Firma: Olibro

'Everyone wishes to be loved, but in the event, nearly no one can bear it'At the height of his theatrical career, the actor Leo Proudhammer is nearly felled by a heart attack. As he hovers between life and death, we see the choices that have made him enviably famous and terrifyingly vulnerable. For between Leo's childhood on the streets of Harlem and his arrival into the world of the theatre lies a wilderness of desire and loss, shame and rage. And everywhere there is the anguish of being black in a society that seems poised on the brink of racial war. In this tender, angry 1968 novel, James Baldwin created one of his most striking characters: a man struggling to become himself.

Wilde was both a glittering wordsmith and a social outsider. His drama emerges out of these two perhaps contradictory identities, combining epigrammatic brilliance and shrewd social observation. Includes "Lady Windermere's Fan", "Salome", "A Woman of No Importance", "An Ideal Husband", "A Florentine Tragedy" and "The Importance of Being Earnest", which appears in full with the "Grigsby" scene which originally made up the fourth act.

On 24 February 2022, Russia shocked the world by launching an invasion of Ukraine. In the midst of checking on loved ones who were now on the front lines of Europe's largest conflict since the Second World War, acclaimed Ukrainian-American historian

'No true Democracy has ever existed, nor ever will exist.' In this selection from The Social Contract, the author asserts that a state's only legitimate political authority comes from its people.

From the internationally bestselling author of Netflix's hottest new show, One of Us is Lying, comes a new, page-turning thriller . . .True crime can leave a false trail.Four years ago, Brynn left Saint Ambrose School following the shocking murder of her favourite teacher. The case was never solved, but she's sure that the three kids who found Mr. Larkin's body know more than they're telling, especially her ex-best friend Tripp Talbot. He's definitely hiding something.When Brynn gets an internship working on a popular true-crime show, she decides to investigate what really happened that day in the woods. But the further she dives into the past, the more secrets she finds.Four years ago someone got away with murder. Now it's time to uncover the truth . . .'Given that her high-school-based murder mysteries read like bingeworthy Netflix dramas, it's easy to see why queen of teen crime Karen McManus is a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic' - Observer

A gorgeous clothbound edition of Jean Rhys's great masterpiece of desire and madness in the Caribbean.

Now in paperback, this is the true story of Hisham Matar's return to Libya, 22 years after his father was kidnapped and taken to prison there. He never saw his father again, but the fall of Gaddafi meant he could return to his homeland and try and reconnect with his past. From the author of "In The Country Of Men" and "Anatomy Of A Disappearance". 'A total work of art' James Rebanks

Although written over four hundred years after Alexander's death, Arrian's account of the man and his achievements is the most reliable we have. Arrian's own experience as a military commander gave him unique insights into the life of the world's greatest conqueror. He tells of Alexander's violent suppression of the Theban rebellion, his defeat of Persia and campaigns through Egypt and Babylon - establishing new cities and destroying others in his path. While Alexander emerges as a charismatic leader, Arrian succeeds brilliantly in creating an objective portrait of a man of boundless ambition, who was exposed to the temptations of power.

An official tie-in edition to accompany Sofia Coppola's highly anticipated new film based on this atmospheric novel of sexual tension and Southern gothic.

Lost in the swirling mists they fall asleep under glittering stars. It is spring by the time they emerge and while they sit watching a warm sun rise, it dawns on them that another magnificent adventure awaits . . . Beloved friends Big Panda and Tiny Dragon journey through the seasons of the year together. And, although they often get lost, it leads them to discover many beautiful things. They explore the hardships and happiness that connect us all. They learn how to live in the moment, how to be at peace with uncertainty and how to find the strength to overcome life's obstacles, together.Writer and artist James Norbury illustrates the adventures of Big Panda and Tiny Dragon, inspired by Buddhist philosophy and spirituality to share the ideas that have helped him through his most difficult times. He hopes they can help you too.

