Beyond the Phantom Battle: Mystery at Loch Ashie

Beyond the Phantom Battle: Mystery at Loch Ashie
Author: Ian Moore-Morrans
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2010-03-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1450059376

Ian Moore-Morrans has crafted a novel of adventure, fantasy and romance set in the Scottish Highlands. In it, twin brothers from present-day Edinburgh hope to witness a “phantom battle” purported to take place annually at northern Loch Ashie. Instead they are engulfed in this battle between ancient Highlanders and Vikings which transports them back to the 12th Century. In their encounters with the local inhabitants they experience hostility, friendship, romance, death sentences and a supernatural reprieve. Finally a wizard-like being, “Ancient One,” attempts to help them return to the 21st Century.

Came To Canada, Eh?

Came To Canada, Eh?
Author: Ian Moore-Morrans
Publisher: FriesenPress
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2020-09-16
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1525575937

Having emigrated from Scotland to Canada in his early thirties, Ian Moore-Morrans was a Scotsman to the core―despite his love for his adopted homeland―adventurous, humorous, and determined to provide a better life for himself, his wife and two young daughters. In his first memoir, From Poverty to Poverty: A Scotsman Encounters Canada, he shared with his fascinated readers what life was like for him in the early days, from his Scottish roots to his eventual emigration. In this sequel, we get to learn what happened next, joining him on a journey that takes him and his first wife back and forth across six provinces, with multiple stops along the way, as he struggles to survive and thrive in the face of countless obstacles that would likely have stopped a lesser man in his tracks. With love and humour in his heart, and music in his soul, this extraordinary “common” man was anything but ordinary. Throughout his life, love, laughter, and song carry him through even the toughest of times. Even after the death of his first wife, which he describes with poignancy, he pushes on, in true Scottish fashion, eventually meeting a new love―the soulmate with whom he shares his final years, full of romance, adventure, writing, singing, a heart-felt appreciation of Canada, and a continued enthusiasm for all things Scottish. The cover photo is of Gayle’s jewellery box that became Ian’s funeral urn, depicting Ian’s varied avocations–playing his trumpet in a Royal Air Force band; singing as a Scottish performer; displaying one of his published books; and dancing with a Scottish country dance group. The Leslie Clan tartan background represents the addition of “Moore” to Ian’s family name, as the Moore family is a sept of the Leslie Clan. (Ian’s first memoir displayed the McKinnon Clan tartan of which the Morranses are a sept.)

From Poverty to Poverty

From Poverty to Poverty
Author: Ian Moore-Morrans
Publisher: FriesenPress
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2012
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1770972471

Raised by a single mother on welfare during the 1930's depression and World War II in the Scottish Highlands, Ian spends his childhood trying to get enough to eat and stay warm. During an adolescence apprenticed to a drunken blacksmith, he also begins a lifelong love affair with music-making while wavering between the strictures of the Salvation Army and the "worldly pleasures" of the outside world. Life begins to improve when Ian enters the Royal Air Force, serving five years as an aircraft engine mechanic and bandsman in the United Kingdom and then Egypt. In the latter, he experiences the consequences of the Arab "walkouts" that eventually led to the Suez Canal crisis. Most hilarious is his tale "Jig-a-Jig in the Desert" when the small military water treatment plant he supervises is invaded by Arab prostitutes. Returning to Britain, he marries his pen-pal, Mary, completes his military career and enters into civilian life, finally settling on his lifetime career as a machinist. Two daughters are born, one of whose life is saved at birth by a bottle of Scotch whisky. Despite getting established in Scotland, Ian gets "itchy feet" and thinks of emigrating. Misled by the inflated promises of an unscrupulous Government of Ontario official to choose Canada over Australia, Ian, Mary and the girls endure a winter sailing over the Atlantic in 1965, including a collision in the St. Lawrence Seaway. Ian and Mary struggle to adjust and to learn and speak "Canadian." Their daughters, however, are sounding like Canadian children within a few weeks! Misadventures in finding and keeping jobs and a suitable place to live in Canada lead Ian to conclude that he has only moved "from poverty to poverty." Will he be able to survive and eventually thrive in this new land?

