Download or read book In the Land of Giants A Journey Through the Dark Ages written by Max Adams and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cultural exploration of the Dark Age landscapes of Britain that poses a significant question: Is the modern world simply the realization of our ancient past? The five centuries between the end of Roman Britain and the death of Alfred the Great have left few voices save a handful of chroniclers, but Britain's "Dark Ages" can still be explored through their material remnants: architecture, books, metalwork, and, above all, landscapes. Max Adams explores Britain's lost early medieval past by walking its paths and exploring its lasting imprint on valley, hill, and field. From York to Whitby, from London to Sutton Hoo, from Edinburgh to Anglesey, and from Hadrian's Wall to Loch Tay, each of his ten walking narratives form free-standing chapters as well as parts of a wider portrait of a Britain of fort and fyrd, crypt and crannog, church and causeway, holy well and memorial stone. Part travelogue, part expert reconstruction, In the Land of Giants offers a beautifully written insight into the lives of peasants, drengs, ceorls, thanes, monks, knights, and kings during an enigmatic but richly exciting period of Britain’s history.
Download or read book The Buried Giant written by Kazuo Ishiguro and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-03-03 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of Never Let Me Go and the Booker Prize–winning novel The Remains of the Day comes a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory. In post-Arthurian Britain, the wars that once raged between the Saxons and the Britons have finally ceased. Axl and Beatrice, an elderly British couple, set off to visit their son, whom they haven't seen in years. And, because a strange mist has caused mass amnesia throughout the land, they can scarcely remember anything about him. As they are joined on their journey by a Saxon warrior, his orphan charge, and an illustrious knight, Axl and Beatrice slowly begin to remember the dark and troubled past they all share. By turns savage, suspenseful, and intensely moving, The Buried Giant is a luminous meditation on the act of forgetting and the power of memory.
Download or read book The Land of the Green Man written by Carolyne Larrington and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-12-15 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beyond its housing estates and identikit high streets there is another Britain. This is the Britain of mist-drenched forests and unpredictable sea-frets: of wraith-like fog banks, druidic mistletoe and peculiar creatures that lurk, half-unseen, in the undergrowth, tantalising and teasing just at the periphery of human vision. How have the remarkably persistent folkloric traditions of the British Isles formed and been formed by the psyches of those who inhabit them? In this sparkling new history, Carolyne Larrington explores the diverse ways in which a myriad of fantastical beings has moulded the nation's cultural history. Fairies, elves and goblins here tread purposefully, sometimes malignly, over an eerie landscape that also conceals brownies, selkies, trows, knockers, boggarts, land-wights, Jack o'Lanterns, Barguests, the sinister Nuckleavee and Black Shuck: terrifying hell-hound of the Norfolk coast with eyes of burning coal. Ranging from Shetland to Jersey and from Ireland to East Anglia, while evoking the Wild Hunt, the ghostly bells of Lyonesse and the dread fenlands haunted by Grendel, this is a book that will captivate all those who long for the wild places: the mountains and chasms where giants lie in wait
Download or read book The King in the North written by Max Adams and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-08-29 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A triumph – a Game of Thrones in the Dark Ages' TOM HOLLAND. The magisterial biography of Oswald Whiteblade, exiled prince of Northumbria, who returned in blood and glory to reclaim his birthright. A charismatic leader, a warrior whose prowess in battle earned him the epithet Whiteblade, an exiled prince who returned to claim his birthright, the inspiration for Tolkein's Aragorn. Oswald of Northumbria was the first great English monarch, yet today this legendary figure is all but forgotten. In this panoramic portrait of Dark Age Britain, archaeologist and biographer Max Adams returns the king in the North to his rightful place in history.
