'Missing Roald Dahl? Need a book where bad kids are just bad and they get their comeuppance? This is the book for you.' - Read and Reviewed Absurdly enjoyable dark adventure about a boy's mission to stop his evil sisters terrorising the town Indigo McCloud's sister Peaches is every adult's favourite child: pretty, golden-haired, polite and charming. But the children of Blunt know better: Peaches and her three sisters are a gang of bullies who will stop at nothing to get their way. This is the story of Indigo's battle to stop his sisters. Leaping across the rooftops of Blunt, he tries to keep one step ahead of their wicked schemes -but he has to tangle with 437 hungry geese, an avalanche of toilets, curry farts, bungling policemen, vicious eels, a pig in a witch's hat, a three legged spider with a toilet brush and a dangerous villain in odd socks ...
John Hearne: Architect of the 1937 Constitution of Ireland is the first-ever biography of the ‘architect in chief and draftsman’ of the constitution. In the six-year period that it took to draft the constitution, John Hearne was involved at every stage alongside Éamon de Valera; his attitudes and concerns – especially with the protection of human rights in a period which saw the rise of dictatorships throughout Europe – governed the make-up of the fundamental law. This law still stands today and reverberates through every call for referendum or repeal. John Hearne is the biography of a man, later Irish Ambassador to Canada and the United States, who masterminded Irish policy, nationally and internationally, for decades; his essential role in the making of the constitution will result in a greater understanding and re-evaluation of one of its most defining and controversial documents.
Social and racial inequalities abound in this 1960s Jamaican novel about a middle class lawyer who works closely with the working class and radical nationalist movement. In the midst of a riot, Mark Lattimer is targeted-and mortally wounded-by a poor islander because of his white-collar appearance. Cut off from medical attention in the middle of the insurgence, he is left to contemplate his life, including his childhood as a member of the privileged white elite, his time spent in London and as part of the RAF, his marriage and affairs, and the moment when he committed himself to the causes of the poor. As the end nears, Mark ruminates on the meaning of life and death, the politics of politics, and the significance of action in an absurd world.
Waterford Crystal is the first ever fully illustrated history of Ireland's most iconic cut-glass manufacturer, its name synonymous with high-end glassmaking throughout the world. Former Waterford glass cutter and local historian John Hearne explores how the art of glassmaking first arrived in Waterford at the turn of the sixteenth century. Hearne reveals how Waterford Crystal developed as a brand under the guidance of skilled artisans and shrewd business leaders with an eye for ingenuity. Waterford developed a global reputation for quality glass and crystalware that was rocked and buoyed by events that span centuries, including the American Revolutionary war, the World Fair in London, World War Two and the attacks of 9/11. A testament to innovations in design and brilliant marketing strategy, Waterford Crystal also examines the brand's failures - dubious accountancy practices that led to a long and bitter strike in 1990; the avarice and self-aggrandisement that ultimately led to the company's demise in 2009. Preserving the memory and legacy of Waterford Crystal for future generations of glassmaking, Hearne pays tribute to some of the finest artisans Ireland has ever produced, whose passionate devotion prefigured inspired works of art - turning basic ingredients, sand and ash, into objects of aesthetic beauty.
From the author of The Iron Druid Chronicles, a thrilling novel that kicks off a fantasy series with an entirely new mythology—complete with shape-shifting bards, fire-wielding giants, and children who can speak to astonishing beasts “A spectacular work of epic fantasy . . . an absolute delight.”—Shelf Awareness MOTHER AND WARRIOR Tallynd is a soldier who has already survived her toughest battle: losing her husband. But now she finds herself on the front lines of an invasion of giants, intent on wiping out the entire kingdom, including Tallynd’s two sons—all that she has left. The stakes have never been higher. If Tallynd fails, her boys may never become men. SCHOLAR AND SPY Dervan is an historian who longs for a simple, quiet life. But he’s drawn into intrigue when he’s hired to record the tales of a mysterious bard who may be a spy or even an assassin for a rival kingdom. As the bard shares his fantastical stories, Dervan makes a shocking discovery: He may have a connection to the tales, one that will bring his own secrets to light. REBEL AND HERO Abhi’s family have always been hunters, but Abhi wants to choose a different life for himself. Embarking on a journey of self-discovery, Abhi soon learns that his destiny is far greater than he imagined: a powerful new magic thrust upon him may hold the key to defeating the giants once and for all—if it doesn’t destroy him first. Set in a magical world of terror and wonder, this novel is a deeply felt epic of courage and war, in which the fates of these characters intertwine—and where ordinary people become heroes, and their lives become legend. Don’t miss any of Kevin Hearne’s action-packed Seven Kennings series A PLAGUE OF GIANTS • A BLIGHT OF BLACKWINGS • A CURSE OF KRAKENS (Coming Later!)
