Rising in the mountains of the Tibetan border, the symbolic heart of China pierces 3,900 miles of rugged country before debouching into the oily swells of the East China Sea. Connecting China's heartland cities with the volatile coastal giant, Shanghai, it has also historically connected China to the outside world through its nearly one thousand mi...more
By piecing the lives of selected individuals into a grand mosaic, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Daniel J. Boorstin explores the development of artistic innovation over 3,000 years. A hugely ambitious chronicle of the arts that Boorstin delivers with the scope that made his Discoverers a national bestseller.
"A masterful picture of Wales in the 13th century...vivdly pictured as grandly beautiful, its people volatile, stubborn and mystic."THE SAN DIEGO UNIONThirteenth-century Wales is a divided country, ever at the mercy of England's ruthless, power-hungry King John. Then Llewelyn, Prince of North Wales, secures an uneasy truce with England by marrying ...more
"A marvelous literary and historical achievement...Impossible to put down."THE BOSTON HERALDThis is Simon de Montfort's story--and the story of King Henry III, as weak and changeable as Montfort was brash and unbending. It is a saga of two opposing wills that would later clash in a storm of violence and betrayal, a story straight from the pages of ...more
"A COMPELLING, WELL-WRITTEN EPIC. . .Penman is an accomplished novelist and certainly has staked a claim to medieval England as her literary fiefdom."--The Philadelphia InquirerA.D. 1135. As church bells tolled for the death of England's King Henry I, his barons faced the unwelcome prospect of being ruled by a woman: Henry's beautiful daughter Maud...more
"Penman's characters are so shrewdly imagined, so full of resonant human feeling that they seem to be on the page....Most compelling is the portrait of the Welsh as wild and rugged as their landscape."SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLEHere, alive from the pages of history, is the compelling tale of a Celtic society ruled by Llewelyn, Prince of Wales, on a col...more
A glorious novel of the controversial Richard III---a monarch betrayed in life by his allies and betrayed in death by historyIn this beautifully rendered modern classic, Sharon Kay Penman redeems Richard III---vilified as the bitter, twisted, scheming hunchback who murdered his nephews, the princes in the Tower---from his maligned place in histo...more
This groundbreaking English version by Robert Fagles is the most important recent translation of Homer's great epic poem. The verse translation has been hailed by scholars as the new standard, providing an Iliad that delights modern sensibility and aesthetic without sacrificing the grandeur and particular genius of Homer's own style and language. T...more