"Hamill, a master raconteur, mines his own roots in this enchanting new anthology." ---New York TimesPete Hamill's collected stories about Brooklyn present a New York almost lost but not forgotten. They read like messages from a vanished age, brimming with nostalgia---for the world after the war, the days of the Dodgers and Giants, and even, for some, the years of Prohibition and the Depression.THE CHRISTMAS KID is vintage Hamill. Set in the borough where he was born and raised, it is a must-read for his many fans, for all who love New York, and for anyone who seeks to understand the world today through the lens of the world that once was. Views: 35
This is not the only one of Alec Waugh's novels in which he has described the agonies of a couple who are desperately in love but cannot marry, for it is a situation that he has himself lived through. But it is in this novel that he has drawn most specifically upon experiences he has only alluded to in other books. His protagonist is Gordon Carruthers, who was also the hero of The Loom of Youth, that then shocking and revelatory novel of public-school life. Now transformed into a globe-trotting writer, Carruthers falls in love with a beautiful American socialite, and eventually, while her husband is away, they begin an affair. For reasons that only gradually become clear, their situation seems to be a cul-de-sac, leading to a denouement that is both surprising and, paradoxically, the only possible one. So Lovers Dream is an autobiographical novel in more ways than one. Into it Waugh put not only his love affair but his home, his literary agent, the details of his... Views: 35
A brooding meditation on violence by a classic post-war Dutch writer who has drawn comparisons to Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut.A mesmerizing, dark meditation on the legacy of war. An interloper and opportunist makes a grand house his own in the chaos of a war-torn countryside, only to find himself involved with occupying forces and enraged locals. Views: 35
During the course of these stories Calvino toys with continuous creation, the transformation of matter, and the expanding and contracting reaches of space and time. His characters, made out of mathematical formulae and simple cellular structures, disport themselves among galaxies, experience the solidification of planets, move from aquatic to terrestrial existence, play games with hydrogen atoms, and have a love life. Calvino succeeds in relating complex scientific concepts to the ordinary reactions of common humanity. "A poignant, freewheeling account of Creation itself… [Calvino] raises imagination to its exponential maximum." – Paul West, Book World Italo Calvino's superb storytelling gifts earned him international renown and a reputation as "one of the world's best fabulists" (John Gardner, New York Times Book Review). Born in Cuba in 1923, Calvino was raised in Italy, where he lived most of his life. He died in Siena at the age of sixty-one. Views: 35
From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Orange Prize-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, come twelve dazzling stories in which she turns her penetrating eye on the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Nigeria and the West.In 'A Private Experience,' a medical student hides from a violent riot with a poor Muslim woman whose dignity and faith force her to confront the realities and fears she's been pushing away. In 'Tomorrow Is Too Far,' a woman unlocks the devastating secret that surrounds her brother's death. The young mother at the center of 'Imitation' finds her comfortable life threatened when she learns that her husband back in Lagos has moved his mistress into their home. And the title story depicts the choking loneliness of a Nigerian girl who moves to an America that turns out to be nothing like the country she expected; though falling in love brings her desires nearly within reach, a death in her homeland forces her to re-examine them.Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow and longing, this collection is a resounding confirmation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's prodigious storytelling powers. Views: 35
Alec Waugh, who served in the last war as a regular army officer, was recalled to his regiment in September 1939. After a few months of regimental duties he has filled a succession of Junior Staff appointment, with the B.E.F. in France, in London during the Blitz, with the M.E.F in Syria and Egypt and latterly with the Persia and Iraq command. This book is the narrative of his four years in khaki. It makes no attempt to be sensational, but the range and variety of those experiences have provided ample scope for that capacity to convey character, atmosphere and landscape which has made Alec Waugh so popular a novelist. Views: 35
A boy is trapped in a possessed car that has stalled in the path of an oncoming train. A girl is dragged into a crypt during a field trip to an eighteenth-century cemetery. A group of friends meet their fate after an unsettling visit with a backwoods psychic. And that's just the beginning.Celebrated author Vivian Vande Velde is at her spine-tingling best in this collection of thirteen scary stories, all of which take place on Halloween night. With tales that range from the disturbing to the downright gruesome, this is one collection that teens will want to read with the lights on . . . and the doors locked. Views: 35
Once again, Thomas Berger brings a satiric and irreverent perspective to the human experience, evoking a world that most dare not even imagine and effectively dismantling all existing definitions of sex and gender. Views: 35
ReviewNovel by Saul Bellow, published in 1975. The novel, which won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976, is a self-described "comic book about death," whose title character is modeled on the self-destructive lyric poet Delmore Schwartz. Charlie Citrine, an intellectual, middle-aged author of award-winning biographies and plays, contemplates two significant figures and philosophies in his life: Von Humboldt Fleisher, a dead poet who had been his mentor, and Rinaldo Cantabile, a very-much-alive minor mafioso who has been the bane of Humboldt's existence. Humboldt had taught Charlie that art is powerful and that one should be true to one's creative spirit. Rinaldo, Charlie's self-appointed financial adviser, has always urged Charlie to use his art to turn a profit. At the novel's end, Charlie has managed to set his own course. -- __Product DescriptionA chronicle of success and failure, this work is Bellow's tale of the writer's life in America. When Humboldt dies a failure in a seedy New York hotel, Charlie Citrine coping with the tribulations of his own success, begins to realize the significance of his own life. Views: 35
Vicki Bohanan is at it again, and this time she's sporting a whole new reputation. On the eve of preseason football, blackmail lands at her feet – and for a woman with an attitude the size of Texas, it's gonna take more than a pigskin to plug her pie-hole.Especially when the old reputation continues to nip at her like a never-ending hangover. A Texas Ranger, her undercover boss, and a patron affectionately dubbed 'Radioman' walk into the bar and keep Vicki's head whirling like a ride at the state fair. All she wants is to move back into her remodeled apartment to escape the madness. So when her Aussie model sometimes squeeze invites her to San Antonio for a shootout at the Alamo – cameras this time – Vicki saddles up for a ride.Then runs smackdab into an unexpected hitch by the name of Reginald von Braun. Reggie's got secrets hidden behind secrets, and someone else has discovered the truth. With blackmail in the bargain, Vicki must determine the culprit who has threatened to... Views: 35
The first time Christos Pateras laid eyes on Alysia, he promised he would make her his.Ten years later, Christos seized the chance to realize his vow: Alysia's father was offering his daughter's hand in marriage, in exchange for Christos's financial support. But on their wedding night, Christos discovered that though Alysia might be his bride by arrangement, she was not his willing wife.... Views: 35
Early in 2004, two writers and Red Sox fans, Stewart O’Nan and Stephen King, decided to chronicle the upcoming season, one of the most hotly anticipated in baseball history. They would sit together at Fenway. They would exchange emails. They would write about the games. And, as it happened, they would witness the greatest comeback ever in sports, and the first Red Sox championship in eighty-six years. What began as a Sox-filled summer like any other is now a fan’s notes for the ages. FB2Library.Elements.CiteItem FB2Library.Elements.CiteItem Views: 35
