Bøger udgivet af PERENNIAL

The gripping inside story of Gordon Brown's rise to become Prime Minister.

One of the most extraordinary memoirs of recent years, the acclaimed writer John Cornwell has finally written his own story, and the story of a choice he had to make between the Church and a life lived outside its confines.

Torn by tragedy from his early life on a remote farm in Tasmania, Alex Dove has returned years later to start over. A chance encounter with quiet, alluring Merridy Bowman?a young woman similarly haunted by a tangled and catastrophic history?results in marriage, as two damaged souls unite to build a home, family, and livelihood far removed from civilization's bustle. Soon they are drawn into the unpredictable dynamics of small-town island life?and into the destructive orbit of an unscrupulous real estate agent who maintains a secret hold over both Doves. But when a shipwreck off the shore thrusts a troubled, possibly criminal teenage castaway into their world, Alex and Merridy's tenuously forged happiness is suddenly at grave risk, as they are forced to confront deeper questions about the true meaning of fulfillment.

Sam Marsdyke is a lonely young man, dogged by an incident in his past and forced to work his family farm instead of attending school in his Yorkshire village. He methodically fills his life with daily routines and adheres to strict boundaries that keep him at a remove from the townspeople. But one day he spies Josephine, his new neighbor from London. From that moment on, Sam's carefully constructed protections begin to crumble?and what starts off as a harmless friendship between an isolated loner and a defiant teenage girl takes a most disturbing turn.

This definitive illustrated history of Abraham Lincoln's assassination follows the shocking events from the tragic scene at Ford's Theatre to the trial and execution of John Wilkes Booth's coconspirators. Few remember them today, but once the names Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, George Atzerodt, Edman Spangler, Samuel Arnold, Michael O'Laughlin, and Dr. Samuel Mudd were the most reviled and notorious in America.In Lincoln's Assassins, James L. Swanson and Daniel R. Weinberg present an unprecedented visual record of almost three hundred contemporary photographs, letters, documents, prints, woodcuts, newspapers, pamphlets, books, and artifacts, many hitherto unpublished. These rare materials evoke the popular culture of the time, record the origins of the Lincoln myth, take the reader into the courtroom and the cells of the accused, document the beginning of American photojournalism, and memorialize the fates of the eight conspirators.

At the Center of the Storm is a revealing look at the inner workings of the most important intelligence organization in the world during the most challenging times in recent history. Based on his unparalleled access to both the highest echelons of government and raw intelligence from the field, former CIA Director George Tenet's candid and gripping memoir disentangles the interlocking events that led to 9/11 and offers eye-opening new information on the deliberations and strategies that culminated in the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Through it all, Tenet paints an unflinching self-portrait of a man caught between the warring forces of the administration's decision-making process and his own conscience.

Though they were often ridiculed or ignored by their contemporaries, today astonishing sums are paid for their paintings. Their dazzling works are familiar to even the most casual art lovers?but how well does the world know the Impressionists as people?Sue Roe's colorful, lively, poignant, and superbly researched biography, The Private Lives of the Impressionists, follows an extraordinary group of artists into their Paris studios, down the rural lanes of Montmartre, and into the rowdy riverside bars of a city undergoing monumental change. Vivid and unforgettable, it casts a brilliant, revealing light on this unparalleled society of genius colleagues who lived and worked together for twenty years and transformed the art world forever with their breathtaking depictions of ordinary life.

The highly praised author of Hideous Kinky, returns with a searing and sensuous tale young love set amid the heat and beauty of a Tuscan summer The Independent calls Esther Freud ?the best writer on childhood we have.? In Love Falls this brilliant novelist proves her power once again with an utterly charming and irresistible tale of adolescent love and self-discovery set in a foreign land. When 17-year-old Lara accepts her father's invitation to accompany him to Tuscany for the summer, she's excited and trepidatious. But, her fears prove groundless, for the villa's closest neighbors are the contagiously adventurous Willoughbys, the teenaged brood of a wealthy British lord. Caught up in their torrential good humor?and snared particularly by Kip Willoughby's dark, flirtatious eyes?Lara sets off on a summer adventure full of danger, first love, and untold consequences that will change her life.

