In this fresh, poignant novel (originally published under the title Far From Xanadu), Mike is struggling to come to terms with her father's suicide and her mother's detachment from the family. Mike (real name: Mary Elizabeth) is gay and likes to pump iron, play softball, and fix plumbing. When a glamorous new girl, Xanadu, arrives in Mike's small Kansas town, Mike falls in love at first sight. Xanadu is everything Mike is not -- cool, confident, feminine, sexy.... straight.
Julie Anne Peters has written a heartbreaking yet ultimately hopeful novel that will speak to anyone who has ever fallen in love with someone who can't love them back. Views: 667
From the small town of Sialkot in pre-Partition Punjab, through the bustling streets of Delhi, to the scholarly environs of Cambridge and the bistros of Turin - Chaman Nahal walks us gently through his life. A life rich in literary scholarship and discipline, but equally in humour and a cynical eye capable of looking as critically at himself as at the follies and foibles of other human beings. If his 'Rules' for subjects as varied as writing a full-length book while coping with a fulltime job, fighting depression or even addiction to drink, bring a smile to one's lips, his achievements as writer, teacher and litterateur, often in the face of great odds, can only induce respect. Nahal's delightfully candid accounts of his encounters with Nirad Chaudhuri, the great Sir Vidia, Manohar Malgonkar and others; his diatribes against the tardiness and indiscipline that marks so much of 21st century India; and his frank appraisal of the trials and tribulations he has faced as an Indian... Views: 666
Part meditation book, part oracle, and part collection of Sufi lore, poetry, and stories, The Sufi Book of Life offers a fresh interpretation of the fundamental spiritual practice found in all ancient and modern Sufi schools—the meditations on the 99 Qualities of Unity. Unlike most books on Sufism, which are primarily collections of translated Sufi texts, this accessible guide is a handbook that explains how to apply Sufi principles to modern life. With inspirational commentary that connects each quality with contemporary concerns such as love, work, and success, as well as timeless wisdom from Sufi masters, both ancient and modern, such as Rumi, Hafiz, Shabistari, Rabia, Inayat Khan, Indries Shah, Irina Tweedie, Bawa Muhaiyadden, and more, The Sufi Book of Life is a dervish guide to life and love for the twenty-first century. On the web: http://sufibookoflife.com Views: 666
Tim LaHaye, creator of the phenomenally successful Left Behind books, continues his newest top-ten New York Times bestselling series: Babylon Rising. The heroic Michael Murphy--cool, Views: 665
The author of Closer "transcends the formulaic with exquisite writing on the level of Rimbaud's Illuminations . . . an American masterpiece" (James McCourt, Los Angeles Times). God Jr. is the story of Jim, a father who survived the car crash that killed his teenage son Tommy. Tommy was distant, transfixed by video games and pop culture, and a mystery to the man who raised him. Now, disabled by the accident, yearning somehow to absolve his own guilt over the crash, Jim becomes obsessed with a mysterious building Tommy drew repetitively in a notebook before he died. As the fixation grows, Jim starts to take on elements of his son—at the expense of his job and marriage—but is he connecting with who Tommy truly was? A tender, wrenching look at guilt, grief, and the tenuous bonds of family, God Jr. is unlike anything Dennis Cooper has yet written. It is a triumphant achievement from one of our finest... Views: 663
Ludicrous, heart-warming and improbably inspirational, Spanish Steps is the story of what happens when a rather silly man tries to walk all the way across a very large country, with a very large animal who doesn't really want to.Being larger than a cat, the donkey is the kind of animal Tim Moore is slightly scared of. Yet intrigued by epic accounts of a pilgrimage undertaken by one in three medieval Europeans, and committed to historical authenticity, he finds himself leading a Pyrenean ass named Shinto into Spain, headed for Santiago de Compostela.Over 500 miles of extreme weather and agonising bestial sloth, it becomes memorably apparent that for the multinational band of eccentrics who keep the Santiagan flame alive, the pilgrimage has evolved from a purely devotional undertaking into a mobile therapist's couch.'Hailed as the new Bill Bryson, he is in fact a writer of considerably more substance and the jokes come thick and fast'... Views: 663
On the evening of a Sunday, in the year 1578, a splendid fête was given in the magnificent hotel just built opposite the Louvre, on the other side of the water, by the family of Montmorency, who, allied to the royalty of France, held themselves equal to princes. This fête was to celebrate the wedding of François d'Epinay de St. Luc, a great friend and favorite of the king, Henri III., with Jeanne de Crossé-Brissac, daughter of the marshal of that name. The banquet had taken place at the Louvre, and the king, who had been with much difficulty induced to consent to the marriage, had appeared at it with a severe and grave countenance. His costume was in harmony with his face; he wore that suit of deep chestnut, in which Clouet described him at the wedding of Joyeuse; and this kind of royal specter, solemn and majestic, had chilled all the spectators, but above all the young bride, at whom he cast many angry glances. Views: 662
Prosecutor Vicki Allegretti goes to meet a confidential informant, is almost killed, and a cop is gunned down before her eyes. She saw the killers, now all she has to do is find them. The deeper Vicki probes, the more she becomes convinced that the murder wasn't random. When another murder takes place, Vicki is thrown together with an unlikely ally -- The Girlfriend from Hell. Will they find the killers before they kill each other? Views: 662
