In 1901 London, as the precise social order of the Victorian era winds down and the forward-looking Edwardian order takes wing, three strangers meet in the city's stony Highgate Cemetery. Beautiful Lavinia revels in the elaborate trappings of the past. Plain Maude strives to shape the future. Simon Fields, a boy their age, is bound by poverty and professional to the cemetery.As they explore the prejudices and flaws of a changing time, they bring their very different families together and ultimately discover that their fates are intertwined. Views: 459
Someone-or some thing-has kidnapped the dreaded Demon Earth. If he isn't found, the very fabric of our world will unravel, removing the Earth's gravitational field, and, incidentally, that of the magical land of Xanth as well! To combat this dastardly deed, six bold adventurers must locate the mysterious object known as the Swell Foop, and wield it in a deadly cosmic contest against an awesome enemy.
The twenty-fifth exhilarating episode in Piers Anthony's fabulous saga of Xanth, Swell Foop blends laughter and romance, wonder and danger, in one of the most intricate and intriguing tales in the history of the series.
Swell Foop, the twenty-fifth volume in Piers Anthony's bestselling Xanth fantasy adventures, is one of the most intricate and intriguing tales in the history of the series. Views: 458
A masterful blend of Christian scholarship and thrilling adventure, The Last Cato is a novel about the race to find the secret location of the Vera Cruz, the True Cross on which Christ was crucified, and the ancient brotherhood sworn to protect it.
Holy relics are disappearing from sacred spots around the world—and the Vatican will do whatever it takes to stop the thieves from stealing what is left of the scattered splinters of the True Cross.
Brilliant paleographer Dr. Ottavia Salina is called upon by the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church to decipher the scars found on an Ethiopian man's corpse: seven crosses and seven Greek letters.
The markings, symbolizing the Seven Deadly Sins, are part of an elaborate initiation ritual for the Staurofilakes, the clandestine brotherhood hiding the True Cross for centuries, headed by a secretive figure called Cato.
With the help of a member of the Swiss Guard and a renowned archaeologist, Dr. Salina uncovers the connection between the brotherhood and Dante's Divine Comedy, and races across the globe to Christianity's ancient capitals. Together, they will face challenges that will put their faith—and their very lives—to the ultimate test. Views: 457
Biggie is back! Nancy Bell returns with another delicious installment in her series of rural Texas mysteries featuring local doyen Biggie Weatherford as amateur detective. Once again, young J.R. faithfully narrates the humorous exploits of Biggie, his grandmother. Filled with plenty of quirky characters and down-home Texas flair, Bell's stories continue to delight. An old friend of Biggie comes back to Job's Crossing. Rex Barnwell and his young wife have returned to convert his father's ranch into a retreat for overweight teenage girls, and Biggie is forced to reveal a secret that she has always kept from J.R. Not long after this startling revelation, Rex is murdered. Knowing full well that he won't be able to keep Biggie away, the Texas Ranger in charge of the case enlists her help. While Biggie pursues her investigation, J.R. has his hands full with troubles of his own. These troubles don't involve any murders-though it might be easier for J.R. if they did. As an extra treat for the reader, Willie Mae shares her recipe for King Ranch Casserole. Views: 457
Alternate cover edition for 9780440337843.
Five hundred years ago, Highland laird Drustan MacKeltar was felled by a powerful spell, and trapped in an enchanted slumber. He was hidden by faithful clansmen, who were determined to keep him safe from a prophecy of doom. American tourist Gwen Cassidy has come to Scotland to escape (for a week or two at least) from her humdrum life in the States. She's also hoping to find a man to relieve her of her virginity, since she seems destined to spend her life alone. When she tumbles into the arms of the sexy Highlander, awakening him from his enchanted slumber, she's swept into the 16th century by his absolutely unforgettable kiss. When she started this trip, Gwen was only hoping for a roll in the heather, and a few good memories -- not a life in the past. But she finds little time for boredom or regrets as she's caught up in treacherous plots that have
little to do with bringing her handsome Highland laird to her bed. Kiss of the Highlander is an engaging time-travel romp. Views: 457
Called "elegantly, starkly beautiful" by The New York Times Book Review, The Siege is Helen Dunmore's masterpiece. Her canvas is monumental -- the Nazis' 1941 winter siege on Leningrad that killed six hundred thousand -- but her focus is heartrendingly intimate.
One family, the Levins, fights to stay alive in their small apartment, held together by the unlikely courage and resourcefulness of twenty-two-year-old Anna. Though she dreams of an artist's life, she must instead forage for food in the ever more desperate city and watch her little brother grow cruelly thin. Their father, a blacklisted writer who once advocated a robust life of the mind, withers in spirit and body. At such brutal times everything is tested. And yet Dunmore's inspiring story shows that even then, the triumph of the human heart is that love need not fall away. Views: 455
It's a blooming mystery!Nancy and her friends agree that the Pink Princess daisies they've grown from seed are the prettiest flowers ever. They're sure to win a prize at the spring flower show. But shortly before the event, the daisies disappear!
