This is Simon de Montfort's story—and the story of King Henry III, as weak and changeable as Montfort was brash and unbending. It is a saga of two opposing wills that would later clash in a storm of violence and betrayal. A story straight from the pages of history that brings the world of the thirteenth century completely, provocatively, and magnificently alive.

Above all, this is a story of conflict and treachery, of human frailty and broken legends, a tale of pageantry and grandeur that is as unforgettable as it is real.

"Под игото" е първият български роман. Подзаглавие - „Из живота на българина в навечерието на Освобождението“. Написан е от Иван Вазов по време на изгнание в Одеса, пренесен е в България с руската дипломатическа поща.

Композиционно романът се състои от три части и 88 глави, които обхващат подготовката, избухването и потушаването на Априлското въстание. Сюжетното действие започва с идването на Бойчо Огнянов в Бяла Черква през май 1875 г. и завършва с неговата смърт през май 1876 г. Но фабулата на творбата не се изчерпва с личните драми на героите, нито с действията и противодействията им през тази година, защото не личните, а историческите събития са в основата на сюжетното действие и определят неговия епически характер.

Своеобразна кулминация и развръзка на романа са главите "Пиянството на един народ" и "Пробуждане", в които Вазов постига редки за българската литература прозрения по философия на българската история с резките й преходи от опиянение към отрезвяване и страх, от подем към покруса, разочарование и предателство.

Романът "Под игото" е първата книга, която носи литературна слава на Вазов и на България. Въпреки някои слабости и противоречия, това е най-мащабната и недостигната още "енциклопедия на българския национален живот".

John Merrick had lived for more than twenty years imprisoned in a body that condemned him to a miserable life in the workhouse and to humiliation as a circus sideshow freak. But beneath that tragic exterior, within that enormous and deformed head, thrived the soul of a poet, the heart of a dreamer, the longings of a man.

Merrick was doomed to suffer forever—until the kind Dr. Treves gave him the first real home in the London Hospital, and the town's most beautiful and esteemed actress made possible Merrick's cherished dream of human contact—and love.

Whirlwind presents the story of three intense weeks in Tehran during February 1979. These weeks are filled with fanaticism, passion, self-sacrifice, and heartbreak.

Caught between the revolutionaries and the forces of international intrigue is a team of professional pilots. They are ordered to flee to safety with their helicopters, navigating through a city on the brink of chaos.

In the days before the Civil War, there lived in New Orleans the gens de couleur libre - copper-skinned half-castes, liberated by their owners, but confined by their color to a life of political nonexistence and social subordination.

Still, an aristocracy would emerge in this society: artists, poets, and musicians, plantation owners, scientists, and craftsmen whose talents and reputations would extend far beyond the limits of their small world.

Mega-selling author Anne Rice's probing, lyrical style sweeps us into their midst as she introduces Marcel, the sensitive, blue-eyed scholar, Marie, his breathtakingly beautiful sister, whose curse is to pass for white; Christophe, novelist and teacher, the idol of all young gens and stunning Anna Bella, whose allure for the well-to-do white man would become legend.

Here is a compelling and richly textured tale of a people forever caught in the shadows between black and white.

It is the winter of 1945, the last dark days of World War II in occupied Holland. A Nazi collaborator, infamous for his cruelty, is assassinated as he rides home on his bicycle. The Germans retaliate by burning down the home of an innocent family; only twelve-year-old Anton survives.

Based on actual events, The Assault traces the complex repercussions of this horrific incident on Anton’s life. Determined to forget, he opts for a carefully normal existence: a prudent marriage, a successful career, and colorless passivity. But the past keeps breaking through, in relentless memories and in chance encounters with others who were involved in the assassination and its aftermath, until Anton finally learns what really happened that night in 1945—and why.

Pressured by her unscrupulous family to marry a wealthy man she detests, the young Clarissa Harlowe is tricked into fleeing with the witty and debonair Robert Lovelace and places herself under his protection. Lovelace, however, proves himself to be an untrustworthy rake whose vague promises of marriage are accompanied by unwelcome and increasingly brutal sexual advances. And yet, Clarissa finds his charm alluring, her scrupulous sense of virtue tinged with unconfessed desire.

Told through a complex series of interweaving letters, Clarissa is a richly ambiguous study of a fatally attracted couple and a work of astonishing power and immediacy. A huge success when it first appeared in 1747, it remains one of the greatest of all European novels. Its rich ambiguities give the story extraordinary psychological momentum.

