The City and the Pillar


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Jim has never outgrown his crush on his childhood friend.




PILLAR.


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A Pillar of Iron


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New York Times Bestseller: A magnificent novel of ancient Rome and the tragic life of Cicero, who tried in vain to save the republic he loved from tyranny. In this riveting tale, the Roman Empire in its final glory is seen through the eyes of philosopher, orator, and political theorist Marcus Tullius Cicero. From his birth in 106 BC in the hill town of Arpinum, Cicero, the educated son of a wealthy member of the equestrian order, is destined for greatness. At a young age, he discovers the legend of the Unknown God, the coming Messiah, and it propels the rising lawyer on a journey of spiritual conflict and self-discovery. From his tumultuous family life to his tenuous alliance with Julius Caesar to a fateful love affair with the Roman empress Livia and, finally, to the political role that will make him a target of powerful enemies, A Pillar of Iron is the story of Cicero’s legacy as one the greatest influences on Western civilization. Based on hundreds of speeches, voluminous private correspondence, and ancient texts and manuscripts, this bestselling epic brings into focus Cicero’s complicated relationships with his contemporaries, including Caesar, Mark Antony, and Crassus, and brilliantly captures the pageantry, turmoil, and intrigue of life in ancient Rome. According to legendary editor Maxwell Perkins, author “Taylor Caldwell is a storyteller first, last and foremost, and once you begin reading one of her books, you can’t help finishing it.” This ebook features an illustrated biography of Taylor Caldwell including rare images from the author’s estate.




How Long Has This Been Going On


Book Description

How Long Has This Been Going On? brings together a rich and varied cast of characters to tell the tale of modern gay America in this remarkable epic novel. Beginning in 1949 and moving to the present day, Mordden puts a unique and innovating spin on modern history. An adventurous, adroit, and fascinating novel by one of the finest gay writers of our time.




The Pillars of the Earth


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#1 New York Times Bestseller Oprah's Book Club Selection The “extraordinary . . . monumental masterpiece” (Booklist) that changed the course of Ken Follett’s already phenomenal career—and begins where its prequel, The Evening and the Morning, ended. “Follett risks all and comes out a clear winner,” extolled Publishers Weekly on the release of The Pillars of the Earth. A departure for the bestselling thriller writer, the historical epic stunned readers and critics alike with its ambitious scope and gripping humanity. Today, it stands as a testament to Follett’s unassailable command of the written word and to his universal appeal. The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known . . . of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect—a man divided in his soul . . . of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame . . . and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state and brother against brother. A spellbinding epic tale of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the sprawling medieval canvas of twelfth-century England, this is Ken Follett’s historical masterpiece.




The Pillar


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No monument in the history of Ireland has proven quite as controversial as the Nelson Pillar on O'Connell Street. The story of the Pillar and its location involves many famous Dublin names and characters, from Arthur Guinness to James Joyce, and WB Yeats to The Dubliners.




The City and the Pillar


Book Description

A literary cause célèbre when first published in 1948, Gore Vidal’s now-classic The City and the Pillar stands as a landmark novel of the gay experience. Jim, a handsome, all-American athlete, has always been shy around girls. But when he and his best friend, Bob, partake in “awful kid stuff,” the experience forms Jim’s ideal of spiritual completion. Defying his parents’ expectations, Jim strikes out on his own, hoping to find Bob and rekindle their amorous friendship. Along the way he struggles with what he feels is his unique bond with Bob and with his persistent attraction to other men. Upon finally encountering Bob years later, the force of his hopes for a life together leads to a devastating climax. The first novel of its kind to appear on the American literary landscape, The City and the Pillar remains a forthright and uncompromising portrayal of sexual relationships between men.




Quatrefoil: A Modern Novel


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A MILESTONE IN GAY FICTION Phillip Froelich is in trouble. The year is 1946, and he’s traveling to Seattle where he will face a court martial for acting insubordinate to a lazy officer in the closing days of World War II. On the way to Seattle he meets Tim Danelaw, and soon the court martial is among the least of Phillip’s concerns.... So begins Quatrefoil, a novel originally published in 1950. It marked a milestone in gay writing, with two of the first non-stereotyped gay characters to appear in American fiction. For readers of the Fifties, it was a rare chance to counteract the negative imagery that surrounded them. Today, Quatrefoil ranks as a classic work of gay writing, a novel that is still as gripping and enjoyable as ever. It is of extra interest to the modern reader for the vivid picture it draws of what life was like for gay men in our recent but little-known past.




The Pillar of Fire


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Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age


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Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and Science Friday A quest to explore some of the most spectacular ancient cities in human history—and figure out why people abandoned them. In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the center of a sophisticated civilization: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, the Roman vacation town of Pompeii on Italy’s southern coast, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia, and the indigenous metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today. Newitz travels to all four sites and investigates the cutting-edge research in archaeology, revealing the mix of environmental changes and political turmoil that doomed these ancient settlements. Tracing the early development of urban planning, Newitz also introduces us to the often anonymous workers—slaves, women, immigrants, and manual laborers—who built these cities and created monuments that lasted millennia. Four Lost Cities is a journey into the forgotten past, but, foreseeing a future in which the majority of people on Earth will be living in cities, it may also reveal something of our own fate.