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Haunting and huge, and funny and sensuous. It’s wonderful’ Tessa Hadley                                     ‘I just enjoyed it so very much’ Philip Pullman                        It is the 17th century and a wall is being built around a great house. Wychwood is an enclosed world, its ornamental lakes and majestic avenues planned by Mr Norris, landscape-maker. A world where everyone has something to hide after decades of civil war, where dissidents shelter in the forest, lovers linger in secret gardens, and migrants, fleeing the plague, are turned away from the gate.             Three centuries later, another wall goes up overnight, dividing Berlin, while at Wychwood, over one hot, languorous weekend, erotic entanglements are shadowed by news of historic change. A little girl, Nell, observes all.             Nell grows up and Wychwood is invaded. There is a pop festival by the lake, a TV crew in the dining room and a Great Storm brewing. As the Berlin wall comes down, a fatwa signals a different ideological faultline and a refugee seeks safety in Wychwood.             From the multi-award-winning author of The Pike comes a breathtakingly ambitious, beautiful and timely novel about game keepers and witches, agitators and aristocrats, about young love and the pathos of aging, and about how those who wall others out risk finding themselves walled in.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49514121855249,"sku":"GOR009002901","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49659907834129,"sku":"GOR009142023","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49729402077457,"sku":"NGR9780008126544","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49937912824081,"sku":"CIN0008126542G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52120755798289,"sku":"NLS9780008126544","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0008126542.jpg?v=1751322526"},{"product_id":"pike-book-lucy-hughes-hallett-9780007213955","title":"The Pike","description":"WINNER OF THE 2013 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION           The story of Gabriele D'Annunzio, poet, daredevil - and Fascist.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49516781895953,"sku":"GOR005411472","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51882332455185,"sku":"GOR005684890","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53104732012817,"sku":"GOR008194000","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0007213956.jpg?v=1750939158"},{"product_id":"heroes-book-lucy-hughes-hallett-9781857026863","title":"Heroes","description":"From the author of ‘The Pike’ – winner of the 2013 Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction – a compelling story of heroism told through eight famous lives that span from Achilles to Sir Francis Drake.             On 12 September 2001, a group of people were photographed near the ruins of the World Trade Centre holding up a banner that read WE NEED HEROES NOW. In Lucy Hughes-Hallett's brilliant new book she explores that need through the careers of eight heroes. Her subjects – Achilles, Odysseus, Alcibiades, Cato, El Cid, Francis Drake, Wallenstein, Garibaldi – were not necessarily good (quite the reverse in some cases), but they were all great, charismatic enough to persuade those around them that they were capable of doing what no one else alive could do.             Beginning beneath the walls of Troy and ending in 1930s Europe when the cult of the hero was turning politically lethal, this is a book about mortality and dictatorship, about money and sorcery, about seduction (sexual and political) and mass-hysteria. Above all, it is a sequence of extraordinary stories, each of them shedding a different and startling light on the all-but-universal craving for an invincible champion, an all-powerful redeemer, a superman, and each of them featuring a character so glamorous or intimidating that his contemporaries considered him either a devil or a god.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49518160281873,"sku":"GOR001734323","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49734447530257,"sku":"NGR9781857026863","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51166795956497,"sku":"GOR010358109","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51557172478225,"sku":"GOR005420897","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51566498742545,"sku":"GOR014330897","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1857026861.jpg?v=1750931147"},{"product_id":"peculiar-ground-book-lucy-hughes-hallett-9780008126506","title":"Peculiar Ground","description":"`One of the best novels of the year so far’ The Times                        A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR                                     `Unlike anything I’ve read. 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Not since Wim Winders’ Wings of Desire have the numinous and the everyday been so magically combined.                         It's in the nature of myth to be infinitely adaptable.             Each of these startlingly original stories is set in modern Britain. Their characters include a people-trafficking gang-master and a prostitute, a migrant worker and a cocksure estate agent, an elderly musician doubly befuddled by dementia and the death of his wife, a pest-controller suspected of paedophilia and a librarian so well-behaved that her parents wonder anxiously whether she’ll ever find love.             They’re ordinary people, preoccupied, as we all are now, by the deficiencies of the health service, by criminal gangs and homelessness, by the pitfalls of dating in the age of #metoo.  