Download or read book Samurai William written by Giles Milton and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2003-01-18 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eye-opening account of the first encounter between England and Japan, by the acclaimed author of Nathaniel's Nutmeg In 1611, the merchants of London's East India Company received a mysterious letter from Japan, written several years previously by a marooned English mariner named William Adams. Foreigners had been denied access to Japan for centuries, yet Adams had been living in this unknown land for years. He had risen to the highest levels in the ruling shogun's court, taken a Japanese name, and was now offering his services as adviser and interpreter. Seven adventurers were sent to Japan with orders to find and befriend Adams, in the belief that he held the key to exploiting the opulent riches of this forbidden land. Their arrival was to prove a momentous event in the history of Japan and the shogun suddenly found himself facing a stark choice: to expel the foreigners and continue with his policy of isolation, or to open his country to the world. For more than a decade the English, helped by Adams, were to attempt trade with the shogun, but confounded by a culture so different from their own, and hounded by scheming Jesuit monks and fearsome Dutch assassins, they found themselves in a desperate battle for their lives. Samurai William is the fascinating story of a clash of two cultures, and of the enormous impact one Westerner had on the opening of the East.

Download or read book William an Englishman written by Cicely Hamilton and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book One Fat Englishman written by Kingsley Amis and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The hero of One Fat Englishman, a literary publisher and lapsed Catholic escaped from the pages of Graham Greene to the campus of Budweiser College in provincial Pennsylvania, is philandering, drunken, bigoted, and very very fat, not to mention in a state of continuous spluttering rage against everything, not least his own overgrown self. In America, Roger Micheldene must deal with not so obliging suburban housewives, aspiring Jewish novelists who as good as clean his clock, stray deer, bad cigars, children who beat him at Scrabble (“It was no wonder that people were horrible when they started life as children”), and America itself, while making ever-more desperate and humiliating overtures to Helen, a Scandinavian ice queen. If only Roger would dare to show some real feeling of his own. This comic masterpiece—about the 1950s crashing drunkenly into the consumerist 1960s and a final scion of a disintegrating Old World empire encountering its upstart New World offspring—is one of Kingsley Amis’s greatest and most caustic performances.

Download or read book The Obelisk and the Englishman written by Dorothy U. Seyler and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholarly, mischievous, and driven by curiosity about the unknown, William John Bankes (1786-1855) was a complex and talented member of England's landed gentry. A friend of Lord Byron, he achieved recognition on several fronts- as a daring explorer of ancient lands, notably Egypt and Petra; as a brilliant art collector, illustrator, and remodeler of Kingston Lacy, his family estate in Dorset; and, unfortunately, as the focus of a homophobic sex scandal, which forced him to leave his homeland. Bankes made key discoveries as he explored the archeology and history of Egypt and Syria. He traveled deeper into Egypt and Nubia than any other European before him and prepared over 1,400 site plans and drawings of temples, many now lost to the sand or under the waters of the Nile. At the Abydos Temple he discovered the King List-a wall of cartouches listing Egyptian kings in chronological order-which was vital to the decoding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.a At Philae he uncovered a fallen obelisk, which he arranged to be transported back to England. And in modern-day Jordan he was the first European to make sketches and site plans of the olosto city of Petra. William's life was rich and full, if not always comfortable and secure. In an era when homosexuality was a capital offense, he was persecuted for being gay and threatened with imprisonment and execution. But his pioneering work on ancient temples now enriches the knowledge of modern Egyptologists, and his art collection and decorative talents can be enjoyed by those who visit his home-with the obelisk from Philae still raised on the south lawn. Enhanced by many of Bankes's drawings and paintings, this engaging story is full of vivid detail about the beginnings of Egyptology, Regency England, and a fascinating, multifaceted individual.

Download or read book Servant of the Shogun written by Richard Tames and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Restless written by William Boyd and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is 1939. Eva Delectorskaya is a beautiful 28-year-old Russian émigrée living in Paris. As war breaks out she is recruited for the British Secret Service by Lucas Romer, a mysterious Englishman, and under his tutelage she learns to become the perfect spy, to mask her emotions and trust no one, including those she loves most. Since the war, Eva has carefully rebuilt her life as a typically English wife and mother. But once a spy, always a spy. Now she must complete one final assignment, and this time Eva can't do it alone: she needs her daughter's help.

