Showing results by publisher "----RM Alexander" in Biographical Fiction

“Sei sempre stata un faro per la nostra famiglia”, le ripeteva sua madre. Alessandra, però, seconda di cinque figli, non voleva portare luce, voleva che qualcuno illuminasse la strada per lei e rispondesse alle sue domande di bambina. Cresciuta sotto la rigida disciplina dei Testimoni di Geova, ha sempre cercato di soddisfare le attese dei genitori e di non creare problemi. Così, fino a ventinove anni, non ha mai partecipato a un compleanno né spento una candelina. Non ha ascoltato la musica che ascoltavano i suoi coetanei né letto libri non approvati in comunità.

En La Fiesta del Chivo (2000) asistimos a un doble retorno. Mientras Urania visita a su padre en Santo Domingo, volvemos a 1961, cuando la capital dominicana aún se llamaba Ciudad Trujillo. Allí un hombre que no suda tiraniza a tres millones de personas sin saber que se gesta una maquiavélica transición a la democracia.

Da ist der charismatische, von den Ideen des Bauhauses und der Avantgarde durchdrungene Idealist Hermann Henselmann, der nach dem Krieg zum Chefarchitekten ...

"Dans "L'Amant", Marguerite Duras reprend sur le ton de la confidence les images et les thèmes qui hantent toute son œuvre. Ses lecteurs vont pouvoir ensuite descendre ce grand fleuve aux lenteurs asiatiques et suivre la romancière dans tous les méandres du delta, dans la moiteur des rizières, dans les secrets ombreux où elle a développé l'incantation répétitive et obsédante de ses livres, de ses films, de son théâtre."

El 8 de enero de 1982, la escultora colombiana Feliza Bursztyn murió en un restaurante de París. Tenía cuarenta y ocho años. En el momento de su muerte repentina la acompañaban su marido y cuatro amigos. Uno de ellos, el escritor Gabriel García Márquez, publicó días después un artículo que incluía tres palabras en apariencia simples, pero misteriosas en el fondo: «Murió de tristeza».

This year Christmas will be PERFECT. This is the year when all dreams come true, carol singers will carol the Wassail would Wass, or possibly Sail, children will frolic, extended family will get on and behave normally and not fall out and just eat the effing mince pies without questioning their organic/ gluten free/ vegan/ fairtrade status. Everyone will be delighted by their thoughtfully chosen presents and not surreptitiously rifle through the wrapping paper looking for the gift receipt, and the dogs will give the impression that Ellen is in charge of them and not the other way around.

In 1919, a high school teacher from Washington, D.C arrives in Harlem excited to realize her lifelong dream. Jessie Redmon Fauset has been named the literary editor of The Crisis. The first Black woman to hold this position at a preeminent Negro magazine, Jessie is poised to achieve literary greatness. But she holds a secret that jeopardizes it all. W. E. B. Du Bois, the founder of The Crisis, is not only Jessie’s boss, he’s her lover. And neither his wife, nor their fourteen-year-age difference can keep the two apart.

Judy Goodman and Beverly Caldwell have different reasons for putting continents and oceans between themselves and their disparate pasts, but they have the same desire—to earn a coveted position on an elite team of stewardesses for Pan American Airlines. For Judy, running away from an oppressive marriage in small-town Pennsylvania is a risk she must take. And for Beverly, leaving behind the gilded cage of New York society will allow her to pursue a future of her own making.

Mummy dreams of a quirky rural cottage with roses around the door and chatty chickens in the garden. Life, as ever, is not going quite as she planned. Paxo, Oxo and Bisto turn out to be highly rambunctious rather than merely chatty, and the roses have jaggy thorns.

Based on the life of cornet player Buddy Bolden, one of the legendary jazz pioneers of turn-of-the-twentieth-century New Orleans, Coming Through Slaughter is an extraordinary recreation of a remarkable musical life and a tragic conclusion. Through a collage of memoirs, interviews, imaginary conversations and monologues, Ondaatje builds a picture of a man who would work by day at a barber shop and by night unleash his talent to wild audiences who had never experienced such playing. But Buddy was also playing the field with two women, and inside his head was a ticking time-bomb.

