Ask the Dust is the story of Arturo Bandini, a young writer in 1930s Los Angeles who falls hard for the elusive, mocking, unstable Camilla Lopez, a Mexican waitress. Struggling to survive, he perseveres until, at last, his first novel is published. But the bright light of success is extinguished when Camilla has a nervous breakdown and disappears . . . and Bandini forever rejects the writer's life he fought so hard to attain. Views: 969
Internationally bestselling author Stephen King delivers an astonishing collection of short stories.
Who but Stephen King would turn a Port-O-San into a slimy birth canal, or a roadside honky-tonk into a place for endless love? A book salesman with a grievance might pick up a mute hitchhiker, not knowing the silent man in the passenger seat listens altogether too well. Or an exercise routine on a stationary bicycle, begun to reduce bad cholesterol, might take its rider on a captivating—and then terrifying—journey. Set on a remote key in Florida, “The Gingerbread Girl” is a riveting tale featuring a young woman as vulnerable—and resourceful—as Audrey Hepburn’s character in Wait Until Dark. In “Ayana,” a blind girl works a miracle with a kiss and the touch of her hand. For King, the line between the living and the dead is often blurry, and the seams that hold our reality intact might tear apart at any moment. In one of the longer stories here, “N.,” which recently broke new ground when it was adapted as a graphic digital entertainment, a psychiatric patient’s irrational thinking might create an apocalyptic threat in the Maine countryside...or keep the world from falling victim to it.
Just After Sunset—call it dusk, call it twilight, it’s a time when human intercourse takes on an unnatural cast, when the imagination begins to reach for shadows as they dissipate to darkness and living daylight can be scared right out of you. It’s the perfect time for Stephen King.
The stories in this collection have appeared in The New Yorker, Playboy, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review, Esquire, and other publications. Views: 969
Tree, a six-foot-three-inch twelve-year-old, copes with his parents' recent divorce and his failure as an athlete by helping his grandfather, a Vietnam vet and recent amputee, and Sophie, a new girl at school. Views: 968
Oliver Barrett IV, a wealthy jock from a stuffy WASP family on his way to a Harvard degree and a career in law . . . Jenny Cavilleri, a sharp-tongued, working-class beauty studying music at Radcliffe . . .
Opposites in nearly every way, Oliver and Jenny are kindred spirits from vastly different worlds. Falling deeply and powerfully, their attraction to one another defies everything they have ever believed—as they share a passion far greater than anything they dreamed possible . . . and explore the wonder of a love that must end too soon.
One of the most adored novels of our time, this is the book that defined a generation—a story of uncompromising devotion, of life as it really is . . . and love that changes everything. Views: 968
Her marriage over, her life unraveling, writer Leila Landsman turns to work and finds herself drawn to the sensational story of Becky Burgess, a young woman accused of killing her husband with the help of her teenage lover. Becky thought she'd escaped the grim poverty of her childhood when she married up, but her husband was soon planning to trade her in for a newer model. And that's just what happened to Mary Burke, whose middle-class life ended with her divorce. Now Leila's housecleaner, Mary has a secret: she is homeless.
They are three very different women who share the same longings: to be seen for who they are, to be valued and loved, but most of all, to have a physical and emotional home that can't be taken away.... Views: 968
Betsy, Tacy, and Tib are twelve—old enough to do lots of things...even go downtown on their own. There they see their first horseless carriage, discover the joys of the public library, and see a real play at the Opera House. They even find themselves acting in one! Best of all, they help a lonely new friend feel at home in Deep Valley—the most wonderful place in the world to grow up. Ever since their first publication in the 1940s, the Betsy-Tacy stories have been loved by each generation of young readers. Views: 968
Bestselling author Gail Tsukiyama is known for her poignant, subtle insights into the most complicated of relationships. Dreaming Water is an exploration of two of the richest and most layered human connections that exist: mother and daughter and lifelong friends.
Hana is suffering from Werner's syndrome, a disease that makes a person age at twice the rate of a healthy individual: at thirty-eight Hana has the appearance of an eighty-year-old. Cate, her mother, is caring for her while struggling with her grief at losing her husband, Max, and with the knowledge that Hana's disease is getting worse by the day.
Hana and Cate's days are quiet and ordered. Cate escapes to her beloved garden and Hana reads and writes letters. Each find themselves drawn into their pasts, remembering the joyous and challenging events that have shaped them: spending the day at Max's favorite beach, overcoming their neighbors' prejudices that Max is Japanese-American and Cate is Italian-American, and coping with the heartbreak of discovering Hana's disease.
