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The Reluctant Bride: One Woman's Journey (Kicking and Screaming) Down the Aisle
by Lucy ManganWill Lucy make it down the aisle? It's going to be an uphill struggle . . . The bride: A late starter in life, Lucy always swore she'd never get married. But now she has to find a caterer who doesn't charge a fortune for a cupcake, a dressmaker who doesn't make her cry and a way to bring Great-Auntie Betty down from Dundee for the sixpence she is willing to spend - isn't it meant to be HER special day? The groom: Christopher has spent twenty minutes compiling his guest list and checking his suit fits before returning to his newspaper - this wedding business isn't so hard after all. The mother of the bride: Armed with colour-coded wedding planning folders she is all set. However, twice-daily conversations with her daughter don't seem to be shortening the 'to-do' list she's drawn up. The father of the bride: A wedding? My daughter? Who's she marrying? The best friend: Gillian has stood by Lucy through thick and thin, but she is refusing to be a bridesmaid and wear a daft dress.
The Reluctant Bride: One Woman's Journey (Kicking and Screaming) Down the Aisle
by Lucy ManganWill Lucy make it down the aisle? It's going to be an uphill struggle . . . The bride: A late starter in life, Lucy always swore she'd never get married. But now she has to find a caterer who doesn't charge a fortune for a cupcake, a dressmaker who doesn't make her cry and a way to bring Great-Auntie Betty down from Dundee for the sixpence she is willing to spend - isn't it meant to be HER special day? The groom: Christopher has spent twenty minutes compiling his guest list and checking his suit fits before returning to his newspaper - this wedding business isn't so hard after all. The mother of the bride: Armed with colour-coded wedding planning folders she is all set. However, twice-daily conversations with her daughter don't seem to be shortening the 'to-do' list she's drawn up. The father of the bride: A wedding? My daughter? Who's she marrying? The best friend: Gillian has stood by Lucy through thick and thin, but she is refusing to be a bridesmaid and wear a daft dress.
The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea
by Charles Robert JenkinsThis book will take the reader behind the North Korean curtain and reveals the inner workings of its isolated society while offering a powerful testament to the human spirit.
The Reluctant Exhibitionist
by Dr Martin ShepardThe autobiography of an unconventional psychiatrist.
The Reluctant King: The Life and Reign of George VI
by Sarah BradfordComprehensive biography of the English King.
The Reluctant Metrosexual
by Peter HymanThis collection of Peter Hyman's musings, more pop cultural than philosophical, range from the heartfelt to the absurd, whether he's describing the scotch-soaked grief of a bad breakup or his unfortunate decision to undergo a Brazilian bikini wax.
The Reluctant Mother: A Story No One Wants to Tell
by Zehra NaqviThe Reluctant Mother is a book of rage. Rage at being alone in your pain, having your conflict belittled, and your struggles trivialised. It is the story of a young woman who seeks to find herself in a world that constantly tries to define her and who she should be. It is the memoir of an anti-mother. A woman who doesn&’t fall in love with her baby at first sight but discovers love along the way.This book is for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the idea of &‘ideal&’ motherhood. Be it a woman or a man, one way of confronting trauma is to know that you are not alone in it. To know that someone shares your story and understands your emotions and guilt that accompanies feeling anything other than &‘perfectly blissful&’ about motherhood.It is at once heartbreaking and poignant as it is hopeful and comforting. It is the story of one woman and yet the life of many. It reveals how tradition and modernity, faith and reason, pleasure and pain are all so intimately interwoven for women that their true sense of self is inevitably one of contradictions.The book&’s biggest strength lies in its rawness and honesty. Nothing but the truth stands here.
The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution
by David QuammenHe did not found a movement or a religion says Montana-based writer of fiction and natural history Quammen, he never assembled a creed of scientific axioms and ascribed his name to them. He was in fact a reclusive biologist who wrote books on some minor and some major topics, made mistakes, and changed his mind. He admits that most of Darwin's writings relate to the unity of all life as reflected in the processes of evolution, but he had nothing to do with Darwinism and its scientific and religious controversies.
