War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime 1618-1789 (War and European Society)

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War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime 1618-1789 (War and European Society)
M. S. Anderson
Manufacturer: McGill-Queen's University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0773517596

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War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime 1618-1789-
M.S. Anderson-
Manufacturer: McGill-Queens University Press-
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NPLR0E

Book Description

Mark Anders grew up on eight thousand acres of African land that bore his family name. Then he fought in Europe’s Great War and, upon returning to his ancestral home, he saw savagery unlike any other….

In Africa, Mark’s family estate has been despoiled. His grandfather has died under mysterious circumstances. And he has inherited a murderous enemy—the rogue scion of the powerful Courtney clan—in an altogether new kind of war.

Now, Mark will make a fateful choice between two women. Journey into the wilderness to uncover his grandfather’s fate. Find his way through battles raging between fathers and sons, generals and politicians, and nature and man. In an age of violent conflict, Mark Anders will live or die for justice—and his fight will echo across a country he always loved….

Customer Reviews:

A Sparrow Falls.......2007-07-23

If you like Wilbur Smith you will like this book it is typical of his africa stories,a little rushed at the end could have been a little better ending.

This Trilogy should NEVER go out of print!.......2007-07-08

In reading the reviews, I was dismayed that some readers experienced trouble obtaining some of these books (Trilogy). How can that be? - this Courtney Trilogy is or should be considered a classic. I read the series when they were first published and I still remember the stories. To the powers that be, please do not stop publishing this trilogy. I gave away my set and will make sure I have another set purchased soon.

Charlie's Review.......2007-03-09

This is another excellent book of Wilbur Smith, I will continue to buy his books as long as he keeps writing

Wilbur Smith: A Sparrow Falls.......2006-03-09

"A sparrow falls" is the third book in the Sean Courtney series. The main character, Mark Anders, returns from the first-world war to discover that his grandfather has been killed and that the farm that is now supposed to belong to Mark is owned by the Ladyburg Farmers' Bank. Mark travels to Ladyburg to find out who could have been responsible
for killing his grandfather and for taking the farm.

He comes to suspect that Dirk Courtney, the son of Sean Courtney, must have killed his grandfather since he needed the farm to expand his business. When Dirk becomes aware of Mark's investigations, he starts sending several of his hit men to hunt Mark down and kill him. Even Mark's employment by the influencial businessman and politician, Sean Courtney, does not prevent Dirk from going after Mark in order to keep the murder of his grandfather and the theft of the farm a secret. The conflict between Mark and Dirk comes to a violent climax on a stormy evening when Mark and Sean learn the truth about Dirks' activities from one of Dirks' own hit men.

"A sparrow falls" is mostly an action/suspense book, but it includes several subplots. One of the subplots is romance, in the form of Mark's relationship with Sean Courtney's daughter, Storm. The book also has a strong focus on nature and nature lovers living in nature. A very good book for those who have read and enjoyed the other Sean Courtney novels. It will make you treasure the familiar characters even more and will answer family questions left hanging in "When a lion feeds" and especially in "sound of thunder". Those unfamiliar with Sean and his family can enjoy it as a standalone action novel. If you're looking for a shorter book organised around one focussed plot, however, then this is probably one to steer clear of.

Tumultuous adventure in Africa.......2002-01-15

A Sparrow Falls is the third of Wilbur Smith's books I've read in the Courtney family series. Each has its own flavor; each one is delightful and hard to put down, but A Sparrow Falls was a real demonstration of a powerful writer taking his readers on a turbulent, tumbling ride on a river of adventure and emotion!

Smith's protagonists draw you in with their magnetic personalities and complicated problems to confront. The antagonists, the crude diabolical bad guys, are truly despicable. In this book, there is a seemingly impossible task in which the "good guys" must preserve a large African land area in its natural state, and to shield the wildlife which has rapidly been disappearing. Sections of the book which deal with the cruel maiming and killing of animals are hard to read, yet you know it has happened and continues today. We witness the bloody mutiny of the Marxist-led strikers, and atrocious deeds committed by greedy, evil people. The ending of the book is rather jarring and sad, and should not be given away in a review, but the ending works, and I closed the book with a "Wow!".

