John Saturnall's Feast

John Saturnall's Feast PDF Author: Lawrence Norfolk
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802193951
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
“An enthralling tale of an orphan kitchen boy turned master of culinary arts, with sumptuous recipes and intoxicatingly gorgeous illustrations.” —Vanity Fair A beautiful, rich and sensuous historical novel, John Saturnall’s Feast tells the story of a young orphan who becomes a kitchen boy at a manor house, and rises through the ranks to become the greatest cook of his generation. It is a story of food, star-crossed lovers, ancient myths, and one boy’s rise from outcast to hero. Orphaned when his mother dies of starvation, having been cast out of her village as a witch, John is taken in at the kitchens at Buckland Manor, where he quickly rises from kitchen boy to cook, and is known for his uniquely keen palate and natural cooking ability. However, he quickly gets on the wrong side of Lady Lucretia, the aristocratic daughter of the Lord of the Manor. In order to inherit the estate, Lucretia must wed, but her fiancé is an arrogant buffoon. When Lucretia takes on a vow of hunger until her father calls off her engagement to her insipid husband-to-be, it falls to John to try to cook her delicious foods that might tempt her to break her fast. “Shimmering with wonder, suffused with an intense and infectious appreciation for the gifts of bountiful nature, John Saturnall’s Feast is a banquet for the senses and a treat to anyone who relishes masterful storytelling.” —The Washington Post

John Saturnall's Feast

John Saturnall's Feast PDF Author: Lawrence Norfolk
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802193951
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 309

Get Book

Book Description
“An enthralling tale of an orphan kitchen boy turned master of culinary arts, with sumptuous recipes and intoxicatingly gorgeous illustrations.” —Vanity Fair A beautiful, rich and sensuous historical novel, John Saturnall’s Feast tells the story of a young orphan who becomes a kitchen boy at a manor house, and rises through the ranks to become the greatest cook of his generation. It is a story of food, star-crossed lovers, ancient myths, and one boy’s rise from outcast to hero. Orphaned when his mother dies of starvation, having been cast out of her village as a witch, John is taken in at the kitchens at Buckland Manor, where he quickly rises from kitchen boy to cook, and is known for his uniquely keen palate and natural cooking ability. However, he quickly gets on the wrong side of Lady Lucretia, the aristocratic daughter of the Lord of the Manor. In order to inherit the estate, Lucretia must wed, but her fiancé is an arrogant buffoon. When Lucretia takes on a vow of hunger until her father calls off her engagement to her insipid husband-to-be, it falls to John to try to cook her delicious foods that might tempt her to break her fast. “Shimmering with wonder, suffused with an intense and infectious appreciation for the gifts of bountiful nature, John Saturnall’s Feast is a banquet for the senses and a treat to anyone who relishes masterful storytelling.” —The Washington Post

John Saturnall's Feast

John Saturnall's Feast PDF Author: Lawrence Norfolk
Publisher: FT Press
ISBN: 1408833298
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 555

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Book Description
Taken in at the kitchens at Buckland Manor after the cruel death of his mother, young John quickly rises from kitchen boy to cook before catching the attention of the daughter of the lord of the manor, who resolves to starve herself until her father calls off her unwanted engagement.

Christmas: its origin and associations

Christmas: its origin and associations PDF Author: William Francis Dawson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Christmas
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description


John Saturnall's Feast

John Saturnall's Feast PDF Author: Lawrence Norfolk
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408831163
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
In the remote village of Buckland, a mob chants of witchcraft. It is 1625, and John and his mother are running for their lives. Taking refuge among the trees of Buccla's Wood, John's mother opens her book and begins to tell her son of an ancient Feast kept in secret down the generations. Little does he know that one day, to keep hold of all that he holds most dear, he most realize his mother's vision - he must serve the Saturnall Feast.

Twentieth Century Pleasures

Twentieth Century Pleasures PDF Author: Robert Hass
Publisher: New York : Ecco Press
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
A selection of essays written during the last five years on the importance and vitality of poetry.

Lemprière's Dictionary

Lemprière's Dictionary PDF Author: Lawrence Norfolk
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802199437
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 861

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Book Description
The Somerset Maugham Prize–winning, international bestselling debut novel: “a dazzling linguistic and formal achievement” set in 18th century London (Salman Rushdie). In eighteenth-century London, John Lempriere works feverishly on a celebrated dictionary of classical mythology that bears his name. But when he discovers a conspiracy against his family dating back 150 years, he embarks on a personal mission that will pit him against enemies he never new he had, allies he never thought he would ever want, and a destiny he never imagined . . . Told with the narrative drive of a political thriller and a Dickensian panorama of place and time, this “superbly entertaining” tale encompasses multinational conspiracies and a motley cast of scholars, eccentrics, prostitutes, assassins, drunken aristocrats, and octogenarian pirates—all brilliantly depicted across three continents and the world of classical mythology (The Washington Post).