The enactment of the German extermination policies that resulted in the murder of six million European Jews depended upon many factors, including the cooperation of local authorities and police departments, and the passivity of the populations, primarily of their political and spiritual elites. Necessary also was the victims' willingness to submit, often with the hope of surviving long enough to escape the German vise. The Years of Extermination, the completion of Saul Friedländer's major historical opus on Nazi Germany and the Jews, explores the convergence of the various aspects of this most systematic and sustained of modern genocides. In this unparalleled work?based on a vast array of documents and an overwhelming choir of voices from diaries, letters, and memoirs?the history of the Holocaust has found its definitive representation.

In the honorable tradition of the eccentric dandyism of Lord Byron, Oscar Wilde, and Quentin Crisp comes Sebastian Horsley's disarming memoir of sex, drugs, and Savile Row.

After 15 years of designing more than 1,500 book jackets at Knopf for such authors as Anne Rice and Michael Chrichton, Kidd has crafted an affecting an entertaining novel set at a state university in the late 1950s that is both slap-happily funny and heartbreakingly sad. The Cheese Monkeys is a college novel that takes place over a tightly written two semesters. The book is set in the late 1950s at State U, where the young narrator, has decided to major in art, much to his parents' dismay. It is an autobiographical, coming-of-age novel which tells universally appealing stories of maturity, finding a calling in life, and being inspired by a loving, demanding, and highly eccentric teacher.

A master chronicler of the African-American experience, Richard Wright brilliantly expanded his literary horizons with Pagan Spain, originally published in 1957. The Spain he visited in the mid-twentieth century was not the romantic locale of song and story, but a place of tragic beauty and dangerous contradictions. The portrait he offers is a blistering, powerful, yet scrupulously honest depiction of a land and people in turmoil, caught in the strangling dual grip of cruel dictatorship and what Wright saw as an undercurrent of primitive faith. An amalgam of expert travel reportage, dramatic monologue, and arresting sociological critique, Pagan Spain serves as a pointed and still-relevant commentary on the grave human dangers of oppression and governmental corruption.

Sun-tzu's The Art of War is the classic work on strategic thinking. Throughout recorded history, Sun-tzu's wisdom, rules, and philosophy have been eagerly embraced by warriors, leaders, and gentle contemplators alike.This edition is an entirely new text based on manuscripts discovered in Linyi, China, in 1972 that predate all previous texts by as many as one thousand years. To better convey Sun-tzu's original intent, translator, researcher, and interpreter J. H. Huang traced the roots of the language to Sun-tzu's own time?before 221 b.c. In addition to his wonderfully clear interpretation, Huang gives readers an introduction to the history behind The Art of War, includes six appendices?five of which were uncovered at Linyi and are not available in any other edition?and offers his own insightful comments on the meaning of the text.

Sex for America takes us to the intersection of our desires and our political beliefs. These provocative stories by some of today's best writers, including Anthony Swofford, Jerry Stahl, Rick Moody, and Jonathan Ames, will inspire new discussions of sexual freedom and fascination. A surprising encounter between a lesbian and a young man shipping off to war, a liberal Hill staffer falling for the wife of a Republican senator, and Dick Cheney's duck hunt accident as jilted lover's revenge. See your government?and your most recent sex partners?as you've never seen them before.

A magisterial history inspired by Winston Churchill's famous opus, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 is an engrossing account of the twentieth century, with a unique perspective on our turbulent times. In 1900, where Churchill ended the fourth volume of his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, the United States had not yet emerged onto the world scene as a great power. Yet the coming century was to belong to the English-speaking peoples, who successively and successfully fought the Kaiser's Germany, Axis aggression and Soviet Communism, and who are now struggling against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. Andrew Roberts's History proves especially invaluable as the United States today looks to other parts of the English-speaking world as its best, closest and most dependable allies.