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics

Ramana Maharshi was one of the most significant spiritual teachers to emerge from India during the first half of the century, and remains widely admired. This recent collection of conversations between him and the many seekers who came to his ashram for guidance contains the essence of his teaching. His concern throughout his long life of imparting his experience to others was to convince his listeners that self-realisation - or enlightenment - is not an alien or mysterious state, but the natural condition of man. This state can be easily discovered by undertaking the self-investigation clearly described in these talks. The lucid instructions to each section provide further illumination of this greater seer's message.

Burroughs’ first novel, a largely autobiographical account of the constant cycle of drug dependency, cures and relapses, remains the most unflinching, unsentimental account of addiction ever written. Through junk neighbourhoods in New York, New Orleans and Mexico City, through time spent kicking, time spent dealing and time rolling drunks for money, through junk sickness and a sanatorium, Junky is a field report (by a writer trained in anthropology at Harvard) from the American post-war drug underground. A cult classic, it has influenced generations of writers with its raw, sparse and unapologetic tone. This definitive edition painstakingly recreates the author’s original text word for word.

How can you revive and renew your relationship in just seven days?For the past fifty years, Drs. John and Julie Gottman have been studying love. This book distils their work into an accessible, bite-size, seven-day action plan for deeper intimacy. Taking you through their most foundational findings, the Gottmans will help you build a love that lasts in just seven days. Through small, immediately actionable daily steps, they will help you to shift your relationship for the better, providing trusted antidotes to common issues from loneliness and emotional and physical disconnection, to drifting apart and losing that loving feeling. These will teach you how to:· Connect and check in with each other· Ask each other big, open-ended questions · Show appreciation and gratitude by saying thank you· Give your partner a genuine compliment · Communicate what you need· Create moments of physical connection · Declare a date nightNo matter who you are, or what kind of relationship you want to strengthen, The Seven-Day Love Prescription is guaranteed to provide you with the practical tools to transform any relationship in your life for the better. The Gottmans prove that small frequent changes over just seven days can strengthen the foundations of all relationships, allow them to flourish, and create big, long-lasting change over time.

A NEW SCIENTIST BOOK OF THE YEAR'A true hero' Greta ThunbergA legendary conservationist. A lifetime spent fighting for nature. An indispensable message of hope. In a world that seems so troubled, how do we hold on to hope?Looking at the headlines?the worsening climate crisis, loss of biodiversity, political upheaval?it can be hard to feel optimistic. And yet hope has never been more desperately needed.In this urgent book, Jane Goodall, the world's most famous living naturalist, and Douglas Abrams, the bestselling co-author of The Book of Joy, explore through intimate and thought-provoking dialogue one of the most sought after and least understood elements of human nature: hope. In The Book of Hope, Jane focuses on her "Four Reasons for Hope": The Amazing Human Intellect, The Resilience of Nature, The Power of Young People, and The Indomitable Human Spirit. Filled with inspiring stories and original photographs, The Book of Hope is a rare and intimate look not only at the nature of hope but also into the heart and mind of a woman who revolutionized how we view the world and has spent a lifetime fighting for our future.There is still hope, and this book will help guide us to it.

Sendhil Mullainathan, the 'most interesting young economist in the world', and Eldar Shafir, the 'most brilliant psychologist' of his generation, explain the hidden problem behind everything with Scarcity. Why can we never seem to keep on top of our workload, social diary or chores? Why does poverty persist around the world? Why do successful people do things at the last minute in a sudden rush of energy? Here, economist Sendhil Mullainathan and psychologist Eldar Shafir reveal that the hidden side behind all these problems is that they're all about scarcity. Using the new science of scarcity, they explain why obesity is rampant; why people find it difficult to sleep when most sleep deprived; and why the lonely find it so hard to make friends. Scarcity will change the way you think about both the little everyday tasks and the big issues of global urgency. "Stars in their respective disciplines, and the combination is greater than the sum of its parts. Their project has a unique feel to it: it is the finest combination of heart and head that I have seen in our field". (Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow)."Scarcity is a captivating book, overflowing with new ideas, fantastic stories, and simple suggestions that just might change the way you live". (Steven D. Levitt, coauthor of Freakonomics). "An ultimately humane and very welcome book". (Oliver Burkeman, Guardian). Sendhil Mullainathan is a Professor of Economics at Harvard, and a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant". He conducts research on development economics, behavioural economics, and corporate finance. He is Executive Director of Ideas 42, Institute of Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University. Eldar Shafir is William Stewart Tod Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Most of his work focuses on descriptive analyses of inference, judgment, and decision making, and on issues related to behavioural economics.

