Lawrence Durrell's series of four novels set in Alexandria, Egypt during the 1940s. The lush and sensuous series consists of Justine(1957) Balthazar(1958) Mountolive(1958) Clea(1960).
Justine, Balthazar and Mountolive use varied viewpoints to relate a series of events in Alexandria before World War II. In Clea, the story continues into the years during the war.
One L.G. Darley is the primary observer of the events, which include events in the lives of those he loves and those he knows. In Justine, Darley attempts to recover from and put into perspective his recently ended affair with a woman. Balthazar reinterprets the romantic perspective he placed on the affair and its aftermath in Justine, in more philosophical and intellectual terms.
Mountolive tells a story minus interpretation, and Clea reveals Darley's healing, and coming to love another woman. Views: 710
In this boisterous story collection, mischief abounds in the quiet corners of the British Empire on which the sun never setsAs the overseer of the kitchen at the British embassy in Vulgaria, De Mandeville has begun to abuse his power. He subjects the King's guests to a blistering Madras curry, a French onion soup served without spoons, and a table so loaded with vegetation that the party can hardly see the food. But worst of all, he has begun to cook with garlic, that fragrant bulb so beloved by diplomats that it must be banned, lest foul breath cripple the Empire. De Mandeville is due for comeuppance, and no breath mint can save him now."If Garlic Be the Food of Love" is only the first story in this invaluable peek at life in British diplomatic circles. After the ninth, the reader will wonder not how the British Empire came apart, but how De Mandeville, Polk-Mowbray, and the King's other dips ever got it started in the first place. Views: 710
An extraordinary ghost story from a modern master, published just in time for Halloween. In the apartment of Oliver's old professor at Cambridge, there is a painting on the wall, a mysterious depiction of masked revelers at the Venice carnival. On this cold winter's night, the old professor has decided to reveal the painting's eerie secret. The dark art of the Venetian scene, instead of imitating life, has the power to entrap it. To stare into the painting is to play dangerously with the unseen demons it hides, and become the victim of its macabre beauty.
By the renowned storyteller Susan Hill--whose first ghost story, The Woman in Black, has run for eighteen years as a play in London's West End--here is a new take on a form that is fully classical and, in Hill's able hands, newly vital. The Man in the Picture is a haunting tale of loss, love, and the very basest fear of our beings. Views: 710
FIRSTLY: don’t touch the hands of your cuckoo-clock heart. SECONDLY: master your anger. THIRDLY: never, ever fall in love. For if you do, the hour hand will poke through your skin, your bones will shatter, and your heart will break once more.
Edinburgh, 1874. Born with a frozen heart, Jack is near death when his mother abandons him to the care of Dr. Madeleine—witch doctor, midwife, protector of orphans—who saves Jack by placing a cuckoo clock in his chest. And it is in her orphanage that Jack grows up among tear-filled flasks, eggs containing memories, and a man with a musical spine.
As Jack gets older, Dr. Madeleine warns him that his heart is too fragile for strong emotions: he must never, ever fall in love. And, of course, this is exactly what he does: on his tenth birthday and with head-over-heels abandon. The object of his ardor is Miss Acacia—a bespectacled young street performer with a soul-stirring voice. But now Jack’s life is doubly at risk—his heart is in danger and so is his safety after he injures the school bully in a fight for the affections of the beautiful singer.
Now begins a journey of escape and pursuit, from Edinburgh to Paris to Miss Acacia’s home in Andalusia. Mathias Malzieu’s The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart is a fantastical, wildly inventive tale of love and heartbreak—by turns poignant and funny—in which Jack finally learns the great joys, and ultimately the greater costs, of owning a fully formed heart. Views: 710
For seven generations, a member of the Gates family has been digging the same hole. If they ever reach the bottom, it could mean the end of the world.For seven generations, a member of the Gates family has been digging the same hole, drawn to the task by a force none of them can explain. What waits at the bottom of that hole could end the world. Loretta is the latest in the Gates bloodline, and having no children, she will be the last.Rusty Clemmons is home for his twentieth high school reunion. He is rethinking life and trying his best not to dwell on the past. He notices changes in his hometown of Southport, the strange behaviors, the odd smell. Others have noticed as well. It will take Rusty and a few old friends to figure out the problems with his hometown and the hole Loretta Gates is digging may have something in common. As the evil boils to the surface, Rusty must decide if he should help...or if he should run. Views: 710
We all have skeletons in our closets.
