A towering figure in American literature, Norman Mailer has in recent years reached a new level of accessibility and power. His last novel, The Castle in the Forest, revealed fascinating ideas about faith and the nature of good and evil. Now Mailer offers his concept of the nature of God. His conversations with his friend and literary executor, Michael Lennon, show this writer at his most direct, provocative, and challenging. “I think,” writes Mailer, “that piety is oppressive. It takes all the air out of thought.”In moving, amusing, probing, and uncommon dialogues conducted over three years but whose topics he has considered for decades, Mailer establishes his own system of belief, one that rejects both organized religion and atheism. He presents instead a view of our world as one created by an artistic God who often succeeds but can also fail in the face of determined opposition by contrary powers in the universe, with whom war is waged for the souls of humans. In turn, we have been given freedom–indeed responsibility–to choose our own paths. Mailer trusts that our individual behavior–always a complex mix of good and evil–will be rewarded or punished with a reincarnation that fits the sum of our lives. Mailer weighs the possibilities of “intelligent design” at the same time avowing that sensual pleasures were bestowed on us by God; he finds fault with the Ten Commandments–because adultery, he avers, may be a lesser evil than others suffered in a bad marriage–and he holds that technology was the Devil’s most brilliant creation. In short, Mailer is original and unpredictable in this inspiring verbal journey, a unique vision of the world in which “God needs us as much as we need God.”From The Naked and the Dead to The Executioner’s Song and beyond, Mailer’s major works have engaged such themes as war, politics, culture, and sex. Now, in this small yet important book, Mailer, in a modest, well-spoken style, gives us fresh ways to think about the largest subject of them all.From the Hardcover edition.Review“[Displays] the glory of an original mind in full provocation.”–USA Today“[Mailer’s] theology is not theoretical to him. After eight decades, it is what he believes. He expects no adherents, and does not profess to be a prophet, but he has worked to forge his beliefs into a coherent catechism.”–New York“At once illuminating and exciting . . . a chance to see Mailer’s intellect as well as his lively conversational style of speech.”–American Jewish LifeFrom the Trade Paperback edition.About the AuthorNorman Mailer was born in 1923 in Long Branch, New Jersey, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. In 1955, he was one of the co-founders of The Village Voice. He is the author of more than thirty books, including The Naked and the Dead; The Armies of the Night, for which he won a National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; The Executioner’s Song, for which he won his second Pulitzer Prize; Harlot’s Ghost; Oswald’s Tale; The Gospel According to the Son; and The Castle in the Forest. Mr. Mailer passed away Saturday November 10th, 2007. Views: 45
A sexy, page-turning novel written by a real-life, Manhattan call girl. The naughtiest read: Mischief Books. This is the diary of Nancy Chan, busy career girl, in her thirties, newly engaged and trying to balance job and romance. But Nancy is a high-class call girl, a fact her banker fiancé, Matt does not know (he thinks she's a copy editor) and Nancy wants to keep it that way. With one foot in the bedrooms of her rich and demanding clients and one in the world of her fiancé and his family, Nancy demonstrates, in her inimitable fashion, that if you know the dance, you can keep those two worlds from colliding. At least for a while. Views: 45
With one flash of a camera, Demi's private life becomes public news. She doesn't know it yet, but her healing has just begun.Christian college professor Demitria Costanas had vowed to end her affair with a colleague. But she gives into temptation one last time...and a lurking photographer captures her weakness for all to see. Quite literally, she's the woman caught in adultery. And almost everyone--herself included--has a stone to throw.Enter Sullivan Crisp, a decidedly unorthodox psychologist with his own baggage. He's well-known for his quirky sense of humor and incorporation of "game show" theology into his counseling sessions. And yet there's something more he offers...hope for a fresh start.Reluctantly the two of them begin an uplifting, uneven journey filled with healing and grace. By turns funny and touching, this story explores the ways humans hurt each other and deceive themselves. And it shows the endlessly creative means God uses to turn stones of accusation and shame into works of beauty that lead us onto the path of healing.An auspicious debut for a candid yet tender series about pain, healing, and God's invitation for second chances.** Views: 45
Agatha Award (nominee) Stylish, amusing, and deliciously wicked, the Misses Hyacinth and Primrose Tramwell are hired to investigate a woman's organization whose members choose widowhood over divorce. With the help of a newlywed friend, the spinster sleuths stalk the mastermind of matrimonial murder. Views: 45
Jonas Wergeland is on trial, accused of murdering his wife. The most beloved and celebrated television personality in Norway, Wergeland's programs on the history of Norway held the country in his thrall. Now the spectacle of his trial has done the same. A professor is hired to write the definitive biography of Wergeland, but finds himself unable to process the astonishing volume of contradictory information he unearths--until a mysterious woman appears on his doorstep. Possessing innumerable intimate stories about Jonas, the woman details the dark side of his rise to prominence, and through her stories tries to explain what made him a murderer. Told in a series of short, interconnected, self-referential, and constantly evolving passages--each shooting off from the last like light from a prism and moving indifferently from the past to the present--Jan Kjaerstad has constructed a wonder of a novel whose form and subject explore what, in the apparent absence of simple cause and effect, makes life coherent.** Views: 45
Slavomir Rawicz was a young Polish cavalry officer. On 19 November 1939 he was arrested by the Russians and after brutal interrogation he was sentenced to 25 years in the Gulags. After a 3-month journey to Siberia in the depths of winter he escaped with 6 companions, realising that to stay in the camp meant almost certain death. In June 1941 they crossed the trans-Siberian railway and headed south, climbing into Tibet and freedom 9 months later in March 1942 after travelling on foot through some of the harshest regions in the world, including the Gobi Desert. First published in 1956, this is one of the world's greatest true stories of adventure, survival and escape. Views: 45
Idealistic young officer Giovanni Drogo is full of determination to serve his country well. But when he arrives at a bleak border station in the Tartar desert, where he is to take a short assignment at Fort Bastiani, he finds the castle manned by veteran soldiers who have grown old without seeing a trace of the enemy. As his length of service stretches from months into years, he continues to wait patiently for the enemy to advance across the desert, for one great and glorious battle . . . Written in 1938 as the world waited for war, and internationally acclaimed since its publication, The Tartar Steppe is a provocative and frightening tale of hope, longing and the terrible sorcery of dreams and desires. Views: 45
Scotia knew her duty: protect the Stone of Destiny at all costs. It was the key to Scotland's salvation, the reason she'd become the best warrior in the world--as had the generations of women who'd guarded the Stone before her. Yet those women had never been distracted by a man like Ian MacKinnon.He'd journeyed to her castle to learn her legendary skills so he could exact vengeance against the brutal English mercenaries who'd killed his brother. On the battlefield, Ian wielded his sword with deadly precision. In the bedroom, he became a man of wild passion tempered by infinite tenderness. But soon he would be forced to move on and avenge his clan, leaving Scotia to face a conflict for which she had no training: her duty to the Stone versus her desire to follow her heart. Views: 45
