Telling of four generations two widely contrasting families; the domineering, prosperous Tewkes, and the kindly, unambitious Izzards.

Unfolding in Worcestershire in the 1880s, young Beth Tewke is coming to terms with a tragic loss. Resplendent with richly evocative scenes of country life and filled with warm and intriguing characters, Apple tree lean down follows the fortunes of Beth and her family through the seasons of birth and loss, marriage and hope.

Follows Grandfather Tewkes, his headstrong daughter Beth and her husband, their daughter Betony, and Betony's adopted brother, Tom Maddox, through four generations of joy and anguish, comfort and poverty, and life and death in the West Midlands, London, a

Ensign traces the engagement of Wolfe's characters with the nonhuman world to roots in a romantic tradition of American literature, as exemplified by Nathaniel Hawthorne."--BOOK JACKET.

Part meditation, part travelogue, and part literary analysis, Time to Stand and Stare: Meditations on a Mountain Path, takes readers along on the author’s physical and metaphorical exploration of Wales and the Apostle’s Creed and the Beatitudes. Follow one man’s journey as he questions fundamental writings of his Christian faith. How can modern Christians apply ancient creeds and gospel writings to the finite time with which we live? One solution lies in answering the question, what did the writings mean to those who originally wrote and read them? A truly unique mixture of science, poetry, and faith, this book is a delightful read from the first line to the final one. The beginning pulls the reader in, asking them to journey with the author on his trek alone over the beautiful Welsh hills and valleys. These walks afford the reader the opportunity to meditate on the ways we can “admire and inspire” the beauty of nature and its relationship to our life journey.

The only book that shows readers how to ask the questions which will make poems to speak to them.

From the renowned Booker Prize winner and nationally bestselling author of Snow comes a richly atmospheric new mystery about a woman’s sudden disappearance in a small coastal town in Ireland, where nothing is as it seems. "John Banville is one of my favorite writers alive, and I pick up his books whenever I need a reminder how to write a good sentence.”—R.F. Kuang “He had seen drowned people. A sight not to be forgotten.” 1950s, rural Ireland. A loner comes across a mysteriously empty car in a field. Knowing he shouldn’t approach but unable to hold back, he soon finds himself embroiled in a troubling missing person case, as a husband claims his wife may have thrown herself into the sea. Called in from Dublin to investigate is Detective Inspector Strafford, who soon turns to his old ally—the flawed but brilliant pathologist Quirke—a man he is linked to in increasingly complicated ways. But as the case unfolds, events from the past resurface that may have life-altering ramifications for all involved. At once a searing mystery and a profound meditation on the hidden worlds we all inhabit, The Drowned is the next great Strafford and Quirke novel from a beloved writer at the top of his game.

A guide to series fiction lists popular series, identifies novels by character, and offers guidance on the order in which to read unnumbered series.

Born the child of an agricultural labourer in Dorset's Blackmore Vale, by self-education William Barnes (1801-1886) rose to be a lawyer's clerk, a schoolmaster, a much-loved clergyman, and a scholar who could read over seventy languages. He also became the finest example of an English poet writing in a rural dialect. In this book, Alan Chedzoy shows how, uniquely, he presented the lives of pre-industrial rural people in their own language. He also recounts how Barnes's linguistic studies enabled him to defend the controversial notion that the dialect of the labouring people of Wessex was the purest form of English. Serving both as an anthology and an account of how the poems came to be written, this biography is essential reading for anyone who wants to discover more about the man who, in an obituary, Thomas Hardy described as 'probably the most interesting link between present and past life that England possessed'.