Yan Marchand Book order

Belfast, 1971, and tensions are rising. Since its inception in 1913, the 'Oglaigh na hEirheann', or 'The Soldiers of Ireland', have evolved through many factions, and now the IRA are claiming legitimacy. Warring factions live virtually side by side, and peace lines have been erected, but are being crossed. People live in fear of careless whispers and reprisals. War is coming, and innocent people are being killed indiscriminately for political gain and revenge. Alastar Taggart, a young Catholic, and at the same time a spiritual Druidic man, is drawn into the dangerous inner ranks of the IRA when his younger brother is killed. Little does he know that his course on the road to revenge is not entirely without outside influence. Kiera Flanagan is an innocent Protestant girl whose world is also turned upside down when tragedy strikes, again and again. She too turns to Paganism, and to its principles of love and kinship, for comfort and solace, and as an escape from the war-torn world of Belfast. Can these young lovers survive the war that is worsening around them? Can they find peace in their ancestral spiritual roots? And can they escape Belfast and the people that are desperately trying to bring about their demise?

We follow a scared little beetle named Martin trying to find his way through the dead body of German philosopher Martin Heidegger. As Martin the beetle treks along Martin the corpse’s skeleton, he asks himself why do I exist?—wondering as he wanders about the condition of being in the face of death and about the meaning of his own existence. On his way to find answers to these existential questions, Martin crosses paths with a lavish snail named Epicure, a frenzied community of ants subjected to grueling working conditions, a serene bed of worms, and even the ghost of the philosopher himself. Through his conversations with these creeping, crawling interlocutors—each of whom shares their personal conception of existence—little Martin is ultimately released from his existential crisis.

Diogenes not only admires the honesty of dogs, he has actually become one—sleeping, eating, and lifting his leg to pee wherever he chooses! Best of all, unlike humans, who dupe one another as to their true feelings, Diogenes the Dog-Man is free to bark at and even bite his adversaries in the calves—even if they happen to be Alexander the Great. Initially, the citizens gathered in the Agora think Diogenes is mad. But it soon becomes clear that we can all learn a thing or two from dogs about how to live a simple life.