Empress Charlotte - Volume 2 -The Empire


Book Description

Ever since marrying Maximilian of Austria, Charlotte's life has been a series of disenchantments. Her life with Max reduced to nothing, she now puts all her stakes in the Mexican crown. Upon the couple's arrival in Veracruz, they are faced with an anemic, worn-out country, far from pacified by the French troops. They must come head-to-head with the defiant local elites, who have decided to take advantage of Max's weaknesses in order to preserve their own interests.




Maximilian and Carlota


Book Description

In this new telling of Mexico’s Second Empire and Louis Napoléon’s installation of Maximilian von Habsburg and his wife, Carlota of Belgium, as the emperor and empress of Mexico, Maximilian and Carlota brings the dramatic, interesting, and tragic time of this six-year-siege to life. From 1861 to 1866, the French incorporated the armies of Austria, Belgium—including forces from Crimea to Egypt—to fight and subdue the regime of Mexico’s Benito Juárez during the time of the U.S. Civil War. France viewed this as a chance to seize Mexican territory in a moment they were convinced the Confederacy would prevail and take over Mexico. With both sides distracted in the U.S., this was their opportunity to seize territory in North America. In 1867, with aid from the United States, this movement came to a disastrous end both for the royals and for France while ushering in a new era for Mexico. In a bid to oust Juárez, Mexican conservatives appealed to European leaders to select a monarch to run their country. Maximilian and Carlota’s reign, from 1864 to 1867, was marked from the start by extravagance and ambition and ended with the execution of Maximilian by firing squad, with Carlota on the brink of madness. This epoch moment in the arc of French colonial rule, which spans North American and European history at a critical juncture on both continents, shows how Napoleon III’s failure to save Maximilian disgusted Europeans and sealed his own fate. Maximilian and Carlota offers a vivid portrait of the unusual marriage of Maximilian and Carlota and of international high society and politics at this critical nineteenth-century juncture. This largely unknown era in the history of the Americas comes to life through this colorful telling of the couple’s tragic reign.




The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire


Book Description

The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is a sweeping historical novel of Mexico during the short, tragic, at times surreal, reign of Emperor Maximilian and his court. Even as the American Civil War raged north of the border, a clique of Mexican conservative exiles and clergy convinced Louis Napoleon to invade Mexico and install the Archduke of Austria, Maximilian von Habsburg, as Emperor. A year later, the childless Maximilian took custody of the two year old, half-American, Prince Agustìn de Iturbide y Green, making the toddler the Heir Presumptive. Maximilian’s reluctance to return the child to his distraught parents, even as his empire began to fall, and the Empress Carlota descended into madness, ignited an international scandal. This lush, grand read is based on the true story and illuminates both the cultural roots of Mexico and the political development of the Americas. But it is made all the more captivating by the depth of Mayo’s writing and her understanding of the pressures and influences on these all too human players.




The Crown of Mexico


Book Description




The Mandel Files, Volume 2: The Nano Flower


Book Description

Peter F. Hamilton’s groundbreaking Mandel Files series concludes with The Nano Flower, a tour de force of unbridled imagination and cutting-edge scientific speculation. Greg Mandel is a psychic detective whose skills have been augmented by powerful but dangerous biotechnology. Those abilities have won him success and almost killed him many times over. Little wonder that he has settled down to the life of a gentleman farmer. But Greg’s former employer, the mighty tech company Event Horizon, needs him once more. After Royan, hacker-genius and husband to company owner Julia Evans, mysteriously vanishes, a business rival suddenly boasts an incredible new technology. Has Royan been kidnapped and forced to work for his captors, or is the truth far stranger? The answer may lie in a gift of flowers received by Julia—flowers with DNA like nothing on Earth. Greg already has his hands full with corporate killers and other unsavory characters. Is he going to have to add aliens to the list? The Greg Mandel trilogy—which also includes Mindstar Rising and A Quantum Murder, available in Volume 1—set a new standard for science fiction when it first appeared in the 1990s. The Nano Flower is every bit as gripping today—and even more timely.




The Embroidered Book


Book Description

*Shortlisted for the Aurora Award for Best Novel* ‘Spellbinding’ JJA Harwood ‘An entertaining and dark read’ Stylist ‘An absorbing novel’ Guardian ‘Beautifully written’ Elizabeth Chadwick




