Matilda of Flanders, queen to William the Conqueror was beautiful, exquisitely small, clever, with a perfect courtesy trained in the rigid school of medieval manners. But within lay a root of darkness - inheritance, perhaps, of Viking ancestors. Twice, at least, in her lifetime the Viking streak broke through, in vengeance on a faithless lover, in fury wreaked on a rival of the marriage bed. The marriage, though fruitful of so many children, was on her side no match of love. But a passionate loyalty to her husband, an equally passionate ambition, together with her own sense of justice, gave her the will and the skill to dissemble her feelings and to make her the praise of Christendom. No Queen ever wielded so much power as she in the long years she ruled Normandy; before her no woman in England was ever crowned or was known as Queen.

A brilliant exposé of the implications of same-sex marriage -- and a compelling analysis of what it will take for society to reclaim the birthright of freedom it has lost in a reckless social experiment. To some, same-sex marriage is evidence that society has finally come of age. To others, it is yesterday's issue, posing no danger to traditional marriage. To still others -- McGill University's Douglas Farrow among them -- it has turned civil society on its ear, creating a new political situation in which several things are no longer clear: Is the state the property of the citizenry? Or are citizens, with their cherished personal associations, including marriage, now the property of the state? Who "owns" the children, now that natural parenthood had been replaced by legal parenthood? Is the family still "the natural and fundamental group unit of society," as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights claims? Or is the concept of “the natural" moribund? What is marriage for, anyway?

Greek scholars have produced a vast body of evidence bearing on nuptial practices that has yet to be mined by a professional economist. By standing on their shoulders, the author proposes and tests radically new interpretations of three important status groups in Greek history: the pallakē, the nothos, and the hetaira. It is argued that legitimate marriage – marriage by loan of the bride to the groom – was not the only form of legal marriage in classical Athens and the ancient Greek world generally. Pallakia – marriage by sale of the bride to the groom – was also legally recognized. The pallakē-wifeship transaction is a sale into slavery with a restrictive covenant mandating the employment of the sold woman as a wife. In this highly original and challenging new book, economist Morris Silver proposes and tests the hypothesis that the likelihood of bride sale rises with increases in the distance between the ancestral residence of the groom and the father’s household. Nothoi, the bastard children of pallakai, lacked the legal right to inherit from their fathers but were routinely eligible for Athenian citizenship. It is argued that the basic social meaning of hetaira (companion) is not ‘prostitute’ or ’courtesan,’ but ‘single woman’ – a woman legally recognized as being under her own authority (kuria). The defensive adaptation of single women is reflected in Greek myth and social practice by their grouping into packs, most famously the Daniads and Amazons.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Around the year 1049, William, Duke of Normandy and future conqueror of England, raced to the palace of Baldwin V, Count of Flanders. The count’s eldest daughter, Matilda, had refused William’s offer of marriage and publicly denounced him as a bastard. Encountering the young woman, William furiously dragged her to the ground by her hair and beat her mercilessly. Matilda’s outraged father immediately took up arms on his daughter’s behalf. But just a few days later, Baldwin was aghast when Matilda, still recovering from the assault, announced that she would marry none but William, since “he must be a man of great courage and high daring” to have ventured to “come and beat me in my own father’s palace.” Thus began the tempestuous marriage of Matilda of Flanders and William the Conqueror. While William’s exploits and triumphs have been widely chronicled, his consort remains largely overlooked. Now, in her groundbreaking Queen of the Conqueror, acclaimed author and historian Tracy Borman weaves together a comprehensive and illuminating tapestry of this noble woman who stood only four-foot-two and whose role as the first crowned Queen of England had a large and lasting influence on the English monarchy. From a wealth of historical artifacts and documents, Matilda emerges as passionate, steadfast, and wise, yet also utterly ruthless and tenacious in pursuit of her goals, and the only person capable of taming her formidable husband—who, unprecedented for the period, remained staunchly faithful to her. This mother of nine, including four sons who went on to inherit William’s French and English dominions, confounded the traditional views of women in medieval society by seizing the reins of power whenever she had the chance, directing her husband’s policy, and at times flagrantly disobeying his orders. Tracy Borman lays out Matilda’s remarkable story against one of the most fascinating and transformative periods in European history. Stirring, richly detailed, and wholly involving, Queen of the Conqueror reveals not just an extraordinary figure but an iconic woman who shaped generations, and an era that cast the essential framework for the world we know today. Praise for Queen of the Conqueror “[Tracy Borman] brings to life Queen Matilda’s enormous accomplishments in consolidating early Norman rule. Alongside her warrior husband, William I, Matilda brought legitimacy, a deeper degree of education, diplomatic savvy and artistic and religious flowering to the shared Norman-English throne. Borman . . . the chief executive of Britain’s Heritage Education Trust, fleshes out the personality of this fascinating woman, who set the steely precedent for subsequent English female sovereigns by displaying great longevity and stamina in a rough, paternalistic time. . . . A richly layered treatment of the stormy reign that yielded the incomparable Bayeux Tapestry and the Domesday Book.”—Kirkus Reviews “Tracy Borman tells this story with a steady eye and a steady hand, tracing what can be known of Matilda’s part in the events that were to change the course of English history.”—Helen Castor, Literary Review

