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The seventeenth-century French diplomat François de Callières once wrote that "an ambassador resembles in some way an actor exposed on the stage to the eyes of the public in order to play great roles." The comparison of the diplomat to an actor became commonplace as the practice of diplomacy took hold in early modern Europe. More than an abstract metaphor, it reflected the rich culture of spectacular entertainment that was a backdrop to emissaries' day-to-day lives. Royal courts routinely honored visiting diplomats or celebrated treaty negotiations by staging grandiose performances incorporating dance, music, theater, poetry, and pageantry. These entertainments—allegorical ballets, masquerade balls, chivalric tournaments, operas, and comedies—often addressed pertinent themes such as war, peace, and international unity in their subject matter. In both practice and content, the extravagant exhibitions were fully intertwined with the culture of diplomacy. But exactly what kind of diplomatic work did these spectacles perform?

Ellen R. Welch contends that the theatrical and performing arts had a profound influence on the development of modern diplomatic practices in early modern Europe. Using France as a case study, Welch explores the interconnected histories of international relations and the theatrical and performing arts. Her book argues that theater served not merely as a decorative accompaniment to negotiations, but rather underpinned the practices of embodied representation, performance, and spectatorship that constituted the culture of diplomacy in this period. Through its examination of the early modern precursors to today's cultural diplomacy initiatives, her book investigates the various ways in which performance structures international politics still.

In A Theatre Geek’s Guide to Disney, Google, and the NFL, Brett Axler pulls back the curtain to reveal the steps from his journey and the lessons he learned along the way. From his early years in community and regional theater to landing his first job with an NFL-team, Axler shares the simple and normally overlooked steps applicants can take to land their dream job. He busts the classic experience and education requirement myths and outlines the powerful alternatives that make applicants stand out from the crowd. Using his own personal victories and defeats along with stories from the dozens of students and young professionals that he’s mentored, Axler shares the step-by-step do’s and don’ts of navigating a young career.

Through his years at Comcast and Disney to his recent adventures that led him to Google, Axler shares his insights about education, professional networking, job searching, applying for the job, getting a resume to the top of the pile, and nailing an interview. With A Theatre Geek’s Guide to Disney, Google, and the NFL, buckle up for a wild story full of priceless know-how from a theatre geek that accidentally found himself in professional sports and corporate America.

Combining phenomenological analysis with dance and performance analysis and affect theory, A Theatre of Affect: The Corporeal Turn in Samuel Beckett's Drama takes stock of the various ways in which the body in Samuel Beckett's drama participates in the affective ecology of performance. Affect is here located in the materiality of the body and discussed in relation to the symbolic significance of, for instance, the effort, direction, speed, or duration of a posture, movement, or gesture. Although the meaning of the body in Beckett's stage-images cannot be mapped onto conventional discursive meanings, the significance of the body's formal modulations is affective in the sense that the import of such changes is immediately recognized and felt as significant by spectators. Beckett's theater of affect therefore is predicated on the infinitesimal stirrings of subliminal meaning-making that continuously shape and create the world in experience.

This book provides a new approach to Albrecht Ritschl’s theology. Leif Svensson argues that Ritschl’s theological project must be related to three cultural developments – historical criticism, materialism, and anti-Lutheran polemics – and understood in the context of the de-Christianization of the Bildungsbürgertum in nineteenth-century Germany.

“Albrecht Ritschl remains the great unknown of nineteenth-century theology. In this important study, Leif Svensson sheds new light on Ritschl’s thought by relating it to contemporaneous social and cultural developments. Rooted in deep familiarity with German intellectual life of the time, the book convincingly illustrates the value of a history of theology that is mindful of its various contexts.”
– Johannes Zachhuber
University of Oxford

“I confess I was hesitant to blurb a book on Ritschl, but then I read it. Svensson’s well researched presentation of Ritschl’s thought is compelling and forceful. I highly recommend this book.”
– Stanley Hauerwas
Duke Divinity School

“Svensson’s work ably places Ritschl’s contribution to theology in the broader context of the intellectual and cultural history of the nineteenth century. Students of Protestant theology and thought and all interested in the complex relationship between Christian theology and modernity will learn something of value from this important study.”
– Thomas Albert Howard
Valparaiso University

While many feel that something must be done, few perceive the state of the ecological crisis as a "profound religious problem." While Thomas Berry sought to fire the imagination and motivate his listener to action, Bernard Lonergan was absorbed by the growing gulf between traditional Christian theology and its relevance to modern problems.

This book brings together the work of these dynamic thinkers and examines their mutual contribution to theology for our time and for our planet.

Published in English.

Examines the influence of the Federal Council of Churches’ Department of Race Relations

A Theology of Brotherhood explores how the national umbrella Christian organization, the Federal Council of Churches, acted as a crucial conduit and organizational force for the dissemination of “progressive” views on race in the first half of the twentieth century.

Drawing on years of archival research, Curtis J. Evans shows that the Council’s theological approach to race, and in particular its anti-lynching campaign, were responsible for meaningful progress in some white Protestant churches on racial issues. The book highlights the contributions that their religious vision made in expanding and propagating a civic nationalist tradition that was grounded in a “universal brotherhood” and belief in the equality of all human beings, over against a racial nationalist ideology that conceived of America in ethno-racial terms.

Evans makes the case that this predominantly white religious organization contributed a distinctive religious voice to visions of a pluralistic democracy, racial and ethnic diversity, and social and political reform. The volume adds a missing voice to the literature on lynching in the early twentieth century, which tends to focus primarily on the NAACP and other secular organizations.

Examines the influence of the Federal Council of Churches’ Department of Race Relations

A Theology of Brotherhood explores how the national umbrella Christian organization, the Federal Council of Churches, acted as a crucial conduit and organizational force for the dissemination of “progressive” views on race in the first half of the twentieth century.

Drawing on years of archival research, Curtis J. Evans shows that the Council’s theological approach to race, and in particular its anti-lynching campaign, were responsible for meaningful progress in some white Protestant churches on racial issues. The book highlights the contributions that their religious vision made in expanding and propagating a civic nationalist tradition that was grounded in a “universal brotherhood” and belief in the equality of all human beings, over against a racial nationalist ideology that conceived of America in ethno-racial terms.

