The year is 2012. The world lies ravaged by biological warfare, its population decimated by a ferocious genetically-transmitted disease known as the organ rot. And presiding over the ruins is a ninety-three-year-old tyrant, preserved in a state of youth by a series of organ transplants: the self-styled Genghis Mao. Shadrach Mordecai, Genghis Mao's trusted personal physician, was a vital cog in the great machine devoted to keeping the ruler alive: linked to him by a network of electronic implants, Shadrach was able to detect and diagnose the first signs of malfunction in his lord and master. But close as he was to the aging dictator, Shadrach could not have known that events would soon plunge him into a desperate struggle - a struggle in which a paragon of idealism faced the very incarnation of evil. Views: 603
Cornwall, 1794-1795
The birth of a son to Elizabeth and George Warleggan serves only to accentuate the rift between the Poldark and Warleggan families, and the enduring rivalry between George and Ross finds a new focus for bitter enmity and conflict. Views: 603
Richard Adams’s Watership Down was a number one bestseller, a stunning work of the imagination, and an acknowledged modern classic. In Shardik Adams sets a different yet equally compelling tale in a far-off fantasy world. Shardik is a fantasy of tragic character, centered on the long-awaited reincarnation of the gigantic bear Shardik and his appearance among the half-barbaric Ortelgan people. Mighty, ferocious, and unpredictable, Shardik changes the life of every person in the story. His advent commences a momentous chain of events. Kelderek the hunter, who loves and trusts the great bear, is swept up by destiny to become first devotee and then prophet, then victorious soldier, then ruler of an empire and priest-king of Lord Shardik—Messenger of God—only to discover ever-deeper layers of meaning implicit in his passionate belief in the bear’s divinity. Views: 602
A couple of missing wives—one a rich man's and one a poor man's—become the objects of Marlowe's investigation. One of them may have gotten a Mexican divorce and married a gigolo and the other may be dead. Marlowe's not sure he cares about either one, but he's not paid to care.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 602
Plum Pie is perhaps Wodehouse's best-loved short story collection--no surprise as it features a true Wodehouse trifecta--Jeeves, golf, and Blandings Castle. Views: 602
Jack Burns is a cowboy and a man out of time. He has a steadfast refusal to accept the what he perceives as the tyranny of the twentieth century world he lives in and instead, Burns opts to ride his feisty chestnut mare across the New West--what was once a beautiful, unblemished land but that is now tarnished by airstrips and superhighways. He rejects contemporary society, refuses to register for the draft, and cuts down any and all fences he encounters.
It is this personal code of ethics and way of being that get Jack into trouble with the law, and soon enough he finds himself running from the very thing that could break his spirit--a fight for his freedom which, if caught, he may have to swap for the confinement of a grubby jail cell. The novel was adapted into the 1962 film Lonely Are the Brave starring Kirk Douglas. Views: 602
'One of those complex and enormously inventive stories... based on some real, honest, practical ethical thinking. It is an idea book.'
- Groff Conklin in Galaxy Science Fiction
Asher Sutton has been lost in deepest space for twenty years. Suddenly arrives a warning from the future, that he will return- and that he must be killed. He is destined to write a book whose message may lead to the death of millions in centuries to come. For this reason Sutton is hounded by the sinister warring factions of the future who wish to influence or prevent the writing of this book he has not yet begun to write.