One of the great joys of Hana's life has been her relationship with her beautiful, successful best friend Laura. Laura has moved to New York from their hometown in California and has two daughters, Josephine and Camille. She has not been home in years and begs Hana to let her bring her daughters to meet her, feeling that Josephine, in particular, needs to have Hana in her life. Despite Hana's latest refusal, Laura decides to come anyway. When Laura's loud, energetic, and troubled world collides with Hana and Cate's daily routine, the story really begins.
Dreaming Water is about a mother's courage, a daughter's strength, and a friend's love. It is about the importance of human dignity and the importance of all the small moments that create a life worth living. Views: 967
Dear Avon Books,
Where are my heroes? Whenever I'm reading a book by one of my favorite authors I find I'm falling for the wrong guy -- not the hero, but the other man -- and what I really want is for him to have his own story.
Like Jake Linley, from Someone to Watch Over Me by Lisa Kleypas…that doctor could sit by my bedside if I ever got sick. And Ned Blydon in Splendid by Julia Quinn...he makes me want to learn to waltz! I never thought living in a drafty castle would be much fun until Simon of Ravenswood in Master of Desire by Kinley MacGregor came along.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that these are my men -- when do they get their stories?
Sincerely,
A Romance Fan
Some books are so special that there is more than one hero to love, but only a single story is told. So if you find yourself asking, "Where is my hero?" you'll discover the answer right here in this delicious collection by New York Times bestseller Lisa Kleypas, New York Times bestseller Julia Quinn and USA Today bestseller Kinley MacGregor. Views: 967
In a summer that refuses to end, in the deceiving warmth of earliest October, civil war has come to Green Town, Illinois. It is the age-old conflict: the young against the elderly, for control of the clock that ticks their lives ever forward. The first cap-pistol shot heard 'round the town is dead accurate, felling an old man in his tracks, compelling town elder and school board despot Mr. Calvin C. Quartermain to marshal his graying forces and declare total war on the assassin, thirteen-year-old Douglas Spaudling, and his downy-checked cohorts. Doug and his cronies, however, are most worthy adversaries who should not be underestimated, as they plan and execute daring campaigns-matching old Quartermain's experience and cunning with their youthful enthusiasm and devil-may-care determination to hold on forever to childhood's summer. Yet time must ultimately be the victor, with valuable revelations for those on both sides of the conflicts. And life waits in ambush to assail Doug Spaulding with its powerful mysteries-the irresistible ascent of manhood, the sweet surrender to a first kiss- Views: 967
Published as Comment c’est in French in 1961, and in Beckett’s English in 1964, How It Is divides into three equal parts and is composed throughout in brief unpunctuated paragraphs. These tell of a narrator crawling in darkness, repeating his life as he hears it, obscurely uttered by another voice. The telling is tirelessly explicit about the feelings that pervade this world, but fragmentary and vague about all else.
Together with Molloy, Samuel Beckett’s How It Is counts for many readers as his greatest novel. It is also his most innovative and challenging, both stylistically and for its extreme furthering of the vision of a self in reduced circumstances, inaugurated in his earlier sequence of novels (Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable). Views: 967
Chloe's older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can't be captured or caged. When a night with Ruby's friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers the dead body of her classmate London Hayes left floating in the reservoir, Chloe is sent away from town and away from Ruby.
But Ruby will do anything to get her sister back, and when Chloe returns to town two years later, deadly surprises await. As Chloe flirts with the truth that Ruby has hidden deeply away, the fragile line between life and death is redrawn by the complex bonds of sisterhood.
With palpable drama and delicious craft, Nova Ren Suma bursts onto the YA scene with the story that everyone will be talking about. Views: 967
Turgenev's first major prose work is a series of twenty-five Sketches: the observations and anecdotes of the author during his travels through Russia satisfying his passion for hunting. His album is filled with moving insights into the lives of those he acquaints with, peasants and landowners, doctors and bailiffs, neglected wives and bereft mothers each providing a glimpse of love, tragedy, courage and loss, and anticipating Turgenev's great later works such as First Love and Fathers and Sons. His depiction of the cruelty and arrogance of the ruling classes was considered subversive and led to his arrest and confinement to his estate, but these sketches opened the minds of contemporary readers to the plight of the peasantry and were even said to have led Tsar Alexander II to abolish serfdom. Views: 967
Lost City is a nerve-shredding NUMA Files novel from Clive Cussler, international bestseller.
Kurt Austin's toughest assignment yet...
