By the Light of My Father's Smile

"By The Light Of My Father's Smile" presents a celebration of sexuality, its absolute usefulness in the accessing of one's mature spirituality, and the father's role in assuring joy or sorrow in this arena for his female children, " says Walker. "It examines the ways imposed religion almost always acts to inhibit and harden the hearts of those who would instinctively love, and presents the richness and coherence of an alternative culture's experience of sexuality as a celebration of life, " she adds.The story begins at an outpost in the remote Sierras in Mexico, where an African American family (two daughters and their partners) from the United States come to live for several years. The father, who narrates much of the novel from the grave, finds his fifteen-year-old daughter Magdalena, having sex with a local boy named Manuelito. He beats her in a scene witnessed by her sister, Susannah. While both daughters are wounded by the beating, it is Magdalena who remains scarred throughout her life by this incident. However, it is because of Manuelito and his tradition that reconciliation between father and daughters eventually happens. Manuelito is a Mundo, a deeply spiritual and wise tribe of mixed race, both Black and Indian. The Mundo are unimpressed by a world concerned primarily with exploitation and monetary gain. They treasure their relationship to the earth and ultimately teach the father, who believes his daughter's sexuality is evil, that in fact sexuality is a blessing. In the end, it is the Mundo way of life that leads the father back to his daughters.
Views: 811

End Zone

The second novel by Don DeLillo, author of White Noise (winner of the National Book Award) and *Zero K At Logos College in West Texas, huge young men, vacuum-packed into shoulder pads and shiny helmets, play football with intense passion. During an uncharacteristic winning season, the perplexed and distracted running back Gary Harkness has periodic fits of nuclear glee; he is fueled and shielded by his fear of and fascination with nuclear conflict. Among oddly afflicted and recognizable players, the terminologies of football and nuclear war—the language of end zones—become interchangeable, and their meaning deteriorates as the collegiate year runs its course. In this triumphantly funny, deeply searching novel, Don DeLillo explores the metaphor of football as war with rich, original zeal. From the Trade Paperback edition.*
Views: 811

Prater Violet

Originally published in 1945, Prater Violet is a stingingly satirical novel about the film industry. It centers around the production of the vacuous fictional melodrama Prater Violet, set in nineteenth-century Vienna, providing ironic counterpoint to tragic events as Hitler annexes the real Vienna of the 1930s. The novel features the vivid portraits of imperious, passionate, and witty Austrian director Friedrich Bergmann and his disciple, a genial young screenwriter -- the fictionalized Christopher Isherwood.
Views: 811

Diversity Is Coming

The days of unified culture and singular Great Kingdoms are over. In their place, bold new visions are redefining the world of fantasy. Eight authors tackle stories with a focus on diversity, finding heroism outside the familiar boundaries of farmhands and prince's castles. Including original fiction from eight authors.The days of unified culture and singular Great Kingdoms are over. In their place, bold new visions are redefining the world of fantasy. Eight authors tackle stories with a focus on diversity, finding heroism outside the familiar boundaries of farmhands and prince's castles. Including original fiction from Nicolas Wilson, Carole McDonnell, Michelle Browne, Mags Carr, William Lenoire, Rachel Savage, Kirstin Pullioff, and Gail Villanueva, this collection goes where GRR Martin and Terry Brooks couldn't.
Views: 811

A Legend of Montrose

Of all the writers in the 19th century, the preeminent one was Sir Walter Scott, whose works were so beloved that he had an international fan base well before he died. The Scotsman is still considered one of the greatest writers of the English language, and his most famous and popular title is Ivanhoe, but he is also remembered for other works like The Lady of the Lake, Waverley, and The Bride of Lammermoor.
Views: 810

The Bride's Farewell

On the morning of her wedding, Pell Ridley creeps out of bed in the dark, kisses her sisters goodbye and flees — determined to escape a future that offers nothing but hard work and sorrow. She takes the only thing that truly belongs to her: Jack, a white horse, and small mute Bean who refuses to be left behind. The road ahead is rich with longing, silence and secrets, and each encounter leads her closer to the untold story of her past. Then Pell meets a hunter, infuriating, mysterious and cold. Will he help her to find what she seeks? With all the hallmarks of Meg Rosoff’s extraordinary writing, The Bride’s Farewell also breaks new ground for this author, in a nineteenth-century, Hardyesque setting. This is a moving story of love and lost things, with a core of deep, beautiful romance. From the Hardcover edition.
Views: 810

Aidenn: A Collection of Original Poems

A book filled with sixteen original poems ranging from love, breakup, independence and some occasional scary poems that will be great for Halloween. These poems are great for the performer in you as well!'Aidenn' is a collection of sixteen original poems. Ranging from heartbreak to love and even some scary ones perfect for Halloween. The inspiration for 'Aidenn' came from "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe and it's defined as 'Heaven' or 'Paradise' and although I am a writer, poetry has always been another form of Heaven for me. It keeps me calm and collected.
Views: 810

Sitting on the Other Side of Therapy

I am an Occupational Therapist. Twice, I have injured myself, giving me a different perspective of my profession. This is my account of sitting on the other side of therapy. I would like this book to serve as education on the importance of Occupational Therapy services.Somebody gets his computer home, takes it out the box, plugs in and sees if it will work. This is the start of the story. And it is one that so many people know from their own lives. Really, this story is one of record. And it is for so many people like the character in this book who got a computer home just like that.
Views: 810

