According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter - the world's only totally reliable guide to the future - the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just after tea... People have been predicting the end of the world almost from its very beginning, so it’s only natural to be sceptical when a new date is set for Judgement Day. This time though, the armies of Good and Evil really do appear to be massing. The four Bikers of the Apocalypse are hitting the road. But both the angels and demons – well, one fast-living demon and a somewhat fussy angel – would quite like the Rapture not to happen. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist…

A sweeping and original history of the Anglo-Saxons by national bestselling author Marc Morris. Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea, and established themselves as its new masters. The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy, and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the vikings. It explores how they abandoned their old gods for Christianity, established hundreds of churches and created dazzlingly intricate works of art. It charts the revival of towns and trade, and the origins of a familiar landscape of shires, boroughs and bishoprics. It is a tale of famous figures like King Offa, Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor, but also features a host of lesser known characters - ambitious queens, revolutionary saints, intolerant monks and grasping nobles. Through their remarkable careers we see how a new society, a new culture and a single unified nation came into being. Drawing on a vast range of original evidence - chronicles, letters, archaeology and artefacts - renowned historian Marc Morris illuminates a period of history that is only dimly understood, separates the truth from the legend, and tells the extraordinary story of how the foundations of England were laid.

Great book featuring the art and architecture of Ancient Rome. 215 illustraitons - 60 in color. Illustrations / photographs of architecture, architectural details, temples, painting, fresco, wall paintings, sculpture, bridges, Roman arches, monuments, altars, portrait busts, mythology, monumental arch, Colosseum, Pantheon, glass, glassware, basilicas and other works. Includes notes / bibliography. Softcover. 250 pages. Measeures 6 by 8 1/4 inches. Interesting book, nicely illustrated.

For more than two thousand years the art of Greece and Rome has been hugely influential throughout the Western world. This book recaptures the passion and inspiration that first drove ancient artists to create the art that continues to captivate us to this day. It traces the daring innovations of those who, defying traditional wisdom, explored new ideas; it describes the noble struggles of sculptors and painters to portray both the complexities of the human form and the richness of human emotions. In Greek and Roman Art, classical art expert Susan Woodford illuminates the achievements of classical art and architecture in a concise, coherent breakdown of styles from Archaic Greece to the Roman Empire. Intelligent, clear, and compelling, this indispensable guide gives readers all the information they need to approach ancient art with confidence.

Bestselling novels by Angela Carter, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and a multitude of others have enchanted us by blurring the lines between reality and fantasy. Their genre of writing has been variously defined as 'magic', 'magical' or 'marvellous' realism and is quickly becoming a core area of literary studies. This guide offers a first step for those wishing to consider this area in greater depth, This is an essential guide for those interested in or studying one of today's most popular genres.

"I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history," Arthur Miller wrote of his classic play about the witch-hunts and trials in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts. Based on historical people and real events, Miller's drama is a searing portrait of a community engulfed by hysteria. In the rigid theocracy of Salem, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town's most basic fears and suspicions; and when a young girl accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch, self-righteous church leaders and townspeople insist that Elizabeth be brought to trial. The ruthlessness of the prosecutors and the eagerness of neighbor to testify against neighbor brilliantly illuminates the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence. Written in 1953, The Crucible is a mirror Miller uses to reflect the anti-communist hysteria inspired by Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunts" in the United States. Within the text itself, Miller contemplates the parallels, writing, "Political opposition... is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence." WIth an introduction by Christopher Bigsby. (back cover)

A Doll's House (1879), is a masterpiece of theatrical craft which, for the first time portrayed the tragic hypocrisy of Victorian middle class marriage on the stage. The play ushered in a new social era and "exploded like a bomb into contemporary life".  The Student Edition contains these exclusive features: ·         A chronology of the playwright's life and work·         An introduction giving the background of the play·         Commentary on themes, characters. language and style·         Notes on individual words and phrases in the text·         Questions for further study·         Bibliography for further reading. 

For more than two thousand years the art of Greece and Rome has been hugely influential throughout the Western world. This book recaptures the passion and inspiration that first drove ancient artists to create the art that continues to captivate us to this day. It traces the daring innovations of those who, defying traditional wisdom, explored new ideas; it describes the noble struggles of sculptors and painters to portray both the complexities of the human form and the richness of human emotions. In Greek and Roman Art, classical art expert Susan Woodford illuminates the achievements of classical art and architecture in a concise, coherent breakdown of styles from Archaic Greece to the Roman Empire. Intelligent, clear, and compelling, this indispensable guide gives readers all the information they need to approach ancient art with confidence.

A progressive parliamentary deputy is scheduled to appear at a political rally. Meanwhile, local political bosses plot his assassination. Thugs are recruited to disrupt the rally. Rumors begin to spread. But the forces already set in motion are irresistible. Z is the story of a crime, a time, a place, and people transformed by events. Z was published in Greece in 1966, and banned there one year later. It is based on an actual political assassination in 1963 in Salonika. The victim was Gregory Lambrakis, a socialist legislator and outspoken critic of the government. But Lambrakis's killers could not have anticipated the public response. His funeral became a political event; by the time the cortege reached Athens, 400,000 people were following the coffin in silence. In the nation's capital, the letter Z suddenly appeared on walls, sidewalks, posters--everywhere. Z stands for the Greek verb zei, "he lives."

One cold Moscow night, Comrade Tulayev, a high government official, is shot dead in the street, and the search for his killer begins. In this panoramic vision of the Soviet Great Terror, the investigation leads all over the world, netting a whole series of suspects whose only connection is their innocence—at least of the crime of which they stand accused. But The Case of Comrade Tulayev, unquestionably the finest work of fiction ever written about the Stalinist purges, is not just a story of a totalitarian state. Marked by the deep humanity and generous spirit of its author, the legendary anarchist and exile Victor Serge, it is also a classic twentieth-century tale of risk, adventure, and unexpected nobility to sit beside Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and André Malraux's Man's Fate.

English, Arabic (translation)