Doctor Erin Novak was only sixteen when she was accused of a crime she didn't commit. Since that moment, she has made it her life goal to pursue emergency medicine, pouring her heart and soul into assuring another innocent life isn’t lost to the hands of the wicked.
We all have secrets we've never shared.
Detective Adam Trent has lost control of everything, starting with losing his partner to a punk with a gun and then everything else to the crushing guilt. Now a member of the elite Auto Theft Task Force in Philadelphia, it's his job to be one step ahead of the criminals stealing expensive cars in the city. Too bad the television cameras keep getting in the way of his investigation.
We all have pasts that we can never escape.
A stolen car, a tragic chase, and a traffic stop crosses the fates of these two, tying them together in ways that are unimaginable. As their love and trust grows, so do the enemies that threaten their survival, testing the strength of their commitment. Can true love endure half-truths, past pains, and secrets never meant to be shared?
Some things are just out of our control.
Love Unscripted spin-off featuring Kyle Trent's older brother, Adam. Views: 710
Gee Whiz is a striking horse, and only part of that is because of his size. He is tall, but also graceful, yet his strides big but precise. At the same time, he keeps his eye on things, not as if he's suspicious, but as if he's curious.
When Abby is confronted with an onslaught of reminders of just how little of the world she has seen, she finds herself connecting with Gee Whiz's calm and curious nature, and his desire to know more. Her brother receives a draft notice to Vietnam, her friends return for the holidays with stories from their boarding school in Southern California, and the wise, lovable Brother Abner opens her eyes with tales of his many years spent traveling. At the same time, her beloved Jack and True Blue are both faced with opportunites to broaden their horizons away from the ranch.
Will she let them go, with hopes that she might one day do the same? Views: 710
Thirteen-year-old Simon Renier has no idea when he boards the M.S. Orion with his cousin Forsyth Phair that their journey to Venezuela will be a dangerous one. His original plan—to return a family heirloom, a portrait of Simon Bolivar, to its rightful place—is sidetracked when cousin Forsyth is found murdered. When the portrait is stolen, all passengers and crew are suspects. Simon's newfound friends, Poly and Charles O'Keefe, and their scientist father help Simon try to find his painting, and his cousin's murderer. But will they succeed before they land? Or will the murderer and thief escape into the jungles of Venezuela? Views: 709
For fans of Wolf Hall, Alison Weir’s New York Times bestselling biography of Henry VIII brilliantly brings to life the king, the court, and the fascinating men and women who vied for its pleasures and rewards.
BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Alison Weir’s Mary Boleyn.
Henry VIII, renowned for his command of power, celebrated for his intellect, presided over the most stylish—and dangerous—court in Renaissance Europe. Scheming cardinals vied for power with newly rich landowners and merchants, brilliant painters and architects introduced a new splendor into art and design, and each of Henry's six queens brought her own influence to bear upon the life of the court. In her new book, Alison Weir, author of the finest royal chronicles of our time, brings to vibrant life the turbulent, complex figure of Henry VIII and the glittering court he made his own.
In an age when a monarch's domestic and political lives were inextricably intertwined, a king as powerful and brilliant as Henry VIII exercised enormous sway over the laws, the customs, and the culture of his kingdom. Yet as Weir shows in this swift, vivid narrative, Henry's ministers, nobles, and wives were formidable figures in their own right, whose influence both enhanced and undermined the authority of the throne. On a grand stage rich in pageantry, intrigue, passion, and luxury, Weir records the many complex human dramas that swirled around Henry, while deftly weaving in an account of the intimate rituals and desires of England's ruling class—their sexual practices, feasts and sports, tastes in books and music, houses and gardens.
