The Star--The public saw her as a gifted child star: the youngest actor to win an Oscar for her role as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker and the youngest actor to have a prime-time television series bearing her own name. The Nightmare--What the public did not see was Anna Marie Duke, a young girl whose life changed forever at age seven when tyrannical mangers stripped her of nearly all that was familiar, beginning with her name. She was deprived of family and friends. Her every word was programmed, her every action monitored and criticized. She was fed liquor and prescription drugs, taught to lie to get work, and relentlessly drilled to win roles. The Legend--Out of this nightmare emerged Patty Duke, a show business legend still searching for the child, Anna. She won three Emmy Awards and divorced three husbands. A starring role in Valley of the Dolls nearly ruined her career. She was notorious for wild spending sprees, turbulent liaisons, and an uncontrollable temper. Until a long hidden illness was diagnosed, and her amazing recovery recovery began. The Triumph-- Call Me Anna is an American success story that grew out of a bizarre and desperate struggle for survival. A harrowing, ultimately triumphant story told by Patty Duke herself--wife, mother, political activist, President of the Screen Actors Guild, and at last, a happy, fulfilled woman whose miracle is her own life.From the Paperback edition.From the PublisherThe Star--The public saw her as a gifted child star: the youngest actor to win an Oscar for her role as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker and the youngest actor to have a prime-time television series bearing her own name. The Nightmare--What the public did not see was Anna Marie Duke, a young girl whose life changed forever at age seven when tyrannical mangers stripped her of nearly all that was familiar, beginning with her name. She was deprived of family and friends. Her every word was programmed, her every action monitored and criticized. She was fed liquor and prescription drugs, taught to lie to get work, and relentlessly drilled to win roles. The Legend--Out of this nightmare emerged Patty Duke, a show business legend still searching for the child, Anna. She won three Emmy Awards and divorced three husbands. A starring role in Valley Of The Dolls nearly ruined her career. She was notorious for wild spending sprees, turbulent liaisons, and an uncontrollable temper. Until a long hidden illness was diagnosed, and her amazing recovery recovery began. The Triumph-- Call Me Anna is an American success story that grew out of a bizarre and desperate struggle for survival. A harrowing, ultimately triumphant story told by Patty Duke herself--wife, mother, political activist, President of The Screen Actors Guild, and at last, a happy, fulfilled woman whose miracle is her own life. From the Inside FlapThe Star--The public saw her as a gifted child star: the youngest actor to win an Oscar for her role as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker and the youngest actor to have a prime-time television series bearing her own name. The Nightmare--What the public did not see was Anna Marie Duke, a young girl whose life changed forever at age seven when tyrannical mangers stripped her of nearly all that was familiar, beginning with her name. She was deprived of family and friends. Her every word was programmed, her every action monitored and criticized. She was fed liquor and prescription drugs, taught to lie to get work, and relentlessly drilled to win roles. The Legend--Out of this nightmare emerged Patty Duke, a show business legend still searching for the child, Anna. She won three Emmy Awards and divorced three husbands. A starring role in Valley of the Dolls nearly ruined her career. She was notorious for wild spending sprees, turbulent liaisons, and an uncontrollable temper. Until a long hidden illness was diagnosed, and her amazing recovery recovery began. The Triumph-- Call Me Anna is an American success story that grew out of a bizarre and desperate struggle for survival. A harrowing, ultimately triumphant story told by Patty Duke herself--wife, mother, political activist, President of the Screen Actors Guild, and at last, a happy, fulfilled woman whose miracle is her own life. Views: 65
Wall Street private investigator Timothy Cone is back in this trio of novellas that plunge into the high-stakes worlds of insider trading, corporate espionage, and cold-blooded murderTimothy Cone works for an agency that provides “financial intelligence”—and often investigates murder and mayhem, too. In “Run, Sally, Run!,” Timothy Cone investigates insider leaks in a New York investment banking house, and faces the ruthless Sally Steiner, who’s willing to do anything to succeed in a man’s world. “A Case of the Shorts” opens with a bang: The CEO of a powerful Wall Street firm is gunned down in his limo. Cone is dispatched, ostensibly to uncover evidence of industrial sabotage. But what he finds is a simmering hornet’s nest of greed, passion, and betrayal. A Chinese food corporation on the New York Stock Exchange raises red flags in “One From Column A.” When the elderly CEO of White Lotus employs Cone’s company to investigate, Cone is soon tangling with kidnapping, extortion, and the Asian mafia, and it’s hard to tell who’s scamming whom. Views: 65
