A firsthand account of the weird mysteries and horrors of voodoo. Tell My Horse is an invaluable resource and fascinating guide. Based on Zora Neale Hurston’s personal experience in Haiti and Jamaica, where she participated as an initiate rather than just an observer of voodoo practices during her visits in the 1930s, this travelogue into a dark world paints a vividly authentic picture of ceremonies and customs and superstitions of great cultural interest. Views: 754
A True Pessimist is a humorous short story by Alan Chains, writer of Return to Island X.When Little League baseball players take the field nothing else matters. Who you are and where you come from is cast aside when these young 10 - 13 year old ballplayers hear the umpire cry out, "Play Ball." Can a little talent, lots of guts, and a dose of baseball sense allow these young players to become a team and make it a season to remember?In this true to life story, a season of Little League baseball takes center stage in the lives of young 10 - 13 year old ball players. Michael cannot wait for the first game to begin but he recognizes some festering tension. Their ace pitcher has a fastball that sings, yet Carlos the catcher and Jake the right fielder want to clash when they should be clicking. What will it take for these young baseball players to set aside their differences? Can they do it in time with the big game approaching?Young and courageous 10 -13 year old baseball players are taught valuable lessons in a magical summer that interjects into their personal lives the wonderful game called Little League baseball.In the intersection of their lives with the game of Little League baseball will they be able to take home the biggest prize of all? Views: 754
London, 1958: unassuming civil servant Thomas Foley is plucked from his desk at the Central Office of Information and sent on a six-month trip to Brussels. His task: to keep an eye on The Brittania, a brand new pub which will form the heart of the British presence at Expo 58 - the biggest World's Fair of the century, and the first to be held since the Second World War.
As soon as he arrives at the site, Thomas feels that he has escaped a repressed, backward-looking country and fallen headlong into an era of modernity and optimism. He is equally bewitched by the surreal, gigantic Atomium, which stands at the heart of this brave new world, and by Anneke, the lovely Flemish hostess who meets him off his plane. But Thomas's new-found sense of freedom comes at a price: the Cold War is at its height, the mischievous Belgians have placed the American and Soviet pavilions right next to each other - and why is he being followed everywhere by two mysterious emissaries of the British Secret Service? Expo 58 may represent a glittering future, both for Europe and for Thomas himself, but he will soon be forced to decide where his public and private loyaties really lie.
Narrated by: Julian Rhind-Tutt
Length: 9 hrs Views: 754
John Amherst, the reform-minded assistant manager at the Hanaford textile mills, meets trained nurse Justine Brent at the hospital bedside of Dillon, an injured mill worker. The two agree Dillon would be better off dead if he is deprived of his occupation, a conversation that unites them in their approval of euthanasia sets the action of the novel in motion. Views: 753
Realising that his New Year is probably going to be a disaster, as usual, our narrator, on impulse, walks into a travel agency to book a week in the sun. Sensitive to his limited means and dislike of Muslim countries, the travel agent suggests an island full of 21st century hedonism, set in a bizarre lunar landscape - Lanzarote.
On Lanzarote, one can meet some fascinating human specimens, notably Pam and Barbara - 'non-exclusive' German lesbians - who can give rise to some interesting combinations. Will they succeed in seducing Rudi, the police inspector from Luxembourg, currently living in exile in Brussels? Or will he join the 'Azraelian' sect, as they prepare for humanity to be regenerated by extra-terrestrials? As for our narrator, will he consider his week's holiday on the island a success? Views: 753
A quirky collection of seven short short stories of about 1000 words. Strange with dusting of sci-fi, these quick reads offer a brief escape into imaginary worlds with absurdity, excitement, and possibly a laugh. Or two. Three's a stretch. Warning: If a woman named “Aunty Ida” approaches you and offers a solution to your problem, doctors recommend running. Quickly.A quirky collection of seven short short stories, each about 1000 words or so. All strange with a light dusting of sci-fi, these quick reads offer a brief escape into imaginary worlds with fun, excitement, and possibly a laugh. Or two. Three might be a stretch. Warning: If a woman calling herself “Aunty Ida” approaches you and offers a solution to your problem, doctors recommend running. Quickly. Whatever direction she’s not in.Caution: Don’t try any of the proposed solutions at home, as they’ve been found to be scientifically absurd.Note: Imaginary animals may or may not exist. How should we know? Views: 753
A million-plus-copy best seller in Korea—a magnificent English-language debut poised to become an international sensation—this is the stunning, deeply moving story of a family’s search for their mother, who goes missing one afternoon amid the crowds of the Seoul Station subway.
