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A collection of twenty nine poems about love in war, lost loves, found loves, destructive loves and suicidal loves. Penned by the author over a period of twenty five years in four different countries where he resided.A collection of twenty nine poems about love in war, lost loves, found loves, destructive loves and suicidal loves. Penned by the author over a period of twenty five years in four different countries where he resided. In England during his late teenage and early twenties. In Lebanon during the civil war. In Greece when it was a country free of Brussels and the Troika. In America where the author's son was born. Every poem is based on the authors feelings and environment at the time of writing. None are figments of an overworked imagination. Views: 768
Some stories end happily ever after, yet in places where reality thins, insanity thrives, and darkness lurks, there are no happily ever afters, just Dead Ends.Some stories end happily ever after, yet in places where reality thins, insanity thrives, and unimaginable monsters live, there are no happily ever afters, just Dead Ends. Introducing the City of West Creek, this series takes you through stories of the macabre, where darkness is at home, and evil is king.The stories within this collection include: Creeping Death, Blood Letting, Crickets, Tall Trees, The Harvest Moon, The Hunters, Looped, The Barking, and SequaWord count including afterword: over thirty five thousandIncludes terrifying situations, descriptions of violence and gore, and such mature themes. Views: 767
Langston Cane V is 38, divorced and working as a government speechwriter, until he’s fired for sabotaging the minister’s speech. It seems the perfect time for Langston, the eldest son of a white mother and prominent black father, to embark on a quest to discover his family’s past -- and his own sense of self.
Any Known Blood follows five generations of an African-Canadian-American family in a compelling story that slips effortlessly from the slave trade of 19th-century Virginia to the modern, predominantly white suburbs of Oakville, Ontario -- once a final stop on the Underground Railroad. Elegant and sensuous, wry and witty, it is an engrossing tale about one man’s attempt to find himself through unearthing and giving voice to those who came before him. Views: 767
Walden (first published as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) is an American book written by noted Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self reliance.
Published in 1854, it details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts.
By immersing himself in nature, Thoreau hoped to gain a more objective understanding of society through personal introspection. Simple living and self-sufficiency were Thoreau's other goals, and the whole project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy, a central theme of the American Romantic Period. As Thoreau made clear in his book, his cabin was not in wilderness but at the edge of town, about two miles (3 km) from his family home. Views: 766
Why, as an eager and talented writer, has Anne Morrow Lindbergh published so relatively little in forty years of marriage?” asked reviewer John Barkham in 1970. “After a promising start with those first books on flying, she tapered off into long silences broken by an infrequent volume of verse or prose.” Many years later, Lindbergh replied with a quote from Harriet Beecher Stowe, who claimed that writing, for a wife and mother, is “rowing against wind and tide.”
In this sixth and final collection of Lindbergh’s diaries and letters, taking us from 1947 to 1986, we mark her progress as she navigated a remarkable life and a remarkable century with enthusiasm and delight, humor and wit, sorrow and bewilderment, but above all devoted to finding the essential truth in life’s experiences through a hard-won spirituality and a passion for literature.
Between the inevitable squalls of life with her beloved but elusive husband, the aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, she shepherded their five children through whooping cough, horned toads, fiancés, the Vietnam War, and their own personal tragedies. She researched and wrote many books and articles on issues ranging from the condition of Europe after World War II to the meaning of marriage to the launch of Apollo 8. She published one of the most beloved books of inspiration of all time, Gift from the Sea. She left penetrating accounts of meetings with such luminaries as John and Jacqueline Kennedy, Thornton Wilder, Enrico Fermi, Leland and Slim Hayward, and the Frank Lloyd Wrights. And she found time to compose extraordinarily insightful and moving letters of consolation to friends and to others whose losses touched her deeply.
More than any previous books by or about Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Against Wind and Tide makes us privy to the demons that plagued this fairy-tale bride, and introduces us to some of the people—men as well as women—who provided solace as she braved the tides of time and aging, war and politics, birth and death. Here is an eloquent and often startling collection of writings from one of the most admired women of our time. Views: 764
From the author of the bestselling A Reliable Wife comes a dramatic, passionate tale of a glamorous Southern debutante who marries for money and ultimately suffers for love—a southern gothic as written by Dominick Dunne.
It begins with a house and ends in ashes . . .
