"The Northumbrian King Oswald (reigned 635-642 AD), was a warrior, evangelist, hunter and scholar ... [this book] is a series of elegies and eulogies for Oswald redivivus, written in the voices of an unlikely band of northern subversives, including NUM leader Arthur Scargill, hermit Richard Rolle, brigand John Nevison, Catholic rebel Robert Aske - and Oswald himself"--Back cover.
"Steve Ely's new book takes its inspiration and its title from Incendium Amoris (`The Fire of Love') by the fourteenth century saint and mystic Richard Rolle, 'the hermit of Hampole'. The book offers a vision of pre-Reformation and post-industrial England through the eyes of the trespasser, the poacher, the recusant, and the revolutionary, in solidarity with the swinish multitude against the landed power. Contesting language and landscape and addressing issues including carnality, class, skepticism and belief, Incendium Amoris is a peasant's revolt against the accelerating cultural, social and environmental devastations of globalizing capital, a guerrilla-pastoral prophecy of a yeoman-anarchist utopia."--Page 4 of cover
After the battle of Brunanburh (CE 937), when AEthelstan's army defeated an invading alliance of Scots, Irish, Britons, and Norse, the Viking mercenary Egil Skallagrimsson extemporized a panegyric for the English and their king. Englaland is a stunning re-imagining of Skallagrimsson's song, an unapologetic and paradoxical affirmation of a bloody, bloody-minded and bloody brilliant people. Danish huscarls, Falklands war heroes, pit-village bird-nesters, aging prize-fighters, flying pickets, jihadi suicide-bombers and singing yellowhammers parade through the book in an incendiary combination, rising to the challenge of the skald's you are the people in the land; know you are the people; know it is your land.
The most absurd, hilarious, and ridiculous travelogue ever told, by two hit-TV comedy writers who raced each other around the world—for bragging rights and a very expensive bottle of Scotch It started as a friendly wager: two old friends from The Harvard Lampoon, Steve Hely and Vali Chandrasekaran now hotshot Hollywood scribes, challenged each other to a race around the globe in opposite directions. There was only one rule: no airplanes. The first man to cross every line of longitude and arrive back in L.A. would win Scotch and infamy. But little did one racer know that the other planned to cheat him out of the big prize by way of a ride on a quarter-million-dollar jet pack. What follows is a pair of hilarious, hazardous, and eye-opening journeys into the farthest corners of the world. From the West Bank to the Aleutian Islands, the slums of Rio to the steppes of Mongolia, traveling by ocean freighter and the Trans-Siberian Railway (pranking each other mercilessly along the way), Vali and Steve plunge eagerly and ill-prepared into global adventure. The Ridiculous Race is a comic travelogue unlike any other, an outrageous tale of two gentlemen travelers who can't wait to don baggy cardigan sweaters, clench corncob pipes between their teeth, and yell at their sons, "You lazy bums! When we were your age, we raced around the world without airplanes!"
"This is the story of [Pete] Tarslaw's effort to write the best-sellingest best seller of all time, and what its success costs him in the end."--Back cover.
Hely's journey through Central and South America blends travel writing with pop history and a comic memoir. His engaging narrative and humor invite readers to explore new destinations and inspire a sense of adventure, making it an entertaining read for those who enjoy travel and comedy.
Sie haben ein Ziel: die Umrundung der Welt. Der Einsatz: eine Flasche Whisky. Die Bedingung: keine Flugzeuge. Es beginnt ein wahnwitziges Wettrennen um die Welt: Bald findet sich Steve auf einem Containerschiff wieder, das, beladen mit Rinderfellen und Altbatterien, von der amerikanischen Westküste aus Schanghai anläuft. Vali heizt derweil mit dem Mietwagen nach Mexiko und begreift erst langsam, dass ihn der Start gen Osten durch die Zeitverschiebung jeden zweiten Tag eine Stunde Schlaf kosten wird. Umso eiliger hat er es, bei Juan Lozano in Cuernavaca seinen ganz persönlichen Raketenrucksack zu erstehen. Doch Augenblick mal. Kommt man mit einem Raketenrucksack über den Atlantik? Wie man im Eiltempo 24 Länder auf 5 Kontinenten durchquert und dabei die coolsten Geschichten erlebt, wie man das Vertrauen einer brasilianischen Graffiti-Gang gewinnt, warum man keine frittierten Seidenraupen essen und keine gegorene Stutenmilch trinken sollte, wie man ein Blind Date in Schweden übersteht oder eine Entführung in Moskau plant – das erfahren Sie in diesem Buch über das skurrile Reiseabenteuer zweier liebenswerter Chaoten.
