In Tasmania on holiday, novelist and Chatwin biographer Nicholas Shakespeare discovered a house on a 9-mile beach and instantly decided this was where he wanted to live. He didn't know then that his ancestor was the corrupt and colourful Anthony Fenn Kemp, now known as 'the Father of Tasmania', or that he would find relatives living on the island. Shakespeare interweaves his personal journey into a new-found paradise with a brilliant account of the two turbulent centuries of Tasmania's history in this fascinating and timely book. 'A delightful book. Nicholas Shakespeare is a fine story teller and here he unveils for us a compendium of fascinating Tasmanian characters past and present, from bankrupt squires to convict cannibals, from love struck romantics to the captivating monstrous Anthony Fenn Kemp, the Flashman of early colonial Australia. From all these lives Shakespeare builds up a rich and powerful portrait of this intriguing land, his adopted home.' - Matthew Kneale Views: 17
The Van Buskirk family saga continues as America expands westward through the Louisiana Purchase while waging war against Great Britain. Views: 17
When therapist Jill Davent moved to the village of Carsely, Agatha Raisin was not a fan. Not only was this therapist romancing Agatha's ex-husband but she dug up details of Agatha's not-too-glamorous origins. Jill also counsels a woman, Gwen Simple, that Agatha firmly believes assisted her son in some grisly murders, although there is no proof. Not one to keep her feelings to herself, Agatha tells anyone that would listen that Jill is a charlatan and better off dead. Agatha could only sigh with relief when the therapist took an office in Mircester.When Agatha learns that Jill had hired a private detective to investigate her background, she barges into Jill's office and gives her a piece of her mind, yelling "I could kill you!" So when Jill is found strangled to death in her office two days later, Agatha becomes the prime suspect. But Agatha, along with her team of private detectives, is determined to prove her innocence and find the real culprit. This time Agatha... Views: 17
A rollicking debut novel from award-winning playwright and screenwriter John Pielmeier reimagines the childhood of the much maligned Captain Hook: his quest for buried treasure, his friendship with Peter Pan, and the story behind the swashbuckling world of Neverland.Long defamed as a vicious pirate, Captain James Cook (a.k.a Hook) was in fact a dazzling wordsmith who left behind a vibrant, wildly entertaining, and entirely truthful memoir. His chronicle offers a counter narrative to the works of J.M. Barrie, a "dour Scotsman" whose spurious accounts got it all wrong. Now, award-winning playwright John Pielmeier is proud to present this crucial historic artifact in its entirety for the first time. Cook's story begins in London, where he lives with his widowed mother. At thirteen, he runs away from home, but is kidnapped and pressed into naval service as an unlikely cabin boy. Soon he discovers a treasure map that leads to a mysterious archipelago called the... Views: 17
An elderly Pole sits in a cafe in Krakow. At another table a young man with a ravaged face is drinking wine and reading Werner Heisenberg's Physics and Philosophy. They begin to talk. All through the night as they go from bar to bar the young man tells the story of the great love of his life, of how in the midst of their rapture the woman inexplicably disappeared, and of how he is now driving across Europe in a desperate attempt to find her. After they part in the pre-dawn light the old man returns to his rooms and finds himself beset by questions. Why can he not forget this young man? Who was the woman he was with and why did she leave him? These questions lead him back through his own life, from pre- and post-war Poland, to his membership of the Communist Party and his own life-altering love affair with a woman he met in Berlin and then ran away with to the sand dunes of the Baltic coast until she, too, left him without explanation. Through the years that followed he wandered... Views: 17
The definitive memoir by legendary actress and performer Debbie Reynolds--an entertaining and moving story of enduring friendships and unbreakable family bonds, of hitting bottom and rising to the top again--that offers a unique and deeply personal perspective on Hollywood and its elite, from the glory days of MGM to the presentUnsinkableInthe closing pages of her 1988 autobiography Debbie: My Life, Debbie Reynolds wrote about finding her "brave, loyal, and loving" new husband. After two broken marriages, this third, she believed, was her lucky charm. But within a few years, Debbie discovered that he had betrayed her emotionally and financially, nearly destroying her life.Today, she writes, "When I read the optimistic ending of my last memoir now, I can't believe how naive I was when I wrote it. In Unsinkable, I look back at the many years since then, and share my memories of a film career that took me from the Miss... Views: 17
The golden age of cultural theory (the product of a decade and a half, from 1965 to 1980) is long past. We are living now in its aftermath, in an age which, having grown rich in the insights of thinkers like Althusser, Barthes and Derrida, has also moved beyond them. What kind of new, fresh thinking does this new era demand? Eagleton concludes that cultural theory must start thinking ambitiously again - not so that it can hand the West its legitimation, but so that it can seek to make sense of the grand narratives in which it is now embroiled. Views: 17
Short-listed for the 2005 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize Declan O'Malley came to the coast of British Columbia because it was as far away from Ireland as he could possibly go. Haunted by memories of his family's death at the hands of the Black and Tans, Declan is unable to escape his grief. He immerses himself in a new life, seeking to produce a more perfect translation of Homer's Odyssey while at the same time becoming closer to the family on whose property he is living. But Declan cannot free himself from his past, and when Ireland beckons, he is drawn to his own history and to the opportunity for a happier future. Views: 17
There's something magical about Billy Nolan. It's not just that the Brooklyn bar owner is wickedly handsome: It's that every woman he dates and dumps (and he dumps them all) immediately goes on to marry the next person she meets.The only woman seemingly immune to Billy's charms is feisty, upwardly mobile, 28-year-old Kate Jameson. She left Brooklyn for Manhattan the first chance she had, and she's not about to fall under the spell of a handsome cad from the old neighborhood. Besides, she's dating the eminently suitable Michael, a rising star in the world of academe. But perhaps the "Billy effect" will work for Kate's best friend, Bina Horowitz, who has fallen apart after her longtime fiancé broke off their engagement in order to work overseas and "explore his singleness."All Kate has to do is get Billy to date Bina and dump her-then wait for her wayward fiancé to return, and watch the magic happen. It's a great plan that at first seems to be working brilliantly. But the one thing Kate hasn't counted on is how Billy feels about it all...and how she begins to feel about Billy. Views: 17
The unflinching true account of a teenage girl's descent into society's underbelly -- and her mother's desperate and ultimately successful attempts to bring her back.How does an honor student at one of Los Angeles's finest prep schools -- a bright, beautiful girl from a loving home -- trade school uniforms and afternoons at the beach for shooting up in the back of a van in rural Indiana? How does her devoted mother emerge from the shock of finding that her daughter has not only disappeared but had been living a secret life for more than a year?Mother and daughter tell their parallel stories in mesmerizing first-person accounts. Claire Fontaine's story is a parent's worst nightmare, a cautionary tale chronicling her daughter Mia's drug-fueled manipulation of everyone around her as she sought refuge in the seedy underworld of criminals and heroin addicts, the painful childhood secrets that led up to it, and the healing that followed. Her search for Mia was... Views: 17