Diana Cooke was "born with the century" and came of age just after World War I. The daughter of Virginia gentry, she knew early that her parents had only one asset, besides her famous beauty: their stately house, Saratoga, the largest in the commonwealth, which has hosted the crème of society and Hollywood royalty. Though they are land-rich, the Cookes do not have the means to sustain the estate. Without a wealthy husband, Diana will lose the mansion that has been the heart and soul of her family for five generations.
The mysterious Captain Copperton is an outsider with no bloodline but plenty of cash. Seeing the ravishing nineteen-year-old Diana for the first time, he’s determined to have her. Diana knows that marrying him would make the Cookes solvent and ensure that Saratoga will always be theirs. Yet Copperton is cruel as well as vulgar; while she admires his money, she cannot abide him. Carrying the weight of Saratoga and generations of Cookes on her shoulders, she ultimately succumbs to duty, sacrificing everything, including love.
Luckily for Diana, fate intervenes. Her union with Copperton is brief and gives her a son she adores. But when her handsome, charming Ashton, now grown, returns to Saratoga with his college roommate, the real scandal and tragedy begins.
Reveling in the secrets, mores, and society of twentieth-century genteel Southern life, The Dying of the Light is a romance, a melodrama, and a cautionary tale told with the grandeur and sweep of an epic Hollywood classic. Views: 764
James A. Garfield may have been the most extraordinary man ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back.
But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what happened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in turmoil. The unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power—over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his condition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable of finding the bullet.
Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic will stand alongside The Devil in the White City and The Professor and the Madman as a classic of narrative history. Views: 763
R and R Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Dylan Hunt and the Crew of the Andromeda Ascendant have been fighting the good fight to re-establish the Systems Commonwealth. They need some serious rest and relaxation. Fortunately, they arrive at Paradise Drift, an ideal spot for a quick vacation. In the drift, the crew can play at pirates, medieval knights, gladiators--almost anything imaginable--in the virtual gaming scenarios concocted for visitors' pleasure.
Since the drift wishes to join the New Systems Commonwealth, the crew is given carte blanche to enjoy all of the drift's facilities for free. This is a welcome gift for the weary crew, but it doesn't take long for complications to arise. First, Trance Gemini vanishes without a trace. Then their tech-wizard Seamus Harper visits a harem, only to be confronted by a woman from his past who has a knife and a score to settle. Even worse, Pilot Beka Valentine is relentlessly pursued by a bounty hunter who desperately wants to claim the price on her head. And Captain Dylan Hunt hasn't been worrying about his losing streak at a glamorous gambling parlor, until he discovers that gambling debts on the drift are anything but virtual. Little does Dylan know, he could end up paying for his debts with his head!
Meanwhile, back on the ship, warrior Tyr Anasazi and ship's AI Rommie are forced to defend the Andromeda Ascendant against aggression from an unlikely source. What follows is an exciting, suspenseful deep-space adventure that will surely satisfy viewers of the TV series and readers with a taste for space opera. Views: 761
**From bestselling author and international sensation Paulo Coelho, a novel set in a small village about a young, poor barmaid whose wager with the devil leads to a spiritual transformation.**
A stranger arrives at the remote village of Viscos, carrying with him a backpack containing a notebook and eleven gold bars. He comes searching for the answer to a question that torments him: Are human beings, in essence, good or evil? In welcoming the mysterious foreigner, the whole village becomes an accomplice to his sophisticated plot, which will forever mark their lives.
