In 1864 the Austrian Archduke Maximilian went to assume a distant throne. The operatic episode ended in his death by firing squad, famously memorialised by Manet.
Incredible though it seems, in the closing years of the GDR the Stasi trained operatives to become poets in order to infiltrate literary circles. Years of sleuthing has yielded this remarkab... read more
Two sisters try to survive the four nights that were the Belfast Blitz: a powerful novel of love and living in extreme circumstances, by a fine writer.
When Crane died at 28, he was a star: the adventurous veteran of the Wild West and Cuba during the Spanish American War, the author of a masterpiece (The Red Badge of Courage), and an exile ... read more