Geraldine Brooks

#2

'People of the Book' is set in the Thirty Years War, which began and still shapes our present system of world order. David Stacton's incomparable prose reveals how the treatises of scholars and the tactics of commanders so rarely comprehend the vagaries of the human condition. Stacton sets up a dual plot. One follows the fortunes of the Swedish King Gustavus Adophus, the other recounts the fate of an orphaned boy and his little sister who try to make their way across Germany from their ruined home to refuge with an imagined uncle.

#3

Here is an original and exciting guide to the fascinating world of horses and ponies. Stunning, real-life photographs of horses, ponies, donkeys, mules, wild asses, and zebras offer a unique "eyewitness" view of these remarkable animals, their natural history and role in civilization. See an authentic Wells Fargo stagecoach, a 19th-century woman riding sidesaddle, a performing circus horse, and a real-life jousting tournament. Learn why horses flatten back their ears, how a blacksmith shoes a horse, how horses have been used in wartime, and how a horse's teeth show its age. Discover why a zebra has stripes, which wild asses are now extinct, what a Roman horseshoe looked like, the difference between an English and a Western saddle, what makes horses race, and much, much more.