Download or read book Renegades written by Adrian Weale and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-11-12 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the end of the Second World War, nearly 200 British citizens were under investigation for assisting Nazi Germany. Some have remained notorious, such as William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) and John Amery who went to the gallows for High Treason, but as this meticulously researched study shows, men like Joyce and Amery are only the visible part of a much larger and more intriguing story below the surface. Renegades is drawn entirely from original documentary material, eyewitness accounts and intelligence files. Adrian Weale traces the course of treason in the Second World War from its roots in Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, through the war and subsequent investigations by MI5, up to the trial, imprisonment and in some cases execution of the traitors. Since Renegades was first published in 1994, many files previously restricted by privileged access have been released into the Public Records Office, and a number of other files, including several from MI5, have become available. Adrian Weale has revised his book, incorporating this new material, making Renegades a more comprehensive and authoritative study. Much here will be new to historians, including the first complete account of the British Free Corps - the Waffen-SS unit composed entirely of British subjects - and the identity of all its members, some of whom have been interviewed for this book. Also revealed is the extraordinary career of the conman who joined the Special Air Service and who, after capture by the Germans, informed on his POW camp comrades before volunteering to fight with the Waffen-SS on the Russian front; and in France, the story of the middle-aged British spinster who joined the Gestapo. Though regarded as highly dangerous at the time, German efforts to cultivate traitors in British ranks were for the most part stunningly unsuccessful - not least, as this book reveals, because much of that effort was entrusted to a British Fascist turned double agent at work in the heart of the Third Reich.

Download or read book William written by Hamilton Cicely and published by . This book was released on 1901 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Beloved Captain written by Donald Hankey and published by . This book was released on 1917 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Never Marry an Englishman written by Rob Milson and published by . This book was released on 2008-10 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Englishman s Boy written by Guy Vanderhaeghe and published by Emblem Editions. This book was released on 2010-12-17 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Englishman’s Boy brilliantly links together Hollywood in the 1920s with one of the bloodiest, most brutal events of the nineteenth-century Canadian West – the Cypress Hills Massacre. Vanderhaeghe’s rendering of the stark, dramatic beauty of the western landscape and of Hollywood in its most extravagant era – with its visionaries, celebrities, and dreamers – provides vivid background for scenes of action, adventure, and intrigue. Richly textured, evocative of time and place, this is an unforgettable novel about power, greed, and the pull of dreams that has at its centre the haunting story of a young drifter – “the Englishman’s boy” – whose fate, ultimately, is a tragic one.

Download or read book William an Englishman written by Cicely Hamilton and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The History of English Affairs written by William (of Newburgh) and published by Aris and Phillips Classical Te. This book was released on 2007 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The History of English Affairs, covering the years 1066-1197, was written at the close of the twelfth century and has been described as being "both in substance and in form ... the finest historical work left to us by an Englishman of the twelfth century" (The Dictionary of National Biography). The author's critical ability, gifts of acute observation, clear judgment and tolerant impartiality justify his high reputation as an original authority. Book Two covers the years 1154-1175, and incorporates the murder of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, the capture of the King of Scots at Alnwick, and the first subjugation of Ireland by the English. It also documents the career of Nicholas Breakspear, the only Englishman to become Pope.

Download or read book Cheating at Canasta written by William Trevor and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-08-13 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A husband sits in Harry’s Bar in Venice, thinking of his wife–lost to him now–whose plea has brought him back to one of their favourite haunts. At another table, a young couple quarrel. “Cheating at Canasta” is the title story of William Trevor’s new collection, his first since the highly acclaimed A Bit on the Side, and its themes of missed opportunities, the inevitability of change and the powerful but fragmentary quality of our memories are entirely characteristic of his unparalleled oeuvre.

