The Love Charm Of Bombs

Author : Lara Feigel
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1408833484
Total Pages : 827 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Love-charm of Bombs written by Lara Feigel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-01-17 with total page 827 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the first bombs fell on London in August 1940, the city was transformed overnight into a battlefront. For most Londoners, the sirens, guns, planes and bombs heralded gruelling nights of sleeplessness, fear and loss. But for Graham Greene and some of his contemporaries, this was a bizarrely euphoric time when London became the setting for intense love affairs and surreal beauty. At the height of the Blitz, Greene described the bomb-bursts as holding one 'like a love-charm'. As the sky whistled and the ground shook, nerves were tested, loyalties examined and infidelities begun. The Love-charm of Bombs is a powerful wartime chronicle told through the eyes of five prominent writers: Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene, Rose Macaulay, Hilde Spiel and Henry Yorke (writing as Henry Green). Volunteering as ambulance drivers, fire-fighters and ARP wardens, these were the successors to the soldier poets of the First World War and their story has never been told. Now, opening with a meticulous evocation of a single night in September 1940, Lara Feigel brilliantly and beautifully interweaves letters, diaries and fiction with official civil defence records to chart the history of a burning world in wartime London and post-war Vienna and Berlin. She reveals the haunting, ecstatic, often wrenching stories that triumphed amid the mess of a war-torn world.

Author : Lara Feigel
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1608199843
Total Pages : 530 pages
Book Rating : 4.46/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Love-charm of Bombs written by Lara Feigel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-07-09 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A portrait of World War II-era London by five literary volunteers documents their experiences as ambulance drivers, firefighters and other civilian aids through the course of a single night in September 1940. 20,000 first printing.

Author : Lara Feigel
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1608199851
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Love-charm of Bombs written by Lara Feigel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-07-09 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The nightly routine of sirens, barrage, the probing raider, the unmistakable engine ... the bomb-bursts moving nearer and then moving away, hold one like a love-charm' --Graham Greene When the first bombs fell on London in August 1940, the city was transformed overnight into a strange kind of battlefield. For most Londoners, the sirens, guns, planes, and bombs brought sleepless nights, fear and loss. But for a group of writers, the war became an incomparably vivid source of inspiration, the blazing streets scenes of exhilaration in which fear could transmute into love. In this powerful chronicle of literary life under the Blitz, Lara Feigel vividly conjures the lives of five prominent writers: Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene, Rose Macaulay, Hilde Spiel and the novelist Henry Green. Starting with a sparklingly detailed recreation of a single night of September 1940, the narrative traces the tempestuous experiences of these five figures through five years in London and Ireland, followed by postwar Vienna and Berlin. Volunteering to drive ambulances, patrol the streets and fight fires, the protagonists all exhibited a unified spirit of a nation under siege, but as individuals their emotions were more volatile. As the sky whistled and the ground shook, nerves were tested, loyalties examined and torrid affairs undertaken. Literary historian and journalist Feigel brilliantly and beautifully interweaves the letters, diaries, journalism and fiction of her writers with official records to chart the history of a burning world, experienced through the eyes of extraordinary individuals.

Author : Lara Feigel
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1408845318
Total Pages : 464 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Bitter Taste of Victory written by Lara Feigel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-01-28 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the Second World War neared its conclusion, Germany was a nation reduced to rubble: 3.6 million German homes had been destroyed leaving 7.5 million people homeless; an apocalyptic landscape of flattened cities and desolate wastelands. In May 1945 Germany surrendered, and Britain, America, Soviet Russia and France set about rebuilding their zones of occupation. Most urgent for the Allies in this divided, defeated country were food, water and sanitation, but from the start they were anxious to provide for the minds as well as the physical needs of the German people. Reconstruction was to be cultural as well as practical: denazification and re-education would be key to future peace and the arts crucial in modelling alternative, less militaristic, ways of life. Germany was to be reborn; its citizens as well as its cities were to be reconstructed; the mindset of the Third Reich was to be obliterated. When, later that year, twenty-two senior Nazis were put in the dock at Nuremberg, writers and artists including Rebecca West, Evelyn Waugh, John Dos Passos and Laura Knight were there to tell the world about a trial intended to ensure that tyrannous dictators could never again enslave the people of Europe. And over the next four years, many of the foremost writers and filmmakers of their generation were dispatched by Britain and America to help rebuild the country their governments had spent years bombing. Among them, Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, Marlene Dietrich, George Orwell, Lee Miller, W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Billy Wilder and Humphrey Jennings. The Bitter Taste of Victory traces the experiences of these figures and through their individual stories offers an entirely fresh view of post-war Europe. Never before told, this is a brilliant, important and utterly mesmerising history of cultural transformation.

Author : Lara Feigel
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1635570964
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.60/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Free Woman written by Lara Feigel and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A genre-defying memoir in which Lara Feigel experiments with sexual, intellectual and political freedom while reading and pursuing Doris Lessing How might we live more freely, and will we be happier or lonelier if we do? Re-reading The Golden Notebook in her thirties, shortly after Doris Lessing's death, Lara Feigel discovered that Lessing spoke directly to her as a woman, a writer, and a mother in a way that no other novelist had done. At a time when she was dissatisfied with the conventions of her own life, Feigel was enticed by Lessing's vision of freedom. Free Woman is essential reading for anyone whose life has been changed by books or has questioned the structures by which they live. Feigel tells Lessing's own story, veering between admiration and fury at the choices Lessing made. At the same time, she scrutinises motherhood, marriage and sexual relationships with an unusually acute gaze. And in the process she conducts a dazzling investigation into the joys and costs of sexual, psychological, intellectual and political freedom. This is a genre-defying book: at once a meditation on life and literature and a daring act of self-exposure.

