One October evening five posh London couples gather for a dinner party, enjoying "the pheasant (flambe in cognac as it is)" and waiting for the imminent arrival of the late-coming guest Hilda Damien, who has been unavoidably detained due to the fact that she is being murdered at this very moment
Symposium was applauded by Time magazine for the "sinister elegance" of Muriel Spark's "medium of light but lethal comedy." Mixed in are a Monet, a mad uncle, some unconventional nuns, and a burglary ring run by a rent-a-butler. Symposium stars a perfectly evil young woman (a classic sweet-faced hair-raising Sparkian horror) who has married rich Hilda's son by hook or by crook, hooking him at the fruit counter of Harrod's. There is also spiritual conversation and the Bordeaux is superb. "The prevailing mood is urbane: the wine is poured, the talk continues, and all the time the ice on which the protagonists' world rests is being thinned from beneath, by boiling emotions and ugly motives. No living writer handles the tension between formality of expression and subversiveness of thought more elegantly." (The Independent on Sunday). Views: 181
The acclaimed author of "A People's History of the United States" (more than 200,000 copies sold) presents an honest and piercing look at American political ideology."A shotgun blast of revisionism that aims to shatter all the comfortable myths of American political discourse." "--Los Angeles Times" Views: 176
August, 1143. During the ploughing of Abbey land, the hastily buried remains of a woman's body are unearthed. Uneasiness pushes Brother Cadfael to find the whole truth behind this unexpected discovery. Views: 173
SUMMARY:
The priest lay on the bloodstained stones, his life drained from the wounds in his back.... In a walled garden surrounded by skyscrapers, Father Michael Birney met an unholy end, stabbed by an assailant who invaded his vespers prayers and then vanished as twilight overtook the big city. A stone's throw from the crime scene, a congregation of Satan worshipers chants its disturbing incantations -- an irony not lost on Detectives Carella and Hawes, who search among the cultists for a killer. But it will take more than a leap of faith for the cops of the 87th Precinct to expose the truth behind the deadliest -- and bloodiest -- of sins. Views: 172
A Dozen unforgettable stories by "one of the most original writers at work today" (Wyatt Mason, The New York Times Book Review). Slippery figures in anomalous situations - ghosts, spies, bodyguards, criminals - haunt these stories by Javier Marías, "the most subtle and gifted writer in contemporary Spanish literature" (The Boston Globe) Views: 169
Ned's cousin Lisa has been accused of setting fire to her architect father's new project—just to get out of the family business! It's up to Nancy Drew to prove Lisa's innocence and find the real arsonists, or the suspect could become the next victim. Views: 168
Amy thought love would never pass her way again. She didn't know how close it was...until she met Silas. He is an answer to prayer for her injured father, Grant Nolan, who welcomes him with open arms. The brotherly way Silas feels toward Amy soon turns to deeper feelings of love.
Silas longs to have his love returned. But his sensitivity to Amy's reluctant heart and the loss of her old flame keeps him from harboring false hopes for their future. As Silas prepares to leave, will Amy discover the truth about her heart before it's too late?
A tender story of the flowering of hidden love and the nurturing of faith in the farmlands of Wisconsin. Views: 167
ames Dickey, the Carolina Professor and poet-in-residence at the University of South Carolina, continues to examine the relationship of man and nature in "The Eagle's Mile." That same relationship appears, with many nuances about myth and machismo, in his novel and film, "Deliverance." The title poem in his new collection is dedicated to the late Justice William O. Douglas, a noted outdoorsman. Mr. Dickey's verse meanders down the page in rivulets that eventually join together in a rushing mainstream of language:
Where Douglas you once walked in a white shirt as a man
In the early fall, fire-breathing with oak-leaves,
Your patched tunnel-gaze exactly right
For the buried track
Mr. Dickey, who loves to link words, tells a tale of Manhattan that is alternately amusing and frightening in a poem called "Spring-Shock." In it, a driver rolls down a car window; his voice is "home-born Southern." A potential mugging seems to be in the spring air. The passenger-narrator, "manhandling my overcoat," slides into the car and orders him to go to the St. Moritz Hotel. The poet emerges in a single phrase that breaks into the narrative: Central Park South is described as "A war-safety zone." Then something happens between mugger and victim that raises the poem into a surprising statement of courage.
The waiting room in a maternity ward is perfectly re-created in a poem called "Daughter." The clock in the room is unwound; the hospital is a place of "plastic, manned rubber and wrong light." And then:
A doctor with a blanket
Comes round a blind corner.
"Who gets this little girl?"
