For readers of The Goldfinch and classic le Carré, a propulsive tale of espionage, betrayal, loyalty, and love, set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.Marty Ransom, son of the Captain and heir to a hilltop estate near Waterford in independent Ireland, lives a comfortable, boring life with his tennis-playing, Anglican wife, Sugar, and a job in the Department of External Affairs. Among their closest friends are an Anglo-Irish couple, a banker who was Su...

At the heart of every life there lies a secret.Alex Smyth, of Irish birth but living for many years with his wife in rural Canada, receives a trout fly in the mail, with no message and no return address. It stirs a fear that he is being stalked after the publication of his most recent book, and it awakens in him deeply buried, inchoate memories from his childhood in Ireland, before he was old enough to understand the adult world around him. It also evokes the guilt...

After the publication of his most recent book, Alex Smyth receives a trout fly in the mail at his home address in rural Canada - with no message and no return address. It stirs a fear in him that he is being stalked, and it awakens deeply buried, inchoate memories from his childhood in Ireland, a time before he was old enough to understand the adult world around him. It also evokes the guilt that he may have murdered a man, a feeling so strong it changes him and threatens his marriage. Soo...

Now adapted into graphic novel format—the “riveting, eye-opening, and thought-provoking” **(The Guardian)**New York Times bestselling companion to the critically acclaimed Showtime documentary about the largely unknown true rise and decline of the American empire.Since its initial publication in 2012, the New York Times bestselling companion to the critically acclaimed Sh...

In 1974, when young music promoters Allan Pepper and Stanley Snadowsky opened their night club the Bottom Line in an industrial area of Greenwich Village that was all but deserted after 6 pm, no one could have foreseen either its long-term success or its impact on the musical and cultural landscape of New York City. Over the next thirty years, while trends and tastes came and went, the Bottom Line throughout its fabled history remained true to its co-founders' profoundly simple vision: tha...

Throughout history governments have had to confront the problem of how to deal with the poorer parts of their population. During the medieval and early modern period this responsibility was largely borne by religious institutions, civic institutions and individual charity. By the eighteenth century, however, the rapid social and economic changes brought about by industrialisation put these systems under intolerable strain, forcing radical new solutions to be sought to address both old and ...

The book provides a comprehensive overview of current knowledge about "wattles", a large clade of over 1000 species of trees and shrubs in the genus Acacia, most of which are native to Australia. It examines the biology, ecology, evolution, and biogeography of wattles in their native ranges, including the evolutionary forces that have driven past speciation and adaptation to diverse environments, the conservation status, uses and human perceptions of these species. It considers the differe...

This is the first volume to take a broad historical sweep of the close relation between medicines and poisons in the Western tradition, and their interconnectedness. They are like two ends of a spectrum, for the same natural material can be medicine or poison, depending on the dose, and poisons can be transformed into medicines, while medicines can turn out to be poisons. The book looks at important moments in the history of the relationship between poisons and medicines in European histor...

Students notoriously vote with their feet, seeking out the best and most innovative teachers of their subject. The most ambitious students have been travelling long distances for their education since universities were first founded in the 13th century, making their own educational pilgrimage or peregrinatio. This volume deals with the peregrinatio medica from the viewpoint of the travelling students: who went where; how did they travel; what did they find when they arrived; what did they ...

The Enlightenment period, here understood as covering the years 1650 to 1789, is usually considered to be a period when religion was obliged to give way to rationality. With respect to medicine this means that the religious elements in the treatment and interpretation of diseases to all intents and purposes disappeared. However, there are growing indications in recent scholarship that this may well be an overstatement. Indeed it appears that religion retained many of its customary relation...

The poor and the sick-poor have always presented a problem to the governments and churches of Europe. Whose responsibility are they? Are they a wilful burden on the honest working population, or are they a necessary presence for the true Christian to live the true Christian life? In the 18th and 19th centuries what happened to the poor and the sick-poor in the north and south of Europe was different. In the north there occurred first the Reformation in the 16th century, which changed attit...

The human–animal bond has evolved and diversi?ed down the ages. Dogs, cats and even horses, have long ful?lled the role of faithful companion and indeed, as exempli?ed by the introduction of seeing and hearing dogs, there may be a critical level of co-dependency between the species. In the twenty-?rst century, the animal types that are kept as pets in many parts of the world are extensive ranging from reptiles through rodents to ruminants and beyond. As would be predicted by the nature of ...