Involution Ocean is a far cry from the cyberpunk niche that Sterling later came to dominate (and arguably create). The setting is the far-flung world of Nullaqua. The world is defined by a single habitable crater, and that crater is filled with a heavy, perpetual mist of dust. Nullaqua is a sea-faring world, populated by a race of stoic, unimaginative sailors - all on an ocean of dust. The book’s protagonist John Newhouse, an off-worlder, is drawn to Nullaqua by ‘Flare’, a potent drug stilled from the belly of the ’dustwhale’. The story begins with the drug being declared illegal. In order to preserve his supply, John is forced to join a whaling ship, and sail the dusty seas of Nullaqua. Views: 65
Zodiac, the brilliant second novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the The Baroque Cycle and Snow Crash, is now available from Grove Press. Meet Sangamon Taylor, a New Age Sam Spade who sports a wet suit instead of a trench coat and prefers Jolt from the can to Scotch on the rocks. He knows about chemical sludge the way he knows about evilall too intimately. And the toxic trail he follows leads to some high and foul places. Before long Taylor’s house is bombed, his every move followed, he’s adopted by reservation Indians, moves onto the FBI’s most wanted list, makes up with his girlfriend, and plays a starring role in the near-assassination of a presidential candidate. Closing the case with the aid of his burnout roommate, his tofu-eating comrades, three major networks, and a range of unconventional weaponry, Sangamon Taylor pulls off the most startling caper in Boston Harbor since the Tea Party. Views: 65
In this unusually frank book Scott Thorson tells all: the good, the bad, and the ugly truths about a legendary entertainer who went to outrageous extremes to prevent public knowledge of his homosexuality. Liberace's unhappy childhood, dominated by a mother determined to force him into a concert career, serves as the prologue for a story that goes on to detail Liberace s early appearances in honky-tonks, his move to New York to seek fame, and, finally, his first booking in Las Vegas, where he was courted by the Mafia. His successes create a bright counterpoint to a darker tale of a man hungry for power, given to every excess. Liberace's credo "too much of a good thing is wonderful" is reflected here in his acquisition of new lovers, luxurious homes, a large collection of pornography, and a total of twenty-six house dogs. Behind the Candelabra also reveals the details of the fundamentally tender love affair between Liberace and Thorson whom Liberace sent to his own plastic surgeon to have his face remodeled in Liberace's own image! This fast-paced story, sprinkled with anecdotes about famous entertainers such as Michael Jackson and Shirley MacLaine, ends with an intimate look at Liberace's final days as he lay dying of AIDS and his deathbed reconciliation with Scott.From Publishers WeeklyIn 1977, the 18-year-old Thorson became "lover, friend and confidant" of the 57-year-old Liberace, a relationship that would continue until 1982. Here, with Thorleifson (coauthor of John Wayne) he relates the sorry, seamy tale of his "callous" eviction from the performer's Las Vegas penthouse in favor of a teenager and the public brouhaha that followed when he filed a palimony suit. The book is uncomfortably candid with revelations about "Lee"who was driven to experience sexual variety with younger males, even as he continued to publicly deny his homosexualityand Thorson's protestations that he was unfairly branded a street hustler by the tabloid press. Although the acrimonious suit was ultimately settled (the provisions were kept secret), Thorson notes that he has written this memoir because "I need the money." His bitterness at Liberace, who died of AIDS in 1987, lessens at the end of the book, and with back-handed gratitude he concludes: "Leaving Lee . . . may have saved my life." Photos. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review"This memoir by Liberace's longtime lover has been made into a biopic. . . . Peter Berkrot provides a direct and unadorned narration." ---AudioFile Views: 65
Professor Childermass's brother Peregrine has left behind a huge inheritance—a mansion, ten million dollars and a cryptic riddle that might save the world from a madman.The only catch is that the professor must stay on the estate up in Maine for the entire summer. Johnny Dixon and his friend Fergie decide to come along to keep the professor company but little do they know the dangerous magic that awaits them there. As they try to decode the strange rhyme in Peregrine's will, a powerful force is circling ever closer.Will they solve the mystery in time? Will the madman stay one step ahead of them? Who will help them save the world from destruction? This seventh book in the Johnny Dixon mystery series will have readers on the edge or their seats...or maybe hiding under the covers. Views: 64
