Unfit for Love? Pregnant—by a man who will never know or care. Gloria, born into a life of prostitution, sees only one solution: get rid of the child. But then she meets John William MacGregan, a miner, left with a newborn daughter and no one to care for her when his wife died during childbirth. So John and Gloria strike a deal. Gloria will care for Kate, and John will eventually raise her son. There is no offer of, nor seeking for, a hand in marriage. When John leaves the mines to seek his fortune in the new Oregon Territory , Gloria, Kate, and baby Danny must go with him. Yanked away from a life of prostitution, Gloria must finally face the pain that has always plagued her, and her longings for a home, a family, and a life free from shame. Ten Thousand Charms is a beautiful tale of an empty heart floundering…and falling straight into the arms of Christ. A woman with no future. A man with no hope. A God who knows the key to their deepest need lies in each other… Views: 50
In the future, computers rule the world. The Net Force was formed to protect America from any and all criminal activity on-line. But there is a group of teenage whiz kids who sometines know more about computers than their adult superiors. They are the Net Force Explorers. They go where no one else can go. And they fight crime like no one else in the world… The virtual Dominion of Sarxos is the most popular wargame on the Net. Thousands flock nightly to log on and lead their fantasy armies into battle. But something sinister is going on. Some players' computers are destroyed by burglars. Another player is attacked and beaten. One thing is certain — someone in the Dominion of Sarxos is taking the game very seriously. Net Force Explorers Megan O'Malley and Leif Anderson are asked to investigate. They play the game. They know the world. But nothing can prepare them for the danger when the real game begins… Views: 50
This Hollywood director committed an unspeakable crime...or did he? Famous film director Wayne Tennet stands accused by his stepdaughter of crossing the line. Falsely, he swears. Now his life and career hang in the balance. But why would she lie? The darkest thriller of the year has an only-in-Hollywood twist you'll never see coming. BookShotsLIGHTNING-FAST STORIES BY JAMES PATTERSONNovels you can devour in a few hoursImpossible to stop readingAll original content from James Patterson Views: 50
At 13 years old, Adrian Mole has more than his fair share of problems—spots, ill-health, parents threatening to divorce, rejection of his poetry and much more—all recorded in his diary. Views: 50
Gaspard Winckler, master forger, is trapped in a basement studio on the outskirts of Paris, with his paymaster's blood on his hands. The motive for this murder? A perversion of artistic ambition. After a lifetime lived in the shadows, he has strayed too close to the sun.Fittingly for such an enigmatic writer, Portrait of a Man is both Perec's first novel and his last. Frustrated in his efforts to find a publisher, he put it aside, telling a friend: 'I'll go back to it in ten years when it'll turn into a masterpiece, or else I'll wait in my grave until one of my faithful exegetes comes across it in an old trunk.'An apt coda to one of the brightest literary careers of the twentieth century, it is—in the words of David Bellos, the 'faithful exegete' who brought it to light—'connected by a hundred threads to every part of the literary universe that Perec went on to create—but it's not like anything else that he wrote. Views: 50
In turn of the century Eastern Europe, a brother and sister have been chosen to guard an ancient cemetery of Jewish martyrs situated on an isolated mountain. The endless snows protect them from the pogroms and plagues that rage in the world below, but that same protective blanket cuts them off from their people and tradition. Escape—from loneliness, from wavering piety, and from the burgeoning desire they feel for one another—becomes impossible. A parable for our times, by the writer whom Irving Howe called "one of the best novelists alive," Unto the Soul lays bare the deepest stirrings of religious feeling and despair within the human soul. Views: 50