90 Masterpieces You Must Read (Vol.2)


Book Description

90 Masterpieces You Must Read (Vol.2) stands as a monumental anthology that bridges the expanses of literary history, style, and thematic depth, bringing together an extraordinary collection of works that have shaped and reflected the human condition across centuries. This volume is intricately curated to showcase the diversity of literary expression, ranging from the epic poetry of Homer to the existential musings of Friedrich Nietzsche, the nuanced social realities captured by Jane Austen to the speculative visions of H. G. Wells. Standout pieces within this collection underscore the anthology's capacity to offer insights into the complexities of love, the struggles for identity, and the ceaseless quest for meaning amidst societal upheaval. The anthology also highlights key movements in literary history, providing readers with a panoramic view of the evolution of narrative form and thematic exploration. The authors and editors represented in this collection bring a rich mosaic of cultural, historical, and personal backgrounds to the theme of the anthology. From the philosophical discourses of Confucius and Laozi to the pioneering feminist narratives of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin, these works collectively offer a multifaceted examination of human society, thought, and emotion. The anthology does not merely present a historical cross-section of literary movements; rather, it weaves together the Enlightenment's rationalism, Romanticism's glorification of emotion, the biting critique of Realism, and the introspective depth of Modernism, among others. This convergence of diverse voices serves to enrich the reader's understanding of the overarching themes, underscoring the universality of human experience across time and place. 90 Masterpieces You Must Read (Vol.2) is an essential addition to the library of any scholar, student, or enthusiast of literature. It offers a unique opportunity to immerse oneself in a range of literary styles, themes, and historical contexts, all within a single volume. For those seeking to broaden their literary horizons or deepen their understanding of the mosaic of human experience as expressed through literature, this collection serves as a gateway to the myriad ways in which storytelling has captured the essence of being. The anthology invites readers to engage in a dialogue with the past, to reflect on the present, and to ponder the future through the enduring power of written word.




90 Masterpieces You Must Read (Vol.2)


Book Description

Invest your time in reading the true masterpieces of world literature, the greatest works by the masters of their craft, the revolutionary works, the timeless classics and the eternally moving storylines every person should experience in their lifetime: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson) A Doll's House (Henrik Ibsen) A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens) Dubliners (James Joyce) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce) War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy) The Good Soldier (Ford Madox Ford) Howards End (E. M. Forster) Le Père Goriot (Honoré de Balzac) Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen) Anne of Green Gables Series (L. M. Montgomery) The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame) Gitanjali (Rabindranath Tagore) Diary of a Nobody (George and Weedon Grossmith) The Beautiful and Damned (F. Scott Fitzgerald) Moll Flanders (Daniel Defoe) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne) Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift) The Last of the Mohicans (James Fenimore Cooper) Phantastes (George MacDonald) Peter and Wendy (J. M. Barrie) The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas) Iliad & Odyssey (Homer) Kama Sutra The Divine Comedy (Dante) The Rise of Silas Lapham (William Dean Howells) The Book of Tea (Kakuzo Okakura) Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Victor Hugo) Red and the Black (Stendhal) Rob Roy (Sir Walter Scott) Barchester Towers (Anthony Trollope) Germinal (Emile Zola) The Rider on the White Horse (Theodor Storm) Uncle Tom's Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe) The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne) The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (Henry Fielding) Three Men in a Boat (Jerome K. Jerome) Tristram Shandy (Laurence Sterne) Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy) My Antonia (Willa Cather) The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton) The Awakening (Kate Chopin) Babbitt (Sinclair Lewis) Of Human Bondage (W. Somerset Maugham) The Portrait of a Lady (Henry James) Fathers and Sons (Ivan Turgenev) Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol) The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Leo Tolstoy) The Voyage Out (Virginia Woolf) The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes Life is a Dream (Pedro Calderon de la Barca) Faust (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) Beyond Good and Evil (Friedrich Nietzsche) Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Friedrich Nietzsche) Autobiography (Benjamin Franklin) The Poison Tree (Bankim Chandra Chatterjee) Shakuntala (Kalidasa) Rámáyan of Válmíki (Válmíki) The Tell-Tale Heart (Edgar Allan Poe) The Fall of the House of Usher (Edgar Allan Poe) The Woman in White (Willkie Collins) The Mysteries of Udolpho (Ann Ward Radcliffe) Dracula (Bram Stoker) The Phantom of the Opera (Gaston Leroux) The Time Machine (H. G. Wells) Nostromo (Joseph Conrad) Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (Lewis Wallace) Rip Van Winkle (Washington Irving) The Prince (Machiavelli) The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) The Analects of Confucius (Confucius) Tao Te Ching (Laozi) Paradise Lost (John Milton) Ode to the West Wind (P. B. Shelley) The Second Coming (W. B. Yeats) The Yellow Wallpaper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman) The Rainbow (D.H. Lawrence) Arms and the Man (George Bernard Shaw) The Enchanted April (Elizabeth von Arnim) Hung Lou Meng or, The Dream of the Red Chamber (Cao Xueqin) The Innocence of Father Brown (G. K. Chesterton) The Thirty-Nine Steps (John Buchan) The Four Just Men (Edgar Wallace) Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Nikolai Leskov) 2BR02B (Kurt Vonnegut) The Power Of Concentration (William Walker Atkinson) Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion (Émile Coué)




