In May 1940, as Hitler's armies tear through France, two battalions of Guards are rushed to Boulogne in a desperate attempt to hold back the German advance.Lieutenant Jimmy Gale never expected to join them. Yet within hours he is leading a hastily assembled force of young sailors into a city already descending into chaos. Poorly trained for land warfare and armed with little more than rifles, they must face tanks, machine guns, mortar fire and relentless attacks from the air. Their...

Sentimental aesthetics have come to vex contemporary literature. The relation between feeling and acting is increasingly contested, and emotional entanglements in the lives of others often seem suspect. Literary criticism, meanwhile, wrestles with its own purpose when confronting representations of vulnerability, inequity, and injustice.David James explores what happens when writers’ affective ambitions coincide with criticism’s hunger for social consequence. He considers caregivin...

Friday, 12th February, 1993. Two outwardly unremarkable ten-year-old boys began the day by playing truant and ended it running an errand for the local video shop. In between they abducted and killed a two-year-old boy, James Bulger. In search of an explanation, award-winning journalist David James Smith looks behind the misinformation, misunderstanding and sensational reporting to an exact account of the events of that day. A sensitive and definitive account, The Sleep of Reason a...

**An epic comedy about the quest for transcendence in an anything-but-transcendent America, set amid the gorgeous landscapes of the American west: A “spiritual journey” full of “fun, joy, love, courage and compassion” (**Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Powers) from the author of the perennial cult bestsellers The River Why and The Brothers K.A random bolt from a DC-8 falls from the sky, killing a child and throwing the faith...

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOKOnce in a great while a writer comes along who can truly capture the drama and passion of the life of a family. David James Duncan, author of the novel The River Why and the collection River Teeth, is just such a writer. And in The Brothers K he tells a story both striking and in its originality and poignant in its universality.This touching, uplifting novel spans decades of loyalty, anger, re...

Reaching back hundreds of years, this volume is the first major English edition to include all the prayers needed to read the Slavic Psalter at home in the Orthodox tradition. The contents include many texts traditionally printed in Orthodox Psalters and not easily found in English. With psalms and biblical canticles adapted from the classic Coverdale translation of the Book of Psalms and the King James Version of the Bible, this record has been carefully edited to agree with the original ...

“A CULT CLASSIC WAITING ON ITS CULT.”—William Boyle, author of City of MarginsRecently fired from his job, Dave sets out on a manic, misguided quest for answers up the food chain of law enforcement corruption and down the increasingly bizarre Florida coastline. Battling cops, biker gangs, backwoods Bigfoot hunters, and getting tangled in tourist traps (both figurative and literal), he eventually stumbles onto a conspiracy involving body cameras, love locks, ...

In his passionate, luminous novels, David James Duncan has won the devotion of countless critics and readers, earning comparisons to Harper Lee, Tom Robbins, and J.D. Salinger, to name just a few. Now Duncan distills his remarkable powers of observation into this unique collection of short stories and essays.At the heart of Duncan's tales are characters undergoing the complex and violent process of transformation, with results both painful and wondrous. Equally affecting are his no...

This charming collection of twenty whimsical limericks invites young readers into a world where imagination takes centre stage and nonsense becomes a powerful tool for learning. Each poem introduces a delightful character—whether a fox who loves fairy tales, a hedgehog devoted to balloons, or a dolphin searching for the perfect hat—and uses playful rhythm and rhyme to spark curiosity, laughter, and creative thinking.Designed with early readers in mind, this book blends entertainmen...

'Luminous' The Times'Beautiful’ Caught by the RiverBringing together contemporary Scottish writing on nature and landscape, this inspiring collection takes us from walking to wild swimming, from red deer to pigeons and wasps, from remote islands to back gardens, through prose, poetry and photography.Edited and introduced by Kathleen Jamie, and with contributions from Amy Liptrot, Jim Crumley, Chitra Ramaswamy, Malac...

Welcome to the world of poems for fun.This book continues the journey begun in the earlier Limericks for Fun series. As with the previous collections, it uses clear, easily recognisable patterns designed to encourage children—and all who remain young at heart—to experiment with creating stories of their own through the familiar structure of poems. Readers need only imagine a tale and begin with the repeated opening lines, which support pattern recognition while allowing each poem t...

Welcome to the world of poems for fun.This book continues the journey begun in the earlier Limericks for Fun series. As with the previous collections, it uses clear, easily recognisable patterns designed to encourage children—and all who remain young at heart—to experiment with creating stories of their own through the familiar structure of poems. Readers need only imagine a tale and begin with the repeated opening lines, which support pattern recognition while allowing each poem t...