It's a Long Way to Tipperary


Book Description

Charlie Brown and his friends cope with the problems of growing up and Snoopy's efforts to become a pirate, a World War I flying ace, and a soldier in the French Foreign Legion




A Long Long Way


Book Description

A powerful new novel about divided loyalties and the realities of war from “master storyteller” (Wall Street Journal) Sebastian Barry, author of Old God's Time In 1914, Willie Dunne, barely eighteen years old, leaves behind Dublin, his family, and the girl he plans to marry in order to enlist in the Allied forces and face the Germans on the Western Front. Once there, he encounters a horror of violence and gore he could not have imagined and sustains his spirit with only the words on the pages from home and the camaraderie of the mud-covered Irish boys who fight and die by his side. Dimly aware of the political tensions that have grown in Ireland in his absence, Willie returns on leave to find a world split and ravaged by forces closer to home. Despite the comfort he finds with his family, he knows he must rejoin his regiment and fight until the end. With grace and power, Sebastian Barry vividly renders Willie’s personal struggle as well as the overwhelming consequences of war.




A Long Way from Tipperary


Book Description

From his boyhood in Tipperary, Kildare, and Donegal to the pinnacle of biblical scholarship, John Dominic Crossan’s adventurous spirit has led him to seek out the truth no matter where it leads. In this delightful memoir, the former monk and controversial biblical scholar tells how his work as a pioneering historical Jesus expert has led him from the traditional Catholicism of his youth to a more complex, sophisticated faith. With characteristic wit and candor, he describes the joys and challenges of growing up in Ireland and reveals how his life experiences—from Ireland to America, Rome, and Israel, from monastery to university, from priesthood to marriage—have shaped his understanding of God, Jesus, the Church, and what it means to be a true Christian.




Truevine


Book Description

The true story of two African-American brothers who were kidnapped and displayed as circus freaks, and whose mother endured a 28-year struggle to get them back. The year was 1899 and the place a sweltering tobacco farm in the Jim Crow South town of Truevine, Virginia. George and Willie Muse were two little boys born to a sharecropper family. One day a white man offered them a piece of candy, setting off events that would take them around the world and change their lives forever. Captured into the circus, the Muse brothers performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined over a dozen sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. They were global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. But the very root of their success was in the color of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: supposed cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even "Ambassadors from Mars." Back home, their mother never accepted that they were "gone" and spent 28 years trying to get them back. Through hundreds of interviews and decades of research, Beth Macy expertly explores a central and difficult question: Where were the brothers better off? On the world stage as stars or in poverty at home? Truevine is a compelling narrative rich in historical detail and rife with implications to race relations today.




Love Me Tender


Book Description

Some of the world’s best-loved songs have had remarkable origins. Had Robert Burns not heard an old man sing a quavering version of an ancient Scottish country song, we would never have had ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Miss Jane Ross wrote down the tune she heard played by a piper at an Irish village fair in 1855. Had she not done so, the rest of the world would not have heard ‘Danny Boy’. Marie Antoinette heard a peasant nurse sing an obscure lullaby to her princely son. The empress’s unexpected promotion of the song resulted in its now being listed by The Guinness Book of Records as one of the three most familiar songs in the world.Love Me Tender tells the remarkable stories behind 40 popular and traditional songs. Some evolved from folksongs, some are from musical theatre, while others hit the mark because a particular recording appeared at just the right time. In some cases, one word made all the difference: Paul McCartney composed a tune but could only think of the words ‘scrambled eggs’ to fit it, but fortunately he later came up with the perfect solution – ‘Yesterday’. In a book full of surprises and curiosities, Max Cryer reveals stories from all around the world, and from artists as diverse as Marlene Dietrich, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland and Elton John. This truly fascinating book makes enthralling reading.




Great Britain's Great War


Book Description

Jeremy Paxman's magnificent history of the First World War tells the entire story of the war in one gripping narrative from the point of view of the British people. *** We may think we know about it, but what was life really like for the British people during the First World War? The well-known images - the pointing finger of Lord Kitchener; a Tommy buried in the mud of the Western Front; the memorial poppies of Remembrance Day - all reinforce the idea that it was a pointless waste of life. So why did the British fight it so willingly and how did the country endure it for so long? Using a wealth of first-hand source material, Jeremy Paxman brings vividly to life the day-to-day experience of the British over the entire course of the war, from politicians, newspapermen, campaigners and Generals, to Tommies, factory workers, nurses, wives and children. It shows how both British life and identity were utterly transformed - not always for the worst - by the enormous upheaval of the war. Rich with personalities, surprises and ironies, this lively narrative history paints a picture of courage and confusion, doubts and dilemmas, and is written with Jeremy Paxman's characteristic flair for storytelling, wry humour and pithy observation. *** "A fine introduction to the part Britain played in the first of the worst two wars in history. The writing is lively and the detail often surprising and memorable" Guardian "He writes so well and sympathetically, and chooses his detail so deftly, that if there is one new history of the war that you might actually enjoy from the very large centennial selection this is very likely it" The Times