A novel of temptation, *The Devil and Miss Prym *is a thought-provoking parable of a community devoured by greed, cowardice, and fear—as it struggles with the choice between good and evil. Views: 761
Isabel Allende’s latest novel, set in the present day (a new departure for the author), tells the story of a 19-year-old American girl who finds refuge on a remote island off the coast of Chile after falling into a life of drugs, crime, and prostitution. There, in the company of a torture survivor, a lame dog, and other unforgettable characters, Maya Vidal writes her story, which includes pursuit by a gang of assassins, the police, the FBI, and Interpol. In the process, she unveils a terrible family secret, comes to understand the meaning of love and loyalty, and initiates the greatest adventure of her life: the journey into her own soul. Views: 761
Steve Martin has always been one of the most intelligent of comedians (you won't find Adam Sandler writing a play about Einstein and Picasso anytime soon), but this intelligence is manifested in gymnastically absurdist flights of fancy, rather than the politically informed riffs typical of performers like Lenny Bruce. Pure Drivel is a collection of pieces, most of them written for the New Yorker, that demonstrate Martin's playful way with words and his unerring ability to create a feeling of serendipitous improvisation even on the printed page. Here's a passage from a piece that announces a shortage of periods in the Times Roman font:
"Most vulnerable are writers who work in short, choppy sentences," said a spokesperson for Times Roman, who continued, "We are trying to remedy the situation and have suggested alternatives, like umlauts, since we have plenty of umlauts--and, in fact, have more umlauts than we could possibly use in a lifetime! Don't forget, umlauts can really spice up a page with their delicate symmetry--resting often midway in a word, letters spilling on either side--and not only indicate the pronunciation of a word but also contribute to a writer's greater glory because they're fancy, not to mention that they even look like periods, indeed, are indistinguishable from periods, and will lead casual readers to believe that the article actually contains periods!"
Although some of these pieces flirted with topicality when they first appeared, Martin is most successful when he leaves the real world behind and gives his wit free rein. This collection preserves the best (so far) of his glorious improvisations. --Simon Leake Views: 760
In 1974 a gruesome and shocking murder stunned the small town of Bludenhale, Indiana. Three people were slaughtered in a small garage and the one accused of the atrocity, Angel Larson, was sentenced to life in a mental hospital three counties over. Susan Smith, the mother of the hideously slain Heather Smith, has been secretly visiting her daughter’s killer at the Indiana State Mental HospitalIn 1974 a gruesome and shocking murder stunned the small town of Bludenhale, Indiana. Three people were slaughtered in a small garage and the one accused of the atrocity, Angel Larson, was sentenced to life in a mental hospital three counties over. Susan Smith, the mother of the hideously slain Heather Smith, has been secretly visiting her daughter’s killer at the Indiana State Mental Hospital for over a decade. Unbeknownst to most of the people of Bludenhale, Heather and Angel were best friends and have known each other since they were five. Overcome with grief, Susan needed that connection with her daughter despite her raising Heather’s four year old daughter Amy. She knew Angel would be the one to provide that connection. Those secret visits came to an end in 1994 when Angel Larson was mysteriously murdered in her room twenty years after the Bludenhale Massacre of 1974. Since then, an endless string of tragedies have plagued Susan’s life. Her granddaughter Amy Smith was found dead behind the strip club where she worked and Susan’s husband Mark collapsed dead of a heart attack in their barn two years later. Now, twenty three years later, Susan is struggling just too even get out of bed every day. But on a warm, late September afternoon, Susan is visited by an elderly soul who claims he is responsible for her daughter’s death. From there she will have to fight not only the internal nightmare truth inside herself but also a supernatural entity of horrific proportions. Return to Bludenhale in the follow up to Joe Zito’s bloody novel ‘The Garage’. Views: 759
Gombrowicz's strange, bracing final novel probes the divide between young and old while providing a grotesque evocation of obsession. While recuperating from wartime Warsaw in the Polish countryside, the unnamed narrator and his friend, Fryderyk, attempt to force amour between two local youths, Karol and Henia, as a kind of a lewd entertainment. They become increasingly frustrated as they discover that the two have no interest in one another, and the games are momentarily stopped by a local murder and a directive to assassinate a rogue member of the Polish resistance. Gombrowicz connects these threads magnificently in a tense climax that imbues his novel with a deep sense of the absurd and multiplies its complexity. Gombrowicz is a relentless psychoanalyzer and a consummate stylist; his prose is precise and forceful, and the narrator's strained attempts to elucidate why he takes such pleasure at soiling youth creepily evoke authentic pride and disgust. Borchardt's translation (the first into English from the original Polish) is a model of consistency, maintaining a manic tone as it navigates between lengthy, comma-spliced sentences and sharp, declarative thrusts. - Publishers Weekly Views: 756
Chosen as one of the New York Times’s ten best books in the year of its original publication, this collection immediately won a cherished place among lovers of the tale and vaulted Calvino into the ranks of the great folklorists. Introduction by the Author; illustrations. Translated by George Martin. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book Views: 756