Author : Graham Greene
Publisher : Collector's Library
ISBN 13 : 9781509828036
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Ministry of Fear written by Graham Greene and published by Collector's Library. This book was released on 2017-07-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is 1941 and bombs have turned London into the front line of a world war. In the shadows of the Blitz, Hitler's agents are running a blackmail operation to obtain documents that could bring the nation to instant defeat. Arthur Rowe, a man once convicted of a notorious mercy killing, stumbles onto a German spy operation in Bloomsbury and must be silenced. But even with his memory taken from him, he is still a very dangerous witness.

Author : Robert A. Pape
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 0801471508
Total Pages : 547 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Bombing to Win written by Robert A. Pape and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-11 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Iraq to Bosnia to North Korea, the first question in American foreign policy debates is increasingly: Can air power alone do the job? Robert A. Pape provides a systematic answer. Analyzing the results of over thirty air campaigns, including a detailed reconstruction of the Gulf War, he argues that the key to success is attacking the enemy's military strategy, not its economy, people, or leaders. Coercive air power can succeed, but not as cheaply as air enthusiasts would like to believe.Pape examines the air raids on Germany, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq as well as those of Israel versus Egypt, providing details of bombing and governmental decision making. His detailed narratives of the strategic effectiveness of bombing range from the classical cases of World War II to an extraordinary reconstruction of airpower use in the Gulf War, based on recently declassified documents. In this now-classic work of the theory and practice of airpower and its political effects, Robert A. Pape helps military strategists and policy makers judge the purpose of various air strategies, and helps general readers understand the policy debates.

Author : Margaret MacMillan
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 158836576X
Total Pages : 473 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Nixon and Mao written by Margaret MacMillan and published by Random House. This book was released on 2007-02-13 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Margaret MacMillan, praised as “a superb writer who can bring history to life” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), brings her extraordinary gifts to one of the most important subjects today–the relationship between the United States and China–and one of the most significant moments in modern history. In February 1972, Richard Nixon, the first American president ever to visit China, and Mao Tse-tung, the enigmatic Communist dictator, met for an hour in Beijing. Their meeting changed the course of history and ultimately laid the groundwork for the complex relationship between China and the United States that we see today. That monumental meeting in 1972–during what Nixon called “the week that changed the world”–could have been brought about only by powerful leaders: Nixon himself, a great strategist and a flawed human being, and Mao, willful and ruthless. They were assisted by two brilliant and complex statesmen, Henry Kissinger and Chou En-lai. Surrounding them were fascinating people with unusual roles to play, including the enormously disciplined and unhappy Pat Nixon and a small-time Shanghai actress turned monstrous empress, Jiang Qing. And behind all of them lay the complex history of two countries, two great and equally confident civilizations: China, ancient and contemptuous yet fearful of barbarians beyond the Middle Kingdom, and the United States, forward-looking and confident, seeing itself as the beacon for the world. Nixon thought China could help him get out of Vietnam. Mao needed American technology and expertise to repair the damage of the Cultural Revolution. Both men wanted an ally against an aggressive Soviet Union. Did they get what they wanted? Did Mao betray his own revolutionary ideals? How did the people of China react to this apparent change in attitude toward the imperialist Americans? Did Nixon make a mistake in coming to China as a supplicant? And what has been the impact of the visit on the United States ever since? Weaving together fascinating anecdotes and insights, an understanding of Chinese and American history, and the momentous events of an extraordinary time, this brilliantly written book looks at one of the transformative moments of the twentieth century and casts new light on a key relationship for the world of the twenty-first century.

Author : Piers Anthony
Publisher : Del Rey
ISBN 13 : 0345536444
Total Pages : 358 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Spell for Chameleon (The Parallel Edition... Simplified) written by Piers Anthony and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2012-02-14 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Piers Anthony’s bestselling Xanth series is one of the cornerstones of fantasy, a lively and whimsical interpretation of a genre often criticized for taking itself too seriously. Anthony’s first Xanth novel, A Spell for Chameleon, was initially edited to target a more traditional audience. Now, in an eBook exclusive, A Spell for Chameleon has been reworked line by line—its language matching the simpler, playful way with words that made Piers Anthony an enduring fan favorite. Xanth is an enchanted land where magic rules, a land of centaurs and dragons and basilisks where every citizen has a unique spell to call their own. For Bink of North Village, however, Xanth is no fairy tale. He alone has no magic. And unless he gets some—and fast!—he will be exiled. Forever. But the Good Magician Humfrey is convinced that Bink does indeed have magic. In fact, both Beauregard the genie and the magic wall chart insist that Bink has magic as powerful as any possessed by the King, the Good Magician Humfrey, or even the Evil Magician Trent. Be that as it may, no one can fathom the nature of Bink’s very special magic. This is even worse than having no magic at all . . . and he still faces exile!

Author : Elizabeth Bowen
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 1984899996
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Heat of the Day written by Elizabeth Bowen and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2019-06-05 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Heat of the Day, Elizabeth Bowen brilliantly recreates the tense and dangerous atmosphere of London during the bombing raids of World War II. Many people have fled the city, and those who stayed behind find themselves thrown together in an odd intimacy born of crisis. Stella Rodney is one of those who chose to stay. But for her, the sense of impending catastrophe becomes acutely personal when she discovers that her lover, Robert, is suspected of selling secrets to the enemy, and that the man who is following him wants Stella herself as the price of his silence. Caught between these two men, not sure whom to believe, Stella finds her world crumbling as she learns how little we can truly know of those around us.