Download or read book Thoreau s Country written by David R. Foster and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1977 David Foster took to the woods of New England to build a cabin with his own hands. Along with a few tools he brought a copy of the journals of Henry David Thoreau. Foster was struck by how different the forested landscape around him was from the one Thoreau described more than a century earlier. The sights and sounds that Thoreau experienced on his daily walks through nineteenth-century Concord were those of rolling farmland, small woodlands, and farmers endlessly working the land. As Foster explored the New England landscape, he discovered ancient ruins of cellar holes, stone walls, and abandoned cartways--all remnants of this earlier land now largely covered by forest. How had Thoreau's open countryside, shaped by ax and plough, divided by fences and laneways, become a forested landscape? Part ecological and historical puzzle, this book brings a vanished countryside to life in all its dimensions, human and natural, offering a rich record of human imprint upon the land. Extensive excerpts from the journals show us, through the vividly recorded details of daily life, a Thoreau intimately acquainted with the ways in which he and his neighbors were changing and remaking the New England landscape. Foster adds the perspective of a modern forest ecologist and landscape historian, using the journals to trace themes of historical and social change. Thoreau's journals evoke not a wilderness retreat but the emotions and natural history that come from an old and humanized landscape. It is with a new understanding of the human role in shaping that landscape, Foster argues, that we can best prepare ourselves to appreciate and conserve it today. From the journal: "I have collected and split up now quite a pile of driftwood--rails and riders and stems and stumps of trees--perhaps half or three quarters of a tree...Each stick I deal with has a history, and I read it as I am handling it, and, last of all, I remember my adventures in getting it, while it is burning in the winter evening. That is the most interesting part of its history. It has made part of a fence or a bridge, perchance, or has been rooted out of a clearing and bears the marks of fire on it...Thus one half of the value of my wood is enjoyed before it is housed, and the other half is equal to the whole value of an equal quantity of the wood which I buy." --October 20, 1855
Download or read book On the Shoulders of Giants written by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-02-05 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times bestselling author and living legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar shares how the power of the Harlem Renaissance led him to become the man he is today—basketball superstar, jazz enthusiast, historian, and Black American icon. In On the Shoulders of Giants, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar invites us on an extraordinarily personal journey back to his birthplace of Harlem through one of the greatest political, cultural, literary, and artistic movements in history. He reveals the tremendous impact the Harlem Renaissance had on both American culture and his own life. Travel deep into the soul of the Renaissance—the night clubs, restaurants, basketball games, and fabulous parties that have made footprints in Harlem’s history. Meet the athletes, jazz musicians, comedians, actors, politicians, entrepreneurs, and writers who not only inspired Kareem’s rise to greatness but an entire nation.
Download or read book In the Land of Giants written by Max Adams and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-10 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling historian tells the story of the landscapes, peoples and culture of early medieval Britain in eight walks, an epic sea voyage and a north-south ride by motorbike. The five centuries between the end of Roman Britain (410) and the death of Alfred the Great (899) have left few voices save a handful of chroniclers, but Britain's 'Dark Ages' can still be explored through their material remnants: buildings, books, metalwork, and, above all, landscapes. Adams explores Britain's lost early medieval past by walking its paths and exploring its imprint on valley, hill and field. From York to Whitby, London to Sutton Hoo and Falmouth to Mallaig, In the Land of Giants offers a beautifully written insight into the lives of peasants, drengs, ceorls, thanes, monks and kings during an enigmatic but richly exciting period of our island's history.
Download or read book Walking to Canterbury written by Jerry Ellis and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than six hundred years ago, the Archbishop of Canterbury was murdered by King Henry II’s knights. Before the Archbishop’s blood dried on the Cathedral floor, the miracles began. The number of pilgrims visiting his shrine in the Middle Ages was so massive that the stone floor wore thin where they knelt to pray. They came seeking healing, penance, or a sign from God. Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, one of the greatest, most enduring works of English literature, is a bigger-than-life drama based on the experience of the medieval pilgrim. Power, politics, friendship, betrayal, martyrdom, miracles, and stories all had a place on the sixty mile path from London to Canterbury, known as the Pilgrim’s Way. Walking to Canterbury is Jerry Ellis’s moving and fascinating account of his own modern pilgrimage along that famous path. Filled with incredible details about medieval life, Ellis’s tale strikingly juxtaposes the contemporary world he passes through on his long hike with the history that peeks out from behind an ancient stone wall or a church. Carrying everything he needs on his back, Ellis stops at pubs and taverns for food and shelter and trades tales with the truly captivating people he meets along the way, just as the pilgrims from the twelfth century would have done. Embarking on a journey that is spiritual and historical, Ellis reveals the wonders of an ancient trek through modern England toward the ultimate goal: enlightenment.
