"Freedom is something my father has never known. How do I explain freedom to the ones born bent?" -from "Not Scared" Ella Zeltserman's poetry cuts both ways. The story of her flight from the USSR in 1979-of the young family she brought to Edmonton and the older one she left behind-does "explain freedom to the ones born bent," but it also explains oppression to the ones born free. Deftly modulating language, imagery, and events of past and present, comfort and tyranny, atrocity and family, ...

Fast's fascinating biography of Joseph Broz, known to the world as Tito, including his rise to power and his remarkable stand against fascismThe world was mired in the Second World War when Howard Fast wrote The Incredible Tito. Upon the book's publication in 1944, there was still no united Yugoslavia, the Axis controlled most of Europe, and D-Day was only in the planning stages. In the Balkans, Tito was a beacon of hope against the advancing Nazis. He led...

The award-winning poet reinvents a genre in a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional re-creation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present.Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solac...

Skin Divers is award-winning writer Anne Michaels’ dazzling third book of poems. These poems develop the concern with love, transience, and memory evident in her earlier work, and at the same time signal a definitive turning point towards a new thematic landscape.Michaels is a writer whose thoughts take shape in sensuous images, verbal music, and sinuous lines. Her short lyrics, like the longer monologues based on the lives of historical figures, explore an inner world flu...

An electrifying and timely book, by leading Russian expert Richard Lourie, that explores Putin's failures and whether Trump's election gives Putin extraordinarily dangerous opportunities in our mad new world."A master chronicler of modern Russia. Drawing on his own expertise, Lourie paints a convincing portrait of a ruthless authoritarian leader headed toward failure. This book serves as an essential primer on Putin and, by extension, Russia."— Publisher...

From the accliamed authority on Russia and the Russian Revolution—the final volume in his magisterial history of the Russian Revolution, covering the period from the outbreak of the Civil War in 1918 to Lenin's death in 1924"Offers a penetrating analysis of the making of the Soviet system.... [It is] a passionate book whose outstanding scholarship is rooted in universal values like truth, honor, responsibility and the sacredness of human life." —Philadelphia In...

In 1918 war broke out for Poland's independence, involving the the Poles, the Red and White Russian armies, at least two different Ukrainian forces, and Allied intervention troops.The armies that fought these campaigns were extraordinarily varied in their uniforms and insignia, equipment and weapons, and when peace was signed in 1921, Poland had achieved recognised nationhood for the first time since 1794.Featuring specially commissioned full-colour artwork...

There has never been a more remarkable national leader in modern history than Peter the Great (1672–1725). He was a giant in every way. In physical stature, willpower, enthusiasm, energy, libertinism, and refusal to accept old conventions, he stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries. He grew up in an atmosphere of fear, suspicion, and court rivalries that often assumed violent forms. He only gained power, at the age of seventeen, by ousting his half sister, Sophia, and shutting he...

A piecing together of a Polish child's journey through Europe at war, and a young woman's bewildering encounter with rural New Zealand. 'As a child I loved my mother but she seemed different from other mothers. She didn't know how old she was. She couldn't remember where she was born. I wondered what had happened to her that she could have forgotten such important things. It had something to do with the Second World War . . . ' Krystyna is one of 732 'Polish child...

Reading Glenn Forbes Miller’s poetry shows him to be as versatile a poet as he is a writer of prose, as demonstrated by his two travel books, Dreaming Kathmandu and Dancing at Ghunsa.The proof is here in this collection, of time and moving water. These are poems that took root and shape by heeding those moments when the emotions swell and give way to thought and the challenge of arranging words.This elegant collection of poetry is one for a cloudy day when you are ensconced...

In this poetry collection, Michel Pleau uses simple and moving images that go straight to the heart. He shapes words with painstaking care to give us moments of pure beauty and flashes of luminous landscape. He evokes the nostalgia of childhood in language as refreshing and bracing as the wind. With this book Michel Pleau invites us to a celebration of the marvellous. Attentive to his worlds, he invites us to go back to the essentials, to natural elements, innocence and light, in order to mag...

*Includes pictures of Peter and important people, places, and events.*Includes a Bibliography for further reading.*Includes a Table of Contents. “I have conquered an empire, but have not been able to conquer myself.” Peter the GreatA lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of historys most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors Russian Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of Russias most important men ...