Kusamakura

A stunning new translation—the first in more than forty years—of a major novel by the father of modern Japanese fiction Natsume Sōseki's Kusamakura follows its nameless young artist-narrator on a meandering walking tour of the mountains. At the inn at a hot spring resort, he has a series of mysterious encounters with Nami, the lovely young daughter of the establishment. Nami, or "beauty," is the center of this elegant novel, the still point around which the artist moves and the enigmatic subject of Sōseki's word painting. In the author's words, Kusamakura is "a haiku-style novel, that lives through beauty." Written at a time when Japan was opening its doors to the rest of the world, Kusamakura turns inward, to the pristine mountain idyll and the taciturn lyricism of its courtship scenes, enshrining the essence of old Japan in a work of enchanting literary nostalgia.
Views: 810

A Burnt-Out Case

When Querry, a world-famous architect, finds he no longer enjoys life or takes pleasure in art he sets off on a voyage. Arriving anonymously at a leper colony in the Congo, he is diagnosed as the mental equivalent of a 'burnt-out case', a leper mutilated by disease and amputation. Querry slowly moves towards a cure, his mind getting clearer as he works for the colony. However, in the heat of the tropics, no relationship with a married woman, however blameless, will ever be taken as innocent.
Views: 810

Transparent Things

"Transparent Things revolves around the four visits of the hero - sullen, gawky Hugh Person - to Switzerland... As a young publisher, Hugh is sent to interview R., falls in love with Armande on the way, wrests her, after multiple humiliations, from a grinning Scandinavian and returns to NY with his bride... Eight years later - following a murder, a period of madness and a brief imprisonment - Hugh makes a lone sentimental journey to wheedle out his past... The several strands of dream, memory, and time [are] set off against the literary theorizing of R. and, more centrally, against the world of observable objects." Martin Amis
Views: 810

Sun on the Rocks - The OOL Broderie

Teleoperator Clarity Nice investigates two wealthy women lured to marry each other within the Church headed by Cassandra Scafarel in Bahrain, the Church of the Holy Flower. Following indications of a conglomerate with ties to the kingdom, Clarity´s mission is to prevent the partly naked bridal union of the neophytes, who are debating who will be naked and who will wear the broderie wedding dress.Standing on a window-cleaning platform carrying a squeegee, Stevenson Garden Products teleoperator Clarity Nice and Colorado heiress Montana Sterley, investigate two wealthy women lured to join the All-Women Church of spiritual development headed by British expatriate Cassandra Scafarel in the kingdom of Bahrain, the Church of the Holy Flower. Both women investigated by Sensual Intelligence, Jenny Owens and Shalia Owell, have paid the steep Church membership access price of fifty thousand dollars, and Scafarel wants the two lovely single Board Members to get married to each other, one of them naked, the other wearing an intricate broderie mini dress, to vow their faith and fidelity to the Church´s symbol of affluence and beauty, the Rose of Levity.In exchange for becoming members of the Church and gaining access to the Rose of Levity´s practical spiritual knowledge, the two bridal neophytes must sign a power of attorney to Scafarel, leaving their Board of Director seats to the shrewd business woman after their wedding. Clarity´s mission is to prevent the marriage of both women, and return them, clothed or unclothed, to their human sexuality studies at University of Arizona, as per the indications of the Board of Directors of a powerful conglomerate, Owens & Owell, a group where both of the women have their Board seats, with ties to several ministries of the kingdom.
Views: 810

The Edge of Darkness

Tim LaHaye’s most exciting series ever, Babylon Rising, continues with this explosive new installment, including more revelations than ever before. In The Edge of Darkness, LaHaye reveals the meaning behind some of the most carefully guarded Biblical prophecies to expose a conspiracy with terrifying consequences for our modern world. This time Michael Murphy sets off in search of the Lost Temple of Dagon and the dark secrets of the strange god once worshipped by the ancient Philistines. His quest will lead to a final confrontation with an old enemy and uncover one of the Bible’s most feared warnings–a prophecy of false miracles, false messiahs, and ultimate evil that will be fulfilled in our time...and that not even Murphy can stop once it’s begun. Once again Tim LaHaye combines his unmatched insight into Biblical prophecy with his unique skills as a master storyteller to deliver a suspense thriller of nonstop action with a thought-provoking message for our troubled times. From the Hardcover edition.
Views: 809

The Great Stone Face, and Other Tales of the White Mountains

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
Views: 809

Traveling With Pomegranates

The New York Times–bestselling memoir of pilgrimage and metamorphosis by the author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings (Viking, January 2014) and her daughter Sue Monk Kidd has touched the hearts of millions of readers with her beloved novels and acclaimed nonfiction. Now, in this wise and engrossing dual memoir, she and her daughter, Ann, chronicle their travels together through Greece and France at a time when each was on a quest to redefine herself and rediscover each other. As Sue struggles to enlarge a vision of swarming bees into a novel, and Ann ponders the classic question of what to do with her life, this modern-day Demeter and Persephone explore an array of inspiring figures and sacred sites. They also give voice to that most protean of human connections: the bond of mothers and daughters.
Views: 809