Do spiders sleep? Why are barns red? Why is there a crescent moon on outhouse doors? Are zebras white with black stripes or black with white stripes?As the Xerox Corporation's official webmaster, Bill McLain often fielded as many as 1,000 questions a day on just about everything under the sun -- and beyond. The wildest, funniest, and even most astute are collected here (along with their answers) in McLain's second volume that's as fascinating and enlightening as his first, Do Fish Drink Water? A "veritable Internet legend known for having all the answers" (San Francisco Chronicle), McLain explains what keeps squirrels from toppling off telephone wires; why the skin on your fingers and toes shrivels up in the water; how seedless watermelons are created; and more. Whether it's animal, vegetable, mineral, or something completely different, the answer is bound to be as interesting as the question itself, and certain to satisfy the trivia... Views: 18
Following in the wake of his highly praised first two books, Jonathan Buckley's 'Ghost MacIndoe' is a bold and ambitious novel that focuses on the life of Alexander MacIndoe, a self-centred man who is characterised only by his physical beauty and a complete lack of will. Jonathan Buckley's third novel opens with Alexander MacIndoe's earliest memory: a February morning in 1944, in the aftermath of the second wave of German air-raids. Set mainly in London and Brighton, Ghost MacIndoe is the story of the next fifty-four years of Alexander's life. We meet his glamorous mother and his father, a pioneering plastic surgeon; a traumatised war veteran called Mr Beckwith with whom Alexander works for several years as a gardener and, most important of all, the orphaned Megan Beckwith, whose relationship with Alexander crystallises into a romance in the 1970s. In the wake of his highly praised first two novels, Jonathan Buckley's third miraculously brings into being one simple... Views: 18
The Fourth Hand asks an interesting question: “How can anyone identify a dream of the future?” The answer: “Destiny is not imaginable, except in dreams or to those in love.” While reporting a story from India, a New York television journalist has his left hand eaten by a lion; millions of TV viewers witness the accident. In Boston, a renowned hand surgeon awaits the opportunity to perform the nation’s first hand transplant; meanwhile, in the distracting aftermath of an acrimonious divorce, the surgeon is seduced by his housekeeper. A married woman in Wisconsin wants to give the one-handed reporter her husband's left hand-that is, after her husband dies. But the husband is alive, relatively young, and healthy. This is how John Irving’s tenth novel begins; it seems, at first, to be a comedy, perhaps a satire, almost certainly a sexual farce. Yet, in the end, The Fourth Hand is as realistic and emotionally moving as any of Mr. Irving’s previous novels-including The World According to Garp , A Prayer for Owen Meany , and A Widow for One Year— or his Oscar-winning screenplay of The Cider House Rules . The Fourth Hand is characteristic of John Irving’s seamless storytelling and further explores some of the author’s recurring themes—loss, grief, love as redemption. But this novel also breaks new ground; it offers a penetrating look at the power of second chances and the will to change. Views: 18
Susan Perabo's short-story collection, Who I Was Supposed to Be, was named a Best Book of 1999 by the Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Boston Globe proclaimed the debut "a stunning introduction to a fresh new literary talent." Now Susan Perabo returns with The Broken Places, her eagerly anticipated novel about love and honor and how the aftermath of one terrifying night -- and one heroic act -- affects a close-knit family.Twelve-year-old Paul Tucker knows his family is something akin to royalty in small-town Casey, Pennsylvania. His father, Sonny, is a dedicated career fireman, in line for the position of chief, long held by Paul's late grandfather, a local legend whose heroics continue to occupy the hearts and minds of all who knew and worked with him. Paul's mother, Laura, is a math teacher at the high school; Paul is sometimes annoyed by her worries over him (and her apparent lack of worry over his father)... Views: 17
By confronting the past, Adrien learns to understand and accept the present. Views: 17
When Rick forgets his wife's birthday again, he has to think on his feet. In a moment of desperation, he tells her she can do anything she wants and that he's reserved the entire weekend for her. Knowing his wife had a very kinky past, he's worried... and so he should be. He's about to have his first taste of the seed of life. First his own, then... Views: 17
As the new, secret (shhh!!!) Dear Daisy, I must be an expert on romance, right? Wrong. Here I am living next door to Kyle, who is friendly, polite, and devastatingly cute in his board shorts — yet I act like a drama queen every time we talk. That's not me, really! How can I (as Daisy) give love advice to someone called "Romeo14" if I can't even get Kyle to ask me out? But I've got to keep trying.Because what if he's the one? Views: 17
The debut story collection from one of America's most beloved authors Laurie Colwin explores the mysteries of life and love with her signature blend of empathy, wisdom, and wit in these fourteen exquisite tales. In "Animal Behavior," an ornithologist and a doctoral student find their own mating habits to be just as inscrutable as those of their avian subjects. In "The Elite Viewer," when his wife travels to England to attend a seminar, Benno Moran searches for exotic ways to occupy his time. He discovers television, junk food, and Greenie Frenzel, a young woman with Technicolor hair and an appetite for cherry soda and mentholated cigarettes. "Children, Dogs, and Desperate Men" is the story of Elizabeth Bayard, a sensible music critic whose flirtation with a married cartographer is the latest in a series of romantic missteps as irrational as they are irresistible. The heroes and heroines of Passion and Affect are clever, naive, brave, delicate, and... Views: 17
On August 21, 1863, William Quantrill led 400 Confederate irregulars to a rise on the outskirts of Lawrence, Kansas. For two years, the 3,000 inhabitants of this prosperous frontier community had managed to escape the Civil War which raged in the East. At Quantrill's command, the horrors of that war were brought directly into their homes. The attack began at dawn. When it was over, more than 150 townsmen were dead and most of the settlement burned to the ground. In Bloody Dawn, Thomas Goodrich considers why this remote settlement was signaled out to receive such brutal treatment. He also describes the retribution that soon followed, which in many ways surpassed the significance of the Lawrence Massacre itself. The story that unfolds reveals an event unlike anything our nation has experienced before or since. Views: 17
The Shadow Conspiracy is a collection
of stories set along an alternative
timeline, focusing on the dreamers,
experimenters and engineers who work
their mechanical and metaphysical
magic both for good...and evil.
Lord Byron’s only legitimate daughter,
Ada Byron, the Countess Lovelace, has
inherited her father’s genius, if not his
madness. With Charles Babbage,
inventor of the analytical engine, she
has invented the “automatic sciences,”
whereby mechanical automata may be
created that precisely mimic human
action, and even human thought.
Automata serve in great homes,
factories are becoming increasingly and
elaborately mechanized, and steam
engines for the burgeoning railways
keep their own time schedules.
Dirigibles and flying automata have
brought the Empire — and piracy —
into the Air Age.
But even a golden age casts a long
shadow, and the highest dreams of
humanity must struggle to rise above
the darkness from which they were
born. Views: 17
I'VE BEEN STRIPPED OF A HOME. STRIPPED OF A FAMILY. STRIPPED OF A LIFE. I HAVE ALMOST NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE. EXCEPT THE ONE I LOVE MOST. Views: 17
Grownups will remember Frank and Joe Hardy and their ability to solve even the most baffling of mysteries. The first book was published in 1927, and over the years the series has sold over 50 million copies. But mysteriously, the original books have disappeared. Now, Applewood is pleased to present The Tower Treasure, the very first Hardy Boys mystery ever published. Views: 17
