First published in Paris in 1955 and originally banned in America, J. P. Donleavy's first novel is now recognized the world over as a masterpiece and a modern classic of the highest order. Set in Ireland just after World War II, The Ginger Man is J. P. Donleavy's wildly funny, picaresque classic novel of the misadventures of Sebastian Dangerfield, a young American ne'er-do-well studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Dangerfield's appetite for women, liquor, and general roguishness is insatiable--and he satisfies it with endless charm. Views: 862
Un débris de hameau où quatre maisons fleuries d'orchis émergent des blés drus et hauts. Ce sont les Bastides Blanches, à mi-chemin entre la plaine et le grand désert lavandier, à l'ombre des monts de Lure. C'est là que vivent douze personnes, deux ménages, plus Gagou l'innocent. Janet est le plus vieux des Bastides. Ayant longtemps regardé et écouté la nature, il a appris beaucoup de choses et connaît sans doute des secrets. Maintenant, paralysé et couché près de l'âtre, il parle sans arrêt, « ça coule comme un ruisseau », et ce qu'il dit finit par faire peur aux gens des Bastides. Puis la fontaine tarit, une petite fille tombe malade, un incendie éclate. C'en est trop! Le responsable doit être ce vieux sorcier de Janet. Il faut le tuer... Dans Colline, premier roman de la trilogie de Pan (Un de Baumugnes, Regain), Jean Giono, un de nos plus grands conteurs, exalte dans une langue riche et puissante les liens profonds qui lient les paysans à la nature. Views: 861
This is a funny fantasy novel by the Strugatsky Brothers. Views: 861
Antic Hay is one of Aldous Huxley's earlier novels, and like them is primarily a novel of ideas involving conversations that disclose viewpoints rather than establish characters; its polemical theme unfolds against the backdrop of London's post-war nihilistic Bohemia. This is Huxley at his biting, brilliant best, a novel, loud with derisive laughter, which satirically scoffs at all conventional morality and at stuffy people everywhere, a novel that's always charged with excitement. Views: 860
Emily Starr never knew what it was to be lonely -- until her beloved father died. Now Emily's an orphan, and her mother's snobbish relatives are taking her to live with them at New Moon Farm. She's sure she won't be happy. Emily deals with stiff, stern Aunt Elizabeth and her malicious classmates by holding her head high and using her quick wit. Things begin to change when she makes friends: with Teddy, who does marvelous drawings; with Perry, who's sailed all over the world with his father yet has never been to school; and above all, with Ilse, a tomboy with a blazing temper. Amazingly, Emily finds New Moon beautiful and fascinating. With new friends and adventures, Emily might someday think of herself as Emily of New Moon. Views: 860
After years of great sacrifice and deep personal tragedy, Florentyna Kane’s has finally become the first woman president in America. But on the very day that she is sworn into office, powerful forces are already in motion to take her life.****
The FBI investigates thousands of false threats every year. This time, a reliable source has tipped them off about an assassination attempt. One hour later, the informant and all but one of the investigating agents are dead. The lone survivor: FBI Special Agent Mark Andrews. Now, only he knows when the killers will strike. But how can he alone unravel a ruthless conspiracy—in less than one week? The race to save the first woman president begins now… Views: 860
This collection of ten connected stories or dreams has a surrealistic atmosphere. Some are weird, others are grotesquely funny. Among the ten nights, the first, second, third, and fifth nights start with the same sentence "This is the dream I dreamed." Whether Sosecki actually had these dreams or whether they were complete fictions is not known. Views: 860
In The Glass Bees the celebrated German writer Ernst Jünger presents a disconcerting vision of the future. Zapparoni, a brilliant businessman, has turned his advanced understanding of technology and his strategic command of the information and entertainment industries into a discrete form of global domination. But Zapparoni is worried that the scientists he depends on might sell his secrets. He needs a chief of security, and Richard, a veteran and war hero, is ready for the job. However, when he arrives at the beautiful country compound that is Zapparoni's headquarters, he finds himself subjected to an unexpected ordeal. Soon he is led to question his past, his character, and even his senses.... Views: 859
Autumn 1943. American agent David Spaulding is among the global espionage elite who have converged on Buenos Aires. His top-secret mission can bring World War II to an explosive end. But what happens in this city of assassins, betrayals, and sensual encounters is the most sinister and terrifying deal ever made between two nations. Intense, high-level covert negotiations will soon bear dangerous fruit with the aid of expatriate German industrialist Erich Rhinemann. But suddenly the game changes, and Spaulding is the man caught in the middle. Struggling furiously to save his sanity, the woman he loves, and his very life, Spaulding might be the only one who can rescue the world from a shattering fate.
