A world apart

Sample

Newton Frohlich

In the early sixteenth century, a precocious young nobleman draws the attention of the Elizabethan court--and of The Virgin Queen herself. A writer and patron of the arts, Edward de Vere is volatile, controversial--and brilliant. He leaves a trail of women and scandal in his wake. But his plays, when he's in the queen's good graces, charm the court. His sonnets turn feelings into sound. Yet the rules of the court say a nobleman may not publish. An earl's name is too sacred for the theater. If de Vere must write, he must do so anonymously, and employ a runner, an almost illiterate cobbler's son from Stratford, to claim his words. Newton Frohlich, an attorney and the author of the celebrated historical novel 1492, spent fifteen years researching unexplored questions about the poet and playwright we today know as Shakespeare. His is an intimate tour of English castles, Venetian canals, and a complex man who penned the most beloved works of the English language.--

Sample

Michael Ridpath

October, 1939: War has been declared, but until the armies massed on either side of the French-German border engage, all is quiet on the Western Front. There are those who believe the war no one wants to fight should be brought to a swift conclusion, even if it means treachery. A year ago, Conrad de Lancey came within seconds of assassinating Hitler. Now the British Secret Service want him to go back into Europe and make contact with a group of German officers they believe are plotting a coup. But this is the Shadow War, and the shadows are multiplying: it's not only disaffected Germans who are prepared to betray their country to save it...

Sample

Karl Kroeber

"Describing in detail precise differences between the psychological experience of reading a novel and watching a movie, Make Believe in Film and Fiction shows how movies' unique magnification of movements produces stories especially potent in exposing hypocrisy, the spread of criminality in contemporary society, and the relation of private experience to the natural environment. By contrasting novels with visual storytelling the book also displays how fiction facilitates sharing of subjective fantasies, frees the mind from limiting spatial and temporal preconceptions, and dramatizes the ethical significance of even trivial and commonplace behavior, while intensifying readers' awareness of how they think and feel."--Jacket.

Sample

Andrew J. Fenady

They met on the battlefields of Vicksburg: Ulysses S. Grant, George Armstrong Custer, and Johnny Yuma. United by fate in a nation divided by war, they were destined for greatness. Of the three, Johnny Yuma was the most elusive. A Confederate soldier during the war, he was about to play a key role in Grant's victory, Lee's surrender, and Custer's deadly campaigns. His life is the stuff of legend. But the truth has never been told - until now.