The magnificent and long-awaited biography of the beloved writer who gave us the Manawaka novels, including The Diviners and The Stone Angel.From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 10
The affluent seaside resort of Smalting is unaccustomed to crime. So when human remains are found beneath the floorboards of one of its beach huts, the community is awash with suspicion and fear. Amateur sleuths Carole Seddon and best friend Jude are drawn into the mystery, and their suspicion quickly falls on attractive Philly Rose, a young Londoner newly arrived in the area, whose boyfriend has recently vanished in mysterious circumstances. Meanwhile, Kelvin Southwest, self-appointed ‘ladies’ man’ and caretaker of Smalting’s beach huts, seems to be hiding a dark secret beneath his smooth exterior, while Reginald Flowers, pompous President of the Smalting Beach Hut Association, becomes increasingly defensive about his own history. When the bones under the beach hut are identified, the ghosts of the past are painfully reawakened, and long-hidden secrets begin to surface. Bones Under the Beach Hut is an ingenious mystery from one of England’s favourite crime writers, exquisitely plotted, teeming with wonderful characters and packed with unexpected twists. Views: 10
Resident diva Devane will stop at nothing to get the star treatment she feels she deserves. Especially when she's overlooked for a solo in the group's first show and Emerson, her nemesis, isn't. During the performance, Devane does the unthinkable—she steals the scene from Emerson— and is thrown out of the group. But in the end, it's the group who could end up suffering. Devane may be an egomaniac, but she's also an unbelievable dancer. The Hip Hop Kidz need her, and Emerson might be the only one who can convince her to come back. Views: 10
Taken from home and family, all they have is each other.Isla is kidnapped from a train platform in broad daylight, and thrust into a nightmare when she is sold to a sadistic aristocrat. Locked in a dungeon with a dozen other girls, Isla's only comfort is a locket and the memory of the boy she loves. But as days pass and more girls disappear, she realizes that help is not coming... If they're going to survive, they'll have to escape on their own. Swoon Reads is proud to present Lydia Albano's debut novel, a powerful story of a teen girl finding strength and hope in even the worst circumstances. Praise for FINDING YOU:"This is a story that will give you chills and keep you turning pages until the very end. I know it did that for me. The world needs more books like this one." —Samantha Chaffin, Swoon Reader"Through this experience, these girls—especially Isla—grow and become stronger...despite... Views: 10
Trisha Hanover has run away from home before. But this time, she hasn't come back. To make matters worse, Robyn blew up at Trisha the same morning she disappeared. Now Robyn feels responsible, and she sets out to track Trisha down. As Robyn follows Trisha's path, she learns some harsh truths about the runaway's life. And when she finally locates Trisha, Robyn also finds herself in danger. Views: 10
Drawing on imaginary outtakes from Riefenstahl's infamous film of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, Dennis Bock weaves together the lives of a family living in the shadow of history.Olympia is the story of post-war German immigrants, as told by their son Peter, born in the New World and raised in the sixties and seventies.Though great figures and events of mid-century touch the lives of this remarkable family, it is the private histories, the grand failings and small triumphs of Peter's family that remain etched in the reader's imagination. From Ruby's struggle to rise above her leukemia and her father's love of severe weather and killing tornadoes, to the saint who witnesses a miracle at the bottom of a drowned Spanish village.Set against the backdrop of some of the most significant Olympic moments of our times--the Nazis' stylish and sinister glorification of the Berlin Olympics and the 1972 Munich hostage-taking in which 11 Israelis were murdered--Olympia offers a bold and refreshing perspective on the tragic relationship between Germans and Jews in this century.Bock writes with insight and clarity in a breath-taking, beautiful prose that signals the debut of a brilliant new talent.Amazon.com ReviewOlympia tells the story of three generations quietly grappling with the emotional fallout of war. There are the grandparents, Lottie and Rudolph, who met while competing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics; their son and his wife, who emigrated from Germany after World War II; and the grandchildren--Peter, who narrates, and his sister Ruby, both Canadian-born children of the '70s. Into this portrait Bock skillfully splices imaginary outtakes from Leni Riefenstahl's film of the 1936 Olympics, The Olympiad. The result is a layered album of family stories and a moving meditation on the intersection of memory, identity, and the past. Early on we discover that this family is Lutheran, not Jewish--and that Bock is tackling the uneasy question of what it means to be German in this century. He avoids generalizations about guilt or complicity in the war, aiming for something more delicate, more murky. "It seemed that everyone my parents knew back then had escaped to this country from that dark place ... after the war had ended," Peter explains. "But it took me until that summer to find out that there were things I hadn't been told, that there were secrets in my house." Bock focuses with understated precision on the private moments of victory and defeat that make up the subjective history of a family: Ruby's fight against leukemia and her dream to succeed as an Olympic gymnast; a failed reunion between Peter's mother and the brother she hasn't seen since the end of the war; the deaths of the grandparents; a father and son's shared obsession with storms. Elliptical, nuanced, affirming, and sad, Olympia is a masterful examination of how a family embodies and survives its legacy. --Svenja