Three tons of Saddam Hussein's gold in an unguarded warehouse in Dubai…For two of Nick Stone's closest ex-SAS comrades, it was to have been the perfect, victimless crime. But when they're double-crossed and the robbery goes devastatingly wrong, only Stone can identify his friends' killer and track him down…As one harrowing piece of the complex and sinister jigsaw slots into another, Stone's quest for vengeance becomes a journey to the heart of a chilling conspiracy, to which he and the beautiful Russian investigative journalist with whom he has become ensnared unwittingly hold the key. Ticking like a time-bomb, brimming with terror and threat, Andy McNab's latest Nick Stone adventure is a high-voltage story of corruption, cover-up and blistering suspense – the master thriller writer at his electrifying, unputdownable best. Views: 44
One of the ages-old race of Immortals, Duncan MacLeod has tried to turn his back on tradition and live his life as a mortal. But as the time of the Gathering draws near--when the few remaining Immortals will fight to the last--he finds himself being drawn back to battle. If he wins at the Gathering, he will acquire all the powers of the losers; if he does not succeed, he loses his life forever. Views: 44
In an epic narrative sweeping from 1437 to the first decade of the seventeenth century, Tudor: the Family Story traces the rise and rule of the Tudor dynasty. Brutal political instability dominated England during this infamous time, and Leanda de Lisle reveals the personalities, passions, and obsessions of the men and women at its epicenter to rediscover the true significances of previously overlooked figures: from the remarkable women, so wholly devoted to securing the line of succession, to the Princes in the Tower, whose disappearances have remained a mystery for centuries.This groundbreaking story opens at the unlikely beginning of the Tudor dynasty—with Owen Tudor, a handsome Welsh commoner who, with a pirouette and a trip, landed squarely in the lap of the English Monarchy. The struggle of Owen's grandson Henry VII and his heirs to secure the line of succession—and the hopes, loves, and losses of the claimants—are the focus of this book.... Views: 44
In 1773, the slave Phillis Wheatley literally wrote her way to freedom. The first person of African descent to publish a book of poems in English, she was emancipated by her owners in recognition of her literary achievement. For a time, Wheatley was the most famous black woman in the West. But Thomas Jefferson, unlike his contemporaries Ben Franklin and George Washington, refused to acknowledge her gifts as a writera repudiation that eventually inspired generations of black writers to build an extraordinary body of literature in their efforts to prove him wrong.In The Trials of Phillis Wheatley, Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores the pivotal roles that Wheatley and Jefferson played in shaping the black literary tradition. Writing with all the lyricism and critical skill that place him at the forefront of American letters, Gates brings to life the characters, debates, and controversy that surrounded Wheatley in her day and ours. Views: 44
From School Library JournalGr 4-7–Ben and Rachel Corder are stuck in a British country house with their scientist uncle who hates to be disturbed while he is doing his research. The satellite is out, Uncle Jerome has the only computers, and the television explodes immediately. They've used up all the batteries that might power a handheld video game or even a radio and, to top it off, it has been raining for days. When the sun breaks through, the kids grab their wellies and head out into the overgrown yard only to find a buried vault partially uncovered by the rain. Inside, they find Freddy and Polly Emerson, kids their age who have been in cryogenic suspension since 1956. They were presumed murdered by their scientist father, who disappeared without a trace. The four recruit Uncle Jerome to help them find out what did, in fact, happen to Dr. Emerson. While the Corders teach the Emersons about cell phones, piercings, microwave food, and pop culture of 2010, the Emersons demonstrate some skills that today's children lack. Meanwhile, there are signs that the cryogenic process may not have been perfected. This story feels a bit frozen in time itself with its wholesome kids and "gee-whiz" attitude. As such, it should appeal most to readers with some curiosity about the previous century and who could, themselves, survive for an afternoon without a cell phone, computer game, or Internet connection.Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI© Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. From BooklistBen and Rachel, who live in a large house outside an English town, find adventure when they explore their wildly overgrown garden and discover an underground bunker that houses two children in cryogenic chambers. Released and awakened, Freddy and Polly emerge to discover an England quite different from the one they knew in 1956. Their father, a brilliant scientist who disappeared when they did, is still missing. When government agents from two countries hear of the children’s reappearance, the chase is on—and the stakes are high. Though the story is shadowed by the mystery of what happened to Freddy and Polly’s father in 1956 and whether he is still alive, most of the novel portrays, in often-amusing scenes, the series of shocks they experience as they adjust to present-day English culture, values, technology, and vocabulary. In the last quarter of the book, the action scenes pick up the pace considerably, but the story becomes less convincing and more conventional. Still, an intriguing variation on the time-travel theme. Grades 4-7. --Carolyn Phelan Views: 44
In ancient China, while searching for the gods, they learned a remarkable skill - the ability to travel to other worlds (ports) through the establishment of doorways (portals) from this world. Using portals, they would escape from countless dangers through the centuries. Using ports, they would introduce the world to ideas and innovations far ahead of their time. From the mountains of China to the pyramids of Pharaonic Egypt, from the hills of Persia to the medieval courts of Italy and France, from the jungles of Brazil to the plains of Roman Britain - they have always been amongst us, changing the world. They were unique. They were important. They were the Zelaznids. In print for the first time in nearly two centuries, The Ports and Portals of the Zelaznids tells the remarkable story of these mythical travelers, as told by the Zelaznids themselves.
