- Home
- Biographies & Memoirs
In this fable, the first man on earth to count the hours becomes Father Time.
The inventor of the world's first clock is punished for trying to measure God's greatest gift. He is banished to a cave for centuries and forced to listen to the voices of all who come after him seeking more days, more years. Eventually, with his soul nearly broken, Father Time is granted his freedom, along with a magical hourglass and a mission: a chance to redeem himself by teaching two earthly people the true meaning of time.
He returns to our world - now dominated by the hour-counting he so innocently began - and commences a journey with two unlikely partners: one a teenage girl who is about to give up on life, the other a wealthy old businessman who wants to live forever. To save himself, he must save them both. And stop the world to do so. Views: 893
In this riveting, ambitious novel from James A. Michener, the renowned chronicler of epic history turns his extraordinary imagination to a world he knew better than anyone: the world of books. Lukas Yoder, a novelist who has enjoyed a long, successful career, has finished what he believes to be his final work. Then a tragedy strikes in his community, and he becomes obsessed with writing about it. Meanwhile, Yoder’s editor fights to preserve her integrity—and her author—as her firm becomes the target of a corporate takeover; a local critic who teaches literature struggles with his ambitions and with his feelings about Yoder’s success; and a devoted reader holds the key to solving the mystery that haunts Yoder’s hometown.
BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James A. Michener's Hawaii.
Praise for The Novel
“Michener explores some of the deepest issues raised by narrative literature.”—The New York Times
“A good, old-fashioned, sink-your-teeth-into-it story . . . The Novel lets us see an unfamiliar side of the author, at the same time portraying the delicate, complex relationship among editors, agents and writers.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Michener loves literature, and his information about some of his favorite reading is almost as alluring as his explanation of how to handle a manuscript.”*—Associated Press
“So absorbing you simply will not want [it] to end.”—Charleston *News & Courier Views: 892
Following the death of his wife and son, Hans Larsson buys a yacht named Future, intending to sail across the Atlantic with his young daughter Jessica. En route they meet Penny, a seasoned English skipper, who joins them as crew, and the larger-than-life Marcel, a Dutch art dealer hiding a secret, along with a stash of drugs on his vintage boat. Battling storms, sharks and pirates, Hans and Jessica experience the adventure of a lifetime, until fate intervenes to leave them fighting for survival on an ocean less perilous than the mind . . . Views: 890
It was 1953. A time of innocence. A time when the world seemed full of possibilities. And all the rules were about to change.
Michael was a streetwise Brooklyn boy heading south to join the Navy and become a man. But he was about to learn more about life than he's ever imagined.
Eden was beautiful, mysterious--the perfect instructor in the art of making love, in sexual pleasure...and in courage. But her past was full of dangerous secrets that would haunt her forever.
LOVING WOMEN is an unforgettable novel of honor and passion, heartbreak and desire, and one man's coming of age. Views: 890
Paula es el libro más conmovedor, más personal y más íntimo de Isabel Allende. Junto al lecho en que agonizaba su hija Paula, la gran narradora chilena escribió la historia de su familia y de sí misma con el propósito de regalársela a Paula cuando ésta superara el dramático trance. El resultado se convirtió en un autorretrato de insólita emotividad y en una exquisita recreación de la sensibilidad de las mujeres de nuestra época. Views: 889
If you loved My Family and Other Animals and can't get enough of the Durrells after the Corfu series, this is the book for you. It constitutes a series of anecdotal snippets and short stories including 'The Picnic', a laugh-out-loud account of an ill-fated Durrell family excursion, which should have been a relaxing, jolly affair. But with the Durrells things are seldom straightforward and on this occasion all that could go wrong did go wrong - except Gerald Durrell's sense of humour in recounting the tale. Other hilarious and surreal Roald Dahlesque stories ensue, including the critically acclaimed Gothic horror story 'The Entrance'. Views: 889
When Betty MacDonald married a marine and moved to a small chicken farm on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, she was largely unprepared for the rigors of life in the wild. With no running water, no electricity, a house in need of constant repair, and days that ran from four in the morning to nine at night, the MacDonalds had barely a moment to put their feet up and relax. And then came the children. Yet through every trial and pitfall—through chaos and catastrophe—this indomitable family somehow, mercifully, never lost its sense of humor.
