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  The Virgin Warrior - The Life...

  Larissa Juliet Taylor

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  “A fresh and provocative biography of La Pucelle . . . her transformation from a naive girl to a strong-willed, bold, and gifted captain of war.”—Frederic J. Baumgartner, author of France in the Sixteenth CenturyFrance’s great heroine and England’s great scourge: whether a lunatic, a witch, a religious icon, or a skilled soldier and leader, Joan of Arc’s contemporaries found her as extraordinary and fascinating as the legends that abound about her today. But her life has been so endlessly cast and recast that we have lost sight of the remarkable girl at the heart of it—a teenaged peasant girl who, after claiming to hear voices, convinced the French king to let her lead a disheartened army into battle. In the process she changed the course of European history.In The Virgin Warrior, Larissa Juliet Taylor paints a vivid portrait of Joan as a self-confident, charismatic and supremely determined figure, whose sheer force of will electrified those around her and struck terror into the hearts of the English soldiers and leaders. The drama of Joan’s life is set against a world where visions and witchcraft were real, where saints could appear to peasants, battles and sieges decided the fate of kingdoms and rigged trials could result in burning at the stake. Yet in her short life, Joan emboldened the French soldiers and villagers with her strength and resolve. A difficult, inflexible leader, she defied her accusers and enemies to the end. From her early years to the myths and fantasies that have swelled since her death, Taylor “goes deep into Joan of Arc’s heart and soul and shows us the maiden, the warrior and the heroine” (Kate Williams, New York Times bestselling author).

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  Tales From the Home Farm - Live...

  Michael Kelly

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  Turn the doom and gloom into a better, more enjoyable way of living.
  
  Want to eat better, save money, work those muscles without the treadmill, know where your food comes from? This could be the new, recession-proof you! Five years ago Michael Kelly chucked in the corporate life to try his hand at 'the good life'. It's been the most rewarding thing he has ever done – and you could do it too. Make your back (or front) garden work for you; or maybe an allotment?
  
  Based on his own, sometimes hilarious experiences, Michael shares what he's learned, taking us through the year on his small home farm.
  
  - Included:
  - What to grow and when. What's worth it? What's not?
  - Hens and pigs – the ups and downs
  - Cooking and storing your bounty
  - The health benefits – physical and mental
  - Linking up with others - food swapping and markets, and the return of the meitheal

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  Study of Man - General Education...

  Rudolf Steiner

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  Although these lectures were given to teachers as preparatory material, they are by no means concerned only with education. Study of Man is Steiner's most succinct presentation of his human-centred spiritual psychology, accessible to anyone interested in the riddles of human existence. His approach is unique in that it takes account not only of influences working into humanity from the past, but also of future states of consciousness and being.Reprinted here in the original 'classic' Harwood/Fox translation, the lectures were delivered in 1919 to the teachers of the Waldorf school in Stuttgart, the first to be founded on the work of Rudolf Steiner. Over the years, since the exponential growth of Steiner education around the world, this volume has become the basic study text for teachers in Steiner schools. But as well as providing a grounding for the work of educators, Study of Man will be of keen interest to parents, counsellors, psychologists, and students of Steiner's philosophy. For the latter, this volume provides a fundamental picture of the human being according to the anthroposophical understanding of the world.

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  American Ulysses - A Life of...

  Ronald C. White

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  NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of A. Lincoln, a major new biography of one of America’s greatest generals—and most misunderstood presidents 
  Finalist for the Gilder-Lehrman Military History Book Prize 
  In his time, Ulysses S. Grant was routinely grouped with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in the “Trinity of Great American Leaders.” But the battlefield commander–turned–commander-in-chief fell out of favor in the twentieth century. In American Ulysses, Ronald C. White argues that we need to once more revise our estimates of him in the twenty-first. 
  Based on seven years of research with primary documents—some of them never examined by previous Grant scholars—this is destined to become the Grant biography of our time. White, a biographer exceptionally skilled at writing momentous history from the inside out, shows Grant to be a generous, curious, introspective man and leader—a willing delegator with a natural gift for managing the rampaging egos of his fellow officers. His wife, Julia Dent Grant, long marginalized in the historic record, emerges in her own right as a spirited and influential partner. 
  Grant was not only a brilliant general but also a passionate defender of equal rights in post-Civil War America. After winning election to the White House in 1868, he used the power of the federal government to battle the Ku Klux Klan. He was the first president to state that the government’s policy toward American Indians was immoral, and the first ex-president to embark on a world tour, and he cemented his reputation for courage by racing against death to complete his Personal Memoirs. Published by Mark Twain, it is widely considered to be the greatest autobiography by an American leader, but its place in Grant’s life story has never been fully explored—until now. 
  One of those rare books that successfully recast our impression of an iconic historical figure, American Ulysses gives us a finely honed, three-dimensional portrait of Grant the man—husband, father, leader, writer—that should set the standard by which all future biographies of him will be measured.

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  Ivory's Ghosts - The White Gold...

  John Frederick Walker

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  “[A] tour de force examination of the history of ivory . . . and the demise of the elephant and human decency in the process of this unholy quest.” —The Huffington Post 
   Praised for the nuance and sensitivity with which it approaches one of the most fraught conservation issues we face today, John Frederick Walker’s Ivory’s Ghosts tells the astonishing story of the power of ivory through the ages, and its impact on elephants. Long before gold and gemstones held allure, ivory came to be prized in every culture of the world—from ancient Egypt to nineteenth-century America to modern Japan—for its beauty, rarity, and ability to be finely carved. But the beauty came at an unfathomable cost. 
   Walker lays bare the ivory trade’s cruel connection with the slave trade and the increasing slaughter of elephants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By the 1980s, elephant poaching reached levels that threatened the last great herds of the African continent, and led to a worldwide ban on the ancient international trade in tusks. But the ban has failed to stop poaching—or the emotional debate over what to do with the legitimate and growing stockpiles of ivory recovered from elephants that die of natural causes. 
   “Ivory’s Ghost is essential reading for anyone concerned with conservation and with the tenuous future of one of the most magnificent creatures our earth has ever seen.” —George B. Schaller, author of A Naturalist and Other Beast

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  Diary of a Novel - The Story of...

  Eugenia Price

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  This is only one of the many revelations in Eugenia Price’s intimate account of the many months she spent sorting through voluminous historical research and writing Margaret’s Story, the third novel in her Florida trilogy. Published as a companion to the novel, this journal offers a fascinating view of the author at work as the novel developed week by week. Here, for the sharing, is her excitement as her story’s characters emerge–living, breathing “people” who become for the duration more real to her than those who are part of her day-to-day existence. Here, too, is her joy on “good” writing days, her anxiety in times of creative uncertainty, her frustrations at unavoidable interruptions–and her courage in resisting discouragement and discomfort (through most of this period she was plagued with vertigo caused by labyrinthitis). From time to time she isolated herself in a St. Augustine motel to work undisturbed, but when at home on St. Simons Island she managed to continue with the novel and be at the same time a caring friend to everyone who needed her. In Diary of a Novel the reader will encounter many of the friends met in St. Simons Memoir and make, with the author, some new friends as well. Most of all, this behind-the-scenes narrative will give a new dimension to the experience of reading the novel Margaret’s Story. Eugenia Price, author of many books of religious inspiration, came to fiction midway in her career. Altogether her works have reached more than thirteen million readers.

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