Scientists and intellectuals are often poorly portrayed by the entertainment industry. An easy choice for an evil antagonist is a mad scientist. An equally easy choice for a ridiculous fool is a scientist without common sense. These stereotypes are reinforced again and again in movies, television and literature. It’s amazing when any child grows up wanting to be a scientist, in our culture.If the general public has misconceptions about scientists, it is not hard to see why. Scientists and other intellectuals are often poorly portrayed by the entertainment industry. An easy choice for an evil antagonist is a mad scientist. An equally easy choice for a ridiculous fool is a scientist without common sense. These stereotypes are reinforced again and again in movies, television and literature. It’s amazing when any child grows up wanting to be a scientist, in our culture.The undermining of scientists’ public image is especially acute in science fiction. The genre appeals to people who are interested in science, and they are badly served by writers who misrepresent scientists as bumbling idiots or evil megalomaniacs. The early history of science fiction has some of the best examples. Views: 345
A girl believes she doesn't fit anywhere until she gets a visit from an alien.A short story.Dare to Be Successful is a parable about a middle school teacher who helps female gang member transform her life. The story will teach you how to discover your purpose, increase your self-confidence, overcome daily challenges, and fulfill your dreams. Dare to Be Successful is based on John Barrett Hawkins’15-year study of human achievement. Included are teachings from Wayne Dyer, Napoleon Hill, Cheryl Richardson, Marianne Williamson, Stephen Covey, Martha Beck, Mark Viktor Hansen, Jack Canfield, Og Mandino, Anthony Robbins, Deepak Chopra and Caroline Myss, among others. This book spells out 75 principles used by the world’s most successful people. You’ll discover: • Tools that will enable you to identify your natural talents and ideal career• Secrets for developing a winning mindset and becoming unstoppable• Strategies for mastering your emotions• A detailed action plan for setting and achieving your goals• Tips to overcome procrastination and stay motivated • Techniques to recondition your belief system and eliminate the behaviors may be preventing you from fulfilling your dreamsDare to Be Successful reveals the philosophies and habits of the world’s peak performers…and provides a step-by-step process to help you create the successful life you deserve. Views: 345
The lost stories of Daphne du Maurier, collected in one volume for the first time.
Before she wrote Rebecca, the novel that would cement her reputation as a twentieth-century literary giant, a young Daphne du Maurier penned short fiction in which she explored the images, themes, and concerns that informed her later work. Originally published in periodicals during the early 1930s, many of these stories never found their way into print again . . . until now.
Tales of human frailty and obsession, and of romance gone tragically awry, the thirteen stories in The Doll showcase an exciting budding talent before she went on to write one of the most beloved novels of all time. In these pages, a waterlogged notebook washes ashore revealing a dark story of jealousy and obsession, a vicar coaches a young couple divided by class issues, and an older man falls perilously in love with a much younger woman—with each tale demonstrating du Maurier’s extraordinary storytelling gifts and her deep understanding of human nature. Views: 345
A Japanese cargo ship cruises the eastern Atlantic near the Azores- when it bursts into flames. A gang of pirates speeds to take advantage of the disaster-when their boat explodes. What is happening in this part of the world?As Kurt Austin, Joe Zavala, and the rest of the NUMA Special Assignments Team rush to investigate, they find themselves drawn into the extraordinary ambitions of an African dictator, the creation of a weapon of almost mythical power, and an unimaginably audacious plan to extort the world's major nations. The penalty for refusal? The destruction of their greatest cities. Filled with the high-stakes suspense and boundless invention unique to Cussler, Devil's Gate is one of the most thrilling novels yet from the grand master of adventure. Views: 345
Mary Noailles Murfree (January 24, 1850 – July 31, 1922) was an American fiction writer of novels and short stories who wrote under the pen name Charles Egbert Craddock. She is considered by many to be Appalachia\'s first significant female writer and her work a necessity for the study of Appalachian literature, although a number of characters in her work reinforce negative stereotypes about the region. She has been favorably compared to Bret Harte and Sarah Orne Jewett, creating post-Civil War American local-color literature. The town of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, is named after Murfree\'s great-grandfather Colonel Hardy Murfree, who fought in the Revolutionary War.Murfree was born on her family\'s cotton plantation, Grantland, near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a location later celebrated in her novel, Where the Battle was Fought and in the town named after her great-grandfather, Colonel Hardy Murfree. Her father was a successful lawyer of Nashville, and her youth was spent in both Murfreesboro and Nashville. From 1867 to 1869 she attended the Chegary Institute, a finishing school in Philadelphia.[citation needed] Murfree would spend her summers in Beersheba Springs. For a number of years after the Civil War the Murfree family lived in St. Louis, returning in 1890 to Murfreesboro, where she lived until her death. Views: 345
At a once vibrant communal-living property in the British countryside, back-to-basics fervor has given way to a vague discontent. A place that once buzzed with activity, from the polytunnels to the pottery shed, now functions with a skeleton crew. Founder Don Riley surveys his domain with the grim focus of someone who knows what’s best for everyone—and isn’t afraid to let them know. Especially when those people are related to him.