Snobby fourth-grader Viola Van Hall told the girls that her flowers were going to take first prize. Classmate Orson Wong wanted the daisies for a horrible science experiment. Belle Bridges sprinkles flower petals all over her salads -- she might have eaten the daisies. Have the girls lost the chance to win the contest, or is the answer to the mystery right under their noses? Views: 453
Charles Busch is renowned for weaving popular culture, wicked camp humor, and biting social satire into an unusual and uproarious theatrical signature that has earned him the Outer Critics' John Gassner Award for Playwrighting and a Drama Desk Award for Best Play nomination. Of his latest play, The New York Times has written, "Uproarious ... wall-to-wall laughs ... Mr. Busch has swum straight into the mainstream and stays comfortably afloat there." Busch is the author of such plays as Vampire Lesbians of Sodom -- one of the longest-running plays in Off-Broadway history -- and Psycho Beach Party, a cross between Gidget and Spellbound. After a successful Off-Broadway run at New York City's Manhattan Theater Club, Busch moves to Broadway with The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, a hilarious comedy about a self-absorbed Upper West Side doctor's wife whose life is devoted to mornings at the Whitney, afternoons at the Museum of Modern Art, and evenings at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Her... Views: 451
In the near future, the United States is no longer a dominant superpower. Countries that were once allies now race to establish their own influence around the globe. Slowly but surely, America is becoming a shadow of its former glory. But America's old enemies aren't content to see her fade away. They want revenge. Views: 449
In this classic work of economic history and social theory, Karl Polanyi analyzes the economic and social changes brought about by the "great transformation" of the Industrial Revolution. His analysis explains not only the deficiencies of the self-regulating market, but the potentially dire social consequences of untempered market capitalism. New introductory material reveals the renewed importance of Polanyi's seminal analysis in an era of globalization and free trade.ReviewAs the Second World War was drawing to a close in 1944, two great works of political economy were published. One was Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, the driving force behind the free-market revolution in the final quarter of the twentieth century. The other was Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation. . . . [It] is well worth reading. -Larry Elliott, The Guardian"[The Great Transformation] did more than any work of that generation to broaden and deepen the critique of market societies."-John Buell, The ProgressiveAbout the AuthorKarl Polanyi (1886-1964) is considered one of the twentieth century's most discerning economic historians. He left his position as senior editor of Vienna's leading financial and economic weekly in 1933, became a British citizen, taught adult extension programs for Oxford and London Universities, and held visiting chairs at Bennington College and Columbia University. He is co-author of Christianity and the Social Revolution; author of The Great Transformation; Trade and Market in Early Empires (with C.Arnsberg and H.Pearson) and posthumously, Dahomey and the Slave Trade (with A.Rotstein). Joseph E. Stiglitz was formerly chair of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors, and chief economist of the World Bank. He is professor of economics at Stanford University, and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Fred Block is professor of sociology at the University of California, Davis. Views: 447
A travelling theatre troupe of two actors and an opera singer arrive by camel to masterfully enact the greatest story ever told.Patrick Barlow's The Messiah is a hilarious Christmas comedy that conjures up the sublime, the ridiculous and the truly angelic.First performed at the Tricycle Theatre in 1983, The Messiah was revived in this new, revised version for an extensive tour in 2018.'Inspired silliness ... unalloyed pleasure' - Independent Views: 442
Charlie Swift just pumped three . 38-caliber bullets into a dead polar bear in his taxidermist girlfriend’s garage. But he’s a gun monkey, and no one can blame him for having an itchy trigger finger. Ever since he drove down the Florida Turnpike with a headless body in the trunk of a Chrysler, then took down four cops, Charlie’s been running hard through the sprawling sleaze of central Florida. And to make matters worse, he’s holding on to some crooked paperwork that a lot of people would like to take off his hands. Now, with his boss disappeared and his friends dropping like flies, Charlie has got his work cut out just to survive. If he wants to keep the money and get the girl too, he’s really going to have to go ape. . . Nominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, Gun Monkeys is a fast, furious collage of wit and wise guys, violence and thrills—and a full-throttle run through the dark side of the Sunshine State. Views: 441
Madeline de Montalia, the perpetually youthful and beautiful vampire, once beloved of the Count Saint-Germain, comes to America in the 1840\'s to live with and study the native tribes of America, desiring to document their culture and knowledge before these are changed forever and unalterably by contact with the White Man. She had not expected she would fall in love with San Francisco Banker and US Army officer William Tecumseh Sherman in the 1850\'s. Now, living among the Choctaw in Georgia in the 1860\'s, she knows that Sherman\'s armies are marching through; and what will she say when they meet again after these many years? And how will she survive through some of the most horrifying events of the Civil War? Views: 438
"There is something special about the relationship we all have with our mothers . . . "
Meet Pat McNab, forty-five years old, and about to embark on a homicidal rampage sparked by matricide. Or is he?
Pat spent endless hours chain-smoking and propping up the counter of Sullivan's Select Bar (not that Mrs. McNab knew anything about it—she and Timmy the barman didn't get along at all) or sitting on his mother's knee singing away together like some ridiculous two-headed human jukebox. But that was all before the story really began—Emerald Germs of Ireland is in essence Pat McNab's post-matricide year.
Pat, who now spends many of his waking hours sitting by the window in his old dark house, watching videos and nibbling abstractedly on pieces of toast, reflects on those long-gone days with Mommy, while fending off the persistent interferences of his small-town neighbors: the puritanical Mrs. Tubridy; that irascible seller of turf, the Turf Man; Sgt. "Kojak" Foley, and other unwanted snoops who could soon come to regret their inquisitive, nose-poking ways.
This is Patrick McCabe at his fiendish best. Dark, emotionally powerful, and surreal, Emerald Germs of Ireland is also his funniest work to date, masterfully displaying the anarchic twists and turns that are the hallmarks of his comic genius. Views: 438
The boss is back!Randal Harding...Though Pippa refused to get involved with him when she worked for him as his secretary, she's never quite been able to forget her ex-boss.Now Randal is back and is turning Pippa's neatly arranged life upside down; he wants her! But Pippa can't let her barriers drop. She tells herself that all the things that were against them then still hold true now. However, Randal is determined to prove at least one thing--that Pippa wants him, too! Views: 438