The one and only Zadie Smith, prize-winning, bestselling author of Swing Time and White Teeth, is back with a second unmissable collection of essaysWITH NEW MATERIAL ADDED - an extra essay for paperback edition'Should you read this brilliant book? Absolutely' Independent'Generous, curious, insistent on the possibility of imaginative connection' Evening StandardNo subject is too fringe or too mainstream for Zadie Smith's insatiable curiosity. From social media to the environment, from Jay-Z to Karl Ove Knausgaard, she has endless enthusiasmand the boundless wit, insight and wisdom to match. In Feel Free, pop culture, high culture, social change and political debate all get the Zadie Smith treatment, dissected with razor-sharp intellect, set brilliantly against the context of the utterly contemporary, and considered with a deep humanity and compassion.This electrifying new collection showcases its author as a true literary powerhouse, demonstrating once again her credentials as an essential voice of her generation.'Lively, intelligent and frequently hilarious, [it] proves that she's one of the brightest minds in English literature today' NPR'Smart, spirited and distinctive' Wall Street Journal'She is the book nerd, the culture geek, reading, hearing and seeing, and dying to talk to somebody about it' Guardian

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization, and helped make us who we are.

Zen is the perfect antidote to the chaos of modern life . . .In clear, practical and easy to follow lessons - one a day for 100 days - renowned Buddhist monk Shunmyo Masuno draws on centuries of wisdom to show you how to apply the essence of Zen to

Tells the history of the Chernobyl disaster. With a chronicle of the past and a warning for our nuclear future, this title shows what it is like to bear witness, and remember in a world that wants you to forget.

SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'A highly readable, fascinating book that jerks the debate on religion versus atheism right out of its crusted rut into the light of serious intellectual scrutiny' ObserverA meditation on the importance of atheism in the modern world - and its inadequacies and contradictions - by one of Britain's leading philosophers'When you explore older atheisms, you will find some of your firmest convictions - secular or religious - are highly questionable. If this prospect disturbs you, what you are looking for may be freedom from thought.'For a generation now, public debate has been corroded by a narrow derision of religion in the name of an often very vaguely understood 'science'. John Gray's stimulating and extremely enjoyable new book describes the rich, complex world of the atheist tradition, a tradition which he sees as in many ways as rich as that of religion itself, as well as being deeply intertwined with what is so often crudely viewed as its 'opposite'.The result is a book that sheds an extraordinary and varied light on what it is to be human and on the thinkers who have, at different times and places, battled to understand this issue.

The international bestseller from the author of the Booker-shortlisted novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World, The Forty Rules of Love is part of our Penguin Essentials series which spotlights the very best of our modern classics*One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped the World'*"Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough..."Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella's life - an emptiness once filled by love.So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, her world is turned upside down. She embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author of this work.It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into an exotic world where faith and love are heartbreakingly explored. . .'The past and present fit together beautifully in a passionate defence of passion itself' The Times'Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent' Daily Telegraph

Georges Perec produced some of the most entertaining and spirited essays of his age. His literary output was amazingly varied in form and style and this generous selection of Perec's non-fictional work also demonstrates his characteristic lightness of touch, wry humour and accessibility.

One of fifty new books at 1.00 pound each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry - all complete, standalone works, some never published in Penguin Modern Classics before.