The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution (Great Discoveries)
by David Quammen"Quammen brilliantly and powerfully re-creates the 19th century naturalist's intellectual and spiritual journey."--Los Angeles Times Book Review Twenty-one years passed between Charles Darwin's epiphany that "natural selection" formed the basis of evolution and the scientist's publication of On the Origin of Species. Why did Darwin delay, and what happened during the course of those two decades? The human drama and scientific basis of these years constitute a fascinating, tangled tale that elucidates the character of a cautious naturalist who initiated an intellectual revolution.
The Reluctant Queen (The Queens of England, Volume #8)
by Jean PlaidyIn 1470, a reluctant Lady Anne Neville is betrothed by her father, the politically ambitious Earl of Warwick, to Edward, Prince of Wales. A gentle yet fiercely intelligent woman, Anne has already given her heart to the prince's younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Unable to oppose her father's will, she finds herself in line for the throne of England--an obligation that she does not want. Yet fate intervenes when Edward is killed at the Battle of Tewkesbury. Anne suddenly finds herself free to marry the man she loves--and who loves her in return. The ceremony is held at Westminster Abbey, and the duke and duchess make a happy home at Middleham Castle, where both spent much of their childhood. Their life is idyllic, until the reigning king dies and a whirlwind of dynastic maneuvering leads to his children being declared illegitimate. Richard inherits the throne as King Richard III, and Anne is crowned queen consort, a destiny she thought she had successfully avoided. Her husband's reign lasts two years, two months, and two days--and in that short time Anne witnesses the true toll that wearing the crown takes on Richard, the last king from the House of York. From the Trade Paperback edition.
The Reluctant Republican: My Fight for the Moderate Majority
by Barbara F. OlschnerBarbara Olschner believes in her party’s founding principles: lower taxes, less regulation, limited government, and individual accountability. But she also believes in governing through compromise, in respectfully listening to opponents’ viewpoints, and in the possibility that a Republican can be fiscally but not socially conservative. In hindsight, it isn’t surprising that when she ran for Congress at the height of the Tea Party’s influence she was branded an elitist and a RINO (Republican in Name Only)—and finished dead last.The Reluctant Republican traces her campaign and her realization that the current leadership of her party demands strict adherence to its ideology. Not only are different viewpoints not tolerated, but those who espouse them are vilified for their disloyalty.
The Reluctant Tuscan
by Phil DoranRising From The Mist in the sun-blushed hills of Tuscany is Il Piccolo Rustico, a 300-year-old stone farmhouse that Nancy Doran dreams of lovingly restoring into an idlyllic home. All her husband Phil can see is a crumbling money pit that, as far as dreams go, is more of a nightmare. Reluctantly leaving behind high -octane, air-conditioned Los Angeles where he lives and works as a writer-producer, Phil is uprooted to a strange country intoxicated by O sole mio, virgin olive oil and oak-aged Chianti. The local village reveals itself to be a hive of seething passions, secrets and age-old blood feuds, and the newcomers find that life is not all strolls around town during the passagiato and relaxing under the awnings of picturesque cafes. Beset by a rift of exasperating challenges - from the cunning tricks of the Pinatore family to an infuriating Byzantine Italian bureaucracy - it is only with an inspired touch of the 'Inner Italian' that Phil and Nancy finally manage to soften the hearts of their neighbours and are embraced by the community.