The Secret Guests


Book Description

"When you're done binge-watching The Crown, pick up this multifaceted wartime thriller." —Kirkus Reviews As London endures nightly German bombings, Britain’s secret service whisks the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret from England, seeking safety for the young royals on an old estate in Ireland. Ahead of the German Blitz during World War II, English parents from every social class sent their children to the countryside for safety, displacing more than three million young offspring. In The Secret Guests, the British royal family takes this evacuation a step further, secretly moving the princesses to the estate of the Duke of Edenmore in “neutral” Ireland. A female English secret agent, Miss Celia Nashe, and a young Irish detective, Garda Strafford, are assigned to watch over “Ellen” and “Mary” at Clonmillis Hall. But the Irish stable hand, the housemaid, the formidable housekeeper, the Duke himself, and other Irish townspeople, some of whom lost family to English gunshots during the War of Independence, go freely about their business in and around the great house. Soon suspicions about the guests’ true identities percolate, a dangerous boredom sets in for the princesses, and, within and without Clonmillis acreage, passions as well as stakes rise. Benjamin Black, who has good information that the princesses were indeed in Ireland for a time during the Blitz, draws readers into a novel as fascinating as the nascent career of Miss Nashe, as tender as the homesickness of the sisters, as intriguing as Irish-English relations during WWII, and as suspenseful and ultimately action-packed as war itself.




Frenzy


Book Description




It’s a Long, Long Way. . . .


Book Description

Louis Garbo fled the Middle East with a bounty on his head because of his identity and sniping operations were known. The shadow government operation he’d worked for gave him a new identity and a sequestered lifestyle. After two years, he was suddenly called upon to do another hit on Mustique Island. The target was a Saudi prince and Garbo’s secret arrival on Mustique was arranged. He had to survey the island in stealth mode to find a suitable site for his one shot and to acquire the sustaining water and food needed. When the shot was made, survival would be dependent on his wit, as no aid was possible in the secret operation. Saudi security patrols and island police would be covering the island in a search for the sniper. Beatrice, the lovely romantic, was ordered to assist in his preparation, disobeyed orders. She follows Garbo to Mustique in an attempt to help if the hit was made. A chance romance creates a break in the tale while Garbo silently tries to avoid capture and escape the island.




It's a Long Way from Penny Apples


Book Description

Tis better to be born lucky than rich.... There are many ways to confront tragedy and hard times. Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt's tragic--and ultimately uplifting--tale of how one man overcame adversity and found happiness in the New World is a compelling story that has touched thousands of readers. It's a Long Way from Penny Apples is another view of the Irish experience, another man's journey out of the grinding poverty that held an entire generation of Irishmen in its thrall. Poverty and its ills can rend a family apart and ruin countless lives, leaving individuals on their own to find their way, if they can, out of that despair and on to a new life. But not every family gives in to defeat. Sometimes the choice is to not leave anyone behind... and out of that love, a family can come together, using all their talents to bring all of their loved ones to a better place. Bill Cullen was lucky enough to have one such family. Born and bred in the rough inner city slums of Summerhill in Dublin, Bill was one of fourteen children. Selling on the streets from the age of six, be it fruit, flowers, newspapers, Christmas decorations, football colors, or programs, was a means of putting food on the table for Bill and his family. He finished school at thirteen to go on the street fulltime. In 1956 Bill got a job as a messenger boy for a pound a week at Waldens Ford Dealer in Dublin. Through hard work and unrelenting determination, Bill was appointed director general of the company, in 1965. Bill went on to set up the Firlane Motor Company which became the biggest Ford dealership in Ireland. In 1986 he took over the troubled Renault car distribution franchise from Waterford Crystal. His turnaround of that company into what is now the Glencullen Group is a business success story-the group now has an annual turnover of 250 million. Bill Cullen's story is an account of incredible poverty and deprivation in the Dublin slums. It highlights the frustration of a father and mother feeling their relationship crumble as they fight to give their children a better life. It's a story of courage, joy, and happiness--of how a mother gave inspiration and values to her children, saying to them, "The best thing I can give you is the independence to stand on your own feet." It's a Long Way from Penny Apples is nothing less than a modern-day Horatio Alger story, told with humor and love; a heartwarming tale of redemption and overcoming adversity by one of the most famous self-made men in Ireland At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.