Xenophobe’s Guide to the Irish is a pocket-size guide that takes a frank & funny look at what makes the Irish Irish.“ Writers occupy a powerful position in Irish society: the wall of the local pub, to be exact.” Xenophobe’s guides attempt to forewarn readers of the main stereotypes & foibles that are associated with individual nationalities. Each guide explores the characteristics of a country’s people in a series of dedicated sections, encompassing nationalism & identity, behaviour, manners, character, obsessions, beliefs & values, leisure & pleasure, culture, custom & tradition, business, systems, health & hygiene, crime & punishment, government & bureaucracy, conversation & gestures & language. ...

New in paperback in a compact format, an atmospheric portrayal of ten remarkable houses & castles that have survived the vicissitudes of Ireland`s history & are still in the hands of their original families. From cabinets filled with generations of monogrammed heirloom china to canopy beds keeping the chill of an Irish winter at bay to cabbage-rose slip-covered sofas nestled under tall Gothic windows, this book takes the reader on a tour of ten grand Irish country houses, providing an intimate look at a marvellous hotchpotch of rooms & decoration. Specially commissioned, evocative photographs by James Fennell show inviting living rooms & tousled bedrooms, print-lined hallways & well-trampled mudrooms. The houses are not the instant creation of trendy decorators they have evolved over generations, furnished with heirlooms & cherished h&-me-downs, & exuding the mossy scent of peat fires. ” This is a book for lovers of Irel&, history or decoration. An intimate glimpse inside ten wonderful Irish country houses”. (Min Hogg). ” Packed with beautiful pictures, this page-turner allows us all to dream superb”. (” The Irish Times”).”A vivid picture of a unique culture, this is an unrivalled opportunity to tour some of Irelands most atmospheric houses”. (” Country Life”). ...

This book takes the reader on a tour of ten grand Irish country houses, still in the hands of their original families. The Knight of Glin & James Peill tell the tale of some of the more colourful inhabitants, whilst the specially commissioned photographs by James Fennell capture the distinctive personalities of the owners: a red silk bell-pull against green floral wallpaper, a drawer full of 200-year-old love letters, & the curve of a wonderfully carved antique chair. This is a book for lovers of Irel&, history or decoration. ...

The Irish File is a stunning collection of images of Ireland that reveals the magnificence of a country whose great beauty ...

This nostalgic & entertaining tour of Ireland`s most individual hostelries presents the historic pubs that epitomize the country`s essential charm. They range from the richly decorated Victorian bars of Belfast & Dublin to country shop bars that double as grocery stores, where the decor consists of shelves laden with tins of fruit & packets of tea. Each pub is covered in four or six pages, with about 1, 000 words of colorful description, history & anecdote, & atmospheric photographs that capture its interior & ambiance. ...

In the newest volume in the award-winning Penguin History of American Life series, James R. Barrett chronicles how a new urban American identity was forged in the streets, saloons, churches, & workplaces of the American city. This process of ” Americanization from the bottom up” was deeply shaped, Barrett argues, by the Irish. From Lower Manhattan to the South Side of Chicago to Boston`s North End, newer waves of immigrants & African Americans found it nearly impossible to avoid the Irish. While historians have emphasized the role of settlement houses & other mainstream institutions in Americanizing immigrants, Barrett makes the original case that the culture absorbed by newcomers upon reaching American shores had a distinctly Hibernian cast. By 1900, there were more people of Irish descent in New York City than in Dublin; more in the United States than in all of Irel&. But in the late nineteenth century, the sources of immigration began to shift, to southern & eastern Europe & beyond. Whether these newcomers wanted to save their souls, get a drink, find a job, or just take a stroll in the neighborhood, they had to deal with Irish Americans. Barrett reveals how the Irish vacillated between a progressive & idealistic impulse toward their fellow immigrants & a parochial defensiveness stemming from the hostility earlier generations had faced upon their own arrival in America. They imparted racist attitudes toward African Americans; they established ethnic ”deadlines” across city neighborhoods; they drove other immigrants from docks, factories, & labor unions. Yet the social teachings of the Catholic Church, a sense of solidarity with the oppressed, & dark memories of poverty & violence in both Ireland & America ushered in a wave of progressive political activism that eventually embraced other immigrants. Drawing on contemporary sociological studies & diaries, newspaper accounts, & Irish American literature, The Irish Way illustrates how the interactions between the Irish & later immigrants on the streets, on the vaudeville stage, in Catholic churches, & in workplaces helped forge a multi-ethnic American identity that has a profound legacy in the USA today. ...

The first Irish photographs date from 1840, a year after Louis Daguerre announced to the world his discovery of the photographic process. In the century that followed, Irish political life was dominated by the struggle for land rights, for Home Rule, & finally for independence. Ireland was to know tragedy & triumph, bitter struggle & agonized compromise. Much of that experience, now so remote, is brought to life here in images so powerful that they remind one of the miracle that photography once seemed. Yet these photographs, which cover the first century of Ireland in the era of photography, do more than tell a gripping political story. They give a wider insight into a people, a landscape, & a lost way of life. They capture the sheer hard labour of rural survival: cutting peat for fuel, gathering seaweed, fishing & tilling the soil, against the magnificence of the often harsh Irish landscape. & they show the grandeur, elegance & complacency of life in the Big House, home & symbol of the doomed Anglo-Irish elite. ...

` This is the original game of thrones` George R.R. Martin From the publishers that brought you A Game of Thrones comes the series that inspired George R.R. Martin`s epic work. ” Accursed! Accursed! You shall be accursed to the thirteenth generation!” The Iron King
- Philip the Fair
- is as cold & silent, as handsome & unblinking as a statue. He governs his realm with an iron h&, but he cannot rule his own family: his sons are weak & their wives adulterous; while his red-blooded daughter Isabella is unhappily married to an English king who prefers the company of men. A web of scandal, murder & intrigue is weaving itself around the Iron King; but his downfall will come from an unexpected quarter. Bent on the persecution of the rich & powerful Knights Templar, Philip sentences Grand Master Jacques Molay to be burned at the stake, thus drawing down upon himself a curse that will destroy his entire dynasty...

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”A classic is something utterly strange & original, & yet as deeply familiar & necessary as your own hands. The Iron Man is like no other story in the world &, fifty years after its first publication, we need it as much as ever.” -- Philip Pullman Part modern fairy tale, part science-fiction myth, The Iron Man describes the unexpected arrival in England of a mysterious giant ”metal man” who wreaks havoc on the countryside by attacking the neighbouring farms & eating all their machinery. A young boy called Hogarth befriends him, & Hogarth & the extraordinary being end up defending & saving the earth when it is attacked by a fearsome ”space-bat-angel-dragon” from outer space. Ted Hughes` classic tale, with its message of peace & hope, is known & loved all over the UK & is an exciting collaboration between Walker Books & Faber & Faber. This beautiful, small-format paperback celebrates 50 wonderful years of Ted Hughes` classic tale.WINNER OF THE V&A BEST ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF THE YEAR”A stunning production.. . spectacular” The Sunday Times ...

Israel`s conflict with the Palestinians, & the Arab world at large, casts a long shadow over her history. When 1920s Zionist leaders formulated the ` Iron Wall` strategy
- negotiating from a position of unassailable strength
- they intended that a stronger Israel would eventually be able to make peace with her Arab neighbours. This has been an elusive hope. Here, Shlaim explores the reasons for Israel`s long reliance on military power in the absence of settlement. His analysis will bring scant comfort to partisans on either side, but it is required reading for anyone interested in this fascinating, troubled l&.

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