Ghost Wars : The Secret History of the Cia, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invation to September 10, 2001

‘Sentimental Education’ has been described both as the first modern novel and as a novel to end all novels. Weaving a poignant love story into his account of the 1848 revolution, Flaubert shows a society in the grip of stereotypes, on every level. There is something farcical in his depiction of characters who aspire to act but are dogged by cliche at every turn. To a greater extent even than Madame Bovary, ‘Sentimental Education’ is an indictment of modern consumerism, contrasting the hollowness of material achievement with the lasting beauty of the ideal. Flaubert’s study of success and failure offers us a terrible sadness in a terrible beauty, yet is one of the world’s great comic masterpieces. AUTHOR: Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) achieved instant success and fame, indeed notoriety, with his first novel, ‘Madam Bovary’, published in 1857. He was prosecuted on the basis that the novel was ‘offensive to public morality and religion’. Although found not guilty, Flaubert earned a lecture from the judge on the dangers of ‘realism’. The book was a huge success, and Flaubert came to be considered one of the great novelists of Western literature.

For over three thousand years, the Mediterranean Sea has been one of the great centres of civilization. David Abulafia’s The Great Sea is the first complete history of the Mediterranean, from the erection of temples on Malta around 3500 BC to modern tourism. Ranging across time and the whole extraordinary space of the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Jaffa, Genoa to Tunis, and bringing to life pilgrims, pirates, sultans and naval commanders, this is the story of the sea that has shaped much of world history.