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Legends of Glory and Other Stories contains a novella and eight short stories by award-winning author Harry Mark Petrakis. In a departure from his previous, highly regarded work, Petrakis offers a fresh new perspective in the novella, “Legends of Glory.” For the first time Petrakis deals with the traditions and emotions of a small Midwestern town caught in the whirlwind of the Iraq War. In a communal rite of mourning, each character embodies a different voice, a different perspective, in regard to patriotism and pacifism. Although the novella relates to the sacrifice of a young man, the grieving of parents, and the conflicts of a family, it explores human sorrow and anger unchanged from the time of the Trojan War. In a return to his earlier lyrical prose style, Petrakis also treats us to eight beautifully crafted short stories. “Beauty’s Daughter” introduces a sullen-spirited Greek bakery owner and his lovely, more amiable wife. “The Birthday” considers the fear that most people have of the emotional and physical decline that the years bring and the reconciliation with death. In “The Wisdom of Solon,” Solon, who does not realize that life cannot be neatly categorized within the mysterious relationships between men and women, finds that every action sets in motion a series of often bewildering consequences. The question of a proper marriage match and the struggle to make the right choice mark “The Rousing of Mathon Sarlas.” And the longing to believe that something survives our mortal bodies even if reason dictates otherwise is central to “A Dishwasher’s Tale.” Completing the collection are “Christina’s Summer,” “Rites of Passage,” and “A Tale of Color,” which are also presented in an inviting prose style and individualized by engaging characters to provide readers with a cumulative sense of culture, geography, and sensibility.
A memoir from Dr. Glory Van Scott who has been a principal dancer with the Katherine Dunham and Agnes De Mille companies, and a member of the ABT. She has composed the critically acclaimed Miss Truth, danced on Broadway, in the movies, on television, and across six continents, for some of the most acclaimed choreographers in the world.
New York Times Bestseller "Lively, approachable, and captivating. Like Lee himself, everything about Clouds of Glory is on a grand scale." —Boston Globe Michael Korda, the acclaimed biographer of Ulysses S. Grant and the bestsellers Ike and Hero, offers a brilliant, balanced, single-volume biography of Robert E. Lee, the first major study in a generation Korda paints a vivid and admiring portrait of Lee as a general and a devoted family man who, though he disliked slavery and was not in favor of secession, turned down command of the Union army in 1861 because he could not "draw his sword" against his own children, his neighbors, and his beloved Virginia. He was surely America's preeminent military leader, as calm, dignified, and commanding a presence in defeat as he was in victory. Lee's reputation has only grown in the 150 years since the Civil War, and Korda covers in groundbreaking detail all of Lee's battles and traces the making of a great man's undeniable reputation on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, positioning him finally as the symbolic martyr-hero of the Southern Cause. Clouds of Glory features dozens of stunning illustrations, some never before seen, including eight pages of color images, sixteen pages of black-and-white images, and nearly fifty battle maps.
With the discipline of a surgeon performing a critical operation, acclaimed storyteller Harry Mark Petrakis strips away layers of his nine decades of life to expose the blood and bone of a human being in his third memoir and twenty-fifth book, Song of My Life. Petrakis is unsparing in exposing his own flaws, from a youthful gambling addiction, to the enormous lie of his military draft, to a midlife suicidal depression. Yet he is compassionate in depicting the foibles of others around him. Petrakis writes with love about his parents and five siblings, with nostalgia as he describes the Greek neighborhoods and cramped Chicago apartments of his childhood, and with deep affection for his wife and sons as he recalls with candor, comedy, and charity a writer's long, fully-lived life. Petrakis recounts the near-fatal childhood illness, which confined him to bed for two years and, through hours of reading during the day and night, nurtured his imagination and compulsion toward storytelling. A high school dropout, Petrakis also recalls his work journey in the steel mills, railroad depots, and shabby diners of the city. There is farce and comedy in the pages as he describes the intricate framework of lies that drove his courtship of Diana, who has been his wife of sixty-nine loving years. Petrakis shares his struggles for over a decade to write and publish and finally, poignantly describes the matchless instant when he holds his first published book in his hands. The chapters on his experiences in Hollywood where he had gone to write the screenplay of his best-selling novel A Dream of Kings are as revealing of the machinations and egos of moviemaking as any Oliver Stone documentary. Petrakis's individual story, as fraught with drama and revelation as the adventures of Odysseus, comes to an elegiac conclusion when, at the age of ninety, he ruminates on his life and its approaching end. With a profound and searing honesty, this self-exploration of a solitary writer's life helps us understand our own existences and the tapestry of lives connecting us together in our shared human journey.
The result of a study commissioned by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and funded by a grant from Major League Baseball(, this richly illustrated, comprehensive history combines vivid narrative, visual impact, and a unique statistical component to re-create the excitement and passion of the Negro Leagues. 75 photos.