Download or read book No Man s Lands written by Scott Huler and published by Crown. This book was released on 2008-03-11 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When NPR contributor Scott Huler made one more attempt to get through James Joyce’s Ulysses, he had no idea it would launch an obsession with the book’s inspiration: the ancient Greek epic The Odyssey and the lonely homebound journey of its Everyman hero, Odysseus. No-Man’s Lands is Huler’s funny and touching exploration of the life lessons embedded within The Odyssey, a legendary tale of wandering and longing that could be read as a veritable guidebook for middle-aged men everywhere. At age forty-four, with his first child on the way, Huler felt an instant bond with Odysseus, who fought for some twenty years against formidable difficulties to return home to his beloved wife and son. In reading The Odyssey, Huler saw the chance to experience a great vicarious adventure as well as the opportunity to assess the man he had become and embrace the imminent arrival of both middle age and parenthood. But Huler realized that it wasn’t enough to simply read the words on the page—he needed to live Odysseus’s odyssey, to visit the exotic destinations that make Homer’s story so timeless. And so an ambitious pilgrimage was born . . . traveling the entire length of Odysseus’s two-decade journey. In six months. Huler doggedly retraced Odysseus’s every step, from the ancient ruins of Troy to his ultimate destination in Ithaca. On the way, he discovers the Cyclops’s Sicilian cave, visits the land of the dead in Italy, ponders the lotus from a Tunisian resort, and paddles a rented kayak between Scylla and Charybdis and lives to tell the tale. He writes of how and why the lessons of The Odyssey—the perils of ambition, the emptiness of glory, the value of love and family—continue to resonate so deeply with readers thousands of years later. And as he finally closes in on Odysseus’s final destination, he learns to fully appreciate what Homer has been saying all along: the greatest adventures of all are the ones that bring us home to those we love. Part travelogue, part memoir, and part critical reading of the greatest adventure epic ever written, No-Man’s Lands is an extraordinary description of two journeys—one ancient, one contemporary—and reveals what The Odyssey can teach us about being better bosses, better teachers, better parents, and better people.
Download or read book The Real Middle Earth written by Brian Bates and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-02-10 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: J.R.R. Tolkien claimed that he based the land of Middle Earth on a real place. The Real Middle Earth brings alive, for the first time, the very real civilization in which those who lived had a vision of life animated by beings beyond the material world. Magic was real to these people and they believed their universe was held together by an interlaced web of golden threads visible only to wizards. At its center was Middle Earth, a place peopled by humans, but imbued with spiritual power. It was a real realm that stretched from Old England to Scandinavia and across to western Europe, encompassing Celts, Anglo Saxons and Vikings. Looking first at the rich and varied tribes who made up the populace of this mystical land, Bates looks at how the people lived their daily lives in a world of magic and mystery. Using archaeological, historical, and psychological research, Brian Bates breathes life into this civilization of two thousand years ago in a book that every Tolkien fan will want.
Download or read book Fallen Giants written by Maurice Isserman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first comprehensive history of Himalayan mountaineering in 50 years, the authors offer detailed, original accounts of the most significant climbs since the 1890s, and they compellingly evoke the social and cultural worlds that gave rise to those expeditions.
Download or read book When Giants Walked the Earth written by Mick Wall and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-11-09 with total page 549 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first significant fresh reporting on the legendary band in twenty years, built on interviews with all surviving band members and revealing a never-before-seen side of the genius and debauchery that defined their heyday. Veteran rock journalist Mick Wall unflinchingly tells the story of the band that pushed the envelope on both creativity and excess, even by rock ‘n' roll standards. Led Zeppelin was the last great band of the 1960s and the first great band of the 1970s—and When Giants Walked the Earth is the full, enthralling story of Zep from the inside, written by a former confidante of both Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. Rich and revealing, it bores into not only the disaster, addiction and death that haunted the band but also into the real relationship between Page and Plant, including how it was influenced by Page's interest in the occult. Comprehensive and yet intimately detailed, When Giants Walked the Earth literally gets into the principals' heads to bring to life both an unforgettable band and an unrepeatable slice of rock history.