...And Ladies of the Club is a captivating novel that explores the lives of the members of a book club. Set against the backdrop of a tumultuous world, it delves into their personal struggles and relationships.

This groundbreaking bestseller, with over two and a half million copies in print, continues to enchant, enthrall, and intrigue readers. It's a true classic that offers a deep understanding of the characters and their journey through life.

Shadow of the Moon takes readers on an enthralling journey back to the vast, intoxicating romance of India under the British Raj. In this captivating tale, Winter de Ballesteros, a beautiful English heiress, returns to her beloved India, only to find herself amidst the chaos and passion of a land on the brink of rebellion.

This is also the tale of Captain Alex Randall, her dedicated protector, who is consumed by an aching desire to possess her. As India erupts into the fiery chaos of the Mutiny, Winter and Alex are thrust together in a desperate and unforgettable struggle for survival.

Filled with the mystery of moonlit palace gardens and the whisperings of passion and intrigue, M. M. Kaye masterfully evokes an era that is both of its time and timeless. This is a saga of desperate, consuming love forged in the fires of a war that threatens to topple an empire.

A glorious novel of the controversial Richard III - a monarch betrayed in life by his allies and betrayed in death by history. In this beautifully rendered modern classic, Sharon Kay Penman redeems Richard III - vilified as the bitter, twisted, scheming hunchback who murdered his nephews, the princes in the Tower - from his maligned place in history with a dazzling combination of research and storytelling.

Born into the treacherous courts of fifteenth-century England, in the midst of what history has called The War of the Roses, Richard was raised in the shadow of his charismatic brother, King Edward IV. Loyal to his friends and passionately in love with the one woman who was denied him, Richard emerges as a gifted man far more sinned against than sinning. This magnificent retelling of his life is filled with all of the sights and sounds of battle, the customs and lore of the fifteenth century, the rigors of court politics, and the passions and prejudices of royalty.

Francis Phelan, ex-ballplayer, part-time gravedigger, full-time drunk, has hit bottom. Years ago he left Albany in a hurry after killing a scab during a trolley workers' strike. He ran away again after accidentally -- and fatally -- dropping his infant son.Now, in 1938, Francis is back in town, roaming the old familiar streets with his hobo pal, Helen, trying to make peace with the ghosts of the past and the present.

Set in the bleak Fen Country of East Anglia, and spanning some 240 years in the lives of its haunted narrator and his ancestors, Waterland is a book that takes in eels and incest, ale-making and madness, the heartless sweep of history, and a family romance as tormented as any in Greek tragedy.

Waterland, like the Hardy novels, carries with all else a profound knowledge of a people, a place, and their interweaving. Swift tells his tale with wonderful contemporary verve and verbal felicity. A fine and original work.

"Captains and the Kings" is a sweeping and captivating novel about the amassing of a colossal fortune, the political power that comes with it, and the operation of a curse laid on an Irish-American dynasty and the ruthless driving man who founded it.

Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh was thirteen years old when he first saw America through a dirty porthole on the steerage deck of The Irish Queen. It was the early 1850s, and he was a penniless immigrant, an orphan cast on a hostile shore to make a home for himself and his younger brother and infant sister. Some seventy years later, from his deathbed, Joseph Armagh last glimpsed his adopted land from the gleaming windows of a palatial estate. A multi-millionaire, one of the most powerful and feared men, Joseph Armagh had indeed found a home.

Captains and the Kings is the story of the price that was paid for it in the consuming, single-minded determination of a man clawing his way to the top; in the bitter-sweet bliss of the love of a beautiful woman; in the almost too-late enjoyment of extraordinary children; and in the curse which used the hand of fate to strike in the very face of success itself.

Once again, Taylor Caldwell has looked into America's roistering past as a setting for a drama of the consequences of savage ambition - and its meaning then and now.

Anne Rice brings to life the exquisite and otherworldly society of the eighteenth-century castrati, the delicate and alluring male sopranos whose graceful bodies and glorious voices brought them the adulation of the royal courts and grand opera houses of Europe.

These men lived as idols, concealing their pain as they were adored as angels, yet shunned as half-men.

As we are drawn into their dark and luminous story, the crowds of Venetians, Neapolitans, and Romans—noblemen and peasants, musicians, prelates, princes, saints, and intriguers—swirl around them.

Anne Rice brings us into the sweep of eighteenth-century Italian life, into the decadence beneath the shimmering surface of Venice, the wild frivolity of Naples, and the magnetic terror of its shadow, Vesuvius.