'Gonzo brilliance ... unique and highly entertaining' Financial Times'Revelatory reading' Adam Tooze, author of Crashed'After reading Quinn Slobodian's new book, you are not likely to think about capitalism the same way' JacobinLook at a map of the world and you'll see a neat patchwork of nation-states. But this is not where power actually resides. From the 1990s onwards, globalization has shattered the map, leading to an explosion of new legal entities: tax havens, free ports, city-states, gated enclaves and special economic zones. These new spaces are freed from ordinary forms of regulation, taxation and mutual obligation - and with them, ultracapitalists believe that it is possible to escape the bonds of democratic government and oversight altogether.Historian Quinn Slobodian follows the most notorious radical libertarians - from Milton Friedman to Peter Thiel - around the globe as they search for the perfect home for their free market fantasy. The hunt leads from Hong Kong in the 1970s to South Africa in the late days of apartheid, from the neo-Confederate South to the medieval City of London, and finally into the world's oceans and war zones, charting the relentless quest for a blank slate where capitalism and democracy can be finally uncoupled.Crack-Up Capitalism is a propulsive history of the recent past, and an alarming view of our near future.

Goliarda Sapienza's The Art of Joy was written over a nine year span, from 1967 to 1976. At the time of her death in 1996, Sapienza had published nothing in a decade, having been unable to find a publisher for what was to become her most celebrated work, due to its perceived immorality. One publisher's rejection letter exclaimed: 'It's a pile of iniquity.' The manuscript lay for decades in a chest finally being proclaimed a "forgotten masterpiece" when it was eventually published in 2005. This epic Sicilian novel, which begins in the year 1900 and follows its main character, Modesta, through nearly the entire span of the 20th century, is at once a coming-of-age novel, a tale of sexual adventure and discovery, a fictional autobiography, and a sketch of Italy's moral, political and social past. Born in a small Sicilian village and orphaned at age nine, Modesta spends her childhood in a convent raised by nuns. Through sheer cunning, she manages to escape, and eventually becomes a princess. Sensual, proud, and determined, Modesta wants to discover the infinite richness of life and sets about destroying all social barriers that impede her quest for the fulfilment of her desires.She seduces both men and women, and even murder becomes acceptable as a means of removing an obstacle to happiness and self-discovery. Goliarda Sapienza (1924-1996) was born in Catania, Sicily in 1924, in an anarchist socialist family. At sixteen, she entered the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome and worked under the direction of Luchino Visconti, Alessandro Blasetti and Francesco Maselli. She is the author of several novels published during her lifetime: Lettera Aperta (1967), Il Filo Di Mezzogiorno (1969), Universita di Rebibbia (1983), Le Certezze Del Dubbio (1987). L'Arte Della Gioia is considered her masterpiece. Anne Milano Appel, Ph.D., a former library director and language teacher, has been translating professionally for nearly twenty years, and is a member of ALTA, ATA, NCTA and PEN. Her translation of Giovanni Arpino's Scent of a Woman (Penguin, 2011) was named the winner of The John Florio Prize for Italian Translation (2013).

"The Pursuit of Glory" brings to life one of the most extraordinary periods in European history - from the battered, introvert continent after the Thirty Years War to the dynamic one that experienced the French Revolution and the wars of Napoleon. Tim Blanning depicts the lives of ordinary people and the dominant personalities of the age (Louis XIV, Frederick the Great and Napoleon), and explores an era of almost unprecedented change, growth and cultural, political and technological ferment that shaped the societies and economies of entire countries.

In a rocky cove in the bay of Hakata, the bodies of a young and beautiful couple are discovered. Standing in the coast's wind and cold, the police see nothing to investigate: the flush of the couple's cheeks speaks clearly of cyanide, of a lovers' suicide. But in the eyes of two men, Torigai Jutaro, a senior detective, and Kiichi Mihara, a young gun from Tokyo, something is not quite right. Together, they begin to pick at the knot of a unique and calculated crime . . .Now widely available in English for the first time, Tokyo Express is celebrated around the world as Seicho Matsumoto's masterpiece - and as one of the most fiendish puzzles ever written.

