Hemingway Reynolds Michael S W.W.Norton & Company

An art-oriented biography of the mighty Catherine the Great, who rose from seemingly innocuous beginnings to become one of the most powerful people in the world. A German princess who married a decadent and lazy Russian prince, Catherine mobilized support amongst the Russian nobles, playing off of her husband's increasing corruption and abuse of power. She then staged a coup that ended with him being strangled with his own scarf in the halls of the palace, and she being crowned the Empress of Russia • Intelligent and determined, Catherine modeled herself off of her grandfather in-law, Peter the Great, and sought to further modernize and westernize Russia. She believed that the best way to do this was through a ravenous acquisition of art, which Catherine often used as a form of diplomacy with other powers throughout Europe

Anton Chekhov is a unique force in modern drama, his works cherished for their brilliant wit and insight into the human condition. In this stunning new translation of one of Chekhov's most popular and beloved plays, Laurence Senelick presents a fresh perspective on the master playwright and his groundbreaking dramas. He brings this timeless trial of art and love to life as memorable characters have clashing desires and lose balance in the shifting eruptions of society and a modernizing Russia. Supplementing the play is an account of Chekhov's life; a note on the translation; an introduction to the work; and variant lines, often removed due to government censorship, which illuminate the context in which they were written. This edition is the perfect guide to enriching our understanding of this great dramatist or to staging a production

Amid the deprivation and despair of the Great Depression, Shirley Temple radiated a spirit of optimism and plucky good cheer. Her image appeared in periodicals and advertisements daily; she rivalled Franklin D. Roosevelt and Edward VIII as the most photographed person in the world. For four consecutive years she was the world's box-office champion. John F. Kasson shows how Temple astonished movie veterans, created a new international culture of celebrity and revolutionised the role of children as consumers. Celebrating the prospect of lifting the Depression, tap-dancing across racial boundaries with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, foiling villains and mending the hearts of the deserving, she personified the hopes and dreams of Americans while working virtually every day of her childhood

This book forms the second volume of Tucker's biography of Stalin, the first volume of which was Stalin as Revolutionary. The author shows that Stalin was a Bolshevik of the radical right whose revolution cast the country deep into its imperial, autocratic past. In 1929 Stalin plunged Soviet Russia into a coercive revolution from above, a decade-long effort to amass military-industrial power for a new war. He forced 25 million peasant families into state-run collectives and transformed the Communist Party into a servile instrument. In 1939, he concluded the pact with Hitler that enabled him to grasp at Eastern Europe while Hitler made war in the West. Tucker brings a fresh analysis to these events and to the Terror of the 1930s, revealing the motives and methods of what he calls the greatest murder mystery of this century

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was Scotland's greatest architect and arguably one of the world's most admired. He had far fewer commissions than his contemporary Frank Lloyd Wright, but with a few bold and innovative structures - the Glasgow School of Art and Hill House among them he had a profound influence on art and architecture at the turn of the twentieth century. Like Wright, Mackintosh designed in totality, down to the furniture and fabrics used in his structures, and he was influenced by the Japanese, particularly in the simplicity of his designs and themes from nature. Hailed as a pioneer of modernism, Mackintosh was, however, perhaps truer to the Arts and Crafts movement than has been realized. With both historic photographs and modern images of Mackintosh's major works taken by the noted architectural photographer Mark Fiennes, this is an essential and beautiful addition to the Mackintosh canon and to architectural history

Alighting at the pivotal points of cultural transformation, this is an exhilarating history of the key institutions that have organised knowledge in the West from the classical period onward. With elegance and wit the authors question how history helps us understand the vast changes we are now experiencing in the landscape of knowledge.Beginning in classical Alexandria, we then see the monastery in the wilderness of a collapsed civilisation, the rambunctious universities of the late medieval cities and the thick social networks of the Enlightenment republic of letters. The development of science and the laboratory as a dominant knowledge institution brings us to the present, seeking patterns in the new digital networks of knowledge. Full of memorable characters, this fresh intellectual history of the west succeeds in restoring the strangeness and the significance of the past

With plans to launch hotels into orbit and experiments in suspending and reanimating life for ultra-long-distance travel, private companies and entrepreneurs have outpaced NASA as the leaders in the new space race. With accessible prose and relentless curiosity, Chris Impey reports on China's plan to launch its own space station by 2020, proves that humans could survive on Mars and unveils cutting-edge innovations such as the space elevators poised to replace rockets at a fraction of the cost. Setting mankind's urge towards exploration in the context of all human history and space travel thus far, he shows that the present-day scientists mapping billions of Earth-like exo-planets are the descendants of the first humans to venture out of Africa

Edgar Allan Poe was an oddity: his life, literature, and legacy are all, well, odd. In Poe-Land, J. W. Ocker explores the physical aspects of Poe s legacy across the East Coast and beyond, touring Poe s homes, examining artifacts from his life locks of his hair, pieces of his coffin, original manuscripts, his boyhood bed and visiting the many memorials dedicated to him. Along the way, Ocker meets people from a range of backgrounds and professions actors, museum managers, collectors, historians who have dedicated some part of their lives to Poe and his legacy. Poe-Land is a unique travelogue of the afterlife of the poet who invented detective fiction, advanced the emerging genre of science fiction, and elevated the horror genre with a mastery over the macabre that is arguably still unrivaled today

In Odessa, the greatest port on the Black Sea, a dream of cosmopolitan freedom inspired geniuses and innovators, from the writers Alexander Pushkin and Isaac Babel to Zionist activist Vladimir Jabotinsky and immunologist Ilya Mechnikov. Yet here too was death on a staggering scale, as World War II brought the mass murder of Jews carried out by the city's Romanian occupiers. Odessa is an elegy for the vibrant, multicultural tapestry of which a thriving Jewish population formed an essential part, as well as a celebration of the survival of Odessa's dream in a diaspora reaching all the way to Brighton Beach

Hemingway`s memories of his life as an unknown writer living in Paris in the twenties are deeply personal, warmly affectionate and full of wit. Looking back not only at his own much younger self, but also at the other writers who shared Paris with him - James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald - he recalls the time when, poor, happy and writing in cafes, he discovered his vocation. Written during the last years of Hemingway`s life, his memoir is a lively and powerful reflection of his genius that scintillates with the romance of the city

Company to Company is for anyone studying or working in business, commerce or administration who needs to correspond in English. It is particularly suitable for learners at the lower-intermediate and intermediate levels, but more advanced learners who are unfamiliar with business correspondence will also find it invaluable • The fourth edition of this highly successful course contains thoroughly updated content and includes extensive work on email correspondence. It follows the successful interactive task and feedback approach of the previous editions

Company to Company is for anyone studying or working in business, commerce or administration who needs to correspond in English. It is particularly suitable for learners at the lower-intermediate and intermediate levels, but more advanced learners who are unfamiliar with business correspondence will also find it invaluable • The fourth edition of this highly successful course contains thoroughly updated content and includes extensive work on email correspondence. It follows the successful interactive task and feedback approach of the previous editions