England, 1065: The Saxon kingdom is under threat of invasion at both ends. From the north comes Harald Hardrada of Norway intent on pillage, while across the Channel, Duke William of Normandy is about to enforce his claim to the throne. Between the two lie the villages and townships defended only by part-time armies maintained by the Earls of Wessex, Mercia and Northumbria, barely united under King Harold Godwineson. It falls to brave and determined young men like Will Riveracre and Selwyn Astenmede to stand firm against whichever marauding invader reaches them first.

Set in the underground bar and club scene of 1970s Tokyo, Set My Heart On Fire tells the story of Izumi in her turbulent twenties. Through a series of disarmingly frank vignettes, author Izumi Suzuki presents an unforgettable portrait of a young woman encountering missteps and miscommunication, good music and unreliable men, powerful drugs and disorientating meds. Izumi usually keeps her relationships short but complicated, until she meets Jun.

Known as the "Wizard of the Kremlin," the enigmatic Vadim Baranov was a TV producer before becoming a political advisor to Putin, aka "The Czar." After his resignation from this position, legends about him multiply, with no one able to distinguish truth from fiction. Until one night, when he tells his story to the narrator of this book. He immerses us in the heart of the Russian state, where sycophants and oligarchs have been engaging in open warfare, and where Vadim, now the regime's main spin doctor, turns an entire country into an avant-garde political stage.

As she is seventh in line to the throne, sixteen-year-old Lady Margaret Clifford knows her marriage should be an important one. Which is why she is shocked to learn her father has agreed to entertain a proposal from a mere knight. Sir Andrew Dudley is a court favorite and joins the ranks of the Duke of Northumberland's family who are attempting to secure politically advantageous marriages. With the boy-king Edward VI failing to secure a marriage of his own and produce an heir, it is clear the Dudleys are plotting a path to the throne.

Mitza Maric has always been a little different from other girls. Most 20-year-olds are wives by now, not studying physics at an elite Zurich university with only male students trying to outdo her clever calculations. But Mitza is smart enough to know that, for her, math is an easier path than marriage. And then fellow student Albert Einstein takes an interest in her, and the world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but there might not be room for more than one genius in a marriage.

Ravenna, A.D. 408. Placidia is watching her family fall apart. When her emperor brother accuses their powerful foster father of treason, the naive imperial princess tries to reason with her sibling to no avail. And after her foster father is lured out of sanctuary and brutally executed, she flees the toxic court to avoid a forced marriage… but to dubious safety.

In 1800 France, twenty-year-old Barbe-Nicole inherits her great-grandfather's uncanny sense of smell and uses it to make great champagne, despite the Code prohibiting women from owning a business. When tragedy strikes and she becomes a Veuve (widow), she must grapple with a domineering partner, the complexities of making champagne, and the aftermath of six Napoleon wars. When she falls in love with her sales manager, Louis Bohne, she must choose between losing her winery to her husband to obey the Napoleon Code, or losing Louis.

Like the creation myths they supersede, the revelations of science are seared into our collective imagination through storytelling. From Archimedes' bath to Newton's apple, vivid accounts of scientific discovery help us understand the principles behind each theory, and add to the larger narrative of how the universe works, and how we came to be here. This anthology draws out and distils science's love of narrative from a wide range of scientific disciplines, weaving theory into very human stories.

Poland, 1891. Marie Curie (then Marya Sklodowska) was engaged to a budding mathematician, Kazimierz Zorawski. But when his mother insisted Marya was not good enough, he broke off the engagement. A heartbroken Marya left Poland for Paris to study chemistry and physics at the Sorbonne. Marie would go on to change the course of science forever and become the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. But what if Marie had made a different choice?

A young man arrives in the Ukraine, clutching in his hand a tattered photograph. He is searching for the woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Unfortunately he is aided in his quest by Alex, a translator with an uncanny ability to mangle English into bizarre new forms; a 'blind' old man haunted by memories of the war; and an undersexed guide dog named Sammy Davis Jr., Jr. What they are looking for seems elusive - a truth hidden behind veils of time, language and the horrors of war.