Discover the groundbreaking liturgical and sacramental scholarship of Marie-Dominique Chenu.Why is Chenu’s scholarship still relevant today? Like his slightly younger confrere Yves Congar, the French Dominican Marie-Dominique Chenu (1895–1990) was an important visionary of Catholic theology in the twentieth century. Long before scholars like Louis-Marie Chauvet, Chenu elaborated on the essential symbolic nature of sacramental mediation, on the operationality of gra...

A time-slip fantasy-adventure powered by music that refuses to be bound by time – and an impossible love that defies the tragic fate already determined by history.Crushed with the rejection of joining a world-renowned orchestra, a modern-day cellist finds new hope in an unexpected summons to Scotland. Adeena’s dying grandmother has a gift for her; a lost music score that Adeena performs on the oldest surviving cello ever made in the United Kingdom.As she pl...

He’s entered the ultimate VRMMO. But will a glitch prevent him from leaving with his sanity?Unable to see color, smell, or taste, Dave longs for a more vibrant life. So when he learns of a Japanese company seeking beta testers in a unique full-immersion game, he jumps at the chance to escape his bland monochromatic world. But when a code-error causes him to skip the tutorial, he’s thrown into play with no skills—racing to restore his health points.With only...

The Russian novel has a reputation that is immense, both in narrative and in length. Unquestionably though the ideas, themes and characters make many novels rightly revered as world class, as icons of literature.Perhaps an easier way to enjoy a wider selection of the Russian heritage, with its varied and glorious literary talents, is with the short story. These gems sparkle and beguile the mind with their characters and narrative, exploring facets of society and the human condition...

Franz Kafka was born on 3rd July 1883 in Prague, then in Bohemia, the eldest of 6, into a middle-class Jewish family.Life for the young Kafka and his passion for literature was often made an ordeal by his over-bearing and domineering entrepreneur of a father.In 1889 Kafka was sent to the Deutsche Knabenschule, an elementary school in Prague. His father would only allow him to be educated in German-speaking schools and even went so far as to limit visits to the synagogue to ...

The Top 10 – Eastern Europe - An IntroductionFrom the Central plain of Europe to the Urals, many thousands of miles away, the nations of Eastern Europe have risen to become Empires and fallen underfoot to others. Their literary tradition has always been strong and vibrant, bold and beguiling. Within the many cultures and societies the narrative of the human condition is told in many startling and beautiful ways.Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an...

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was bestowed with a rare musical gift, but burdened by demons of self-doubt and passions forbidden in 19th century Russia.He struggled to release the music inside his head. And equally, to find romantic fulfillment that always remained just beyond his reach. He was deeply affected by the women in his life – those he loved, those he despised, and those whose affection he longed so badly to hold. Yet, aside from music, his truest passion was ...

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was born on 1st April 1809 to a father, descended from Ukrainian Cossacks and a mother with a military background in the Ukrainian town of Sorochyntsi, then part of the Russian Empire and rich in Cossack traditions and folklore.His father wrote poetry and plays which the young Gogol helped stage at his uncle’s home theatre. This helped ignite in him a love of literature and blossomed when he attended, what is now, the Nizhyn Gogol State University at the a...

Two women connected by the same musical soul are transposed across time into each other’s world by the mysterious forces of a priceless 18th-century cello. A story of music, history, and love that finds a way to conquer the barriers of time.In the final instalment of the Song for a Lost Kingdom trilogy, Adeena Stuart and Katharine Carnegie search for the music neither can complete on their own.Finding themselves living three centuries apart and eac...

Adeena Stuart is cellist in 2019 who finds herself living the life of another woman in 1746 Scotland, fighting to save a doomed man – the father of the woman's unborn child. Adeena is an alluring musician driven to compose and perform.But it’s not until she somehow becomes Katharine, an 18th century cellist and composer herself, that the music inside both women finds its timeless perfection.Their composition, Song for a Lost Kingdom, transfigures the heart of James Drummond...

These British Isles, moored across from mainland Europe, are more often seen as a world unto themselves. Restless and creative, they often warred amongst themselves until they began a global push to forge a World Empire of territory, of trade and of language.Here our ambitions are only of the literary kind. These shores have mustered many masters of literature. So this anthology’s boundaries includes only those authors who were born in the British Isles - which as a geographical de...

James Thomson was born in Port Glasgow, Scotland on the 23rd November 1834.At the age of 8 his sister died and his father suffered a stroke. Thomson was now sent south to be raised in a London orphanage, the Royal Caledonian Asylum on Chalk near Holloway. Shortly thereafter he was given the news that his mother had also now died. It was a bleak beginning to the next chapters of his life and would undoubtedly go a long way towards shaping both his character and his future.Th...