between practitioners and the deities. The desire to communicate with as well as convert others is also an aspect of some of the world's major religions.