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The Pianist from Syria
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Aeham Ahmad
Born a second-generation Palestinian refugee in Syria, accomplished pianist Aeham Ahmad sought solace in music as the ongoing Syrian civil war tore his adopted homeland apart. This day-to-day account of the conflict -- and Ahmad's eventual immigration to Germany -- is both wrenching and inspiring.
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Eternal Boy : the Life of Kenneth Grahame
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Matthew Dennison
During the week Kenneth Grahame sat behind a mahogany desk as Secretary of the Bank of England; at the weekend he retired to the house in the country he shared with his fanciful wife Elspeth and fragile son Alistair and took lengthy walks along the Thames in Berkshire. The result of these pastoral wanderings was The Wind in the Willows : an enduring classic of children's literature; a cautionary tale for adult readers; a warning of the fragility of the English countryside; and an expression of fear at threatened social changes that, in the aftermath of the World War I, became reality.
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Eternal troubadour : the improbable life of Tiny Tim
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Justin Martell
Draws on years of research, interviews with Tiny Tim's acquaintances, and diaries to shed light on the musician's life, from his meteoric rise to fame through his downfall and his attempts to revive his career.
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Memories from Moscow to the Black Sea by N. A. TeffiMoscow, 1918. Following the Revolution, people are leaving the city in droves; bound for the Black Sea, and from there to Europe and beyond. In late autumn, the celebrated writer Teffi is invited on a reading tour; having elegantly navigated the bureaucratic waters for her visa, she spends the winter travelling from Moscow to Kiev, and from there to Odessa and on to Novorossisk, first by train and then by ship. On the shores of the Black Sea, as Spring arrives, Teffi is advised to go abroad for a time, until things have settled down in Russia. She reluctantly agrees, not fully realising that this would be the beginning of her permanent exile from her beloved country.
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The Lives of Jack London
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Michel Viotte
"This book recounts the unusual destiny of an author whose real-life adventures directly inspired everything he wrote.
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Red Doc>
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Anne Carson
A continuation of the author's Autobiography of red (1998), following the characters in later life, but in a different style and with changed names.
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Dark Star : A Biography of Vivien Leigh
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Alan Strachan
Alan Strachan provides a completely new full-life portrait of Leigh, covering both her professional and personal life. Using previously-unseen sources from her archive, recently acquired by the V&A, he sheds new light on her fractious relationship with Laurence Olivier, based on their letters and diaries, as well as on the bipolar disorder which so affected her later life and work.
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Josef Albers : Life and Work
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Charles Darwent
While Josef Albers' Bauhaus colleagues Klee and Kandinsky are household names, Albers himself has remained inscrutable. He is best known as the painter of the 'Homages to the Square', a series of over 2,000 seemingly tightly controlled experiments in the interaction of colour. Yet he did not begin these pictures until he was in his sixties, already several decades into his career as an artist, maker and theorist, much of it pursued in the United States following the Nazi dissolution of the Bauhaus in 1933.
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Out of the Forest
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Gregory P. Smith
For ten years a man calling himself Will Power lived in near-total isolation in northern New South Wales, foraging for food, eating bats and occasionally trading for produce. But who was this mysterious man who roamed the forest and knew all of its secrets and riddles? The truth was that he was neither miraculous nor malevolent, but he was, most certainly, gifted. And when he finally emerged from the forest, emaciated and close to death, he was determined to reclaim his real name and 'give society another chance'. Today, Dr Gregory Peel Smith, who left school at the age of fourteen, has a PhD and teaches in the Social Sciences at university.
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Freud : an intellectual biography
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Joel Whitebook
Offering a radically new portrait of the creator of psychoanalysis, this book explores the man in all his complexity alongside an interpretation of his theories that cuts through the stereotypes that surround him. The development of Freud's thinking is addressed not only in the context of his personal life, but also in that of society and culture at large, while the impact of his thinking on subsequent issues of psychoanalysis, philosophy, and social theory is fully examined. Whitebook demonstrates that declarations of Freud's obsolescence are premature, and, with his clear and engaging style, brings this vivid figure to life in compelling and readable fashion.
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Victoria The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire
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Julia Baird
A lively and sympathetic portrait of Queen Victoria, Britain's second-longest reigning monarch (after Elizabeth II). Journalist Julia Baird's thoughtful myth-debunking -- contrary to popular belief, Victoria did not shirk her royal duties following the death of her beloved husband Prince Albert.
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Daughters of the Winter Queen: Four Remarkable Sisters, the Crown of Bohemia...
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Nancy Goldstone
Elizabeth Stuart, a granddaughter of Mary, Queen of Scots whose disastrous political marriage precipitated the Thirty Years' War; Elizabeth's four spirited daughters, whom she raised in exile during the Dutch Golden Age. Elizabeth's determination to maintain her daughters' royal power and influence still resonates, as every British monarch since George I can be traced "in unbroken line" to this lesser-known family.
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Harry & Meghan : the Wedding Album
by
Robert Jobson
Featuring exquisite photography from throughout the royal couple's lives and the wedding itself, this book will be the publication to mark the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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