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Stacy Aumonier's comic stories are among the funniest ever written. His serious works observe the human condition with wit and elegance. All of them are page-turners. Alfred Hitchcock was a great fan, and adapted some of his stories for television. During his short writing career, from 1913 until his early death in 1928, Stacy Aumonier enjoyed an unrivalled reputation as a short-story writer. Through the best of his stories, Nobel prize winner John Galsworthy predicted he would 'outlive all the writers of his day.' James Hilton (author of 'Goodbye Mr Chips' and 'Lost Horizon') said of Aumonier: 'I think his very best works ought to be included in any anthology of the best short stories ever written.' He took his characters from every rung of society (sometimes in the one story, as in 'The Octave of Jealousy') and from every walk and every age of life: sons who have wasted their inheritance; criminals; farm labourers; a clergyman's sister; gold-diggers; an effective little tyrant (aged 4 or 5?) in 'The Song of Praise'; a divinely depicted music-hall comedian in the exquisite 'The Funny Man's Day'; the hapless fish-and-chips trader in the hilarious 'A Good Action.'His talent for putting flesh on those characters in a few words was remarkable, such as in his portrait of the daunting club habitue in 'Juxtapositions': 'In spite of his missing limb, St Clair Chasseloup was the kind of man who always looked as though he had just had a cold bath, done Swedish drill, and then passed through the hairdresser's on his way to your presence'; or of the house-party guests being assessed as the possible perpetrators of a crime in 'Freddie Finds Himself': 'They all looked well off, well fed, and slightly vacant, entirely innocent of anything except the knowledge of what is done or what is not done.' 'He gets values right,' said Galsworthy of him, 'and that is nearly everything,' adding: 'And how he puts his finger on weak spots!' Here is a selection of the most entertaining Aumonier stories, and it comes with a Guarantee: For a long journey, a sojourn laid up in bed, or just hard times, this book is a sure thing.

A witty guide to idiomatic French written in 1927 by a remarkable author identified for decades only as 'H-T-R-'. -- 'H-T-R- doesn't just want you to parrot French phrases. The essential of fluent speech is to think as the French do. As he says, it won't do just to formulate in English what you want to say and then utter a translation. Those who have reached a good level in French (or, indeed, any language) will recognize the hurdle of idiomaticity - the native speakers always have a way of saying things which is different from your correct but painfully generated French.'[ - Elsevier SYSTEM MAGAZINE (2010), Robert Vanderplank, Director, Language Centre, University of Oxford]. -- Example: [1] 'What did he die of?' 'Nobody knows. But then nobody knew what he lived on, either.' [1] "De quoi est-il mort ? -- On ne sait pas. D'ailleurs on ne savait non plus de quoi il vivait." -- Or (to illustrate a use of the subjunctive): [53] 'One moment, Monsieur - I can't see you. I'm in my chemise.' 'Take your time, my dear, I'll wait till you take it off.' [53] "Un instant, Monsieur - je ne peux pas vous recevoir. Je suis en chemise.-- Prenez tout votre temps, chere amie, j'attendrai que vous l'ayez retire." -- New extended edition, with new biographies (including 28 photos) of the author, Harry Thompson Russell, and of the illustrator, Eric Fraser. Contains all of the original 1927 drawings, plus many new drawings by Fraser, who was one of the leading illustrators of the 20th Century. Equally suitable for French or English speakers -- 'Ces ouvrages ont le merite de servir egalement a l'usage des francophones et des anglophones.'

An insight into French film through its actors: profiles of 175 actors and actresses of the French Cinema, illustrated with caricatures of each actor by Jenny BATLAY and Igor BRATUSEK. - Not just biographies, but personal sketches of the actors and actresses, looking at their personalities, acting, and careers. The book is presented alphabetically in mini-dictionary form, and its contributors include academics from around the world - from universities in Australia, Austria, Canada, Cyprus, France, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and throughout the United States - as well as journalists, film curators, and lovers of French cinema, both francophones and Francophiles. It contains a comprehensive alphabetical Index of 2,200 Films - mostly French Films (with their alternative English titles where these were issued), as well as American and European films in which the profiled French actors have appeared. Accurate biographical details (from original records) are provided, including birth names for those actors with a stage name different to their birth names.