An immortal, hilarious and heartwarming classic about working a chicken farm in the Northwest, a part of which first appeared in a condensed serialization in the Atlantic monthly. Views: 889
“Lisa See begins to do for Beijing what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did for turn-of-the-century London or Dashiell Hammett did for 1920s San Francisco: She discerns the hidden city lurking beneath the public facade.”
–The Washington Post Book World
In the depths of a Beijing winter, during the waning days of Deng Xiaoping’s reign, the U.S. ambassador’s son is found dead–his body entombed in a frozen lake. Around the same time, aboard a ship adrift off the coast of Southern California, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Stark makes a startling discovery: the corpse of a Red Prince, a scion of China’s political elite.
The Chinese and American governments suspect that the deaths are connected and, in an unprecedented move, they join forces to see justice done. In Beijing, David teams up with the unorthodox police detective Liu Hulan. In an investigation that brings them to every corner of China and sparks an intense attraction between the two, David and Hulan discover a web linking human trafficking to the drug trade to governmental treachery–a web reaching from the Forbidden City to the heart of Los Angeles and, like the wide flower net used by Chinese fishermen, threatening to ensnare all within its reach.
“A graceful rendering of two different and complex cultures, within a highly intricate plot . . . The starkly beautiful landscapes of Beijing and its surrounding countryside are depicted with a lyrical precision.”
–Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Murder and intrigue splash across the canvas of modern Chinese life. . . . A vivid portrait of a vast Communist nation in the painful throes of a sea change.”
–People
“Fascinating . . . that rare thriller that enlightens as well as it entertains.”
–San Diego Union-Tribune
A Finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 886
“The thought . . . called up the flavors of an elaborate and bold cuisine, bent on making the flavors’ highest notes vibrate, juxtaposing them in modulations, in chords, and especially in dissonances that would assert themselves as an incomparable experience.” — From *Under the Jaguar Sun*
These intoxicating stories delve down to the core of our senses. Taste, hearing, and smell. Amid the flavors of Mexico’s fiery chilies and spices, a couple on holiday discovers dark truths about the maturing of desire in the title story, “Under the Jaguar Sun.” In “A King Listens,” a gripping portrait of a frenzied mind, the menacing echoes in a huge palace spur a tyrant’s thoughts to the heights of paranoid intensity. “The Name, the Nose” drives to a startling conclusion as men across time and space pursue the women whose aromas have enchanted them. Mordant and deliciously offbeat, this trio of tales is a treat from a master of short fiction.
“[Calvino is] a learned, daring, ingeniously gifted magus . . . Under the Jaguar Sun . . . fuses fable with neuron . . . The reader is likely to salivate.” — Cynthia Ozick, New York Times Book Review Views: 885
In 1957, Farley Mowat shipped out aboard one of Newfoundland’s famous coastal steamers, tramping from outport to outport along the southwest coast. The indomitable spirit of the people and the bleak beauty of the landscape would lure him back again and again over the years. In the process of falling in love with a people and a place, Mowat also met the woman who would be the great love of his life.
A stunningly beautiful and talented young artist, Claire Wheeler insouciantly climbed aboard Farley’s beloved but jinxed schooner as it lay on the St. Pierre docks, once again in a cradle for repairs, and changed both their lives forever. This is the story of that love affair, of summers spent sailing the Newfoundland coast, and of their decision to start their life together in Burgeo, one of the province’s last remaining outports. It is also an unforgettable portrait of the last of the outport people and a way of life that had survived for centuries but was now passing forever.
