Author: Matt Houlbrook
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022613315X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 461

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Book Description
Cooling Out: Has the World Changed, or Have I Changed? -- Notes -- Index

Author: Matt Houlbrook
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022613329X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 461

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Book Description
Meet Netley Lucas, Prince of Tricksters—royal biographer, best-selling crime writer, and gentleman crook. In the years after the Great War, Lucas becomes infamous for climbing the British social ladder by his expert trickery—his changing names and telling of tales. An impudent young playboy and a confessed confidence trickster, he finances his far-flung hedonism through fraud and false pretenses. After repeated spells in prison, Lucas transforms himself into a confessing “ex-crook,” turning his inside knowledge of the underworld into a lucrative career as freelance journalist and crime expert. But then he’s found out again—exposed and disgraced for faking an exclusive about a murder case. So he reinvents himself, taking a new name and embarking on a prolific, if short-lived, career as a royal biographer and publisher. Chased around the world by detectives and journalists after yet another sensational scandal, the gentleman crook dies as spectacularly as he lived—a washed-up alcoholic, asphyxiated in a fire of his own making. The lives of Netley Lucas are as flamboyant as they are unlikely. In Prince of Tricksters, Matt Houlbrook picks up the threads of Lucas’s colorful lies and lives. Interweaving crime writing and court records, letters and life-writing, Houlbrook tells Lucas’s fascinating story and, in the process, provides a panoramic view of the 1920s and ’30s. In the restless times after the Great War, the gentlemanly trickster was an exemplary figure, whose tall tales and bogus biographies exposed the everyday difficulties of knowing who and what to trust. Tracing how Lucas both evoked and unsettled the world through which he moved, Houlbrook shows how he prompted a pervasive crisis of confidence that encompassed British society, culture, and politics. Taking readers on a romp through Britain, North America, and eventually into Africa, Houlbrook confronts readers with the limits of our knowledge of the past and challenges us to think anew about what history is and how it might be made differently.

Author: Lewis Hyde
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429930837
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
In Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde brings to life the playful and disruptive side of human imagination as it is embodied in trickster mythology. He first visits the old stories—Hermes in Greece, Eshu in West Africa, Krishna in India, Coyote in North America, among others—and then holds them up against the lives and work of more recent creators: Picasso, Duchamp, Ginsberg, John Cage, and Frederick Douglass. Twelve years after its first publication, Trickster Makes This World—authoritative in its scholarship, loose-limbed in its style—has taken its place among the great works of modern cultural criticism. This new edition includes an introduction by Michael Chabon.

Author: Ghalib Lakhnavi
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 0812977440
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 562

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Book Description
Here is a special abridged English translation of a major Indo-Persian epic: a panoramic tale of magic and passion, a classic hero’s odyssey that has captivated much of the world. It is the spellbinding story of Amir Hamza, the adventurer who in the service of the Persian emperor defeats many enemies, loves many women, and converts hundreds of infidels to the True Faith before finding his way back to his first love. In Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s remarkable abridged rendition, this masterwork is captured with all its colorful action and fantastic elements intact. Appreciated as the seminal Islamic epic or enjoyed as a sweeping tale as rich and inventive as Homer’s epic sagas, The Adventures of Amir Hamza is a true literary treasure.

Author: Pleasant DeSpain
Publisher: august house
ISBN: 9780874836691
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Book Description
Contains nine short folktales about tricksters, featuring selections from Persia, India, Poland, France, and other places.

Author: Max du Preez
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
ISBN: 1770201378
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
The sequel to the bestselling Of Warriors, Lovers and Prophets, this is a collection of more fascinating, colourful - and mostly unknown - historical tales, all meticulously researched and written in a lively and engaging style. There are stories of Khoikhoi who tried - with mixed fortunes - to integrate into early Cape colonial society, and eccentric Europeans who ventured to the turbulent interior. Readers will meet the Xhosa mystic and war-doctor Makhanda, who nearly succeeded in taking Grahamstown from the British in 1819; and the chieftainess Mantatisi, who led her people to military victories during the upheavals of the nineteenth century. Also featured are the Johannesburg-based Foster Gang, who were indirectly responsible for the killing of Boer hero Koos de la Rey; and the men who pulled off the biggest jewellery heist of the time, stealing Bridget Oppenheimer’s jewels in 1956. Of Tricksters, Tyrants and Turncoats spans more than three hundred years of history, concluding with an account of the man who exposed South Africa’s controversial arms deal. Once again, Max du Preez brings the past to life, proving that history can be more interesting - and more fun - than fiction.

