Canterbury Tales Guesthouse

[Daveo]

I Must Confess by Rupert Smith. . .

@ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

A stinging satire of tell-all showbiz memoirs starring a self-deluded gay icon who has managed to ride every pop culture trend of the last forty years.

Marc LeJeune has had a remarkable career in the entertainment business.

Despite the carping of critics, cruel twists of fate, and the treachery of former friends who were blind to his exceptional dramatic and musical talents, he has remained true to his unique artistic vision.

From his early days as the face of Swinging London, to the late 1960's avant garde theater scene, through the sexually liberated cinema of the 1970's, to his current status as a much-loved household name and TV favorite, he tells all in this, his own astonishing story.

Through this fabulous parody of the showbiz confession, Rupert Smith has created a witty and scathing satire of popular culture and entertainment over the last forty years. Marc LeJeune is a brilliant comic creation, inspired by Smith's many years of interviewing celebrities...

[Daveo]

Light in August & The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner...

 

Both traded in recently @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

 

Light in August, a novel that contrasts stark tragedy with hopeful perseverance in the face of mortality, which features some of Faulkner’s most memorable characters: guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower, a lonely outcast haunted by visions of Confederate glory; and Joe Christmas, a desperate, enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry. . . . .

 

The Sound and the Fury - is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant.

Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

[Daveo]

Virginia Woolf by John Lehmann..

@ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

Since her death in 1941, Virginia Woolf has come to be recognized as one of the supreme prose writers of the twentieth century.

In the thirty years between her marriage to Leonard Woolf in 1912 and her death, she wrote fifteen books, including the epoch-making novels To the Lighthouse and The Waves, as well as innumerable critical articles, essays, and stories, and a voluminous diary: an astonishing achievement for a writer who was plagued by mental illness all through her life.

Virginia Woolf is honored today not only as a novelist and literary critic of the most varied gifts, but also as the author of A Room of One's Own, with little doubt the most brilliantly argued, witty, and persuasive exposition of the feminist standpoint in modern times.

[Daveo]

Heroes: The Greatest Generation and the Second World War by James Holland. . .

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Incorporating 21 personal accounts of World War II veterans, James Holland looks back to a time when turning 21 not only symbolised becoming a man, it also meant being prepared to die like one.

[Daveo]

The King's Peace, 1637-1641 ( The Great Rebellion #1) by C.V. Wedgwood. . .

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The King's Peace 1637-1641. Day by day, almost hour by hour, C V Wedgwood describes the four uneasy years that were to explode into civil war - a devastation that cost King Charles his life and won the rebels their revolution.

Conveying the bewildering momentum of events as the King's peace is overtaken by suspicion, disorder and the sword, she writes history, 'in the only way that matters, as a living re-creation of the past'.

[Daveo]

The Wicked Wit of Insults by Maria Leach. . .

@ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

"I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me."  —John Cleese "A senescent bimbo with a lust for home furnishings."  —Barbara Ehrenreich on Nancy Reagan "He plays four-and-a-half-hour sets. That's torture. Does he hate his audiences?"  —John Lydon on Bruce Springsteen "I love children, especially when they cry, for then someone takes them away."  —Nancy Mitford Are you stuck for a cutting put-down, at a loss for a witty riposte, or just plain tongue-tied?

This hilarious compendium of jibes, taunts, and slurs will equip you with a wealth of insults and witty comebacks for every occasion.

With an assortment of quotations from great writers, philosophers, actors, and politicians on all subjects from relationships to religion, this book ensures against a lack of derogatory remark or defamatory insult for any situation.

[Daveo]

Money by Martin Amis. . .

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Time Magazine included the book in its list of the 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

The story of John Self and his insatiable appetite for money, alcohol, fast food, drugs, pornography, and more, Money is ceaselessly inventive and thrillingly savage; a tale of life lived without restraint, of money and the disasters it can precipitate.

[Daveo]

The Blue Nile by Alan Moorehead

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In the first half of the nineteenth century, only a small handful of Westerners had ventured into the regions watered by the Nile River on its long journey from Lake Tana in Abyssinia to the Mediterranean-lands that had been forgotten since Roman times, or had never been known at all.

In The Blue Nile, Alan Moorehead continues the classic, thrilling narration of adventure he began in The White Nile, depicting this exotic place through the lives of four explorers so daring they can be considered among the world's original adventurers, each acting and reacting in separate expeditions against a bewildering background of slavery and massacre, political upheaval and all-out war.

[Daveo]

Old Calabria by Norman Douglas. . .