Stimulating and tumultuous, the court of Henry VIII attracted the finest minds and greatest beauties in Renaissance England—poets Wyatt and Surrey, the great portraitist Hans Holbein, "feasting ladies" like Elizabeth Blount and Elizabeth FitzWalter, the newly rich Boleyn family and the ancient aristocratic clans like the Howards and the Percies, along with the entourages and connections that came and went with each successive wife. The interactions between these individuals, and the terrible ends that befell so many of them, make Henry VIII: The King and His Court an absolutely spellbinding read.
Meticulous in historic detail, narrated with high style and grand drama, Alison Weir brilliantly brings to life the king, the court, and the fascinating men and women who vied for its pleasures and rewards.
NOTE: This edition does not contain illustrations. Views: 709
Sherman Alexie is one of our most gifted and accomplished storytellers and a treasured writer of huge national stature. His first novel in ten years is the hilarious and tragic portrait of an orphaned Indian boy who travels back and forth through time in a charged search for his true identity. With powerful and swift, prose, Flight follows this troubled foster teenager--a boy who is not a "legal" Indian because he was never claimed by his father--as he learns that violence is not the answer.
The journey for Flight's young hero begins as he's about to commit a massive act o violence. At the moment of decision, he finds himself shot back through time to resurface in the body of an FBI agent during the civil rights era, where he sees why "Hell is Re driver, Idaho, in the 1970s." Red River is only the first stop in an eye-opening trip through moments in American history. He will continue traveling back to inhabit the body of an Indian child during the battle at Little Bighorn and then ride with an Indian tracker in the nineteenth century before materializing as an airline pilot jetting through the skies today. During these furious travels through time, his refrain grows: "Who's to judge?" and "I don't understand humans." When finally, blessedly, our young warrior comes to rest again in his own life, he is mightily transformed by all he has seen.
This is Sherman Alexie at his most brilliant--making us laugh while he's breaking our hearts. Time Out has said that "Alexie, like his characters, is on a modern-day vision quest," and in Flight he seeks nothing less than an understanding of why human beings hate. Flight is irrepressible, fearless, and groundbreaking Alexie. Views: 709
An Iranian film directed by a familiar name reminds the author of one of her parents’ close friends, the director’s family, and how everybody’s lives, including hers, changed after the revolution.An Iranian film directed by a familiar name reminds the author of one of her parents’ close friends, the director’s family, and how everybody’s lives, including hers, changed after the revolution, the hostage crisis, and the Iran-Iraq war. She recalls the years she lived in the States and the transformation she went through, from being perceived as an exotic Persian girl whose father owned an oil well, to a dangerous I-rain-ian. Views: 709
A short flash fiction story of a poor man who only wanted to get down to his car in the ground level parking garage. His short trip should have never been this horrific.Jacob needed to get to his car in the ground level parking garage. The armful of wine bottles made that task a little more difficult than he ever expected coming from his high rise apartment. The after party awaited for him to bring the goods, and while he didn’t care for wine, he never knew his short trip would be this much of a terrible ride. Views: 709
It's 2109. BC - Bernard Campion - poses as a priest, but he's an assassin for the New catholic Church. His new assignment: Assassinate Meredith McEntyre, Governor of Lunar Prime, the non-aligned city-state on the Moon. BC tries to take care of his “business” during an out of control interplanetary War between the west and Islam. He doesn't know it yet, but BC's next move will change everything!The war between The Universal Trade Zone, the commercial power of Earth, and the UIN, the Universal Islamic Nation, based on Mars, continues. BC's bosses in the Office of Papal Operations - the OPO - say Luna Prime Governor McEntyre has been sympathizing with the enemy, the UIN. They can't let her give the Moon to them. That's where he comes in. BC works for the Pope, "officially" assigned as PR man to the Cardinal and the Vatican Mission on Luna Prime. Just a mild mannered, young, twenty-something priest working for the New catholic Church on public relations. But under his cover he's a weapon pointed at the UIN by the NcC and their Earth based allies, the UTZ. As he goes off, the repercussions will be cosmic... Views: 709