Here, for the first time, is a volume that gathers the published verse of Allen Ginsberg in its entirety, a half century of brilliant work from one of America's great poets. The chief figure among the Beats, Ginsberg changed the course of American poetry, liberating it from closed academic forms with the creation of open, vocal, spontaneous, and energetic postmodern verse in the tradition of Walt Whitman, Guillaume Apollinaire, Hart Crane, Ezra Pound, and William Carlos Williams. Ginsberg's classics Howl, Reality Sandwiches, Kaddish, Planet News, and The Fall of America led American (and international) poetry toward uncensored vernacular, explicit candor, the ecstatic, the rhapsodic, and the sincere?all leavened by an attractive and pervasive streak of common sense. Ginsberg's raw tones and attitudes of spiritual liberation also helped catalyze a psychological revolution that has become a permanent part of our cultural heritage, profoundly influencing not only poetry and popular song and speech, but also our view of the world. The uninterrupted energy of Ginsberg's remarkable career is clearly revealed in this collection. Seen in order of composition, the poems reflect on one another; they are not only works but also a work. Included here are all the poems from the earlier volume Collected Poems 1947-1980, and from Ginsberg's subsequent and final three books of new poetry: White Shroud, Cosmopolitan Greetings, and Death & Fame. Enriching this book are illustrations by Ginsberg's artist friends; unusual and illuminating notes to the poems, inimitably prepared by the poet himself; extensive indexes; as well as prefaces and various other materials that accompanied the original publications.

Letters of E. B. White touches on a wide variety of subjects, including the New Yorker editor who became the author's wife; their dachshund, Fred, with his "look of fake respectability"; and White's contemporaries, from Harold Ross and James Thurber to Groucho Marx and John Updike and, later, Senator Edmund S. Muskie and Garrison Keillor. Updated with newly released letters from 1976 to 1985, additional photographs, and a new foreword by John Updike, this unparalleled collection of letters from one of America's favorite essayists, poets, and storytellers now spans nearly a century, from 1908 to 1985.

They say you can't judge a book by its cover?but its title can tell you more than you ever needed to know!Amazing, illuminating, and gut-bustingly funny, Bizarre Books is the wonderfully twisted product of more than two decades of determined searching in forgotten corners of out-of-the-way libraries and through the literary detritus of eclectic private collections. It is certain to delight every true fan of trivia and the patently absurd.

What kind of man would lie to his own wife about having cancer? A man desperate to avoid being saddled with life's responsibilities. A man like Paul.On a miserable October afternoon, as he stares down at his brother's whiny new baby, Paul realizes he's run out of excuses. His wife wants a family, but the last thing Paul wants is dirty diapers and a constantly screaming stranger robbing him of sleep. Then a lump is discovered on his arm, and with a little elaboration, the parenthood question is rendered moot.With the dwindling time he pretends he's got left, he intends to start looking out for number one. But his "cancer vacation" hits a snag when he meets a mother and son in an airport bar who turn everything around?and even bring Paul to the brink of a life he thought he never wanted?because sometimes a man's got to lose himself completely to discover who he really is.

Marie Antoinette was a child of fourteen when her mother, the Empress of Austria, arranged for her to leave her family and her country to become the wife of the fifteen-year-old Dauphin, the future King of France. Coming of age in the most public of arenas, she warmly embraces her adopted nation and its citizens. She shows her new husband nothing but love and encouragement, though he repeatedly fails to consummate their marriage and in so doing is unable to give her a child and an heir to the throne. Deeply disappointed and isolated in her own intimate circle, and apart from the social life of the court, she allows herself to remain ignorant of the country's growing economic and political crises, even as poor harvests, bitter winters, war debts, and poverty precipitate rebellion and revenge. The young queen, once beloved by the common folk, becomes a target of scorn, cruelty, and hatred as she, the court's nobles, and the rest of the royal family are caught up in the nightmarish violence of a murderous time called ?the Terror.?Sena Jeter Naslund offers a dramatic reimagining of this truly compelling woman that goes far beyond the popular myth.