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Reader review;

Just a wonderful book, for Italophiles and long-time residents of southern Italy! (note: Written in the early 1900s)

Where else could you find a time-capsule travelogue written by a grumpy old Scottish pedophile with a sense of ironic humor who really can write?

[Daveo]

Earl Mindell's New Herb Bible by Earl Mindell

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The Bestselling Guide to Herbal Remedies - Completely Revised and Expanded..

Since its original publication in 1992, Earl Mindell's Herb Bible has become the definitive guide to the world of herbal remedies. Recognized as today's leading trend in self-care, herbs can help you heal faster, live longer, and look better. In this completely updated edition, one of the world's foremost authorities on nutrition and natural remedies demystifies the language and lore of herbs, and shows you how to choose and use herbs and herbal treatments - from the traditional favorites to those on the cutting edge.

Here is new and valuable information on how herbs can treat depression and anxiety, boost energy, improve your sex life, combat aging, prevent illness, and speed healing. Highlights include:

Thirty new "Hot Hundred" herbs A new section devoted specifically to anti-aging herbs New and completely updated information on the fastest selling herbs: St. John's wort, kava kava, grape seed extract, and green tea Special updated chapters on "A Man's Body" and "A Woman's Body" And much more

Commercially prepared yet free of synthetics, herbal remedies are now widely available in many forms, from teas to tinctures. Authoritative and easy to use, this comprehensive resource is an essential addition to every medicine chest.

[Daveo]

Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens. . .

Great Classic's @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

A darkly witty tale of two siblings' struggle to achieve happiness in the shadow of their father's pride. To Paul Dombey, business is all and money can do anything.

He runs his family life as he runs his firm: coldly, calculatingly and commercially. The only person he cares for is his frail son, grooming him for entry into the family business; his daughter Florence, abandoned and ignored, craves affection from her unloving father, who sees her only as a 'base coin that couldn't be invested'.

As Dombey's callousness extends to others - from his defiant second wife Edith, to Florence's admirer Walter Gay - he sows the seeds of his own destruction.

Can this heartless businessman be redeemed?

A compelling depiction of a man imprisoned by his own pride, Dombey and Son explores the devastating effects of emotional deprivation on a dysfunctional family and on society as a whole.

In his introduction, Andrew Sanders discusses the character of Paul Dombey, business and family relationships in Dombey and Son and their similarities to Dickens's own childhood.

[Daveo]

Venice: Pure City by Peter Ackroyd. . .

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In this sumptuous vision of Venice, Peter Ackroyd turns his unparalleled skill at evoking place from London and the River Thames, to Italy and the city of myth, mystery and beauty, set like a jewel in its glistening lagoon.

His account is at once romantic and packed with facts, conjuring up the atmosphere of the canals, bridges and sunlit squares, the churches and the markets, the fiestas and the flowers.

He leads us through the history of the city, from the first refugees arriving in the mists of the lagoon in the fourth century to the rise of a great mercantile state and a trading empire, the wars against Napoleon and the tourist invasions of today. Everything is here: the merchants on the Rialto and the Jews in the ghetto; the mosaics of St Mark's and the glass blowers of Murano; the carnival masks and the sad colonies of lepers; the doges and the destitute and the artists with their passion for colour and form - Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, Tiepolo.

There are wars and sieges, scandals and seductions, fountains playing in deserted squares and crowds thronging the markets.

And there is a dark undertone too, of shadowy corners and dead ends, prisons and punishment. The language and way of thinking of the Venetians sets them aside from the rest of Italy.

They are an island people, linked to the sea and to the tides rather than the land.'The moon rules Venice,' Ackroyd writes: 'It is built on ocean shells and ocean ground; it has the aspect of infinity.

It is the floating world... changing and variable and accidental.

'This book, like a magic gondola, transports its readers to that sensual, surprising realm.

We could have no better guide - reading Ackroyd's Venice is, in itself, a glorious journey and the perfect holiday.

[Daveo]

A History Of British Serial Killing by David Wilson. . ...

Find this and many more in our huge True Crime section @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

In this informative book, David Wilson tells the stories of Britain's serial killers from Jack the Ripper to the extraordinary Suffolk Murders case.

David Wilson has worked as a prison governor & as a profiler, & has been described as the UK's leading expert on serial killers.

