NIV Thinline Black Hardback Bible: NIV : New International Version
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With over 400 million Bibles in print, the New International Version is the world's most popular...
The Plays and Poems of Nicholas Rowe: Poems and Lucan's Pharsalia: Volume IV: (Books I-III)
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Nicholas Rowe was the first Poet Laureate of the Georgian era. A fascinating and important yet...
Making Love in the Twelfth Century: Letters of Two Lovers in Context
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Nine hundred years ago in Paris, a teacher and his brilliant female student fell in love and...
A Loeb Classical Library Reader
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This selection of lapidary nuggets drawn from 33 of antiquity's major authors includes poetry,...
NIV Tiny White Christening Bible
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With a beautiful foiling pattern on both the book and box, silver gilt edges, family tree and ribbon...
Euripides III: Heracles, the Trojan Women, Iphigenia Among the Taurians, Ion
Glenn W. Most, David Grene, Richmond Lattimore and Mark Griffith
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Sixty years ago, the University of Chicago Press undertook a momentous project: a new translation of...
Euripides IV: Helen, the Phoenician Women, Orestes
Glenn W. Most, David Grene, Richmond Lattimore and Mark Griffith
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Sixty years ago, the University of Chicago Press undertook a momentous project: a new translation of...
ClareR (5674 KP) rated The Country of Others in Books
Sep 19, 2021
Mathilde falls in love with, and marries, Amine Belhaj, a Moroccan stationed in Alsace. After the war, she sails to Morocco to live with Amine on his family farm. Life is so different to that in France, and Mathilde struggles to adapt. The French there shun her because of her husband, and Moroccans are suspicious of her because she’s French.
It’s a time of great upheaval in the 1950’s, as the Moroccans fight for independence from France, and life becomes increasingly dangerous for the Belhaj’s.
It’s a challenging life for Mathilde: she has to work hard, and Amine has a very fixed idea of a wife’s role. When she doesn’t stick to his rules, voices her opinions or disagrees, Amine beats her - he’s a violent man, scarred by the things that he saw and experienced in the war.
Mathilde does manage to insist that their daughter, Aicha, goes to a good French speaking school, and Aicha proves to be a good, diligent student - but the other girls at school are poisoned by their parents views: they’re very unkind and bully her.
There is a real feel for the heat and dust of Morocco. The contrasting cultures and religions of Christianity and Islam are shown, as well as the roles of women and how they are restricted in the light of their religions and it’s traditions. It looks at what it is to be a foreigner in a strange land; belonging, both in a country and a family; and the Moroccan struggle for independence from France.
This is going to be a trilogy, and I’m already fully invested in it - I can’t wait for the next book. Sam Taylor’s translation is perfect, and I hope that they’ll be translating the subsequent books as well.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for helping me (yet again!) with my NetGalley reading, and to Faber for my ebook copy through NetGalley.
BookwormMama14 (18 KP) rated Esther: Royal Beauty (Dangerous Beauty, #1) in Books
Jan 2, 2019
Hadassah (Esther) is a Jewish girl living in the royal city of Susa, in the great land of Persia, ruled by all powerful King Xerxes. Orphaned at a young age, her cousin Mordecai and his wife Miriam raise Hadassah as their own daughter. King Xerxes’ wife Vashti has defied him. His advisers suggest that she be dismissed as Queen, or the women of Persia will begin to treat their husbands the same way. The King becomes lonely however, and therefore sends out a nationwide search for a new wife. When everything has been arranged for Hadassah’s marriage to a local Jewish man, her world is turned upside down. Brought to the palace against her will, will she please the King and become his Queen? Or will she live out her life anonymously in the harem?
Being a familiar Bible story to me, Esther: Royal Beauty was a relaxing book to read, because I knew how it would end. Angela Hunt did a wonderful job filling in the spaces of the story that have been left up to our imagination. I enjoyed learning a little bit more about King Xerxes as well. I read the book of Esther in the Bible after I finished this book and was pleasantly surprised to know that the author was very accurate with the interpretation. She even quoted word for word dialogue found in the New Living Translation. Very intriguing to anyone who enjoys bringing more life and depth to traditional Bible stories.
I received a free copy of Esther: Royal Beauty from Bethany House Publishers and a free digital copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
Eleanor Marx: A Life
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Unrestrained by convention, lionhearted and free, Eleanor Marx (1855-98) was an exceptional woman....