J. M. Coetzee is, without question, one of the world's greatest novelists. This volume gathers together for the first time in book form twenty-nine pieces on books, writing, photography and the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa. Stranger Shores opens with 'What is a Classic?' in which Coetzee explores the answer to his own question - 'What does it mean in living terms to say that the classic is what survives?' - by way of TS Eliot, JS Bach and Zbigniew Herbert.
His subjects range from eighteenth and nineteenth century writers Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson and Ivan Turgenev, to the great German modernists Rilke, Kafka, and Musil, to the giants of late twentieth century literature, among them Harry Mulisch, Joseph Brodsky, Jorge Luis Borges, Salman Rushdie, Amos Oz, Naguib Mahfouz, Nadine Gordimer and Doris Lessing. Views: 621
Six agents have died hideously trying to penetrate the crime families behind a vast empire of pleasure and debauchery—Now it's up to the Marines to break the circle.Most people will visit Havanagas only in their dreams, for few can afford the exclusive resort planet that recreates ancient worlds and caters to every taste. Witches are burned at the stake in medieval towns while riotous hordes fill Rome's Coliseum to watch gladiators battle. Even the basest of human lusts are satiated by deadly sex acts and a thriving slave trade.The crime bosses' control of Havanagas and its people is brutally effective. Now three Marines from Co. L's 3rd Platoon—masquerading as discharged military buddies on holiday—are going in to break the kingpins' bloody stranglehold. From bordellos and rebellious enclaves to the very pit of the Coliseum filled with deadly beasts, Corporal Pasquin and Lance Corporals Claypoole and Dean face certain death with only their wits and... Views: 619
In the tradition of Melville and Stevenson, a superb storyteller — winner of the David Higham Prize for Fiction — brings literary art of great range and beauty to a South Seas epic. Two tales of passion and intrigue, from the 1890s and the 1990s, reach around the world from Canada, England and West Africa to converge in the Polynesian islands.The story opens as a letter from Olivia, a Canadian filmmaker who writes from a Tahitian jail to the daughter she gave up for adoption at sixteen. Olivia's search for her own father, an airman missing since the Korean War, has brought her to the South Seas and landed her in prison on a trumped-up murder charge. The other main strand of the novel — based on fact — is told in the secret diaries of Frank to have been Jack the Ripper. Frank is driven to write down what he knows when he begins to suspect there are people who wish him out of the way.As she fights to get out of jail, Olivia recalls her own childhood... Views: 611
NANCY DISCOVERS DINOSAUR FOOTPRINTS IN HER OWN BACKYARD!
The most annoying boys in Nancy's class offer her a deal. If she can prove that a giant footprint they've found on the school grounds was really made by a dinosaur, they'll stop teasing her and her friends -- forever!
Always ready to take on a case, Nancy agrees, though she thinks the boys are wrong. Dinosaurs never roamed River Heights -- or did they? But then she gets a mean note: "Don't go where you don't belong!" When Nancy finds huge footprints in her own backyard, she's hunting everywhere for answers. It's a monster of a mystery, and she doesn't have a zillion years to solve it! Views: 610
For more than a quarter century, How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend has been the standard against which all other dog-training books have been measured. This expanded edition preserves the best features of the original classic while bringing the book fully up-to-date. The result: the ultimate training manual for a new generation of dog owners—and, of course, for their canine best friends. The Monks of New Skete have achieved international renown as breeders of German shepherds and as outstanding trainers of dogs of all breeds. Their unique approach to canine training, developed and refined over four decades, is based on the philosophy that "understanding is the key to communication, compassion, and communion" with your dog. How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend covers virtually every aspect of living with and caring for your dog, including: Selecting a dog (what breed? male? female? puppy or older dog?) to fit your lifestyle... Views: 608
Since his first published story, "Apartness," appeared in 1965, Vernor Vinge has forged a unique and awe-inspiring career in science fiction as his work has grown and matured. He is now one of the most celebrated science fiction writers in the field , having won the field's top award, the Hugo, for each of his last two novels.
Now, for the first time, this illustrious author gathers all his short fiction into a single volume. This collection is truly the definitive Vinge, capturing his visionary ideas at their very best. It also contains a never-before-published novella, one that represents precisely what this collection encapsulates--bold, unique, challenging science fictional ideas brought to vivid life with compelling storytelling.
Including such major pieces as "The Ungoverned" and "The Blabber," this sumptuous volume will satisfy any reader who loves the sense of wonder, and the excitement of great SF.
The volume collects Vinge's short fiction through 2001 (except "True Names", including Vinge's comments from the earlier two volumes.)
Contents:
"Bookworm, Run!"