I dare say there are several questions you would like to ask at the very beginning of this history. First: Who is the Monarch of Mo? And why is he called the Magical Monarch? And where is Mo, anyhow? And why have you never heard of it before? And can it be reached by a railroad or a trolley-car, or must one walk all the way? These questions I realize should be answered before we (that "we" means you and the book) can settle down for a comfortable reading of all the wonders and astonishing adven-tures I shall endeavor faithfully to relate. Views: 662
Meagan O'Reilly loved visiting her friend Mandy Costas' ranch each summer for a two week vacation. It had been the hight point of her year since she started the tradition in college, and now that she was a fifth grade teacher, she needed the break more than ever.But this year, things might be a bit different: First, Meg is barely recovered from pneumonia when she arrives, and the three day trip took so much out of her she's near a relapse. And second, Mandy's incredibly sexy big brother Barratt is home this year. He's the first person Meg sees, and he's pretty doggone irritated that his little sister's friend has managed to endanger her health so seriously. In the past, Meg has managed to avoid Barratt. Why? Meg knows that Barratt believes in old-fashioned discipline, and he doesn't hesitate to spank his little sister, whom he'd practically raised, even though she is now a grown woman. And the thought of that both terrifies and fascinates Meg. But then she gets an offer she can't possibly turn down: cooking for the family and the hands for the rest of the summer and earning darn near more than she earns during the whole year as a teacher. Meagan isn't at all sure she can keep herself out of trouble for that long... or that just being a friend of the family - or the cook - would get her a pass on having to go over his knee if Barratt decided it was warranted for some reason or another.She isn't even at all sure she wants a pass, either... is she? Views: 662
Craphound had wicked yard-sale karma, for a rotten, filthy alien bastard. He was too good at panning out the single grain of gold in a raging river of uselessness for me not to like him -- respect him, anyway. But then he found the cowboy trunk. It was two months\' rent to me and nothing but some squirrelly alien kitsch-fetish to Craphound. So I did the unthinkable. I violated the Code. I got into a bidding war with a buddy. Never let them tell you that women poison friendships: in my experience, wounds from women-fights heal quickly; fights over garbage leave nothing behind but scorched earth. Craphound spotted the sign -- his karma, plus the goggles in his exoskeleton, gave him the advantage when we were doing 80 kmh on some stretch of back-highway in cottage country. He was riding shotgun while I drove, and we had the radio on to the CBC\'s summer-Saturday programming: eight weekends with eight hours of old radio dramas: "The Shadow," Views: 660
Gooney Bird Greene likes to be right smack in the middle of everything. That's why she wants to have the lead role of Squanto in her class Thanksgiving pageant. But that role will go to whoever finds someone to be the room mother. All the parents are so busy, no one can bring cupcakes to the play. Gooney Bird Greene to the rescue! She finds a room mother alright, but promises not to tell who it is until the day of the play. Now the kids are really busy getting ready for the show. But will the mystery room mother really show up? Views: 659
The machinations of a new supervisor may have altered Gil Grissom's team of skillful CSIs, as Catherine Willows, Nick Stokes, and Warrick Brown are reassigned from the graveyard shift to the swing shift. That doesn't mean, however, that their paths will never cross. During the course of their separate investigations, the teams must unite again to investigate two distinct murders -- atrocities that are oddly aligned as they share much of the same collective evidence. Despite the different M.O.s, the CSIs are uncovering two wildly imperfect crimes that could possibly add up to an almost perfect one... Views: 659
Why would a man kill his lover's husband and then his wife, the woman who fought successfully to have him paroled from prison? Why would he risk arrest by kidnapping the child of another woman who adored him?
Because they were...
Worth More Dead
A cold case reopened -- and solved -- with dogged police work and new evidence. One of the shocking true crimes of passion and greed from Ann Rule's Crime Files.
Former Marine sergeant and judo instructor Roland Pitre Jr. claimed it was all an elaborate plan to win back his wife's love -- it wasn't supposed to end with her dead body in the trunk of a car. Nearly twenty years later, he acknowledged that he had hired someone to kill his estranged wife in 1988, though his alleged excuse for why a monstrous "mistake" happened is as shocking and convoluted as the crime itself. Eventually, he was charged with first-degree murder in the long-unsolved death of Cheryl Pitre, after a mysterious witness betrayed Pitre to save his own skin. Tracing back the dark and bloody path of Pitre's life, two generations of detectives found a chain of brutal and terrifying crimes by a man who manipulated the courts and prisons to walk free. Views: 658
Eddie hasn't had an easy year
First his father dies. Then his best friend Billy accidentally kicks a stack of Sheetrock over on himself, breaking his neck and effectively hitting tilt on his Earthgame. Eddie and Billy were inseparable. Still are. Billy isn't going to let a little thing like death stop him from hanging in there with his friend. And when Eddie faces an epic struggle with the powers that be, Billy will remain right there beside him. Views: 657
