Daedalus Books

From the acclaimed author of Grandes Horizontales comes a book that the Washington Post calls a vivid portrait of a sensual and intellectual woman. Dutiful daughter, passionate lover, doting grandmother, tireless legislator, generous patron of artists and philosophers — Empress Catherine II was all these things, and more. Her reign, the longest in Russian imperial history, lasted from 1762 until her death in 1796; during these years she realized Peter the Great's ambition to establish Russia as a major European power and to transform its new capital, St. Petersburg, into a city to rival Paris and London. Yet Catherine was not Russian by birth and had no legitimate claim to the Russian throne; she seized it and held on to it, through wars, rebellions, and plagues, by the force of her personality and an unshakable belief in her own destiny. Using Catherine's own correspondence, as well as contemporary accounts by courtiers, ambassadors, and foreign visitors, Virginia Rounding penetrates the character of this powerful, fascinating, and surprisingly sympathetic eighteenth-century figure.

The sea has taken everything. Mau is the only one left after a giant wave sweeps his island village away. But when much is taken, something is returned, and somewhere in the jungle Daphne — a girl from the other side of the globe — is the sole survivor of a ship destroyed by the same wave. Together the two confront the aftermath of catastrophe. Drawn by the smoke of Mau and Daphne's sheltering fire, other refugees slowly arrive: children without parents, mothers without babies, husbands without wives — all of them hungry and all of them frightened. As Mau and Daphne struggle to keep the small band safe and fed, they defy ancestral spirits, challenge death himself, and uncover a long-hidden secret that literally turns the world upside down. Internationally revered storyteller Terry Pratchett presents a breathtaking adventure of survival and discovery, and of the courage required to forge new beliefs.

The world's most curious monkey investigates new words in this lively picture dictionary for young children. Curious George's Dictionary is an engaging picture dictionary specially designed for children from preschool through first grade. Both entertaining and educationally sound, it features charming illustrations and reflects recent research in early childhood literacy, setting it apart from other picture dictionaries. The main part of the dictionary is an A-Z section containing approximately six hundred words, six words to a page. Each word is illustrated with a full-color drawing, most of which have been created for this book by the popular illustrator Mary O'Keefe Young. More than half the illustrations include a sample sentence that puts the word in a familiar context. A four-page illustrated story at the front of the book shows George learning how to look up words in his dictionary, drawing children in while introducing them to dictionary skills. At the end of the book, seven one-to two-page illustrations present groups of words related by simple themes such as colors, shapes, and numbers. Developed in collaboration with educational consultants, the word list includes not only concrete objects but many more abstract concepts, like discover and enough, than do other picture dictionaries. Such words are essential for vocabulary development, and Curious George's antics bring them alive, making them easy and fun for children to learn.

Covering every major event in the country's history, including the causes of the American Revolution, the struggle over slavery that led to the Civil War, the Reconstruction of the country following the war, the rise of big business, the emergence of the United States as a world power, the descent into the Great Depression, the wars of the Twentieth Century, and the outbreak of terrorism in the United States and around the globe. The book also describes how English colonists slowly transformed themselves into the Americans we know today. Most particularly, it seeks to demonstrate how a collection of sovereign, independent states created a workable republican government that subsequently evolved into a democracy, and how society underwent periodic changes in the way individuals looked and behaved. It is a unique, exciting and wonderful story which needs to be better known and appreciated-especially by its own citizens.

C. S. Lewis spent a good portion of each day corresponding with people via handwritten letters. Over his lifetime he wrote thousands of letters in which he offered his friends and acquaintances advice on the Christian life, giving away a bit of himself to each of these correspondents as he signed his notes with a heartfelt and familiar, yours, Jack. Most of these letters are currently only available in their entirety — a collection consisting of three hefty tomes. Yours, Jack features the best inspirational readings and sage counsel culled from C. S. Lewis's letters, offering an accessible look at this great author's personal vision for the spiritual life. This thematic selection from his letters offers the freshest presentation of Lewis's writings since his death in 1963. Yours, Jack will showcase Lewis's remarkable teachings and vision for a new generation.

Unmatched in its romantic resonance, Scotland's remote landscape offers tales of courage and savagery, of loyalty and treachery — legends set against a panorama of wild beauty. This illustrated celebration of the history of the Scottish Highlands and clans is also ties into a PBS documentary narrated by Sean Connery. Illustrations, 30 in color.

Parsnip is a gentle bedtime story of a little lamb born on a cold and snowy night and how she meets her first friends and gets her new name. It is a reassuring story for the youngest children, and sweet lift-the-flaps provide interactive fun. Sue Porter was born in London and now lives in France. She is married with two children. Her hobbies are painting, the French language, and playing the violin. She has been a full-time illustrator for many years and has illustrated more than fifty children's books.

