A companion piece to the captivating memoir GIVING UP THE GHOST by the Man Booker-winning author, this collection of loosely autobiographical stories locates the transforming moments of a haunted childhood. Views: 290
The bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and The Map That Changed the World examines the enduring and world-changing effects of the catastrophic eruption off the coast of Java of the earth's most dangerous volcano — Krakatoa.
The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa — the name has since become a byword for a cataclysmic disaster — was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty thousand people. Beyond the purely physical horrors of an event that has only very recently been properly understood, the eruption changed the world in more ways than could possibly be imagined. Dust swirled round the planet for years, causing temperatures to plummet and sunsets to turn vivid with lurid and unsettling displays of light. The effects of the immense waves were felt as far away as France. Barometers in Bogotá and Washington, D.C., went haywire. Bodies were washed up in Zanzibar. The sound of the island's destruction was heard in Australia and India and on islands thousands of miles away. Most significant of all — in view of today's new political climate — the eruption helped to trigger in Java a wave of murderous anti-Western militancy among fundamentalist Muslims: one of the first outbreaks of Islamic-inspired killings anywhere.
Simon Winchester's long experience in the world wandering as well as his knowledge of history and geology give us an entirely new perspective on this fascinating and iconic event as he brings it telling back to life. Views: 288
Alice Hoffman is at her magical best in a new novel about loss and healing.
When her family is lost in a terrible disaster, 15-yr-old Green is haunted by loss and by the past. Struggling to survive physically and emotionally in a place where nothing seems to grow and ashes are everywhere, Green retreats into the ruined realm of her garden. But in destroying her feelings, she also begins to destroy herself, erasing the girl she'd once been as she inks ravens into her skin. It is only through a series of mysterious encounters -- with a ghostly white dog and a mute boy -- that Green relearns the lessons of love and begins to heal as she tells her own story. Views: 288
While playing alone in her backyard one afternoon, seven-year-old Celia suddenly disappears while her father Christopher is inside giving a tour of their historic house and her mother Janet is at an orchestra rehearsal.
Utterly shattered, Christopher, a writer of fantasy and science fiction, withdraws from everyone around him, especially his wife, losing himself in his writing by conjuring up worlds where Celia still exists—as a child, as a teenager, as a young single mother—and revealing in his stories not only his own point of view but also those of Janet, the policeman in charge of the case, and the townspeople affected by the tragedy, ultimately culminating in a portrait of a small town changed forever*. *The Truth About Celia is a profound meditation on grief and loss and how we carry on in its aftermath.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 284
The vision has haunted him for four years--a young woman lying crumpled in death, her hand outstretched in silent supplication. Harry Bosch was taken off the Angella Benton murder case when the production assistant's death was linked with the violent theft of two million dollars from a movie set. Both files were never closed. Now retired from the L.A.P.D., Bosch is determined to find justice for Angella. Without a badge to open doors and strike fear into the guilty, he's on his own. And even in the face of an opponent more powerful and ruthless than any he's ever encountered, Bosch is not backing down. Views: 284
After escaping an underwater volcano, Andrew, Judy, and Thudd drive their submersible vehicle, the Water Bug, right down a whale’s throat!This is the second in a four-book set that will take the kids on a tour of undersea phenomena, from the Great Barrier Reef to the Mariana Trench to the inside of a whale, as they try to find their way home. Views: 283
It is not improbable that some of those who read this book, may feel a wish to know in what manner I became possessed of the manuscript. Such a desire is too just and natural to be thwarted, and the tale shall be told as briefly as possible. During the summer of 1828, while travelling among those valleys of Switzerland which lie between the two great ranges of the Alps, and in which both the Rhone and the Rhine take their rise, I had passed from the sources of the latter to those of the former river, and had reached that basin in the mountains that is so celebrated for containing the glacier of the Rhone, when chance gave me one of those rare moments of sublimity and solitude, which are the more precious in the other hemisphere from their infrequency. Views: 283
