![]() He was an extremely bright student, mastering Shakespeare, current poets, French, Latin, philosophy, politics, geography, theology, and mathematics. Life on the farm in western Scotland was harsh and Robert worked long hours with his father.īurn's father recognized the value of education and he managed to hire a local teacher to tutor Robert. The family farm was not successful and the family moved from farm to farm. The family cottage still stands as a proud tourist attraction. Robert Burns's family raised seven children on sparse, rented farmland on the west coast of Scotland. His life is like a love story with a happy ending. He has become almost a national symbol of all things Scottish. He lived a life shortened by rheumatic heart disease, 1759-1796, but his life journey through poverty, informal education, disappointed love, nationalism, and literary and financial success can be identified by all Scots and common men the world over. ![]() Robert Burns, a poor man, an educated man, and a ladies' man, is representative of Scotland, much like whisky, haggis, bagpipes, and kilts. ![]()
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![]() To obtain the timber for their raft the author and a companion made a risky journey through the inland forests of South America - an adventure story in itself. After a voyage full of danger but packed with interest they reached the islands where Kon=Tiki was wrecked on a coral reef. Mr Heyerdahl was convinced that the original Polynesians had come by sea from South America, and to prove that such a voyage was possible at that remote period, he and his party built the Kon-Tiki, similar to the rafts then used, and embarked on it. "The story of a daring voyage by the author and five companions on board a primitive raft fro the coast of Peru to the Pacific Islands. ![]() Very Good Condition, some edge and shelf wear, some rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, foxing to fore-edges, some discolouration to covers, price-clipped dust-jacket shows wear with tears, chips and parts missing, larger tears have been repaired, some soiling to centre (see photographs) Title: The Kon-Tiki Expedition Item Condition: used item in a good condition. George Allen & Unwin, 1951, photographic frontispiece, black and white photographic plates, hardcover, dust-jacket ![]() ![]() ![]() It appeared in Australia in 1974, when Murnane was 35.Ī self-mythologising work of fiction, Tamarisk Row enfolds horse-racing, Catholicism and sin into the birth of its hero. Tamarisk Row, a novel about the nine-year-old son of a front man for a professional punter, took ten years to write. (They became reliable winners for their new owners.) Reginald’s death, when his disappointing son was 21, was liberating for Murnane, though liberation took a while. The ‘equine Gerald’ and later a horse called Geraldo were nominally owned by Reginald and sold when, after a win or two, they proved disappointments. ![]() ![]() Estershank, an ‘evil genius’ according to Murnane, used friends like Reginald as dummy owners for the horses he bought, trained and bet on. His father, Reginald, was a front man for Teddy Estershank, a professional punter who was banned from being a licensed trainer or registered owner of horses by racecourses around Melbourne. G erald Murnane was named after a racehorse. ![]() ![]() Up till then I had hardly noticed my companion, but I was now violently recalled to the fact of her existence. I had made a somewhat hurried departure from the hotel and was busy assuring myself that I had duly collected all my traps when the train started. ![]() The Calais express was singularly empty-in fact, my own compartment held only one other traveller. I had been transacting some business in Paris and was returning by the morning service to London where I was still sharing rooms with my old friend, the Belgian ex-detective, Hercule Poirot. Only the lady who gave utterance to the exclamation was not a Duchess! ![]() Strangely enough, this tale of mine opens in much the same fashion. I believe that a well-known anecdote exists to the effect that a young writer, determined to make the commencement of his story forcible and original enough to catch and rivet the attention of the most blasé of editors, penned the following sentence: ![]() ![]() ![]() She is the creator of two of the most enduring figures in crime literature-Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple-and author of The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the history of modern theatre.Īgatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in Torquay, Devon, England, U.K., as the youngest of three. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author, having been translated into at least 103 languages. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and a billion in translation. She wrote 66 crime novels and story collections, fourteen plays, and six novels under a pseudonym in Romance. Agatha Christie also wrote romance novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, and was occasionally published under the name Agatha Christie Mallowan.ĭame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie is the best-selling author of all time. ![]() ![]() ‘Alan Garner is indisputably the great originator, the most important British writer of fantasy since Tolkien.’ Philip Pullman ![]() It has been an enormous inspiration to me and countless other writers, and is as enjoyable and fascinating now as it was when I first read it, wide-eyed and mesmerised at the age of ten.’ Garth Nix ‘The Weirdstone of Brisingamen is one of the most important books in children’s fantasy. First published in 1960, The Weirdstone was the debut novel of Cheshire based author, Alan Garner and over the past half century has come to be recognised alongside the finest works of children’s fantasy. On the tenth day, of the tenth month, of the tenth year of this millennium, HarperCollins published the 50th anniversary edition of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. ![]() The children realise that they are the key to its return, but how can mere children stand against an ancient evil bent on destroying the world. Here he watches over the sleep of one hundred and forty knights, awaiting the fated hour when they must rise and fight.īut the Weirdstone of Brisingamen is lost, and without it the wizard cannot hold back the forces of evil for long. ![]() ![]() When Colin and Susan are pursued by eerie creatures across Alderley Edge, the wizard - Cadellin Silverbrow – takes them to safety deep in the caves of Fundindelve. ![]() ![]() ![]() Her latest book, Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto, a Publishers Weekly most-anticipated book of spring 2016, was praised by The New York Times as "vital and mischievous" and as "wide-ranging. In April 2010, she launched The Accidental Theologist, a blog casting "an agnostic eye on religion, politics, and existence." In September 2011, she received The Stranger's Genius Award in Literature and in fall 2012, she was the Inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at Town Hall Seattle. "The danger is one-dimensional thinking". Hazleton has described herself as "a Jew who once seriously considered becoming a rabbi, a former convent schoolgirl who daydreamed about being a nun, an agnostic with a deep sense of religious mystery though no affinity for organized religion". ![]() īorn in England, she was based in Jerusalem from 1966 to 1979 and in New York City from 1979 to 1992, when she moved to a floating home in Seattle, originally to get her pilot's license, and became a U.S. Hazleton has reported from Jerusalem for Time, and has written on the Middle East for numerous publications including The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Harper's, The Nation, and The New Republic. Lesley Hazleton (born 1945) is a British-American author whose work focuses on the intersection and interactions between politics and religion. ![]() ![]() ![]() My father’s bloody travails were not limited to Scylla or Nisus, I know. I saw her weighed down in the tumultuous water not just by the iron chains in which my father had bound her but also by the terrible truth that she had sacrificed everything she knew for a love as ephemeral and transient as the rainbows that glimmered through the sea spray. I could well believe the truth of it, for the gods did enjoy a prolonged spectacle of pain.īut when I thought of Scylla, I thought of the foolish and all-too-human girl, gasping for breath amid the froth of waves churning in the wake of my father’s boat. ![]() Far from giving her escape from her cruel fate, she was immediately set upon in an endless chase by the crimson-streaked eagle bent upon eternal vengeance. Stories told that, at the moment of her drowning, Scylla was transformed into a seabird. My father, Minos, liked to tell me that story of how his unimpeachable moral conduct won him Megara, the subservience of Athens, and the chance to set a shining example of his impeccable judgment. I am Ariadne, princess of Crete, though my story takes us a long way from the rocky shores of my home. ![]() ![]() ![]() A cast of former cavalrymen, cowboys, and Native performers reenacted “Custer’s Last Fight” at the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn, where Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors repelled a U.S. Cody capitalized on a pervasive sense that a long era of territorial conquest and settlement was coming to an end, and he charmed audiences with a tribute to the closing of the frontier. ![]() ![]() Many of them took in performances staged by Buffalo Bill Cody, a legendary entertainer and army scout. The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of AmericaĪbout 25 million people visited Chicago in 1893 for the World’s Fair. The U.S.-Mexico border near Nogales, Arizona (Robert Bushell/Wikimedia Commons) Trump’s wall is a “monument to the final closing of the frontier.” He has abandoned the political language of boundless optimism for a darker tone. ![]() ![]() Watson recognized the pattern as a helix because his co-worker Francis Crick had previously published a paper of what the diffraction pattern of a helix would be. Randall, the head of the group, had asked Gosling to share all his data with Wilkins. Rosalind Franklin did not know this at the time because she was leaving King's College London. When it had been decided that Franklin would leave King's College, Gosling showed the photograph to Maurice Wilkins (who would become Gosling's advisor after Franklin left).Ī few days later, Wilkins showed the photo to James Watson after Gosling had returned to working under Wilkins' supervision. Use in discovering structure of DNA Īccording to Raymond Gosling's later account, although photo 51 was an exceptionally clear diffraction pattern of the "B" form of DNA, Franklin was more interested in solving the diffraction pattern of the "A" form of DNA, so she put Gosling's photo 51 to the side. ![]() It was critical evidence in identifying the structure of DNA. The image was tagged "photo 51" because it was the 51st diffraction photograph that Franklin had taken. Photo 51 is an X-ray based fiber diffraction image of a paracrystalline gel composed of DNA fiber taken by Raymond Gosling, a graduate student working under the supervision of Rosalind Franklin in May 1952 at King's College London, while working in Sir John Randall's group. ![]() |
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