All That Is Bitter and Sweet

All That Is Bitter and Sweet
Author: Ashley Judd
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2012-02-21
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0345523628

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this unforgettable memoir, Ashley Judd describes her odyssey, as a lost child attains international prominence as a fiercely dedicated advocate. In 2002, award-winning film and stage actor Ashley Judd found her true calling: as a humanitarian and voice for those suffering in neglected parts of the world. After her first trip to the notorious brothels, slums, and hospices of southeast Asia, Ashley knew immediately that she wanted to advocate on behalf of the vulnerable. During her travels, Ashley started to write diaries that detailed extraordinary stories of survival and resilience. But along the way, she realized that she was struggling with her own emotional pain, stemming from childhood abandonment and abuse. Seeking in-patient treatment in 2006 for the grief that had nearly killed her, Ashley found not only her own recovery and an enriched faith but the spiritual tools that energized and advanced her feminist social justice work. Her story ranges from anger to forgiveness, isolation to interdependence, depression to activism. In telling it, she resoundingly answers the ineffable question about the relationship between healing oneself and service to others. Praise for All That Is Bitter and Sweet “Ashley Judd has given us magnetic and searingly honest portrayals of diverse women on screen. Now with the same honesty and magnetism, she brings us her true self on the page. From her childhood to her revolutionary empathy with women and girls living very different lives, her path will inspire readers on journeys of their own.”—Gloria Steinem “Over the last decade I have watched my gifted, brilliant friend grow as an artist, but more importantly, as a wise, deeply empathetic woman. I have read the diaries that are the heart of this memoir since she began traveling the world, fearing for her safety and sanity, baffled why she chooses these grueling missions. All That Is Bitter and Sweet will be a revelation to readers, exposing Ashley Judd for what I have known for years she is: an amazing woman doing extraordinary work.”—Morgan Freeman “All That Is Bitter and Sweet is all that is enlightening and inspiring. Ashley Judd has composed a memoir that teaches while it entrances and finds hope and faith in the most unlikely places. The book is full of real-life stories that reflect both the compassion of its author and the need for healing in the world.”—Madeleine K. Albright

Being a Scot

Being a Scot
Author: Sean Connery
Publisher: Phoenix
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2009
Genre: Motion picture actors and actresses
ISBN: 9780753826317

Previous ed. published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008.

A Lume Spento

A Lume Spento
Author: Ezra Pound
Publisher:
Total Pages: 138
Release: 1965
Genre: American poetry
ISBN:

Scottish Sport Climbs

Scottish Sport Climbs
Author: Rab Anderson
Publisher: Scottish Mountaineering Club
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2013-05-01
Genre: Rock climbing
ISBN: 9781907233159

A sport climbing guide for Scotland written by 18 of the leading Scottish sport climbers. It contains 1300 routes, from grades 3 to 9a spread across 100 crags from the Central Belt to Shetland and Arisaig to Aberdeen. Lavishly illustrated, it contains maps, diagrams and a colour-coded route grading system.

Disappearing in Plain Sight

Disappearing in Plain Sight
Author: Francis L. Guenette
Publisher:
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2013-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781460210918

Sixteen-year-old Lisa-Marie has been packed off to spend the summer with her aunt on the isolated shores of Crater Lake. She is drawn to Izzy Montgomery, a gifted trauma counsellor who is struggling through personal and professional challenges. Lisa-Marie also befriends Liam Collins, a man who goes quietly about his life trying to deal with his own secrets and guilt. The arrival of a summer renter for Izzy's guest cabin is the catalyst for change amongst Crater Lake's tight knit community. People are forced to grapple with the realities of grief and desire to discover that there are no easy choices - only shades of grey.

Tennyson’s Poems

Tennyson’s Poems
Author: R. H. Winnick
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2019-04-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1783746645

In Tennyson’s Poems: New Textual Parallels, R. H. Winnick identifies more than a thousand previously unknown instances in which Tennyson phrases of two or three to as many as several words are similar or identical to those occurring in prior works by other hands—discoveries aided by the proliferation of digitized texts and the related development of powerful search tools over the three decades since the most recent major edition of Tennyson’s poems was published. Each of these instances may be deemed an allusion (meant to be recognized as such and pointing, for definable purposes, to a particular antecedent text), an echo (conscious or not, deliberate or not, meant to be noticed or not, meaningful or not), or merely accidental. Unless accidental, Winnick writes, these new textual parallels significantly expand our knowledge both of Tennyson’s reading and of his thematic intentions and artistic technique. Coupled with the thousand-plus textual parallels previously reported by Christopher Ricks and other scholars, he says, they suggest that a fundamental and lifelong aspect of Tennyson’s art was his habit of echoing any work, ancient or modern, which had the potential to enhance the resonance or deepen the meaning of his poems. The new textual parallels Winnick has identified point most often to the King James Bible and to such canonical authors as Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Thomson, Cowper, Shelley, Byron, and Wordsworth. But they also point to many authors rarely if ever previously cited in Tennyson editions and studies, including Michael Drayton, Richard Blackmore, Isaac Watts, Erasmus Darwin, John Ogilvie, Anna Lætitia Barbauld, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, John Wilson, and—with surprising frequency—Felicia Hemans. Tennyson’s Poems: New Textual Parallels is thus a major new resource for Tennyson scholars and students, an indispensable adjunct to the 1987 edition of Tennyson’s complete poems edited by Christopher Ricks.