Evans makes the case that this predominantly white religious organization contributed a distinctive religious voice to visions of a pluralistic democracy, racial and ethnic diversity, and social and political reform. The volume adds a missing voice to the literature on lynching in the early twentieth century, which tends to focus primarily on the NAACP and other secular organizations.

Everyone agrees that theology has failed; but the question of how to understand and respond to this failure is complex and contested. Against both the radical orthodox attempt to return to a time before the theology’s failure and the deconstructive theological attempt to open theology up to the hope of a future beyond failure, Rose proposes an account of Christian identity as constituted by, not despite, failure. Understanding failure as central to theology opens up new possibilities for confronting Christianity’s violent and kyriarchal history and abandoning the attempt to discover a pure Christ outside of the grotesque materiality of the church.

The Christian mystical tradition begins with Dionysius the Areopagite’s uncomfortable but productive conjunction of Christian theology and Neoplatonism. The tensions generated by this are central to Dionysius’s legacy, visible not only in subsequent theological thought but also in much twentieth century continental philosophy as it seeks to disentangle itself from its Christian ancestry. A Theology of Failure shows how the work of Slavoj Žižek represents an attempt to repeat the original move of Christian mystical theology, bringing together the themes of language, desire, and transcendence not with Neoplatonism but with a materialist account of the world. Tracing these themes through the work of Dionysius and Derrida and through contemporary debates about the gift, violence, and revolution, this book offers a critical theological engagement with Žižek's account of social and political transformation, showing how Žižek's work makes possible a materialist reading of apophatic theology and Christian identity.

Everyone agrees that theology has failed; but the question of how to understand and respond to this failure is complex and contested. Against both the radical orthodox attempt to return to a time before the theology’s failure and the deconstructive theological attempt to open theology up to the hope of a future beyond failure, Rose proposes an account of Christian identity as constituted by, not despite, failure. Understanding failure as central to theology opens up new possibilities for confronting Christianity’s violent and kyriarchal history and abandoning the attempt to discover a pure Christ outside of the grotesque materiality of the church.

The Christian mystical tradition begins with Dionysius the Areopagite’s uncomfortable but productive conjunction of Christian theology and Neoplatonism. The tensions generated by this are central to Dionysius’s legacy, visible not only in subsequent theological thought but also in much twentieth century continental philosophy as it seeks to disentangle itself from its Christian ancestry. A Theology of Failure shows how the work of Slavoj Žižek represents an attempt to repeat the original move of Christian mystical theology, bringing together the themes of language, desire, and transcendence not with Neoplatonism but with a materialist account of the world. Tracing these themes through the work of Dionysius and Derrida and through contemporary debates about the gift, violence, and revolution, this book offers a critical theological engagement with Žižek's account of social and political transformation, showing how Žižek's work makes possible a materialist reading of apophatic theology and Christian identity.

In this book, Hogue re-configures the history of modern America and re-represents the modern American novel, allowing conceptual spaces of race, gender, sex, nature, the non-rational, the non-human, consumption, and class to be critiqued or to be displaced, eventually highlighting that modern American history and literature are not singular. They are much more complex, diverse, heterogeneous, and richer because modern American history is a series of economic, social, anti-colonial, feminist, and political and social movements, levels, and conditions, with a whole interplay of differences. The book explains how, historically and institutionally, in the 1920s and 1930s modern American society and modern American literature have been represented singularly and monoculturally, with modernity breaking with the past/nature/the non-human—animals, plants, the water, the landscape, the non-rational, and/or indifferent forces of nature such as hurricanes.

This book focuses, first, on the transformation of modern American history, literature, and culture, which had begun in the middle of the nineteenth century. The transformation created a new and different and unequal modern American society through a series of events—many of them happening sequentially and simultaneously, the United States in the early 20th century grew into an economic superpower. Second, the book examines the darker side of this unequal modern American society: the legal racial segregation of people of color and the deadly economic exploitation of the working class, women, people of color, colonized nations, incorporated territories and protectorates. Third, it focuses on how vulnerable and marginalized people of color, women, working-class European immigrants, colonized nations, incorporated territories, protectorates, and writers, who were denied justice, difference and equality, resisted, challenged, re-wrote, and transformed this modern America.

The reconfiguration of the history of modern America is explored using Althusser’s concepts of the Repressive State apparatus and the Ideological State apparatuses, and postcolonial, feminist, psychoanalytical, deconstructive, cultural theories and Foucault/Deleuze’s notion of history, showing how the US in the 1920s and 1930s emerged as a rational, mechanical society with a business civilization, where mass production, consumerism and advertising contributed to the construction of the social and the subject. The book explains how progressives, labor unions, workers, the NAACP and the Garvey movement, socialists, communists, bohemians, Asian and Native American resistance movements, the Anti-Imperialist League, and the various sectors of the women’s movements—which co-existed and developed on parallel planes and which, at times, commingle in their becomings—challenged, contested, and, at times, transformed this economically, socially, and racially unequal, modern America.

This is the first in a series of books in which one of the most influential of contemporary art theorists revised from within the conceptions underlying the history of art. The author’s basic idea is that the rigor of linear perspective cannot encompass all of visual experience and that it could be said to generate an oppositional factor with which it interacts dialectically: the cloud.

On a literal level, this could be represented by the absence of the sky, as in Brunelleschi’s legendary first experiments with panels using perspective. Or it could be the vaporous swathes that Correggio uses to mediate between the viewer on earth and the heavenly prospect in his frescoed domes at Parma. Insofar as the cloud is a semiotic operator, interacting with the linear order of perspective, it also becomes a dynamic agent facilitating the creation of new types of pictorial space. (Damisch puts the signifer cloud between slashes to indicate that he deals with clouds as signs instead of realistic elements.)

This way of looking at the history of painting is especially fruitful for the Renaissance and Baroque periods, but it is also valuable for looking at such junctures as the nineteenth century. For example, Damisch invokes Ruskin and Turner, who carry out both in theory and in practice a revision of the conditions of appearances of the cloud as a landscape feature. Even for the twentieth century, he has illuminating things to say about how his reading of cloud applies to the painters Leger and Batthus. In short, Damisch achieves a brilliant and systematic demonstration of a concept of semiotic interaction that touches some of the most crucial features of the Western art tradition.