Download or read book The Golden Hour written by Beatriz Williams and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-07-09 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Golden Hour is pure golden delight Beatriz Williams is at the top of her game.” —Kate Quinn, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Alice Network Beatriz Williams, the New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Wives, is back with another hot summer read; a dazzling epic of World War II in which a beautiful young “society reporter” is sent to the Bahamas, a haven of spies, traitors, and the infamous Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The Bahamas, 1941. Newly-widowed Leonora “Lulu” Randolph arrives in the Bahamas to investigate the Governor and his wife for a New York society magazine. After all, American readers have an insatiable appetite for news of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, that glamorous couple whose love affair nearly brought the British monarchy to its knees five years earlier. What more intriguing backdrop for their romance than a wartime Caribbean paradise, a colonial playground for kingpins of ill-gotten empires? Or so Lulu imagines. But as she infiltrates the Duke and Duchess’s social circle, and the powerful cabal that controls the islands’ political and financial affairs, she uncovers evidence that beneath the glister of Wallis and Edward’s marriage lies an ugly—and even treasonous—reality. In fact, Windsor-era Nassau seethes with spies, financial swindles, and racial tension, and in the middle of it all stands Benedict Thorpe: a scientist of tremendous charm and murky national loyalties. Inevitably, the willful and wounded Lulu falls in love. Then Nassau’s wealthiest man is murdered in one of the most notorious cases of the century, and the resulting coverup reeks of royal privilege. Benedict Thorpe disappears without a trace, and Lulu embarks on a journey to London and beyond to unpick Thorpe’s complicated family history: a fateful love affair, a wartime tragedy, and a mother from whom all joy is stolen. The stories of two unforgettable women thread together in this extraordinary epic of espionage, sacrifice, human love, and human courage, set against a shocking true crime . . . and the rise and fall of a legendary royal couple.

Download or read book William An Englishman written by Cicely Hamilton and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Stalin s Englishman written by Andrew Lownie and published by Hodder Paperbacks. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'MORE RIVETING THAN A SPY NOVEL': THE GRIPPING TRUE STORY OF CAMBRIDGE SPY GUY BURGESS Readers LOVE Stalin's Englishman: 'Fantastically detailed . . . a very quick, absorbing read.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Andrew Lownie's biography of Guy Burgess is that rare achievement - a historical biography of considerable political and human complexity that is also a page turner.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'Surely the definitive account of one of the country's most prominent traitors.' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Guy Burgess was the most important, complex and fascinating of 'The Cambridge Spies' - Maclean, Philby, Blunt - all brilliant young men recruited in the 1930s to betray their country to the Soviet Union. An engaging and charming companion to many, an unappealing, utterly ruthless manipulator to others, Burgess rose through academia, the BBC, the Foreign Office, MI5 and MI6, gaining access to thousands of highly sensitive secret documents which he passed to his Russian handlers. In this first full biography, Andrew Lownie shows us how even Burgess's chaotic personal life of drunken philandering did nothing to stop his penetration and betrayal of the British Intelligence Service. Even when he was under suspicion, the fabled charm which had enabled many close personal relationships with influential Establishment figures (including Winston Churchill) prevented his exposure as a spy for many years. Through interviews with more than a hundred people who knew Burgess personally, many of whom have never spoken about him before, and the discovery of hitherto secret files, Stalin's Englishman brilliantly unravels the many lives of Guy Burgess in all their intriguing, chilling, colourful, tragi-comic wonder. PUBLISHED TO GREAT CRITICAL ACCLAIM: Winner of the St Ermin's Intelligence Book of the Year Award. 'One of the great biographies of 2015.' The Times Fully updated edition including recently released information. A Guardian Book of the Year. The Times Best Biography of the Year. Mail on Sunday Biography of the Year. Daily Mail Biography of Year. Spectator Book of the Year. BBC History Book of the Year. 'A remarkable and definitive portrait ' Frederick Forsyth 'Andrew Lownie's biography of Guy Burgess, Stalin's Englishman ... shrewd, thorough, revelatory.' William Boyd 'In the sad and funny Stalin's Englishman, [Lownie] manages to convey the charm as well as the turpitude.' Craig Brown