Alexander's Choice


Book Description

Sweet-natured, intelligent and good-looking, thirteen-year-old aristocrat Alexander Aylmer seems to have everything going for him when he goes to Eton, the prestigious English public school. Within months, however, tragedy strikes, leaving him vulnerable, heartbroken and increasingly alone, forced to find his own emotional salvation in a world that is effectively uncaring despite its good intentions. The longings recently come with puberty aggravate his turmoil until he sees the solution to them is the key to everything. Two very different people seem to promise help. Timid Julian Smith, three years older, nurses two secrets he is terrified the other boys might discover: his humble background as the son of a removals man who had saved all his life to send a son to Eton, and his being hopelessly in love with Alexander. Damian Cavendish, a charming, young English master, is romantically only interested in women. He is conscious though of a special affinity with boys that has brought him to Eton determined to teach and befriend them. He burns too with a longing to find himself badly needed. By luck and pluck, Alexander finds his way to unsurpassed happiness. But can he really get away with making his own choices as to how, without regard to what society has decided in advance is good for him? Alternately uplifting and heart-wrenching, and at times erotic, Alexander's Choice candidly depicts a kind of passionate love the world is averse to recognising. It also reveals unflinchingly the brutal reality that can face a boy trying to have his emotional needs met in a society fallen into frightened confusion about the sexuality of early teens. Edmund Marlowe, himself an old boy of the school, has in this, his first novel, accurately evoked the idiosyncratic but appealing world of Eton, which carried on in many of its centuries-old ways, but could not protect its own against the new spirit of the 1980s.




HEAVEN'S CHOICE


Book Description

Grief,love and loss elevates our consciousness to a higher level of understanding.It is in this heartache we are given our greatest 'life lesson's' and 'spiritual gifts' from our departed loved ones. Divine truth is awareness...




Chef's Kiss


Book Description

Out now - SECOND CHANCES IN NEW PORT STEPHEN, the charming new TJ Alexander rom-com! A high-strung pastry chef’s professional goals are interrupted by an unexpected career transition and the introduction of her wildly attractive nonbinary kitchen manager in this deliciously fresh and witty queer rom-com. Simone Larkspur is a perfectionist pastry expert with a dream job at The Discerning Chef, a venerable cookbook publisher in New York City. All she wants to do is create the perfect loaf of sourdough and develop recipes, but when The Discerning Chef decides to bring their brand into the 21st century by pivoting to video, Simone is thrust into the spotlight and finds herself failing at something for the first time in her life. To make matters worse, Simone has to deal with Ray Lyton, the new test kitchen manager, whose obnoxious cheer and outgoing personality are like oil to Simone’s water. When Ray accidentally becomes a viral YouTube sensation with a series of homebrewing videos, their eccentric editor in chief forces Simone to work alongside the chipper upstart or else risk her beloved job. But the more they work together, the more Simone realizes her heart may be softening like butter for Ray. Things get even more complicated when Ray comes out at work as nonbinary to mixed reactions—and Simone must choose between the career she fought so hard for and the person who just might take the cake (and her heart).




Mona's Choice


Book Description




Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day


Book Description

Recounts the events of a day when everything goes wrong for Alexander. Suggested level: junior, primary.




Alexander's Lovers (Second Edition)


Book Description

Alexander's Lovers reveals the personality of Alexander the Great through the mirror of the lives of those with whom he pursued romantic relationships, including his friend Hephaistion, his queen Roxane, his mistress Barsine & Bagoas the Eunuch. Did you know that Alexander got the idea of adopting Persian dress from a book he read in his youth? Had you realised that Alexander's pursuit of divine honours was part of his emulation of Achilles, that Bagoas undertook a diplomatic mission or that Hephaistion's diplomacy kept Athens from joining a Spartan rebellion? Are you aware that Aetion's painting of Alexander's marriage depicted Hephaistion & Bagoas as well as Roxane and really depicted the King's passions? Which girl was betrothed to Alexander's son? Would it surprise you that Alexander's mourning for Hephaistion was conducted according to models from Homer and Euripides? If you would like to get to know Alexander on a more personal level, then you need to read this book. Second edition, revised & updated.