CHRISTMAS 2013 - Herbert Place: A lovingly restored townhouse - on the street where Elizabeth Bowen lived - becomes a testing burden for a young family after the financial crash. GEORGE WASHINGTON'S BED - Upper Pembroke Street: A moment of crisis - and an eighteenth-century bed - bring together an unlikely group in one of Dublin's most familiar Georgian streets. GRACE KELLY'S DRESS - Merrion Square: A famous dress, a spectacular dinner party, and a dining room of family legend and of family tragedy - on the grand Georgian square which Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, Sheridan LeFanu, and Daniel O'Connell once called home.

CHRISTMAS 2013 - Herbert Place: A lovingly restored townhouse - on the street where Elizabeth Bowen lived - becomes a testing burden for a young family after the financial crash. GEORGE WASHINGTON'S BED - Upper Pembroke Street: A moment of crisis - and an eighteenth-century bed - bring together an unlikely group in one of Dublin's most familiar Georgian streets. GRACE KELLY'S DRESS - Merrion Square: A famous dress, a spectacular dinner party, and a dining room of family legend and of family tragedy - on the grand Georgian square which Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, Sheridan LeFanu, and Daniel O'Connell once called home.

An easy guide to the subtleties of modern French usage by Dr Michael Abecassis of the University of Oxford, illustrated with one hundred and twenty-five drawings by Igor Bratusek (Sorbonne). Presented in dictionary form (with all necessary translations) and invaluable for all levels of French language ability. - A sure cure for doubt.

In 1837, the power of Daniel O'Connell's oratory focused the attention of Europeans on Ireland. They were horrified at what they saw there. The Irish poor - a third of the population - had no food except the potatoes they grew, and not enough clothing to cover themselves. They went hungry for two months of the year, and half-naked for all the year. Yet this would be their last 'good' decade before more than a million of them would vanish into unmarked graves in the 1840s. The idealistic young Baron Eotvos - a humanitarian and already a much-praised poet - struggled to understand how Ireland could have been reduced to this state under English rule, and why English journalists wrote with such bigotry about the Irish. In Hungary, he was a campaigner for the freedom of serfs, but conceded that those serfs lived in better conditions and had more protection than Irish tenants and labourers. The only protection for the Irish poor came from illegal organizations such as the Whiteboys.His visit coincided with a pivotal moment in Irish history, when debate was raging about the introduction of a 'Poor Law' (with Poor Tax to pay for it) - a charitable-sounding term for a cruel Act aimed at clearing the land of people who had no other means of survival.His deeply researched summary of the English occupation of Ireland - uninfluenced by modern revisionism - makes compelling, often harrowing reading.

In 1837, the power of Daniel O'Connell's oratory focused the attention of Europeans on Ireland. They were horrified at what they saw there. The Irish poor - a third of the population - had no food except the potatoes they grew, and not enough clothing to cover themselves. They went hungry for two months of the year, and half-naked for all the year. Yet this would be their last 'good' decade before more than a million of them would vanish into unmarked graves in the 1840s. The idealistic young Baron Eotvos - a humanitarian and already a much-praised poet - struggled to understand how Ireland could have been reduced to this state under English rule, and why English journalists wrote with such bigotry about the Irish. In Hungary, he was a campaigner for the freedom of serfs, but conceded that those serfs lived in better conditions and had more protection than Irish tenants and labourers. The only protection for the Irish poor came from illegal organizations such as the Whiteboys.His visit coincided with a pivotal moment in Irish history, when debate was raging about the introduction of a 'Poor Law' (with Poor Tax to pay for it) - a charitable-sounding term for a cruel Act aimed at clearing the land of people who had no other means of survival.His deeply researched summary of the English occupation of Ireland - uninfluenced by modern revisionism - makes compelling, often harrowing reading.