Yet Smith balances these intense scenes with humorous interludes, and equally intense romance and beauty. When he describes the African landscape, the sky, and animals, you are there, standing on a high peak, absorbing a flaming pink sunrise, or squatting down, admiring a tiny and delicate sunbird flitting among the flowers.

The Courtney family books, though written in the '70s and '80s are as appealing as any recently written adventure stories...they are timeless. I am eager to get my hands on any other books written by Wilbur Smith!

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Seems Very Real to Life

A truly modern man

too real

Not for fans of "Sixteen Pleasures," but good nonetheless

A great read

The FALL OF A SPARROW: A NOVEL
Robert Hellenga
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0684850273

Amazon.com

Robert Hellenga's superb debut, The Sixteen Pleasures, took the reader to 1960s Florence--a place of floods, fine art, and erotic discovery. His new novel, The Fall of a Sparrow, also opens in Italy, now transformed by the onslaught of terrorism. By 1980, this state of emergency even reaches the U.S., destroying one Midwestern family. Seven years later, Alan "Woody" Woodhull, popular classics teacher at a small Midwestern college, has yet to recover from the loss of his daughter Cookie in a Bologna train station bombing. Under financial pressure from his estranged wife (who's about to enter a convent) and in increasing professional peril (thanks to a high level of self-destructive behavior), he decamps for Italy, intent on bearing witness at the trial of his daughter's killers. The proceedings don't come off as Woody had planned. He does, however, encounter a series of richly drawn Italians--including the father of one terrorist--who are quick to share the benefits of their classical, sensual culture. (Caveat lector, this is a big, big book, and any attempt at synopsis conceals rather than discloses its ample treasures.)

The Fall of a Sparrow is a study in narrative, cultural, and psychological chaos. Woody does his level best to make meaning out of senselessness--in particular, the death of his daughter, but also the subsequent breakup of his family: "Cookie's death was like a cable, binding us to the past," he thinks. "Sometimes we'd think we'd slipped the cable and were running free, but then we'd be brought up short, like a dog that forgets it's on a chain." Again and again, he strives to break free, through literature, music (the blues), sex, and the strength of love. But what he has to learn, and what the book ultimately imparts, is that the past is not to be forgotten or surmounted but absorbed. In addition to his subtle psychological portraits of Woody and his remaining daughters, Hellenga also excels when it comes to the large scale. With his widescreen vision, he creates memorable, almost inhabitable slices of Italian--and American--life.

Book Description

Robert Hellenga, bestselling author of The Sixteen Pleasures, once again reveals his profound understanding of the strength and resilience of the human spirit in a compelling and masterful novel.

Alan Woodhull ("Woody"), a classics professor at a small Midwestern college, finds himself convinced that life has taught him all the lessons he has to learn: After the tragic death of his beloved oldest daughter during a terrorist bombing in Italy seven years ago, his wife has left him and his two remaining daughters have grown up and moved away. Yet his decision to attend the trial of the terrorists and to return to the scene of the tragedy marks the beginning of a new life and the awakening of a new love.

Customer Reviews:

Seems Very Real to Life.......2005-06-27

I was amazed at how the reviews are all over the map. Admittedly, I did like 16 Pleasures better, but this book has a lot to offer. Woody is a complex character; not a heroic type, but real, faulty - one can imagine that the repercussions of losing a daughter/sister could honestly play out as they did for the Woodhull family. All sorts of mixed emotions and motives are seen within the pages. I am truly astounded that this book was written before 9/11; before a time when the country and especially everyone who personally suffered from the bombings of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and the plane crash in PA could really begin to grasp the effects that terrorism can have upon life and for those left behind. Hellenga grasps these effects, doesn't sugarcoat it, struggles with it, shows how life goes on limping as best one can and finding the beauty in the moment - especially when viewed from a helcopter and looking over a field of rugs.