90 World Classics You Should Read Before You Die (Vol.2)


Book Description

Invest your time in reading the true masterpieces of world literature, the greatest works by the masters of their craft, the revolutionary works, the timeless classics and the eternally moving storylines every person should experience in their lifetime: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson) A Doll's House (Henrik Ibsen) A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens) Dubliners (James Joyce) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce) War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy) The Good Soldier (Ford Madox Ford) Howards End (E. M. Forster) Le Père Goriot (Honoré de Balzac) Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen) Anne of Green Gables Series (L. M. Montgomery) The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame) Gitanjali (Rabindranath Tagore) Diary of a Nobody (George and Weedon Grossmith) The Beautiful and Damned (F. Scott Fitzgerald) Moll Flanders (Daniel Defoe) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Jules Verne) Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift) The Last of the Mohicans (James Fenimore Cooper) Phantastes (George MacDonald) Peter and Wendy (J. M. Barrie) The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas) Iliad & Odyssey (Homer) Kama Sutra The Divine Comedy (Dante) The Rise of Silas Lapham (William Dean Howells) The Book of Tea (Kakuzo Okakura) Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Victor Hugo) Red and the Black (Stendhal) Rob Roy (Sir Walter Scott) Barchester Towers (Anthony Trollope) Germinal (Emile Zola) The Rider on the White Horse (Theodor Storm) Uncle Tom's Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe) The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne) The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (Henry Fielding) Three Men in a Boat (Jerome K. Jerome) Tristram Shandy (Laurence Sterne) Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy) My Antonia (Willa Cather) The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton) The Awakening (Kate Chopin) Babbitt (Sinclair Lewis) Of Human Bondage (W. Somerset Maugham) The Portrait of a Lady (Henry James) Fathers and Sons (Ivan Turgenev) Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol) The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Leo Tolstoy) The Voyage Out (Virginia Woolf) The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes Life is a Dream (Pedro Calderon de la Barca) Faust (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) Beyond Good and Evil (Friedrich Nietzsche) Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Friedrich Nietzsche) Autobiography (Benjamin Franklin) The Poison Tree (Bankim Chandra Chatterjee) Shakuntala (Kalidasa) Rámáyan of Válmíki (Válmíki) The Tell-Tale Heart (Edgar Allan Poe) The Fall of the House of Usher (Edgar Allan Poe) The Woman in White (Willkie Collins) The Mysteries of Udolpho (Ann Ward Radcliffe) Dracula (Bram Stoker) The Phantom of the Opera (Gaston Leroux) The Time Machine (H. G. Wells) Nostromo (Joseph Conrad) Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (Lewis Wallace) Rip Van Winkle (Washington Irving) The Prince (Machiavelli) The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) The Analects of Confucius (Confucius) Tao Te Ching (Laozi) Paradise Lost (John Milton) Ode to the West Wind (P. B. Shelley) The Second Coming (W. B. Yeats) The Yellow Wallpaper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman) The Rainbow (D.H. Lawrence) Arms and the Man (George Bernard Shaw) The Enchanted April (Elizabeth von Arnim) Hung Lou Meng or, The Dream of the Red Chamber (Cao Xueqin) The Innocence of Father Brown (G. K. Chesterton) The Thirty-Nine Steps (John Buchan) The Four Just Men (Edgar Wallace) Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Nikolai Leskov) 2BR02B (Kurt Vonnegut) The Power Of Concentration (William Walker Atkinson) Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion (Émile Coué)




The Ultimate Book Club: 180 Books You Should Read (Vol.2)


Book Description

The Ultimate Book Club: 180 Books You Should Read (Vol.2) heralds a grand assembly of masterpieces, weaving together a rich tapestry of literary excellence that spans centuries, continents, and genres. The collection boasts an array of literary styles, from the nuanced psychological narratives of Fyodor Dostoyevsky to the pioneering science fiction of H.G. Wells, and from the intricate social commentaries of Jane Austen to the existential musings of Friedrich Nietzsche. It cultivates an absorbing dialogue between the traditions of Western literature and the philosophical depths of Eastern works, such as those by Confucius and Laozi. Significant for its diversity and depth, the anthology showcases the evolving landscape of literary forms, capturing the universal human experience in its myriad expressions. The contributing authors and editors, each a luminary in their own right, bring to this collection an unparalleled depth of cultural, historical, and literary insight. Their backgrounds span the gamut of the 18th to 20th centuries, reflecting major literary movements from Enlightenment thought to Romanticism, Realism, and beyond. Authors like Virginia Woolf and Kafka represent the transition to Modernism, exploring new narrative techniques. Their collective works offer a panoramic view of human thought and societal developments, encapsulating pivotal moments in history and the perennial themes of love, conflict, ambition, and despair. For the ardent bibliophile, The Ultimate Book Club: 180 Books You Should Read (Vol.2) offers an unrivaled journey through the landmarks of global literature. It invites readers to immerse themselves in the richness of human expression, challenging perceptions and broadening horizons. This volume is not merely a collection of texts but a bridge connecting varied epochs, cultures, and philosophies. It stands as a testament to the enduring power of literature to illuminate the human condition, making it an essential addition to any discerning reader's collection.