Showing results for "Homer" in Historical Fiction

One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode in the Trojan War. At its center is Achilles, the greatest warrior-champion of the Greeks, and his refusal to fight after being humiliated by his leader, Agamemnon.

Brilliant brothers Langley and Homer Collyer are born into bourgeois New York comfort in settled times, their home a fin-de-siècle mansion on upper Fifth Avenue, their future rosy. But before he is out of his teens, Homer begins to lose his sight, Langley returns from the War in Europe with his lungs seared by gas, and when the death of their parents in the influenza epidemic of 1918 leaves the brothers orphaned, they seem perilously ill-equipped to deal with the new era.

The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek literature, dating back to the early Archaic period, are the two epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. These two epics, along with the Homeric Hymns and the two poems of Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, comprised the major foundations of the Greek literary tradition that would continue into the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. This carefully selected collection contains: The Odyssey ; The Works and Days ; Theogony ; The Complete Poems of Sappho ; Medea ; Antigone ; Agamemnon ; The Choephori ; Eumenides.

This Audible production expertly brings to life Salman Rushdie’s postcolonial masterpiece Midnight’s Children, available for the first time unabridged in audio. Written in the magical-realist style that Rushdie is renowned for, Midnight’s Children follows Saleem Sinai - a child gifted with extraordinary powers after being born at the exact moment India becomes independent. The captivating events that unfold act as an allegory for India’s transition from colonialism to independence as Saleem finds himself 'handcuffed to history', with his fate entwined with that of his newly independent state.

This novel is based on Arthur Conan Doyle's extraordinary real-life fight for justice. Arthur and George grow up worlds and miles apart in late 19th-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur becomes a doctor, and then a writer, George a solicitor in Birmingham. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age; George remains in hardworking obscurity. But as the new century begins, they are brought together by a sequence of events which made sensational headlines at the time as The Great Wyrley Outrages.

Originally meant to be heard rather than read, this great epic returns to the oral form for today's listeners.

On 5th June 1984, the Indian army began its attack on the complex at Amritsar, which houses the two most sacred shrines. Generals who had pledged to use minimum force and on no account to violate the shrines were not prepared for the fierce and adept resistance they encountered. Having suffered severe casualties, the infantry were driven back, and as a last resort - with approval from Delhi - tanks were ordered in....

Ramesh Kumar grew up deprived and unloved, working on his father's tea stall in the Old City of Delhi. Now, brilliant but poor, he makes a lucrative living taking tests for the sons of India's elite. When one of his clients, the sweet but hapless 18-year-old Rudi Saxena, places first in the All Indias, the national university entrance exams, Ramesh sees an unmissable opportunity. Cashing in on Rudi's newfound celebrity, all goes well for both boys for a while. But Rudi's role on a game show leads to unexpected love, blackmail and finally, a dangerous kidnapping.

Bled dry by violent confrontations with the Magadhan Empire, the Mathuran Republic simmers on the brink of oblivion. Senator Krishna and his third wife Satyabhama have put their plans in motion, both within and beyond the Republic’s blood-soaked borders, to protect it from total annihilation. But they are soon to discover that neither gold nor alliances last forever – and that they are not the only players on the board.

As riots erupt on the streets of Lahore, Inspector Faraz returns to his birthplace, the red-light district in the ancient walled city where women still pass on the profession of courtesan to their daughters. Plucked from it as a small boy by his influential father, Faraz has kept his roots well hidden. Now his father has sent him back: to cover up the murder of a young prostitute. It should be a simple task in the marginalised community, but Faraz finds himself unable to obey orders or to resist searching for the mother and sister he left behind.

In the tumultuous aftermath of the Trojan War, a young man battles to save his home and his inheritance. Setting out to find his father, he ends up discovering himself. Telemachus' father, Odysseus, went off to war before he was born...and never came back. Aged 16, Telemachus finds himself abandoned, his father's house overrun with men pursuing his beautiful mother, Penelope, and devouring the family's wealth. Telemachus determines to leave Ithaca, his island home, and find the truth.