Told through the piercing voices and urgent perspectives of a daughter, son, husband, and mother, Please Look After Mom is at once an authentic picture of contemporary life in Korea and a universal story of family love.
You will never think of your mother the same way again after you read this book.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 753
The eleventh title in this best-selling series brings Hoole to kingship and the legends to fulfilment signaling a return to the adventures of Coryn, Soren and the Band.
In this final book of the Legends trilogy Hoole reclaims the thrown of his father and goes on to wage a war against the forces of chaos, greed and oppression led by the powerful warlord-tyrants. Grank, the first collier, uses his skills with fire and metals to forge weapons for battle. With great trepidation Hoole uses the power of the Ember in the final, decisive battle and wins. At the dawn of a new ear of peace, Hoole searches for the ideal place to establish not a kingdom but an order of free owls and finds the Great Tree. (continued)
Book Details: Format: Paperback Publication Date: 10/1/2006 Pages: 206 Reading Level: Age 8 and Up Views: 752
In this follow-up to Bech: A Book, Henry Bech, the priapic, peripatetic, and unproductive Jewish American novelist, returns with seven more chapters from his mock-heroic life. He turns fifty in a confusing blend of civic and erotic circumstances while publicizing himself in Australia and Canada. He marries a shiksa and travels with her to Israel, where she falls in love with the land, and to Scotland, where he does. And—sweating buckets! thinking big! minting miracles!—he writes an ingeniously tawdry bestseller. Bech’s aesthetic and moral embarrassments reveal acid truths about both his trade and our times.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 752
From his early days Wodehouse adored cricket and references to the game run like a golden thread though his writings. He not only wrote about this glorious British pastime, but also played it well, appearing six times at Lords, where his first captain was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Illustrated with wonderful drawings and contemporary score-sheets, Wodehouse at the Wicket is the first ever compendium of Wodehouse's writings on cricket. Edited by cricket historian Murray Hedgcock, this delightful book also contains fascinating facts about Wodehouse's cricketing career and how it is reflected in his work.
This is the perfect gift for Wodehouse readers and fans of all things cricket. Views: 752
With this new collection, George Saunders takes us even further into the shocking, uproarious and oddly familiar landscape of his imagination.
The stories in Pastoralia are set in a slightly skewed version of America, where elements of contemporary life have been merged, twisted, and amplified, casting their absurdity-and our humanity-in a startling new light. Whether he writes a gothic morality tale in which a male exotic dancer is haunted by his maiden aunt from beyond the grave, or about a self-help guru who tells his followers his mission is to discover who's been "crapping in your oatmeal," Saunders's stories are both indelibly strange and vividly real. Views: 751
Paul Auster has earned international praise for the imaginative power of his many novels, including The New York Trilogy, Moon Palace, The Music of Chance, Mr. Vertigo, and Timbuktu. He has also published a number of highly original non-fiction works: The Invention of Solitude, Hand to Mouth, and The Art of Hunger. In The Red Notebook, Auster again explores events from the real world large and small, tragic and comic—that reveal the unpredictable, shifting nature of human experience. A burnt onion pie, a wrong number, a young boy struck by lightning, a man falling off a roof, a scrap of paper discovered in a Paris hotel room—all these form the context for a singular kind of ars poetica, a literary manifesto without theory, cast in the irreducible forms of pure story telling. Views: 751
Since his debut in 1955, Tom Ripley has evolved into the ultimate bad boy sociopath, influencing countless novelists and filmmakers. In this first novel, we are introduced to suave, handsome Tom Ripley: a young striver, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan in the 1950s. A product of a broken home, branded a "sissy" by his dismissive Aunt Dottie, Ripley becomes enamored of the moneyed world of his new friend, Dickie Greenleaf. This fondness turns obsessive when Ripley is sent to Italy to bring back his libertine pal but grows enraged by Dickie's ambivalent feelings for Marge, a charming American dilettante. A dark reworking of Henry James's The Ambassadors, The Talented Mr. Ripley—is up to his tricks in a 90s film and also Rene Clement's 60s film, "Purple Noon." Views: 751
That Affair at Elizabeth by Burton Egbert Stevenson Views: 751