A collection of stories set in Oregon's Willamette Valley—many of the protagonists having moved west to start their lives anew.PRAISEStreetwise and pain-acquainted, John Domini's new story-collection is a good rich read indeed." —John Barth Views: 64
From Publishers WeeklyTheroux (The Old Patagonian Express, The Great Railway Bazaar) spent a year exploring China by train, and his impressions about what has and has not changed in the country, as gathered in hundreds of conversations with Chinese citizens, make up a large portion of the book. The Cultural Revolution and the vandalism of the Red Guards have left scars on both the land and the people. Mao's death brought a collective sigh of relief from the population; reforms brought about under Deng Xiaoping have generally been welcomed. Still, this is not a political book. Whether describing his dealings with a rock-hard bureaucracy, musing over the Chinese flirtation with capitalismthey've "turned the free market into a flea market"or commenting on the process of traveling, Theroux conducts the reader through this enormous country with wisdom, humor and a crusty warmth. Along the way are anecdotes about classic Chinese pornography (forbidden to the citizenry, but all right for "foreign friends"); 35-below-zero weather; the Chinese penchant for restructuring nature; and the omnipresent thermos of hot water for making tea. The last chapter, "The Train to Tibet," deals with the extremes to which the Chinese have gone in their attempts to subjugate the Tibetan people. Theroux develops an understanding of China through his travels, but he falls in love with Tibet. As in his previous works, he gives the reader much to relish and think about. BOMC featured selection. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalTheroux's penchant for train travel is well knownhis Great Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express are modern travel classics. On his latest jaunt he takes almost a year to crisscross China, traveling on 40 trains from the southern tropics to the wastelands of the Gobi in western Xinjiang to the dense metropolises of Shanghai, Beijing, and Canton. What emerges is a curious melange of ancient and modern: while some things are literally changing overnight, the Chinese still manufacture spittoons and steam engines. For Theroux, traveling is both about peopletheir thoughts, customs, and peculiaritiesand a form of autobiography, and here we learn as much about his own quirks and fancies as we do about the intriguing world of contemporary China. Laurence Hull, Cannon Memorial Lib., Concord, N.C.Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 64
Suzy Schwarz has learnt one or two things about life: other people know how you should live better than you do; sisters (especially Fran) can destroy your sanity and self-esteem; lust calls for careful timing because it rarely coincides with that of your partner; and most heartbreaking of all, parents die on you, leaving you grieving. The only thing that provides constant solace when times are bad (and they usually are) is food. Views: 64
Richard Sharpe and the Winter Campaign, 1814. The invasion of France is under way, and the British Navy has called upon the services of Major Richard Sharpe. He and a small force of Riflemen are to capture a fortress and secure a landing on the French coast. It is to be one of the most dangerous missions of his career. Through the incompetence of a recklessly ambitious naval commander and the machinations of his old enemy, French spymaster Pierre Ducos, Sharpe finds himself abandoned in the heart of enemy territory, facing overwhelming forces and the very real prospect of defeat. He has no alternative but to trust his fortunes to an American privateer — a man who has no love for the British invaders. Views: 64
Looking at the views and experiences of three generations of indigenous Australians, this autobiography unearths political and societal issues contained within Australia's indigenous culture. Sally Morgan traveled to her grandmother's birthplace, starting a search for information about her family. She uncovers that she is not white but aborigine—information that was kept a secret because of the stigma of society. This moving account is a classic of Australian literature that finally frees the tongues of the author's mother and grandmother, allowing them to tell their own stories. Views: 64
After five hundred centuries of war, Velmeran, a Starwolf pilot, plans a daring mission to recover important data that could lead the Starwolves back to their home planet Views: 64