The Pope's Rhinoceros

The Pope's Rhinoceros PDF Author: Lawrence Norfolk
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802199429
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 1014

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Book Description
“The acclaimed author of Lemprière’s Dictionary furnishes another richly textured romp steeped in history, legend, and excitement.” —Booklist The Pope’s Rhinoceros is a vivid, antic, and picaresque novel spun around one of history’s most bizarre chapters: the sixteenth-century attempt to procure a rhinoceros as a bribe for Pope Leo X. In February 1516, a Portuguese ship sank off the coast of Italy. The Nostra Senora de Ajuda had sailed fourteen thousand miles from the Indian kingdom of Gujarat. Her mission: to bribe the “pleasure-loving Pope” into favoring expansionist Portugal over her rival Spain with the most exotic and least likely of gifts — a living rhinoceros. Moving from the herring colonies of the Baltic Sea to the West African rain forest, with a cast of characters including an order of reclusive monks and Rome’s corrupt cardinals, courtesans, ambassadors, and nobles, The Pope’s Rhinoceros is at once a fantastic adventure tale and a portrait of an age rushing headlong to its crisis. “An exhausting banquet of a book . . . One of the most original, energetic, and ambitious novels of recent years.” —Kirkus Reviews “Mr. Norfolk’s heady originality and intellectual energy are apparent on every page.” —The New York Times Book Review

Tokyo Doesn't Love Us Anymore

Tokyo Doesn't Love Us Anymore PDF Author: Ray Loriga
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802199461
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
This dreamlike dystopian novel “shines a dark spotlight on the modern allure of pharmaceuticals’ seeming power to assuage all ills” (Booklist). Set in the very near future, this is the story of a traveling salesman floating from arid Arizona parking lots to steamy Bangkok bars and beyond to peddle the hottest new commodity for a group known only as The Company. What he has is a drug that erases memory. You can choose your oblivion, be it one mistake or a lifetime of pain. But things become hazy when our hero begins sampling the goods and reaches the point where he can’t even remember what it is he cannot remember. A pitch-perfect piece for our times filled with hypnotic prose, Tokyo Doesn’t Love Us Anymore is both a riveting story and a thoughtful exploration of the drug culture that surrounds us, the nature of forgetfulness, and the implacable tyranny of emotions—questioning what it means to be human when everything, including human identity, can be bought. “Part crime novel, part political allegory, part love story . . . Compelling.” —The New York Times Book Review

In the Shape of a Boar

In the Shape of a Boar PDF Author: Lawrence Norfolk
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
ISBN: 0802193676
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
“One of the year’s most imaginative and challenging novels” from the acclaimed author of John Saturnall’s Feast (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Lawrence Norfolk’s In the Shape of a Boar is a juggernaut of a novel, an epic tour de force of love and betrayal, ancient myths and modern horrors. The story begins in the ancient world of mythic Greece, where a dark tale of treachery and destructive love unfolds amid the hunt for the Boar of Kalydon—a tale that will reverberate in those same hills across the millennia in the final chaotic months of World War II, as a band of Greek partisans pursues an S.S. officer on a mission of vengeance. After the war, a young Jewish Romanian refugee, Solomon Memel, who was among the hunters will create a poem based on the experience, which becomes an international literary sensation. But the truth of what happened in the hills of Kalydon in 1945 is more complicated than it seems, and as the older Sol reunites with his childhood love in 1970s Paris, the dark memories and horrors of those days will emerge anew. “An epic achievement . . . stitching together classical Greek culture and twentieth-century barbarism, the nature of human evil and the ambiguity of storytelling itself . . . Dazzling.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Brilliant and exhaustively researched . . . In the Shape of a Boar is a Herculean task accomplished with bravado and style, but more than that, it’s storytelling of the highest echelon.”—The Hartford Courant “Wonderfully complex . . . a fascinating story built from layered narrative lines.”—The Washington Post Book World

The Ballad of a Small Player

The Ballad of a Small Player PDF Author: Lawrence Osborne
Publisher: Hogarth
ISBN: 0804137994
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
A riveting tale of risk and obsession set in the alluring world of Macau’s casinos, by the author of the critically acclaimed The Forgiven. As night falls on Macau and the neon signs that line the rain-slick streets come alive, Doyle – “Lord Doyle” to his fellow players – descends into his casino of choice to try his luck at the baccarat tables that are the anchor of his current existence. A corrupt English lawyer who has escaped prosecution by fleeing to the East, Doyle spends his nights drinking and gambling and his days sleeping off his excesses, continually haunted by his past. Taking refuge in a series of louche and dimly lit hotels, he watches his fortune rise and fall as the cards decide his fate. In a moment of crisis he meets Dao-Ming, an enigmatic Chinese woman who appears to be a denizen of the casinos just like himself, and seems to offer him salvation in the form of both money and love. But as Doyle attempts to make a rare and true connection, all that he accepts as reality seems to be slipping from his grasp. Resonant of classics by Dostoevsky and Graham Greene, The Ballad of a Small Player is a timeless tale steeped in eerie suspense and rich atmosphere.