[Daveo]

Lost in Shangri-la: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II - by Mitchell Zuckoff

@ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

“A lost world, man-eating tribesmen, lush and impenetrable jungles, stranded American fliers (one of them a dame with great gams, for heaven's sake), a startling rescue mission. . . . This is a true story made in heaven for a writer as talented as Mitchell Zuckoff. Whew—what an utterly compelling and deeply satisfying read!" —Simon Winchester, author of Atlantic Award-winning former Boston Globe reporter Mitchell Zuckoff Unleashes the exhilarating, untold story of an extraordinary World War II rescue mission, where a plane crash in the South Pacific plunged a trio of U.S.military personnel into a land that time forgot. Fans of Hampton Sides’ Ghost Soldiers, Marcus Luttrell’s Lone Survivor, and David Grann’s The Lost City of Z will be captivated by Zuckoff’s masterfully recounted, all-true story of danger, daring, determination, and discovery in jungle-clad New Guinea during the final days of WWII.

[Daveo]

A Woman of Bangkok by Jack Reynolds. . .

@ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

Acknowledged as one of the most memorable novels about Thailand, “A Woman of Bangkok” was first published to critical acclaim in London in the 1950's and is a classic of Bangkok fiction.

Set in 1950's Thailand, this is the story of an Englishman’s infatuation with a dance-hall hostess named Vilai.

No ordinary prostitute, Vilai is one of the most memorable in literature’s long line of brazen working girls - NOT MUCH HAS CHANGED?

[Daveo]

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco,

Traded in @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

The year is 1327.

Benedictines in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate.

When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective.

His tools are the logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, the empirical insights of Roger Bacon, all sharpened to a glistening edge by wry humor and a ferocious curiosity.

He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey, where “the most interesting things happen at night.”

[Daveo]

Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire - Jason Goodwin .

Traded in @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

For six hundred years, the Ottoman Empire swelled and declined. Islamic, martial, civilized, and tolerant, it advanced in three centuries from the dusty foothills of Anatolia to rule on the Danube and the Nile; at its height, Indian rajahs and the kings of France beseeched the empire's aid.

In its last three hundred years the empire seemed ready to collapse, a prodigy of survival and decay.

In this striking evocation of the empire's power, Jason Goodwin explores how the Ottomans rose and how, against all odds, they lingered on.

In doing so, he also offers a long look back to the origins of problems that plague present-day Kosovars and Serbs.

[Daveo]

Mother London (London Novels #1) by Michael Moorcock...

Traded in @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

Three hospital outpatients all find that they hear voices - the voices of London's past.

As they explore the city of their present day, they also explore its recent past and its forgotten people.

Through the lives of those on the fringe of society, we learn what it is like - and what it has always been like - to live in the great, sprawling, polyphonic, multicoloured capital.

[Daveo]

The Animal Factory by Edward Bunker. .

 

@ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

 

The Animal Factory goes deep into San Quentin, a world of violence and paranoia, where territory and status are ever-changing and possibly fatal commodities.

Ron Decker is a newbie, a drug dealer whose shot at a short two-year stint in the can is threatened from inside and outside.

He's got to keep a spotless record or it's ten to life.

But at San Quentin, no man can steer clear of the Brotherhoods, the race wars, the relentlessness.

It soon becomes clear that some inmates are more equal than others; Earl Copen is one of them, an old-timer who has learned not just to survive but to thrive behind bars.

Not much can surprise him - but the bond he forms with Ron startles them both, it's a true education of a felon.

[Daveo]

The Master by Colm Tóibín. . .

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Beautiful and profoundly moving, The Master tells the story of Henry James, a man born into one of America’s first intellectual families who leaves his country in the late nineteenth century to live in Paris, Rome, Venice, and London among privileged artists and writers.

With stunningly resonant prose, “The Master is unquestionably the work of a first-rate novelist: artful, moving, and very beautiful” The emotional intensity of this portrait is riveting.

[Daveo]

Interzone by William S. Burroughs..

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Interzone portrays the development of Burroughs's mature writing style by presenting a selection of pieces from the mid-1950's.

His outrageous tone of voice represents the exorcism of four decades of oppressive sexual and social conditioning. Burroughs's close observations of humanity - its ugliness and ignorance - invites the reader to dispense with their traditional notions of decorum, and taste the world as he sees it.

[Daveo]

After the Victorians: The Decline of Britain in the World by A.N. Wilson. . .