'A giant of twentieth-century science fiction' Guardian One of the world's most beloved science fiction writers, Stanislaw Lem was famed for his wryly comic, outlandish imaginings of the relationship between humans and technology. In this playful co

Some people's lives are entirely their own creations. James Rebanks' isn't. The first son of a shepherd, who was the first son of a shepherd himself, he and his family have lived and worked in and around the Lake District for generations. Their way of life is ordered by the seasons and the work they demand, and has been for hundreds of years.

Rachel Walsh has a pair of size 8 feet and such a fondness for recreational drugs that her family has forked out the cash for a spell in Cloisters - Dublin's answer to the Betty Ford Clinic. She's only agreed to her incarceration because she's heard that rehab is wall-to-wall jacuzzis, and it's about time she had a holiday.

"Assassin's Creed: Renaissance" is the thrilling novelisation by Oliver Bowden based on the game series. 'I will seek Vengeance upon those who betrayed my family. I am Ezio Auditore di Firenze. I am an Assassin...'. The Year of Our Lord 1476 - the Renaissance: culture and art flourish alongside the bloodiest corruption and violence. Bitter blood-feuds rage between the warring political families of Italy. Following the murder of his father and brothers, Ezio Auditore di Firenze is entrusted with an ancient Codex, the key to a conspiracy that goes back to the centuries - old conflict between the shadowy Templar Knights and the elite Order of Assassins. Ezio must avenge the deaths of his kinsmen and in doing so fulfil his destiny, and live by the laws of the Assassin's Creed. Truth is written in blood "Assassin's Creed: Renaissance" is based on the phenomenally successful gaming series. Fans of the game will love these stories. Other titles in the series include "Assassin's Creed: Forsaken', "Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood", "Assassin's Creed: The Secret Crusade", and "Assassin's Creed: Revelations". Oliver Bowden is the pen-name of an acclaimed novelist.

When Darwin set out to explain the origin of species, he made no attempt to answer the deeper question: what is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question. Life really does look like magic: even a hu

"There is no danger that Titanic will sink. The boat is unsinkable and nothing but inconvenience will be suffered by the passengers." (Phillip Franklin, White Star Line Vice-President). On April 15th, 1912, Titanic, the world's largest passenger ship, sank after colliding with an iceberg, claiming more than 1,500 lives. Walter Lord's classic bestselling history of the voyage, the wreck and the aftermath is a tour de force of detailed investigation and the upstairs/downstairs divide. "A Night to Remember" provides a vivid, gripping and deeply personal account of the 'unsinkable' Titanic's descent. It comes with a new foreword by Julian Fellowes.

"The Pale King" is David Foster Wallace's final novel - a testament to his enduring brilliance. The Internal Revenue Service Regional Examination Centre in Peoria, Illinois, 1985. Here the minutaie of a million daily lives are totted up, audited and accounted for. Here the workers fight a never-ending war against the urgency of their own boredom. Here then, squeezed between the trivial and the quotidian, lies all human life. And this is David Foster Wallace's towering, brilliant, hilarious and deeply moving final novel. "Breathtakingly brilliant, funny, maddening and elegiac". ("New York Times"). "A bravura performance worthy of Woolf or Joyce. Wallace's finest work as a novelist". ("Time"). "Light-years beyond Infinite Jest. Wallace's reputation will only grow, and like one of the broken columns beloved of Romantic painters, "The Pale King" will stand, complete in its incompleteness, as his most substantial fictional achievement". (Hari Kunzru, "Financial Times"). "A paradise of language and intelligence". ("The Times"). "Archly brilliant". ("Metro")."Teems with erudition and ideas, with passages of stylistic audacity, with great cheerful thrown-out gags, goofy puns and moments of truly arresting clarity. Innovative, penetrating, forcefully intelligent fiction like Wallace's arrives once in a generation, if that". ("Daily Telegraph"). "In a different dimension to the tepid vapidities that pass as novels these days. Sentence for sentence, almost word for word, Wallace could out-write any of his peers". ("Scotland on Sunday"). David Foster Wallace wrote the novels "Infinite Jest" and "The Broom of the System", and the short-story collections "Oblivion", "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" and "Girl with Curious Hair". His non-fiction includes "Consider the Lobster", "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again", "Everything and More", "This is Water" and "Both Flesh and Not". He died in 2008.