From The Horse That, Trotting The horse that, trotting with open heart Against the wind, achieves bend and flow Will live forever. So far, so good, But they never do, until too late, Bend properly and time spreads from The momentary hesitations Of their spines, circles their tossing necks, Falls from their teeth like rejected oats, Litters the ground like penitence. This is where we come in, where the drop Of time congeals the air and someone Speaks to the discouraged grass . . . Tricks of the Light explores the often fraught relationships between domestic animals and humans through mythological figurations, vibrant thought, and late-modern lyrics that seem to test their own boundaries. Vicki Hearne (1946–2001), best known and celebrated today as a writer of strikingly original poetry and prose, was a capable dog and horse trainer, and sometimes controversial animal advocate. This definitive collection of Hearne’s poetry spans the entirety of her illustrious career, from her first book, Nervous Horses (1980), to never-before-published poems composed on her deathbed. But no matter the source, each of her meditative, metaphysical lyrics possesses that rare combination of philosophical speculation, practical knowledge of animals, and an unusually elegant style unlike that of any other poet writing today. Before her untimely death, Hearne entrusted the manuscript to distinguished poet, scholar, and long-time friend John Hollander, whose introduction provides both critical and personal insight into the poet’s magnum opus. Tricks of the Light—acute, vibrant, and deeply informed—is a sensuous reckoning of the connection between humans and the natural world. Praise for The Parts of Light “Hearne . . . strives to capture exactly what she knows she can't—the intense immediacy of animal consciousness, a consciousness free of the moral vagaries and intellectual preoccupations that pockmark human experience. Her style, smooth in some places, choppy in others, reflects both the wholeness of animal presence and the jarring, fragmentary nature of human reason and reflection. Hearne's poems demand participation, refuse passive enjoyment; she dares the reader to stay in the saddle.”—Publishers Weekly
Fictional writing has an important mnemonic function for the Afro-Carib-bean community. It facilitates an encounter between contemporary societies and their historical origins. The representation of diasporic trauma in the novels of Fred D’Aguiar, John Hearne, and Caryl Phillips challenges territorial under¬standings of nationality and raises awareness of the eurocentric basis of Western historiography. Slavery is a recurring motif of the nine novels analysed in this study. They narrate the fates of silenced victims who all share the traumatic experience of racial violence even if otherwise separated through time, space, gender and age. These charismatic fictional characters facilitate an empathic access to the history of slavery that goes beyond the anonymity of traditional historical sources. Their most private and intimate sorrows make the traumatic conditions of slavery appear much less remote and reveal their suffering. The euphemistic and distorting selection of the events that has been passed down by the dominant culture is thus countered by a relentless display of historical violence. These literary images establish an important symbolic repertoire and introduce powerful founding myths of the diaspora. In spite of the traumatic foundations of the community, the nine novels display considerable optimism about the possibility of a convivial future that transcends racial boundaries.The capacity and willingness to improvise and adapt to new environments and to do so even in face of a traumatic heritage can be regarded as the most important precondition for positive future developments within the matrix of a rapidly transforming global environment.
Romantic Young Irelander, republican revolutionary, father of the Irish tricolour and political exile, Thomas Francis Meagher became a citizen of the United States and a leading ethnic spokesman in his adopted republic. Meagher's career remains as controversial today as it was during his own lifetime.
For the first time the Dutch-speaking regions of the Caribbean and Suriname are brought into fruitful dialogue with another major American literature, that of the anglophone Caribbean. The results are as stimulating as they are unexpected. The editors have coordinated the work of a distinguished international team of specialists. Read separately or as a set of three volumes, the History of Literature in the Caribbean is designed to serve as the primary reference book in this area. The reader can follow the comparative evolution of a literary genre or plot the development of a set of historical problems under the appropriate heading for the English- or Dutch-speaking region. An extensive index to names and dates of authors and significant historical figures completes the volume. The subeditors bring to their respective specialty areas a wealth of Caribbeanist experience. Vera M. Kutzinski is Professor of English, American, and Afro-American Literature at Yale University. Her book Sugar's Secrets: Race and The Erotics of Cuban Nationalism, 1993, treated a crucial subject in the romance of the Caribbean nation. Ineke Phaf-Rheinberger has been very active in Latin American and Caribbean literary criticism for two decades, first at the Free University in Berlin and later at the University of Maryland. The editor of A History of Literature in the Caribbean, A. James Arnold, is Professor of French at the University of Virginia, where he founded the New World Studies graduate program. Over the past twenty years he has been a pioneer in the historical study of the Négritude movement and its successors in the francophone Caribbean.