Don’s wife, Freya, can’t quite decide whether not liking someone anymore is enough reason to end a twenty-year marriage. So she decamps to a mud yurt in the woods to mull it over. Their seventeen-year-old daughter, Kate, enrolls in school for the first time in her life: the exotic new world of fellow teenagers and surprisingly tasty cafeteria food beckons, and she is quickly lured into the arms of a “meathead” classmate. In his sister’s absence, eleven-year-old Albert falls under the spell of an outlandish new visitor to the community who fills his head with strange notions of the impending end of the world.
Faced with the task of rescuing his son from apocalyptic fantasies, his daughter from the clutches of suburbia, and his wife from her increasingly apparent desire to leave him, Don convinces himself that the only way to save the world he’s created is . . . to throw the biggest party of his life. Will anyone show up?
From the acclaimed young author of Submarine, Wild Abandon is a strange and wonderful look at love—familial and romantic, returned and rebuffed—and the people and places we choose to call home. Views: 345
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. The season for mistletoe, Christmas lights…and a killing spree. When Secret’s friend, Detective Mercedes Castilla, asks for help to solve a series of murders longer than a string of lights, Secret resigns herself to the fact her holidays will be anything but peaceful. It seems someone is killing New Yorkers in an unusually gruesome way, and as the bodies pile up faster than presents under the tree, the police are no closer to finding the killer than Secret is to finding the perfect present for one of her boyfriends, Lucas. Tracking down a monster in Manhattan the week before Christmas is almost as difficult as shopping for her ever-expanding collection of loved ones. When tragedy strikes close to home, Secret must do everything in her power to put an end to the horror in time for Santa to come down the chimney. Warning: Contains a less than merry McQueen with a sword and a reason to use it; a festive new use for mistletoe; and a promise that will haunt Secret like the Ghost of Christmas Future. Views: 344
In 1947 something not from our world crashed in a remote desert - in 2032 it's legacy will threaten mankind's very existence30 years from now a small organisation watches over Earth separately from the influence of nations. Armed with technology hundreds of years more advanced than our own designation 115 picks his own ideology and decides mankind has had it's day...Think screenplay when reading! Views: 344
Orphaned at a young age, thirteen-year-old Song Wei has grown up listening to his grandfather recite legends of the distant past. But his own past is a closely guarded secret. Then Song discovers an heirloom that links him to an ancient prophecy. His destiny lies within the old tales. Song must follow the path that killed his father.Mud and mire shall birth a tree;A sprout shall grow of ancient seed.The five unite to break the one;The curse of man shall be undone.But brothers rise ere dragon’s bane;The last shall smite the first again.Orphaned at a young age, thirteen-year-old Song Wei has grown up listening to his grandfather recite legends of the distant past. But it is his own history Song seeks to uncover to guide him toward the future, particularly the events surrounding his parents’ deaths. But that is a secret closely guarded by his grandfather. Then Song discovers an heirloom that links him to an ancient prophecy. His destiny lies within the old tales he has scorned. Song must follow the path that killed his father. Views: 344
Pilot is a contemporary Sci-fi story that merges elements of military conspiracy, technology and an ancient Guild of Families who can secretly navigate channels in the oceans to cross space. They have built a secret merchant society stretching through a multitude of universes, but the world is changing and soon their secrecy will be at an end.All she wanted was a cup of coffee. What she ended up with was getting knocked out and interogated by the military. They knew she owned an imports store. They also knew she was a member of the powerful Calabrese family, one of the families that made up the Guild. Elena was once a pilot, capable of taking a sailing vessel from the oceans of earth and into ancient channels that reach across space and into other worlds. After being gone for five years she is suddenly thrust back into the world of Guild politics she had left behind, walking a thin line between mafia like laws and the militaries desire to control Guild technology. Views: 344