All of their stories, though, are inspired by ones drawn from Graeco-Roman myth, from the Bible or from folk-lore.             The ancients invented myths to express what they didn’t understand. 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As she re-creates these extraordinary lives, Hughes-Hallett illuminates the attractions and dangers of hero worship. 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Nouvelle edition\u003cbr\u003eDate de l'edition originale: 1793\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCe livre est la reproduction fidele d'une oeuvre publiee avant 1920 et fait partie d'une collection de livres reimprimes a la demande editee par Hachette Livre, dans le cadre d'un partenariat avec la Bibliotheque nationale de France, offrant l'opportunite d'acceder a des ouvrages anciens et souvent rares issus des fonds patrimoniaux de la BnF.\u003cbr\u003eLes oeuvres faisant partie de cette collection ont ete numerisees par la BnF et sont presentes sur Gallica, sa bibliotheque numerique.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEn entreprenant de redonner vie a ces ouvrages au travers d'une collection de livres reimprimes a la demande, nous leur donnons la possibilite de rencontrer un public elargi et participons a la transmission de connaissances et de savoirs parfois difficilement accessibles.\u003cbr\u003eNous avons cherche a concilier la reproduction fidele d'un livre ancien a partir de sa version numerisee avec le souci d'un confort de lecture optimal. 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On 12 September 2001, a group of people were photographed near the ruins of the World Trade Centre holding up a banner that read WE NEED HEROES NOW. In Lucy Hughes-Hallett's brilliant new book she explores that need through the careers of eight heroes. Her subjects -- Achilles, Odysseus, Alcibiades, Cato, El Cid, Francis Drake, Wallenstein, Garibaldi -- were not necessarily good (quite the reverse in some cases), but they were all great, charismatic enough to persuade those around them that they were capable of doing what no one else alive could do. Beginning beneath the walls of Troy and ending in 1930s Europe when the cult of the hero was turning politically lethal, this is a book about mortality and dictatorship, about money and sorcery, about seduction (sexual and political) and mass-hysteria. 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Byatt, delivering a densely patterned novel that shimmers with human interest as it probes our cultural story.\"--Wall Street Journal\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Costa Award-winning author of The Pike makes her literary fiction debut with an extraordinary historical novel in the spirit of Wolf Hall and Atonement--a great English country house novel, spanning three centuries, that explores surprisingly timely themes of immigration and exclusion.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIt is the seventeenth century and a wall is being raised around Wychwood, transforming the great house and its park into a private realm of ornamental lakes, grandiose gardens, and majestic avenues designed by Mr. Norris, a visionary landscaper. In this enclosed world everyone has something to hide after decades of civil war. Dissenters shelter in the woods, lovers rendezvous in secret enclaves, and outsiders--migrants fleeing the plague--find no mercy.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThree centuries later, far away in Berlin, another wall is raised, while at Wychwood, an erotic entanglement over one sticky, languorous weekend in 1961 is overshadowed by news of historic change. Young Nell, whose father manages the estate, grows up amid dramatic upheavals as the great house is invaded: a pop festival by the lake, a television crew in the dining room, a Great Storm brewing. In 1989, as the Cold War peters out, a threat from a different kind of conflict reaches Wychwood's walls.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLucy Hughes-Hallett conjures an intricately structured, captivating story that explores the lives of game keepers and witches, agitators and aristocrats; the exuberance of young love and the pathos of aging; and the way those who try to wall others out risk finding themselves walled in. With poignancy and grace, she illuminates a place where past and present are inextricably linked by stories, legends, and history--and by one patch of peculiar ground.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49601013743889,"sku":"GOR012599029","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50095196471569,"sku":"CIN0062684205VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50343529251089,"sku":"CIN0062684205G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53566378541329,"sku":"GOR014964569","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0062684205.jpg?v=1751131910"},{"product_id":"peculiar-ground-book-lucy-hughes-hallett-9780008126520","title":"Peculiar Ground","description":"‘One of the best novels of the year so far’ The Times                        A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR                                     ‘Unlike anything I’ve read. Haunting and huge, and funny and sensuous. It’s wonderful’ Tessa Hadley                                     ‘I just enjoyed it so very much’ Philip Pullman                        It is the 17th century and a wall is being built around a great house. Wychwood is an enclosed world, its ornamental lakes and majestic avenues planned by Mr Norris, landscape-maker. A world where everyone has something to hide after decades of civil war, where dissidents shelter in the forest, lovers linger in secret gardens, and migrants, fleeing the plague, are turned away from the gate.             