The first volume in the addictive saga of the American Revolution by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of the North and South trilogy. Meet Phillipe Charboneau: the illegitimate son and unrecognized heir of the Duke of Kentland. Upon the Duke’s death, Phillipe is denied his birthright and left to build a life of his own. Seeking all that the New World promises, he leaves London for America, shedding his past and preparing for the future by changing his name to Philip Kent. He arrives at the brink of the American Revolution, which tests his allegiances in ways he never imagined. The first volume of John Jakes’s wildly successful and highly addictive Kent Family Chronicles, The Bastard is a triumph of historical fiction. This ebook features an illustrated biography of John Jakes including rare images from the author’s personal collection.

A profound portrait of family dynamics in the rural South and “an essential novel” (The New Yorker) “As close to flawless as any reader could ask for . . . The living language [Allison] has created is as exact and innovative as the language of To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye.” —The New York Times Book Review The publication of Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina was a landmark event that won the author a National Book Award nomination and launched her into the literary spotlight. Critics have likened Allison to Harper Lee, naming her the first writer of her generation to dramatize the lives and language of poor whites in the South. Since its appearance, the novel has inspired an award-winning film and has been banned from libraries and classrooms, championed by fans, and defended by critics. Greenville County, South Carolina, is a wild, lush place that is home to the Boatwright family—a tight-knit clan of rough-hewn, hard-drinking men who shoot up each other’s trucks, and indomitable women who get married young and age too quickly. At the heart of this story is Ruth Anne Boatwright, known simply as Bone, a bastard child who observes the world around her with a mercilessly keen perspective. When her stepfather Daddy Glen, “cold as death, mean as a snake,” becomes increasingly more vicious toward her, Bone finds herself caught in a family triangle that tests the loyalty of her mother, Anney—and leads to a final, harrowing encounter from which there can be no turning back.

The husband of The Bitch in the House responds with a collection of original essays in which male writers describe what men desire, need, love, and loathe in their relationships and in the world today. Cathi Hanauer's bestselling The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth about Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage spurred a national conversation about the level of friction in contemporary marriages and relationships. Now her husband, Daniel Jones, has rallied the men for the "literary equivalent of The Full Monty," in which twenty–seven thoughtful, passionate and often hilarious men, lay it bare when it comes to their wives and girlfriends, their hopes, and fears. Enough with pop psychiatrists telling us why men lie, cheat, and want nothing more than to laze around the house in front of the TV. Enough with women wondering aloud–at increasing volume–why the men in their lives behave the way they do. The time has come for men to speak for themselves. Many of the husbands and fathers in these pages contemplate aspects of their personal lives they've never before revealed in print–they kick open the door on their marriages and sex lives, their fathering and domestic conflicts, their most intimate relationships and situations. Yet unlike the average meat–and–potatoes father who still rules the roost, these men are grappling with new ideas of manhood –– some they are going after and grabbing, and others that are being thrust upon them by a changing world. Powerful, heartfelt and irreverent, The Bastard on the Couch is a bold, unprecedented glimpse into the dark corners and glaring truths of modern relationships that is guaranteed to amuse, entertain, enrich, and provoke.