Conrad Walters

Joyce Morgan

The Silk Road once linked China with the Mediterranean. It conveyed merchants, pilgrims and ideas; but its cultures and oases were swallowed by shifting sands. Central to the Silk Road's rediscovery was a man named Aurel Stein, a Hungarian-born scholar and archaeologist employed by the British service. When a Chinese monk broke into a hidden cave in 1900 and uncovered scrolls undisturbed for a thousand years, Stein secured the scrolls, the Diamond Sutra of AD 868. This is the story of the scrolls, and their journey to London

A Desert Explorer, Buddha's Secret Library, and the Unearthing of the World's Oldest Printed Book

Journeys on the Silk Road

Through the Dark Night

"You should know that when the night feels very long, remember that a new day is just through the forest." Andrew whispered to Anna. She was alone and standing on the precipice of no return. The thought that each day was filled with new possibilities, new opportunities and that every day was a miracle was so foreign to her, that it didn't seem possible to make it "Through the Dark Night." With the Lord's help though, anything is possible. Traveling from the shores of Los Angeles to the plains of Africa, Anna finds herself on a journey of self-discovery of love and a reawakening of her faith in the God that she thought had forsaken her. Benjamin Mueller needed to do something meaningful, he had ideas but he needed help. After a great deal of prayer, he woke up one morning to find that what he was looking for, was in front of him all the while. "Adverse events and emotional betrayals give way to an unexpected redefinement of faith, trust, and love in "Through the Dark Night." The story is heartfelt and endearing to those who have hit rock bottom and survived" Martha Durkin

'Martin wore tight pants that were striped red, white and blue, like a Union Jack, and an embroidered Afghan vest. In front of his face he carried, like a lollipop, a smile on a stick. As he went, he bowed to passers-by. Even on King's Road, he stood out.' Martin Sharp's art was as singular as his style. He blurred the boundaries of high art and low with images of Dylan, Hendrix and naked flower children that defined an era. Along the way the irreverent Australian was charged with obscenity and collaborated with Eric Clapton as he drew rock stars and reprobates into his world. In this richly told and beautifully written biography, Joyce Morgan captures the loneliness of a privileged childhood, the heady days of the underground magazine Oz as well as the exuberant creativity of Swinging London and beyond. Sharp pursued his quixotic dream to realise van Gogh's Yellow House in Australia. He obsessively championed eccentric singer Tiny Tim and was haunted by Sydney's Luna Park. Charismatic and paradoxical, he became a recluse whose phone never stopped ringing. There was no one like Martin Sharp. When he died, he was described as a stranger in a strange land who left behind a trail of stardust.

His life and times

Martin Sharp

She was 'amused, cynical, ironic, loving, gay, ferocious, cold, ardent but never gentle'. She was a whirlwind. She created around her the atmosphere of a Court at which her friends were either in disgrace or favour, a butt or a blessing. Elizabeth von Armin may have been born on the shores of Sydney Harbour, but it was in Victorian London that she discovered society and society discovered her. She made her Court debut before Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace, was pursued by a Prussian count and married into the formal world of the European aristocracy. It was the novels she wrote about that life that turned her into a literary sensation on both sides of the Atlantic and had her likened to Jane Austen. Her marriage to the count produced five children but little happiness. Her second marriage to Bertrand Russell's brother was a disaster. But by then she had captivated the great literary and intellectual circles of London and Europe. She brought into her orbit the likes of Nancy Astor, Lady Maud Cunard, her cousin Katherine Mansfield and other writers such as E.M. Forster, Somerset Maugham and H.G. Wells, with whom it was said she had a tempestuous affair. Elizabeth von Armin was an extraordinary woman who lived during glamorous, exciting and changing times that spanned the innocence of Victorian Sydney and finished with the march of Hitler through Europe. Joyce Morgan brings her to vivid and spellbinding life.

Joyce Morgan

About

Books

Join the club