Russia, 1915: Sixteen year old farmer's son Georgy Jachmenev steps in front of an assassin's bullet intended for a senior member of the Russian Imperial Family and is instantly proclaimed a hero. Rewarded with the position of bodyguard to Alexei Romanov, the only son of Tsar Nicholas II, the course of his life is changed for ever.
The author's train journey home to rural East Galway in autumn 1978 was a pilgrimage of grief: his giant of a father had been felled, the hurley-making workshop silenced. In this memoir, the author captures the rhythms, struggles and rough edges of a rural life that was already dying even as he grew.
Pilgrim is the codename for a man who doesn't exist. The adopted son of a wealthy American family, he once headed up a secret espionage unit for US intelligence. Before he disappeared into anonymous retirement, he wrote the definitive book on forensic criminal investigation. But that book will come back to haunt him.
Presents a portrait of the writers and wrestlers who played a mentor role in John Irving's development as a novelist, a wrestler and a wrestling coach. This book also gives a picture of a father's dedication to his children. It also details the interrelationship of the disciplines of writing and wrestling.
An InterCity train brakes suddenly in the countryside, and a white-faced woman races to the aid of a sheep stranded on its back, unable to rise. Seeing the woman's face full of tragedy, a fellow passenger does not intrude, but the image lodges in his mind.
Ex-soldier, poet and composer Ivor Gurney, suffering from increasingly frequent and deepening bouts of paranoid schizophrenia, is transferred to the City of London Mental Hospital, Dartford. Neglected by the military and by his own family, Gurney begins a descent into the madness and oblivion which he believes has long been waiting to claim him.