SoldovieriFrom Kirkus ReviewsThe allure of the past and its power to deform one's life are at the heart of this lyrical and often surprising first novel. We believed we were a gifted family,'' narrator Peter explains.We were Olympians.'' His grandparents had both been members of Germany's 1936 Olympic team. Their glory, though, cant be recaptured. Peter's father has failed, having made it to the Olympics for Canada, where the family has resettled after the war, but being unable to bring home a medal. And Ruby, Peter's younger sister, a promising gymnast who seems a likely candidate for the Olympic team, dies of leukemia. In a series of interrelated stories, Bock traces the ways in which one family's efforts to regain the glory and the hazy romanticism of the past repeatedly disrupt the present. His grandparents decide to renew their marriage vows on a boat in the middle of a Canadian lake, but the romantic gesture turns to tragedy when his grandmother drowns. In another episode, Peter, who has set out to break the record for continuous hours spent floating in water, is himself almost drowned when heavy rains set in motion a flood that sweeps him out of the small municipal pool in which hes been determinedly floating. Bock brings his various themes together in a climactic episode in which a now grown Peter, living in a small Spanish town, is visited by his parents, who have decided that they too want to renew their marriage vows on water. The event goes wonderfully awry when the boat on which the ceremony is being held goes aground: the lake its been launched on is being drained by the authorities, and as the water recedes, it reveals a ruined town hidden for decades under the lake. The inescapable presence of the past is thus caught in a lovely metaphor, and Peter's liberation from his own obsession with the past, when it comes, is believable and moving. An impressive, energetic, and original debut. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Views: 10
An illuminating, entertaining tour of the physical imperfections that make us human We humans like to think of ourselves as highly evolved creatures. But if we are supposedly evolution's greatest creation, why do we have such bad knees? Why do we catch head colds so often—two hundred times more often than a dog does? How come our wrists have so many useless bones? Why is the vast majority of our genetic code pointless? And are we really supposed to swallow and breathe through the same narrow tube? Surely there's been some kind of mistake. As professor of biology Nathan H. Lents explains in Human Errors, our evolutionary history is nothing if not a litany of mistakes, each more entertaining and enlightening than the last. The human body is one big pile of compromises. But that is also a testament to our greatness: as Lents shows, humans have so many design flaws precisely because we are very, very good at getting around them. A... Views: 10
Fifteen-year-old Mike McGill has lived with his Uncle Billy since his mother's death. Only ten years older than Mike, Billy loves to party, and he doesn't pay much attention when Mike starts getting in trouble. But nothing gets by Mike's history teacher, an ex-cop named Riel—especially not long-hidden information about Mike's mother. Her death might not have been an accident after all! Views: 10
Did you ever hear that telling a nightmare makes it fade away? It doesn't. Not here anyway. Welcome to the Nightmare Club's Halloween Sleepover. You might not last till morning. When Dolly goes off to Irish College, she leaves her brother Sandy in charge of Princess Snowflake. But the thing about guinea pigs is that you kind of need to feed them. Or else... Views: 10
Toby has to finish the final thing on The List. It's a list of brave, daring, totally awesome things that he and his best friend, Lucas, planned to do together, and the only item left is to hike the Appalachian Trail. But now Lucas isn't there to do it with him. Toby's determined to hike the trail alone and fulfill their pact, which means dealing with the little things — the blisters, the heat, the hunger — and the big things — the bears, the loneliness, and the memories. When a storm comes, Toby finds himself tangled up in someone else's mess: Two boys desperately need his help. But does Toby have any help to give? The Trail is a remarkable story of physical survival and true friendship, about a boy who's determined to forge his own path — and to survive. Views: 10
On a desolate island deep within the Canadian Arctic, a scientific expedition photograph the wreckage of a bomber on a mountain glacier. To the world at large, the half-century old aeroplane is merely a relic of the early Cold War. Only a handful of insiders know that it still represents a major threat to civilization, as the aircraft is a Soviet Air Force biological warfare platform, still armed with two tons of active weaponized anthrax. Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith of Covert-One – the personal action arm of the President of the United States – is assigned to lead CIA agent Randi Russell and the lovely, but lethal, weapons expert, Professor Valentina Metrace to secure the site. But on the island Smith and his team find themselves confronted with a traitor from within their ranks. Cut off from all outside aid, the operatives must struggle against both betrayal and the brutal polar environment. Gradually they become aware that something else exists within the hulk of the ancient bomber: a secret potentially more devastating than even the plane's warload, and one that could bring about both a cataclysmic revision of global history and serve as the trigger for a Third World War. Views: 10
How could Chester Smith bet his wife in a poker game? And worse still, he lost! Trish was up a creek. Lost to a professional gambler, she felt doomed, until he made her a bargain. She couldn't be divorced for three years according to the law, so Gil Davis offered to take care of her if she'd be his companion for the next three years at his poker games. Sounded easy enough, but was it? Views: 10
