The Black Book of Gyffe the Fribbling Squit


Book Description

Gyffe, the Fribbling Squit's Black Book makes its appearance just as the defeated Owain Glyndŵr finally gives up the ghost on the Welsh uprising against the English. It's a time when Church and State question the scientific value of the so-called occultists and alchemists. It’s a time when magic and mysticism finds itself asunder. In response, the Order of Magi have summoned an emergency gathering of representatives, within the Tree of Oracles, to troubleshoot the current climate of technological partisanship. Heroic Gyffe, must summon all his magical acuity to combat the treachery and persecution to follow … ‘Wait a moment,’ says Grimoire, ‘do I detect some puffery in your prose?’ ‘Just thought I'd give the blurb a little oomph, that's all,’ Gyffe says, ‘can I keep the heroic bit?’ ‘Only to yourself,’ Grimoire says taking the quill, 'now, where were we? Ah yes ... the bit about the squit ...’ Modest Gyffe must … rely on the sagacity and magical adeptness of his kind master Grimoire to combat the treachery and persecution to follow. Grimoire, the mage, plans to be at the gathering, and he’ll take with him his dear, but at times exasperating, friend Ma Gwrach. Together, they’ll muddle their way through the time-fiddling magical planes of Annwyn. Meanwhile, Gyffe and a scrunch of lesser magic folk must hold the fort and keep the theurgic insurgent of renegade magi at bay. Gyffe’s Black Book is brimming with unfamiliar familiars, bad tempered mythic monsters, proper time travel, technomancy, historical hijinks and the occasional practice of misspelling conjurations. ‘That’ll do,’ says Grimoire resting the quill, ‘if they want to find out more, they can read the, at times sketchy, portrayal of what really happened.’




Stand Still Like the Hummingbird


Book Description

One of Henry Miller's most luminous statements of his personal philosophy of life, Stand Still Like the Hummingbird, provides a symbolic title for this collection of stories and essays. Many of them have appeared only in foreign magazines while others were printed in small limited editions which have gone out of print. Miller's genius for comedy is at its best in "Money and How It Gets That Way"--a tongue-in-cheek parody of "economics" provoked by a postcard from Ezra Pound which asked if he "ever thought about money." His deep concern for the role of the artist in society appears in "An Open Letter to All and Sundry," and in "The Angel is My Watermark" he writes of his own passionate love affair with painting. "The Immorality of Morality" is an eloquent discussion of censorship. Some of the stories, such as "First Love," are autobiographical, and there are portraits of friends, such as "Patchen: Man of Anger and Light," and essays on other writers such as Walt Whitman, Thoreau, Sherwood Anderson and Ionesco. Taken together, these highly readable pieces reflect the incredible vitality and variety of interests of the writer who extended the frontiers of modern literature with Tropic of Cancer and other great books.




The English Language


Book Description

This is the definitive survey of the English language - in all its forms. Crystal writes accessibly about the structure of the language, the uses of English throughout the world and finally he gives a brief history of English. The book has been fully revised and there is a fascinating new chapter on 'The effect of technology' on the English language. 'Illuminating guided tour of our common treasure by one of its most lucid and sensible professionals' The Times 'A splendid blend of erudition and entertainment' THES




Rebecca's Daughters


Book Description

Rebecca's Daughters is the nearest Dylan Thomas ever came to realizing his ambition to write a film scenario in such a way that it would not only stand ready for shooting but would, at the same time, give the ordinary reader a visual impression of the film in words. A romantic adventure story set in mid-nineteenth-century Wales, Rebecca's Daughters has a dashing hero who is not what he seems; commonfolk oppressed by the landowners; and finally, justice triumphant over greed and misused privilege. Who is the mysterious "Rebecca" swathed in wide black skirts with a shawl drawn over his mouth and his eyes flashing from beneath the brim of his tall black hat as he exhorts his "daughters" to tear down the hated tollgates imposed by the gentry's Turnpike Trust? And where does the foppish Anthony Raine--just returned from a tour in India with the despised British army--stand? And how is the lovely Rhiannon to choose between them? This reissue of Thomas's delightful tale of derring-do has been illustrated with charm and verve by the celebrated wood engraver and graphic artist Fritz Eichenberg.




Collected Stories


Book Description

Peter Carey is justly renowned for his novels, which have included the Booker Prize-winning titles Oscar and Lucinda and True History of the Kelly Gang. He is also a dazzling writer of short stories and this volume collects together all the stories from The Fat Man in History and War Crimes as well as three other stories not previously published in book form.The stories, persuasive and precisely crafted, reveal Carey to be a moralist with a sense of humour, a surrealist interested in naturalism and an urban poet delighting in paradox.




Een nagelaten bekentenis


Book Description




The Craft of Stickmaking


Book Description

The traditional craft of stickmaking is "popular" in the truest sense--the necessary skills can be acquired without too much difficulty, the tools are minimal, and the materials are readily available. This complete guide, which will appeal to novice and craftsman alike, ranges from the basic techniques through to the carving of intricate handles. Covering a wide variety of raw materials and types of stick, The Craft of Stickmaking is illustrated throughout with clear photos and drawings. Leo Gowan, a professional stickmaker, is also the author of Stickmaking.




Hollywood Highbrow


Book Description

Today's moviegoers and critics generally consider some Hollywood products--even some blockbusters--to be legitimate works of art. But during the first half century of motion pictures very few Americans would have thought to call an American movie "art." Up through the 1950s, American movies were regarded as a form of popular, even lower-class, entertainment. By the 1960s and 1970s, however, viewers were regularly judging Hollywood films by artistic criteria previously applied only to high art forms. In Hollywood Highbrow, Shyon Baumann for the first time tells how social and cultural forces radically changed the public's perceptions of American movies just as those forces were radically changing the movies themselves. The development in the United States of an appreciation of film as an art was, Baumann shows, the product of large changes in Hollywood and American society as a whole. With the postwar rise of television, American movie audiences shrank dramatically and Hollywood responded by appealing to richer and more educated viewers. Around the same time, European ideas about the director as artist, an easing of censorship, and the development of art-house cinemas, film festivals, and the academic field of film studies encouraged the idea that some American movies--and not just European ones--deserved to be considered art.




I, Catherine


Book Description