“I have run the gauntlet of many borders in my time, but the border I grew up with at home was far and away the most trying,” writes Seamas OCathain, Professor Emeritus at University College Dublin and former Director of the National Folklore Collection. Born in Drumquin, County Tyrone, to a family of Catholic business people and farmers, he grew up “a stone’s throw” from the border that separates Donegal in the Republic from the six counties of Northern Ireland – “a border policed by little corporals that was the bane of our lives.”JUMPING THE BORDER is an engaging account of his experience – as a child and as a young man – in three distinctive cultures, now radically changed. He describes the Tyrone of the 1940s and 1950s where Protestant and Catholic neighbours shared their lives at a personal level, but where institutions were divisive. His father’s prosperous business was ruined because of a political event he supported. The schools and the curriculum were dividers of the two communities. The border was a nuisance to everyone. As a post-graduate student in the 1960s, he took up residence in the Donegal Gaeltacht of “Na Cruacha”, where “real old Irish” was still spoken. He did a study of the area’s place names, and recorded the distinctive music and speech of “Na Cruacha”. Shortly afterwards his research took him to the far north of Europe, to Sapmi (known as Lapland), a cultural rather than a political territory which spreads over four countries, and where he immersed himself in the culture and language of the Sami people at a time when their native language and customs were under threat and belittled.Seamas’s many international distinctions and awards include: Knight (First Class) of the Order of the Lion of Finland; the Dag Stromback Prize of the Gustavus Adolphus Academy, Uppsala, Sweden; and the Ruth Michaela-Jena Ratcliff Prize, Edinburgh. He is an honorary member of the Finnish Kalevala Society; a member of the Folklore Fellows of the Finnish Academy of Sciences, Helsinki; and a sometime member of the Advisory Board of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen.

"I have run the gauntlet of many borders in my time, but the border I grew up with at home was far and away the most trying," writes Seamas OCathain, Professor Emeritus at University College Dublin and former Director of the National Folklore Collection. Born in Drumquin, County Tyrone, to a family of Catholic business people and farmers, he grew up "a stone's throw" from the border that separates Donegal in the Republic from the six counties of Northern Ireland - "a border policed by little corporals that was the bane of our lives." JUMPING THE BORDER is an engaging account of his experience - as a child and as a young man - in three distinctive cultures, now radically changed. He describes the Tyrone of the 1940s and 1950s where Protestant and Catholic neighbours shared their lives at a personal level, but where institutions were divisive. His father's prosperous business was ruined because of a political event he supported. The schools and the curriculum were dividers of the two communities. The border was a nuisance to everyone. As a post-graduate student in the 1960s, he took up residence in the Donegal Gaeltacht of "Na Cruacha", where "real old Irish" was still spoken. He did a study of the area's place names, and recorded the distinctive music and speech of "Na Cruacha". Shortly afterwards his research took him to the far north of Europe, to Sapmi (known as Lapland), a cultural rather than a political territory which spreads over four countries, and where he immersed himself in the culture and language of the Sami people at a time when their native language and customs were under threat and belittled. Seamas's many international distinctions and awards include: Knight (First Class) of the Order of the Lion of Finland; the Dag Stromback Prize of the Gustavus Adolphus Academy, Uppsala, Sweden; and the Ruth Michaela-Jena Ratcliff Prize, Edinburgh. He is an honorary member of the Finnish Kalevala Society; a member of the Folklore Fellows of the Finnish Academy of Sciences, Helsinki; and a sometime member of the Advisory Board of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen.

"I have run the gauntlet of many borders in my time, but the border I grew up with at home was far and away the most trying," writes Seamas O Cathain (Professor Emeritus at University College Dublin, and former Director of the National Folklore Collection). Born in Drumquin, County Tyrone, to a family of Catholic business people and farmers, he grew up "a stone's throw" from the border that separates Donegal in the Republic from the six counties of Northern Ireland - - "a border policed by little corporals that was the bane of our lives." - "Is iomai sin ait sa domhan a bhfuil cursa na slat thar teorainn rite agam ach dheamhan dath nios measa a chonaic me riamh na an teorainn a bhi sa bhaile againn" a scriobhann Seamas O Cathain (Ollamh emeritus de chuid Cholaiste Ollscoile Bhaile Atha Cliath agus Iar-Stiurthoir Chnuasach Bhealoideas Eireann) faoin teorainn in Eirinn - "mar ar ghnach leis na ceannairi beaga custam a bheith ina dtiarnai uirthi agus orainne."JUMPING THE BORDER is an engaging account of his experience - as a child and as a young man - in three distinctive cultures, now radically changed. He describes the Tyrone of the 1940s and 1950s where Protestant and Catholic neighbours shared their lives at a personal level, but where institutions were divisive. His father's prosperous business was ruined because of a political event he supported. The schools and the curriculum were dividers of the two communities. The border was a nuisance to everyone. As a post-graduate student in the 1960s, he took up residence in the Donegal Gaeltacht of "Na Cruacha", where "real old Irish" was still spoken. He did a study of the area's place names, and recorded the distinctive music and speech of "Na Cruacha". Shortly afterwards his research took him to the far north of Europe, to Sapmi (known as Lapland), a cultural rather than a political territory which spreads over four countries, and where he immersed himself in the culture and language of the Sami people at a time when their native language and customs were under threat and belittled. Seamas's many international distinctions and awards include: Knight (First Class) of the Order of the Lion of Finland; the Dag Stromback Prize of the Gustavus Adolphus Academy, Uppsala, Sweden; and the Ruth Michaela-Jena Ratcliff Prize, Edinburgh. He is an honorary member of the Finnish Kalevala Society; a member of the Folklore Fellows of the Finnish Academy of Sciences, Helsinki; and a sometime member of the Advisory Board of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen.

