Books with author Rod Stewart

The Soterion has been opened, but does it mean salvation or devastation? A horrific mutation in human DNA has resulted in a world where no one lives beyond nineteen. Cyrus and the noble Constants have opened the Soterion vault containing the Long Dead's secrets of science, art and possibly even the cure to the mutation. First, Cyrus must teach the Constants to read. But those he calls friends are falling prey to the greed and power knowledge can bring. Meanwhile, the barbaric Zeds are massing against them, determined to take the Soterion for themselves and destroy everything the Constants have built.

In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers' floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past. Along the way Stewart met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. He was also adopted by an unexpected companion-a retired fighting mastiff he named Babur in honor of Afghanistan's first Mughal emperor, in whose footsteps the pair was following. Through these encounters-by turns touching, con-founding, surprising, and funny-Stewart makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map's countless places in between.

Of all the battles of World War I, the Battle of the Somme is the best remembered for its extraordinary duration in pursuit of minimal gains, for the hardships endured by the troops in the trenches, and for the terrible casualties suffered by the British Army on the first day, July 1, 1916. Why was the Somme Valley chosen for "the great push"? Why did Sir Douglas Haig believe that the battle must be won at all costs? What inspired General Henry Rawlinson to command his men to walk across no man's land on July 1, resulting in 58,000 Allied casualties in a single day of fighting? This book looks at the battle in the context of World War I and examines the course of the battle and its long-term consequences.