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Just in for April
2008
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The Rabbi's Daughter Reva Mann PB £7.99 |
| In this
daringly honest memoir, Reva Mann paints a portrait of herself as a
young woman on the edge—of either revelation or self-destruction. Granddaughter of
the former Chief Rabbi of Israel and daughter of a highly
respected London rabbi, Mann rebelled against her family early on, spiraling into
a whirlwind of sex and drugs during adolescence, and then going
to the opposite extreme and immersing herself in
the world of the ultra-Orthodox. Ricocheting between piety and promiscuity,
between life in a yeshiva in Jerusalem and wild escapades
in London and Israel both before and after her marriage
to the Talmud scholar she believed would take her to ever greater heights
of spirituality, she takes readers with her on her difficult but ultimately
life-changing journey toward inner truth. | |
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| Covers
the whole life of this greatest of Britons -- from his youth, when
he was shocked by the anti-Semitism displayed during the Dreyfus
Affair, to his last meeting with David Ben-Gurion in 1960, when he
gave Ben-Gurion an article he had written about Moses. In the
intervening years, during which Churchill cemented his place in
history, his affinity with the Jews remained undimmed, even though
his championing of Zionist issues and interests was often like a red
rag to the bull of the British Establishment. One of those closest
to Churchill once confided to the author that "Winston had one fault
- he was too fond of Jews." Exploring all aspects of his life and
career, the book sheds new light on a key figure of the 20th century
and how his attitudes affected not just the prosecution of the
Second World War but the establishment of a Jewish state that
followed it. | |
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| Middle-aged Veronica Hegarty,
the middle child in an Irish-Catholic family of nine, traces the
aftermath of a tragedy that has claimed the life of rebellious elder
brother Liam. As Veronica travels to London to bring Liam's body
back to Dublin, her deep-seated resentment toward her overly passive
mother and her dissatisfaction with her husband and children come to
the fore. Tempers flare as the family assembles for Liam's wake, and
a secret Veronica has concealed since childhood comes to light.
Enright skillfully avoids sentimentality as she explores Veronica's
past and her complicated relationship with Liam. She also bracingly
imagines the life of Veronica's strong-willed grandmother, Ada. A
melancholic love and rage bubbles just beneath the surface of this
Dublin clan, and Enright explores it unflinchingly. | |
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The former Prime Minister examines the history of one of the great loves of his life. Throughout John Major's life, one of the constant factors has been his deep love of cricket. In this sumptuously illustrated book he delves deep into the game's history, tracing its development from its rustic beginnings to the international sport we know today. Along the way he examines -- and at times demolishes -- many cherished myths. | |
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| In the
summer of 1967, not long after the Six Day War, three young
Palestinian men ventured into the town of Ramla in Israel. They were
cousins, on a pilgrimage to see their childhood homes, from which
they and their families had been driven out nearly twenty years
earlier. One cousin had the door slammed in his face, one found that
his old house had been converted into a school. But the third,
Bashir, was met at the door by a young woman named Dalia, who
invited him in...This poignant encounter is the starting point for
the story of two families - one Arab, one Jewish - which spans the
fraught modern history of the region. | |
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Family
Romance
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| In this acclaimed memoir from the award-winning author of
"Fragrant Harbour", John Lanchester pieces together his family's
past and uncovers their extraordinary secrets - from his
grandparents' life in colonial Rhodesia to his mother's time as a
nun - with clear-eyed compassion. | |
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| Author Kati Marton follows these nine over the
decades as they flee fascism and anti-Semitism, seek sanctuary in
England and America, and set out to make their mark. The scientists
Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, and Eugene Wigner enlist Albert Einstein
to get Franklin Roosevelt to initiate the development of the atomic
bomb. Along with John von Neuman, who pioneers the computer, they
succeed in achieving that goal before Nazi Germany, ending the
Second World War, and opening a new age. Arthur Koestler writes the
most important anti-Communist novel of the century, Darkness at
Noon. Robert Capa is the first photographer ashore on D-Day. He
virtually invents photojournalism and gives us some of the century's
most enduring records of modern warfare. Andre Kertesz pioneers
modern photojournalism, and Alexander Korda, who makes wartime
propaganda films for Churchill, leaves a stark portrait of post war
Europe with The Third Man, as his fellow filmmaker, Michael Curtiz,
leaves us the immortal Casablanca, a call to arms and the most
famous romantic film of all time. Marton brings passion and breadth
to these dramatic lives as they help invent the twentieth
century. | |
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Jamal is a successful psychoanalyst haunted by his
first love and a brutal act of violence from which he can never
escape. Looking back to his coming of age in the 1970s forms a
vivid backdrop to the drama that develops thirty years later, as he and
his friends face an encroaching middle age with the traumas of their
youth still unresolved. Like "The Buddha of Suburbia", "Something to
Tell You" is full-to-bursting with energy, at times comic, at
times painfully tender. With unfailing deftness of touch Kureishi has created
a memorable cast of recognisable individuals, all of whom wrestle with their
own limits as human beings, haunted by the past until they find it within
themselves to forgive.
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| A
tall, yellow-haired young European traveller calling himself 'Mogor
dell'Amore', the Mughal of Love, arrives at the court of the real
Grand Mughal, the Emperor Akbar,
with a tale to tell that begins to obsess
the whole imperial capital. The stranger claims to be the child
of a lost Mughal princess, the youngest sister of Akbar's
grandfather Babar: Qara Koz, 'Lady Black Eyes', a great beauty believed
to possess powers of enchantment and sorcery, who is
taken captive first by an Uzbek warlord, then by the Shah of Persia,
and finally becomes the lover of a
certain Argalia, a Florentine soldier of fortune, commander of the
armies of the Ottoman Sultan. When Argalia returns home with his Mughal mistress the
city is mesmerized by her presence, and much trouble
ensues. | |
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"Austerity Britain 1945-51", is the first book in Kynaston's series "Tales of a New Jerusalem". Here is the first volume from this landmark book covering 1945-48. Beginning his groundbreaking series about post-war Britain, Kynaston presents our nation through the eyes of those who lived there. Meet Judy Haines, a Chingford housewife, struggling daily with food rationing; Henry St. John, a self-serving civil servant in Bristol; and, the young Glenda Jackson, taking her 11-plus. Using mass observation, diaries, letters, newspapers and magazines from the time, "A World to Build" is an unsurpassed social history: intensely evocative to those who were there and eye-opening for their children and grandchildren. | |