Download or read book The Inquisitor s Tale written by Adam Gidwitz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-03-20 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Newbery Honor Book Winner of the Sydney Taylor Book Award An exciting and hilarious medieval adventure from the bestselling author of A Tale Dark and Grimm. Beautifully illustrated throughout by Hatem Aly! ★ A New York Times Bestseller ★ A New York Times Editor’s Choice ★ A New York Times Notable Children’s Book ★ A People Magazine Kid Pick ★ A Washington Post Best Children’s Book ★ A Wall Street Journal Best Children's Book ★ An Entertainment Weekly Best Middle Grade Book ★ A Booklist Best Book ★ A Horn Book Fanfare Best Book ★ A Kirkus Reviews Best Book ★ A Publishers Weekly Best Book ★ A School Library Journal Best Book ★ An ALA Notable Children's Book “A profound and ambitious tour de force. Gidwitz is a masterful storyteller.” —Matt de la Peña, Newbery Medalist and New York Times bestselling author “What Gidwitz accomplishes here is staggering." —New York Times Book Review Includes a detailed historical note and bibliography 1242. On a dark night, travelers from across France cross paths at an inn and begin to tell stories of three children. Their adventures take them on a chase through France: they are taken captive by knights, sit alongside a king, and save the land from a farting dragon. On the run to escape prejudice and persecution and save precious and holy texts from being burned, their quest drives them forward to a final showdown at Mont Saint-Michel, where all will come to question if these children can perform the miracles of saints. Join William, an oblate on a mission from his monastery; Jacob, a Jewish boy who has fled his burning village; and Jeanne, a peasant girl who hides her prophetic visions. They are accompanied by Jeanne's loyal greyhound, Gwenforte . . . recently brought back from the dead. Told in multiple voices, in a style reminiscent of The Canterbury Tales, our narrator collects their stories and the saga of these three unlikely allies begins to come together. Beloved bestselling author Adam Gidwitz makes his long awaited return with his first new world since his hilarious and critically acclaimed Grimm series. Featuring manuscript illuminations throughout by illustrator Hatem Aly and filled with Adam’s trademark style and humor, The Inquisitor's Tale is bold storytelling that’s richly researched and adventure-packed. “It’s no surprise that Gidwitz’s latest book has been likened to The Canterbury Tales, considering its central story is told by multiple storytellers. As each narrator fills in what happens next in the story of the three children and their potentially holy dog, their tales get not only more fantastical but also more puzzling and addictive. However, the gradual intricacy of the story that is not Gidwitz’s big accomplishment. Rather it is the complex themes (xenophobia, zealotry, censorship etc.) he is able to bring up while still maintaining a light tone, thus giving readers a chance to come to conclusions themselves. (Also, there is a farting dragon.)”—Entertainment Weekly, “Best MG Books of 2016 "Puckish, learned, serendipitous . . . Sparkling medieval adventure." —Wall Street Journal ★ "Gidwitz strikes literary gold with this mirthful and compulsively readable adventure story. . . . A masterpiece of storytelling that is addictive and engrossing." —Kirkus, starred review ★ "A well-researched and rambunctiously entertaining story that has as much to say about the present as it does the past." —Publishers Weekly, starred review ★ "Gidwitz proves himself a nimble storyteller as he weaves history, excitement, and multiple narrative threads into a taut, inspired adventure." —Booklist, starred review ★ "Scatological humor, serious matter, colloquial present-day language, the ideal of diversity and mutual understanding—this has it all." —The Horn Book, starred review ★ "I have never read a book like this. It’s weird, and unfamiliar, and religious, and irreligious, and more fun than it has any right to be. . . . Gidwitz is on fire here, making medieval history feel fresh and current." —School Library Journal, starred review
