• Home
  • Literature & Fiction

Difficult Loves

Tales of love and loneliness in which the author blends reality and illusion. “The quirkiness and grace of the writing, the originality of the imagination at work,...and a certain lovable nuttiness make this collection well worth reading” (Margaret Atwood). Translated by William Weaver, Peggy Wright, and Archibald Colquhoun. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
Views: 824

A Heart So White

A Heart so White is the breathtaking international bestseller and IMPAC Award-winning masterpiece by Javier Mar�as, whose highly-anticipated new novel The Infatuations is published in 2013. This Penguin Modern Classics edition features a new Introduction by Jonathan Coe. A Heart so White begins as, In the middle of a family lunch Teresa, just married, goes to the bathroom, unbuttons her blouse and shoots herself in the heart. What made her kill herself immediately after her honeymoon? Years later, this mystery fascinates the young newlywed Juan, whose father was married to Teresa before he married Juan's mother. As Juan edges closer to the truth, he begins to question his own relationships, and whether he really wants to know what happened. Haunting and unsettling, A Heart So White is a breathtaking portrayal of two generations, two marriages, the relentless power of the past and the terrible price of knowledge.
Views: 824

The Earth Is the Lord's

For Taylor Caldwell's legions of fans, this novel provides her usual wealth of historical detail and finely drawn characters. The book covers the early life of the great conqueror, focusing primarily on characters: his stern and indomitable mother, the cynical and outcast uncle who educates him, his manipulative wife Bortei, the boyhood friends who become his generals and paladins, and his blood brother Jamuga, who is both his dearest friend and bitterest enemy. Caldwell provides considerable rationale for Genghis Khan's later spectacular career of conquest. The novel draws a hugely colorful and very detailed portrait of life in Central Asia during the Middle Ages: from nomadic desert tribes, to wealthy and decadent cities like Samarkand, to the decaying empires of China. For lovers of colorful historical fiction, this book is quite a treat!
Views: 824

The Complete Ice Schooner

During the next ice age the schooner Ice Spirit sets sail to find the legendary city of New York. Plus two short stories set in the same world.
Views: 823

Song of The Moth

A haunting fairytale set in the Edwardian era. Everybody knows that to look on a goblin means the loss of your sanity. Francis' rather tedious visit to St.Paul's cathedral results in her taking a journey into the fairytale land of insanity; a place where goblins roam and fairies tremble.Fish Heads and Roses: The title reflects the strange fruit found within this anthology. We have the witch who swapped places with her cat and his life.The poetic story of a woman trapped in a Library, who is she?An orchestra of violins, cats and conspiracy, stories and poetry, combined into a soup of words by a group of writers converging and enjoying writing.All the writers who have contributed to this anthology would like to express their extreme gratitude to Viv Doyle. Viv has taken time out from her own work as an author to help us improve our writing skills, and to prepare our work for publication. We could not have done this without her. Thanks Viv.
Views: 822

Catherine, Called Birdy

Catherine, a spirited and inquisitive young woman of good family, narrates in diary form the story of her fourteenth year—the year 1290. A Newbery Honor Book.
Views: 821

True North

An epic tale that pits a son against the legacy of his family's desecration of the earth, and his own father's more personal violations, Jim Harrison's True North is a beautiful and moving novel that speaks to the territory in our hearts that calls us back to our roots. The scion of a family of wealthy timber barons, David Burkett has grown up with a father who is a malevolent force and a mother made vague and numb by alcohol and pills. He and his sister Cynthia, a firecracker who scandalizes the family at fourteen by taking up with the son of their Finnish-Native American gardener, are mostly left to make their own way. As David comes to adulthood-often guided and enlightened by the unforgettable, intractable, courageous women he loves-he realizes he must come to terms with his forefathers' rapacious destruction of the woods of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, as well as the working people who made their wealth possible. Jim Harrison has given us a family tragedy of betrayal, amends, and justice for the worst sins. True North is a bravura performance from one of our finest writers, accomplished with deep humanity, humor, and redemptive soul.
Views: 821

S Is for Space

S is for science fiction, spine-tingling, supernatural and sublime! S is for stories from a "Star Wilderness that stretched as far as eye and mind could see and imagine". Chrysalis Pillar of Fire Zero Hour The Man Time in Thy Flight The Pedestrian Hall and Farewell Invisible Boy Come into My Cellar The Million-Year Picnic The Screaming Woman The Smile Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed The Trolley The Flying Machine Icarus Montgolfier Wright
Views: 821

Commando Bats

Hera is angry with Zeus and the rest of the male gods. She takes their powers, and comes to Earth, handing them out to random old women, saying that the weakest have the most wisdom, and further warns them to prove her right! This tongue-in-cheek urban fantasy novelette by Sherwood Smith features old women, including one disabled, whose take on super-powers is different from the usual.
Views: 821