In 1831, Nat Turner awaits death in a Virginia jail cell. He is a slave, a preacher, and the leader of the only effective slave revolt in the history of 'that peculiar institution'. William Styron's ambitious and stunningly accomplished novel is Turner's confession, made to his jailers under the duress of his God. Encompasses the betrayals, cruelties and humiliations that made up slavery - and that still sear the collective psyches of both races.

Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, is regarded as one of the most original and daring writers in the English language. His work is illuminated by a dazzling imagination, a gift for character and plot, and a talent for surprise. In Earthly Powers, Burgess created his masterpiece.

At its center are two twentieth-century men who represent different kinds of power—Kenneth Toomey, eminent novelist, a man who has outlived his contemporaries to survive into honored, bitter, luxurious old age as a celebrity of dubious notoriety; and Don Carlo Campanati, a man of God, eventually beloved Pope, who rises through the Vatican as a shrewd manipulator to become the architect of church revolution and a candidate for sainthood.

Through the lives of these two modern men, Burgess explores the very essence of power. As each pursues his career—one to sainthood, one to wealthy exile—their relationship becomes the heart of a narrative that incorporates almost everyone of fame and distinction in the social, literary, and political life of America and Europe.

This astonishing company is joined together by the art of a great novelist into an explosive and entertaining tour de force that will captivate fans of sweeping historic fiction.

Roman Tetralogi Buru mengambil latar belakang dan cikal bakal nation Indonesia di awal abad ke-20. Dengan membacanya waktu kita dibalikkan sedemikian rupa dan hidup di era membibitnya pergerakan nasional mula-mula, juga pertautan rasa, kegamangan jiwa, percintaan, dan pertarungan kekuatan anonim para srikandi yang mengawal penyemaian bangunan nasional yang kemudian kelak melahirkan Indonesia modern.

Roman bagian pertama; Bumi Manusia, sebagai periode penyemaian dan kegelisahan dimana Minke sebagai aktor sekaligus kreator adalah manusia berdarah priyayi yang semampu mungkin keluar dari kepompong kejawaannya menuju manusia yang bebas dan merdeka, di sudut lain membelah jiwa ke-Eropa-an yang menjadi simbol dan kiblat dari ketinggian pengetahuan dan peradaban.

Pram menggambarkan sebuah adegan antara Minke dengan ayahnya yang sangat sentimentil: Aku mengangkat sembah sebagaimana biasa aku lihat dilakukan punggawa terhadap kakekku dan nenekku dan orangtuaku, waktu lebaran. Dan yang sekarang tak juga kuturunkan sebelum Bupati itu duduk enak di tempatnya. Dalam mengangkat sembah serasa hilang seluruh ilmu dan pengetahuan yang kupelajari tahun demi tahun belakangan ini. Hilang indahnya dunia sebagaimana dijanjikan oleh kemajuan ilmu .... Sembah pengagungan pada leluhur dan pembesar melalui perendahan dan penghinaan diri! Sampai sedatar tanah kalau mungkin! Uh, anak-cucuku tak kurelakan menjalani kehinaan ini. Kita kalah, Ma, bisikku. Kita telah melawan, Nak, Nyo, sebaik-baiknya, sehormat-hormatnya.

"Tous maudits, jusqu'à la septième génération !" : telle est la funeste malédiction que le chef des templiers, depuis les flammes du bûcher, lance au visage de Philippe le Bel, roi de France.

Nous sommes en 1314 et la prophétie va se réaliser : pendant plus d'un demi-siècle, les rois se succèdent sur le trône de France, mais n'y restent jamais bien longtemps. D'intrigues de palais en morts subites, de révolutions dynastiques en guerres meurtrières, c'est la valse des rois maudits...

L'avenir de la France se joue pendant ces quelques années noires, période trouble de l'Histoire. Une époque extraordinaire, jamais ennuyeuse, comme romanesque...

L'auteur l'a bien compris, lui qui conte les histoires secrètes du royaume et des hommes, de leurs passions comme de leurs faiblesses qui bien souvent bouleversèrent le sort de la France.

Mrityunjaya is an outstanding literary masterpiece by contemporary Marathi novelist Shivaji Sawant. It explores the eternal quest for the meaning of Being through the personae of the Mahabharata protagonists.

Mrityunjaya is the autobiography of Karna, and yet it is not just that. Sawant employs an exceptional stylistic innovation by combining six dramatic soliloquies to form the nine books of this novel of epic dimensions.

Four books are spoken by Karna. These are interspersed with a book each from the lips of his unwed mother Kunti, Duryodhana (who considers Karna his mainstay), Shon (Shatruntapa, his foster-brother, who hero-worships him), his wife Vrishali to whom he is like a god, and, last of all, Krishna.