This is the first in a series of books in which one of the most influential of contemporary art theorists revised from within the conceptions underlying the history of art. The author’s basic idea is that the rigor of linear perspective cannot encompass all of visual experience and that it could be said to generate an oppositional factor with which it interacts dialectically: the cloud.

On a literal level, this could be represented by the absence of the sky, as in Brunelleschi’s legendary first experiments with panels using perspective. Or it could be the vaporous swathes that Correggio uses to mediate between the viewer on earth and the heavenly prospect in his frescoed domes at Parma. Insofar as the cloud is a semiotic operator, interacting with the linear order of perspective, it also becomes a dynamic agent facilitating the creation of new types of pictorial space. (Damisch puts the signifer cloud between slashes to indicate that he deals with clouds as signs instead of realistic elements.)

This way of looking at the history of painting is especially fruitful for the Renaissance and Baroque periods, but it is also valuable for looking at such junctures as the nineteenth century. For example, Damisch invokes Ruskin and Turner, who carry out both in theory and in practice a revision of the conditions of appearances of the cloud as a landscape feature. Even for the twentieth century, he has illuminating things to say about how his reading of cloud applies to the painters Leger and Batthus. In short, Damisch achieves a brilliant and systematic demonstration of a concept of semiotic interaction that touches some of the most crucial features of the Western art tradition.

Sociology has developed theories of social change in the fields of evolution, conflict and modernization, viewing modern society as essentially unstable and conflict driven. However, it has not seriously studied catastrophe. A Theory of Catastrophe develops a sociology of catastrophes, comparing natural, social and political causes and consequences, and the social theories that might offer explanations.

A catastrophe is a general and systematic breakdown of social and political institutions resulting, among other things, in what we could call a catastrophe consciousness.

The Greek ‘cata-strophe’ formed the conclusion to a dramatic sequence of strophes. The cata-strophe was the final act of a drama, namely its denouement. Catastrophic denouements are without hope: genocides, military occupations, plagues, famines and earthquakes. A Theory of Catastrophe analyzes Pompeii, the Black Death, colonial genocide in North America, WWI and the Spanish Flu, and Nazi Germany and finally this century: terrorism, new wars, climate change and pandemics.

As a study of sociological theory, Bryan Turner discusses Spengler’s Decline of the West, Marxism as a theory of catastrophic capitalism, messianic movements, Weber on modernity, and risk society. He concludes by comparing optimism and pessimism, and the idea of inter-generational justice.

Sociology has developed theories of social change in the fields of evolution, conflict and modernization, viewing modern society as essentially unstable and conflict driven. However, it has not seriously studied catastrophe. A Theory of Catastrophe develops a sociology of catastrophes, comparing natural, social and political causes and consequences, and the social theories that might offer explanations.

A catastrophe is a general and systematic breakdown of social and political institutions resulting, among other things, in what we could call a catastrophe consciousness.

The Greek ‘cata-strophe’ formed the conclusion to a dramatic sequence of strophes. The cata-strophe was the final act of a drama, namely its denouement. Catastrophic denouements are without hope: genocides, military occupations, plagues, famines and earthquakes. A Theory of Catastrophe analyzes Pompeii, the Black Death, colonial genocide in North America, WWI and the Spanish Flu, and Nazi Germany and finally this century: terrorism, new wars, climate change and pandemics.

As a study of sociological theory, Bryan Turner discusses Spengler’s Decline of the West, Marxism as a theory of catastrophic capitalism, messianic movements, Weber on modernity, and risk society. He concludes by comparing optimism and pessimism, and the idea of inter-generational justice.

Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance has been widely recognized for its important and influential concepts in areas of motivation and social psychology. The theory of dissonance is here applied to the problem of why partial reward, delay of reward , and effort expenditure during training result in increased resistance to extinction.

The author contends that a state of impasse exists within learning theory largely because some of its major assumptions stand in apparent opposition to cetain well-established experimental results. The book puts forward a new theory that seems to reconcile these data and assumptions. This new theory can account for data with which other theories have difficulty: it integrates empirical phenomena that have been regarded as unrelated, and it is supported by the results of experiments designed specifically to test its implications. These experiments are fully described in the text.

In A Theory of Imperialism, economists Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik present a new theory of the origins and mechanics of capitalism that sounds an alarm about its ongoing viability. Their theory centers on trade between the core economies of the global North and the tropical and subtropical countries of the global South and considers how the Northern demand for commodities (such as agricultural products and oil) from the South has perpetuated and solidified an imperialist relationship. The Patnaiks explore the dynamics of this process and discuss innovations that could allow the economies of the South to achieve greater prosperity without damaging the economies of the North. The result is an original theory of imperialism that brings to light the crippling limitations of neoliberal capitalism.

A Theory of Imperialism also includes a response by David Harvey, who interprets the agrarian system differently and sees other factors affecting trade between the North and the South. Their debate is one of the most provocative exchanges yet over the future of the global economy as resources grow thin, populations explode, and universal prosperity becomes ever more elusive.

In A Theory of Imperialism, economists Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik present a new theory of the origins and mechanics of capitalism that sounds an alarm about its ongoing viability. Their theory centers on trade between the core economies of the global North and the tropical and subtropical countries of the global South and considers how the Northern demand for commodities (such as agricultural products and oil) from the South has perpetuated and solidified an imperialist relationship. The Patnaiks explore the dynamics of this process and discuss innovations that could allow the economies of the South to achieve greater prosperity without damaging the economies of the North. The result is an original theory of imperialism that brings to light the crippling limitations of neoliberal capitalism.

A Theory of Imperialism also includes a response by David Harvey, who interprets the agrarian system differently and sees other factors affecting trade between the North and the South. Their debate is one of the most provocative exchanges yet over the future of the global economy as resources grow thin, populations explode, and universal prosperity becomes ever more elusive.

Narrative is a powerful element of human culture, storing and sharing the cherished parts of our personal memories and giving structure to our laws, entertainment, and history. We experience narrative in words, pictures, and film, yet regardless of how the tale is told, story remains independent from the media that makes it concrete. Narrative follows humans wherever they travel and adapts readily to new forms of communication. Constantly evolving and always up-to-date, narrative is a necessary strategy of human expression and a fundamental component of human identity.

