When the BBC plans a programme on the dig which made archaeologist Hugh Paxton famous, a host of memories are disinterred, and lives disrupted. Kate adored her father and considers the TV scheme an intrusion. Laura Paxton, lonely and bored, is delighted at the prospect of being seen as the charming widow of a distinguished scholar. A cynical on-looker to the filming is Tom Rider, Kate's fiance. While completing his thesis on an 18th century antiquarian, Tom observes the perplexities of being English and the parasitism of making a living out of the past. For Paxton's family and colleagues, the site, a Neolithic barrow, becomes the focus for recollections as selective as the filming which will in turn distort the Wiltshire scenery.
This book is a detailed analysis of Sadequain's mural titled Treasures of Time, which pays tribute to mankind's intellectual advancement over time by depicting forty six eminent personalities in the history of mankind. At one end of the mural is a young worker of the Stone Age using a primitive tool with his bare hands. The imagery in the mural then moves to the right tracing the passage of time and captures the glorious days of the Greek civilization, followed by the European renaissance followed by the golden age of Arabs, then at the other end are shown 20th century luminaries, presenting a visual narration of history.
2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST FOR POETRY Hoa Nguyen’s latest collection is a poetic meditation on historical, personal, and cultural pressures pre- and post-“Fall-of-Saigon” and comprises a verse biography on her mother, Diep Anh Nguyen, a stunt motorcyclist in an all-woman Vietnamese circus troupe. Multilayered, plaintive, and provocative, the poems in A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure are alive with archive and inhabit histories. In turns lyrical and unsettling, her poetry sings of language and loss; dialogues with time, myth and place; and communes with past and future ghosts.
A spellbinding new novel of contraband masterpieces, tragic love, and the unexpected legacies of forgotten crimes, Ayelet Waldman’s Love and Treasure weaves a tale around the fascinating, true history of the Hungarian Gold Train in the Second World War. In 1945 on the outskirts of Salzburg, victorious American soldiers capture a train filled with unspeakable riches: piles of fine gold watches; mountains of fur coats; crates filled with wedding rings, silver picture frames, family heirlooms, and Shabbat candlesticks passed down through generations. Jack Wiseman, a tough, smart New York Jew, is the lieutenant charged with guarding this treasure—a responsibility that grows more complicated when he meets Ilona, a fierce, beautiful Hungarian who has lost everything in the ravages of the Holocaust. Seventy years later, amid the shadowy world of art dealers who profit off the sins of previous generations, Jack gives a necklace to his granddaughter, Natalie Stein, and charges her with searching for an unknown woman—a woman whose portrait and fate come to haunt Natalie, a woman whose secret may help Natalie to understand the guilt her grandfather will take to his grave and to find a way out of the mess she has made of her own life. A story of brilliantly drawn characters—a suave and shady art historian, a delusive and infatuated Freudian, a family of singing circus dwarfs fallen into the clutches of Josef Mengele, and desperate lovers facing choices that will tear them apart—Love and Treasure is Ayelet Waldman’s finest novel to date: a sad, funny, richly detailed work that poses hard questions about the value of precious things in a time when life itself has no value, and about the slenderest of chains that can bind us to the griefs and passions of the past. This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK · A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITOR'S CHOICE · REVIEWED ON THE FRONT COVER · INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER “Zhang’s blend of history and magical realism will appeal to fans of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer as well as Amy Tan's The Valley of Amazement.” —Booklist (starred review) "Engrossing...Epic" (The New York Times Book Review) · "Transporting" (Washington Post) · "Propulsive" (Oprah Daily) · "Surreal and sprawling" (NPR) · "An absolute must-read" (BuzzFeed) · "Radiant" (BookPage) A dazzling debut novel set against the backdrop of the Chinese Exclusion Act, about a Chinese girl fighting to claim her place in the 1880s American West Daiyu never wanted to be like the tragic heroine for whom she was named, revered for her beauty and cursed with heartbreak. But when she is kidnapped and smuggled across an ocean from China to America, Daiyu must relinquish the home and future she imagined for herself. Over the years that follow, she is forced to keep reinventing herself to survive. From a calligraphy school, to a San Francisco brothel, to a shop tucked into the Idaho mountains, we follow Daiyu on a desperate quest to outrun the tragedy that chases her. As anti-Chinese sentiment sweeps across the country in a wave of unimaginable violence, Daiyu must draw on each of the selves she has been—including the ones she most wants to leave behind—in order to finally claim her own name and story. At once a literary tour de force and a groundbreaking work of historical fiction, Four Treasures of the Sky announces Jenny Tinghui Zhang as an indelible new voice. Steeped in untold history and Chinese folklore, this novel is a spellbinding feat.
Treasures of the Deep is the enthralling and true story of one-time Barnardo's boy Captain Mike Hatcher and his life scouring the seven seas for sunken treasure. From humble beginnings Hatcher has gone on to become the most celebrated ocean salvor of modern times. He has raised countless precious cargoes from such exotic locations as Indonesia and Thailand, and in many ways has lived a charmed life. But he has also witnessed first hand the tragedy of war-torn Vietnam and post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia, and has periodically incurred the wrath of south-east Asian governments, marine archaeologists and unscrupulous competitors. His story is one of guts and determination in the face of adversity, and of daring, skill and fantastic rewards. Book jacket.
Bedeviled by evil fairies that only she can see, thirteen-year-old Tanya is sent to stay with her cold and distant grandmother at Elvesden Manor, where she and the caretaker's son solve a disturbing mystery that leads them to the discovery that Tanya's life is in danger.