Dialogues With the Devil

From a #1 New York Times–bestselling author: Lucifer and the Archangel Michael debate the fate of humanity in the final nights before the apocalypse. Upon the end of days, Lucifer, the Fallen One, that Infernal of Infernals and Murderer of Hope, wonders if his Father will bother to raise another race after Armageddon. After all, he’ll only have to tempt them—again—to certain death. Their choice, not his. On God’s behalf, Archangel Michael responds. So begins a series of letters between two brothers, at once cordial and combative, about their purpose, their fears, their familial estrangement, and their Father’s great folly: the human race. Equally defensive, unrepentant, objective, and, for a time, amused, they challenge each other on science and spirituality, physical love and emotional love, the crucifixion and the crimes committed by man. They deliberate the virtues of empathy and vengeance, redemption and punishment, and the laws of the Bible versus its lies. Their civil discourse soon becomes a heated trial of wills. Based on a close reading of the Old and New Testaments, Dialogues with the Devil was conceived by author Taylor Caldwell “to give Lucifer his day in court.” A dramatic and insightful examination of family, morality, and faith, it is a singular work of fiction from “a wonderful storyteller” and one of twentieth-century America’s most popular and prolific authors (A. Scott Berg, National Book Award–winning author of Maxwell Perkins: Editor of Genius). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Taylor Caldwell including rare images from the author’s estate.
Views: 821

Tales From Watership Down

*Watership Down* was one of this century's best-loved works of imaginative literature. Now Richard Adams returns, to tell us what happened to the rabbits after their defeat of General Woundwort. *Tales From Watership Down* begins with some of the great folk stories well known to all rabbits. Then we listen in as Dandelion, the rabbits' master storyteller, relates the thrilling adventures experienced by El-ahrairah, the mythical rabbit hero, and his stalwart, Rabscuttle, during the long journey home after their terrible encounter with the Black Rabbit of Inlé (as narrated in *Watership Down*). Finally, in the principal part of the book, we are told eight enchanting stories about the rabbits of the Down - Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, and their companions - including the impact on the warren of the obsessive doe Flyairth, and the appointment of Hyzenthlay as a female Chief Rabbit and partner to Hazel. All listeners - the millions who remember *Watership Down* with the deepest affection, and also those for whom this volume will be their first encounter with the rabbits - will find these nineteen tales utterly compelling, the fruit of Richard Adams spellbinding narrative power and ability to conjure up a world that is at the same time both real and unreal.
Views: 820

Crazy Horse: A Life

Legends cloud the life of Crazy Horse, a seminal figure in American history but an enigma even to his own people in his own day. This superb biography looks back across more than 120 years at the life and death of this great Sioux warrior who became a reluctant leader at the Battle of Little Bighorn. With his uncanny gift for understanding the human psyche, Larry McMurtry animates the character of this remarkable figure, whose betrayal by white representatives of the U.S. government was a tragic turning point in the history of the West. A mythic figure puzzled over by generations of historians, Crazy Horse emerges from McMurtry’s sensitive portrait as the poignant hero of a long-since-vanished epoch.
Views: 820

A Swell-Looking Babe

It was supposed to be only a temporary job--something to pay the bills until Dusty could get his feet back on the ground and raise enough money for medical school. After all, there's nothing wrong with being a bellboy at a respectable hotel like the Manton--that is, until she came along. Marcia Hillis. The perfect woman. Beautiful. Experienced. Older and wiser. The only woman to ever measure up to that other her--the one whose painful rejection Dusty can't quite put from his mind. But while Dusty has designs on Marcia, Marcia has an agenda of her own. One that threatens to pull the Manton inside-out, use Dusty up for all he's worth and leave him reeling and on the run, the whole world at his heels. A richly-imagined crime narrative of the Oedipal and betrayal, A SWELL-LOOKING BABE is Thompson at his very best--a cornerstone in Thompson's enduring legacy as the Dimestore Dostoyevsky of American fiction.
Views: 820

Smoke Bellew

Original blue-gray cloth with decoration and lettering in black and yellow on spine and front cover, octavo, 385 pp. Frontispiece and 7 monochrome plates by P. J. Monahan. A Klondike tale. BAL 11939, Sisson/Martens page 48.
Views: 820

Noah's Compass

Liam Pennywell, who set out to be a philosopher and ended up teaching fifth grade, never much liked the job at that run-down private school, so early retirement doesn’t bother him. But he is troubled by his inability to remember anything about the first night that he moved into his new and spare condominium on the outskirts of Baltimore. All he knows when he wakes up the next day in the hospital is that his head is sore and bandaged. His effort to recover the moments of his life that have been stolen from him leads him on an unexpected detour. What he needs is someone who can do the remembering for him. What he gets is . . . well, something quite different.
Views: 820