The neoclassic tendency to write about the ruins of Rome was both an attempt to recapture the grandeur of the “golden age” of man and a lament for the passing of a great civilization. John Dyer, who wrote The Ruins of Rome in 1740, was largely responsible for the eighteenth-century revival of a unique subgenre of landscape poetry dealing with ruins of the ancient world. Few poems about the ruins had been written since Antiquités de Rome in 1558 by Joachim Du Bellay. Dyer was one of first neoclassic poets to return to the decaying stones of a past society as a source of poetic inspiration and imagination. He views the relics as monuments of grandeur and greatness, but also of impending death and destruction. While following most of the rules and standards of neoclassicism—that of imitating nature and giving pleasure to a reader—Dyer also includes his personal reactions and emotions in The Ruins of Rome. The work is composed from the position of a poet who serves as interpreter and translator of the subject, a primary characteristic of “prospect” poetry in the eighteenth century. Numerous other writers quickly followed Dyer’s example, including George Keate, William Whitehead and William Parsons. The tendency by these poets to write about the ruins of Rome from a subjective point of view was one of the strongest themes in what Northrop Frye has called the “Age of Sensibility.” Although the renewed interest in Roman ruins lasted well into the nineteenth century, influencing Romantic poets from Lord Byron to William Wordsworth, the evolution of this type of verse was a gradual process: it originated with Du Bellay’s poem, continued through seventeenth-century paintings by Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa (along with the later art of Piranesi and Pannini), and reached maturity with the poetic interest in the imagination in the eighteenth century. All of these factors, especially the tendency of poets to record their subjective feelings and insights concerning the ruins, are elements that proved to be instrumental in the eventual development of Romanticism.

A writer from Maryland, Harp Tyler, joins an archeological expedition in Mexico to gather material for a novel and gets more than he bargained for. What was to be a peaceful dig turns into an adventure involving wild animals, jungle warfare and romantic entanglement. By the author of The Incas.

This book is a photographic project the author has been working on since 2012 in Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan, to bear witness to the consequences of war.

The Grishaverse will be coming to Netflix soon with Shadow and Bone, an original series Enter the Grishaverse with Book Three of the Shadow and Bone Trilogy by the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom. Soldier. Summoner. Saint.The nation's fate rests with a broken Sun Summoner, a disgraced tracker, and the shattered remnants of a once-great magical army. The Darkling rules from his shadow throne while a weakened Alina Starkov recovers from their battle under the dubious protection of the zealots who worship her as a Saint. Now her hopes lie with the magic of a long-vanished ancient creature and the chance that an outlaw prince still survives. As her allies and enemies race toward war, only Alina stands between her country and a rising tide of darkness that could destroy the world. To win this fight, she must seize a legend's power--but claiming the firebird may be her ruin. A New York Times Bestselling Series A USA Today Bestseller This title has Common Core connections. Praise for the Grishaverse "A master of fantasy." --The Huffington Post "Utterly, extremely bewitching." --The Guardian "The best magic universe since Harry Potter." --Bustle "This is what fantasy is for." --The New York Times Book Review " A] world that feels real enough to have its own passport stamp." --NPR "The darker it gets for the good guys, the better." --Entertainment Weekly "Sultry, sweeping and picturesque. . . . Impossible to put down." --USA Today "There's a level of emotional and historical sophistication within Bardugo's original epic fantasy that sets it apart." --Vanity Fair "Unlike anything I've ever read." --Veronica Roth, bestselling author of Divergent "Bardugo crafts a first-rate adventure, a poignant romance, and an intriguing mystery " --Rick Riordan, bestselling author of the Percy Jackson series "This is a great choice for teenage fans of George R.R. Martin and J.R.R. Tolkien." --RT Book Reviews Read all the books in the Grishaverse The Shadow and Bone Trilogy (previously published as The Grisha Trilogy) Shadow and Bone Siege and Storm Ruin and Rising The Six of Crows Duology Six of Crows Crooked Kingdom King of Scars The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic

Huemac has foreknowledge of the disaster approaching Tenochtitlan, as Cortez and his army march toward the city.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Trapped in the Mexican jungle, a group of friends stumble upon a creeping horror unlike anything they could ever imagine in "the best horror novel of the new century" (Stephen King). Also a major motion picture! Two young couples are on a lazy Mexican vacation—sun-drenched days, drunken nights, making friends with fellow tourists. When the brother of one of those friends disappears, they decide to venture into the jungle to look for him. What started out as a fun day-trip slowly spirals into a nightmare when they find an ancient ruins site ... and the terrifying presence that lurks there. "The Ruins does for Mexican vacations what Jaws did for New England beaches.” —Entertainment Weekly “Smith’s nail-biting tension is a pleasure all its own.... This stuff isn’t for the faint of heart.” —New York Post “A story so scary you may never want to go on vacation, or dig around in your garden, again.” —USA Today

DIVDIV“A great adventure . . . So outrageous and so real, one is left speechless.” —Chicago Sun Times/divDIV/divDIVIn Walker Percy’s future America, the country is on the brink of disaster. With citizens violently polarized along racial, political, and social lines, and a fifteen-year war still raging abroad, America is crumbling quickly into ruin. The country’s one remaining hope is Dr. Thomas More, whose “lapsometer” is capable of diagnosing the spiritual afflictions—anxiety, depression, alienation—driving everyone’s destructive and disastrous behavior./divDIV /divDIVBut such a potent machine has its pitfalls. As Dr. More soon learns, in the wrong hands, the powerful lapsometer could lead to open warfare, pushing America into anarchy at full-speed./div /div