One of the most celebrated and controversial authors in America delivers his first novel — a sweeping chronicle of contemporary Los Angeles that is bold, exhilarating, and utterly original. Dozens of characters pass across the reader's sight lines — some never to be seen again — but James Frey lingers on a handful of LA's lost souls and captures the dramatic narrative of their lives: a bright, ambitious young Mexican-American woman who allows her future to be undone by a moment of searing humiliation; a supremely narcissistic action-movie star whose passion for the unattainable object of his affection nearly destroys him; a couple, both nineteen years old, who flee their suffocating hometown and struggle to survive on the fringes of the great city; and an aging Venice Beach alcoholic whose life is turned upside down when a meth-addled teenage girl shows up half-dead outside the restroom he calls home. Throughout this strikingly powerful novel there is the relentless drumbeat of the millions of other stories that, taken as a whole, describe a city, a culture, and an age. A dazzling tour de force, Bright Shiny Morning illuminates the joys, horrors, and unexpected fortunes of life and death in Los Angeles.

More than three decades have passed since the events described in John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick, The three divorcees — Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie — have left town, remarried, and become widows. They cope with their grief and solitude as widows do: they travel the world, to such foreign lands as Canada, Egypt, and China, and renew old acquaintance. Why not, Sukie and Jane ask Alexandra, go back to Eastwick for the summer? The old Rhode Island seaside town, where they indulged in wicked mischief under the influence of the diabolical Darryl Van Horne, is still magical for them. Now Darryl is gone, and their lovers of the time have aged or died, but enchantment remains in the familiar streets and scenery of the village, where they enjoyed their lusty primes as free and empowered women. And, among the local citizenry, there are still those who remember them, and wish them ill. How they cope with the lingering traces of their evil deeds, the shocks of a mysterious counterspell, and the advancing inroads of old age, form the burden on Updike's delightful, ominous sequel.

When Matisse dies, Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is. As a pioneer of modernism and one of the greatest figurative artists of the twentieth century, Marc Chagall achieved fame and fortune, and over the course of a long career created some of the best-known and most-loved paintings of our time. Yet behind this triumph lay struggle, heartbreak, bitterness, frustration, lost love, exile — and above all the miracle of survival. Born into near poverty in Russia in 1887, the son of a Jewish herring merchant, Chagall fled the repressive potato-colored tsarist empire in 1911 for Paris. There he worked alongside Modigliani and Leger in the tumbledown tenement called La Ruche, where one either died or came out famous. But turmoil lay ahead — war and revolution; a period as an improbable artistic commissar in the young Soviet Union; a difficult existence in Weimar Germany, occupied France, and eventually the United States. Throughout, as Jackie Wullschlager makes plain in this groundbreaking biography, he never ceased giving form on canvas to his dreams, longings, and memories. His subject, more often than not, was the shtetl life of his childhood, the wooden huts and synagogues, the goatherds, rabbis, and violinists — the whole lost world of Eastern European Jewry. Wullschlager brilliantly describes this world and evokes the characters who peopled it: Chagall's passionate, energetic mother, Feiga-Ita; his eccentric fellow painter and teacher Bakst; his clever, intense first wife, Bella; their glamorous daughter, Ida; his tough-minded final companion and wife, Vava; and the colorful, tragic array ofartist, actor, and writer friends who perished under the Stalinist regime. Wullschlager explores in detail Chagall's complex relationship with Russia and makes clear the Russian dimension he brought to Western modernism. She shows how, as Andre Breton put it, under his sole impulse, metaphor made its triumphal entry into modern painting, and helped shape the new surrealist movement. As art critic of the Financial Times, she provides a breadth of knowledge on Chagall's work, and at the same time as an experienced biographer she brings Chagall the man fully to life — ambitious, charming, suspicious, funny, contradictory, dependent, but above all obsessively determined to produce art of singular beauty and emotional depth. Drawing upon hitherto unseen archival material, including numerous letters from the family collection in Paris, and illustrated with nearly two hundred paintings, drawings, and photographs, Chagall is a landmark biography to rank with Hilary Spurling's Matisse and John Richardson's Picasso.

In London: The Autobiography the life of the capital is told, for the first time, by those who made it and saw it at first hand. From Roman times to the 21st century, Londoners and visitors to the city have recounted the extraordinary events, everyday life and character of this unique and influential city — from politics, culture, sport, religion, and reportage. This book brings to vivid life the human trial of the capital including invasions by the Vikings, the brutal execution of Sir Thomas More, the sight of a whale swimming up the Thames and the rebuilding of St Paul's by Sir Christopher Wren, as well as the everyday life of the city. This book includes contributions from George Orwell, Martin Amis, Dr Johnson, Karl Marx, Winston Churchill, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Virginia Woolfe, George Melly, Tacitus, Samuel Pepys, and many others. Packed with personality and character, this book is a must-buy for anyone interested in London as well as a wonderful story of the city at the heart of the nation.

