In her national bestseller Alice I Have Been, Melanie Benjamin imagined the life of the woman who inspired Alice in Wonderland. Now, in this jubilant new novel, Benjamin shines a dazzling spotlight on another fascinating female figure whose story has never fully been told: a woman who became a nineteenth century icon and inspiration—and whose most daunting limitation became her greatest strength.
Anonyponymous - The Forgotten People Behind Everyday Words
In this clever and funny book, John Bemelmans Marciano illuminates the lives of these anonyponymous persons. A kind of encyclopedia of linguistic biographies, the book is arranged alphabetically, giving the stories of everyone from Abu “algorithm” Al-Khwarizmi to Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Along with them you'll find the likes of Harry Shrapnel, Joseph-Ignace Guillotine, and many other people whose vernacular legacies have long outlived their memory.
As 19th-century novelists Alexandre Dumas and Charles Dickens both discovered, the French Revolution makes for great drama. This lesson has not been lost on Hilary Mantel, whose A Place of Greater Safety brings a 20th-century sensibility to the stirring events of 1789. Mantel's approach is nothing if not ambitious: her three main characters, Georges-Jacques Danton, Maximilien Robespierre, and Camille Desmoulins, happen to have been major players in the early days of the revolution--men whose mix of ambition, idealism, and ego helped unleash the Terror and brought them eventually to their own tragic ends.
East of Eden is a novel by Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck, published in September 1952. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families -- the Trasks and the Hamiltons -- whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Reuploaded by decabristka
Inventive, worldly, moving and important - such words have characterized the work of Brian Aldiss consistently during the past three decades. With this new novel, Aldiss continues to explore new territories and further his reputation for trenchant and powerful works of realistic fiction. Remembrance Day revolves around a terrorist bombing in a small hotel in a British coastal town. The people involved are not larger-than-life figures whose feats of derring-do will change the fate of humanity forever; rather, they are Ray, Dominic, Ruby, and Petrik, honest people grappling with the day-to-day issues of modern life.