Author: Tamora Pierce
Publisher: Ember
ISBN: 0375828788
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
The stage is set for revolution. Legends will rise in this dramatic New York Times and USA Today bestselling conclusion to Trickster’s Choice, the spy adventure from the fantasy author who is legend herself: Tamora Pierce! No longer a slave, Aly has risen through the ranks of the rebellion to become a master of spies. And just in time, she is brought out of exile and into the heart of the snakes’ den that is the Copper Isles royal court. Still, Aly must keep her wager with the trickster god and protect her charges: Sarai, the beautiful, dramatic, and rash potential queen, and Dove, the more cautious and often overlooked younger sister. Can they step out of the shadows and prove they’re a force to be reckoned with? As the revolution builds, Aly’s relationship with half crow, half man Nawat deepens. But he must be prepared to step into a role bigger than his personal desires. And Aly must balance her passion for overthrowing the cruel leaders with the dangers lurking around every corner. Can she rise to the challenge . . . and what price must she pay for changing a kingdom’s destiny? “Tamora Pierce’s books shaped me not only as a young writer but also as a young woman. She is a pillar, an icon, and an inspiration. Cracking open one of her marvelous novels always feels like coming home.” —SARAH J. MAAS, #1 New York Times bestselling author “Tamora Pierce didn’t just blaze a trail. Her heroines cut a swath through the fantasy world with wit, strength, and savvy. Her stories still lead the vanguard today. Pierce is the real lioness, and we’re all just running to keep pace.” —LEIGH BARDUGO, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Author: Patricia McKissack
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade
ISBN: 0307559173
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
Side-splittingly funny, spine-chillingly spooky, this companion to a Newbery Honor–winning anthology The Dark Thirty is filled with bad characters who know exactly how to charm. From the author's note that takes us back to McKissack's own childhood when she would listen to stories told on her front porch... to the captivating introductions to each tale, in which the storyteller introduces himself and sets the stage for what follows... to the ten entertaining tales themselves, here is a worthy successor to McKissack's The Dark Thirty. In "The Best Lie Ever Told," meet Dooley Hunter, a trickster who spins an enormous whopper at the State Liar's contest. In "Aunt Gran and the Outlaws," watch a little old lady slickster outsmart Frank and Jesse James. And in "Cake Norris Lives On," come face to face with a man some folks believe may have died up to twenty-seven different times!

Author: Natalie Zemon Davis
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1466829303
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 659

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Book Description
An engrossing study of Leo Africanus and his famous book, which introduced Africa to European readers Al-Hasan al-Wazzan--born in Granada to a Muslim family that in 1492 went to Morocco, where he traveled extensively on behalf of the sultan of Fez--is known to historians as Leo Africanus, author of the first geography of Africa to be published in Europe (in 1550). He had been captured by Christian pirates in the Mediterranean and imprisoned by the pope, then released, baptized, and allowed a European life of scholarship as the Christian writer Giovanni Leone. In this fascinating new book, the distinguished historian Natalie Zemon Davis offers a virtuoso study of the fragmentary, partial, and often contradictory traces that al-Hasan al-Wazzan left behind him, and a superb interpretation of his extraordinary life and work. In Trickster Travels, Davis describes all the sectors of her hero's life in rich detail, scrutinizing the evidence of al-Hasan's movement between cultural worlds; the Islamic and Arab traditions, genres, and ideas available to him; and his adventures with Christians and Jews in a European community of learned men and powerful church leaders. In depicting the life of this adventurous border-crosser, Davis suggests the many ways cultural barriers are negotiated and diverging traditions are fused.

Author: Tamora Pierce
Publisher: Ember
ISBN: 0375828796
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
When you gamble with kingdoms, all bets are off. Legends are born in this thrilling and New York Times bestselling spy saga from the fantasy author who is legend herself: Tamora Pierce. Aly is from a family known for great deeds. She is the daughter of Alanna, the famed knight and King’s Champion of Tortall. But even though she is bold and brave, like her mother, her true talents lie on her father’s side, in the art of spying. When Aly is captured by pirates and sold as a slave to an exiled royal family in the faraway Copper Isles, she strikes a bargain with the trickster god. If she can keep young noblewomen Sarai and Dove safe for the summer, then he will return Aly to her family. The task should be simple, but Sarai and Dove are anything but. It’s a time of murderous plotting at court, and Aly will need to rely on her training and the insights of a strange young man named Nawat to survive in a world where trust can cost you your life. “Tamora Pierce’s books shaped me not only as a young writer but also as a young woman. She is a pillar, an icon, and an inspiration. Cracking open one of her marvelous novels always feels like coming home.” —SARAH J. MAAS, #1 New York Times bestselling author “Tamora Pierce didn’t just blaze a trail. Her heroines cut a swath through the fantasy world with wit, strength, and savvy. Her stories still lead the vanguard today. Pierce is the real lioness, and we’re all just running to keep pace.” —LEIGH BARDUGO, #1 New York Times bestselling author