In his chilling new thriller Guy Walters turns his attention to Britain in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Edward VIII has not abdicated but reigns with Queen Wallis. His PM - and the man who really rules Britain - is Oswald Mosley; the two of them are hand in glove with Adolf Hitler. Winston Churchill, along with his supporters, is interned on the Isle of Man. Only one man can save Britain from the hands of the fascists and allow the country to take a stand against the evil that stalks Europe: Armstrong, a hero of the First World War, has escaped from his Manx prison and rowed to the Scottish mainland. His mission now: to draw together the scattered resistance to fascist rule, and destroy the repugnant regime Mosley has built on British soil. Views: 280
Find out how to be a Queen of green with the MATES, DATES girls. Lucy, Izzie, Nesta and TJ, stars of the brilliant MATES, DATES series, are here to help you be green and gorgeous! The girls share their top tips on all the little things you can do to make a big difference, including:-How to reduce your carbon footprinthow to be green at home-How to make your wardrobe green-How to be green in what you eat -Recycling and cutting down on waste An essential guide for every MATES, DATES fan who wants to be green and do her bit for the planet - without giving up on all the things you love about being a girl. Views: 279
The Washington Post has compared Glenville Lovell's novels to "works by Morrison and Nabokov." The New York Times praised his "sharp eye for the extraordinary." Now he turns to crime fiction with a tale that "will keep readers guessing until the end" (Tananarive Due, author of My Soul to Keep). There's no love lost between the NYPD and black ex-cop Blades Overstreet since a suspicious bust nearly cost Blades his life. It didn't kill him, and it didn't kill his conscience either. That's why he's agreed to help an actress named Precious find her missing father. Simple? Nothing as beautiful as Precious is ever simple—especially once Blades's investigation leads to the discovery of a murdered FBI agent. Framed for the killing, pursued by the FBI, a pariah to his former NYPD "brothers," Blades is in deep, on the run, and winding his way through New York's Caribbean community to find the real killer before he's forced to take the rap... Views: 278
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world\'s literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work. Views: 277
On a rainy night eight years ago, Evan Barrett's parents were lost at sea. In horror, he listened to their frantic Mayday calls on the ship-to-shore radio, to his mother's cries for mercy--and to the deafening shrieks that answered her back.
Now seventeen, Evan has gone in search of answers to his parents' strange disappearance. The only explanation that makes any sense to him is that they were swallowed up by The She, a legendary sea creature that devours ships. But when Evan's quest for the truth uncovers shocking allegations against his parents, he must deal with the possibility that everything he knows about his family is a lie.
Includes a reader's guide. Views: 277
In Which a Young Man Arrives at His Last Ditch and a Young Girl Jumps Over It Utterly unequipped for anything except to ornament his environment, the crash in Steel stunned him. Dazed but polite, he remained a passive observer of the sale which followed and which apparently realized sufficient to satisfy every creditor, but not enough for an income to continue a harmlessly idle career which he had supposed was to continue indefinitely. He had never earned a penny; he had not the vaguest idea of how people made money. To do something, however, was absolutely necessary. He wasted some time in finding out just how much aid he might expect from his late father's friends, but when he understood the attitude of society toward a knocked-out gentleman he wisely ceased to annoy society, and turned to the business world. Here he wasted some more time. Perhaps the time was not absolutely wasted, for during that period he learned that he could use nobody who could not use him; and as he appeared to be perfectly useless, except for ornament, and as a business house is not a kindergarten, and furthermore, as he had neither time nor money to attend any school where anybody could teach him anything, it occurred to him to take a day off for minute and thorough self-examination concerning his qualifications and even his right to occupy a few feet of space upon the earth's surface. Four years at Harvard, two more in postgraduate courses, two more in Europe to perfect himself in electrical engineering, and a year at home attempting to invent a wireless apparatus for intercepting and transmitting psychical waves had left him pitifully unfit for wage earning. Views: 277