Afropean is an on-the-ground documentary of areas where Europeans of African descent are juggling their multiple allegiances and forging new identities. Here is an alternative map of the continent, taking the reader to places like Cova Da Moura,

In twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement. In The Democracy of Species Robin Wall Kimmerer guides us towards a more reciprocal, grateful and joyful relationship with our animate earth, from the wild leeks in the field to the deer in the woods. Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged.As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

An exquisite novel of lost lives and the elusiveness of happiness, this seductive, witty and tender book follows married couple Negra and Viri as fine cracks begin to show in the shimmering surface of their life. With an introduction by the eminent novelist Richard Ford.

Beautiful books make unforgettable gifts. This pocket-sized treasure is the perfect gift for fans of nature, language and rich artwork, adult and child alike!Kindred in spirit to The Lost Words but fresh in its form, The Lost Spells introduces a beautiful new set of natural spell-poems and artwork by beloved creative duo Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris.Each "spell" conjures an animal, bird, tree or flower -- from Barn Owl to Red Fox, Grey Seal to Silver Birch, Jay to Jackdaw -- with which we share our lives and landscapes. Moving, joyful and funny, The Lost Spells above all celebrates a sense of wonder, bearing witness to nature's power to amaze, console and bring joy.Written to be read aloud, painted in brushstrokes that call to the forest, field, riverbank and also to the heart, The Lost Spells summons back what is often lost from sight and care, teaching the names of everyday species, and inspiring its readers to attention, love and care.'Luminously beautiful. An amulet in dark times, to be carried like a talisman out into the world, where it is very much needed' Dara McAnulty'A book about spells that succeeds in being spell-binding in its own right . . . It already feels like a true classic. Buy one copy for yourself and any others for as many children as you can afford' Books for Keeps

THE EXTRAORDINARY LOST NOVEL FROM THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA AND ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDEA TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Sitting alone, overlooking the still and blue lagoon, Ana Magdalena Bach surveys the men of the hotel bar. She is happily married and has no reason to escape the world she has made with her husband and children. And yet, every August, she travels here to the island where her mother is buried, and for one night takes a new lover.Amid sultry days and tropical downpours, lotharios and conmen, Ana journeys further each year into the hinterland of her desire, and the fear that sits quietly at her heart.Constantly surprising and wonderfully sensual, Until August is a profound meditation on freedom, regret, and the mysteries of love, from one of the greatest writers the world has ever known.'The master of magic realism's slim and inventive last novel is a tale of forbidden love in later life. I read it straight through in one sitting, then got up the next day and did it again' The Times 'No writer since Dickens was so widely read, and so deeply loved, as Gabriel García Márquez' Salman Rushdie'One of the greatest visionary writers - and one of my favourites from the time I was young' Barack Obama'Few writers can be said to have written books that have changed the whole course of literature. Gabriel García Márquez did just that' Guardian'A novel both sexy and disturbing... The lasting impression of Until August is one of deep feeling, astutely observed and beautifully conveyed' Telegraph'Until August is an enjoyably zingy if improbable tale of erotic thrill-seeking tinged with bittersweet disappointment.' Collagerie - Holiday Booking

'Magisterial - an outstanding book that shines a bright light one of the most important, interesting and under-studied cities in European history. A masterpiece.' Peter Frankopan 'A wonderful new history of the Mediterranean from the fifth to eighth centuries through a lens focussed on Ravenna, gracefully and clearly written, which reconceptualises what was 'East' and what was 'West'.' Caroline Goodson 'A masterwork by one of our greatest historians of Byzantium and early Christianity. Judith Herrin tells a story that is at once gripping and authoritative and full of wonderful detail about every element in the life of Ravenna. Impossible to put down.' David Freedberg

Under Darius the Great, King of Kings, the mighty Persian army - swollen by 10,000 Immortal warriors - have come to subjugate the Greeks. In their path, vastly outnumbered, stands an army of freeborn Athenians, and among them is clever, fearsome and