A universal portrait and an insider's look at life in Latin America in this "vivid, graceful, tautly constructed" novel of love, anger, hope, and tragedy (Tim O'Brien). At the heart of this "profound . . . quietly stunning work that leaves soft tracks in the heart" is Chayo, the flower-seller, and her husband Candelario, the salad-maker, who finally may be blessed with the child they thought they would never have (The Washington Post Book World). Their cause for happiness, however, triggers a series of events that marks the lives of everyone in the small village of Santiago, Mexico. Woven into Chayo's and Candelario's story are an unforgettable array of characters: Marta, the hotel maid who reads cast-off American magazines and dreams of El Paso; don Justo, the heartbroken fortune-teller; Esperanza, the midwife who finds new love with Rafael, the shy schoolteacher. Their secret dreams and desires are known only to the omniscient... Views: 343
Everyone has to live through an event which, whether they like it or not, defines who they are. This event may result in an extraordinary action or reveal an internal demon that has to be dealt with. Each story in this collection says, "this is who I really am" and asks, "what do I do now?"Runaways Jai and Ceder set sail in a boat full of holes, with a plan full of holes, searching for anything to hold onto in a world where nothing is what it seems. Never did they imagine their desperate voyage would ignite a maelstrom of primeval forces roiling to the surface at every turn, churning the fate and free will of every friend and foe they meet into a proper froth. Following a boy and girl who have never met before the night they flee a life of slavery and begin their journey across the open sea, Riverlilly is at heart a simple tale of young love struggling to stay afloat. Steered by waves they set in motion centuries past, leaving in their wake ripples that will rock their trusty boat a thousand years hence, together Jai and Ceder struggle to hold course against the tide of an inescapable truth: the farther away they try to run, the faster they will be reeled back to the beginning.Riverlilly is a YA Fantasy. Jai and Ceder's adventure takes place in a world not unlike Oz or Wonderland, with a wide cast of colorful characters that can be as startlingly wise as they are whimsical. There is an almost fairy-tale form of logic that underpins this world, and Jai and Ceder are as new to its quirks and Quixotisms as the reader, although most fantasy fans will get a fuzzy tinkling of familiarity throughout. Mind you, this is not an Epic, End-All Battle Between Good and Evil; there are no knights in white armor or damsels in distress, no wizards, no elves, no dwarves, no dragons (at least not in the traditional sense.) This is a smaller, more personal story, yet the pages are absolutely dripping with magic that drives the story forward at every turn, but as a powerful a narrative force as it can be, most often the existence and influence of the supernatural remains out of sight and out of mind, like the invisible currents below the surface of the sea that carry Jai and Ceder's little skiff from one shore to the other. Mystery, humor, and suspense abound, but at its core this is the adventure of a lifetime for two wide-eyed kids who have never so much as dipped a toe in the ocean but find themselves stranded on a boat full of holes by the end of the first chapter. Are you ready to set sail? Views: 343
Sandip, a communist revolutionary was released from jail after the movement had completely died down and he found the entire world changed and the dream to create a new world ended in utter frustrationThe word Rache, written in blood on the wall at the scene of a murder, marked Sherlock Holmes’ introduction to the world. Published in 1887, A Study in Scarlet presented Holmes as a new type of hero, one who uses razor sharp powers of deduction and minute attention to detail to solve cases too hard for Scotland Yard. Sherlock Holmes’ brilliant insights and quick wit soon made him a legend. Due to his immense popularity, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle went back to his most famous character again and again, writing an additional 3 Sherlock Holmes novels and 56 short stories over the next four decades.This edition is not the original text. Rather, it is a remastered version that strives to make the classic story more accessible. While the vast majority of the text is original, hundreds of modifications have been made to make the story an easier, smoother reading experience for modern readers. We hope these changes will allow a new generation to enjoy the brilliance of Sherlock Holmes. Views: 343
