John Gardner's most poignant novel of improbable love.
At the heart of John Gardner's Nickel Mountain is an uncommon love story: when at 42, the obese, anxious and gentle Henry Soames marries seventeen-year-old Callie Wells—who is pregnant with the child of a local boy—it is much more than years which define the gulf between them. But the beauty of this novel is the gradual revelation of the bond that develops as this unlikely couple experiences courtship and marriage, the birth of a son, isolation, forgiveness, work, and death in a small Catskill community in the 1950s. The plot turns on tragic events—they might be accidents or they might be acts of will—involving a cast of rural eccentrics that includes a lonely amputee veteran, a religious hysteric (thought by some to be the devil himself) and an itinerant "Goat Lady." Questions of guilt, innocence, and even murder are eclipsed by deeds of compassion, humility, and redemption, and ultimately by Henry Soames' quiet discovery of grace.
Novelist William H. Gass, a friend and colleague of the author, has written an introduction that shines new light on the work and career of the much praised but often misunderstood John Gardner. Views: 374
For as long as she could remember, Jane Stuart and her mother lived with her grandmother in a dreary mansion in Toronto. Jane always believed her father was dead until she accidentally learned he was alive and well and living on Prince Edward Island. When Jane spends the summer at his cottage on Lantern Hill, doing all the wonderful things Grandmother deems unladylike, she dares to dream that there could be such a house back in Toronto...a house where she, Mother, and Father could live together without Grandmother directing their lives -- a house that could be called home. Views: 373
An ALA Notable Children's Book, The Eagle is the first in Rosemary Sutcliff's Carnegie Medal-winning Roman Britain Trilogy—and the basis for the film starring Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell, and Donald Sutherland. The Ninth Legion marched into the mists of Northern Britain—and they were never seen again. Thousands of men disappeared and their eagle standard was lost. It's a mystery that's never been solved, until now...Marcus has to find out what happened to his father, who led the legion. So he sets out into the unknown, on a quest so dangerous that nobody expects him to return.Previously published as The Eagle of the Ninth Views: 373
A bloody and apparently senseless murder had been committed at Carne School, one of the oldest and most glittering ornaments in the British public school system. George Smiley, whose connections with Carne were complicated by sentiment, had had a curious forewarning of the crime and, in a private capacity, pursued its investigation. Without his espionage-trained insight into the workings of the human mind, Smiley might never have solved the case. But logic and insight were hardly enough to spare him the emotional aftermath of a conclusion he did not want to face. Views: 373
A Connie Blair Mystery The Clue in Blue** Views: 373
Precognition; a world ruled by Relativism; giant alien jellyfish. "The World Jones Made" is a classic Philip K. Dick mash-up, taking deep philosophical musings and infusing them with wild action. Floyd Jones has always been able to see exactly one year into his future, a gift and curse that began one year before he was even born. As a fortune-teller at a post-apocalyptic carnival, Jones is a powerful force, and may just be able to force society away from its paralyzing Relativism. If, that is, he can avoid the radioactively unstable government hitman on his tail. Views: 373
In 1960 the government of Trinidad invited V. S. Naipaul to revisit his native country and record his impressions. In this classic of modern travel writing he has created a deft and remarkably prescient portrait of Trinidad and four adjacent Caribbean societies–countries haunted by the legacies of slavery and colonialism and so thoroughly defined by the norms of Empire that they can scarcely believe that the Empire is ending.
In The Middle Passage, Naipaul watches a Trinidadian movie audience greeting Humphrey Bogart’s appearance with cries of “That is man!” He ventures into a Trinidad slum so insalubrious that the locals call it the Gaza Strip. He follows a racially charged election campaign in British Guiana (now Guyana) and marvels at the Gallic pretension of Martinique society, which maintains the fiction that its roads are extensions of France’s routes nationales. And throughout he relates the ghastly episodes of the region’s colonial past and shows how they continue to inform its language, politics, and values. The result is a work of novelistic vividness and dazzling perspicacity that displays Naipaul at the peak of his powers. Views: 373
This was no suicide, however it looked - too many people wanted Adrian Stoll dead. From an embarrassment of suspects, Gently had a very tangled tale to unravel.The unflappable Inspector George Gently has become a household name through the hit BBC TV series starring Martin Shaw. These are the original books on which the TV series was based, although the George Gently in Alan Hunter's whodunits is somewhat different to his TV counterpart. He is more calculating, more analytical, and his investigations are even more enthralling. Views: 372
Treece's retelling of the Arthur story with King Arthur as Artos a Celtic chieftain in post-Roman Britain. Views: 372
The time is World War II. The place is a brutal prison camp deep in Japanese-occupied territory. Here, within the seething mass of humanity, one man, an American corporal, seeks dominance over both captives and captors alike. His weapons are human courage, unblinking understanding of human weaknesses, and total willingness to exploit every opportunity to enlarge his power and corrupt or destroy anyone who stands in his path.
From the Paperback edition. Views: 372
The spaceship Hope Dempsey is four years out from Earth, en route to the planetary system orbiting Munich 15040. Aboard are thirteen people—twelve in suspended animation, "sleeping" through the long voyage, while the thirteenth, Ryan, looks after the ship.This is a colonizing voyage, made up of refugees from an Earth whose people have driven themselves to the edge of global destruction. The thirteen people on this ship might be the only humans left alive in the universe.And now, before they can reach the new planets and begin again, a crisis is developing on board ship. As Ryan checks the crew's life-support systems, and reads the ship's computer printouts, and thinks, and dreams, he comes to realize that even this last remnant of human life is threatened with extinction, In the lonely dark corridor between stars.... Views: 372
The last novel by Verne first published in France fourteen years after Verne's death. In it, two politicians and their entourage travel through French West Africa in the late 19th or early 20th century to gather evidence to support arguments for and against giving voting rights to black Africans. Views: 371
