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The Elder Pliny's Natural History provides a wide-ranging account of human achievement in the arts and sciences in the first century AD. This book re-examines Pliny's work for the first time since the 1920s. Modern experiments, simulating the techniques described by Pliny, and an in-depth study of his development of a technical language, confirm his unique contribution to our knowledge of science in early imperial Rome.
John Healy, the son of poor Irish immigrants in London, grows up hardened by violence and soon finds himself overwhelmed by alcoholism. He ends up in the grass arena: the parks and streets of the inner city, where beggars, thieves, prostitutes and killers fight for survival and each day brings the question of where to find the next drink. In his searing autobiography Healy describes with unflinching honesty his experiences of addiction, his escape through learning to play chess in prison, and his ongoing search for peace of mind.
Hired to protect Maisy Andrus--a vociferous supporter of the right to die--from a potential assassin, John Francis Cuddy must put his marathon training on a back burner to get involved with the Andrus case--a job that dredges up painful memories of his own wife's slow death
This book surveys systematically all the aspects of the religion of the Nabataeans of ancient Petra, including such important themes as the divinisation of kings and comparisons with Judaism and Islam. It is the first monograph ever devoted to this subject.
While guarding an activist from an assassin, Cuddy makes himself the target To impress his girlfriend and remind himself of his long-neglected athleticism, John Francis Cuddy is training to run the Boston marathon. But the private detective’s fitness regimen goes on the back burner when an old friend approaches him with a dangerous assignment. Euthanasia advocate Maisy Andrus has been receiving death threats, and the police are helpless to protect her. As he tries to keep the crusading lawyer alive, Cuddy realizes that the question isn’t who wants Andrus dead, but who doesn’t. Protecting the right-to-die advocate dredges up painful memories of Cuddy’s wife, who died a slow death from brain cancer. The closer he gets to unmasking the would-be assassin, the more his old wounds open. When the killer starts taking potshots at him, as well as his client, Cuddy’s marathon training will come in handy.
Pliny’s Natural History is an astonishingly ambitious work that ranges from astronomy to art and from geography to zoology. Mingling acute observation with often wild speculation, it offers a fascinating view of the world as it was understood in the first century AD, whether describing the danger of diving for sponges, the first water-clock, or the use of asses’ milk to remove wrinkles. Pliny himself died while investigating the volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii in AD 79, and the natural curiosity that brought about his death is also very much evident in the Natural History — a book that proved highly influential right up until the Renaissance and that his nephew, Pliny the youn...