The Quarry Wood

The Quarry Wood PDF

Author: Nan Shepherd

Publisher: Canongate Books

Published: 2010-07-01

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1847678017

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When Martha accepts a place at university, her decision is met with a mixture of hostility and pride by her uncomprehending family. This is the story of a young woman's journey to maturity and independence, struggling to cope with the intellectual and emotional challenges that surround her, at a time when such space was rarely given freely to women. In The Quarry Wood, Nan Shepherd's subtle prose is matched by intense and memorable descriptions of the natural world, and a dry sense of humour. Ninety years after its first publication, it remains as fresh and original today.

The Grampian Quartet

The Grampian Quartet PDF

Author: Nan Shepherd

Publisher: Canongate Books

Published: 2010-07-01

Total Pages: 748

ISBN-13: 1847675956

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Edited and introductions by Roderick Watson. The Quarry Wood, although published well before Sunset Song, inhabits a similar world; the progress of its heroine could almost be the alternative story of a Chris Guthrie who did go to university. Compassionate and humorous, the grace and style of Shepherd’s prose is heightened by a superb ear for the vigorous language of the north-east. The Weatherhouse, Shepherd’s masterpiece, is an even more substantial achievement which belongs to the great line of Scottish fiction dealing with the complex interactions of small communities, and especially the community of women – a touching and hilarious network of mothers, daughters, spinsters and widows. It is also a striking meditation on the nature of truth, the power of human longing and the mystery of being. The third and final novel, A Pass in the Grampians, describes Jenny Kilgour’s coming of age as she has to choose between the kindly harshness of her grandfather’s life on a remote hill farm, and the vulgar and glorious energy of Bella Cassie, a local girl who left the community to pursue success as a singer, and has now returned to scandalise them all. The Living Mountain is a lyrical testament in praise of the Cairngorms. It is a work deeply rooted in Shepherd’s knowledge of the natural world, and a poetic and philosophical meditation on our longing for high and holy places. This is the first omnibus edition of Shepherd’s prose works – her sensitivity and powers of observation raise her work far above the status of regional literature and into the front rank of Scottish writing.

The Weatherhouse

The Weatherhouse PDF

Author: Nan Shepherd

Publisher: Canongate Books

Published: 2010-07-01

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1847678025

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The women of the tiny town of Fetter-Rothnie have grown used to a life without men, and none more so than the tangle of mothers and daughters, spinsters and widows living at the Weatherhouse. Returned from war with shellshock, Garry Forbes is drawn into their circle as he struggles to build a new understanding of the world from the ruins of his grief. In The Weatherhouse Nan Shepherd paints an exquisite portrait of a community coming to terms with the brutal losses of war, and the small tragedies, yearnings and delusions that make up a life.

The Living Mountain

The Living Mountain PDF

Author: Nan Shepherd

Publisher: Canongate Books

Published: 2008-11-15

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 0857863606

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AS SEEN ON BBC’S WINTERWATCH WITH CHRIS PACKHAM AND MICHAELA STRACHAN 'The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain' Guardian In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others. Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape. Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us. Composed during the Second World War, the manuscript of The Living Mountain lay untouched for more than thirty years before it was finally published.

Children of the Mill

Children of the Mill PDF

Author: David Hanson

Publisher: Headline

Published: 2014-07-17

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 1472220420

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Channel 4's The Mill captivated viewers with the tales of the lives of the young girls and boys in a northern mill. Focusing on the lives of the apprentices at Quarry Bank Mill, David Hanson's book uses a wealth of first-person source material including letters, diaries, mill records, to tell the stories of the children who lived and worked at Quarry Bank throughout the nineteenth century. This book perfectly accompanies the television series, satisfying viewers' curiosity about the history of the children of Quarry Bank. It reveals the real lives of the television series' main characters: Esther, Daniel, Lucy and Susannah, showing how shockingly close to the truth the dramatisation is. But the book also goes far beyond this to create a full and vivid picture of factory life in the industrial revolution. David Hanson has written an accessible narrative history of Victorian working children and the conditions in which they worked.

Sunset Song

Sunset Song PDF

Author: Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Publisher: DigiCat

Published: 2022-11-13

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13:

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Sunset Song is widely regarded as one of the most important Scottish novels of the 20th century. Chris Guthrie, the female protagonist, is a strong character who grows up in a dysfunctional farming family. Life is hard after her dad's death and she must take some tough decisions to save her farms under the inevitable threat of World War I . . . Lewis Grassic Gibbon was the pseudonym of James Leslie Mitchell (1901-1935), a Scottish writer famous for his contribution to the Scottish Renaissance and portrayal of strong female characters.

Into the Mountain

Into the Mountain PDF

Author: Charlotte Peacock

Publisher:

Published: 2018-09-20

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9781903385784

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In the 1930s, the writer and poet, Nan Shepherd was one of North-East Scotland's best known literati. Her image now graces the new Scottish £5 note; The Living Mountain has become a classic and sells in its thousands. Nan Shepherd lived all her life in Deeside, yet few people, even in Scotland, seem to have heard of her. But then, indifferent to celebrity, Nan Shepherd had a talent for silence. Long overdue, this first biography, unravels some of the mysteries, dispels some of the rumours and gives insight into the life and work of this perceptive and intensely private woman.

Capital Crimes

Capital Crimes PDF

Author: Stuart Woods

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2004-04-06

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780451211569

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Will Lee, the courageous and uncompromising senator from Georgia, is back—now as President of the United States—in the fifth book in the New York Times bestselling series that began with Chiefs. When a prominent conservative politician is killed inside his lakeside cabin, authorities have no suspect in sight. And two more deaths—seemingly isolated incidents, achieved by very different means—might be linked to the same murderer. With the help of his CIA director wife, Kate Rule Lee, Will is facing a perilous challenge: catch the most clever and professional of killers before he can strike again. From a quiet D.C. suburb to the corridors of power to a deserted island hideaway in Maine, Will, Kate, and the FBI will track their man and set a trap with extreme caution and care—and await the most dangerous kind of quarry, a killer with a cause to die for...

1876

1876 PDF

Author: Gore Vidal

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2018-08-22

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0525565779

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The third volume of Gore Vidal's magnificent series of historical novels aimed at demythologizing the American past, 1876 chronicles the political scandals and dark intrigues that rocked the United States in its centennial year. ------Charles Schermerhorn Schuyler, Aaron Burr's unacknowledged son, returns to a flamboyant America after his long, self-imposed European exile. The narrator of Burr has come home to recoup a lost fortune by arranging a suitable marriage for his beautiful daughter, the widowed Princess d'Agrigente, and by ingratiating himself with Samuel Tilden, the favored presidential candidate in the centennial year. With these ambitions and with their own abundant charms, Schuyler and his daughter soon find themselves at the centers of American social and political power at a time when the fading ideals of the young republic were being replaced by the excitement of empire. ------"A glorious piece of writing," said Jimmy Breslin in Harper's. "Vidal can take history and make it powerful and astonishing." Time concurred: "Vidal has no peers at breathing movement and laughter into the historical past." ------With a new Introduction by the author.

The Stranger in the Woods

The Stranger in the Woods PDF

Author: Michael Finkel

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2018-01-30

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1101911530

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality—not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own. “A meditation on solitude, wildness and survival.” —The Wall Street Journal In 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food. Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. He broke into nearby cottages for food, clothing, reading material, and other provisions, taking only what he needed but terrifying a community never able to solve the mysterious burglaries. Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a vividly detailed account of his secluded life—why did he leave? what did he learn?—as well as the challenges he has faced since returning to the world. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded.