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La moria grandissima began its terrible journey across the European and Asian continents in 1347, leaving unimaginable devastation in its wake. Five years later, twenty-five million people were dead, felled by the scourge that would come to be called the Black Death. The Great Mortality is the extraordinary epic account of the worst natural disaster in European history -- a drama of courage, cowardice, misery, madness, and sacrifice that brilliantly illuminates humankind's darkest days when an old world ended and a new world was born.
A book chronicling one of the worst human disasters in recorded history really has no business being entertaining. But John Kelly's The Great Mortality is a page-turner despite its grim subject matter and g! raphic detail. Credit Kelly's animated prose and uncanny ability to drop his reader smack in the middle of the 14th century, as a heretofore unknown menace stalks Eurasia from "from the China Sea to the sleepy fishing villages of coastal Portugal [producing] suffering and death on a scale that, even after two world wars and twenty-seven million AIDS deaths worldwide, remains astonishing." Take Kelly's vivid description of London in the fall of 1348: "A nighttime walk across Medieval London would probably take only twenty minutes or so, but traversing the daytime city was a different matter.... Imagine a shopping mall where everyone shouts, no one washes, front teeth are uncommon and the shopping music is provided by the slaughterhouse up the road." Yikes, and that's before just about everything with a pulse starts dying and piling up in the streets, reducing the population of Europe by anywhere from a third to 60 percent in a few short years. In addition to taking readers o! n a walking tour through plague-ravaged Europe, Kelly heaps on! the anc illary information and every last bit of it is captivating. We get a thorough breakdown of the three types of plagues that prey on humans; a detailed account of how the plague traveled from nation to nation (initially by boat via flea-infested rats); how floods (and the appalling hygiene of medieval people) made Europe so susceptible to the disease; how the plague triggered a new social hierarchy favoring women and the proletariat but also sparked vicious anti-Semitism; and especially, how the plague forever changed the way people viewed the church. Engrossing, accessible, and brimming with first-hand accounts drawn from the Middle Ages, The Great Mortality illuminates and inspires. History just doesn't get better than that. --Kim HughesWhat is the Black Death? Where did it come from? Scientists still do not know the origins of this deadly plague. Appearing miraculously in 542 A.D., the devastating outbreak claimed 100 million lives. Winding its way from Egypt,! through Asia Minor and into Europe, the devastation lasted 52 years and disappeared as mysteriously as it arrived. Many believed that the plague was sent from God as punishment for the world's sins. How was the cure for the plague finally discovered? Is it still with us today? These are some of the many questions we will explore in this program.
Paris, 1937. Andras Lévi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he promised to deliver. But when he falls into a complicated relationship with the letter's recipient, he becomes privy to a secret that will alter the course of hisâ"and his familyâsâ"history.
From the small Hungarian town of Konyár to the grand opera houses of Budapest and Paris, from the despair of Carpathian winter to an unimaginable life in labor camps, The Invisible Bridge tells the story of a family shattered and remade in historyâs darkest hour.
Amazon Best Books of the Month, May 2010: Even if thi! s weren't her first novel, Julie Orringer's Invisible Bridge would be a marvelous achievement. Orringer possesses a rare talent that makes a 600-page story--which, we know, must descend into war and genocide--feel rivetingly readable, even at its grimmest. Building vivid worlds in effortless phrases, she immerses us in 1930s Budapest just as a young Hungarian Jew, Andras Lévi, departs for the Ãcole Spéciale d'Architecture in Paris. He hones his talent for design, works backstage in a theater, and allies with other Jewish students in defiance of rising Nazi influence. And then he meets Klara, a captivating Hungarian ballet instructor nine years his senior with a painful past and a willful teenage daughter. Against Klara's better judgment, love engulfs them, drowning out the rumblings of war for a time. But inevitably, Nazi aggression drives them back to Hungary, where life for the Jews goes from hardship to horror. As in Dr. Zhivago, these lovers can't escape his! tory's merciless machinery, but love gives them the courage to! endure. --Mari Malcolm
A Masterpiece Theatre Presentation
Piece of Cake follows the adventures, heartaches and rites of passage of the fighter pilots of RAF ! Hornet Squadron during World War II.
Piece of Cake marks the coming of age of young men prepared to die for their country. Whatever their own personal qualities, there are heroes in abundance and a rich cross-section of characters from the pilots-to the back-up team at base. The other heroes are the planes themselves. Under ex-Red Arrows aerobatics team leader Ray Hanna (Flyboys), this series features some of the most exciting aerial photography and special effects ever seen.
Beyond Freedom Writers
More Inspirational Teacher Films on DVD | The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell | More DVDs Starring Hilary Swank |
Beyond Freedom Writers
More Inspirational Teacher Films on DVD | The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell | More DVDs Starring Hilary Swank |
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
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Reenter the shadowy world of Jason Bourne, an expert assassin still plagued by the splintered nightmares of his former life. This time the stakes are higher than ever. For someone else has taken on the Bourne identityâ"a ruthless killer who must be stopped or the world will pay a devastating price. To succeed, the real Jason Bourne must maneuver through the dangerous labyrinth of international espionageâ"an exotic world filled with CIA plots, turncoat agents, and ever-shifting alliancesâ"all the while hoping to find the truth behind his haunted memories and the answers to his own fragmented past. This time there are two Bournesâ"and one must ! die.
Hoping to find solace from the demons that haunt her, Vail makes her first trip to the Napa Valley. But shortly after arriving, a victim is found in the deepest reaches of an exclusive wine cave, the work of an extraordinarily unpredictable serial killer. From the outset, Vail is frustrated by her inability to profile the offenderâ"until she realizes why: the Behavioral Analysis Unit has not previously encountered a killer like him.
As Vail and the task force work around the clock to identify and locate him, theyâre caught in a web knotted with secretive organizations, a decades-long feud between prominent wine families, and widespread corruption that leads Vail to wonder whom, if anyone, she can trust. Meanwhile, as the victim count rises, Vail can't shake the gnawing sense that something isn't right.
With the killerâs actions threatening the Napa Valleyâs multi-billion dollar industry, the stakes have never been! greater, and the race to find the killer never more urgent.
And through it all, a surprise lurksâ¦one that Karen Vail never sees coming.
Meticulously researched during years of work with the FBI profiling unit and extensive interviews with wine industry professionals, bestselling author Alan Jacobson delivers a high-velocity thriller featuring the kind of edge-of-your-seat ending that inspired Nelson DeMille to call him "a hell of a writer."
Beyond The Bourne Ultimatum on DVD
More Bourne | More Action from Universal Studios | More Matt Damon |
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Beyond The Bourne Ultimatum on DVD
More Bourne | More Action from Universal Studios | More Matt Damon |
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
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At a small-town carnival, two men, each mysteriously summoned by telegram, witness a bizarre killing. The telegrams are signed âJason Bourne.â Only they know Bourneâs true identity and understand that the telegrams are really a message from Bourneâs mortal enemy, Carlos, known also as the Jackal, the worldâs deadliest and most elusive terrorist. And furthermore, they know what the Jackal wants: a final confrontation with Bourne. Now David Webb, professor of Oriental studies, husband, and father, must do what he hoped never to do againâ"assume the terrible identity of Jason Bourne. His plan is simple: to infiltrate the politically and economically omnipotent Medusan group and use himself as bait to lure the cunning Jackal into a deadly trapâ"a trap from which only one of them will escape.