A truly modern man.......2004-12-11

Hellenga treats us to a view of a man we would like to be. He is a truly lusty renaissance character who behaves in poignant and believable ways in the midst of a fantastic story.

too real.......2004-08-25

Although I've never met anyone like the main character he remains so real and believable. The novel is beautifully written and the character development is perfect. Frail, depressed and lost he slowly, through many missteps, eventually finds a bit of truth about life for himself that helps him rebuild. I loved this book!

Not for fans of "Sixteen Pleasures," but good nonetheless.......2004-04-01

Fans of Hellenga's earlier "The Sixteen Pleasures" will likely not like this book. That just seems to be a fact. In "Pleasures" we get a sympathetic female character who's on a path of discovery about herself, her sexuality, and the world. It's a book with a broad base of appeal among book lovers. "Sparrow" is just a different kind of animal.

Hellenga seems to have a way of misdirecting his readers. In "Pleasures" one gets the idea that the whole point is a controversial rediscovered text when in fact its just a set piece.

The same is true of "Sparrow." The jacket talks about Woody's daughter dying in a terrorist attack in Italy. This certainly makes for an interesting story. Or rather, it would have. Instead, Hellenga takes us on another path as the main character, this time an older man, takes his own path of discovery. It's likely that some don't want to take the ride, especially fans "Pleasures."

Yes, this book has sex. But then, so does "Pleasures." Maybe folks are just more comfortable reading about a younger woman's maturing sexuality than they are with an older man who lusts for young and older women alike. Frankly, both books are honest and both are good (I admit "Pleasures" is by far the better read). At the risk of offending certain readers, I think the problem is more with one's views on sex and not necessarily a failing of Hellenga.

In one scene Hellenga describes a situation in which he realizes that he's hurt a female colleague his own age who's emotionally distant. Woody recognizes the lost opportunity and shows empathy, at least internally, towards the woman. In other words, this isn't just some guy out to have sex with a student. He's complicated and he has feelings.

Hellenga is a versatile author. Unfortunately, he attracts certain readers by his apparent misdirection. While he might be guilty of false advertising, he's certainly not guilty of being a bad writer. If you're open to the experience, give "Sparrow" a chance. Just be forewarned - it's not "The Sixteen Pleasures."

A great read.......2003-11-08

What a wonderful book. I wanted to spend more time with all of these characters, I wanted to spend more time in their world. They deal with pain and tragedy and confusion so much more thoughtfully and interestingly than I do. I learned something from them all, like you would learn from a friend's misfortune that they were able to face gracefully. This book is as nourishing as an Italian banquet with friends outside under the trees on a balmy summer evening. I'm on to read more by Robert Hellenga. Why isn't he a household name?

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mlromero
If depressed, don't read this book!
A great read
More Fantasy than real life
Outstanding !!!!!!!

Not a Sparrow Falls
Linda Nichols
Manufacturer: Bethany House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0764227270
Release Date: 2002-09-01

Book Description

In this powerful story of redemption and love, a prodigal young woman from the hills of Virginia flees the men who have lured her away from a godly upbringing into a life of desperation. Taking on a new identity, Mary Bridget Washburn escapes to the bustling city of Alexandria. There her path crosses that of Alasdair MacPherson, a widowed pastor with three young children and daunting problems of his own. Mary Bridget longs to bring happiness to the deeply troubled family, but she seems an unlikely candidate to help. Has she fallen too far from grace to be able to pass it on? A heart-tugging tale about the extraordinary struggles that turn ordinary people into heroes.

Customer Reviews:

mlromero.......2007-03-27

I was given this book as a Christmas present. I recently found time to read it and was very surprised at how fasinating I found it. I felt the characters were very real and I was sad when the book ended. Believe me, the things Linda Nichols wrote about in this book does happen in real life. This is not "hard to believe" fiction!! If you want a good read, this is it. I will definitely read more of Nichols' books.

If depressed, don't read this book!.......2007-02-24

I did not like this book at all. I thought everything was far fetched. I can't imagine real people living like this. It certainly did not inspire my faith one iota. I read it for book club and most of the women in the group enjoyed the book, but felt the situations were all a little contrived. No other reviewer has mentioned the fact that the mother kills herself in the book. How can that make it a great book? Of course that part of the book was very realistic. I must be honest and say that I was very depressed after losing my mother very suddenly, so I read the book with a heavy heart. I loved Ms. Nichols book "At the Scent of Water" and have sent my copy to friends out of state. Therefore, I know she is a great writer. This one just didn't do it for me.