Dubbed 'the greatest Greek city and the most beautiful of them all' by Cicero, Syracuse also boasts the richest history of anywhere in Sicily. Syracuse, City of Legends - the first modern historical guide to the city - explores Syracuse's place within the island and the wider Mediterranean and reveals why it continues to captivate visitors today, more than two and a half millennia after its foundation. Over its long and colourful life, Syracuse has been home to many creative figures, including Archimedes, the greatest mathematician of the ancient world, as well as host to Plato, Scipio Africanus, conqueror of Hannibal, and Caravaggio, who have all contributed to the rich history and atmosphere of this beguiling and distinctive Sicilian city. Generously illustrated, Syracuse, City of Legends also offers detailed descriptions of the principal monuments from each period in the city's life, explaining their physical location as well as their historical context.This vivid and engaging history weaves together the history, architecture and archaeology of Syracuse and will be an invaluable companion for anyone visiting the city as well as a compelling introduction to its ancient and modern history.
In 1821, in the geographically small but culturally and historically rich country of Greece, a revolution began to overturn four terrible centuries of slavery the Greeks had endured under the Ottoman Turks. Harry Mark Petrakis's historical novel The Hour of the Bell recalls the first year of the revolt. Petrakis provides a panoramic view of the conflict through the stories of a variety of characters, including a village priest grief-stricken over the killing of his Turkish neighbors; a guerilla captain leading a band of wild mountain fighters against the Turkish garrisons; the wife of Prince Petrobey of the Mani, embittered by the fighting that takes the lives of her sons; a sea captain commanding the smaller Greek brigs in brilliant forays against the larger Turkish frigates; and a scribe to the legendary General Kolokotronis. Each character provides a defining perspective on the small but fierce conflict that altered the course of European history.
"There's evil people around, Dermot love. . . . I knew about them even before me dream. Really evil people. Won't we have to fight them!" This latest tale of Nuala Anne McGrail, the engagingly fey heroine of such irresistible books as Irish Cream and Irish Lace, begins with a foreboding dream of some terrible impending evil. Dermot Michael Coyne, Nuala's adoring husband and spear-carrier, knows better than to ignore his wife's second sight, but from whence does this nameless peril originate? From the Homeland Security goons determined to deport the Irish-born Nuala on the basis of nothing more than vague suspicions and accusations? From the spiteful neighbors campaigning against their family's beloved Irish wolfhounds? Or from the tangled dealings of the Currans, a prosperous clan of Irish-American aristocrats, with whom Nuala and Dermot have recently become acquainted? The true danger becomes shockingly apparent when a catastrophic car-bombing rocks the Chicago riverfront. Uncovering the twisted minds behind the bombing is not easy; Dermot and Nuala soon find themselves enmeshed in a complicated tapestry of lies and secrets. Nuala's preternatural instincts also lead her to a forgotten manuscript revealing the treachery and deceit behind a tragic chapter in Irish history: the saga of bold Robert Emmet and the failed uprisings of 1798 and 1803. Between the past and the present, our heroine and her devoted spouse have more than enough mysteries to contend with, but the two of them are bound to make the truth just as clear as . . . Irish Crystal. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A "gripping book about this extraordinary man who lived passionately and died unnecessarily" (USA Today) in post-9/11 Afghanistan, from the bestselling author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air. In 2002, Pat Tillman walked away from a multimillion-dollar NFL contract to join the Army and became an icon of American patriotism. When he was killed in Afghanistan two years later, a legend was born. But the real Pat Tillman was much more remarkable, and considerably more complicated than the public knew. Sent first to Iraq—a war he would openly declare was “illegal as hell” —and eventually to Afghanistan, Tillman was driven by emotionally charged, sometimes contradictory notions of duty, honor, justice, and masculine pride, and he was determined to serve his entire three-year commitment. But on April 22, 2004, his life would end in a barrage of bullets fired by his fellow soldiers. Though obvious to most of the two dozen soldiers on the scene that a ranger in Tillman’s own platoon had fired the fatal shots, the Army aggressively maneuvered to keep this information from Tillman’s family and the American public for five weeks following his death. During this time, President Bush used Tillman’s name to promote his administration’ s foreign policy. Long after Tillman’s nationally televised memorial service, the Army grudgingly notified his closest relatives that he had “probably” been killed by friendly fire while it continued to dissemble about the details of his death and who was responsible. Drawing on Tillman’s journals and letters and countless interviews with those who knew him and extensive research in Afghanistan, Jon Krakauer chronicles Tillman’s riveting, tragic odyssey in engrossing detail highlighting his remarkable character and personality while closely examining the murky, heartbreaking circumstances of his death. Infused with the power and authenticity readers have come to expect from Krakauer’s storytelling, Where Men Win Glory exposes shattering truths about men and war. This edition has been updated to reflect new developments and includes new material obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.