**About the Author
Paul-Thomas Ferguson is a poet, singer-songwriter, playwright, historian, and novelist. He is a full-time archivist for an international corporation and a part-time history professor for a private university. He lives in Rock Island, Illinois with his wife and their cats. Views: 44
From Geoffrey Chaucer to e.e. cummings, from William Shakespeare to Anne Sexton, here are the great American and British poems of the last 500 years, organized by subject in a new and provocative way. "Great Poetry is personal," writes Christopher Burns in his introduction to this extraordinary collection. "Like a seashell held to your ear, a poem resonates to the beating of your heart. The poet brings the words, you bring your life, and together you make the song." Poets as diverse as Tennyson and Teasdale echo the themes of Western Wind hundreds of years apart. Maya Angelou and Janet Flanders, like talk show hosts sitting on stools, swap stories about their mothers. Robert Browning and Richard Wilbur, separated by more than a century, talk about the way men look at women. Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg describe the America each has found. Here are the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Carl Sandburg, often ignored in the last few years, along with the masterpieces of William Butler Yeats, Theodore Roethke, Denise Levertov and Langston Hughes. Some of the poems are funny, others are sad, but all are unforgettable. Great poetry transcends the boundaries of place, time, gender, and race. Although there was no intention to be representative, half the poems were written by Americans and half by English, Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Canadian poets. And this anthology is modern: a third of the poems were written in the last fifty years and a third were written between 1900 and 1945. The poems are organized to follow the contours of life: the loneliness of the artist, the uses of war, the role of nature, the constancy of love, and the coming on of death. And like all great poems, they are about you. As you read them, be prepared to hear your own heart roaring in your ear. Views: 44
Issue #13 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies online magazine, featuring stories by Stephanie Burgis and Kenneth Mark Hoover. Views: 44
Erotica/Dark Fantasy. 6232 words long. First published in 2007, 2007 Views: 44
This enriching, complex family saga and interracial drama brims with beautiful prose. It begins one summer on Bowen Island during the Depression and moves through Pearl Harbour and the evacuation of the Japanese and into the 1970s. Gwen Killam is a child on Bowen whose idyllic summers are obliterated by the outbreak of the war. Her swimming teacher, Takumi Yoshito, disappears along with his parents who are famous for their devotion to the Bowen Inn gardens. The Lower Mainland is in blackout, and so is the future of Gwen's beloved Aunt Isabelle who must make an unthinkable sacrifice. The Bowen Island dancehall is well-known during the war as a moonlight cruise destination and it becomes an emotional landmark for time passing and remembered. Brilliantly crafted, The Dancehall Years is a literary gem. Views: 44
E.O. Smonk is an ugly, unwashed, murdering rapist who has terrorized the small town of Old Texas, Ala., for years. In 1911, the town summons Smonk to stand trial, and a nonstop blood-orgy of brutality and destruction is the result in Franklin's gloriously debauched second novel (following Hell at the Breech ). After Smonk's goons assault the Old Texas courthouse and kill the town's menfolk, reformed former Smonk associate turned lawman Will McKissick pursues Smonk. Meanwhile, a posse of Christian deputies chase teenage whore Evavangeline through the Gulf Coast, but the girl is a skilled killer, too, and the trail of her victims spans the region. McKissick follows Smonk's trail out of and back into Old Texas, while Evavangeline drifts into the town, where all the children are dead except McKissick's 12-year-old son and the widows lay out their dead husbands on their dining tables. The town's sordid past, about to be exposed, involves a rabies-ravaged one-armed preacher, a rabid dog named Lazarus the Redeemer, incest and a church full of dead boys dressed in Sunday best. Fast-paced and unrelentingly violent, Franklin's western isn't for everyone, but readers looking for a strange and savage tale can't go wrong. Views: 44
