Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, Fifth Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred, is back “to spread sweetness and light” wherever he goes. At the request of Lord Emsworth, Uncle Fred journeys to Blandings Castle to steal the Empress of Blandings before the ill-tempered, egg-throwing Duke of Dunstable can lay claim to her. Disguised as the eminent nerve specialist Sir Roderick Glossop, and with his distressed nephew Pongo in tow, Uncle Fred must not only steal a pig but also reunite a young couple and diagnose various members of the upper class with imaginary mental illnesses, all before his domineering wife realizes he’s escaped their country estate. Views: 924
Once, Evan Tanner was known as the thief who couldn't sleep, carrying out his dangerous duties for a super-secret intelligence agency. Then someone put him on ice -- for about twenty-five years. Returning to the world (and trying to catch up with a quarter century's worth of current events), Tanner is about to embark on a new covert assignment that will take him to the exotic Far East, where mystery and menace are a way of life . . . . Now, whether he's dodging double crosses or disguising himself as a monk, Tanner is learning that when it comes to power games, pretty women, and political wrangling, some things never change. And he's making up for lost time -- with a vengeance. Views: 924
W. Somerset Maugham was one of the seminal writers of the twentieth century, and his travel writing has long been considered among his finest work. Now, acclaimed travel writer Pico Iyer maps out a masterful tour of these vivid, evocative pieces that are collected here for the first time.
Maugham worked as a secret agent in Russia, published novels in London, staged plays in New York, and traveled throughout Europe, Asia, India, and the United States, chronicling his travels, wherever he went, with exceptional insight. Beginning with “In the Land of the Blessed Virgin” and culminating in “A Partial View,” Iyer selects vignettes of Maugham’s razor-sharp prose that track his transformation from a boyish traveler in Spain to a worldly man of letters.
This is Maugham at his most keenly observant, direct, and powerful.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 924
"Rivals anything Chaim Potok has ever produced. It is a book written with passion about passion. You're not likely to read anything better this year."
THE DETROIT NEWS
Twenty years have passed for Asher Lev. He is a world-renowned artist living in France, still uncertain of his artistic direction. When his beloved uncle dies suddenly, Asher and his family rush back to Brooklyn--and into a world that Asher thought he had left behind forever....
From the Paperback edition. Views: 924
"One of the most celebrated writers of criticism in nineteenth-century Spain, Leopoldo Alas employed his satirical talent to powerful and humorous effect in fiction as well. In His Only Son, Bonifacio Reyes, a romantic flautist by vocation--and a failed clerk and kept husband by necessity--dreams of a novelesque life. Tied to his shrill and sickly wife by her purse strings, he enters timidly into a love affair with Serafina, a seductive second-rate opera singer, encouraged by her manager who mistakes Bonifacio for a potential patron. Meanwhile, Bonifacio's wife experiences a parallel awakening and in the midst of a long-barren marriage, surprises them both with a son--but is it Bonifacio's? In the accompanying novella, Doana Berta, an aged, poor, but well-born woman forfeits her beloved estate in search of a portrait that may be all that remains of the secret love of her life"-- Views: 924
Everyone Has Some.
Before the accident, Lia Kahn was happy.
Before the accident, Lia Kahn was loved.
Before, Lia was a lot of things: Normal. Alive.
Human.
Lia no longer believes in before. Six months after the crash that killed her, six months after being reborn, Lia has finally accepted her new reality. She is a machine, a mech, and she belongs with her own kind. It's a wild, carefree life, without rules and without fear. Because there's nothing to fear when you have nothing left to lose.
But when a voice from her past cries out for revenge, everything changes. Lia is forced to choose between her old life and her new one. Between humans and mechs. Between sacrificing the girl she used to be and saving the boy she used to love.
