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Angus MacKay (1812-1859) is one of the most important figures in piping history, though today he is best-known for having gone mad. He was the first piper to hold the position of Piper to the Sovereign, appointed early in Victoria's reign. This novel lets MacKay tell his story, from his childhood on the Isle of Raasay, to his rise to early renown and his marriage, to Buckingham Palace and Balmoral, and, finally, Bedlam. Rich in historic detail, following a man's journey from a humble background to the peak of fame, this novel is perfect for any lover of historic fiction.
Blackwater is the saga of a small town, Perdido, Alabama, and Elinor Dammert, the stranger who arrives there under mysterious circumstances on Easter Sunday, 1919. On the surface, Elinor is gracious, charming, anxious to belong in Perdido, and eager to marry Oscar Caskey, the eldest son of Perdido's first family. But her beautiful exterior hides a shocking secret. Beneath the waters of the Perdido River, she turns into something terrifying, a creature whispered about in stories that have chilled the residents of Perdido for generations. Some of those who observe her rituals in the river will never be seen again ... Originally published as a series of six volumes in 1983, Blackwater is the crowning achievement of Michael McDowell, author of the Southern Gothic classics Cold Moon Over Babylon and The Elementals and screenwriter of Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas. This first-ever one-volume edition, with a new introduction by Shirley Jackson Award-winning author Nathan Ballingrud, marks Blackwater's first appearance in print in three decades and will allow a new generation of readers to discover this modern horror classic.
No company in our time has been as mysterious or as controversial as Blackwater. Founded by former Navy SEAL Erik Prince in 1997, it recruited special forces veterans and others with the skills and courage to take on the riskiest security jobs in the world. As its reputation grew, government demand for its services escalated, and Blackwater's men eventually completed nearly one hundred thousand missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both the Bush and Obama administrations found the company indispensible. It sounds like a classic startup success story, except for one problem: Blackwater has been demonized around the world. From uninformed news coverage to grossly distorted fictional portrayals, Bl...
Set in Ireland in the 1990s, Colm Tóibín's The Blackwater Lightship tells the story of the Devereux family, and reveals the intense connection between grandmother, mother and daughter. Dora Devereux, her daughter Lily and her granddaughter Helen – have come together after years of strife and reached an uneasy truce. Helen’s adored brother Declan is dying. Two friends join him and the women in a crumbling old house by the sea, where the six of them, from different generations and with different beliefs, must listen and come to terms with one another. 'It is in his emotional choreography that Tóibín shows himself to be an exceptional writer' – Sunday Telegraph
Tuscawilla Farm (1844) is on the outskirts of Lewisburg, Greenbrier County, West Virginia. This collection of short pieces by the late farm manager and lifelong resident Jane Cary includes a history of the farm, the history of the Knight and Cary families, and her memories of farm life and farm work in the 1930s and 1940s. A selection of recipes is included, and the book's photo gallery is online: https://www.blackwaterpress.com/tuscawilla-stories-of-a-farm/ This fascinating account of the realities of post-war farm life features P.O.W.s, the ins and outs of hog butchering, how to make the perfect apple butter and much more. Cary's unique personality and love of the world around her shines through, and takes the reader back to an America that can be hard to recognize.
Meet Blackwater USA, the private army that the US government has quietly hired to operate in international war zones and on American soil. Its contacts run from military and intelligence agencies to the upper echelons of the White House; it has a military base, a fleet of aircraft and 20,000 troops, but since September 2007 the firm has been hit by a series of scandals that, far from damaging the company, have led to an unprecedented period of expansion. This revised and updated edition includes Scahill's continued investigative work into one of the outrages of our time: the privatisation of war.
Hampton Court Palace has been the locus of monarchy, revolution, religious fundamentalism, sexual scandals, and military coups. Russel moves through the rooms and the decades to focus on the people who called Hampton Court their home. From the Tudors to the present, he captures the stories of the many sovereigns and servants who lived and worked in its halls. In doing so, Russel reveals the personal tragedy and political importance of this extraordinary place. -- adapted from jacket.
Drawing on diverse cultural forms, and ranging across disciplinary boundaries, Nation States maps the contested cultural terrain of Irish nationalism from the Act of Union of 1800 to the present. In looking at Irish nationalism as a site of struggle, Mays examines the myriad ways in which the nation fashions itself as the a priori ground of identity, and those processes through which nationalism engenders an ostensibly unique national identity corresponding to one and only one nation-state, the place where we always have been, and can only ever be, "at home." Book jacket.
'Can we not build up a national tradition, a national literature, which shall be none the less Irish in spirit from being English in language?' W. B. YeatsThis anthology traces the history of modern Irish literature from the revolutionary era of the late eighteenth century to the early years of political independence. From Charlotte Brooke and Edmund Burke to Elizabeth Bowen and Louis MacNeice, the anthology shows how, in forging a tradition of theirown, Irish writers have continually challenged and renewed the ways in which Ireland is imagined and defined. The anthology includes a wide-ranging and generous selection of fiction, poetry, and drama. Three plays by W. B. Yeats, Augusta Gregory, and J. M. Synge are printed in their entirety, along with the opening episode of James Joyce's Ulysses. The volume also includes letters, speeches, songs,memoirs, essays, and travel writings, many of which are difficult to obtain elsewhere.'Stephen Regan's anthology vividly and valiantly presents a nation, and a national literature, coming into being.' Paul Muldoon
Irish Media: A Critical History maps the landscape of media in Ireland from the foundation of the modern state in 1922 to the present. Covering all principal media forms, print and electronic, in the Republic and in Northern Ireland, John Horgan shows how Irish history and politics have shaped the media of Ireland and, in turn, have been shaped by them. Beginning in a country ravaged by civil war, it traces the complexities of wartime censorship and details the history of media technology, from the development of radio to the inauguration of television in the 1950s and 1960s. It covers the birth, development and - sometimes - the death of major Irish media during this period, examining the reasons for failure and success, and government attempts to regulate and respond to change. Finally, it addresses questions of media globalisation, ownership and control, and looks at issues of key significance for the future. Horgan demonstrates why, in a country whose political divisions and economic development have given it a place on the world stage out of all proportion to its size, the media have been and remain key players in Irish history.