Ten sharply observed, funny, and wise new stories from the best-selling author of Snow Falling on Cedars: stunning explorations of the mysteries of love and our complex desire for connection.
Ranging from youth to old age, the voices that inhabit Problems with People offer tender, unexpected, and always tightly focused accounts of our quest to understand each other, individually, and as part of a political and historical moment. These stories are shot through with tragedy—the long-ago loss of a young boyfriend, a son’s death at sea; poignant reflections upon cultural and personal circumstances—whether it is being Jewish, overweight and single, or a tourist in a history-haunted land; and paradigmatic questions about our sense of reality and belonging. Spanning diverse geographies—all across America, and in countries as distant as Nepal and South Africa—these stories showcase David Guterson’s signature gifts for characterization, psychological nuance, emotional and moral suspense, and evocations of small-town life and the natural world. They celebrate the ordinary yet brightening surprises that lurk within the dramas of our daily lives, as well as the return of a contemporary American master to the form that launched his astonishing literary career.
This eBook edition includes a Reading Group Guide. Views: 514
For the first time ever, the leader of the Viking Vampire Angels, Vikar Sigurdsson, has been talked into celebrating a traditional Christmas! The tree has been decorated, the gifts have been wrapped, and the stockings have been hung. And that's mistletoe, not cobwebs, hanging from the ceiling of the creepy castle full of vangels … really!
The icing on the vampire cookie comes when vangel Karl Mortensen rescues Faith Larson, a battered young waitress, from her abusive boyfriend and hides her in the castle amidst the Christmas chaos. But what Karl thought was a frail young teenager is actually a very tempting woman. And she thinks his fangs are sexy!
But a strange "Christmas visitor" at the castle and demon vampires up to their old tricks could threaten the budding romance between Karl and Faith. It's an impossible match—a human and a vangel—but Christmas is a time for magic.
Karl and Faith don't stand a chance … Views: 514
Gabriel's father, a washed-up rock musician, has been chucked out of the house. His mother works nights in a pub and sleeps days. Navigating his way through the shattered world of his parents' generation, Gabriel dreams of being an artist. He finds solace and guidance through a mysterious connection to his deceased twin brother, Archie, and his own knack for producing real objects simply by drawing them.
A chance visit with mega-millionaire rock star Lester Jones, his father's former band mate, provides Gabriel with the means to heal the rift within his family. Kureishi portrays Gabriels' naive hope and artistic aspirations with the same insight and searing honesty that he brought to the Indian-Anglo experience in The Buddha of Suburbia and to infidelity in Intimacy. Gabriel's Gift is a humorous and tender meditation on failure, redemption, the nature of talent, the power of imagination--and a generation that never wanted to grow up, seen through the eyes of their children. Views: 514
When an unexpected inheritance elevates her family to the ranks of the aristocracy, Amelia Hathaway discovers that tending to her younger sisters and wayward brother was easy compared to navigating the intricacies of the ton. Even more challenging: the attraction she feels for the tall, dark, and dangerously handsome Cam Rohan.
Wealthy beyond most men’s dreams, Cam has tired of society’s petty restrictions and longs to return to his “uncivilized” Gypsy roots. When the delectable Amelia appeals to him for help, he intends to offer only friendship—but intentions are no match for the desire that blindsides them both. But can a man who spurns tradition be tempted into that most time-honored arrangement: marriage? Life in London society is about to get a whole lot hotter... Views: 514
From africanfuturist luminary Okorafor comes a new science fiction novel of intense action and thoughtful rumination on biotechnology, destiny, and humanity in a near-future Nigeria.Anwuli Okwudili prefers to be called AO. To her, these initials have always stood for Artificial Organism. AO has never really felt...natural, and that's putting it lightly. Her parents spent most of the days before she was born praying for her peaceful passing because even in-utero she was "wrong". But she lived. Then came the car accident years later that crippled her even further. Yet instead of viewing her strange body the way the world views it, as freakish, unnatural, even the work of the devil, AO embraces all that she is: A woman with a ton of major and necessary body augmentations. And then one day she goes to her local market and everything goes wrong.Once on the run, she meets a Fulani herdsman named DNA and the race against time across the deserts of Northern Nigeria begins.... Views: 514
A long lost letter arrives in the post and Edie Burchill finds herself on a journey to Milderhurst Castle, a great but moldering old house, where the Blythe spinsters live and where her mother was billeted 50 years before as a 13 year old child during WWII. The elder Blythe sisters are twins and have spent most of their lives looking after the third and youngest sister, Juniper, who hasn’t been the same since her fiance jilted her in 1941.
Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother’s past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Milderhurst, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in ‘the distant hours’ of the past has been waiting a long time for someone to find it.