The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams
by Phyllis Lee LevinA patriot by birth, John Quincy Adams's destiny was foreordained. He was not only "The Greatest Traveler of His Age," but his country's most gifted linguist and most experienced diplomat. John Quincy's world encompassed the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the early and late Napoleonic Age. As his diplomat father's adolescent clerk and secretary, he met everyone who was anyone in Europe, including America's own luminaries and founding fathers, Franklin and Jefferson. All this made coming back to America a great challenge. But though he was determined to make his own career he was soon embarked, at Washington's appointment, on his phenomenal work abroad, as well as on a deeply troubled though loving and enduring marriage. But through all the emotional turmoil, he dedicated his life to serving his country. At 50, he returned to America to serve as Secretary of State to President Monroe. He was inaugurated President in 1824, after which he served as a stirring defender of the slaves of the Amistad rebellion and as a member of the House of Representatives from 1831 until his death in 1848. In The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams, Phyllis Lee Levin provides the deeply researched and beautifully written definitive biography of one of the most fascinating and towering early Americans.
The Remarkable Life of William Beebe: Explorer And Naturalist
by Carol Grant GouldWhen William Beebe needed to know what was going on in the depths of the ocean, he had himself lowered a half-mile down in a four-foot steel sphere to see-five times deeper than anyone had ever gone in the 1930s. When he wanted to trace the evolution of pheasants in 1910, he trekked on foot through the mountains and jungles of the Far East to locate every species. To decipher the complex ecology of the tropics, he studied the interactions of every creature and plant in a small area from the top down, setting the emerging field of tropical ecology into dynamic motion.William Beebe's curiosity about the natural world was insatiable, and he did nothing by halves. As the first biographer to see the letters and private journals Beebe kept from 1887 until his death in 1962, science writer Carol Grant Gould brings the life and times of this groundbreaking scientist and explorer compellingly to light.From the Galapagos Islands to the jungles of British Guiana, from the Bronx Zoo to the deep seas, Beebe's biography is a riveting adventure. A best-selling author in his own time, Beebe was a fearless explorer and thoughtful scientist who put his life on the line in pursuit of knowledge. The unique glimpses he provided into the complex web of interactions that keeps the earth alive and breathing have inspired generations of conservationists and ecologists. This exciting biography of a great naturalist brings William Beebe at last to the recognition he deserves.
The Remarkable Lives Of Bill Deedes
by Stephen RobinsonDrawing on a rich selection of private papers and hours of interviews with Deedes and his contemporaries, Stephen Robinson charts brilliantly the depths and shallows of the life of the man who inspired Evelyn Waugh's hapless reporter William Boot in Scoop and was the recipient of Private Eye's famous Dear Bill letters. Deedes was also a husband and father of five and Robinson explores the rumour and reality with equal measure to reveal the true character of one of the most extraordinary men to have graced the pages of the British national press.
The Remarkable Lives Of Bill Deedes
by Stephen RobinsonDrawing on a rich selection of private papers and hours of interviews with Deedes and his contemporaries, Stephen Robinson charts brilliantly the depths and shallows of the life of the man who inspired Evelyn Waugh's hapless reporter William Boot in Scoop and was the recipient of Private Eye's famous Dear Bill letters. Deedes was also a husband and father of five and Robinson explores the rumour and reality with equal measure to reveal the true character of one of the most extraordinary men to have graced the pages of the British national press.
The Remarkable Record of Job
by Henry M. MorrisThe ancient wisdom, scientific accuracy and life-changing message of an amazing book.
The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel: A Story of Marriage and Money in the Early Republic
by Margaret OppenheimerThe notorious life and times of one of the wealthiest women in 19th-century America Born into grinding poverty, Eliza Jumel was raised in a brothel, indentured as a servant, and confined to a workhouse when her mother was in jail. Yet by the end of her life, "Madame Jumel" was one of the richest women in New York, with servants of her own and mansions in Manhattan and Saratoga Springs. During her remarkable life, she acquired a fortune from her first husband, a French merchant, and almost lost it to her second, the notorious vice president Aaron Burr. Divorcing Burr amid lurid charges of adultery, Jumel lived on triumphantly to the age of 90, astutely managing her property and public persona. After her death, while family members extolled her virtues, claimants to her estate painted a different picture: of a prostitute, the mother of George Washington's illegitimate son, and a wife who ruthlessly defrauded her husband and perhaps even plotted his death. With this book, author Margaret A. Oppenheimer draws from archival documents and court filings, many untouched since the 1800s, to tell the true and full story of Eliza Jumel.