These are some of the slickest, moodiest, graphic short stories ever collected, from the mean streets and sin cities of crime. One of the only compilations of the crime comic genre, this volume contains 25 of the best graphic short stories and is fully loaded with some of the greatest writers and artists in comics. This collection includes Alan More, Neil Gaiman, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Johnny Craig, Alex Toth, Bernie Krigstein, Jack Cole, Jacques Tardi, Gianni De Luca, and Paul Grist. This, for sure, is one offer you cant refuse!

This title is written by the author of The Submariner's War: The Indian Ocean 1939-45. As the guns fell silent on the Western front on 11 November 1918, civil war still continued in Russia. The White Russian army, in support of the Tsar, was still fighting the Bolsheviks, especially in the north of Russia. The Royal Navy sent a squadron of ships in support of the White Russians and British troops fought against the Bolsheviks on land. Murmansk and Archangel became British enclaves as our soldiers and sailors fought a valiant but doomed war against the Bolsheviks. Michael Wilson tells the story of the Navy's part in this little known war.

Meet Jumpy Jack, a very nervous snail who's afraid of monsters, and Googily, who is a — well, who is a very good friend, indeed. Wherever they go, Googily kindly checks high and low just to make sure there are no scary monsters about. But as every child knows, monsters come in many shapes and sizes. Some are even blue with hairy eyebrows and pointy teeth. Here is a universal story of friendship and fear of the unknown told with wit and charm by the fantastic team who created the irresistible Meet Wild Boars,

In this new history of England, Tom Beaumont James uses archaeology to present a fresh view of the events that have shaped the country. Both accessible and comprehensive, The Story of England guides us from prehistory to Cool Britannia, through invasions, wars, disease and empire-building, peopled by monarchs, rebels, politicians, and others who have left an indelible mark on England's development.

»Go back and rid the world of that book. Fill it with words before spring comes, or winter will never end for you. And I will take not only your life for the Adderhead's but your daughter's, too, because she helped you bind the book. Do you understand, Bluejay»? «Why two»? asked Mo hoarsely. «How can you ask for two lives in return for one»? Under the rule of the evil Adderhead, the Inkworld is in chaos, its characters far beyond the control of their author, Fenoglio. The fire-eater Dustfinger is dead, and Meggie fears losing her mother once more. Facing the threat of eternal winter, Mo inks a dangerous deal with Death itself. A faint hope remains of changing the cursed story...

The 101 best movies ever made — from around the world and across a century — unfold here in order, along with critical commentary, behind-the-scenes information, and hundreds of lush photographs. Movie ranking has become an annual sport, and this global, all-encompassing list features the best of all time, It is sure to be a must-have for every dedicated filmgoer eager to watch the greats that he or she has not yet seen and to recall favorite films from every era. Completely revised since its hardcover publication, it features movies from as recently as 2007, plus a new foreword. Full-color, three-page sections celebrate each film on the list, which has been carefully compiled by two expert critics to include films from every decade, every genre, and a wide variety of cultures. Classics include Citizen Kane, Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, and Star Wars; international films include Rules of the Game, The 400 Blows, and Rashomon; additions to the list since publication of the hardcover include The Lives of Others, City Lights, Pan's Labyrinth, and Groundhog Day, Each section includes cast lists, plot synopses, biographies of the director and key actors, Oscar nominations and wins, behind-the-screen anecdotes, and more.

In this unprecedented collection, photojournalist Kevin Rivoli proves that the idealistic, all-American views found in Norman Rockwell's classic illustrations are, in fact, accurate and timeless portrayals of a nation that truly does exist. Some critics argue that Norman Rockwell's images are overly sentimental, old-fashioned, and contrived. Yet it was always photojournalist Kevin Rivoli's belief that the themes that make Rockwell's illustrations so poignant — patriotism, faith, family, and sports — are also what make our country so great. Determined to dispel the critics' claims against Rockwell's prolific body of work, Rivoli set out with his camera to visit small towns and capture spontaneous Rockwell moments that celebrate the glory of ordinary, everyday life. In Search of Norman Rockwell's America pairs Rivoli's photographs side by side with Norman Rockwell's iconic paintings, demonstrating how Rockwell's scenes were not just imagined on a canvas since they continue to sensitively reflect the American experience today. Each page of In Search of Norman Rockwell's America is filled with inspiring quotes and anecdotes from those who have been touched by Rockwell, including Arnold Palmer, Dick Clark, Beau Bridges, Dolly Parton, former president Jimmy Carter, and even the original subjects of Rockwell's artwork. A must-have for photographers, artists, Rockwell enthusiasts, and those desiring to slow down and focus on what's really important in life — embracing those special Rockwell moments.