Morton once again enthralls readers with an atmospheric story featuring unforgettable characters beset by love and circumstance and haunted by memory, that reminds us of the rich power of storytelling. Views: 514
There's only one thing Vampire Queen Betsy Taylor hates more than the threat of hosting a traditional Thanksgiving dinner (after all, how traditional is her family?), and that's trying to get through the Book of the Dead without going insane. Every time she's tried reading it, she just gets blindsided - until this time, when the devil strikes a bargain. She offers Betsy a chance to get through the cursed (literally!) thing cover to cover and finally discover all its mysteries. There's just one teensy little catch. Betsy and her half sister, Laura, have to go to Hell. Just long enough for Laura to finally embrace her dark heritage (after a rebellious youth of charity work and teaching Sunday school) and make nice with her mother, aka Lucifer, by picking up such skills as slicing through time and the universe with a hellfire sword. While such things might sound fun, time travel is proving to be an alarming journey for Betsy and Laura. Not only are they interacting firsthand with their own family's past, but in doing so, they're dangerously impacting the future in ways they never anticipated. Of course, that's what Mother wanted all along. Damn her. Views: 514
This unusual epic from the Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz portrays five generations of one sprawling family against the upheavals of two centuries of modern Egyptian history.Set in Cairo, Morning and Evening Talk traces three related families from the arrival of Napoleon to the 1980s, through short character sketches arranged in alphabetical order. This highly experimental device produces a kind of biographical dictionary, whose individual entries come together to paint a vivid portrait of life in Cairo from a range of perspectives. The characters include representatives of every class and human type and as the intricate family saga unfolds, a powerful picture of a society in transition emerges. This is a tale of change and continuity, of the death of a traditional way of life and the road to independence and beyond, seen through the eyes of Egypt's citizens. Naguib Mahfouz's last chronicle of Cairo is both an elegy to a bygone era and a tribute to the Egyptian spirit.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 513
The Sorrows of an American is a soaring feat of storytelling about the immigrant experience and the ghosts that haunt families from one generation to anotherWhen Erik Davidsen and his sister, Inga, find a disturbing note from an unknown woman among their dead father's papers, they believe he may be implicated in a mysterious death. The Sorrows of an American tells the story of the Davidsen family as brother and sister uncover its secrets and unbandage its wounds in the year following their father's funeral.Returning to New York from Minnesota, the grieving siblings continue to pursue the mystery behind the note. While Erik's fascination with his new tenants and emotional vulnerability to his psychiatric patients threaten to overwhelm him, Inga is confronted by a hostile journalist who seems to know a secret connected to her dead husband, a famous novelist. As each new mystery unfolds, Erik begins to inhabit his emotionally hidden father's... Views: 513
War has spread from the borders of India to the forests in the very heart of the country. Combining brilliant analysis and reportage by one of India's iconic writers, Broken Republic examines the nature of progress and development in the emerging global superpower, and asks fundamental questions about modern civilization itself - in three incisive essays:Mr Chidambaram's War'The low, flat-topped hills of south Orissa have been home to the Dongria Kondh long before there was a country called India or a state called Orissa . . . 'Walking with the Comrades'The terse, typewritten note slipped under my door in a sealed envelope confirmed my appointment with "India's single biggest internal security challenge". I'd been waiting for months to hear from them . . . 'Trickledown Revolution'In the early morning hours of 2 July 2010, in the remote forests of Adilabad, the Andhra Pradesh State Police fired a bullet into the chest of a man called Cherukuri Rajkumar, known to his... Views: 513
This book is a thriller, its suspenseful, romantic, mysterious. It touches on many levels of friendship. There is the friendship of a mother and daughter, a man and a woman, women best friends and friendships that are acquired in the chat room. It is a page turner with many unexpected twists. This story paints a unique portrait of multilayered life lessons that unfold carrying a dark side.You never know about people. Human predictability is the singular thing that mathematicians and scientists cannot calculate with 100% accuracy. The human chemistry ebbs and flows from second to second where only one thing is certain, and that is unpredictability. Just as in one’s own decision making, where life’s twist and turns will eventually dictate your final decision, sometimes even when you know it is the wrong choice. The time an individual spends on earth is as small as a tiny pebble tumbling down the Grand Canyon. We should spend it as wisely as possible by measuring each day, hour, minute and second given to us. Life is a fleeting spirit and with each breath worthy of congratulations as it is given only by the grace of God. We must cherish it, and nurture every moment as our transitory time marches to an end. An end that man has been studying, writing songs, creating stories about and trying to beat, since the beginning of his existence.The tragedy of 9-11 changed many things for Americans that will never be the same. In the cloudy days soon thereafter, Carla King’s husband disappeared without a trace and she was left with their daughter to survive. After their divorce, she was living a mundane life one day at a time when one night while out with friends, she runs into Cutino Grigsby, her mister right. From the start, time spent with Cutino was adventurous and lustful, gregarious and fanciful free. They danced the Marengo on the Bay of Biscay and flew with the doves over mountains of joy. Their impromptu travels to faraway places and gifts from Cutino blinded her from any negative judgments about him. His physical appearance was striking and his confidence brought her security and made Carla take a note of admiration. But it is his deceit that teaches her the most, as her renaissance man will bring changes into her life that she never anticipates. She must hang on for the ride towards a crossroad of life which could land her in deep water, or even her demise. Views: 513
The squabbling Norse gods and goddesses of Runemarks are back! And there's a feisty new heroine on the scene: Maggie, a girl the same age as Maddy but brought up a world apart - literally, in World's End, the focus of the Order in which Maddy was raised. Now the Order is destroyed, Chaos is filling the vacuum left behind... and is breaching the everyday world.
A chilling prophecy from the Oracle. A conflict between two girls. And with just twelve days to stave off the Apocalypse, carnage is about to be unleashed . . . Views: 513
Fritz Tolm has risen to the most powerful position in Germany. With fame comes fear and vulnerability. Threats to his life are met with the all-pervasive “safety-net” of police protection and surveillance. Trapped in a house they dare not leave, where every visitor is suspect and every object a potential bomb, Tolm and his family wait to discover when and how terrorism will overtake them. Views: 513
