The Story of Civilization, Volume II: A history of Greek civilization from the beginnings, and of civilization in the Near East from the Death of Alexander to the Roman Conquest. The Life of Greece is a survey of ancient Greece whose scope and style recalls the golden age of historical writing, before specialization. Durant, in this second volume of The Story of Civilization, tells the whole story of Hellas, from the days of Crete's vast Aegean empire to the extirpation of the last remnants of Greek liberty, crushed under the heel of an implacably forward-marching Rome. The dry minutiae of battles and sieges, tortuous statecraft of tyrant and king, are given less emphasis in what is pre-eminently a vivid recreation of Greek culture, written in a supple and vigorous prose.
[from cover] Views: 932
Rustic old Riddlesdale Lodge was a Wimsey family retreat filled with country pleasures and the thrill of the hunt -- until the game turned up human and quite dead. He lay among the chrysanthemums, wore slippers and a dinner jacket and was Lord Peter's brother-in-law-to-be. His accused murderer was Wimsey's own brother, and if murder set all in the family wasn't enough to boggle the unflappable Lord Wimsey, perhaps a few twists of fate would be -- a mysterious vanishing midnight letter from Egypt...a grieving fiancee with suitcase in hand...and a bullet destined for one very special Wimsey. Views: 932
In this third self-contained volume of her autobiography, which began with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou moves into the adult world, and the white world as well, as she marries, enters show business, and tours Europe and Africa in Porgy and Bess.
As the book opens, Maya, in order to support herself and her young son, gets a job in a record shop run by a white woman. Suspicious of almost any kindness shown her, she is particularly confused by the special attentions of a young white customer. Soon the relationship grows into love and then marriage, and Maya believes a permanent relationship is finally possible. But it is not to be, and she is again forced to look for work.
This time she finds a job as a dancer in a sleazy San Francisco bar. Her remarkable talent, however, soon brings her attention of a different kind, and before long she is singing in one of the most popular nightclubs on the coast. From there, she is called to New York to join the cast of Porgy and Bess, which is just about to begin another tour abroad.
The troupe's joyous and dramatic adventure through Italy, France, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Egypt becomes the centerpiece of Singin' and Swingin'. This remarkable portrayal of one of the most exciting and talented casts ever put together, and of the encounters between these larger-than-life personalities and audiences who had rarely seen black people before, makes a hilarious and poignant story. The excitement of the journey -- full of camaraderie, love affairs, and memorable personalities -- is dampened only by Maya's nagging guilt that she has once again abandoned the person she loves most in life, her son.
Back home, and driven close to suicide by her guilt and concern, she takes her son with her to Hawaii, where she discovers that devotion and love, in spite of forced absence, have the power to heal and sustain.
As always, Maya Angelou's writing is charged with that remarkable sense of life and love and unique celebration of the human condition that have won her such a loyal following.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 932
The central figure of this novel is a young man whose parents were executed for conspiring to steal atomic secrets for Russia.
His name is Daniel Isaacson, and as the story opens, his parents have been dead for many years. He has had a long time to adjust to their deaths. He has not adjusted.
Out of the shambles of his childhood, he has constructed a new life—marriage to an adoring girl who gives him a son of his own, and a career in scholarship. It is a life that enrages him.
In the silence of the library at Columbia University, where he is supposedly writing a Ph.D. dissertation, Daniel composes something quite different.
It is a confession of his most intimate relationships—with his wife, his foster parents, and his kid sister Susan, whose own radicalism so reproaches him.
It is a book of memories: riding a bus with his parents to the ill-fated Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill; watching the FBI take his father away; appearing with Susan at rallies protesting their parents’ innocence; visiting his mother and father in the Death House.
It is a book of investigation: transcribing Daniel’s interviews with people who knew his parents, or who knew about them; and logging his strange researches and discoveries in the library stacks.
It is a book of judgments of everyone involved in the case—lawyers, police, informers, friends, and the Isaacson family itself.
It is a book rich in characters, from elderly grand- mothers of immigrant culture, to covert radicals of the McCarthy era, to hippie marchers on the Pen-tagon. It is a book that spans the quarter-century of American life since World War II. It is a book about the nature of Left politics in this country—its sacrificial rites, its peculiar cruelties, its humility, its bitterness. It is a book about some of the beautiful and terrible feelings of childhood. It is about the nature of guilt and innocence, and about the relations of people to nations.
It is The Book of Daniel. Views: 932
A VENGEANCE BORN
By creating Man, the universe had betrayed the old races. Spreading like a pestilence across the Earth, Man destroyed the Vadhagh and the Nhadragh, the ancient peoples. Only Vadhagh Prince Corum remained to raise his sword, to avenge the slaughter of his family and race, to battle the unjust fate of a blind and deaf universe...