Praise for Robert Ludlum and The Rhinemann Exchange
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“A superb plot filled with exciting chases, double crosses, secret codes, and beautiful women . . . a picture of the beastliness underlying the espionage world, a world of brilliance without scruples, brutality without restraint.”—Chicago Tribune
“A breathtaking pace . . . The plot is extraordinary.”—Bestsellers
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“A paragon in the field.”—The New York Times**
BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Robert Ludlum’s *The Bourne Identity.* Views: 858
Amid the cactus wilds some two hudred miles from Hollywood lies a privileged oasis called Desert D'Or. It is a place for starlets and would-be starlets, directors, studio execs, and the well-groomed lowlifes who cater to them. And, as imagined by Norman Mailer in this blistering classic of 1950s Hollywood, Desert D'Or is a moral proving ground, where men and women discover what they really want--and how far the are willing to go to get it.
"The Deer Park" is the story of two interlacing love affairs. Sergius O'Shaugnessy is a young ex-Air Force pilot whose good looks and air of indifference launch him into the orbit of the radiant actress Lulu Meyers. Charles Eitel is a brilliant director wounded by accusations of communism--and whose liaison with the volatile Elena Esposito may supply the coup de grace to his career. As Mailer traces their couplings and uncouplings, their uneasy flirtation with success and self-extinction, he creates a legendary portrait of America's machinery of desire. Views: 858
The third novel in the science-fiction trilogy by C. S. Lewis. This final story is set on Earth, and tells of a terrifying conspiracy against humanity. The story surrounds Mark and Jane Studdock, a newly married couple. Mark is a Sociologist who is enticed to join an organisation called N. I. C. E. which aims to control all human life. His wife, meanwhile, has bizarre prophetic dreams about a decapitated scientist, Alcasan. As Mark is drawn inextricably into the sinister organisation, he discovers the truth of his wife's dreams when he meets the literal head of Alcasan which is being kept alive by infusions of blood. Jane seeks help concerning her dreams at a community called St Anne's, where she meets their leader -- Dr Ransom (the main character of the previous two titles in the trilogy). The story ends in a final spectacular scene at the N. I. C. E. headquarters where Merlin appears to confront the powers of Hell. Views: 857
It was a dark and stormy night when Mary Crane glimpsed the unlit neon sign announcing the vacancy at the Bates motel. Exhausted, lost, and at the end of her rope, she was eager for a hot shower and a bed for the night. Her room was musty but clean and the plumbing worked. Norman Bates, the manager, seemed nice, if a little odd. Views: 857
First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction - March, 1959 - the story involves a number of paradoxes caused by time travel. It further develops themes explored by the author in a previous work, "By His Bootstraps", published some 18 years earlier. Views: 856
Mild, harmless and ugly to behold, the impoverished Pons is an ageing musician whose brief fame has fallen to nothing. Living a placid Parisian life as a bachelor in a shared apartment with his friend Schmucke, he maintains only two passions: a devotion to fine dining in the company of wealthy but disdainful relatives, and a dedication to the collection of antiques. When these relatives become aware of the true value of his art collection, however, their sneering contempt for the parasitic Pons rapidly falls away as they struggle to obtain a piece of the weakening man's inheritance. Taking its place in the Human Comedy as a companion to Cousin Bette, the darkly humorous Cousin Pons is among of the last and greatest of Balzac's novels concerning French urban society: a cynical, pessimistic but never despairing consideration of human nature. Views: 856
The Fan Man is a comic novel published in 1974 by the American writer William Kotzwinkle. It's told in the 1st-person by the narrator, Horse Badorties, a down-at-the-heels hippie living a life of drug-fueled befuddlement in New York City c. 1970. The book is written in a colorful, vernacular "hippie-speak" & tells the story of the main character's hapless attempts to put together a benefit concert featuring his own hand-picked choir of 15-year-old girls.
Horse is a somewhat tragic, tho historically humorous, character with echoes of other famous characters in popular culture such as Reverend Jim Ignatowski of Taxi fame. In his inability to follow anything thru to completion he displays symptoms of attention-deficit disorder tho this could equally be drug-induced. His defining characteristic is his joy in renting or commandeering apartments which he fills with street-scavenged junk articles until full to bursting he moves on to his next "pad". The name "fan man" is a reference to another of his traits; the collecting of fans of all shapes & sizes. Views: 855