In order to understand human interaction, award-winning scholar Rick Altman launches a close study of narrative's nature, its variation in different contexts, and the method through which it makes meaning. Altman's approach breaks away from traditional forms of analysis, identifying three basic strategies: single-focus, dual-focus, and multiple-focus. Unpacking an intentionally diverse selection of texts, Altman demonstrates how these strategies function in context and illustrates their theoretical and practical applications in terms of textual analysis, literary and film history, social organization, religion, and politics. He employs inventive terminology and precise analytical methods throughout his groundbreaking work, making this volume ideal for teaching literary and film theory and for exploring the anatomy of narrative on a more general level.

Narrative is a powerful element of human culture, storing and sharing the cherished parts of our personal memories and giving structure to our laws, entertainment, and history. We experience narrative in words, pictures, and film, yet regardless of how the tale is told, story remains independent from the media that makes it concrete. Narrative follows humans wherever they travel and adapts readily to new forms of communication. Constantly evolving and always up-to-date, narrative is a necessary strategy of human expression and a fundamental component of human identity.

In order to understand human interaction, award-winning scholar Rick Altman launches a close study of narrative's nature, its variation in different contexts, and the method through which it makes meaning. Altman's approach breaks away from traditional forms of analysis, identifying three basic strategies: single-focus, dual-focus, and multiple-focus. Unpacking an intentionally diverse selection of texts, Altman demonstrates how these strategies function in context and illustrates their theoretical and practical applications in terms of textual analysis, literary and film history, social organization, religion, and politics. He employs inventive terminology and precise analytical methods throughout his groundbreaking work, making this volume ideal for teaching literary and film theory and for exploring the anatomy of narrative on a more general level.

A Stanford University Press classic.

This book groups together three kinds of experience: the experience of the sublime, of 'epiphany' which is generally a profound experience of something ordinary, and the feeling of 'thrills' which can be a shiver down the spine or sudden tears. 

These 'strong experiences' have been extensively studied, but almost always separately from one another, and in a variety of disciplines, and so this is the first major attempt to bring them together under a relatively simple psychological account. The book reviews some of the work on the sublime and epiphanies, including life-changing epiphanies, in the literary critical, philosophical and psychological literature. It explores how we can feel that we know things which are deeply important without being able to put what we know into words, and it also offers an introduction to some basic psychological ideas about knowledge. The book focuses on the physical aspects of the experience, and their relation to emotions, and looks in detail at what the body actually does when we feel goosebumps and similar sensations. It continues to outline some of the simple psychological notions which support this account of strong experiences, including how surprise works, and other related notions such as curiosity, attention and empathy, and why ordinary things can sometimes be perceived as though they are sources of profound insight.

The final section briefly summarises various devices in literary texts which can be used to trigger strong experiences in a reader. It concludes by noting that our strong experiences of literary texts and other aesthetic objects are related to our more general aesthetic experience.

This book groups together three kinds of experience: the experience of the sublime, of 'epiphany' which is generally a profound experience of something ordinary, and the feeling of 'thrills' which can be a shiver down the spine or sudden tears. 

These 'strong experiences' have been extensively studied, but almost always separately from one another, and in a variety of disciplines, and so this is the first major attempt to bring them together under a relatively simple psychological account. The book reviews some of the work on the sublime and epiphanies, including life-changing epiphanies, in the literary critical, philosophical and psychological literature. It explores how we can feel that we know things which are deeply important without being able to put what we know into words, and it also offers an introduction to some basic psychological ideas about knowledge. The book focuses on the physical aspects of the experience, and their relation to emotions, and looks in detail at what the body actually does when we feel goosebumps and similar sensations. It continues to outline some of the simple psychological notions which support this account of strong experiences, including how surprise works, and other related notions such as curiosity, attention and empathy, and why ordinary things can sometimes be perceived as though they are sources of profound insight.

The final section briefly summarises various devices in literary texts which can be used to trigger strong experiences in a reader. It concludes by noting that our strong experiences of literary texts and other aesthetic objects are related to our more general aesthetic experience.

A selection of unique and beautiful destinations around the world, which offer powerful new perspectives on life.

The world is full of places that inspire and bring us joy: they might be exceptionally beautiful, resonant with history, untouched by civilization or rich in memory.

This is an atlas that gathers together some of the most enchanting and reinvigorating places around the world in order to heal and captivate, including beautiful destinations in Greece, Italy, Japan, America, Chile and Australia, to name but a few. We’re taken to the tops of mountains, solitary cliffs, elegant cities and also some less expected locations: airports, hydroelectric stations and meteorite craters.

Great travelers have always known that travelling can broaden the mind; here we see how it can also heal it. A Therapeutic Atlas reminds us that the world is far broader and more inspiring than we tend to appreciate day to day. Tempting images are combined with short essays that discuss the power of particular places to help us with the difficulties of being human. We locate places that are therapeutic because they coax us out of familiar patterns of thought and liberate our minds.

This is a book that can be read when travelling, as a real-life atlas, but as importantly, when travel is difficult, it reminds us that there is no place like home and the sanctuary of our own bed.

• AN UPLIFTING GUIDE: to the therapeutic benefits of exploring the world.
• A CURATED COLLECTION OF ARTWORKS AND PHOTOGRAPHS: capturing unique destinations around the world, each accompanied by a short essay.
• FEATURED ARTISTS INCLUDE: John Singer Sargent, Richard Misrach, David Hockney, Vincent van Gogh, Albert Bierstadt and more.
• RECOMMENDED FOR READERS OF THE ART OF TRAVEL BY ALAIN DE BOTTON
• GLORIOUSLY ILLUSTRATED: designed to spark the imagination and to be both hopeful and uplifting.

Alain de Botton's redemptive volume charts a course from collapse to recovery with kindness, compassion and wisdom.

“Alain de Botton, one of our era’s most uncommonly perceptive, lyrical, and lucid existential contemplatives.” — The Marginalian

A Therapeutic Journey is a collection of essays about mental challenge and health. Written with kindness, knowledge and sympathy, it is a practical guide to well-being and a source of consolation and companionship in what might be some of our loneliest, most anguished moments.

