May You Live In Interesting Times

'There is a curse. They say: may you live in interesting times . . .' This is the worst thing you can wish on a citizen of Discworld. Especially for the magically challenged Rincewind, who has already had far too much excitement in his life. Unfortunately, the unlucky wizard always seems to end up in the middle of, well, absolutely everything. So when a request for a 'Great Wizzard' arrives from the faraway Counterweight Continent, it's obviously Rincewind who's sent. For one thing, he's the only one who spells wizard that way. Once again Rincewind is thrown headfirst into a dangerous adventure. For the oldest empire on the Disc is in turmoil and Chaos is building. And, for some reason, someone believes Rincewind will have a vital role in the coming war . . . 'Pratchett is a comic genius' Daily Express 'Funny, delightfully inventive, and refuses to lie down in its genre' Observer Interesting Times is the fifth book in the Wizards series, but you can read the Discworld novels in any order.

In 1966 Mao Zedong unleashed the Cultural Revolution, a brutal and bloody campaign aimed at obliterating the past and building a new China on the rubble of its ancient civilization. Now it is 1988, and while the tide of change has turned for the better, the legacy of Mao lingers on in the minds of former devotees and victims alike. Five years have passed since China's first tentative opening to the outside world, and the effects are undeniable. Initially overawed by foreign customs, China's youngsters have become increasingly restless, frustrated by the rigid system that has bound them for so long. Frightened by their children's foolhardy defiance of the Party, a group of friends gather to relive the past, hoping they can restore a sense of reality before it is too late. "May You Live In Interesting Times" is an intelligent and compassionate work spanning decades of turmoil. Willem Dijkstra has produced a novel of considerable depth, weaving individual suffering and anguish into a broader tapestry of mass political persecution and terror. Through characters such as Xu Suping and Dao Huimin, Willem Dijkstra not only brings the nightmare of Mao's China sharply into focus, but he also succeeds in capturing the essence of the Chinese: exasperating, stubborn, warm-hearted and eternally resilient.

Twenty-one stories, mostly on women. In the title story a woman reminisces about her loves, Gone Fishing is on a romance by e-mail, while Bill Hilgendorf is a woman's reflections on her childhood sweetheart. A debut in fiction.

Eric Hobsbawm is considered by many to be our greatest living historian. Robert Heilbroner, writing about Hobsbawm’s The Age of Extremes 1914-1991 said, “I know of no other account that sheds as much light on what is now behind us, and thereby casts so much illumination on our possible futures.” Skeptical, endlessly curious, and almost contemporary with the terrible “short century” which is the subject of Age of Extremes, his most widely read book, Hobsbawm has, for eighty-five years, been committed to understanding the “interesting times” through which he has lived. Hitler came to power as Hobsbawm was on his way home from school in Berlin, and the Soviet Union fell while he was giving a seminar in New York. He was a member of the Apostles at King’s College, Cambridge, took E.M. Forster to hear Lenny Bruce, and demonstrated with Bertrand Russell against nuclear arms in Trafalgar Square. He translated for Che Guevara in Havana, had Christmas dinner with a Soviet master spy in Budapest and an evening at home with Mahalia Jackson in Chicago. He saw the body of Stalin, started the modern history of banditry and is probably the only Marxist asked to collaborate with the inventor of the Mars bar. Hobsbawm takes us from Britain to the countries and cultures of Europe, to America (which he appreciated first through movies and jazz), to Latin America, Chile, India and the Far East. With Interesting Times, we see the history of the twentieth century through the unforgiving eye of one of its most intensely engaged participants, the incisiveness of whose views we cannot afford to ignore in a world in which history has come to be increasingly forgotten.

'May you live in interesting times’ was made famous by Sir Austen Chamberlain. The premise is that ‘interesting times’ are times of upheaval, conflict and insecurity - troubled times. With the growing numbers of displaced populations and the rise in the politics of fear and hate, we are facing challenges to our very ‘species-being’. Papers in the volume include ethnographic studies on the ‘refugee crisis’, the ‘financial crisis’ and the ‘rule of law crisis' in the Mediterranean as well as the crisis of violence and hunger in South America.

Journey across epic China—through millennia of early innovation to modern dominance. The Shortest History books deliver thousands of years of history in one riveting, fast-paced read. As we enter the “Asian century,” China demands our attention for being an economic powerhouse, a beacon of rapid modernization, and an assertive geopolitical player. To understand the nation behind the headlines, we must take in its vibrant, tumultuous past—a story of “larger-than-life characters, philosophical arguments and political intrigues, military conflicts and social upheavals, artistic invention and technological innovation.” The Shortest History of China charts a path from China’s tribal origins through its storied imperial era and up to the modern Communist Party under Xi Jinping—including the rarely told story of women in China and the specters of corruption and disunity that continue to haunt the People’s Republic today. A master storyteller and exacting historian, Linda Jaivin distills this vast history into a short, riveting account that today’s globally minded readers will find indispensable.

***BUSINESS BOOK AWARDS - FINALIST 2021 - PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND WELLBEING*** Make the Most of Every Single Day Uncertainty, instability, pressure, anxiety and now pandemic pandemonium . . . the world is hell bent on robbing us of our wellbeing. It's time to fight back. Twenty-Two Rules for Life that Just work It's time to ditch the tired, old wisdom, and take life into your own hands. We've all fallen for the mantra that 'you only live once,' but it's a big fat lie. The truth is that you get to live – really LIVE – every single day of your life. Based on the wisdom of Positive Psychology, How to be a WELL BEING teaches you to: Strive toward your true potential Stop wasting time and start achieving Focus on what's truly important Rethink your thinking Find meaning and fulfillment Upgrade to YOU 2.0 It's time to raise your personal bar from mental health to mental WEALTH. 'Memento mori' – remember death. No more messing around. No more wasting time. A new world calls for new rules. It's time to re-focus on what's most important and to take massive strides towards your true potential. 'I forget what came before sliced bread, but whatever it was, this is better than that.' —Mylee from Swindon

When President Richard Nixon held his meetings with Chairman Mao in Beijing in February 1972, at his side was a young U.S. diplomat serving as his principal interpreter: Chas W. Freeman, Jr. Interesting Times: China, America, and the Shifting Balance of Prestige presents Ambassador Freeman's most brilliant (and often bitingly witty) on developments in China and the U.S.-Chinese relationship, 1969-2012. Subjects include issues like Taiwan, other strategic issues, and differences over human rights, economic, and trade policies that confronted the world's two most powerful countries throughout those years.