The discovery of a body frozen for ninety years in a glacier high in the French Alps seems of unlikely concern to Kurt Austin and the NUMA Special Projects team. But when those on site are trapped in alpine tunnels flooding with glacial meltwater, Austin can hardly ignore a cry for help. And this near tragedy proves to be no mere accident. For the body held a secret. A secret someone was prepared to kill for.
Soon Austin is plunged into a mystery involving a virulent algal weed ravaging the Atlantic's Lost City trench, while he and the team face a family of astonishing greed - who will stop at nothing to get what they want ...
Clive Cussler, author of the best-selling Dirk Pitt novels Arctic Drift and The Treasure of Khan, and co-author Paul Kemprecos unravel a tangled web of conspiracy and greed in Lost City, the fifth novel of the action-packed NUMA Files series.
Praise for Clive Cussler:
'The Master is back...Cussler is in top form with this galloping tale of derring-do and world domination' Sunday Express
Bestselling author Clive Cussler has kept readers on the edges of their seats for four decades with his thrilling action novels. As well as the NUMA Files series there are also the Oregon Files, the Dirk Pitt stories (which started it all), the Isaac Bell adventures and the Fargo series. The other titles in the NUMA files series are: Serpent, Blue Gold, Fire Ice, White Death, Polar Shift, The Navigator, Medusa, Devil's Gate, and The Storm. Views: 967
Nick Hornby…Giles Smith…Helen Fielding…Roddy Doyle…Irvine Welsh…Zadie Smith…Dave Eggers…Robert Harris…Melissa Bank…Patrick Marber…Colin Firth…John O’FarrellCompiled by bestselling author Nick Hornby and featuring brand new stories from the hottest writers on both sides of the Atlantic, Speaking with the Angel is a fresh and funny collection that is sure to be the literary anthology of the year.
Here is a book that was inspired by a very special boy and a very special school. Some money from each copy of Speaking with the Angel sold will benefit autism education charities around the world, including The Treehouse School in London, where Nick’s son Danny is a student, and the New York Child Learning Institute here in the States. This project is truly a labor of love for Hornby and the other writers involved, many of whom are Nick’s friends.
These original first-person narratives come from the most exciting voices in fiction. Melissa Bank gives readers a glimpse into the mind of a modern New Yorker whose still-new relationship is a constant source of surprise in “The Wonder Spot.” In Zadie Smith’s “I’m the Only One,” a young man recalls his strained relationship with his diva-esque sister. Dave Egger’s “After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned,” is told from the viewpoint of an unfortunate pit bull. Helen Fielding offers up a new twist on I’ve fallen and I can’t get up in “Luckybitch.” And in Nick Hornby’s “NippleJesus,” a bruiser finds out that guarding modern art is far more hazardous than controlling the velvet ropes at a nightclub. Speaking with the Angel also includes stories from Roddy Doyle, Irvine Welsh, Colin Firth, John O’Farrell, Robert Harris, Patrick Marber, and Giles Smith.
Twelve completely new stories, written by twelve undeniably imaginative voices. Speaking with the Angel is at turns clever, outrageous, witty, edgy, tender, and wicked. This is what they meant by original. Views: 967
New York Times * Bestseller: A magnificent novel of ancient Rome and the tragic life of Cicero*, who tried in vain to save the republic he loved from tyranny.
In this riveting tale, the Roman Empire in its final glory is seen through the eyes of philosopher, orator, and political theorist Marcus Tullius Cicero.
From his birth in 106 BC in the hill town of Arpinum, Cicero, the educated son of a wealthy member of the equestrian order, is destined for greatness. At a young age, he discovers the legend of the Unknown God, the coming Messiah, and it propels the rising lawyer on a journey of spiritual conflict and self-discovery. From his tumultuous family life to his tenuous alliance with Julius Caesar to a fateful love affair with the Roman empress Livia and, finally, to the political role that will make him a target of powerful enemies, A Pillar of Iron is the story of Cicero’s legacy as one the greatest influences on Western civilization.
Based on hundreds of speeches, voluminous private correspondence, and ancient texts and manuscripts, this bestselling epic brings into focus Cicero’s complicated relationships with his contemporaries, including Caesar, Mark Antony, and Crassus, and brilliantly captures the pageantry, turmoil, and intrigue of life in ancient Rome. According to legendary editor Maxwell Perkins, author “Taylor Caldwell is a storyteller first, last and foremost, and once you begin reading one of her books, you can’t help finishing it.”
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Taylor Caldwell including rare images from the author’s estate. Views: 967