The Remarkable Ronald Reagan: Cowboy and Commander in Chief
by Susan Allen Leslie HarringtonRonald Reagan was a natural leader, well-remembered not just for his political leadership, but also for his warmth, kindness, dignity, and optimism. There’s a lot kids can learn from Reagan, about our country and about being good leaders and good people. The Remarkable Ronald Reagan: Cowboy and Commander in Chief is a fun, colorful look at his life, from his humble beginnings as the son of a shoe salesman, to his years as a Hollywood actor, his service in WWII, his life as a rancher, and finally the culmination of his political career in the Oval Office. There’s plenty that even adults can learn as they read along with their kids, including Reagan's efforts to stand up against racial discrimination, and his powerful faith in God. The Remarkable Ronald Reagan is a treat for the entire family.
The Remarkable Story of Fred Spiksley: The First Working-Class Football Hero
by Mark MetcalfGainsborough’s Fred Spiksley was one of the first working class youngsters in 1887 to live ‘the dream’ of becoming a professional footballer, before later finding a role as a globe-trotting coach. He thus dodged the inevitability of industrial, poorly paid, dangerous labour. Lightning fast, Spiksley created and scored hundreds of goals including, to the great joy of the future Queen Mary who chased him down the touchline, three against Scotland in 1893. The outside left scored both Sheffield Wednesday’s goals in the 2-1 defeat of Wolves in the 1896 FA Cup Final at the Crystal palace. Forced by injury to stop playing at aged 36, Spiksley adventured out into the world. He acted with Charlie Chaplin, escaped from a German prison at the start of the First World War and later made the first ‘talking’ football training film for youngsters. As a coach/manager he won titles in Sweden, Mexico, the USA and Germany, becoming the last Englishman to coach a German title-winning team with 1FC Nuremburg in 1927. He coached in Barcelona in 1932 and it was only after his involvement had exceeded 50 years, during which time, as this book explains, the game changed dramatically, did Spiksley’s football career end. As an addicted gambler and womaniser, Spiksley had his problems away from football. However, he was beloved by his football fans, including Herbert Chapman, the greatest manager of that era in English football who, towards the end of his life, picked him in his finest XI.
The Remembered Gate: Memoirs by Alabama Writers
by Jay Lamar Jeanie ThompsonA collection of essays from 19 nationally known writers from Alabama, reflecting on artistic self-discovery and regional awareness.
The Removers: A Memoir
by Andrew Meredith“A darkly funny memoir about family reckonings” (O, The Oprah Magazine)—the story of a young man who, by handling the dead, makes peace with the living.Andrew Meredith’s father, a literature professor at La Salle University, was fired after unspecified allegations of sexual misconduct. It’s a transgression that resulted in such long-lasting familial despair that Andrew cannot forgive him. In the wake of the scandal, he frantically treads water, stuck in a kind of suspended adolescence—falling in and out of school, moving blindly from one half-hearted relationship to the next. When Andrew is forced to move back home to his childhood neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia and take a job alongside his father as a “remover,” the name for those unseen, unsung men whose charge it is to take away the dead from their last rooms, he begins to see his father not through the lens of a wronged and resentful child, but through that of a sympathetic, imperfect man. Called “artful” and “compelling” by Thomas Lynch in The Wall Street Journal, Meredith’s poetic voice is as unforgettable as his story, and “he tucks his bittersweet childhood memories between tales of removals as carefully as the death certificates he slips between the bodies he picks up and the stretcher-like contraption that transports each body to the waiting vehicle” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune). “Potent” (Publishers Weekly), and “ultimately rewarding” (The Boston Globe), The Removers is a searing, coming-of-age memoir with “lyrical language and strong sense of place” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
The Renaissance Popes: Culture, Power, and the Making of the Borgia Myth