Even if it means he'll hate her forever. Views: 923
The stunning sequel to the awarding winning novel One Thousand White Women
9 March 1876
My name is Meggie Kelly and I take up this pencil with my twin sister, Susie. We have nothing left, less than nothing. The village of our People has been destroyed, all our possessions burned, our friends butchered by the soldiers, our baby daughters gone, frozen to death on an ungodly trek across these rocky mountains. Empty of human feeling, half-dead ourselves, all that remains of us intact are hearts turned to stone. We curse the U.S. government, we curse the Army, we curse the savagery of mankind, white and Indian alike. We curse God in his heaven. Do not underestimate the power of a mother’s vengeance...
So begins the journal of Margaret Kelly, a woman who participated in the government's "Brides for Indians" program in 1873, a program whose conceit was that the way to peace between the United States and the Cheyenne Nation was for One Thousand White Women to be given as brides in exchange for three hundred horses. These "brides" were mostly fallen women; women in prison, prostitutes, the occasional adventurer, or those incarcerated in asylums. No one expected this program to work. The brides themselves thought it was simply a chance at freedom. But many of them fell in love with the Cheyennes spouses and had children with them...and became Cheyenne themselves.
THE VENGEANCE OF MOTHERS is a novel that explores what happens to the bonds between wives and husbands, children and mothers, when society sees them as "unspeakable." What does it mean to be white, to be Cheyenne, and how far will these women go to avenge the ones they love? As he did in ONE THOUSAND WHITE WOMEN, Jim Fergus brings to light a time and place in American history, and fills it with unforgettable characters who live and breathe with a passion we can relate to even today. Views: 923
The fourth and final installment of the One Time romance serial. Sam and Elsie have moved into their new home, have begun their new part time jobs, and are ready to lay back and plan their wedding. Life has a few more surprises in store before the big day, though. Though on in years, the aging couple stand strong together against what life throws in their paths.This short story series concludes with 'New Roads'. The series follows two retirees, widowers, and former next door neighbors, as they close the doors on their previous long term marriages and seek in each other a loving partner to share the remainder of their life with. Their dramas are not unlike what many face, but it is their joy of life and appreciation of each other that lights their way through the dark times as well as the stormy times. Views: 923
"I put most of myself into that opus," Edith Wharton said of The Reef, possibly her most autobiographical novel. Published in 1912, it was, Bernard Berenson told Henry Adams, "better than any previous work excepting Ethan Frome." A challenge to the moral climate of the day, The Reef follows the fancies of George Darrow, a young diplomat en route from London to France, intent on proposing to the widowed Anna Leath. Unsettled by Anna's reticence, Darrow drifts into an affair with Sophy Viner, a charmingly naive and impecunious young woman whose relations with Darrow and Anna's family threaten his prospects for success. For its dramatic construction and acute insight into social mores and the multifaceted problem of sexuality, The Reef stands as one of Edith Wharton's most daring works of fiction. Views: 923
Lyman Frank Baum is one of America’s most read authors, and he is widely considered one of the premier authors of children’s books. Trot is near her home on the coast of southern California when she meets a strange little boy with a large umbrella. Button Bright has been using his family's magic umbrella to take long-range journeys from his Philadelphia home, and has gotten as far as California. After an explanation of how the magic umbrella works, the two children, joined by Cap'n Bill, decide to take a trip to a nearby island; they call it "Sky island," because it looks like it's "halfway in the sky" but the umbrella takes them to a different place entirely, a literal island in the sky. Views: 923