Download or read book Giants in the Land Book One The Way of Things Book One The Way of Things written by Clark Rich Burbidge and published by . This book was released on 2023-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are Giants in the Land...and it has always been so, as long as anyone can remember. The people of this smallish medieval farming community work side-by-side with the giant in an almost utopian society. Whenever, there is a job too difficult or a threat too great the people have their giant friends to step in. The giants' presence gives the townspeople a special confidence about life in a difficult and wild world. But one morning the people discover the giants have mysteriously disappeared. Fear and panic grip the town. Someone must find them and bring them back. Yet, no one has ever walked in the wild world without a giant at their side. Only Thomas, a young farmer with no special standing in the community or skills is willing to volunteer and sets out alone on a great quest filled with danger and discovery. Thomas' journey teaches him the true nature of giants, the great secrets they protect, the code they live by and their purpose in working with and then leaving the people of his town. Perhaps his greatest discovery is his own destiny and how it is intertwined with the giant people and the survival of the land. Book one of the Giants trilogy sets the mythology, characters and purpose of the land and the giants belief system which they call The Way of Things. It is not just a unique and compelling mythological fantasy. It is an allegory of our modern lives. We all have those in our lives who guide and mentor us. We can become dependent on them. However, all great influencers whom we love and revere eventually move on or pass on. How do we continue without them? Book one opens the door to a fantastic world that will help readers discover the significance of having giants in our lives and how to learn the age-old secrets to Living with the Heart of a Giant.
Download or read book James and the Giant Peach written by Roald Dahl and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-08-16 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the World's No. 1 Storyteller, James and the Giant Peach is a children's classic that has captured young reader's imaginations for generations. One of TIME MAGAZINE’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time After James Henry Trotter's parents are tragically eaten by a rhinoceros, he goes to live with his two horrible aunts, Spiker and Sponge. Life there is no fun, until James accidentally drops some magic crystals by the old peach tree and strange things start to happen. The peach at the top of the tree begins to grow, and before long it's as big as a house. Inside, James meets a bunch of oversized friends—Grasshopper, Centipede, Ladybug, and more. With a snip of the stem, the peach starts rolling away, and the great adventure begins! Roald Dahl is the author of numerous classic children’s stories including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, The BFG, and many more! “James and the Giant Peach remains a favorite among kids and parents alike nearly 60 years after it was first published, thanks to its vivid imagery, vibrant characters and forthright exploration of mature themes like death and hope.” —TIME Magazine Cover may vary.
Download or read book Carboniferous Giants and Mass Extinction written by George R. McGhee Jr. and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Picture a world of dog-sized scorpions and millipedes as long as a car; tropical rainforests with trees towering over 150 feet into the sky and a giant polar continent five times larger than Antarctica. That world was not imaginary; it was the earth more than 300 million years ago in the Carboniferous period of the Paleozoic era. In Carboniferous Giants and Mass Extinction, George R. McGhee Jr. explores that ancient world, explaining its origins; its downfall in the end-Permian mass extinction, the greatest biodiversity crisis to occur since the evolution of animal life on Earth; and how its legacies still affect us today. McGhee investigates the consequences of the Late Paleozoic ice age in this comprehensive portrait of the effects of ancient climate change on global ecology. Carboniferous Giants and Mass Extinction examines the climatic conditions that allowed for the evolution of gigantic animals and the formation of the largest tropical rainforests ever to exist, which in time turned into the coal that made the industrial revolution possible—and fuels the engine of contemporary anthropogenic climate change. Exploring the strange and fascinating flora and fauna of the Late Paleozoic ice age world, McGhee focuses his analysis on the forces that brought this world to an abrupt and violent end. Synthesizing decades of research and new discoveries, this comprehensive book provides a wealth of insights into past and present extinction events and climate change.
Download or read book A Journey to the Source of the River Oxus written by John Wood and published by . This book was released on 1872 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
