In Players DeLillo explores the dark side of contemporary affluence and its discontents. Pammy and Lyle Wynant are an attractive, modern couple who seem to have it all. Yet behind their "ideal" life is a lingering boredom and quiet desperation: their talk is mostly chatter, their sex life more a matter of obligatory "satisfaction" than pleasure. Then Lyle sees a man killed on the floor of the Stock Exchange and becomes involved with the terrorists responsible; Pammy leaves for Maine with a homosexual couple.... And still they remain untouched, "players" indifferent to the violence that surrounds them, and that they have helped to create.
Originally published in 1977 (before his National Book Award-winning White Noise and the recent blockbuster Underworld), Players is a fast-moving yet starkly drawn socially critical drama that demonstrates the razor-sharp prose and thematic density for which DeLillo is renown today.
"The wit, elegance and economy of Don DeLillo's art are equal to the bitter clarity of his perceptions."--New York Times Book Review Views: 565
The picturesque village of Yew Hill, Markshire becomes an idyllic retreat for Francis Pettigrew and his wife until Francis is suddenly summoned to sit in as the County Court Judge and an elderly neighbor is brutally murdered. Views: 565
L'Assommoir est un roman d'Émile Zola publié en feuilleton dès 1876 dans Le Bien public, puis dans La République des Lettres1 avant sa sortie en livre en 1877 chez Georges Charpentier. C'est le septième volume de la série Les Rougon-Macquart. C'est un ouvrage totalement consacré au monde ouvrier et, selon Zola, « le premier roman sur le peuple, qui ne mente pas et qui ait l'odeur du peuple »2. L'écrivain y restitue la langue et les mœurs des ouvriers, tout en décrivant les ravages causés par la misère et l'alcoolisme. À sa parution, l'ouvrage suscite de vives polémiques car il est jugé trop cru. Mais c'est ce réalisme qui, cependant, provoque son succès, assurant à l'auteur fortune et célébrité. Views: 564
Winner of the Newbery Medal * *An ALA Notable Children’s Book * *Winner of the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award
A captivating and richly detailed novel about one young soldier who saw the Civil War from both sides and lived to tell the tale.
Earnest, plain-spoken sixteen-year-old Jeff Bussey has finally gotten his father’s consent to join the Union volunteers. It’s 1861 in Linn County, Kansas, and Jeff is eager to fight for the North before the war is over, which he’s sure will be soon.
But weeks turn to months, the marches through fields and woods prove endless, hunger and exhaustion seem to take up permanent residence in Jeff’s bones, and he learns what it really means to fight in battle—and to lose friends. When he finds himself among enemy troops, he’ll have to put his life on the line to advance the Union cause.
Thoroughly researched and based on firsthand accounts, Rifles for Watie “should hold a place with the best Civil War fiction for young people” (The Horn Book). Views: 564
Nine-year-old Karl Anders Nilsson is the unwelcome foster child of an uncaring couple. Lonely and neglected, he yearns for simple things, things that many children already have: a warm, loving home of his own, someone to share his sorrows and joys with, and, most important, his real father.
Then, on October 15th, Karl Anders Nilsson simply disappears. Where has he gone? (Police are searching for him!) But Karl is far away from chilly Stockholm, in Farawayland, where he has found his father, who is none other than the King of that land. And now Karl faces a truly dangerous mission. Prophecies have foretold his coming for thousands of years. He, his new best friend Pompoo, and Miramis, his wonderful flying horse with a golden mane, must travel together into the darkness of Outer Land to do battle with Sir Kato, the cruel abductor of the children of Farawayland. Only a child of the royal blood can stop him.... Views: 564
Epub Ensign Joe Rate, captain of the experimental Navy yawl Alice, figured
that everything that could happen to him in one day had already
happened. First, after a freak electrical storm at sea the Alice had
somehow been thrown a thousand years backward in time, and it looked
like they were stranded in the past. They had provisions for two weeks
at the most. Then there was the voluptuous barbarian girl they’d saved
from captivity—her presence on board a ship full of normal sailors
wasn’t likely to lessen the problems of the situation.
Then he saw the four Viking raiding ships bearing straight for him, and
in a few minutes the first spear thunked into the Alice’s foredeck.
The Ship That Sailed The Time Stream is a novel of madcap adventure in a past much more lively than any historian ever dreamed!
Views: 564
Nancy is intrigued by a magazine article offering a large reward to anyone finding a missing medieval stained-glass window. She invites Bess and George to join her on a search in Charlottesville, Virginia. During the girls' investigation of Ivy Hall, an old rundown, southern mansion, rented by a superstitious actress, they encounter a hostile ghost. Eerie sounds come from a beautiful neighboring estate that is surrounded by a high brick wall. Could these mysterious noises and the ghost at Ivy Hall be connected? This book is the revised text. The plot of the original story (©1956) is similar with minor revisions. Views: 564
Italo Calvino was only twenty-three when he first published this bold and imaginative novel. It tells the story of Pin, a cobbler's apprentice in a town on the Ligurian coast during World War II. He lives with his sister, a prostitute, and spends as much time as he can at a seedy bar where he amuses the adult patrons. After a mishap with a Nazi soldier, Pin becomes involved with a band of partisans. Calvino's portrayal of these characters, seen through the eyes of a child, is not only a revealing commentary on the Italian resistance but an insightful coming-of-age story. Updated to include changes from Calvino's definitive Italian edition, previously censored passages, and his newly translated, unabridged preface--in which Calvino brilliantly critiques and places into historical context his own youthful work--The Path to the Spiders' Nests is animated by the formidable imagination that has made Italo Calvino one of the most respected writers of our time. Views: 564
"The Story of Dr. Wassell" is a moving account of the trials of a Navy field doctor, Corydon Wassell, during the outbreak of WWII on Java in the South Pacific. Views: 564
On his third birthday Oskar decides to stop growing. Haunted by the deaths of his parents and wielding his tin drum Oskar recounts the events of his extraordinary life; from the long nightmare of the Nazi era to his anarchic adventures in post-war Germany. Views: 564
Joe Keller and Herbert Deever, partners in a machine shop during the war, turned out defective airplane parts, causing the deaths of many men. Deever was sent to prison while Keller escaped punishment and went on to make a lot of money. In a work of tremendous power, a love affair between Keller's son, Chris, and Ann Deever, Herbert's daughter, the bitterness of George Keller, who returns from the war to find his father in prison and his father's partner free, and the reaction of a son to his father's guilt escalate toward a climax of electrifying intensity.
Winner of the Drama Critics' Award for Best New Play in 1947, All My Sons established Arthur Miller as a leading voice in the American theater. All My Sons introduced, themes that thread through Miller's work as a whole: the relationships between fathers and sons and the conflict between business and personal ethics. Views: 564
Among the towering red cliffs of Petra sits the corpse of Mrs Boynton, a tiny puncture mark on her wrist the only sign of what has killed her. Hercule Poirot has only 24 hours to solve the mystery.
A tyrannical old martinet, a mental sadist and the incarnation of evil. These were only three of the character descriptions levelled at Mrs. Boynton, the matriarch who kept her family totally dependent on her. But did she really deserve to die on the excursion to beautiful Petra? Hercule Poirot hears about the murder and feels compelled to investigate-despite the family's request not to do so. Do they have something to hide and, if so, can they keep it hidden from this master sleuth? Views: 563
