Flora Mackie was twelve when she first crossed the Arctic Circle on her father's whaling ship. Now she is returning to the frozen seas as the head of her own exploration expedition. Jakob de Beyn was raised in Manhattan, but his yearning for new horizons leads him to the Arctic as part of a rival expedition. When he and Flora meet, all thoughts of science and exploration give way before a sudden, all-consuming love.
The affair survives the growing tensions between the two groups, but then, after one more glorious summer on the Greenland coast, Jakob joins his leader on an extended trip into the interior, with devastating results.
The stark beauty of the Arctic ocean, where pack ice can crush a ship like an eggshell, and the empty sweep of the tundra, alternately a snow-muffled wasteland and an unexpectedly gentle meadow, are vividly evoked. Against this backdrop Penney weaves an irresistible love story, a compelling look at the dark side of the golden age of exploration, and a mystery that Flora, returning one last time to the North Pole as an old woman, will finally lay to rest. Views: 855
“One of America’s greatest novelists” dazzlingly reinvents the coming-of-age story in his most passionate and surprising book to date
Sinuously constructed in four interlocking parts, Paul Auster’s fifteenth novel opens in New York City in the spring of 1967, when twenty-year-old Adam Walker, an aspiring poet and student at Columbia University, meets the enigmatic Frenchman Rudolf Born and his silent and seductive girfriend, Margot. Before long, Walker finds himself caught in a perverse triangle that leads to a sudden, shocking act of violence that will alter the course of his life.
Three different narrators tell the story of Invisible, a novel that travels in time from 1967 to 2007 and moves from Morningside Heights, to the Left Bank of Paris, to a remote island in the Caribbean. It is a book of youthful rage, unbridled sexual hunger, and a relentless quest for justice. With uncompromising insight, Auster takes us into the shadowy borderland between truth and memory, between authorship and identity, to produce a work of unforgettable power that confirms his reputation as “one of America’s most spectacularly inventive writers.” Views: 854
An invaluable guide to the art and mind of Virginia Woolf, drawn by her husband from the personal record she kept over a period of twenty-seven years. Included are entries that refer to her own writing, others that are clearly writing exercises; accounts of people and scenes relevant to the raw material of her work; and comments on books she was reading. Edited and with a Preface by Leonard Woolf; Indices. Views: 854
With its breathtaking vistas and down-to-earth people, Thunder Point is the perfect place for FBI agent Laine Carrington to recuperate from a gunshot wound and contemplate her future. The locals embraced Laine as one of their own after she risked her life to save a young girl from a dangerous cult. Knowing her wounds go beyond the physical, Laine hopes she'll fit in for a while and find her true self in a town that feels safe. She may even learn to open her heart to others, something an undercover agent has little time to indulge. Eric Gentry is also new to Thunder Point. Although he's a man with a dark past, he's determined to put down roots and get to know the daughter he only recently discovered. When Laine and Eric meet, their attraction is obvious to everyone. But while the law enforcement agent and the reformed criminal want to make things work, their differences may run too deep…unless they take a chance on each other and find that deep and mysterious bond that belongs to those who choose love over fear. Views: 854
On a late night drive from the Nashville airport, Larry is followed a bit too closely for comfort. He will find out just how easy and dangerous it can be to succumb to fear’s blind momentum.A free short story.‘Beam Me Back to Venus’ is a light-hearted collection of humorous poetry based around the joys and challenges of parenting children from birth through the teenage years. Written from a mother’s point of view, many will relate to the frustrations of juggling paid work with the daily taxi run, housework and the dramas of bringing up a busy family. Families everywhere face the same dilemma of the last minute homework project, how to be four places at once and where do all those odd socks go?Despite all the child rearing books, we who produce offspring will always stumble on as best we can to raise the little ones into the finest people we can and have a lot of joy, laughter and tears along the way. If only they came with a manual. Views: 854
The stunning, timely new novel from the acclaimed, internationally bestselling author of The Architect's Apprentice and The Bastard of Istanbul.
Peri, a married, wealthy, beautiful Turkish woman, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground -- an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor. A relic from a past -- and a love -- Peri had tried desperately to forget.