Affectionate, unsentimental, this is a burnished gem from an undiminished talent.
*I was inside my vessel painting the cabin when I heard the sounds of a scuffle nearby. I poked my head out the companionway in time to see a lithesome young woman swarming up the ladder which leaned against Happy Adventure’s flank. Whining expectantly, the shipyard dog was endeavouring to follow this attractive stranger. I could see why. As slim and graceful as a ballet dancer (which, I would later learn, was one of her avocations), she appeared to be wearing a gleaming golden helmet (her own smoothly bobbed head of hair) and was as radiantly lovely as any Saxon goddess. I invited her aboard, while pushing the dog down the ladder.
“That’s only Blanche,” I reassured my visitor. “He won’t bite. He’s just, uh . . . being friendly.”
“That’s nice to know,” she said sweetly. Then she smiled . . . and I was lost.*
–From Bay of Spirits
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 877
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from John Irving's *In One Person.*
In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire, an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable’s girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives, forced to run from Coos County—to Boston, to southern Vermont, to Toronto—pursued by the implacable constable. Their lone protector is a fiercely libertarian logger, once a river driver, who befriends them. In a story spanning five decades, Last Night in Twisted River depicts the recent half-century in the United States as “a living replica of Coos County, where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course.” What further distinguishes** Last Night in Twisted River** is the author’s unmistakable voice—the inimitable voice of an accomplished storyteller. Views: 877
Bad Dogs Have More Fun is an unforgettable collection of more than seventy-five newspaper articles from The Philadelphia Inquirer written by former columnist John Grogan. Combining humor, wit, poignancy, and affection, these columns provide insight into the intriguing and wonderful world we live in. Whether it be writing about animals (from dogs to elephants to geese!), powerful and moving comments about his own and other families, trenchant comments on life s foibles and farces, or his interviews and interactions with people who are memorable and unusual in their own right, John Grogan makes us laugh-he makes us cry-he makes us think.Visit www.thegooddogfoundation.org" Views: 876
He was a son of Africa who became father to a nation and, for billions of people around the world, a beacon of hope, courage, and perseverance in the face of opposition. Now, acclaimed poet Maya Angelou honors the life and remarkable soul of Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa and Nobel laureate.
In His Day is Done, Angelou delivers an authentically heartfelt and elegant tribute to Mandela, who stood as David to the mighty Goliath of Apartheid and who, after twenty-seven years of unjust imprisonment on the notorious Robben Island, emerged with “His stupendous heart intact / His gargantuan will / Hale and hearty” to lead his people into a new era.
This poignant work of gratitude and remembrance offers condolences to the resilient people of South Africa on the loss of their beloved “Madiba” and celebrates a man like no other, whose life and work changed the world.
Praise for *His Day Is Done
*
“Moving and heartfelt.”—The Washington Post
*
“A powerful, gripping tribute.”—NewsOne
*
“[His Day Is Done *captures] how many were feeling.”—BBC News*** Views: 875
A dark, quasi-detective novel, Cosmos follows the classic noir motif to explore the arbitrariness of language, the joke of human freedom, and man’s attempt to bring order out of chaos in his psychological life.
Published in 1965, Cosmos is the last novel by Witold Gombrowicz (1904–1969) and his most somber and multifaceted work. Two young men meet by chance in a Polish resort town in the Carpathian Mountains. Intending to spend their vacation relaxing, they find a secluded family-run pension. But the two become embroiled first in a macabre event on the way to the pension, then in the peculiar activities and psychological travails of the family running it. Gombrowicz offers no solution to their predicament.
Cosmos is translated here for the first time directly from the Polish by Danuta Borchardt, translator of Ferdydurke. Views: 874
After nine years of separation from his native country because of the First World War, Louis finally sets foot in Austria and meets the woman he had been in love with. Previously divided by class and wealth, both are now married, and they must find out whether their love could survive the hardships, betrayals and the lapse of time. Views: 873
