"A Few Bloody Noses"


Book Description

The noted British historian and author of Liberators offers a colorful, enlightening and myth-busting history of the American Revolution. According to King George III, Britain merely wanted to give America “a few bloody noses” and return to mutual cooperation. Yet the ensuing uprising led to the creation of the United States, the most powerful country in the modern world. In “A Few Bloody Noses”, Robert Harvey challenges conventional views of the American Revolution in almost every aspect—why it happened; who was winning and when; the characters of the principal protagonists; and the role of Native Americans and enslaved people. Harvey takes a penetrating look at a war that was both vicious and confused, bloody and protracted, and marred on both sides by incompetence and bad faith. He underscores the effect of the Revolution on the settlers in America, and those at home in Britain—the country that the settlers had left behind, and to which many returned. The result is an extraordinarily fascinating and thoroughly readable account.




A Few Bloody Noses


Book Description

Liberty against oppression, right against wrong - a clear message has come down to us about the origins of the American War of Independence, one of the founding events of the modern world. As with so many legends, the truth is somewhat different. In this revealing account, Robert Harvey overturns most of our assumptions about the causes of the war. Both Britain and America were divided over the struggle, America violently so, while in Britain many favoured independence if it would avoid bloodshed. The war itself was vicious and confused, and marked by incompetence and bad faith on both sides. When it was over the Americans pushed out their French allies, while the British, who had encouraged black slaves to revolt, and Indians to attack, abandoned both to their fate. Yet after four years of misrule the Constitutional Convention imposed its own conservative counter-revolution, and out of bloodshed and suffering, cunning, idealism and courage, there emerged the infant nation that was to become the most powerful the world has ever seen. In this extraordinary and intensely readable book Robert Harvey tells the whole extraordinary story of its birth.




The Book of Blood and Shadow


Book Description

While working on a project translating letters from sixteenth-century Prague, high school senior Nora Kane discovers her best friend murdered with her boyfriend the apparent killer and is caught up in a dangerous web of secret societies and shadowy conspirators, all searching for a mysterious ancient device purported to allow direct communication with God.




A Brief History of Seven Killings


Book Description

A tale inspired by the 1976 attempted assassination of Bob Marley spans decades and continents to explore the experiences of journalists, drug dealers, killers, and ghosts against a backdrop of social and political turmoil.




Passages


Book Description

Learn how to better navigate the challenges of adult life with Gail Sheehy’s landmark bestseller—named one of the ten most influential books of our times by the Library of Congress. For decades, Gail Sheehy’s Passages has been inspiring readers to see the predictable crises of adult life as opportunities for growth. She charts the stages between 18 and 50 as unfolding in a pattern of adult development: once recognized, more easily managed. Passages is an insightful road map of adulthood that illustrates with vivid stories our continuing personality and sexual changes throughout the “Trying 20s,” “Catch 30s,” “Forlorn 40s,” and “Refreshed (or Resigned) 50s.” One comment is continuously repeated by men, women, singles, couples, and people who recover from a midlife crisis: “This book changed my life.”




Dead End in Norvelt


Book Description

Dead End in Norvelt is the winner of the 2012 Newbery Medal for the year's best contribution to children's literature and the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction! Melding the entirely true and the wildly fictional, Dead End in Norvelt is a novel about an incredible two months for a kid named Jack Gantos, whose plans for vacation excitement are shot down when he is "grounded for life" by his feuding parents, and whose nose spews bad blood at every little shock he gets. But plenty of excitement (and shocks) are coming Jack's way once his mom loans him out to help a fiesty old neighbor with a most unusual chore—typewriting obituaries filled with stories about the people who founded his utopian town. As one obituary leads to another, Jack is launced on a strange adventure involving molten wax, Eleanor Roosevelt, twisted promises, a homemade airplane, Girl Scout cookies, a man on a trike, a dancing plague, voices from the past, Hells Angels . . . and possibly murder. Endlessly surprising, this sly, sharp-edged narrative is the author at his very best, making readers laugh out loud at the most unexpected things in a dead-funny depiction of growing up in a slightly off-kilter place where the past is present, the present is confusing, and the future is completely up in the air.




Blood Family


Book Description

A boy with an abusive father grows up and fears that he has the same potential for violence as his father has.




Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie


Book Description

A brave and beautiful story that will make readers laugh, and break their hearts at the same time. Now with a special note from the author! Steven has a totally normal life (well, almost).He plays drums in the All-City Jazz Band (whose members call him the Peasant), has a crush on the hottest girl in school (who doesn't even know he's alive), and is constantly annoyed by his younger brother, Jeffrey (who is cuter than cute - which is also pretty annoying). But when Jeffrey gets sick, Steven's world is turned upside down, and he is forced to deal with his brother's illness, his parents' attempts to keep the family in one piece, his homework, the band, girls, and Dangerous Pie (yes, you'll have to read the book to find out what that is!).




The Fifth Sorceress


Book Description

It is more than three centuries since the ravages of a devastating war nearly tore apart the kingdom of Eutracia. In its wake, those who masterminded the bloodsheda quartet of powerful, conquest-hungry Sorceresseswere sentenced to exile, with return all but impossible and death all but inevitable. Now a land of peace and plenty, protected and guided by a council of immortal wizards, Eutracia is about to crown a new king. And as the coronation approaches, the spirit of celebration fills every heart. Except one.




The Scrolls Of The Ancients


Book Description

The spellbinding fantasy that began with The Fifth Sorceress and The Gates of Dawn continues... Tristan and his twin sister, Shailiha, are the Chosen Ones, long prophesied to unite the opposing magics of the dark Vagaries and the benevolent Vigors. With the destruction of the Gates of Dawn, it would appear that the ravaged kingdom of Eutracia has been given the chance to cleanse itself, to heal - and the Chosen Ones the opportunity to fulfil their destiny under the tutelage of wizards Wigg and Faegan. But Fate would have it otherwise. For there is another who unknowingly possesses magic in his blood - a magic that, in the wrong hands, could unleash unspeakable evil. To find this unsuspecting soul and understand the threat that now faces them, the Chosen Ones and their allies begin a quest that takes them deep into the mysterious Chambers of Penitence and then across the Sea of Whispers to the sacred Isle of Sanctuary. They are not alone in searching. Krassus, devoted servant of the Vagaries, has dispatched ships of demonic slavers to scour the coast of Eutracia, taking captive men and women and bringing them to the island fortress of the Citadel, where evil dreams take the form of living nightmares. Aided by Tyranny, a pirate as fierce as she is beautiful, Tristan and his sister must destroy the demonslavers' fleet and rescue the ill-fated pawn of magic, now imprisoned in the Citadel. For Krassus seeks to awaken the magic in this one's blood and imbue him with dark enchantments from the mysterious Scrolls of the Ancients - transforming him into an instrument of evil the likes of which the world has never known... and will not long survive.