Elegy for a Broken Soldier
Elegy for a Broken Soldier

Author: Chris McQuaid

Publisher: Strategic Book Publishing & Rights Agency

Published: 2019-01-18

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 1949483991

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"Nothing in my army training had prepared me for what happened in Jerusalem in February 1965." In Chris McQuaid's stunning memoir, Elegy for a Broken Soldier, a traumatic event led to his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Music became the only respite that provides him solace. Chris was a member of the Irish Army guard of honour for the visit of US President John F. Kennedy to Dublin in June 1963. With the cheers of the crowds lining the presidential route still ringing in his ears, he felt "ten feet tall" as he prepared for his first UN peacekeeping mission to the Congo. On a UN mission to Cyprus in 1965, trauma changed Chris's life forever, marking the beginning of his PTSD. In Lebanon in 1980, his life was threatened, and the shock effectively ended his military career. Neither event originated on the battlefield, but from within the Irish Army. Despite severe depression and suicidal thoughts, Chris continued his education and returned to the service to become a commissioned officer. He left the army in 1986 with a glowing service record. A long legal wrangle and a succession of psychiatric and psychological assessments have led to even greater health problems, but Chris has survived it all.

My Travels with Wagner
My Travels with Wagner

Author: Chris McQuaid

Publisher: Strategic Book Publishing & Rights Agency

Published: 2020-10-22

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 1682353192

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Want a true balm for the soul? My Travels with Wagner tells the story of how author Chris McQuaid’s journey took him from young Irish soldier suffering from PTSD, to the finest opera houses in Europe and a passion for the music of Richard Wagner. The 19th-century composer produced dramatic operas and musical works that greatly influenced the course of Western music. “I was a lover of Wagner’s music long before I came to Ireland and listened for hours on the floor of my brother’s flat in Putney, in the early 1950s. Soon afterwards I went to Bayreuth – and went on going. When I came to Ireland, I joined the Wagner Society and met Ireland's supreme Wagnerian, Chris McQuaid. I left the society when he did, in deep sympathy, and sharing his unparalleled love and knowledge. It is reflected, over again, in this book, rich in passionate concern for Richard Wagner and his unique place in Music.” – Bruce Arnold, author and journalist

The Cambridge Companion to Latin Love Elegy
The Cambridge Companion to Latin Love Elegy

Author: Thea S. Thorsen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-11-21

Total Pages: 455

ISBN-13: 1107511747

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Latin love elegy is one of the most important poetic genres in the Augustan era, also known as the golden age of Roman literature. This volume brings together leading scholars from Australia, Europe and North America to present and explore the Greek and Roman backdrop for Latin love elegy, the individual Latin love elegists (both the canonical and the non-canonical), their poems and influence on writers in later times. The book is designed as an accessible introduction for the general reader interested in Latin love elegy and the history of love and lament in Western literature, as well as a collection of critically stimulating essays for students and scholars of Latin poetry and of the classical tradition.

Elegy for Iris
Elegy for Iris

Author: John Bayley

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2013-10-15

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1466854243

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"I was living in a fairy story--the kind with sinister overtones and not always a happy ending--in which a young man loves a beautiful maiden who returns his love but is always disappearing into some unknown and mysterious world, about which she will reveal nothing." So John Bayley describes his life with his wife, Iris Murdoch, one of the greatest contemporary writers in the English-speaking world, revered for her works of philosophy and beloved for her incandescent novels. In Elegy for Iris, Bayley attempts to uncover the real Iris, whose mysterious world took on darker shades as she descended into Alzheimer's disease. Elegy for Iris is a luminous memoir about the beauty of youth and aging, and a celebration of a brilliant life and an undying love.

Propertius in Love
Propertius in Love

Author: Sextus Propertius

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2002-06-03

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 0520935845

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These ardent, even obsessed, poems about erotic passion are among the brightest jewels in the crown of Latin literature. Written by Propertius, Rome's greatest poet of love, who was born around 50 b.c., a contemporary of Ovid, these elegies tell of Propertius' tormented relationship with a woman he calls "Cynthia." Their connection was sometimes blissful, more often agonizing, but as the poet came to recognize, it went beyond pride or shame to become the defining event of his life. Whether or not it was Propertius' explicit intention, these elegies extend our ideas of desire, and of the human condition itself.

Thank You for Your Service
Thank You for Your Service

Author: David Finkel

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2013-10-01

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0374710961

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Now a Major Motion Picture Directed by American Sniper Writer Jason Hall and Starring Miles Teller No journalist has reckoned with the psychology of war as intimately as David Finkel. In The Good Soldiers, his bestselling account from the front lines of Baghdad, Finkel embedded with the men of the 2-16 Infantry Battalion as they carried out the infamous “surge”. Now, in Thank You for Your Service, Finkel tells the true story of those men as they return home from the front-lines of Baghdad and struggle to reintegrate--both into their family lives and into American society at large. Finkel is with these veterans in their most intimate, painful, and hopeful moments as they try to recover, and in doing so, he creates an indelible, essential portrait of what life after war is like--not just for these soldiers, but for their wives, widows, children, and friends, and for the professionals who are truly trying, and to a great degree failing, to undo the damage that has been done. Thank You for Your Service is an act of understanding, and it offers a more complete picture than we have ever had of two essential questions: When we ask young men and women to go to war, what are we asking of them? And when they return, what are we thanking them for? “Finkel sketches a panoramic view of postwar life....A book that every American should read.” —Jake Tapper, Los Angeles Times Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism. One of Ten Favorite Books of 2013 by Michiko Kakutani (The New York Times), a Washington Post Top Ten Book of the Year, and a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year