Three centuries later, another wall goes up overnight, dividing Berlin, while at Wychwood, over one hot, languorous weekend, erotic entanglements are shadowed by news of historic change. A little girl, Nell, observes all.             Nell grows up and Wychwood is invaded. There is a pop festival by the lake, a TV crew in the dining room and a Great Storm brewing. 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From the multi-award-winning author of The Pike comes a breathtakingly ambitious, beautiful and timely novel about game keepers and witches, agitators and aristocrats, about young love and the pathos of aging, and about how those who wall others out risk finding themselves walled in.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49610177282321,"sku":"GOR008555443","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49613697843473,"sku":"GOR008653052","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53039193129233,"sku":"GOR014710143","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0008126526.jpg?v=1751035796"},{"product_id":"heroes-book-lucy-hughes-hallett-9781400079797","title":"Heroes","description":"Beginning beneath the walls of Troy and culminating in 1930s Europe, a magisterial exploration of the nature of heroism in Western civilization. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn this riveting and insightful cultural history, Lucy Hughes-Hallett brings to life eight exceptional men from history and myth to explore our timeless need for heroes. 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When Charles I succeeded his father, he was similarly enthralled and made Buckingham his best friend and mentor. A dazzling figure on horseback and a skilful player of the political game, Buckingham rapidly transformed the influence his beauty gave him into immense wealth and power. He became one of the most flamboyant and enigmatic Englishmen at the heart of seventeenth-century royal and political life.             With a novelist’s touch, Lucy Hughes-Hallett transports us into a courtly world of masques and dancing, exquisite clothes, the art of Rubens and Van Dyck, gender-fluidity, same-sex desire and appallingly rudimentary medicine. Witch hunts coexisted with Francis Bacon’s empiricism and public opinion was becoming a political force. Falling from grace spectacularly, Buckingham came to represent everything that was wrong with the country.             From kidnappings and murder plots to men weeping in Parliament over civil liberties, The Scapegoat navigates love, war-fever and pacifism in a society on the brink of cataclysmic change. In this immersive and authoritative account, Hughes-Hallett summons an era that still resonates today.             -             ‘Written with such verve and invention … Fascinating book’ TOM SUTCLIFFE, BBC RADIO 4's FRONT ROW             'The Scapegoat brilliantly dramatises the complex and glittering Duke of Buckingham and the political and sexual intrigue of the court of James I. Hughes-Hallett combines the instincts and talents of a novelist with a historian's vivid sense of period and social change’ COLM TÓIBÍN             ‘A flamboyant character, an epic rise and tragic fall, brought to life with intelligence, tenderness and profound scholarship’ ADAM ZAMOYSKI             ‘Buckingham’s rise and fall is as old as Tiberius’ love for Sejanus and as contemporary as a celeb crash-and-burn. Hughes-Hallett is a matchless historian with an unfailing eye for the revealing detail’ SUE PRIDEAUX             ‘A true Jacobean drama, except bloodier and sexier. 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When Charles I succeeded his father, he was similarly enthralled and made Buckingham his best friend and mentor. A dazzling figure on horseback and a skilful player of the political game, Buckingham rapidly transformed the influence his beauty gave him into immense wealth and power. He became one of the most flamboyant and enigmatic Englishmen at the heart of seventeenth-century royal and political life.             With a novelist’s touch, Lucy Hughes-Hallett transports us into a courtly world of masques and dancing, exquisite clothes, the art of Rubens and Van Dyck, gender-fluidity, same-sex desire and appallingly rudimentary medicine. Witch hunts coexisted with Francis Bacon’s empiricism and public opinion was becoming a political force. Falling from grace spectacularly, Buckingham came to represent everything that was wrong with the country.             From kidnappings and murder plots to men weeping in Parliament over civil liberties, The Scapegoat navigates love, war-fever and pacifism in a society on the brink of cataclysmic change. In this immersive and authoritative account, Hughes-Hallett summons an era that still resonates today.             -             ‘Written with such verve and invention … Fascinating book’ TOM SUTCLIFFE, BBC RADIO 4's FRONT ROW             'The Scapegoat brilliantly dramatises the complex and glittering Duke of Buckingham and the political and sexual intrigue of the court of James I. Hughes-Hallett combines the instincts and talents of a novelist with a historian's vivid sense of period and social change’ COLM TÓIBÍN             ‘A flamboyant character, an epic rise and tragic fall, brought to life with intelligence, tenderness and profound scholarship’ ADAM ZAMOYSKI             ‘Buckingham’s rise and fall is as old as Tiberius’ love for Sejanus and as contemporary as a celeb crash-and-burn. Hughes-Hallett is a matchless historian with an unfailing eye for the revealing detail’ SUE PRIDEAUX             ‘A true Jacobean drama, except bloodier and sexier. Lucy Hughes-Hallett writes with gusto and insight’ PAUL THEROUX             ‘Compulsively readable and elegantly written … [Lucy Hughes-Hallett] has brought Buckingham gloriously alive’ FINANCIAL TIMES             ‘Crisp and vivid … The story is a tragic one, no less so for being told here with verve, erudition and empathy’ NEW STATESMAN             ‘Richly multilayered … Hughes-Hallett proves herself alive to the nuances of gender and sexuality in the early seventeenth century…refreshingly light and contemporary, while at the same time suited to the seventeenth century’ TLS             ‘This is an absorbing, even thrilling journey through the dark and tangled networks of Stuart England … outstanding’ DIANE PURKISS","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51628266029329,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51628266324241,"sku":"NGR9780008126599","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52465420075281,"sku":"NLS9780008126599","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52693901541649,"sku":"GOR014581013","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52994427355409,"sku":"GOR014685563","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53102201995537,"sku":"GOR014741466","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0008126593.jpg?v=1754476312"},{"product_id":"scapegoat-book-lucy-hughes-hallett-9780008126575","title":"The Scapegoat","description":"*PLUTARCH AWARD FOR THE BEST BIOGRAPHY OF 2024*                                     *SHORTLISTED FOR THE DUFF COOPER PRIZE*                        ‘SUBLIME’ A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024             ‘STUNNINGLY GOOD’ THE TIMES BEST HISTORY BOOKS 2024             ‘COMPULSIVE’ A PROSPECT BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024                          ‘BRILLIANT’ A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024                        ‘A delicious, grippingly paced tale of rogues, riotous sex, regicide and realpolitik’INDEPENDENT BEST BOOKS FOR CHRISTMAS             ‘This is the page-turner that Buckingham’s short, racy life deserves’DAILY TELEGRAPH             ‘Vivid, erudite and sympathetic … The Scapegoat shows that [Hughes-Hallett’s] eye for the seamy realities of an extraordinary life is as sharp as ever’ THE TIMES             ‘Lord Buckingham rockets off the page of this gloriously epic, seductively detailed biography’ OLIVIA LAING             As King James I’s favourite, Buckingham was also his confidant, gatekeeper, right-hand man and lover. When Charles I succeeded his father, he was similarly enthralled and made Buckingham his best friend and mentor. A dazzling figure on horseback and a skilful player of the political game, Buckingham rapidly transformed the influence his beauty gave him into immense wealth and power. He became one of the most flamboyant and enigmatic Englishmen at the heart of seventeenth-century royal and political life.             With a novelist’s touch, Lucy Hughes-Hallett transports us into a courtly world of masques and dancing, exquisite clothes, the art of Rubens and Van Dyck, gender-fluidity, same-sex desire and appallingly rudimentary medicine. Witch hunts coexisted with Francis Bacon’s empiricism and public opinion was becoming a political force. Falling from grace spectacularly, Buckingham came to represent everything that was wrong with the country.             From kidnappings and murder plots to men weeping in Parliament over civil liberties, The Scapegoat navigates love, war-fever and pacifism in a society on the brink of cataclysmic change. In this immersive and authoritative account, Hughes-Hallett summons an era that still resonates today.             -             ‘Written with such verve and invention … Fascinating book’ TOM SUTCLIFFE, BBC RADIO 4's FRONT ROW             'The Scapegoat brilliantly dramatises the complex and glittering Duke of Buckingham and the political and sexual intrigue of the court of James I. Hughes-Hallett combines the instincts and talents of a novelist with a historian's vivid sense of period and social change’ COLM TÓIBÍN             ‘A flamboyant character, an epic rise and tragic fall, brought to life with intelligence, tenderness and profound scholarship’ ADAM ZAMOYSKI             ‘Buckingham’s rise and fall is as old as Tiberius’ love for Sejanus and as contemporary as a celeb crash-and-burn. Hughes-Hallett is a matchless historian with an unfailing eye for the revealing detail’ SUE PRIDEAUX             ‘A true Jacobean drama, except bloodier and sexier. Lucy Hughes-Hallett writes with gusto and insight’ PAUL THEROUX             ‘Compulsively readable and elegantly written … [Lucy Hughes-Hallett] has brought Buckingham gloriously alive’ FINANCIAL TIMES             ‘Crisp and vivid … The story is a tragic one, no less so for being told here with verve, erudition and empathy’ NEW STATESMAN             ‘Richly multilayered … Hughes-Hallett proves herself alive to the nuances of gender and sexuality in the early seventeenth century…refreshingly light and contemporary, while at the same time suited to the seventeenth century’ TLS             ‘This is an absorbing, even thrilling journey through the dark and tangled networks of Stuart England … outstanding’ DIANE PURKISS","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52152613044497,"sku":"GOR014494699","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53493676572945,"sku":"GOR014945339","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780008126575.jpg?v=1757617255"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-ie\/collections\/author-books-by-lucy-hughes-hallett.oembed?page=2","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}