by Gerard NoelBetween the years of 1447 (Nicholas V) and 1572 (Pius V) Rome was transformed from a ruined Medieval city. The Vatican became the official home of the church and the worlds largest bureaucracy, a spectacular new Basilica of St Peters took 100 years to build and Michelangelo changed the course of art history with his Sistine Chapel. So vast and expensive was this cultural explosion that a new fundraising initiative was launched: the sale of indulgences. The Renaissance Popes were statesmen, warriors, patrons of the arts as well as churchmen. These were earthly times and the reputations of popes like Alexander VI, the infamous Borgia patriarch, and Julius 'Il Terrible' II for murder, poison, sodomy and simony vary only in degree. Meanwhile, the sin of heresy, which threatens the very core of the Catholic soul, was tirelessly targeted by two other lasting innovations of the period: the Inquisition and witch-hunts. Alexander VI, father of the ruthless Cesare and jezebel Lucrezia, is seen to this day as the embodiment of this iniquity. But Gerard Noel shows this is unjust, and based on false confessions and historical myth. What's more, Alexander created the blueprint for reform -- the first of its kind -- that would eventually lead to the Counter-Reformation. In his survey of the colourful reigns of the seventeen Renaissance Popes and his examination of the great Borgia myth Noel brings to light the true legacy -- political, artistic, religious -- of an extraordinary time.
The Renaissance Popes: Culture, Power, and the Making of the Borgia Myth
by Gerard NoelBetween the years of 1447 (Nicholas V) and 1572 (Pius V) Rome was transformed from a ruined Medieval city. The Vatican became the official home of the church and the worlds largest bureaucracy, a spectacular new Basilica of St Peters took 100 years to build and Michelangelo changed the course of art history with his Sistine Chapel. So vast and expensive was this cultural explosion that a new fundraising initiative was launched: the sale of indulgences. The Renaissance Popes were statesmen, warriors, patrons of the arts as well as churchmen. These were earthly times and the reputations of popes like Alexander VI, the infamous Borgia patriarch, and Julius 'Il Terrible' II for murder, poison, sodomy and simony vary only in degree. Meanwhile, the sin of heresy, which threatens the very core of the Catholic soul, was tirelessly targeted by two other lasting innovations of the period: the Inquisition and witch-hunts. Alexander VI, father of the ruthless Cesare and jezebel Lucrezia, is seen to this day as the embodiment of this iniquity. But Gerard Noel shows this is unjust, and based on false confessions and historical myth. What's more, Alexander created the blueprint for reform -- the first of its kind -- that would eventually lead to the Counter-Reformation. In his survey of the colourful reigns of the seventeen Renaissance Popes and his examination of the great Borgia myth Noel brings to light the true legacy -- political, artistic, religious -- of an extraordinary time.
The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (Dover Fine Art, History Of Art Series)
by Walter PaterPublished to equal parts scandal and acclaim in 1873, The Renaissance inspired a generation of Oxford undergraduates, who adapted its credo of "arts for art's sake" for their Aesthetic Movement. Combining the skepticism of empirical philosophy, the materialism of 19th-century science, and the determinism of evolutionary theory, this book defies categorization and endures as an innovative example of cultural criticism.An Oxford don who led a quiet scholarly life, Walter Pater was shocked at the reactions his writings provoked. ("I wish they would not call me a hedonist," he remarked, "it gives such a wrong impression to those who do not know Greek.") His essays on the individuals he viewed as embodiments of the Renaissance spirit encompass artists whose careers span the Middle Ages through the 18th century. Pater's elegant, fluid prose examines the works of Pico della Mirandola, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Botticelli, and others. He crowns his compendium of reflections with his notorious Conclusion, in which he asserts that "to burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life."One of Victorian England's most talked about books, The Renaissance exerted a crucial influence on the art criticism of the past century, and it remains a work of unusual importance to those interested in art history and English literature.