A great read.......2006-06-09

I picked up this book while out of state and finished most of it on a four-hour flight. The storyline was riveting, the characters concise and the dialogue believable. It seemed to me that some of the issues in the book were brushed over somewhat, but not every book delves into the deep issues of humanity. The ending was rather "happily ever after" but don't we all like to read a book that ends that way every now and then? Over all, a great read.

More Fantasy than real life.......2006-04-17

I read Nichols' If I Gained the World a couple years ago, and that's why I wanted to read this one. The beginning started strong, with the old lady praying, but then it switched viewpoint, and switched, and switched...until I didn't really know what story I was following and who to care about. I ended up not really caring about anyone at all, just observing as I read. It was hard to get into it, and still halfway through, I wanted to give put it away. I skimmed a couple chapters until it came close to the end again.

The storyline itself has potential; young girl goes wrong and wants another chance. Some parts were good, but it took me awhile and a bit of patience to find them. The symbolism of the Sparrow was a nice touch too. However, I found it hard to believe that Bridie could go from the meth world into a nanny position so quickly and easily. She was too perfect at it, almost Marry Poppins-like. There wasn't a lot of struggle with the lifestyle change, only the guilty conscience. The end was too tidy, and IMO did not deliver the building suspense that it seemed to be leading to. It was a bit anti-climatic, and then everyone lived happily ever after.

For the Christian audience, I know that many will just love this story of faith and redemption, which is the target audience. So I give it a few stars for meeting that audience. But for an overall story, I was disappointed.

Outstanding !!!!!!!.......2006-02-17

This is the first novel I have read by Linda Nichols.....I plan on reading all of them now. This story captured my heart from the first chapter. I felt for all of the characters in the book and it left me with a warm heart when I finished. Do yourself a favor -- read it and ENJOY !!!!!!

Marking the Sparrow's Fall: Wallace Stegner's American West

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West is west

Marking the Sparrow's Fall: Wallace Stegner's American West
Wallace Earle Stegner
Manufacturer: Henry Holt & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Essays | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Angle of Repose (Contemporary American Fiction)

ASIN: 0805044647

Amazon.com

Born on an Iowa farm in 1909, Wallace Stegner was of the last generation to see the frontier West. His father, Stegner recalled in an autobiographical essay, was a land speculator who dragged his family from one dusty Western town to another in search of easy riches, and who "died broke and friendless in a fleabag hotel, having in his lifetime done more human and environmental damage than he could have repaired in a second lifetime." It was not an auspicious beginning, but the transient youth found his home in the small libraries of towns such as Yuma, Kanab, Alamosa, Cardston, and Rock Springs. The books he read there, including John Wesley Powell's Explorations of the Colorado River and Mark Twain's Roughing It, helped him put his life into a native context; when he began to write, first articles and then books such as Beyond the Hundredth Meridian and The Sound of Mountain Water, he did so as a proud Westerner, disinclined to apologize to Eastern readers for living by choice in the Great American Outback.

Stegner lived long enough to see the transformation of the American West from a vast land punctuated by small farming and ranching towns to a place of huge cities driven by high technology and the military-industrial complex. He began to write about this transformation early on, and especially about areas where urban civilization encroached on undeveloped lands. His essay "Wilderness Letter" of 1962 has often been cited as an organizing document of the then-forming environmental movement, widely discussed in connection with such matters as the damming of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon and in Dinosaur National Monument; in it, Stegner alludes to wilderness as "a part of the geography of hope," a phrase that has become a byword of modern environmentalism. (Edward Abbey, who studied creative writing under Stegner at Stanford University, adopted it as a personal mantra.) "Wilderness Letter" and other of Stegner's writings for magazines such as the New Yorker and Holiday, many of them previously uncollected, are reprinted in this collection, which underscores the importance of Stegner's work to the development of Western regional literature and of contemporary ecological letters alike. Marking the Sparrow's Fall, edited by Stegner's son Page, makes for a fine introduction to Stegner's conservation works--other anthologies will have to address his contributions as a historian (e.g., Mormon Country) and as a novelist (e.g., Angle of Repose)--and it should help bring readers to the books in which Stegner elaborated environmental themes, such as Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs and The American West As Living Space. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

Winner of three O. Henry Awards, the Commonwealth Gold Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Kirsch Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, and recipient of both the P.E.N. Center USA West and the California Arts Council award for his body of work, Wallace Stegner is a literary giant.