"The Accomplice"
"The Peddler's Apprentice" (with Joan D. Vinge)
"The Ungoverned"
"Long Shot"
"Apartness"
"Conquest by Default"
"The Whirligig of Time"
"Bomb Scare"
"The Science Fair"
"Gemstone"
"Just Peace" (with William Rupp)
"Original Sin"
"The Blabber"
"Win A Nobel Prize!" (originally published in Nature, Vol 407 No 6805 "Futures")
"The Barbarian Princess" (this is also the first section of "Tatja Grimm's World")
"Fast Times at Fairmont High" (occurs in the same milieu as Rainbows End) (winner 2002 Hugo Award for Best Novella) Views: 605
The once-utopian Chasm City -a doomed human settlement on an otherwise inhospitable planet- has been overrun by a virus known as the Melding Plague, capable of infecting any body, organic or computerized. Now, with the entire city corrupted -from the people to the very buildings they inhabit- only the most wretched sort of existence remains. For security operative Tanner Mirabel, it is the landscape of nightmares through which he searches for a low-life postmortal killer. But the stakes are raised when his search brings him face to face with a centuries-old atrocity that history would rather forget. Views: 602
In a searing novel of love and loyalty, guilt and honor, the acclaimed author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Horse Whisperer gives his millions of readers another hero…
His name is Connor Ford and he falls like an angel of mercy from the sky, braving the flames to save the woman he loves but knows he cannot have. For Julia Bishop is the partner of his best friend and fellow “smoke jumper,” Ed Tully. Julia loves them both–until a fiery tragedy on Montana’s Snake Mountain forces her to choose between them, and burns a brand on all their hearts.
In the wake of the fire, Connor embarks on a harrowing journey to the edge of human experience, traveling the world’s worst wars and disasters to take photographs that find him fame but never happiness. Reckless of a life he no longer wants, again and again he dares death to take him, until another fateful day on another continent, he must walk through fire once more… Views: 602
The fantastical adventures of Theodora, an anthropology student whose travels to the planet Ivory unleashes her own magical talents. Views: 600
THOSE KZIN DON'T KNOW WHEN THEY'RE LICKED (AND MAYBE THEY AREN'T...)
It was so unfair! Here the Kzin were, warcats supreme, carving out empires like the idefatigable lords of creation that they were - and then they ran into those pesky humans. Mere apes! Contemptible weed-eaters! Hardly worth the screaming and leaping upon...
But when the feline Kzin moved in to take over the monkey-occupied worlds, they got clobbered. The humans, with their underhanded monkey cunning, turned communications equiptment and space drives into weapons that cut the dauntless Kzin heroes into ribbons. When the humans gained faster-than-light drive, it was all over but the, uh, howling. The Kzin had lost their first war in centuries of successful conquest.
Still, you can't keep a good warcat down, and the Kzin have by no means given up. New weapons, new strategies, and new leaders - the Kzin are on the march and the humans had better keep their powder dry. Once again, it's howling time in Known Space!
For action and military SF fans, these four tales intelligently develop the Kzin... will add to the audience for these well-wrought aliens and their human friends and foes. - Publishers Weekly
One of the longest-running and most successful shared-world anthology series continues to explore different aspects of the wars and other relations of humanity and the felinoid, ferocious, surprisingly complex Kzin - Booklist
Cover illustration: Stephen Hickman Views: 599
Attempted murder and a mysterious stalker are a little close for comfort for DCC Skinner, in this thrilling crime novel. As Bob Skinner takes an evening stroll with a gorgeous filmstar on his arm, surely the worst of his worries is that back at headquarters, an ambitious new colleague is scheming to enlarge his territory at Skinner'¬"s expense. But when a frightening shot-gun attack sends Skinner and his old flame Louise Bankier diving for cover, it seems danger has zeroed in on him once again. Returning to Scotland to shoot her latest film, Louise is one of Scotland's most popular exports. But it seems she has a stalker; someone who is clearly determined to scare her. For Skinner, tracking down her tormentor isn't just business - it's now very personal indeed... Views: 598
This classic collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling includes the works, The Education of Otis Yeere, At the Pit\'s Mouth, A Wayside Comedy, and The Hill of Illusion, among others. Views: 596
It’s spring break and the only assignment Wally Hatford and Caroline Malloy have is to do something that they have never done before. Wally’s sure that will be a cinch once he hears the great news about the mighty Benson brothers coming to stay for vacation. It will be nonstop action all the way. For starters, the nine Benson and Hatford boys plan on scaring the three Malloy sisters silly by convincing them that their house is haunted. Of course, the boys don’t know that the girls are hard at work plotting their own special surprise welcome. The Bensons don’t know what they’re up against with the Malloy girls. But they soon will.
Meanwhile, everyone in town knows there’s a hungry cougar on the prowl. When the kids decide to take a break from their tricks and join forces in catching the cougar, guess who gets stuck with the scariest job? This will surely be something no one has ever done before.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 595
The Washington Post Book World has written that Fernando Pessoa was "Portugal's greatest writer of the twentieth century [though] some critics would even leave off that last qualifying phrase" and "one of the most appealing European modernists, equal in command and range to his contemporaries Rilke and Mandelstam." The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa spans playful philosophical inquiry, Platonic dialogue, and bitter intellectual scrapping between Pessoa and his many literary alter egos ("heteronyms"). The heteronyms launch movements and write manifestos, and one of them attempts to break up Pessoa's only known romantic relationship. Also included is a generous selection from Pessoa's masterpiece, The Book of Disquiet, freshly translated by Richard Zenith from newly discovered materials. The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa is an important record of a crucial part of the literary canon. Views: 593