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The distinguished historian A.N. Wilson has charted, in vivid detail, Britain's rise to world dominance, a tale of how one small island nation came to be the mightiest, richest country on earth, reigning over much of the globe. Now in his much anticipated sequel to the classic The Victorians, he describes how in little more than a generation Britain's power and influence in the world would virtually dissolve. In After the Victorians, Wilson presents a panoramic view of an era, stretching from the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 to the dawn of the cold war in the early 1950s. He offers riveting accounts of the savagery of World War I and the world-altering upheaval of the Communist Revolution. He explains Britain's role in shaping the destiny of the Middle East. And he casts a bright new light on the World War II years: Britain played a central role in defeating Germany but at a severe cost.

The nation would emerge from the war bankrupt and fatally weakened, sidelined from world politics, while America would assume the mantle of dominant world power, facing off against the Soviet Union in the cold war. Wilson's perspective is not confined to the trenches of the battlefield and the halls of parliament: he also examines the parallel story of the beginnings of Modernism-he visits the novelists, philosophers, poets, and painters to see what they reveal about the activities of the politicians, scientists, and generals. Blending military, political, social, and cultural history of the most dramatic kind, A.N. Wilson offers an absorbing portrait of the decline of one of the world's great powers. The result is a fresh account of the birth pangs of the modern world, as well as a timely analysis of imperialism and its discontents.

[Daveo]

African Trilogy: The North African Campaign, 1940-43 by Alan Moorehead. . .

@ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

The reputation of Alan Moorehead as the greatest war correspondent of WWII

'The very best book written by a war correspondent in this war' - The Times Literary Supplement. 'A classic ... Moorehead is more than a first-class reporter.

He is an artist ... Some of the battle scenes stand comparison with the famous battle descriptions of Stendhal and Tolstoy.'

[Daveo]

The Second World War: A World in Flames by Alexander Stilwell (Editor),

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Max Hastings (Foreword) , Geoffrey Jukes (Contributor) , Russell A. Hart (Contributor) , Paul Collier (Contributor) , Alastair Finlan (Contributor) , Mark J. Grove (Contributor) , Philip D. Grove (Contributor)

The period from 1939 to 1945 saw some of the most devastating events in living memory. Existing in the shadows of fear, sacrifice, deprivation and uncertainty, soldiers and civilians of all nationalities were driven to extremes of selfless loyalty, dogged determination or bitter cruelty by the demands of a world at war. Bringing the experience of war to life through a wealth of contemporary documentation, private writings and historical research, this book tells the stories of the men and women who lived and died during the Second World War. Also assessing the political, military and historical significance of the war this truly comprehensive volume covers every fighting front of this horrific war. First published thus in 2004. Previously published separately as: - Essential Histories 18: The Second World War (1) The Pacific by David Horner - Essential Histories 24: The Second World War (2) Europe 1939–1943 by Robin Havers - Essential Histories 30: The Second World War (3) The War at Sea by Alastair Finlan, Mark J. Grove and Philip D. Grove - Essential Histories 32: The Second World War (4) The Mediterranean 1940–1945 by Paul Collier - Essential Histories 35: The Second World War (5) The Eastern Front 1941–1945 by Geoffrey Jukes - Essential Histories 48: The Second World War (6) Northwest Europe 1944–1945 by Russell Hart and Stephen A. Hart

[Daveo]

Catherine the Great: Love, Sex, and Power by Virginia Rounding. . .

Traded in @ Canterbury Tales Bookshop / Book exchange.

Dutiful daughter, frustrated wife, passionate lover, domineering mother, doting grandmother, devoted friend, tireless legislator, generous patron of artists and philosophers - the Empress Catherine II, the Great, was all these things, and more.

Her reign, the longest in Russian Imperial history, lasted from 1762 until her death in 1796; during those years she built on the work begun by her most famous predecessor, Peter the Great, to establish Russia as a major European power and to transform its new capital, St Petersburg, into a city to rival Paris and London in the beauty of its architecture, the glittering splendor of its Court and the magnificence of its art collections.

Yet the great Catherine was not even Russian by birth and had no legitimate claim to the Russian throne; she seized it and held on to it, through wars, rebellions and plagues, by the force of her personality, by her charm and determination, and by an unshakable belief in her own destiny. This is the story of Catherine the woman, whom power alone could never satisfy, for she also wanted love, affection, friendship and humor. She found these in letter-writing, in grandchildren, in gardens, architecture and greyhounds - as well as in a succession of lovers which gave rise to salacious rumors throughout Europe. The real Catherine, however, was more interesting than any rumor. Using many of Catherine's own words from her voluminous correspondence and other documents, as well as contemporary accounts by courtiers, ambassadors and foreign visitors, Virginia Rounding penetrates the character of this most powerful, fascinating and surprisingly sympathetic of eighteenth-century women.