I peer into wool: a creature
Somewhat strangely more than red.
Dipped in fire.
In all the poems in "The Eagle's Mile," original phrases stop the reader's eye on the page: "No emergency but birth." An overweight man's "pizza-fed fury." Houses in Los Angeles that are made of "packaged hard candy." A race in which a middle-aged man is "a world-class second."
In "The Eagle's Mile," James Dickey continues to extend his vision as a major American poet.
NY Times - book review October 27, 1990 Views: 163
'I saw riders with black eyesockets in glimmering mail where their faces should have been, grey wolfskins catching a bloom of light from the mist and the moon; a shining company indeed, not quite mortal-seeming.' Many years after King Arthur defeated the Saxons, the tribes of Britain are again threatened by invaders. Prosper and his loyal bondsman, Conn, answer the call of King Mynydogg to join a highly skilled army - the Shining Company. Led by the gallant Prince Gorthyrn, the company embark on a perilous but glorious campaign. An epic tale of battles and bravery from the acclaimed historical storyteller, Rosemary Sutcliff. Views: 155
In Like Life’s eight exquisite stories, Lorrie Moore’s characters stumble through their daily existence. These men and women, unsettled and adrift and often frightened, can’t quite understand how they arrived at their present situations. Harry has been reworking a play for years in his apartment near Times Square in New York. Jane is biding her time at a cheese shop in a Midwest mall. Dennis, unhappily divorced, buries himself in self-help books about healthful food and healthy relationships. One prefers to speak on the phone rather than face his friends, another lets the answering machine do all the talking. But whether rejected, afraid to commit, bored, disillusioned or just misunderstood, even the most hard-bitten are not without some abiding trust in love.From Publishers WeeklyShort stories chronicle the "like lives" (as opposed to love lives) of misfits whose romantic endeavors have gone awry. "Wondrously witty," said PW. "With gallows humor and unfailing understanding, Moore evokes her characters' quiet desperation and valiant searches for significance." Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalSharply rendered, the slightly wistful tone of these eight stories reflects their color: gray, yet less autumnal than springlike, with an attendant edge of hope coloring the best of them. "The Jewish Hunter" stands out as a portrait of possibilities: of love, of relationship, of selfhood. In fact, Moore dances around the edges of broken relationships with a delicacy that expresses both despair, acceptance, and a fledging resilience to try again. The title story and "Vissi d'Arte" are excellent examples of Moore's subtle insight. These are stories that bear rereading. Recommended.- Linda L. Rome, Mentor, OhioCopyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 147
Tombstone was fast becoming one hell of a mess when Bat Masterson and the Earps asked their old pal Sam "Cemetery" Jones to lend a hand. There was a man a day getting killed, the notorious Clanton gang raising hell, Apaches on the warpath and a legendary outlaw called Ringo looking to put Cemetery Jones six feet under.But Cemetery wasn't one to refuse his friends, even if it meant going up against six-shooters, raiding Indians, and a cold-blooded killer out gunning for him. It was a mighty good thing Cemetery didn't scare too easily because the showdown at the OK Corral was just the beginning in the war zone called Tombstone. Views: 143
Larry Brown's highly praised novel Dirty Work established him as one of the fiercest and most powerful new voices in Southern literature, a writer who understands the sorrows and joys of everyday life. That same compassionate regard for ordinary people shines on every page of Big Bad Love, whose heroes in these stories have a fatal weakness for beer, fast women, and pick-up trucks, and who find a kind of salvation in the reckless pursuit of love.From Publishers WeeklyWomanizing, heavy-drinking, often desperate backwoods loners inhabit this virtuoso collection of short stories. According to PW , "A casual glance suggests invasion of Raymond Carver territory, but Brown stakes out his own turf by dint of his integrity and wit; his heroes are savants of the down-and-out set, harrowingly aware of their own limitations without abandoning hope of salvation." Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalFrom the author of Dirty Work , a searing war/antiwar novel ( LJ 7/89), comes a rich, moody collection of stories. All feature male protagonists of the beer-drinking, pick-up truck-driving persuasion, who are awkwardly trying to relate to women in a raunchy, sentimental way. Most seem stranded by a failure to communicate, a yearning to connect with others. "Discipline" is a different style, effectively told as a courtroom interrogation. The final long story, "92 Days," is an almost too-real chronicle of a writer trying to get published, struggling with a lack of money and a bitter ex-wife, drinking too much, but still driven by the need to write. Brown, an ex-firefighter from Oxford, Mississippi, might just become another powerhouse Southern writer.- Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 126
