Scottish World

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in collaboration with his friend, William Wordsworth, revolutionized English poetry. In 1798 they produced their Lyrical Ballads, poems of imagination and reflection using "the language of men" - pointing the way forward for a generation of Romantic poets.

Professional ballerina Ailsa MacIntyre is at the peak of her career when her world is shattered by a shocking diagnosis. Life-saving surgery leaves her with a fractured memory, little recollection of her husband, Evan, and none of her career as a principal dancer. While recuperating at home, Ailsa hears beautiful music coming from the apartment upstairs, and the sound of the grand piano at the hands of a talented new neighbor sparks her muscle memory. As her recovery progresses, the broken pieces of her past gradually re-emerge, a picture not quite what Evan would have her remember.

Sophisticated wit and intense emotion, religious fervor and erotic sensuality, delight in life’s pleasures and fascination with death, are all to be found in the paradoxical poetry of John Donne. One of the foremost metaphysical poets, Donne’s ingenious metaphors and inspired use of language has earned him affection and reverence in near equal measure to Shakespeare.

Monica a abandonné sa carrière d'avocate pour réaliser son rêve : ouvrir un café sur Fulham Road. Le jour où un de ses clients oublie son carnet sur une table, elle ne peut s'empêcher de le lire. Les premières pages lui révèlent la confession de Julian Jessop, un artiste excentrique, âgé de soixante-dix-neuf ans qui exprime toute sa tristesse et sa solitude depuis la mort de sa femme. Touchée par cette idée de révéler des sentiments intimes à des inconnus, Monica décide de continuer le carnet avant de le déposer dans un bar à vin.

John Keats was largely unappreciated during his lifetime and died in Rome at the age of 26. Most of his 150 poems were written in just nine extraordinary months in 1819. This selection contains some of his finest works, including the principal "Odes", "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", "Old Meg", and "Much Have I Travelled".

An almost limitless archive of our history lies hidden inside our bodies, and this book traces the ancient story of Scotland from that scientific viewpoint. The mushrooming of genetic studies, of DNA analysis, is rewriting history in spectacular fashion. In Scotland: A Genetic Journey, Alistair Moffat explores the history that is printed on our genes, and in a remarkable new approach, uncovers the detail of where Scots are from, where they have journeyed, and who they are - and in so doing, vividly colors in a DNA map of Scotland.

The Young Carthaginian chronicles the struggle of the Second Punic War (218-203 BC) and the attempt of Hannibal to conquer Rome. At first, the struggle of Carthage against Rome was a struggle for empire, but it became a struggle for existence. Hannibal presses on despite formidable geographical barriers and the corrupt leadership in Carthage which time and again undermined all his efforts.

"J'ai toujours eu un cœur excentrique." Bono a grandi dans le nord de Dublin entre un père catholique et une mère protestante, alors que les violences sectaires se multipliaient en Irlande. Il n'avait que quatorze ans lors du décès de sa mère, perte qui va façonner sa recherche d'une famille. Il a commencé sa vie avec le sentiment d'être quelconque, pourtant toute son existence sera consacrée à combattre l'idée que quiconque puisse l'être. En quatre décennies, U2 passe d'une bande d'adolescents ambitieux au plus grand groupe au monde.

Suite au décès de M. Dashwood, sa veuve et ses trois filles se voient contraintes de quitter le Sussex et le domaine familial de Norland. Elles se réfugient dans le Devon, à l'invitation d'un généreux parent, où une nouvelle vie, plus modeste les attend. Les sœurs aînées, Elinor et Maria, l'une plus raisonnable, l'autre plus sentimentale vont vivre leur premiers émois amoureux non sans quelques revers.

An account of the last three hundred years of Scottish history offers a look at Scottish identity and culture.

Un jour de printemps, Mrs Dalloway, maîtresse de maison londonienne, s'apprête à donner une réception à Westminster. Tandis qu'au fil de la journée, Big Ben sonne les heures, les personnages s'affairent, vivant chacun à leur manière leur rapport au temps et aux autres. À travers les souvenirs et les réflexions des personnages se dévoilent apparences et faux-semblants et le temps ne devient plus qu'une succession d'événements minuscules et de bouleversements camouflés.

As the golden summer draws to a close and the Darcys look ahead to the end of their first year of marriage, Mr. Darcy could never have imagined that his love could grow even deeper with the passage of time. Elizabeth is unpredictable and lively, pulling Darcy out of his stern and serious demeanor with her teasing and temptation. Looking ahead and planning for celebrations and life events large and small, Lizzy can still catch Darcy unawares when he least expects it.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by the English poet William Blake consists of a series of texts written in the style of biblical prophecy but expressing Blake's own beliefs. Composed between 1790 and 1793, the book makes reference to Milton and Swedenborg, and adopts a device from Dante's Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost: a visit to hell. Blake expresses a deliberately depolarized and unified vision of the cosmos in which the material world and physical desire are both part of the divine order.

This varied, well-chosen selection brings onto one audiobook the best of Dylan Thomas. Here is the legendary recording of "Under Milk Wood", with Richard Burton and Richard Bebb as narrators; but here also are two radio productions he wrote before that great classic, and though interesting in their own right, they show how "Under Milk Wood" grew gradually in his imagination.

The brilliant conclusion to the Palliser novels, this touching story follows the elderly Duke of Omnium, the former prime minister of England, as he struggles to overcome his grief at the loss of his beloved wife, Lady Glencora. To complicate matters, he must also deal with the willfulness of his three adult children as he tries to guide and support them - his plans for them are quite different from their own. While his two sons, sent down from university in disgrace, rack up gambling debts, the duke’s only daughter yearns to marry the poor son of a country squire.

Between the years of 1762 and 1763, James Boswell kept a journal of his time in London. During his time, he met the renowned writer, moralist, and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, with whom Boswell would form a close relationship. This account, told with much detail and candor, was one of the various journals written by Boswell, but it is the journal that has undergone the least amount of censorship, leading it, and the racy material within, to be deemed a best seller upon publication.

The Involuntary American demonstrates how even indi­viduals of humble circumstances were swept into the mael­strom of the First Global Age. It expands our understanding of immigration to the colonies, colonial servitude, the link­ages and tensions between Europe, Massachusetts Bay, and America's northeastern frontier, and of New England socie­ty in the early colonial period.

At the height of World War II, the British Air Transport Auxiliary need help. A group of young women volunteer for action, but the perils of their new job don’t end on the tarmac. Things are tough in the air, but on the ground their abilities as pilots are constantly questioned. There is friction from the start between the new recruits. Spirited American Lizzie turns heads with her audacity, but few can deny her flying skills. She couldn’t be more different from shy, petite Ruby, who is far from diminutive in the sky. It falls to pragmatic pilot May to bring the women together.

The fifth novel in the Chronicles of Barsetshire, The Small House at Allington, concerns the lives of the two Dale girls, Lily and Bell, who live at the Small House. While Bell is in love with the local doctor James Crofts, Lily is pursued by two men: the worldly, rich and handsome Adolphus Crosbie and the poor but honest Johnny Eames. With each determined to gain her hand in marriage, who will she choose?

Relinquishing thoughts of a materially rewarding life, the respectably educated Felix Holt returns to his native village in North Loamshire and becomes an artisan. He is a forceful young man of honor, integrity, and idealism, burning to participate in political life so that he may improve the lot of his fellow artisans.