From the winner of the Man Booker Prize. The collected short pieces of nonfiction from one of Australia's best novelists.
‘And what do you do, Mr Faulkner?' asked Clark Gable after being introduced to William Faulkner at a party.
‘I write,' replied Faulkner.
‘And what do you do, Mr Gable?'
Over the years, Richard Flanagan's non-fiction has gained a major reputation.
Gathered here in this updated edition are the best of his writings on everything from directing film to a near fatal kayak trip, from Jorge Luis Borges to baking bread. Included is his celebrated Perth Writers' Festival closing address on love stories and the murder of Reza Barati, along with his famous essay on Gunns that set in train the end of the woodchipping giant. Views: 1 039
At the Wings & Co. Fairy Detective Agency, Emily Vole and her friends are beginning to worry. It's been five months since their official opening, and they haven't had a single case! Then local landowner Sir Walter Cross dies in sudden and mysterious circumstances, and his case arrives right on their doorstep. And soon the detectives hear more baffling news: Mr. Rollo the tailor has mysteriously lost everything, and Pan Smith's wedding plans have been ruined the night before her big day. Now Wings & Co. has not one, but three pickled herrings to solve! Can they figure out who is stealing people's luck before things go too far? Views: 1 039
With over 10 million copies sold, bestselling author Robert James Waller returns with the haunting, evocative story of a small town, a beautiful and mysterious woman, and the man forever changed by both.
The wild places are where no one is looking anymore. Out there on the high plains, among the Sioux reservations and the silent buttes, among the small towns dying and the people with them, you can hear the wind. And on the back of the wind is the sound of an old accordion—tangos—mingling with the lonely thump of a single drum in the nighttime and a far-off warrior’s cry. On the back of the wind is the smell of worn saddle leather and sawdust, of sandalwood, and smoke from ancient ceremonial fires. To this, to a town called Salamander, comes Carlisle McMillan, a traveler and master carpenter seeking a place of quiet amid the grinding roar of progress. Near Wolf Butte, a strange and apparently haunted monolith, he finds his quiet, or so he believes, and begins rebuilding a decrepit house as a tribute to the gruff old man who taught him a carpenter’s skills, rebuilding his life at the same time.
He finds two very different, independent women: Gally Deveraux, who works at a diner in Salamander and longs for something more than she is, and Susanna Benteen, beautiful and enigmatic, who was drawn to Salamander for mysterious reasons of her own, a woman the town has labeled a witch. The women and his carpenter’s trade and an old Indian known as Flute Player bring Carlisle a sense of contentment for a while. But his quiet is shattered as bulldozer treads begin to turn and the Yerkes County War commences. Run or stand your ground, that is Carlisle’s dilemma, Gally on one side, Susanna on the other.
Robert James Waller’s fully imagined characters become people we know and care for deeply.
High Plains Tango is the hauntingly lyrical story of a small town in the middle of nowhere, a town that forever changed—and was forever changed by—one man.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 1 039
From the author of Bellefleur: A “psychologically incisive” glimpse into the mind of a deranged predator and the boy he abducts to be his son (Booklist).
Robbie Whitcomb is five years old when he’s taken from his mother in a mall parking lot. In her attempt to chase the kidnapper, she’s left badly injured and permanently disfigured. Such are the methods of the man who calls himself Daddy Love—a man known to the rest of the world as charismatic preacher Chester Cash.
For the next six years, Robbie is to be Daddy’s son. That means doing whatever Daddy says—and giving him whatever he wants. Soon Robbie learns to accept his new name, Gideon. He also learns that he is not the first of Daddy Love’s sons. And that each of the others, after reaching a certain age, was never seen again.
As Robbie’s mother recovers from her wounds, her life and marriage are a daily struggle. But as years go by, she maintains a flicker of hope that her son is still alive. Meanwhile, Robbie approaches the “bittersweet age” with no illusions about his fate. But somewhere within this tortured child lies a spark of rebellion. And he knows all too well what survival requires.
“After all these years, Joyce Carol Oates can still give me the creeps.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
“A lean and disturbing tale that reverberates after its ending.” —The Columbus Dispatch
“Oates makes us squirm as she forces us to see some of the action through Love’s twisted and warped perspective.” —Kirkus Reviews
“This unsettling tale showcases Oates’s masterful storytelling.” —Publishers Weekly Views: 1 038
Ariel was the second book of Sylvia Plath's poetry to be published, and was originally published in 1965, two years after her death by suicide. The poems in Ariel, with their free flowing images and characteristically menacing psychic landscapes, marked a dramatic turn from Plath's earlier Colossus poems. Views: 1 038
There is no rehearsal for true love.
When A-list film actor Ryan Christensen ducked into her pub to escape his screaming fans, never in a million years did Taryn Mitchell think her life was about to change forever. But now, eight months later, after a whirlwind romance, Taryn wakes up in Ryan’s Hollywood hotel room to find a diamond to die for on her left ring finger—and her face splashed across the cover of every gossip magazine.
Ryan’s very public proposal is catnip to the tabloids, his management team is worried, and Taryn must figure out how a small town girl like her fits into his glittering world. What does it take to make a relationship work amidst telephoto lenses, daily on-set temptations, and jealous fans who will stop at nothing to keep you from walking down the aisle with the man of your dreams?