Alain de Botton explores how we can cope with a variety of forms of mental pain and illness, from the mild to the severe. It considers how and why we might become ill; how we can explain things to friends, family and colleagues; how we can find our ways towards recovery; and how we can build resilience, so as to live wisely alongside our difficulties.

At heart this is a book about happiness - about regaining the thread of our lives, rediscovering meaning, and finding our way back to connection, warmth and joy.

Alain de Botton's redemptive volume - now in paperback - charts a course from collapse to recovery with kindness, compassion and wisdom.

“Alain de Botton, one of our era’s most uncommonly perceptive, lyrical, and lucid existential contemplatives.” — The Marginalian

A Therapeutic Journey is a collection of essays about mental challenge and health. Written with kindness, knowledge and sympathy, it is a practical guide to well-being and a source of consolation and companionship in what might be some of our loneliest, most anguished moments.

Alain de Botton explores how we can cope with a variety of forms of mental pain and illness, from the mild to the severe. It considers how and why we might become ill; how we can explain things to friends, family and colleagues; how we can find our ways towards recovery; and how we can build resilience, so as to live wisely alongside our difficulties.

At heart this is a book about happiness - about regaining the thread of our lives, rediscovering meaning, and finding our way back to connection, warmth and joy.

How to build a true library for happiness -  recommended reading from The School of Life, featuring 100 books that offer therapeutic insight and enlightenment 

There are about 130 million books in the world – and they are being added to at a rate of 4 million a year or so. 

 Which ones should we really read? What are the books that count? Which ones are going to make a real difference to us in the limited time we  have?

 This is The School of Life's answer: a definitive list of the 100 books that we feel should truly matter to anyone who cares about their development and growth, 100 books that are guaranteed to inspire, console and uplift us. We find books from all over the world, some very well known, others fascinatingly unfamiliar, united by a common ability to help us grow into the best versions of ourselves and to combat anxiety, despair and loneliness.

 This book answers one of the great questions we all face: how to assemble the perfect set of books with which we can acquire self-understanding, calm and emotional maturity.

Comprised of ten thrilling tales, Bunny recounts stories from various times in he and Raffles’ lives. In Out of Paradise, Bunny is heartbroken over his ended engagement, which he called off after his fall from social grace to save his fiancé from the shame. In attempts to cheer him up, Bunny suggests that the pair rob the estate of a rich politician. Following this bittersweet tale, The Rest Cure is a calm narrative that follows Bunny and Raffles as they lay low to avoid a confrontation with Inspector Mackenzie. Though Raffles and Bunny have proven time and time again that they are an inseparable duo, Bunny is eager for the chance to prove that he can work alone in A Bad Night. In A Trap to Catch a Cracksman, Bunny remembers his partner’s faults just as he recalls the qualities he loves, as he recounts a time when Raffles’ pride got the better of him, landing him in a well-placed trap. With the humorous and reflective narration of Bunny, A Thief in the Night by E.W Hornung is an exciting and fun collection of the adventures of the two famous thieves. With stories scattered across the timeline of Raffles’ and Bunny’s relationship, this collection of short fiction allows readers to fill in gaps and become better acquainted with the beloved main characters of E.W Hornung's popular crime series. This edition of A Thief in the Night by E.W Hornung now features a new, eye-catching cover design and is printed in a font that is both modern and readable. With these accommodations, this edition of A Thief in the Night crafts an accessible and pleasant reading experience for modern audiences while restoring the original adventure and suspense of E.W Hornung’s literature.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Comprised of ten thrilling tales, Bunny recounts stories from various times in he and Raffles’ lives. In Out of Paradise, Bunny is heartbroken over his ended engagement, which he called off after his fall from social grace to save his fiancé from the shame. In attempts to cheer him up, Bunny suggests that the pair rob the estate of a rich politician. Following this bittersweet tale, The Rest Cure is a calm narrative that follows Bunny and Raffles as they lay low to avoid a confrontation with Inspector Mackenzie. Though Raffles and Bunny have proven time and time again that they are an inseparable duo, Bunny is eager for the chance to prove that he can work alone in A Bad Night. In A Trap to Catch a Cracksman, Bunny remembers his partner’s faults just as he recalls the qualities he loves, as he recounts a time when Raffles’ pride got the better of him, landing him in a well-placed trap. With the humorous and reflective narration of Bunny, A Thief in the Night by E.W Hornung is an exciting and fun collection of the adventures of the two famous thieves. With stories scattered across the timeline of Raffles’ and Bunny’s relationship, this collection of short fiction allows readers to fill in gaps and become better acquainted with the beloved main characters of E.W Hornung's popular crime series. This edition of A Thief in the Night by E.W Hornung now features a new, eye-catching cover design and is printed in a font that is both modern and readable. With these accommodations, this edition of A Thief in the Night crafts an accessible and pleasant reading experience for modern audiences while restoring the original adventure and suspense of E.W Hornung’s literature.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Comprised of ten thrilling tales, Bunny recounts stories from various times in he and Raffles’ lives. In Out of Paradise, Bunny is heartbroken over his ended engagement, which he called off after his fall from social grace to save his fiancé from the shame. In attempts to cheer him up, Bunny suggests that the pair rob the estate of a rich politician. Following this bittersweet tale, The Rest Cure is a calm narrative that follows Bunny and Raffles as they lay low to avoid a confrontation with Inspector Mackenzie. Though Raffles and Bunny have proven time and time again that they are an inseparable duo, Bunny is eager for the chance to prove that he can work alone in A Bad Night. In A Trap to Catch a Cracksman, Bunny remembers his partner’s faults just as he recalls the qualities he loves, as he recounts a time when Raffles’ pride got the better of him, landing him in a well-placed trap. With the humorous and reflective narration of Bunny, A Thief in the Night by E.W Hornung is an exciting and fun collection of the adventures of the two famous thieves. With stories scattered across the timeline of Raffles’ and Bunny’s relationship, this collection of short fiction allows readers to fill in gaps and become better acquainted with the beloved main characters of E.W Hornung's popular crime series. This edition of A Thief in the Night by E.W Hornung now features a new, eye-catching cover design and is printed in a font that is both modern and readable. With these accommodations, this edition of A Thief in the Night crafts an accessible and pleasant reading experience for modern audiences while restoring the original adventure and suspense of E.W Hornung’s literature.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Enigmatic for many years, cosmic rays are now known to be not rays at all, but particles, the nuclei of atoms, raining down continually on the earth, where they can be detected throughout the atmosphere and sometimes even thousands of feet underground. This book tells the long-running detective story behind the discovery and study of cosmic rays, a story that stretches from the early days of subatomic particle physics in the 1890s to the frontiers of high-energy astrophysics today.