I forældrenes fornemme, efterhånden noget forsømte herskabsvilla lever den blinde, tolerante, følsomme Homer og den excentriske opfinder og samler Langley deres eget isolerede liv på kanten af samfundet. Selvom brødrene stort set ikke forlader huset, ser Doctorow selv romanen som en slags "road novel", idet den amerikanske udvikling fra 30-ernes forbudstid med gangstermiljø op til tressernes hippiemiljø passerer gennem deres hus og liv.

In a small farming village in Punjab, India, a boy crouches over his brother's phone in a rapeseed field watching clips of Godard's Bande à part on YouTube. His name is Happy Singh Soni and when he's not sleeping among the cabbages and eating sugary rotis, Happy dreams of becoming an actor, one who plays the melancholy roles; the sad, pretty boys, rare in Indian cinema. He plans a clandestine journey to Europe, where he'll finally land a breakout role.

At age 16, Fahad hopes to spend the summer with his mother in London. His father, Rafik, has other plans: hauling his son to Abad, the family's feudal estate. Rafik wants to toughen up his sensitive boy, to teach him about power, duty, family—to make him a man. He enlists Ali, a local teenager, in this project, hoping his presence will prove instructive. Instead, over the course of one hot indolent season, attraction blooms between the two boys, and Fahad finds himself seduced by the wildness of the land and its inhabitants.

古希腊神话记载的特洛伊战争，历时10年，生灵涂炭。这场残酷的特洛伊战争，究竟有着怎样的来龙去脉呢？本有声书通过生动的语言呈现了这次军事远征的奇特故事。…… 古希臘神話記載的特洛伊戰爭，歷時10年，生靈塗炭。這場殘酷的特洛伊戰爭，究竟有著怎樣的來龍去脈呢？本有聲書通過生動的語言呈現了這次軍事遠征的奇特故事。

Paris, son of King Priam and who is madly in love with Helen, escapes with her. Menelaus, former husband of Helen, blinded by jealousy and lust for revenge, will declare war on Troy. It will be the beginning of a ruinous tragedy that will last 10 years. Around this central nucleus, infinite events come to life that are linked by invisible fate, now tangling, now dissolving.

Here is a brilliant recounting of the life of Odysseus after his safe return to the island of Ithaca, his wife Penelope, and his son Telemachus. Countless readers and listeners have thrilled to the adventures of Odysseus in The Iliad and The Odyssey, but what further adventures awaited him after his ten years of war and ten years of wandering? Narrated by Telemachus to the bard Phemios, On Wine-Dark Seas speaks of the human drama of a man gone twenty years from home and family, a man who saw Troy on the night of its destruction, a man who lives the special quest which is his destiny.

From an acclaimed classicist comes a witty, unusual, and fascinating "biography" of Homer's fictional Bronze Age hero, Odysseus. In this entertaining book, Charles Beye fills out the story of this extraordinary figure while at the same time portraying Odysseus' evolution through the course of a strange and adventuresome life, at times so remote, at times so immediate in the contemporary perspective.

Colonel S - biomedical engineer, explosives expert, and the Malaysian government go-to hitman - has been doing the dirty work of the rich and corrupt for years now and is ready for his final job. One that will ensure the domination of the Muslims over the Malaysian state. The target? Kuala Lumpur International Airport. All he needs is a little help from his old friend and protege, Dr. Jay Ghosh.

Can the past heal the future? Ninety-year-old Marvin Hermesch is determined to find out. After sneaking out of the retirement home on a hot and humid Sunday afternoon, Marvin embarks upon a journey. His memory is deteriorating fast, and he's having difficulty recalling the face of his deceased wife, Ruthie. As his short-term memory slips, it awakens memories buried deep from his younger days and vivid nightmares of his youth, including the horrors of World War II.