In 1913 Ransome left his wife & went to Russia to study folklore. In 1915, he published The Elixir of Life, his only full length novel apart from the Swallows & Amazons series. He published Old Peter's Russian Tales, a collection of 21 folktales the following year. After the start of WWI, he became a foreign correspondent & covered the war on the Eastern Front for The Daily News. He also covered the Russian Revolutions of 1917, coming to sympathise with the Bolsheviks & becoming close to a number of its leaders, including Lenin & Trotsky. He met the woman who'd become his 2nd wife, Evgenia Petrovna Shelepina, who at that time was Trotsky's personal secretary. He provided some information to MI5, which gave him the code name S.76 in their files. Bruce Lockhart said in his memoirs: "Ransome was a Don Quixote with a walrus moustache, a sentimentalist who could always be relied upon to champion the underdog, & a visionary whose imagination had been fired by the revolution. He was on excellent terms with the Bolsheviks & frequently brought us information of the greatest value." In 10/19 he met Rex Leeper of the Foreign Office's Political Intelligence Dep't, who threatened to reveal this unless he privately submitted his articles & public speaking engagements for approval. Ransome's response was indignant. MI5 suspected he was a threat because of his opposition to the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War. On one of his visits to the UK, authorities searched him & threatened arrest. In 10/19, as he was returning to Moscow on behalf of The Manchester Guardian, the Estonian foreign minister Ants Piip entrusted him to deliver a secret armistice proposal to the Bolsheviks. At that time the Estonians were fighting their War of Independence alongside White counterrevolutionary forces. After crossing the battlelines on foot, he passed the message, which to preserve secrecy had not been written down & depended for its authority only on the high regard in which he was held in both countries, to diplomat Maxim Litvinov in Moscow. To deliver the reply, which accepted Piip's conditions for peace, he had to return by the same means, but this time he had Evgenia with him. Estonia withdrew from the conflict & they settled in the capital.

What happens when a young woman is accidentally caught up in a dangerous murder investigation, having merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Lacey Farrell, a rising star on the Manhattan real estate scene, is witness to a murder - and to the final words of the victim. The dying woman is convinced her attacker was after her dead daughter's journal, which Lacey gives to the police, but not before making a copy for herself. It's an impulse that later proves nearly fatal. Placed in the witness protection programme and sent to live in Minneapolis, Lacey must assume a fake identity, at least until the killer can be brought to trial. There she meets Tom Lynch, a radio talk-show host whom she tentatively begins to date - until the strain of her deception makes her break it off. Then she discovers the killer has traced her whereabouts. Armed with nothing more than her own courage and clues from the journal, Lacey heads back to New York determined to uncover who is behind the deaths of the two women...before she is the next casualty.

A monumental novel about trees and people by one of our most "prodigiously talented" (The New York Times Book Review) novelists.An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. These four, and five other strangers—each summoned in different ways by trees—are brought together in a last and violent stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest.In his twelfth novel, National Book Award winner Richard Powers delivers a sweeping, impassioned novel of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of—and paean to—the natural...

Classic fairy tale about Prince Peter, who journeys to find the firebird, which keeps stealing the golden apples from the kings orchard. Non-illustrated version.A retelling of the classic Russian folk tale about the prince who must complete three challenges in order to bring the firebird back to the king. He has help along the way in the form of a white wolf. Even if he finds the firebird, will he be able to bring ot home?

This is a Guide to Book 1 of The Seculary of a Wandering Jew. It facilitates the reading by providing a general timeline of the epoch and provides in-depth information on the Characters, Geographies and Nomenclatures of the period.Billy and Susan loved to hear their father read stories to them every night at bedtime. Susan told her brother Billy that the stories were for little kids. Susan said, "Billy I love dad, but I wish he would read scary stories to us instead of stories like Peter Pan and Alice and Wonderland. They were ok when we were younger, but we are so much older now." "I feel the same way. I like it when mother and father go out to dinner at night so we can watch scary movies together, "replied Billy."Next time we spend the night with grandma, maybe we can sneak out of bed and see if she has any old creepy books in her attic. If she does we can give them to our father to read to us instead of those boring stories he's been reading over and over for the past several years!" exclaimed Susan. "Tonight we'll ask him if he'll let us spend the night at grandma's house this weekend. I'm sure he'll say yes," said Billy.Night finally arrived. Billy and Susan asked their father if they could spend the night with their grandma tomorrow. Their father said, "I don't see why that would be a problem because your mother and I were planning a weekend trip." Billy and Susan would find their scary book they had been hoping for, but this book should have been left in the attic where it belongs untouched in the trunk where they found it.

For the first time, all the wonders of Shannara have been gathered into one single volume. This indispensable resource illuminates the history, mythology, magic, characters, places, and events of the bestselling series. Full-color paintings and b&w illustrations throughout.

The Accident at 13th and Jefferson is an uplifting tale of middle class family life in America that gives the reader the unique opportunity to compare three different paths the same lives could take if one event is changed. Josh Greenwood and his Mom and Dad are walking their neighbors to the corner when a freak accident kills one of them. But which one?Josh Greenwood and his Mom and Dad are walking their neighbors to the corner of 13th and Jefferson after Josh’s 14th birthday party when a careening motorcycle kicks up a rock that kills Bonnie, the mother. But what if the rock killed Tom, the father, instead? Or the accident unfolded differently and Josh was killed? This uplifting tale of middle class family life in America offers all three stories. In Book 1, Tom struggles to cope with single parenthood and tries to woo Elaine, the neighbor at the accident who has a past with a mystery man. Josh and Max, Elaine’s son who doesn’t know that his real father is “somebody”, interfere and grow up until graduation from high school. In Book 2, Bonnie struggles to save Josh from the influences of her petty criminal half-brother, Mitch. Max reacts very differently to learning the identity of his real father and even with the best intentions and efforts of loving mothers things do not turn out well. In Book 3, Tom and Bonnie’s marriage flounders as they struggle to reinvent themselves as non-parents, Max becomes a real player in his father’s presidential campaign and Elaine… Well we can’t tell you the rest. In Book 4, (surprise!) the original tragedy is averted. How much do we really know about anyone?

Junior and Pinto: A Boy and His Car, by Clancy Smith.Dead Land grifter Junior and his equally gritty car, Pinto, are on their last leg when then reach a remote human outpost on the eastern coast. But just because he bartered his way inside, doesn't mean the con and his car will make it out in one piece.This is the fifth chapter of the post-apocalyptic anthology, Dead Land, currently being developed for an unprecedented multi-media book. If you're an illustrator, animator, a website or game developer, or otherwise interested in being a part of this project, please contact Richard at [email protected]:Richard CunninghamDavid SechrestKalju LeeCurran AltshulClancy Smith

One warming winter afternoon, Will skis with his brother to a secluded and sleepy hamlet, encountering more of the past than the present.excerpt:All right then, said Will. He gripped his poles harder and pushed down on them, anchoring himself as he slid his skis back and forth to loosen them in the snow. When he was ready he sucked in a deep breath and pushed off the little ledge.The run came at him fast; he bent his knees only a little until past the ramp towards the bottom of the hill he crouched into a low tuck, the poles up under his arms and trailing behind like vestigial wings. The momentum from the hill took him all the way to a fence at the far edge of the field at the bottom. To the left stood a tarpaper shack with a windowpane of dull tin with a dark hole where a smokestack had once been. A driveway went down a steep slope behind the last house to the road opposite the shack. Another house of mustard stucco stood directly ahead. He turned to wait for his brother who just then pushed off from the top of the hill and followed, going around the ramp close by the concrete projection. He came across the field and then the two of them stood quiet and watched as a purple snow machine followed down the slope and cut a wide turn, leaving a trail in the snow before going back up the hill.

**George Orwell's collected nonfiction, written in the clear-eyed and uncompromising style that earned him a critical following ** One of the most thought-provoking and vivid essayists of the twentieth century, George Orwell fought the injustices of his time with singular vigor through pen and paper. In this selection of essays, he ranges from reflections on his boyhood schooling and the profession of writing to his views on the Spanish Civil War and British imperialism. The pieces collected here include the relatively unfamiliar and the more celebrated, making it an ideal compilation for both new and dedicated readers of Orwell's work.

The text of Eliot's 1922 masterpiece is accompanied by thorough explanatory annotations as well as by Eliot's own knotty notes, some of which require annotation themselves. For ease of reading, this Norton Critical Edition presents The Waste Land as it first appeared in the American edition (Boni & Liveright), with Eliot's notes at the end. "Contexts" provides readers with invaluable materials on The Waste Land's sources, composition, and publication history. "Criticism" traces the poem's reception with twenty-five reviews and essays, from first reactions through the end of the twentieth century. Included are reviews published in the Times Literary Supplement, along with selections by Virginia Woolf, Gilbert Seldes, Edmund Wilson, Elinor Wylie, Conrad Aiken, Charles Powell, Gorham Munson, Malcolm Cowley, Ralph Ellison, John Crowe Ransom, I. A. Richards, F. R. Leavis, Cleanth Brooks, Delmore Schwartz, Denis Donoghue, Robert Langbaum, Marianne Thormählen, A. D. Moody, Ronald Bush, Maud Ellman, and Tim Armstrong. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are included.

A gripping, provocative thriller about the twisted secrets families keep, perfect for fans of *The Girls.* Beautiful. Rich. Mysterious. Everyone wants to be a Roanoke girl. But you won't when you know the truth. Lane Roanoke is fifteen when she comes to live with her grandparents and fireball cousin at the Roanoke family's rural estate following the suicide of her mother. Over one long, hot summer, Lane experiences the benefits of being one of the rich and beautiful Roanoke girls. But what she doesn't know is being a Roanoke girl carries a terrible legacy: either the girls run, or they die. For there is darkness at the heart of Roanoke, and when Lane discovers its insidious pull, she must make her choice...

Since 1982, J. M. Coetzee has been dazzling the literary world. After eight novels that have won, among other awards, two Booker Prizes, and most recently, the Nobel Prize, Coetzee has once again crafted an unusual and deeply affecting tale. Told through an ingenious series of formal addresses, Elizabeth Costello is, on the surface, the story of a woman's life as mother, sister, lover, and writer. Yet it is also a profound and haunting meditation on the nature of storytelling.