Three Daughters of Eve is set over an evening in contemporary Istanbul, as Peri arrives at the party and navigates the tensions that simmer in this crossroads country between East and West, religious and secular, rich and poor. Over the course of the dinner, and amidst an opulence that is surely ill-begotten, terrorist attacks occur across the city. Competing in Peri's mind however are the memories invoked by her almost-lost polaroid, of the time years earlier when she was sent abroad for the first time, to attend Oxford University. As a young woman there, she had become friends with the charming, adventurous Shirin, a fully assimilated Iranian girl, and Mona, a devout Egyptian-American. Their arguments about Islam and feminism find focus in the charismatic but controversial Professor Azur, who teaches divinity, but in unorthodox ways. As the terrorist attacks come ever closer, Peri is moved to recall the scandal that tore them all apart.
Elif Shafak is the number one bestselling novelist in her native Turkey, and her work is translated and celebrated around the world. In Three Daughters of Eve, she has given us a rich and moving story that humanizes and personalizes one of the most profound sea changes of the modern world. Views: 853
In the year 1740, Commodore (later Admiral) George Anson embarked on a voyage that would become one of the most famous exploits in British naval history. Sailing through poorly charted waters, Anson and his men encountered disaster, disease, and astonishing success. They circumnavigated the globe and seized a nearly incalcuable sum of Spanish gold and silver, but only one of the five ships survived.
This is the background to the first novel Patrick O'Brian ever wrote about the sea, a precursor to the acclaimed Aubrey/Maturin series that shares the excitement and rich humor of those books. The protagonist is Peter Palafox, son of a poor Irish parson, who signs on as a midshipman, never before having seen a ship. Together with his lifelong friend Sean, Peter sets out to seek his fortune, embarking upon a journey of danger, disappointment, foreign lands, and excitement.
Here is a tale certain to please not only admirers of O'Brian's work but also any reader with an adventurous soul. Views: 853
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JAMES WOOD
Scobie, a police officer serving in a wartime West African state, is distrusted, being scrupulously honest and immune to bribery. But then he falls in love, and in doing so he is forced to betray everything he believes in, with drastic and tragic consequences. Views: 853
"Whether discussing modernism, postmodernism, semiotics, Homer, Cervantes, Borges, blue crabs or osprey nests, Barth demonstrates an enthusiasm for the life of the mind, a joy in thinking (and in expressing those thoughts) that becomes contagious... A reader leaves The Friday Book feeling intellectually fuller, verbally more adept, mentally stimulated, with algebra and fire of his own."--Washington PostBarth's first work of nonfiction is what he calls "an arrangement of essays and occasional lectures, some previously published, most not, most on matters literary, some not, accumulated over thirty years or so of writing, teaching, and teaching writing." With the full measure of playfulness and erudition that he brings to his novels, Barth glances into his crystal ball to speculate on the future of literature and the literature of the future. He also looks back upon historical fiction and fictitious history and discusses prose, poetry, and all manner of letters: "Real letters, forged letters, doctored letters... and of course alphabetical letters, the atoms of which the universe of print is made."
"The pieces brought together in The Friday Book reflect Mr. Barth's witty, playful, and engaging personality... They are lively, sometimes casual, and often whimsical--a delight to the reader, to whom Mr. Barth seems to be writing or speaking as a learned friend."--Kansas City Star
"No less than Barth's fiction these pieces are performances, agile, dexterous, robust, offering the cerebral delights of playful lucidity."--Richmond News Leader Views: 853
I will always love him, although his blood is on my hands. I doubt anyone has ever killed another so close to them as I have. I still feel his throat closing between my fingers. I squeezed. I squeezed and I squeezed.Can you imagine what it must be like; to be thrown away like a dirty dish-rag because a man has chosen to use you so? Imagine then if everyone you ever loved hated you equally for what he'd done to you. This happened twice to me. One of them is dead, but the other is still very much alive. I will have my vengeance, all while this bastard grows within.It wasn't his fault. They'd all told him that he was the one. They'd called him the Holy Spirit. He could've only assumed that they knew what they were talking about. They were an entire country. Who was he to disagree with their judgement? But, oh how quickly the people of Jenjol could change. And as for Ilgrin, who would've predicted he could become so wicked?I will always love him, although his blood is on my hands. I doubt anyone has ever killed another so close to them as I have. I still feel his throat closing between my fingers. I squeezed. I squeezed and I squeezed. Views: 853
Unlocking a cold case with explosive implications for the future of civil rights, forensics expert Lincoln Rhyme and his protégé, Amelia Sachs, must outguess a killer who has targeted a high school girl from Harlem who is digging into the past of one of her ancestors, a former slave. What buried secrets from 140 years ago could have an assassin out for innocent blood? And what chilling message is hidden in his calling card, the hanged man of the tarot deck? Rhyme must anticipate the next strike or become history -- in the bestseller that proves "there is no thriller writer today like Jeffery Deaver" (*San Jose Mercury News*). Views: 853
I was happy with my life. And who wouldn’t be? Beautiful women, money, a job that I could sleep through and still make bank. But I was bored. And I never could walk away from a challenge.