Writing for the amateur scientist and the educated general reader, Michael Friedlander, a cosmic ray researcher, relates the history of cosmic ray science from its accidental discovery to its present status. He explains how cosmic rays are identified and how their energies are measured, then surveys current knowledge and theories of thin cosmic rain. The most thorough, up-to-date, and readable account of these intriguing phenomena, his book makes us party to the search into the nature, behavior, and origins of cosmic rays—and into the sources of their enormous energy, sometimes hundreds of millions times greater than the energy achievable in the most powerful earthbound particle accelerators. As this search led unexpectedly to the discovery of new particles such as the muon, pion, kaon, and hyperon, and as it reveals scenes of awesome violence in the cosmos and offers clues about black holes, supernovas, neutron stars, quasars, and neutrinos, we see clearly why cosmic rays remain central to an astonishingly diverse range of research studies on scales infinitesimally small and large.

Attractively illustrated, engagingly written, this is a fascinating inside look at a science at the center of our understanding of our universe.

A professor's dismissal, a boxer's death, and a widow's secrets. Can Vita Carew solve the mystery?

In 1903 England, Vita Carew's dreams of studying at Cambridge are shattered by a dismissive professor. But Vita’s intellect proves invaluable after her brother and a visiting American boxer take part in an ultimately lethal boxing match. Vita’s brother is gravely injured and the boxer dies, leaving behind his glamorous wife.

Though the boxer's unexpected death is attributed to the boxing match, Vita has her own suspicions, especially after noticing the similarities between his and her brother’s injuries. But, to prove her theory and uncover the truth, she must first convince the very professor who doubted her abilities.

Can Vita discover what really killed the boxer? And will her sharp mind and determination be enough to solve the case and prevent more tragedy?

In this gripping historical mystery, author Fran Smith weaves a tale of intrigue and suspense that will keep readers guessing until the very end.
________________________________________________________________________

Praise for the Vita Carew Mysteries series:  

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ An engaging read with fascinating characters.  
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ An outstanding novel.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ What an excellent story.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Well written, original and enjoyable.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Thoroughly recommend this book and the series.

What is a 'thorn'? Pablo Martinez knows all too well first-hand. For more than twenty-five years he has suffered with a rare eye disease. Others have experienced traumatic loss, too terrible for words. Pablo meets these people all the time through his work.

Pablo identifies five traits of a thorn. It is; painful; limiting; humiliating; prolonged; something to fight against.

In the New Testament, Paul shared his experience of a thorn (2 Corinthians 12:7 - 10). God chose not to remove it in spite of his pleading.

In the context of our salvation, Jesus suffered more than any person has ever suffered. God's identification with human tragedy is perfectly expressed in the name Emmanuel: God with us.

Humbly and wisely, Pablo guides us beyond the 'why' of suffering to a place of hope.

An important story about fears and ways to deal with them. For worriers ages 5 years and up.

Winner of the 1980 United Daily Literature Competition, this novel about love, betrayal, family life, and the power of tradition in small-town Taiwan was an instant bestseller when first published in Taiwan.

At once a bittersweet romance and a vividly detailed portrait of life in a southern Taiwanese coastal town in the 1970s, A Thousand Moons on a Thousand Rivers captures the intimacy of agricultural life in the midst of an increasingly industrialized society. At the heart of the story is Zhenguan, a sensitive young woman whose coming of age is influenced by new experiences in the city, the wisdom of her elders, and her strong, unique identity. In Zhenguan's journey of first love, suffering, disillusionment, and—ultimately—zenlike triumph, Hsiao Li-hung celebrates the values and traditions that have sustained and nurtured life in Taiwan through the centuries.

Hsiao traces the relationship of Zhenguan and her childhood friend Daxin against the background of daily existence and festival celebrations in their extended family. Daxin, in many ways Zhenguan's male counterpart, is fascinated by ancestral worship during Lunar New Year, riddle-solving during the Lantern Festival, and the noontime water and sticky rice dumplings of the Dragonboat Festival. These rituals, part of a rich cultural heritage, add charm to their romance while shedding light on the reasons for their eventual separation.

Hsiao uses simple lessons taught in the garden and prayers uttered in a mountaintop temple to enrich and temper the story with the spirit of Buddhist teachings. The novel masterfully interweaves Buddhist maxims, poetry, folk songs, and puns with the dialogue, capturing the integral nature of tradition in the characters' lives as they search for meaning and solace in life's unpredictable fortunes.

With understated elegance, Hsiao Li-hung's lyrical work affirms a way of life both fleeting and enduring. For readers interested in Chinese literature and culture, and anyone who enjoys a rich family saga, this is a unique and beautifully told story.

Winner of the 1980 United Daily Literature Competition, this novel about love, betrayal, family life, and the power of tradition in small-town Taiwan was an instant bestseller when first published in Taiwan.

At once a bittersweet romance and a vividly detailed portrait of life in a southern Taiwanese coastal town in the 1970s, A Thousand Moons on a Thousand Rivers captures the intimacy of agricultural life in the midst of an increasingly industrialized society. At the heart of the story is Zhenguan, a sensitive young woman whose coming of age is influenced by new experiences in the city, the wisdom of her elders, and her strong, unique identity. In Zhenguan's journey of first love, suffering, disillusionment, and—ultimately—zenlike triumph, Hsiao Li-hung celebrates the values and traditions that have sustained and nurtured life in Taiwan through the centuries.

Hsiao traces the relationship of Zhenguan and her childhood friend Daxin against the background of daily existence and festival celebrations in their extended family. Daxin, in many ways Zhenguan's male counterpart, is fascinated by ancestral worship during Lunar New Year, riddle-solving during the Lantern Festival, and the noontime water and sticky rice dumplings of the Dragonboat Festival. These rituals, part of a rich cultural heritage, add charm to their romance while shedding light on the reasons for their eventual separation.