From the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of March, the journey of a rare illuminated manuscript through centuries of exile and war In 1996, Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, which has been rescued from Serb shelling during the Bosnian war. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. When Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for her work, discovers a series of tiny artifacts in its ancient binding insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hairashe begins to unlock the book's mysteries. The reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past, tracing the book's journey from its salvation back to its creation. In Bosnia during World War II, a Muslim risks his life to protect it from the Nazis. In the hedonistic salons of fin-de-sicle Vienna, the book becomes a pawn in the struggle against the city's rising anti-Semitism. In inquisition-era Venice, a Catholic priest saves it from burning. In Barcelona in 1492, the scribe who wrote the text sees his family destroyed by the agonies of enforced exile. And in Seville in 1480, the reason for the Haggadah's extraordinary illuminations is finally disclosed. Hanna's investigation unexpectedly plunges her into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics. Her experiences will test her belief in herself and the man she has come to love. Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is at once a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity, an ambitious, electrifying work by an acclaimed and beloved author.

A magisterial history inspired by Winston Churchill's famous opus, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 is an engrossing account of the twentieth century, with a unique perspective on our turbulent times. In 1900, where Churchill ended the fourth volume of his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, the United States had not yet emerged onto the world scene as a great power. Yet the coming century was to belong to the English-speaking peoples, who successively and successfully fought the Kaiser's Germany, Axis aggression and Soviet Communism, and who are now struggling against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. Andrew Roberts's History proves especially invaluable as the United States today looks to other parts of the English-speaking world as its best, closest and most dependable allies.

When the notorious investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn booked into Mr Chandler-Powell's private clinic in Dorset for the removal of a disfiguring and long-standing facial scar, she had every prospect of a successful operation by a distinguished surgeon, a week's peaceful convalescence in one of Dorset's most beautiful manor houses and the beginning of a new life. She was never to leave Cheverell Manor alive. Dalgliesh and his team are called in to investigate the murder, and later a second death, which are to raise even more complicated problems than the question of innocence or guilt. A new detective novel by P. D. James is always keenly awaited and 'The Private Patient' will undoubtedly equal the success of her worldwide bestseller 'The Lighthouse'. It displays the qualities which P. D. James's readers have come to expect: a masterly psychological and emotional richness of characterisation, a vivid evocation of place and a credible and exciting mystery. 'The Private Patient' is a powerful work of contemporary fiction.

The great twentieth-century Russian poet's second volume of poetry, Tristia, explores myths of Orpheus and Eurydice in a brilliantly symbolic manner. This is one of the most important books of Russian poetry.

Show-stoppers from many private and regional galleries, mixing paintings, watercolors, books, sculptures and photographs. The Guardian. Stunning and constantly surprising. Although it contains most of our great artists it is not a 'survey' so much as an unconventional, personal and thought-provoking take on British art, full of unexpected works and unfamiliar names, as well as familiar landmarks — over 300 works gathered from collections all over the world. The Spectator From the landscapes of Wilson and Constable to the visionary imagery of Blake and Bacon, this book, published to accompany a major exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, is a beautifully illustrated survey of British art from 1750 to 1950. British Vision presents some of the most celebrated works in British art history, selected from public and private collections in Europe, Britain, and the United States by Robert Hoozee, drawing on the expertise of Andrew Dempsey, John Gage, Mark Haworth-Booth, and Timothy Hyman. Among the artists whose work appears in British Vision are William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough, George Stubbs, William Blake, Henry Fuseli, John Constable, J. M. W. Turner, Richard Dadd, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Stanley Spencer, Graham Sutherland, Francis Bacon, and Lucien Freud.Essays by a group of distinguished art historians focus on two defining characteristics of British art, observation and imagination, seen within the context of society, landscape, and the visionary. Together, they set forth important arguments about what makes British art recognizable, what gives it its typically «British» style, and how British artists have contributed to the history of art as a whole. This lavishly illustrated catalog is a sumptuous record of the most comprehensive exhibition of British art to be displayed in recent years, and represents a unique opportunity to discover the creative forces that shaped British art over two centuries.

Splish Splash Dog Bash! follows the exploits of a pack of neighborhood dogs, who throw a pool party on the first day the children go back to school. As the children look on forlornly from an amazing 3-D school bus, the dogs send out invitations, purchase pool party gear at the local dog mall, and finally launch their party. The designs and pop-ups provide humor and unexpected surprises that will delight pop-up book fans of all ages. Splish Splash, Dog Bash! is the 2008 Moonbeam Silver Medal Winner for Best Pop-up Book of the Year!