With no script to follow and no chance for a dress rehearsal, Taryn and Ryan will be forced to take the plunge and risk everything to make their love last. Views: 1 038
London, the week before Christmas 2007. Over seven wintry days, we follow the lives of seven characters across the city, from a hedge fund manager to a Tube train driver. Above the complex patterns of modern urban life, the writing on the wall appears in letters ten feet high, but the characters refuse to see it . As the gripping climax looms, they are forced, one by one, to awake from their blinkered present to confront the true nature of the world they inhabit. Views: 1 038
Harry Roth is the bane of Alison shandling’s existence. He’s obnoxious and rude, and thinks nothing of taunting brainy Alison or making comments about her autistic twin brother. Alison tries to ignore him, but since she sees him at school and at synagogue, he’s hard to avoid. then Harry is injured in a diving accident and winds up in a wheelchair. Now Harry is vulnerable, too, and Alison finds herself inexplicably drawn to him. initially cautious, these unlikely companions begin to understand each other, and their relationship grows first into a friendship and then into something more. . . . Views: 1 037
'Tom Sharpe is in top form- outrageously funny- Left-wing academics, right-wing capitalists, true-blue country gentry, workers, peasants, police and lawyers - all take custard pies full in the face in this boisterous knockabout farce' The Listener
'A novelist who has broken out of the pack, established a wholly distinctive style- such a keen eye for the ridiculous and marvellous ability to puncture it' Scotsman
'An immense gift for social satire- the action is unflagging' Daily Telegraph
'There's almost no one funnier' Observer Views: 1 037
In City of Saints and Madmen, Jeff VanderMeer has reinvented the literature of the fantastic. You hold in your hands an invitation to a place unlike any you’ve ever visited–an invitation delivered by one of our most audacious and astonishing literary magicians.
City of elegance and squalor. Of religious fervor and wanton lusts. And everywhere, on the walls of courtyards and churches, an incandescent fungus of mysterious and ominous origin. In Ambergris, a would-be suitor discovers that a sunlit street can become a killing ground in the blink of an eye. An artist receives an invitation to a beheading–and finds himself enchanted. And a patient in a mental institution is convinced he’s made up a city called Ambergris, imagined its every last detail, and that he’s really from a place called Chicago.…
By turns sensuous and terrifying, filled with exotica and eroticism, this interwoven collection of stories, histories, and “eyewitness” reports invokes a universe within a puzzlebox where you can lose–and find–yourself again. Views: 1 037
1920 play. David Herbert Richards Lawrence (1885-1930) was a very important and controversial English writer of the 20th century, whose prolific and diverse output included novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, literary criticism and personal letters. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialisation. In them, Lawrence confronts issues relating to emotional health and vitality, spontaneity, sexuality, and instinctive behaviour. Lawrence's unsettling opinions earned him many enemies and he endured hardships, official persecution, censorship and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage." He is now generally valued as a visionary thinker and a significant representative of modernism in English literature. Views: 1 037
James Jones’s epic story of army life in the calm before Pearl Harbor—now with previously censored scenes and dialogue restored
At the Pearl Harbor army base in 1941, Robert E. Lee Prewitt is Uncle Sam’s finest bugler. A career soldier with no patience for army politics, Prewitt becomes incensed when a commander’s favorite wins the title of First Bugler. His indignation results in a transfer to an infantry unit whose commander is less interested in preparing for war than he is in boxing. But when Prewitt refuses to join the company team, the commander and his sergeant decide to make the bugler’s life hell.
An American classic now available with scenes and dialogue considered unfit for publication in the 1950s, From Here to Eternity is a stirring picture of army life in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of James Jones including rare photos from the author’s estate. Views: 1 036
When Scat comes up with the idea for the hottest new soda ever, he's sure he'll retire the next rich, savvy marketing success story. But in the treacherous waters of corporate America there are no sure things--and suddenly Scat has to save not only his idea but his yet-to-be-realized career. With the help of the scarily beautiful and brainy 6, he sets out on a mission to reclaim the fame and fortune that, time and again, eludes him. This brilliantly scathing debut is a hilarious send-up of celebrity, sexual politics, corporate America, and the fleeting status that comes with getting to the table first--before the other guy has you for lunch. Views: 1 036
From Mathew Pearl, the bestselling author of *The Dante Club, * a masterful tale of literature, obsession, and murder
The year is 1870. Five years after a series of Dante-inspired killings disrupted Boston, a man is found murdered in the public gardens of London with an enormous stone around his neck etched with a verse from the Divine Comedy. When more mysterious murders erupt across the city, all in the style of the punishments Dante memorialized in Purgatory, poet Christina Rossetti fears her brother, the Dante-obsessed artist and writer Gabriel Rossetti, will be the next victim.
Christina enlists poets Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson, and famous scholar Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, to assist in deciphering the literary clues. Together these unlikely investigators rush to unravel the secrets of Dante's verses in order to find Gabriel and stop the killings. Racing between the shimmering mansions of the elite and the dark corners of London's underworld, they descend further and further into the mystery. But when the true inspiration behind the gruesome murders is finally revealed, Christina realizes that the perpetrator has even bigger and more horrific plans than she had initially thought.
A dazzling tale of intrigue from the writer Library Journal calls "the reigning king of popular literary historical thrillers," The Dante Chamber is a riveting adventure across London and through Dante. Expertly blending fact and fiction, Pearl gives us a historical mystery like no other, captivating and enthralling until the last page. Views: 1 036