Yet already a copy has been found in the burnt-out wreckage of a space-craft on Alderbaran XII. Views: 602
Playing the role of a happy pageant winner is not exactly the acting career Kit had in mind Kit Carson keeps trying to tell people that she didn't do anything. All she did was put on a bathing suit in front of the judges, and suddenly she's a beauty contest winner. It's true that the money will come in handy—new dresses and college educations don't grow on trees when your mom is a nurse and your dad doesn't always remember to help out—but all Kit really wants is to try out her dream of being an actress. Not a famous one, just successful enough to have a career in a modest theater and make a living doing what she loves. But now that Kit's a beauty queen, people seem to expect a lot from her. Above all, they seem to think she should gratefully accept the limited roles she's being offered, which are mostly those of beautiful, not-too-independent, all-American girls. Between pageant ambitions and romantic interests, Kit gets the sense that... Views: 602
Miss Lonelyhearts
Miss Lonelyhearts was a newspaper reporter, so named because he had been assigned to write the agony column, to answer the letters from Desperate, Sick-of-It-All, Disillusioned. A joke at first; but then he was caught up, terrifyingly, in a vision of suffering, and he sought a way out, turning first here, then there—Art, Sex, Religion. Shrike, the cynical editor, the friend and enemy, compulsively destroyed each of his friend’s gestures toward idealism. Together, in the city’s dim underworld, Shrike and Miss Lonelyhearts turn round and round in a loathsome dance, unresolvable, hating until death…
The Day of the Locust
To Hollywood comes Tod Hackett, hoping for a career in scene designing, but he finds the way hard and falls in with others—extras, technicians, old vaudeville hands—who are also in difficulty. Around him he sees the great mass of inland Americans who have retired to California in expectation of health and ease. But boredom consumes them, their own emptiness maddens them; they search out any abnormality in their lust for excitement—drugs, perversion, crime. In the end only blood will serve; unreasoned, undirected violence. The day of the locust is at hand… Views: 602
Tiny Seacrow Island is one of hundreds of islands in the sparkling blue of the Baltic Sea. Though small, it has everything you’d want in an island: woods to wander in, flowers to pick, fish to catch, boats to sail in, all kinds of animals. But it doesn’t have very many young people. So when the four Melkerson kids and their father move into Carpenter’s Cottage one June day, they’re immediately welcomed by the resourceful islanders: Johan and Niklas Melkerson, at twelve and thirteen, are natural companions for adventurous Freddy and Teddy (girls exactly their age); dreamy Pelle, the baby of the family, gets up to trouble with bossy Tjorven and fanciful Stina; and ever-responsible Malin, who at nineteen looks after her scatterbrained father as well as her brothers, catches the eye of all the island’s young men. Before long Seacrow Island and Carpenter’s Cottage (tumbledown and leaky though it may be) have become a real home for the Melkersons.
Seacrow Island is a remarkable story, filled with sweetness and sorrow, humor and suspense, and peopled with the vivid, unexpected, wonderfully winning characters we’ve come to expect from the creator of the unforgettable Pippi Longstocking. Views: 601
n 1973, Carl Sagan published The Cosmic Connection, a daring view of the universe, which rapidly became a classic work of popular science and inspired a generation of scientists and enthusiasts. This seminal work is reproduced here for a whole new generation to enjoy. In Sagan's typically lucid, lyrical style, he discusses many topics from astrophysics and solar system science, to colonization of other worlds, terraforming and the search for extraterrestrials. [in this book, he] conveys his own excitement and wonder, and relates the revelations of astronomy to the most profound human problems and concerns: issues that are just as valid today as they were 30 years ag Views: 601
From the Modern Library’s new set of beautifully repackaged hardcover classics by William Faulkner—also available are As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, Absalom, Absalom!, and *Selected Short Stories*
Here, published in a single volume as he always hoped they would be, are the three novels that comprise William Faulkner’s famous Snopes trilogy, a saga that stands as perhaps the greatest feat of this celebrated author’s incomparable imagination. The Hamlet, the first book of the series chronicling the advent and rise of the grasping Snopes family in mythical Yoknapatawpha County, is a work that Cleanth Brooks called “one of the richest novels in the Faulkner canon.” It recounts how the wily, cunning Flem Snopes dominates the rural community of Frenchman’s Bend—and claims the voluptuous Eula Varner as his bride. The Town, the central novel, records Flem’s ruthless struggle to take over the county seat of Jefferson, Mississippi. Finally, The Mansion tells of Mink Snopes, whose archaic sense of honor brings about the downfall of his cousin Flem. “For all his concerns with the South, Faulkner was actually seeking out the nature of man,” noted Ralph Ellison. “Thus we must turn to him for that continuity of moral purpose which made for the greatness of our classics.”
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 601
'And it happened when Martine or Philippa spoke to Babette that they would get no answers, and would wonder if she had even heard what they said … Orshe would sit immovable on the three-legged kitchen chair, her strong hands in her lap and her dark eyes wide open, as enigmatical and fatal as a Pythia upon her tripod. At such moments, they realised that Babette was deep, and that in the soundings of her being there were passions, there were memories and longings of which they knew nothing at all.'
Babette's Feast is a sublime celebration of eating, drinking and sensual pleasure. In Isak Dinesen's life-affirming short story, two elderly sisters living in a remote, god-fearing Norwegian community take in a mysterious refugee from Paris one night - and are rewarded for their kindness with the most decadent, luxurious feast of a lifetime. Views: 600