Hsiao uses simple lessons taught in the garden and prayers uttered in a mountaintop temple to enrich and temper the story with the spirit of Buddhist teachings. The novel masterfully interweaves Buddhist maxims, poetry, folk songs, and puns with the dialogue, capturing the integral nature of tradition in the characters' lives as they search for meaning and solace in life's unpredictable fortunes.

With understated elegance, Hsiao Li-hung's lyrical work affirms a way of life both fleeting and enduring. For readers interested in Chinese literature and culture, and anyone who enjoys a rich family saga, this is a unique and beautifully told story.

This book examines and re-imagines the turbulent and intertwined lives of Akiko Yosano (1878–1942) and Tekkan Yosano (1873–1935), two poets who sparked a revolution in the world of Japanese ‘tanka’ (short-verse classical poetry).

Born in provincial Sakai, in the Osaka prefecture, the young Akiko defied expectation to become a female poet, a calling through which she met Tekkan Yosano, the figurehead poet of the iconic literary journal 'Myojo' and who would eventually become her husband. The author explores the effect of their passionate and at times tormented relationship on their hugely influential work, as well as describing each of their childhoods, as she uses documentary sources along with her storytelling abilities in order to evoke the intimate details of their lives, together and apart. The story of these two poets is interwoven with those of the other poets and family who surrounded them, while these personal stories are also situated within their wider historical context.

Sensitively and beautifully translated by Meredith McKinney, this is an intimate and personal exploration of the compelling lives of these two Japanese poets, in what the author calls 'a love letter' to their memories.

‘Many a beautiful plant cultivated to deformity, and arranged in strict geometrical beds, the whole pretty affair a laborious failure side by side with divine beauty.’

A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf is the second book in John Muir’s Wilderness-Discovery series. It is within this work that we are really given strong clues toward Muir’s future trailblazing movement for environmental conservation, in such comments as ‘The universe would be incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge.’

Muir’s walk from Indiana to Florida was conceived in order to explore and study further the flora and fauna across states. He undertakes this alone, a dangerous choice perhaps so soon after the civil war, as many characters along the way forewarn. Indeed, Muir is threatened by a robber, and we see a new side to the quiet, lowly gentleman we know as he springs into self-defence mode with lightning initiative and remarkable courage.

This is not the only facet of Muir’s personality that is uncovered throughout this journey. He makes reference to feeling ‘dreadfully lonesome and poor’, which is intriguing as his circumstances are self-sought: ‘Stayed with lots of different people but preferred sleeping outside alone where possible’. He spends a substantial period of time struck down with malaria, which does not come as a surprise; he was covering many miles on an unsustainably meagre diet with thirst often quenched with swamp water or not at all.

Join Muir in Kentucky forests, Cumberland mountains, Florida swamps and all the elegantly described trees, plants, creatures and rocks in-between. A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf teaches us as much about Muir himself as it does the ecosystems in the wilderness across those 1,000 miles.

A Thrice-Told Tale is one ethnographer's imaginative and powerful response to the methodological issues raised by feminist and postmodernist critics of traditional ethnography. The author, a feminist anthropologist, uses three texts developed out of her research in Taiwan—a piece of fiction, anthropological fieldnotes, and a social science article—to explore some of these criticisms.

Each text takes a different perspective, is written in a different style, and has different "outcomes," yet all three involve the same fascinating set of events. A young mother began to behave in a decidedly abherrant, perhaps suicidal manner, and opinion in her village was sharply divided over the reason. Was she becoming a shaman, posessed by a god? Was she deranged, in need of physical restraint, drugs, and hospitalization? Or was she being cynically manipulated by her ne'er-do-well husband to elicit sympathy and money from her neighbors? In the end, the woman was taken away from the area to her mother's house. For some villagers, this settled the matter; for others the debate over her behavior was probably never truly resolved.

The first text is a short story written shortly after the incident, which occurred almost thrity years ago; the second text is a copy of the fieldnotes collected about the events covered in the short story; the third text is an article published in 1990 in American Ethnologist that analyzes the incident from the author's current perspective. Following each text is a Commentary in which the author discusses such topics as experimental ethnography, polyvocality, authorial presence and control, reflexivity, and some of the differences between fiction and ethnography.

The three texts are framed by two chapters in which the author discusses the genereal problems posed by feminist and postmodernist critics of ethnography and presents her personal exploration of these issues in an argument that is strongly self-reflexive and theoretically rigorous. She considers some feminist concerns over colonial research methods and takes issues with the insistence of some feminists tha the topics of ethnographic research be set by those who are studied. The book concludes with a plea for ethnographic responsibility based on a less academic and more practical perspective.

A Thrice-Told Tale is one ethnographer's imaginative and powerful response to the methodological issues raised by feminist and postmodernist critics of traditional ethnography. The author, a feminist anthropologist, uses three texts developed out of her research in Taiwan—a piece of fiction, anthropological fieldnotes, and a social science article—to explore some of these criticisms.

Each text takes a different perspective, is written in a different style, and has different "outcomes," yet all three involve the same fascinating set of events. A young mother began to behave in a decidedly abherrant, perhaps suicidal manner, and opinion in her village was sharply divided over the reason. Was she becoming a shaman, posessed by a god? Was she deranged, in need of physical restraint, drugs, and hospitalization? Or was she being cynically manipulated by her ne'er-do-well husband to elicit sympathy and money from her neighbors? In the end, the woman was taken away from the area to her mother's house. For some villagers, this settled the matter; for others the debate over her behavior was probably never truly resolved.

The first text is a short story written shortly after the incident, which occurred almost thrity years ago; the second text is a copy of the fieldnotes collected about the events covered in the short story; the third text is an article published in 1990 in American Ethnologist that analyzes the incident from the author's current perspective. Following each text is a Commentary in which the author discusses such topics as experimental ethnography, polyvocality, authorial presence and control, reflexivity, and some of the differences between fiction and ethnography.

The three texts are framed by two chapters in which the author discusses the genereal problems posed by feminist and postmodernist critics of ethnography and presents her personal exploration of these issues in an argument that is strongly self-reflexive and theoretically rigorous. She considers some feminist concerns over colonial research methods and takes issues with the insistence of some feminists tha the topics of ethnographic research be set by those who are studied. The book concludes with a plea for ethnographic responsibility based on a less academic and more practical perspective.