An award-winning reporter for the Washington Post, Tracy Thompson was thirty-four when she was hospitalized and put on suicide watch during a major depressive episode. This event, the culmination of more than twenty years of silent suffering, became the point of departure for an in-depth, groundbreaking book on depression and her struggle with the disease. The Beast shattered stereotypes and inspired countless readers to confront their own battles with mental illness. Having written that book, and having found the security of a happy marriage, Thompson assumed that she had learned to manage her illness. But when she took on one of the most emotionally demanding jobs of all—being a mother—depression returned with fresh vengeance.Very quickly Thompson realized that virtually everything she had learned up to then about dealing with depression was now either inadequate or useless. In fact, maternal depression was a different beast altogether. She tackled her problem head-on, meticulously investigating the latest scientific research and collecting the stories of nearly 400 mothers with depression. What she found was startling: a problem more widespread than she or any other mother struggling alone with this affliction could have imagined. Women make up nearly 12 million of the 19 million Americans affected by depression every year, experiencing episodes at nearly twice the rate that men do. Women suffer most frequently between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four—not coincidentally, the primary childbearing years.The Ghost in the House, the result of Thompson's extensive studies, is the first book to address maternal depression as a lifelong illness that can have profound ramifications for mother and child. A striking blend of memoir and journalism, here is an invaluable resource for the millions of women who are white-knuckling their way through what should be the most satisfying years of their lives. Thompson offers her readers a concise summary of the cutting-edge research in this field, deftly written prose, and, above all, hope.

In the span of five violent hours on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed major Gulf Coast cities and flattened 150 miles of coastline. But it was only the first stage of a shocking triple tragedy. On the heels of one of the three strongest hurricanes ever to make landfall in the United States came the storm-surge flooding, which submerged a half-million homes?followed by the human tragedy of government mismanagement, which proved as cruel as the natural disaster itself. In The Great Deluge, bestselling author Douglas Brinkley finds the true heroes of this unparalleled catastrophe, and lets the survivors tell their own stories, masterly allowing them to record the nightmare that was Katrina.

Psychoanalysis works by attending to the patient's side effects, "what falls out of his pockets once he starts speaking." Undergoing psychoanalytic therapy is always a leap into the dark?like dedicating our hearts and intellect to a powerful work of literature, it's impossible to know beforehand its ultimate effect and consequences. One must remain open to where the "side effects" will lead.Erudite, eloquent, and enthrallingly observant, Adam Phillips is one of the world's most respected psychoanalysts and a boldly original writer and thinker?and the ideal guide to exploring the provocative connections between psychoanalytic treatment and enduring, transformative literature. His fascinating and thoughtful Side Effects offers a valuable intellectual blueprint for the construction of a life beholden to no ideology other than the fulfillment of personal promise.

At the turn of the eighteenth century, a writer?a Jew?enters an English country manor, where he has been invited to read through the night to his host until the gentleman falls asleep. What unfolds then are seemingly unconnected stories covering a vast array of topics?from incest to madness to a poetic competition in the court of George III. And what emerges by the end is a breathtaking tapestry in which past and present, imagination and truth, are intricately woven together into one remarkable whole.

From the fearful crossing of the stormy Atlantic to the growth of the early settlements, from the French and Indian War and the unrest of the 1760s to the inevitable break with England?here is an insightful and fascinating account of the transformation of an unknown land into an extraordinary nation.In this provocative history of colonial America, William R. Polk explores the key events and individuals that defined this critical epoch by offering vivid descriptions of the societies the Europeans came from and what they believed they were going to, while introducing the native peoples encountered in the New World and the black Africans who were brought across the Atlantic. As John Adams would point out to Thomas Jefferson, the long years that witnessed the formation of our national character and the growth of our spirit of independence were indeed the real revolution. That is the compelling story at the root of The Birth of America.