A provocative new novel from the bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and The Bonesetter's Daughter. On an ill-fated art expedition into the southern Shan state of Burma, eleven Americans leave their Floating Island Resort for a Christmas-morning tour-and disappear. Through twists of fate, curses, and just plain human error, they find themselves deep in the jungle, where they encounter a tribe awaiting the return of the leader and the mythical book of wisdom that will protect them from the ravages and destruction of the Myanmar military regime. Saving Fish from Drowning seduces the reader with a fagade of Buddhist illusions, magician's tricks, and light comedy, even as the absurd and picaresque spiral into a gripping morality tale about the consequences of intentions-both good and bad-and about the shared responsibility that individuals must accept for the actions of others. A pious man explained to his followers: "It is... Views: 50
A magnificent new collection from award-winning author Ann Beattie—featuring recent O. Henry, Pushcart, and Best American Short Story selections. Surprising and revealing, set along the East Coast from Maine to Key West, Ann Beattie’s astutely observed new collection explores unconventional friendships, frustrated loves, mortality, and aging. One theme of The Accomplished Guest is people paying visits or receiving visitors, traveling to see old friends, the joys and tolls of hosting company (and of being hosted). The occasion might be a wedding, a birthday, a reunion, an annual Christmas party, or another opportunity to gather and attempt to bond with biological relatives or chosen families. In some stories, as in life, what begins as a benign social event becomes a situation played for high stakes. The stories in The Accomplished Guest are marked by an undercurrent of loss and an unexpected element of violence, with Beattie’s signature mordant humor woven throughout. Some characters provide welcome diversions, others are uninvited interruptions, all are indelibly drawn by the endlessly amusing and accomplished Ann Beattie. Beattie’s debut collection Distortions was published forty years ago, but her writing is as fresh, funny, and relevant as ever. She is “a national treasure, the author of short stories that will endure and continue to inspire” (Jay McInerney, The New York Times Book Review).**Review“She punctures her characters’ pretensions and jadedness with an economy and effortless dialogue that writers have been trying to emulate for three decades, though few, if any, have matched her seamless combination of biting wit and mordant humor, precise irony and consummate cool.” –The New York Times Book Review “One of America’s finest authors—and arguably best living short-story writer.” –Heidi Julavits, Interview “In a Beattie story, perspective is preeminent, and it’s never one you expect. The unwieldiness of human nature, the strangeness of time and circumstance, inevitably shine through." --Megan O'Grady, Vogue “Ann Beattie slips into a short story as flawlessly as Audrey Hepburn wore a Givenchy gown.” --Hamilton Cain, O, The Oprah Magazine “She is brilliant at furnishing the precise level of niggling complexity that is tragicomically real.” –Joan Frank, The San Francisco Chronicle "The John Cheever of her generation, Beattie has long chronicled the emotional foibles of [the] upper-middle-class... with sharply chiseled wit; in these 13 new stories, travel or a visit of some sort is the common thread, mortality the common theme." (Kirkus Reviews) "Beattie’s stories capture the perplexity of people, lost in a world of terrorists and Kindles, as they make their way down what Beattie calls ‘the river of life’s confusion.’” (Publishers Weekly) "These gorgeously complicated, psychologically astute tales are catalyzed by holiday gatherings, weddings, birthday celebrations, and reunions, joyous occasions wildly derailed by divorce, sibling rivalry, generational clashes, financial disasters, violence, and medical emergencies. The directions in which these encounters veer are beyond unexpected, thanks to Beattie’s puckish imagination… Beattie’s profoundly intriguing and unsettling stories abound in delectably witty and furious inner monologues, barbed dialogue, ludicrous predicaments, many faceted heartaches, and abrupt upswellings of affection, even love... always on point, funny, and poignant." (Donna Seaman Booklist, STARRED review) About the Author
Ann Beattie has been included in four O. Henry Award Collections, in John Updike’s The Best American Short Stories of the Century, and in Jennifer Egan’s The Best American Short Stories 2014. In 2000, she received the PEN/Malamud Award for achievement in the short story. In 2005, she received the Rea Award for the Short Story. She was the Edgar Allan Poe Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia. She is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She and her husband, Lincoln Perry, live in Maine and Key West, Florida. Views: 50