Cover Illustration: Robert Gould Views: 932
Edgar Allan Poe remains the unsurpassed master of works of mystery and madness in this outstanding collection of Poe's prose and poetry are sixteen of his finest tales, including "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Pit and the Pendulum," "William Wilson," "The Black Cat," "The Cask of Amontillado," and "Eleonora". Here too is a major selection of what Poe characterized as the passion of his life, his poems - "The Raven," "Annabel Lee," Ulalume," "Lenore," "The Bells," and more, plus his glorious prose poem "Silence - A Fable" and only full-length novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.
From the Paperback edition. Views: 932
Doug is enchanted by the water birds of Gothic Valley—but can he save them from the cruel forces of nature? Doug is visiting his grandfather, Whispering Bill, in the Colorado Rockies for the summer. Bill is the only prospector left in the ghost town of Gothic, once a center of gold mining, and he hopes to pass his knowledge along to his young grandson. Meanwhile, the water ouzels have begun to return to the valley. Doug is fascinated as he watches a pair of ouzels, Cinclus and Teeter, building their nest and laying eggs. But the nest is too close to the water’s edge. Can Doug protect the birds and their brood from the forces of nature? This ebook features an illustrated biography of Jean Craighead George, including rare photos from the author’s personal collection. Views: 931
In his National Book Award–winning novel Augustus, John Williams uncovered the secrets of ancient Rome. With Butcher’s Crossing, his fiercely intelligent, beautifully written western, Williams dismantles the myths of modern America.
It is the 1870s, and Will Andrews, fired up by Emerson to seek “an original relation to nature,” drops out of Harvard and heads west. He washes up in Butcher’s Crossing, a small Kansas town on the outskirts of nowhere. Butcher’s Crossing is full of restless men looking for ways to make money and ways to waste it. Before long Andrews strikes up a friendship with one of them, a man who regales Andrews with tales of immense herds of buffalo, ready for the taking, hidden away in a beautiful valley deep in the Colorado Rockies. He convinces Andrews to join in an expedition to track the animals down. The journey out is grueling, but at the end is a place of paradisal richness. Once there, however, the three men abandon themselves to an orgy of slaughter, so caught up in killing buffalo that they lose all sense of time. Winter soon overtakes them: they are snowed in. Next spring, half-insane with cabin fever, cold, and hunger, they stagger back to Butcher’s Crossing to find a world as irremediably changed as they have been. Views: 930
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880) by Lew Wallace is one of the most popular and beloved 19th century American novels. This faithful New Testament tale combines the events of the life of Jesus with grand historical spectacle in the exciting story of Judah of the House of Hur, a man who finds extraordinary redemption for himself and his family.A classic of faith, fortitude, and inspiration. Views: 930
The second volume of The Dalemark Quartet continues the story of the mythical land of Dalemark, and the four people chosen to reunify the divided lands. Views: 930
#4) Jill and Eustace must rescue the Prince from the evil Witch. NARNIA. . . where owls are wise, where some of the giants like to snack on humans, where a prince is put under an evil spell. . . and where the adventure begins. Eustace and Jill escape from the bullies at school through a strange door in the wall, which, for once, is unlocked. It leads to the open moor. . . or does it? Once again Aslan has a task for the children, and Narnia needs them. Through dangers untold and caverns deep and dark, they pursue the quest that brings them face and face with the evil Witch. She must be defeated if Prince Rillian is to be saved. Views: 930
14 stories:
Rain.--Red.--The letter.--Before the party.--The outstation.--The round dozen.--The hairless Mexican.--Guilia Lazzari.--Mr. Harrington's washing.--The human element.--The alien corn.--The vessel of wrath.--The door of opportunity.--Neil MacAdam. Views: 930
Lady Ludlow is absolute mistress of Hanbury Court and a resolute opponent of anything that might disturb the class system into which she was born. She will keep no servant who can read and write and insists that the lower orders have no rights, but only duties. But the winds of change are blowing through the village of Hanbury. The vicar, Mr. Gray, wishes to start a Sunday school for religious reasons; Mr. Horner wants to educate the citizens for economic reasons. But Lady Ludlow is not as rigid as one may think. Views: 930
Shields' first novel tells the story of Judith Gill, a woman whose world is shaped by the actions of those around her. As a biographer, she spends her days analyzing the minutiae of past lives. But in one lovingly documented year of life, Judith is revealed to herself: a person with desires, passions, and faults; with instincts that are sometimes right and often wrong. Views: 930
Fiction. "More Pricks Than Kicks", Beckett's early tragicomic masterpiece, is a collection of stories about Belacqua, a student in Dublin in the twenties, his adventures, encounters and amours, that through its original style and wry commentary succeeds in turning everyday incidents into high drama and lets us see street and university life through the observant and caustic wit of the author. Highly enjoyable to read, it delights in exuberant language and the pleasure of discovery, very typical of the young writer who in the post-war years was to astonish the world with Waiting for Godot and Molloy. First published in 1934, "More Pricks Than Kicks" is Beckett's second work of fiction. It serves as an excellent introduction to the later work of one of the most seminal and exciting major writers of the twentieth century. Views: 929