Alexander the Great


Book Description

In the first authoritative biography of Alexander the Great written for a general audience in a generation, classicist and historian Philip Freeman tells the remarkable life of the great conqueror. The celebrated Macedonian king has been one of the most enduring figures in history. He was a general of such skill and renown that for two thousand years other great leaders studied his strategy and tactics, from Hannibal to Napoleon, with countless more in between. He flashed across the sky of history like a comet, glowing brightly and burning out quickly: crowned at age nineteen, dead by thirty-two. He established the greatest empire of the ancient world; Greek coins and statues are found as far east as Afghanistan. Our interest in him has never faded. Alexander was born into the royal family of Macedonia, the kingdom that would soon rule over Greece. Tutored as a boy by Aristotle, Alexander had an inquisitive mind that would serve him well when he faced formidable obstacles during his military campaigns. Shortly after taking command of the army, he launched an invasion of the Persian empire, and continued his conquests as far south as the deserts of Egypt and as far east as the mountains of present-day Pakistan and the plains of India. Alexander spent nearly all his adult life away from his homeland, and he and his men helped spread the Greek language throughout western Asia, where it would become the lingua franca of the ancient world. Within a short time after Alexander’s death in Baghdad, his empire began to fracture. Best known among his successors are the Ptolemies of Egypt, whose empire lasted until Cleopatra. In his lively and authoritative biography of Alexander, classical scholar and historian Philip Freeman describes Alexander’s astonishing achievements and provides insight into the mercurial character of the great conqueror. Alexander could be petty and magnanimous, cruel and merciful, impulsive and farsighted. Above all, he was ferociously, intensely competitive and could not tolerate losing—which he rarely did. As Freeman explains, without Alexander, the influence of Greece on the ancient world would surely not have been as great as it was, even if his motivation was not to spread Greek culture for beneficial purposes but instead to unify his empire. Only a handful of people have influenced history as Alexander did, which is why he continues to fascinate us.




You Deserve Nothing


Book Description

Set in Paris, at an international high school catering to the sons and daughters of wealthy families, You Deserve Nothing is a gripping story of power, idealism, and morality. William Silver is a talented and charismatic young teacher whose unconventional methods raise eyebrows among his colleagues and superiors. His students, however, are devoted to him. His teaching of Camus, Faulkner, Sartre, Keats and other kindred souls breathe life into their sense of social justice and their capacities for philosophical and ethical thought. But unbeknownst to his adoring pupils, Silver proves incapable of living up to the ideals he encourages in others. Emotionally scarred by failures in his personal life and driven to distraction by the City of Light's overpowering carnality and beauty, Silver succumbs to a temptation that will change the course of his life. His fall will render him a criminal in the eyes of some, and all too human in the eyes of others. In Maksik's stylish prose, Paris is sensual, dazzling and dangerously seductive. It serves as a fitting backdrop for a dramatic tale about the tension between desire and action, and about the complex relationship that exists between our public and private selves.




Edinburgh


Book Description

From the best-selling author of How To Write an Autobiographical Novel, Alexander Chee's award-winning debut is "One of the great queer novels . . . of our time."—Brandon Taylor, GQ Twelve-year-old Fee is a shy Korean-American boy growing up in Maine whose powerful soprano voice wins him a place as section leader of the first sopranos in his local boys choir. But when, on a retreat, Fee discovers how the director treats the boys he makes section leader, he is so ashamed, he says nothing of the abuse, not even when Peter, Fee’s best friend, is in line to be next. The director is eventually arrested, and Fee tries to forgive himself for his silence. But when Peter takes his own life, Fee blames only himself. Years later, after he has carefully pieced a new life together, Fee takes a job at a private school near his hometown. There he meets a young student, Arden, who, to his shock, is the picture of Peter—and the son of his old choir director. Told with “the force of a dream and the heft of a life” (Annie Dillard), this is a haunting, lyrically written debut novel that marked Chee “as a major talent whose career will bear watching” (Publisher’s Weekly).




Rebecca's Choice


Book Description

Rebecca's Choice is a captivating sequel to Scott¿s Ivanhoe ¿ a book that has been a source of delight to generations of readers. In this new and surprising tale, Rebecca, a Jewess barely saved from being burned at the stake by the Templars, discovers that her former oppressor, the Templar knight Brian de Bois-Guilbert, is not dead but just unconscious. Fate delivers the life of her enemy into her hands and she must make a choice between revenge and compassion. Rebecca decides to conceal him and he leaves England in her company, disguised as a Jew, while being hunted by his Templar brothers who fear disclosure of the true secrets of the Order. After a long journey full of dangers, they arrive at the residence of Rabbi Moses (Maimonides) in Egypt where Rebecca and Brian part ways ¿ seemingly forever. But unexpected adversaries and many more adventures await both of them. Everyone involved in this story tries to fulfill his or her own ambitions: Brian wants to become king of the war-torn Crusader kingdom; Rabbi Moses tries to understand God and the Universe; Hamed, the freed slave, desires revenge. But only Rebecca will achieve what seems to be the impossible.




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