PART FOUR OF THE TROY QUARTET Bringing ancient myth to life with passion, humour, and humanity, Lindsay Clarke vividly retells the story of Troy and of the heroes who fought there.
PART ONE OF THE TROY QUARTET Bringing ancient myth to life with passion, humour, and humanity, Lindsay Clarke vividly retells the story of Troy and of the heroes who fought there.
The War at Troy breathes vigorous new life into the myths of Homer's Illiad, skillfully rejuvenating Paris and Helen, Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, Achilles, Odysseus and Hector in this startingly contemporary drama of the passions. Here two powerful generations of men and women live out their destinies in the timeless zone where myth and history intersect, and where quarrels among immortal gods mirror the conflicts of the human heart. This imaginative retelling will surely benefit from the renewed interest in this classic tale (the movie "Troy" starring Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom lands in May 2004).
In the second title of The Troy Game series, love and revenge are set against the very fabric of time itself as a warrior waits for his opportunity to finish what was started centuries before.
Soon after moving to the secluded Norfolk village of Munding, Alex Darken has a disturbing encounter with the ageing poet Edward Nesbit and his young lover Laura. They are obsessively researching the lives of Sir Henry Agnew and his daughter Louisa who lived in Munding in the nineteenth century and were deeply engaged in alchemical practices. By recovering the lost secret of the hermetic mysteries, Edward and Laura hope to find an alternative to the destructive materialism of the post-industrial world. Once drawn into their fervent quest for knowledge, Alex finds himself entangled in a passionate and intense intrigue that reaches across two centuries. A beautifully written, ambitious and captivating novel, which takes a profound look at issues of nature, human existence and forgotten knowledge, The Chymical Wedding, which won the 1989 Whitbread Prize for Best Novel, is already considered a classic for its stylistic prowess and philosophical resonances.
*NATIONAL BESTSELLER* “A lively adventure of the mind...The tone of the prose...is one of unqualified enthusiasm: energy, vigor, intellectual curiosity, and what might be called an ecstasy of imaginative journalism.” —The New York Times Book Review At the age of forty-eight, writer and film critic David Denby returned to Columbia University and re-enrolled in two core courses in Western civilization to confront the literary and philosophical masterpieces -- the "great books" -- that are now at the heart of the culture wars. In Great Books, he leads us on a glorious tour, a rediscovery and celebration of such authors as Homer and Boccaccio, Locke and Nietzsche. Conrad and Woolf. The resulting personal odyssey is an engaging blend of self-discovery, cultural commentary, reporting, criticism, and autobiography -- an inspiration for anyone in love with the written word.
Ancient Greece: A place where the gods hold mortal life cheap, mere playthings to amuse, delight, and abuse at their will. But those puny mortals are not wholly devoid of power and at the core of their fabulous city-states lies the Labyrinth, where they can shape the powers of the heavens to their own design. When Theseus entered the Labyrinth and came away with the prize of freedom and his beloved Adrianne, Mistress of the Labyrinth, his future seemed assured... Until he abandoned her for the unforgivable sin of bearing him only a daughter, and the world seemed to change. From that day forward, all the Labyrinths in the ancient world started to decay. It slowly became clear that power was fading from the city-states. Was it the natural decline that comes to all cultures or was it because the power of the Labyrinth had been corrupted by a woman spurned? A hundred years pass--Troy has fallen and the Trojans are a scattered and humbled people. The warrior Brutus is of the line of kings and gods. He wears the golden kingship bands of Troy proudly--but they are his only mementos of a former glory, for he is a man without a country and is left little else but pride and a memory of the latent power that he could wield if but given a chance. When he receives a god-sent vision of a distant shore where he can rebuild the ancient kingdom, he will move heaven and earth to reach his destiny. Ever eastward he is drawn, to a lovely and mystical green land that offers him a haven--and a dream of power and conquest. Nothing will deter him... not even the entreaties of the young princess whom he took as his wife and bedded against her will. First her hatred--and now her love--torment and bind him. She is the only one who realizes the danger he is stepping into, and she will do anything to save him... and his son, whom she carries in her womb. For in the mists of Albion there lies a woman of power--a woman who has used her siren call to cloud Brutus's mind and has her own reasons for luring the warrior to these lush shores.... She is the long-descended granddaughter of Adrianne, and she has in her heart a hatred that has been passed down for generations. Her plans for Brutus will enact a revenge that could destroy the gods themselves. s20If Brutus makes the journey successfully, it will be the next step in the Game of the Labyrinth and might start a complicated contest of wills that could span centuries.... At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
With this first masterly volume in an epic reimagining of the Trojan War, David Gemmell has written an ageless drama of brave deeds and fierce battles, of honor and treachery, of love won and lost. He is a man of many names. Some call him the Golden One; others, the Lord of the Silver Bow. To the Dardanians, he is Prince Aeneas. But to his friends, he is Helikaon. Strong, fast, quick of mind, he is a bold warrior, hated by his enemies, feared even by his Trojan allies. For there is a darkness at the heart of the Golden One, a savagery that, once awakened, can be appeased only with blood. Argurios the Mykene is a peerless fighter, a man of unbending principles and unbreakable will. Like all of the Mykene warriors, he lives to conquer and to kill. Dispatched by King Agamemnon to scout the defenses of the golden city of Troy, he is Helikaon’s sworn enemy. Andromache is a priestess of Thera betrothed against her will to Hektor, prince of Troy. Scornful of tradition, skilled in the arts of war, and passionate in the ways of her order, Andromache vows to love whom she pleases and to live as she desires. Now fate is about to thrust these three together–and, from the sparks of passionate love and hate, ignite a fire that will engulf the world.
A Washington Post Notable Book One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, The Economist, Financial Times Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award Finalist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction Here is the story of the Iliad as we’ve never heard it before: in the words of Briseis, Trojan queen and captive of Achilles. Given only a few words in Homer’s epic and largely erased by history, she is nonetheless a pivotal figure in the Trojan War. In these pages she comes fully to life: wry, watchful, forging connections among her fellow female prisoners even as she is caught between Greece’s two most powerful warriors. Her story pulls back the veil on the thousands of women who lived behind the scenes of the Greek army camp—concubines, nurses, prostitutes, the women who lay out the dead—as gods and mortals spar, and as a legendary war hurtles toward its inevitable conclusion. Brilliantly written, filled with moments of terror and beauty, The Silence of the Girls gives voice to an extraordinary woman—and makes an ancient story new again.
Spotlighting the four women of the Lafayette Quartet, a leading Canadian ensemble, Rounds offers both a comprehensive history of the beloved instrumental form and an inside view of the complex world of professional quartet players, revealing the exultation and heatache that are the performing artists' daily fare. A treat for every music lover, whether player, listener or composer.