In a world of political upheaval, rising inequality, catastrophic climate change, and widespread doubt of even the most authoritative sources of information, is there a place for critique? This book calls for a systematic reappraisal of critical thinking—its assumptions, its practices, its genealogy, its predicament—following the principle that critique can only start with self-critique.

In A Time for Critique, Didier Fassin, Bernard E. Harcourt, and a group of eminent political theorists, anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, and literary and legal scholars reflect on the multiplying contexts and forms of critical discourse and on the social actors and social movements engaged in them. How can one maintain sufficient distance from the eventful present without doing it an injustice? How can one address contemporary issues without repudiating the intellectual legacies of the past? How can one avoid the disconnection between theory and action? How can critique be both public and collective? These provocative questions are addressed by revisiting the works of Foucault and Arendt, Said and Césaire, Benjamin and Du Bois, but they are also given substance through on-the-ground case studies that treat subaltern criticism in Palestine, emancipatory mobilizations in Syria, the antitorture campaigns of Sri Lankan activists, and the abolitionism of the African American critical resistance and undercommons movements in the United States. Examining lucidly the present challenges of critique, A Time for Critique shows how its theoretical reassessment and its emerging forms can illuminate the imaginative modalities to rejuvenate critical praxis.

In a world of political upheaval, rising inequality, catastrophic climate change, and widespread doubt of even the most authoritative sources of information, is there a place for critique? This book calls for a systematic reappraisal of critical thinking—its assumptions, its practices, its genealogy, its predicament—following the principle that critique can only start with self-critique.

In A Time for Critique, Didier Fassin, Bernard E. Harcourt, and a group of eminent political theorists, anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, and literary and legal scholars reflect on the multiplying contexts and forms of critical discourse and on the social actors and social movements engaged in them. How can one maintain sufficient distance from the eventful present without doing it an injustice? How can one address contemporary issues without repudiating the intellectual legacies of the past? How can one avoid the disconnection between theory and action? How can critique be both public and collective? These provocative questions are addressed by revisiting the works of Foucault and Arendt, Said and Césaire, Benjamin and Du Bois, but they are also given substance through on-the-ground case studies that treat subaltern criticism in Palestine, emancipatory mobilizations in Syria, the antitorture campaigns of Sri Lankan activists, and the abolitionism of the African American critical resistance and undercommons movements in the United States. Examining lucidly the present challenges of critique, A Time for Critique shows how its theoretical reassessment and its emerging forms can illuminate the imaginative modalities to rejuvenate critical praxis.

This book brings together an international roster of renowned scholars from disciplines including philosophy, political theory, intellectual history, and literary studies to address the conceptual foundations of the humanities and the question of their future. What notions of the future, of the human, and of finitude underlie recurring anxieties about the humanities in our current geopolitical situation? How can we think about the unpredictable and unthought dimensions of praxis implicit in the very notion of futurity?

The essays here argue that the uncertainty of the future represents both an opportunity for critical engagement and a matrix for invention. Broadly conceived, the notion of invention, or cultural poiesis, questions the key assumptions and tasks of a whole range of practices in the humanities, beginning with critique, artistic practices, and intellectual inquiry, and ending with technology, emancipatory politics, and ethics. The essays discuss a wide range of key figures (e.g., Deleuze, Freud, Lacan, Foucault, Kristeva, Irigaray), problems (e.g., becoming, kinship and the foreign, "disposable populations" within a global political economy, queerness and the death drive, the parapoetic, electronic textuality, invention and accountability, political and social reform in Latin America), disciplines and methodologies (philosophy, art and art history, visuality, political theory, criticism and critique, psychoanalysis, gender analysis, architecture, literature, art).

The volume should be required reading for all who feel a deep commitment to the humanities, its practices, and its future.

This book brings together an international roster of renowned scholars from disciplines including philosophy, political theory, intellectual history, and literary studies to address the conceptual foundations of the humanities and the question of their future. What notions of the future, of the human, and of finitude underlie recurring anxieties about the humanities in our current geopolitical situation? How can we think about the unpredictable and unthought dimensions of praxis implicit in the very notion of futurity?

The essays here argue that the uncertainty of the future represents both an opportunity for critical engagement and a matrix for invention. Broadly conceived, the notion of invention, or cultural poiesis, questions the key assumptions and tasks of a whole range of practices in the humanities, beginning with critique, artistic practices, and intellectual inquiry, and ending with technology, emancipatory politics, and ethics. The essays discuss a wide range of key figures (e.g., Deleuze, Freud, Lacan, Foucault, Kristeva, Irigaray), problems (e.g., becoming, kinship and the foreign, "disposable populations" within a global political economy, queerness and the death drive, the parapoetic, electronic textuality, invention and accountability, political and social reform in Latin America), disciplines and methodologies (philosophy, art and art history, visuality, political theory, criticism and critique, psychoanalysis, gender analysis, architecture, literature, art).

The volume should be required reading for all who feel a deep commitment to the humanities, its practices, and its future.

Finding herself at a crossroads and in need of a change from her job and domestic responsibilities, Helen Moat set herself the challenge of a lifetime: She got on her bike and embarked on an epic cycle ride across Europe, all the way to Istanbul, accompanied by her eighteen-year-old son.

When Helen Moat sets out to cycle across Europe on her sit-up-and-beg bike—aka "The Tank"—she's not sure whether she is running away from the past or pedaling towards it. As she cycles the Rhine and Danube through the days of unfolding spring, the sky filled with birdsong, she senses her bird-loving father is by her side. Increasingly, she loses herself in her surroundings and memories of a childhood spent in the outdoors of rural Northern Ireland. Gradually, the natural beauty of Europe's great waterways bring healing, as does the kindness of friends and strangers along the way. She feels a sense of belonging on a continent shaped by war and peace, peoples divided and reunited, a shared history.

But when the birdsong fades across the parched, late-summer landscapes of Bulgaria and Turkey, Helen finds herself recalling the Troubles and confronting a suppressed secret. This is her life-affirming account of an unforgettable, if sometimes bumpy, ride.