JUVENILE · HISTORY
Antony Mason
Julius Caesar (billed on-screen as William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar) is a 1953 American film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by John Houseman for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It stars Marlon Brando as Mark Antony, James Mason as Brutus, John Gielgud as Cassius, Louis Calhern as Julius Caesar, Edmond O'Brien as Casca, Greer Garson as Calpurnia, and Deborah Kerr as Portia. It opened to positive reviews, and was nominated in five categories at the 26th Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Best Actor for Brando), winning Best Art Direction – Black-and-White. Brando and Gielgud both won BAFTA Awards, Brando for Best Foreign Actor and Gielgud for Best British Actor.
The Middle East is a diverse and fascinating region, often in the news, and what happens in the Middle East is important to the whole world.
— from Middle East
Most acclaimed
Literature
The new What Every Catholic Should Know series is intended for the average faithful Catholic who wants to know more about Catholic faith and culture. The authors in this series take a panoramic approach to the topic of each book aimed at a non-specialist but enthusiastic readership. Forthcoming titles planned for this series include: literature, salvation, mercy, history, art, music and philosophy. In Literature: What Every Catholic Should Know, Joseph Pearce provides a survey of literary works of which all Catholics should be aware. Beginning with Homer and Virgil, the book progresses chronologically through the greatest works of all time, including Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Dickens, Chesterton, Eliot, Tolkien and Lewis.
Matisse
1995
Matisse, Father & Son, a revealing and moving biography, is based upon exclusive access to several thousand unpublished letters in the archives of Pierre Matisse. These include more than 800 letters, many of them twelve or thirteen pages long, between Pierre Matisse and his father. They also include a vast correspondence with the European artists whom Pierre Matisse represented during his sixty years as an art dealer in New York. But this is more than a book of letters, John Russell, former chief art critic for The New York Times, has produced a seamless narrative that moves easily back and forth between private life and professional life. The heart of this absorbing biography is the near daily correspondence between father and son over three decades. Mining thousands of letters in which nothing is held back - and including photos of family and friends, as well as significant works handled by Pierre Matisse - John Russell offers us an insider's view into the lives and creative efforts of some of the century's most important artists.
China
"Edward Rutherfurd has enthralled millions of people with his grand, sweeping historical sagas that tell the history of an iconic place over multiple generations. Now, in China: The Novel, Rutherfurd takes readers into the rich and fascinating milieu of the Middle Kingdom. The story begins in 1839, at the dawn of the first Opium War. An English merchant arrives in the restricted port of Canton (Guangzhou), seeking to make his fortune trading opium. But the tide of addiction is decimating the Chinese population--a young scholar accompanies his Mandarin master on a mission from the emperor to shut down the trade. Thus begins an epic tale chronicling China's struggle to regain their ancient land and culture from the domination of the Western powers, which culminates in the revolution of 1911, and the ultimate rise of the Communist regime. We meet a young village wife struggling with the rigid traditions of her people, Manchu empresses and warriors, the powerful eunuchs of the Forbidden City, rapacious English opium dealers and savvy Chinese pirates, artists, concubines, scoundrel's and heroes. Rutherfurd chronicles the rising and falling fortunes of members of Chinese, British, and American families, as they negotiate the tides of history. Along the way, in his signature style, Rutherfurd provides a deeply researched portrait of Chinese history and society, its ancient traditions and great upheavals, and China's emergence as a rising global power. We are treated to romance and adventure, battles and intrigues, grinding struggle and incredible fortune. China: The Novel brings to life the rich terrain of this vast and constantly evolving country. From Shanghai to Beijing to the Great Wall, Rutherfurd chronicles the turbulent rise and fall of empires as the colonial West meets the opulent and complex East in a dramatic struggle between cultures and people. Extraordinarily researched and majestically told, Rutherfurd paints a thrilling portrait of one of the most singular and remarkable countries in the world"-- 1839, at the dawn of the first Opium War. An English merchant arrives in the restricted port of Canton (seeking to make his fortune trading opium. But the tide of addiction is decimating the Chinese population, and a young scholar accompanies his Mandarin master on a mission from the emperor to shut down the trade. Over the centuries China struggles to regain their ancient land and culture from the domination of the Western powers; the fortunes of members of Chinese, British, and American families rise and fall, and the tides of history bring to life the rich terrain of this vast and constantly evolving country. -- condensed from publisher info