Professor Seamas OCathain's monumental study of the Festival of Brigit - Imbolc, February 1st - updated, extended, and published in a new edition, in honour of Ireland's newest national holiday. Brigit was one of three great saints of early Irish Christianity, alongside Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, and Colm Cille (Columba), Irish colonizer of Scotland and founder of Iona. By tradition, Saints’ Day festivals and other Holy Days were celebrated over twenty-four hours, starting on the eve of the feast and continuing through the night and through the following day. Thus the Festival of Brigit includes Oiche Fheile Bride (St Brigit’s Eve) and La Fheile Bride (St Brigit’s Day) – on 31st January and 1st February respectively. However, these are not the oldest names associated with this festival in Irish tradition, for in earlier pre-Christian times it was called Imbolc – a word whose basic meaning has much to do with milking and milk-production.This book views Brigit – the Celtic goddess and the Christian-era Saint – not merely in an Irish context, but also in an international and western European context. It attempts to uncover the motivation of previous generations, both within Ireland and beyond it, in sustaining and preserving ancient practices and beliefs, and highlights how fundamentally important folk culture is to our understanding of the past.

Professor Seamas OCathain's monumental study of the Festival of Brigit - Imbolc, February 1st - updated, extended, and published in a new edition, in honour of Ireland's newest national holiday. Brigit was one of three great saints of early Irish Christianity, alongside Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, and Colm Cille (Columba), Irish colonizer of Scotland and founder of Iona. By tradition, Saints’ Day festivals and other Holy Days were celebrated over twenty-four hours, starting on the eve of the feast and continuing through the night and through the following day. Thus the Festival of Brigit includes Oiche Fheile Bride (St Brigit’s Eve) and La Fheile Bride (St Brigit’s Day) – on 31st January and 1st February respectively. However, these are not the oldest names associated with this festival in Irish tradition, for in earlier pre-Christian times it was called Imbolc – a word whose basic meaning has much to do with milking and milk-production.This book views Brigit – the Celtic goddess and the Christian-era Saint – not merely in an Irish context, but also in an international and western European context. It attempts to uncover the motivation of previous generations, both within Ireland and beyond it, in sustaining and preserving ancient practices and beliefs, and highlights how fundamentally important folk culture is to our understanding of the past.

Our Troubles is a collection of compelling and honest stories about the Troubles in the North of Ireland - particularly the hot spot of North Belfast, from where the author hails and which accounted for one in six of the deaths in the Troubles. Two of his uncles were killed in the conflict. A great strength of the stories is the author's focus on what he knows personally and the passion he feels on the subject. He does not fall into the trap (which has become something of a convention in writing about the Troubles) of looking at the conflict from every point of view, but writes with a deep understanding of what he knows intimately: the Catholic experience of the Troubles. This was terrible as the conflict was ongoing, but even after it was over, a sense of grievance lingered because of what was perceived as a political lack of respect for what Catholics had suffered."...Automatically, Finn added Kevin Myler to the mental list of people he knew who had died in the troubles: Uncle Christy, Uncle Jimmy, Terry Morgan, other neighbours from home. Kevin's death didn't seem exceptional. ... As they filled in the blanks - Paddy and Colm were much better at keeping track of people than Finn was - it became clear that of the forty-two boys in their year, only about half had ordinary lives. Some had just dropped off the radar, the rest were in prison, on the run, or dead. So there was nothing special about Kevin. ..."