This challenge turned out to be brunette. Feisty. Just the way I like them. But innocent. Too innocent for me. Too innocent to do anything other than sample and then toss back. Anything more would be too risky, too much work.
I was unprepared for Julia Campbell. I should have done my homework, should have looked before jumping off that cliff. Ditching her proved to be problematic, my sexual needs greater than my common sense.
She was different. She became more than a challenge.
She may just bring my world crashing down.
This novella is meant to complement, and be read after, Blindfolded Innocence, a #1 Erotica Bestseller. Views: 853
Book 2 in Kathryn Lasky's shimmering quartet about mermaid sisters and supernatural love.
May feels her life drying up. The sea calls to her, but her parents forbid her from swimming. She longs for books, but her mother finds her passion for learning strange. She yearns for independence, but a persistent suitor, Rudd, wants to tame her spirited ways. Yet after her fifteenth birthday, the urge to break free becomes overpowering and May makes a life-changing discovery. She does not belong on land where girls are meant to be obedient. She is a mermaid-a creature of the sea.
For the first time, May learns what freedom feels like-the thrill of exploring both the vast ocean and the previously forbidden books. She even catches the eye of Hugh, an astronomy student who, unlike the townspeople, finds May anything but strange. But not everyone is pleased with May's transformation. Rudd decides that if can't have May, no one will. He knows how to destroy her happiness and goes to drastic measures to ensure that May loses everything: her freedom and the only boy she's ever loved. Views: 852
The world was cookie cutter ready for an alien invasion. Xenophen leveraged humanity’s growing into a knowledge economy. To control us, they simply needed to offer a better education.The world was cookie cutter ready for an alien invasion. Xenophen leveraged humanity’s growing into a knowledge economy. To control us, they simply needed to offer a better education.Meet Ruth; a homeless woman whose only means of survival is serving humanity's destruction. As she sees mankind's noose slowly tightening, she scrapes for any means of escape. She flees with restricted knowledge, in the hope it can unravel our doom. Views: 852
Tambrera rum executive Sam Bartleby receives a company notice that he is fired. Discontent with his paltry severance, Bartleby discusses with his uncle an avenue to stay in the British Virgin Islands without a job, involving an arrangement with a sugar baby. Having a drink in a terrace, Bartleby sees the perfect candidate: Ethnographer Flower Parkwood, the good friend of teleoperator Clarity Nice.On a 'Martini Bianco' bar terrace in the British Virgin Islands, Tambrera rum executive Sam Bartleby receives notice that he is fired. Worried about his financial future and the grim prospects for his personal life, Bartleby discusses with his uncle Clive, an unexplored business strategy that will allow him to stay in the Islands without a job. His plan involves recruiting a sugar baby, and over drinks, Bartleby finds the perfect candidate in Ethnographer, Flower Parkwood, the why-not, clueless, bohemian friend of teleoperator Clarity Nice.While Clive spends time with Clarity, Bartleby spends the day with Flower trying to convince her of the benefits of being his sugar baby but Clarity´s friend refuses the slick executive’s propostion. He persists; he will provide food, lodging, travel arrangements and valuable personal guidance to her for the long term. To entice her, he pays for a large shopping spree on the island of Tortola.After a good meal in one of the island´s nicest restaurants, Flower finally accepts Bartleby´s offer to board the company boat, a wannabee-yacht, the 'Lady Moura'. She will be his sugar baby for a few days while he carries out a business transaction for a marriage and dating site named Oleanne. The deal allows Flower to bring her friend Clarity onboard. Together they collaborate on the business transaction with Bartleby and a man known as Chubby Caddy, an important client of the Oleanne dating service coming from Panama. Views: 852