A short story about Dave, an ordinary guy who gets fed up with magazine and TV adds for products nobody needs. It’s time to take things into his own hands! Armed with two beers from different brands and a WWII Beretta he drives down to the local supermarket to rescue the consumer.“... and if you call in the next ten minutes, we’ll include a premium quality stainless steel bottle opener, free of charge.” “Hello. Dave speaking. I’d like to order ten bottles. That’d be all.” “Ten bottles. OK sir and congratulations. You qualify for our special offer, the premium quality stainless steel bottle opener.” “Thanks, I just want the bottles please.” “But sir, this is a special opportunity.” “Yes, I know. I just want the bottles, please. I don’t need a bottle opener.” “Yes sir, we will send you ten bottles, but I would like you to reconsider our special offer.” “Just the bottles please.” “Sir, we have to offer you the bottle opener. It’s the company policy sir.” “Thanks for the offer but I just want the bottles please.” “Yes sir, we will send you the bottles, but since you called ten minutes before the end of the advertisement we would like to offer you our unique bottle opener.” “Look man, just send the bottles, OK? I don’t need more junk in my apartment.” “Sir, what we offer is premium quality. A stainless steel bottle opener with a deluxe metal finish. ” “So why does stainless steel need a metal finish for? Just send me the bottles please.” “But wouldn’t you...” “No. Are you listening to me. Send me the stupid bottles and... You know what, forget about it. I don’t want the bottles anymore.” Dave hung up the phone: “Man I need a beer. So scientists still wonder how alcoholism develops?“ Views: 923
En février 1905, à Moscou, un groupe de terroristes, appartenant au parti socialiste révolutionnaire, organisait un attentat à la bombe contre le grand-duc Serge, oncle du tsar. Cet attentat et les circonstances singulières qui l\'ont précédé et suivi font le sujet des justes. Si extraordinaires que puissent paraître, en effet, certaines des situations de cette pièce, elles sont pourtant historiques. Ceci ne veut pas dire, on le verra d\'ailleurs, que les justes soient une pièce historique. Mais tous les personnages ont réellement existé et se sont conduits comme je le dis. J\'ai seulement tâché à rendre vraisemblable ce qui était déjà vrai... la haine qui pesait sur ces âmes exceptionnelles comme une intolérable souffrance est devenue un système confortable. Raison de plus pour évoquer ces grandes ombres, leur juste révolte, leur fraternité difficile, les efforts démesurés qu\'elles firent pour se mettre en accord avec le meurtre - et pour dire ainsi où est notre fidélité. Albert camus. Views: 922
Patrick O'Brian has emerged, in the opinion of many, as one of the greatest novelists now writing in English. His fame rests mainly on the achievement of the epic Aubrey/Maturin novels, but few readers know that O'Brian first made his reputation as a writer of short fiction. Collected here for the first time are twenty-seven stories that O'Brian wishes to preserve: stories of uncommon lyricism and beauty that will confirm his rightful place in the front rank of short-story writers as well as of novelists.
Although the tone of this collection ranges effortlessly from the humorous to the dramatic, the most characteristic and memorable stories often have to do with a glimpse of savage, destructive forces through the fragile shell of human civilization. The threatened chaos may be psychological, as in "On the Wolfsberg," or it may be lurking in the natural world, as in "A Passage of the Frontier," or, as in the dark masterpiece "The Chian Wine," it is suddenly discovered in the ancient, irrational impulses of human nature.
The setting may be the marshes of western Ireland, the Pyrenees, or the claustrophobic confines of a clockmender's house, but each story is a showcase for Patrick O'Brian's fresh and meticulous prose; each story reaffirms his sympathetic understanding of human passion and suffering. This collection proves that O'Brian is not simply the master of a genre, but an author who will long be honored as one of our most eminent literary figures. Views: 922
In this propulsive novel, one of the most idiosyncratically brilliant writers at work in any language fuses science fiction, the hard-boiled thriller, and white-hot satire into a new element of the literary periodic table.
As he searches for a mysteriously vanished girlfriend, Haruki Murakami's protagonist plunges into a wind tunnel of sexual violence and metaphysical dread in which he collides with call girls; plays chaperone to a lovely teenaged psychic; and receives cryptic instructions from a shabby but oracular Sheep Man. Dance Dance Dance is a tense, poignant, and often hilarious ride through the cultural Cuisinart that is contemporary Japan, a place where everything that is not up for sale is up for grabs.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 922
Over the entrance of a little cavern in one of the rocks hanging above the Rhine-stream at Rolandseck, and covered with odoriferous cactuses and silvery magnolias, the traveller of the present day may perceive a rude broken image of a saint: that image represented the venerable Saint Buffo of Bonn, the patron of the Margrave; and Sir Ludwig, kneeling on the greensward, and reciting a censer, an ave, and a couple of acolytes before it, felt encouraged to think that the deed he meditated was about to be performed under the very eyes of his friend's sanctified patron. Views: 922