Sawant depicts an uncanny similarity between Krishna and Karna and hints at a mystic link between them, investing his protagonist with a more-than-human aura to offset the un-heroic and even unmanly acts which mar this tremendously complex and utterly fascinating creation of Vyasa.

A Man for All Seasons is a classic play that vividly portrays the dramatic events surrounding the life of Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor who stood firm in his beliefs and faced execution under the reign of Henry VIII.

This compelling narrative captures the intense conflict between church and state, as well as the personal and political turmoil faced by More. His unwavering eloquence and endurance, coupled with his pure and saintly nature, earn him a place as one of modern drama's greatest tragic heroes.

The play, first staged in 1960 at the Globe Theatre in London, has been celebrated for its sparse yet powerful writing, confirming Robert Bolt as a significant force in modern theatre.

David Champlin is a black man born into poverty in Depression-era New Orleans who achieves great success and then sacrifices everything to lead his people in the difficult, day-by-day struggle of the civil rights movement.

Sara Kent is the beloved and vital white girl who loved David from the moment she first saw him, but they struggle over David's belief that a marriage for them would not be right in the violent world he had to confront.

First published in 1966, this epic has become one of the most loved American bestsellers.

The Thin Red Line is James Jones's fictional account of the battle between American and Japanese troops on the island of Guadalcanal. This gripping narrative shifts effortlessly among multiple viewpoints within C-for-Charlie Company, including commanding officer Capt. James Stein, his psychotic first sergeant Eddie Welsh, and the young privates they send into battle.

The descriptions of combat conditions—and the mental states it induces—are unflinchingly realistic, painting a vivid picture of the chaos and brutality of war. This novel delves deep into the psychological impacts of combat and the nature of male identity in the face of such adversity.

More than just a classic of combat fiction, The Thin Red Line stands as one of the most significant explorations of identity and survival in American literature.

De donkere kamer van Damokles vertelt het verhaal van Henri Osewoudt, sigarenhandelaar te Voorschoten. Tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog ontmoet hij de verzetsman Dorbeck, die sprekend op hem lijkt op één ding na, dat hij zwart haar heeft terwijl Osewoudt blond is, en die hem opdrachten geeft die hij gewillig uitvoert.

Na de bezetting lijkt alles zich tegen hem te keren en wordt hij gekwalificeerd als fantast en landverrader. Hij tracht wanhopig het tegendeel te bewijzen.

I have noticed that sometimes I frighten people; what they really fear is themselves. They think it is I who scare them, but it is the dwarf within them, the ape-faced manlike being who sticks up his head from the depths of their souls.

Pär Lagerkvist's richly philosophical novel The Dwarf is an exploration of individual and social identity. The novel, set in a time when Italian towns feuded over the outcome of the last feud, centers on a social outcast, the court dwarf Piccoline. From his special vantage point, Piccoline comments on the court's prurience and on political intrigue as the town is gripped by a siege.

Gradually, Piccoline is drawn deeper and deeper into the conflict, and he inspires fear and hate around him as he grows to represent the fascination of the masses with violence.

Freedom or Death by Nikos Kazantzakis is a novel on the heroic or epic scale about the rebellion of the Greek Christians against the Turks on the island of Crete, where Kazantzakis was from.

The story follows the exploits of a Greek: Captain Michalis and his blood brother, Nurey Bey, a Turk, through war, love, friendship, hatred, and a backdrop of the island of Crete with all its beauty, drama, joy, and sadness.

This book is a work of a master with characters that come to life and are destined to live forever.

زمن الخيول البيضاء هي رواية ملحمية استثنائية كتبها الشاعر والروائي إبراهيم نصرالله. تتزامن هذه الرواية مع الذكرى الستين لاحتلال فلسطين، وهي جزء من المشروع الروائي الكبير الذي يُعرف بـالملهاة الفلسطينية، والذي بدأ العمل عليه منذ عام 1985.

يتضمن المشروع ست روايات، لكل منها أجواؤها الخاصة وشخوصها وبناؤها الفني، وتستقل عن الروايات الأخرى. يستعرض نصرالله في هذا العمل 125 عامًا من تاريخ الشعب الفلسطيني بنظرة نقدية عميقة ومستويات فنية راقية.

ينطلق الكاتب من تلك الحقيقة الراسخة التي تؤكد أن إيماننا بالقضايا الكبيرة يتطلب منا إيجاد مستويات فنية عالية للتعبير عنها.