John Medina is a living legend with the CIA, a shadowy specialist in Black Ops, those operations that are never openly funded, and the details of which never see the light of day. Only few people inside the CIA know him on sight, while foreign governments offer bounties for him, dead or alive. Neima Burdock is a communications specialist for the CIA who retired from field work after the death of her husband, also an agent and under orders from John Medina. When Niema is needed in an arms deal operation headed by John she is extremely reluctant to take the job but her director convinces her. Niema and John enter the underground world of an international arms dealer and its many dangerous and glamorous intrigues. They discover a passion for each other, but will they survive the race to evade the people who are trying to kill them and transmit the documents they have managed to steal?
How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during and leading up to the 1960s shape modern British fiction? The 1960s were the “swinging decade”: a newly energised youth culture went hand-in-hand with new technologies, expanding educational opportunities, new social attitudes and profound political differences between the generations. This volume explores the ways in which these apparently seismic changes were reflected in British fiction of the decade. Chapters cover feminist writing that fused the personal and the political, gay, lesbian and immigrant voices and the work of visionary experimental and science fiction writers. A major critical re-evaluation of the decade, this volume covers such writers as J.G. Ballard, Anthony Burgess, A.S. Byatt, Angela Carter, John Fowles, Christopher Isherwood, Doris Lessing, Michael Moorcock and V.S. Naipaul.
Regimental histories abound, but few can be as stirring as this story of the fortunes of the famous Yorkshire-based Green Howards. Raised in 1688 in response to a call for loyal troops, the Green Howards have maintained their tradition of loyalty over the past 300 years winning many superb battle honours. Their history reflects that of the British Army as there is hardly a major campaign that this Regiment has not been involved in; the French Wars of 1697-1793, the American War of Independence, Crimean War, First and Second World Wars, service in Suez, Malaya, Northern Ireland, peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and the war in the Gulf. This fine book brings the story of one of Britain's finest regiments right up to date.
From the Author’s Preface: Birthdays are often the occasion for assessing earlier experiences and expressing hopes for the future. Opening the pages on a new century can stimulate a similar reckoning of accounts on a larger scale. January first of the year 1900 was both the beginning of a new century, as popular counting goes, and Edward Morgan Forster’s twenty-first birthday. As the Victorian era approached its conclusion, Forster was nearing the end of his studies at King’s College, Cambridge University. His great-aunt Marianne Thornton had left him the legacy that saw him through the university. But how would he support himself thereafter? The future was unclear until Nathaniel Wedd, a tutor who had become a good friend, encouraged him to seriously consider writing as a lifetime occupation. Forster eagerly grasped the idea. His first novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread, was published to popular approval before he was thirty years old. Forster’s first four novels, Where Angels Fear to Tread, The Longest Journey, A Room with a View, and Howards End, were all written within six years, between 1905 and 1910, with A Passage to India being published in 1924 and his homosexual novel, Maurice,seeing the light of day only after his death. All these novels were widely acclaimed when first published and are still in print. Forster had a mind full of projects on which he lavished his energy and prescient thoughts. His homosexuality was an ever-present black cloud affecting his actions and fears. The reader who wants a deeper treatment of that significant aspect of his life should read Wendy Moffat’s masterly—and graceful—volume, A Great Unrecorded History. Partly a biography of Forster, it is also a study of the era in which a conviction of homosexuality meant two years in prison doing hard labor. Homosexuality was also a challenge he had to confront every day. Another constant subject was freedom of speech and the threat of censorship, often in the name of national security. The reader may wonder at the multiplicity of footnotes. This is deliberate. Spirituality is a subject that can elicit many and diverse interpretations. The accumulated weight of Forster’s own words, assembled from his writings, buttresses my conclusion far more powerfully than could any paraphrases.
American Historical Review is the oldest scholarly journal of history in the United States and the largest in the world. Published by the American Historical Association, it covers all areas of historical research.
This is not a book about how to train for an Ironman, the kit you need or anything that could actually prove to be useful. If there is anything useful in this book then that's purely by accident. If you are looking for some genuine training tips on Ironman then please get one of the decent training books - not the 55,000 words of illiterate drivel this represents. This is a simply a story about someone (fat northerner in the shape of Darren) deciding to do something as stupid as Ironman and the things you encounter on the way. Such as the psychotic geese, paperless portaloos, the mind games and the doomsday feeling that no matter how much training you do it's never enough. Darren is fat, bald, ugly and lives in the North West of England with his wife Amy and daughter Lilly-Mae where he continues to try to be a triathlete.
For more than two decades, from mid-1987 to the end of 2008, no one had greater access to our national parliament and its politicians than Alan Ramsey. Informed, insightful and unafraid, his Wednesday and Saturday columns in The Sydney Morning Herald were always essential reading for many thousands of Australians. Here are 150 of his unflinching views of key political events of that era, among them; the often turbulent Hawke/Keating years, the 1990 recession 'we had to have', Labor's stunning dumping of Bob Hawke in December 1991 after he had led his party to four successive election victories in eight years, the Howard Government's slavish subservience to the Bush White House, the insidious channeling of Hansonism, John Howard's 'never ever' GST, the invasion of Iraq, the disintegration of the Democrats as a political force after the 1997 defection to Labor of its leader, Cheryl Kernot, the manipulation by both sides of politics of the 2001 children overboard incident, and the scandal of the Governor-General who ultimately resigned after the cover-up by the Anglican Church in Queensland of serial child abuse in church schools. Yet Ramsey's keen eye often observed with affection the values and behavior of others in national life, and he was as ready to give credit as he was to lay into the humbug, pomposity and deceit of political, personal and sectional self-interest. Some 'matters of opinion' of Alan Ramsey 'there is no one now, and no one coming along, who can write like this. 'David Marr' I' ll miss his profound dislike of hypocrisy and his instinct for plain speaking. 'Kerry O'Brien' A lion of a journalist in every way. 'Michelle Grattan' In an arena of journalism where sameness is a vice, Ramsey is entirely his own man. 'les Carlyon' For years his column has been an essential, often enjoyable, frequently uncomfortable, part of my Saturday morning regime. 'Kevin Rudd' He always added to my Saturday morning enjoyment. 'Peter Costello' A must read. 'Bob Brown' Grumpy old bastard. Seriously unique. 'Bill Heffernan Cover photograph; Andrew Taylor Cover design; Blue Cork.
