When a light aircraft crashes into the Thames at Shepperton, the young pilot who struggles to the surface minutes later seems to have come back from the dead. Within hours everything in the dormitory suburb is transformed. Vultures invade rooftops, luxuriant tropical vegetation overruns the quiet avenues, and the local inhabitants are propelled by the young man’s urgent visions through ecstatic sexual celebrations toward an apocalyptic climax. In this characteristically inventive novel Ballard displays to devastating effect the extraordinary imagination that has established him as one of the twentieth century’s most visionary writers. Views: 823
Walker is my name and I am the same. Riddley Walker. Walking my riddels where ever theyve took me and walking them now on this paper the same. There aint that many sir prizes in life if you take noatis of every thing. Every time will have its happenings out and every place the same. Thats why I finely come to writing all this down. Thinking on what the idear of us myt be. Thinking on that thing whats in us lorn and loan and oansome.' Composed in an English which has never been spoken and laced with a storytelling tradition that predates the written word, RIDDLEY WALKER is the world waiting for us at the bitter end of the nuclear road. It is desolate, dangerous and harrowing, and a modern masterpiece. Views: 819
Carl Sagan, writer & scientist, returns from the frontier to tell us about how the world works. In his delightfully down-to-earth style, he explores & explains a mind-boggling future of intelligent robots, extraterrestrial life & its consquences, & other provocative, fascinating quandries of the future we want to see today. Views: 811
June Pritchard and her pet sparrow hawk, Zander, are both caught between following the rules and spreading their wings to fly June Pritchard spends every summer with her aunts, uncles, and cousins in the big Victorian house that belonged to her grandfather. But the summer she turns thirteen, something has changed. Her mother is imposing new rules on her, and she starts to feel the thrill—and burden—of growing up. When June is given a sparrow hawk to train as a pet, she takes on the task, eager to prove she can be reliable. But Zander the sparrow hawk is as resistant to new rules as June is herself. Together, they must navigate the fine line between responsibility and freedom. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Jean Craighead George, including rare photos from the author’s personal collection. Views: 782
"This epic story is fueled with intense commitment and sensuousness."
LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Vida was their star--the beautiful, charismatic radical from the pages of LIFE magazine--the symbol of the passionate rebellion of the sixties. Now, ten years later, the shouting is over, but Vida is still on the run. Staying in Network hideouts, traveling disguised, fearing every glance, she finds her best protection is her distrust of everyone--a lesson learned from past treacheries. And now, knowing the dangers, she finds herself warming again toward a man, an outcast ten years younger than herself. Views: 779
Robert wants nothing more than to become a serious art historian. But his hopes for a staid academic life are put on hold when he’s driven from London to Venice to escape one lover and seek out another: the enigmatic Bulgarian refugee Lina Pancev. In Venice, Robert encounters a grand carnival of lust, lies, blackmail, cocktail parties, and regicide. As he chases Lina, his heart’s desire, the city itself provides a priceless education in love, art, and beauty.
Witty yet elegant, Territorial Rights is a celebration of human imperfection and complexity, with as many shifting identities, wardrobe changes, and sumptuous settings as a comic opera.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Muriel Spark including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s archive at the National Library of Scotland.
Views: 776
'One of our greatest contemporary novelists' Washington Post
Bruce Mason returns to Salt Lake City not for his aunt's funeral, but to encounter the place he fled in bitterness forty-five years ago. A successful statesman and diplomat, Mason had buried his awkward childhood to become a figure who commanded international respect. But the realities of the present recede in the face of ghosts of his past. As he makes the perfunctory arrangements for the funeral, his inner pilgrimage leads him to the father who darkened his childhood, the mother whose support was both redeeming and embarrassing, the friend who drew him into the respectable world of which he so craved to be a part, and the woman he nearly married.
In this profoundly moving book, Stegner has drawn an intimate portrait of a man understanding how his life has been shaped by experiences seemingly remote and inconsequential. Views: 741
The acclaimed biographer details the life, reign, and impact of King Charles II of England, revealing him to have been far more serious, sensible, and competent than has been thought. Views: 737
Russia faces famine. The Soviets are forced to pin their hopes for survival on the U.S. But as the KGB and the CIA watch in horror, the rescue of a Ukrainian freedom fighter from the Black Sea unleashes savagery that endangers peace--and plunges leaders from Washington to Moscow into a web of overwhelming intrigue, terror, and suspense. Only two lovers can save the world from nuclear destruction. Yet every way out means certain death, and the countdown has already begun. Views: 722
*Jailbird* takes us into a fractured and comic, pure Vonnegut world of high crimes and misdemeanors in government—and in the heart. This wry tale follows bumbling bureaucrat Walter F. Starbuck from Harvard to the Nixon White House to the penitentiary as Watergate’s least known co-conspirator. But the humor turns dark when Vonnegut shines his spotlight on the cold hearts and calculated greed of the mighty, giving a razor-sharp edge to an unforgettable portrait of power and politics in our times.
*From the Trade Paperback edition.* Views: 707
Herewiss is the only man in centuries to possess the Power of the blue Flame, but he can't use or control it -- not even to help his dearest friend, Freelorn, exiled prince of Arlen. Herewiss does have a talent for more mundane sorcery, and (aided by the unearthly creature Sunspark) he uses it to rout the armies besieging Freelorn. But now Herewiss faces a devastating choice.
His time to master the blue Fire is running out. Should he join Freelorn in his fight to regain his kingdom? Or should he seek out the ancient keep in the Waste where doors lead into other worlds -- perhaps even the door whose use will teach him to control the Power that he must master or die?... Views: 705
Selections made by Mr. Michener from his great novel Chesapeake. Views: 698
The War That Wizards Dread
Across the mountains called Dragon's Teeth, beyond the chill reach of the Werewind and the fires of the world's beginning, above the walls of the castle Fangdred, stands Windtower. From this lonely keep the Star Rider calls forth the war that even wizards dread, fought for a woman's hundred-lifetime love. A woman called Nepanthe, princess to the Stormkings... Views: 693
The long-unavailable work by one of America's most eminent writers. Views: 692
In life, not every sin goes unpunished.
GHOST STORY
For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past -- and get away with murder. Views: 688