In Marking the Sparrow's Fall, the first collection published since Wallace Stegner's death in 1993, his son Page has annotated and edited fifteen essays that have never before been published in books, a little-known novella, and Wallace Stegner's most powerful and well-known essays on the American West, which held sway in Stegner's vivid prose:

It is a country to breed mystical people, egocentric people, perhaps poetic people. But not humble ones. . . . Puny you may feel there, and vulnerable, but not unnoticed. This is a land to mark the sparrow's fall. --from Wolf Willow

Each magical piece of writing collected here reveals the stylistic grace, humorous outlook, and intellectual rigor that earned Stegner his enormous readership and fame.

Customer Reviews:

West is west.......2001-06-30

Wallace Stegner spent over fifty years writing and cranked out a tremendous amount of stuff -- fifteen novels, five histories, two biographies, plus hundreds of articles and short stories and occassional pieces. Consequently, much of this has not been republished. "Marking the Sparrow's Fall" is a new anthology edited by Stegner's son, Page, and a great introduction to all of his work. Uniquely, though, most of it is an unearthing of previously uncollected non-fiction.

Stegner himself referred to these pieces as "junk" that he wrote to buy the groceries with, but I think we would all be hard-pressed to agree with him. His son comments in the preface that most of this writing remained uncollected simply because Stegner -- a tremendously busy man -- forgot about it. "None of it qualifies as 'grocery-buying junk'", Page notes, "... certainly not the humor of 'Why I Like the West,' wherein he insists that as a wild man from the West 'I have always done my best to live up to what tradition says I should be. I have always tried to look like Gary Cooper and talk like the Virginian. I have endeavored to be morally upright, courteous to women; with an innate sense of right and wrong but without the polish that Yale College or European travel might have put upon me. I have consented to be forgiven my frontier gaucheries, and I did not hold it against the waiter in the Parker House bar when he removed my feet from the upholstery."

So here you'll find a handful of Stegner's better-known non-fiction -- two abridged chapters from "Wolf Willow", the "Wilderness Letter", and some other essays -- plus his famous short-story, "Genesis", the tale of an Englishman on the Saskatchewan frontier during the winter of 1906. But most of the book is made up of otherwise hard-to-find material, like his sketch, "Xanadu By the Salt Flats," the recollection of a summer he spent when he was fifteen flipping hot dogs at Saltair, an amusement park on the shores of Great Salt Lake.

Throughout the book, one is captivated by Stegner's incredible power to evoke the people and landscape and unfinished wars of the American West, a power that made him a pillar of the budding environmental movement in the 1950s and in the years up to his death in 1994. Personally, I found some of his conservation pieces in the middle of the book to be less interesting than his autobiographical sketches and fiction -- as I think anyone would -- but no Stegner anthology would be complete without them.

Book Description

Winner of three O. Henry Awards, the Commonwealth Gold Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Kirsch Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement, Wallace Stegner was a literary giant. In Marking the Sparrow's Fall, the first collection of Stegner's work published since his death, Stegner's son Page has collected, annotated, and edited fifteen essays that have never before been published in any edition, as well as a little-known novella and several of Stegner's best-known essays on the American West. Seventy-five percent of the contents of this body of work is published here for the first time.

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The Fall of a Sparrow
Salim Ali
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Birdwatching | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0195687477

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THE SPARROWS FALL

Manufacturer: Signet
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GPX5RY

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Aboriginal SF 1987--November/Dec
Rebecca Lee (Every Sparrow That Falls). Contributors include Steven R. Boyett (Minutes of the Last Meeting at Olduvai)
Manufacturer: Absolute Entertainment Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000V4MY5O

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