Noren knew that his world was not as it should be -- it was wrong that only the Scholars, and their representatives the Technicians, could use metal tools and Machines. It was wrong that only they had access to the mysterious City, which even in boyhood he had longed to enter. Above all, it was wrong for the Scholars to have sole power over the distribution of knowledge. The High Law imposed these restrictions and many others, though the Prophecy declared that someday knowledge and Machines would be available to everyone. Noren was a heretic. He had now come to believe in the Prophecy's fulfillment, yet the more he learned of the grim truth about his people's deprivations, the less possible it seemed that their world could ever be changed. Was it right to keep on promising them a brighter future? Views: 58
THERE WAS NO WAY OUT...Alexa Kenner knew it was wishful thinking to believe John O'Rourke, the kind, curious stranger staying at her inn, was really Cole Rappaport, the Special Forces agent she'd loved and lost two years ago. Since then Alexa had been caught in a deadly game with a man who'd stop at nothing to get what he wanted. And with forces conspiring against her, Alexa had become a prisoner in her own home....UNTIL NOWFor when the handsome stranger took her into his arms he assured her with a touch she remembered, a kiss she could never forget that Cole Rappaport was very much alive. For now, at least. Views: 58
The story of a public personality–the possible future mayor of Montreal–this memoir recounts how Richard Bergeron and his four brothers lived in an orphanage for five years in the 1960s. Set in a small city in Northern Quebec, surrounded by bush and industry, this account describes the five floors of dormitories with 50 children on each floor, the daily routine, and the nuns who ran the orphanage. This short and moving story of how Richard began the rest of his life will take the reader to another time and place. Views: 58
The surreal City of Angels is a unique amalgam of past and present, tradition and revolution, dreamscape and reality. Whether in history books or on the silver screen, the Los Angeles landscape has long served as an ever-shifting backdrop against which countless American anxieties and aspirations play out. New York-based novelist and short-story writer A. M. Homes distills the elusive, quixotic splendor of this most beguiling of great American cities. She checks us into the famed hotel Chateau Marmont and uses life at this iconic landmark as a multifaceted prism through which to view and experience Los Angeles culture, past and present.Built in the 1920s, the Chateau Marmont is where the famous and infamous have always come to stay— for a few days or months at a time—and sometimes, to die.From the Hardcover edition. Views: 58
Winner of the PEN/Faulkner award for fiction in 2003, The Caprices is a collection of stories artfully told across the theatre of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. An Anglo-Indian cavalryman, his homeland on the brink of revolution, finds himself in Malaysia fighting to protect British interests. Two soldiers lost in the jungle with a Japanese prisoner confront their prejudices toward each other, and the nature of being American. An island witnesses the passing of history from Magellan, to Amelia Earhart, to the dropping of the atomic bomb. With exquisite lyricism tempered by a journalist’s eye for detail, Murray shines light on the tangle of battles created by that conflict, the violent reach across the generations, the shattering reverberations in memory. With this collection, Sabina Murray established herself as a passionate and wise voice of literary fiction. Views: 58
In New Orleans' historic Garden District, life is all about attending the right parties, impressing the right people, and making the right amount of money (a lot!). It's an attitude fifty-nine-year-old Charlotte LaRue has never really understood. She leads a quiet, simple, practical life. Business is booming at her housecleaning service Maid-for-a-Day. Everything's perfect. Well, almost everything... Views: 58
Sept 2003A suspenseful, emotionally charged real-life Sopranos: The son of New
York's most notorious Mafia killer reveals the conflicted life he led
being raised by a cold-blooded murderer, who was also a devoted family
man, and the wrenching legacy of Mafia family life.Al DeMeo will
never forget the day in 1992 when a coworker, a fellow trader at the
New York Stock Exchange, taunted him with a copy of the hot new book
Murder Machine, chronicling the horrific criminal life of DeMeo's
father, Roy, the head of the most deadly gang in organized crime. The
moment sent DeMeo into a psychological tailspin: How could he have spent
his life looking up to, and loving, a vicious killer?For the Sins of My Father
recounts the chilling rise and fall of the man who led the Gambino
family's most fearsome killers and thieves, through the eyes of a son
who had never known any other kind of life. Coming of age in an opulent
Long Island house where money is abundant but its source is unclear, Al
becomes Roy's confidant, sent to call in loans at age fourteen and
gradually coming to understand his father's job description--loan shark,
car thief, porn purveyor and, above all, murderer. But when Al is
seventeen, Roy's body is found in the trunk of a car, a gangland slaying
that places Al between federal prosecutors seeking his testimony and a
mob crew determined to keep him quiet.Desperate to abide by the
father-son bond, but equally determined to escape his father's dangerous
and doomed life, Al Demeo embarks on a courageous quest for the truth,
reconciliation, and honor. With the implacable narrative drive of a
thriller and the power of a painfully honest memoir, For the Sins of My Father presents
a startling and unprecedented perspective on the underworld of
organized crime, exposing for the first time the cruel legacy of a Mafia
life. Views: 58
A poor seaman forgets his past, and finds a bizarre new life on a polluted Caribbean Isle. Views: 58
First published, in paperback, in 1967, this is one of two novels Dick wrote in collaboration. Stylistically, it is typical Dick, but it lacks the gravity and conviction of most of his other novels. It's set in the 21st century when the Earth has been conquered by a race of alien, telepathic, wormlike creatures, one of whom, Mekkis, is attracted to the theories of the psychologist Rudolph Balkani. Although ostensibly a "wik" or worm-kisser (i.e., one who freely serves the Ganymedians), Balkani is a complex man whose allegiances and motives are not easily discerned; indeed, Mekkis's attraction to his ideas leads to the worms' undoing. Other characters include the musicologist Joan Hiashi, whom Balkani unsuccessfully pursues, and Percy X, the black revolutionary who represents the ony overt resistance to the worms. Characterizations are unusually weak for Dick, and the ultimate instrument of the alien downfall--Dr. Balkani's "hell-machine," which distorts reality--cannot summon up in the reader the ontological confusion and terror that drives Dick's best work. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 58
Happy endings require patience, hope, and a little ingenuity. Finette Proulx puts her skills at repairing clockwork gadgetry to greater use when she bets all she has on an airship race. Her loss only steams up her desire to win the prize at the British Diamond Cup—and her freedom. After such a lonely life, love seems too much to ask... until she meets Sacha. A mysterious Romanian, "Sacha" Aleksander Dragomir Dalca, aids her in ways she doesn't suspect. At the moment she thinks her life is falling into ruin, she finds him waiting to catch her with open arms. The handsome gypsy affirms her belief that dreaming's not for fools, and she deserves to write her happy ending her own way. Views: 58
“Black Air” tells the story of the Spanish Armada from the point of view of a young boy able to sense the impending death of other people. Views: 57
