After abandoning a life full of deception and mistrust, fifteen-year-old Cadel has finally found his niche. He has a proper home, good friends and loving parents. He's even studying at university.
But he's still not safe from Prosper English, who's now a fugitive from justice and determined to smash everything that Cadel has struggled to build. When Cadel's nearest and dearest are threatened, he must launch an all-out attack on the man he once viewed as his father.
Can he track down Prosper before it's too late? And what rules will he have to break in the process? Views: 479
Sometimes the night of your dreams can be a total nightmare.
The prom. It's supposed to be one of the best nights of your life. Or, at least, you're supposed to have a good time. But what if you'd rather be going with your best friend's date than your own? What if a sinister underground society of students has spiked the punch? What if your date turns out to be more of a frog than a prince? Or what if he's (literally) an ape?
There are ways you can fight it. You can protest the silliness of the regular prom by hosting a backwards prom - also known as a morp. You can throw a prom for fat girls. You can stay at home to watch old teen movies and get your cute neighbor and his cuter brother to join you. You can dance to your own music.
Here, 21 of the funniest, most imaginative writers today create their own kind of prom stories. Some are triumphs. Some are disasters. But each one is a night you'll never forget. Views: 479
A Fairy Tale of New York is a funny, lusty, and sad novel of comic genius. Returning from study abroad, Cornelius Christian enters customs with his luggage and his dead wife. His first encounter in New York is with a funeral director, with whom he reluctantly takes employment to pay for the burial expenses. In the course of his duties he meets the beautiful Fanny Sourpuss over her millionaire husband's dead body. However, his over-enthusiastic handling of his first corpse lands him in court. Cornelius Christian wanders through the great sad cathedral that is New York, examining the human condition in all its comic pathos and lonely absurdity. Whether lingering in the Automat drinking from half empty coffee cups and stealing baked beans from the plates of customers who go looking for ketchup, or finding love on a street corner only to end up fighting his way out of a hooker's fists, Cornelius Christian, heroic anti-hero, sings of life's goodness in the wake of disaster. Views: 479
Power of the Sword is the story of an intense sibling rivalry in war-torn South Africa from bestselling author, Wilbur Smith.They were half-brothers, raised in different worlds in the same country, and destined to be lifelong enemies. Manfred De La Ray and Shasa Courtney, sons of Centaine de Thiry, were blood enemies from their very first boyhood encounter. Caught up in the tumult of South Africa's history through two decades, they found themselves adversaries in an age-old war of savagery to seize the sword of power in their land. This astonishing story sweeps from the teeming goldfields of the highland to the secret citadels of Afrikaaner power, from the clamouring stadiums of Hitler's Berlin Olympics to the raging war over Abyssinia. Views: 479
Jean Serjeant, the heroine of Julian Barnes's wonderfully provocative novel, seems ordinary, but has an extraordinary disdain for wisdom. And as Barnes follows her from her childhood in the 1920s to her flight into the sun in the year 2021, he confronts readers with the fruits of her relentless curiosity: pilgrimages to China and the Grand Canyon; a catalog of 1940s sexual euphemisms; and a glimpse of technology in the twenty-first century (when The Absolute Truth can be universally accessed). Views: 478
Great American humorist James Thurber's beloved and madcap fairy tale about an island society robbed of the wonders of the letter O—in a stunning Deluxe Edition featuring the original, full-color illustrations Littlejack has a map that indicates the existence of a treasure on a far and lonely island, and Black has a ship to get there. So the two bad men team up and sail off on Black's vessel, the Aeiu. The name, Black explains, is all the vowels except for O—which he hates since his mother got wedged in a porthole: They couldn't pull her in, so they had to push her out. Black and Littlejack arrive at the port and demand the treasure. No one knows anything about it, so they have their henchmen ransack the place—to no avail. But Black has a better idea: He will take over the island and purge it of O. The harsh limits of a life sans O (where shoe is she and woe is we) and how finally with a little luck and lots of pluck the islanders... Views: 478
A haunting novel about identity, love, and loss by the author of *Three Day Road*
Will Bird is a legendary Cree bush pilot, now lying in a coma in a hospital in his hometown of Moose Factory, Ontario. His niece Annie Bird, beautiful and self-reliant, has returned from her own perilous journey to sit beside his bed. Broken in different ways, the two take silent communion in their unspoken kinship, and the story that unfolds is rife with heartbreak, fierce love, ancient blood feuds, mysterious disappearances, fires, plane crashes, murders, and the bonds that hold a family, and a people, together. As Will and Annie reveal their secrets-the tragic betrayal that cost Will his family, Annie's desperate search for her missing sister, the famous model Suzanne-a remarkable saga of resilience and destiny takes shape. From the dangerous bush country of upper Canada to the drug-fueled glamour of the Manhattan club scene, Joseph Boyden tracks his characters with a keen eye for the telling detail and a rare empathy for the empty places concealed within the heart. Sure to appeal to readers of Louise Erdrich and Jim Harrison, Through Black Spruce establishes Boyden as a writer of startling originality and uncommon power. Views: 478
Even God stays away from the village of BETHANY'S SIN.
For Evan Reid, his wife Kay, and their small daughter Laurie, the beautiful house in the small village was too good a bargain to pass up. Bethany's Sin was a weird name, but the village was quaint and far from the noise and pollution of the city.
But Bethany's Sin was too quiet. There were no sounds at all...almost as if the night had been frightened into silence.
Evan began to notice that there were very few men in the village, and that most of them were crippled. And then there was the sound of galloping horses. Women on horses. Riding in the night.
Soon he would learn their superhuman secret. And soon he would watch in terror as first his wife, then his daughter, entered their sinister cabal.
An ancient evil rejoiced in Bethany's Sin. A horror that happened only at night...and only to men. Views: 478
Set in the closing years of the nineteenth century, The Half-Hearted tells the story of Lewis Haystoun, a dilettante and coward. At a Scottish country house party hosted by Lady Manorwater, Lewis falls for Alice Wishart, one of the guests. Lewis answers the call to adventure finally and sets off to Kashmir in search of \'success, enterprise, new lands and faces\' Views: 478
Spanning the 20th century Ami McKay takes a primitive and superstitious rural community in Nova Scotia and creates a rich tableau of characters to tell the story of childbirth from its most secretive early practices to modern maternity as we know it. Epic and enchanting, 'The Birth House' is a gripping saga about a midwife's struggles in the wilds of Nova Scotia. As a child in the small village of Scot's Bay, Dora Rare -- the first female in five generations of Rares -- is befriended by Miss Babineau, an elderly midwife with a kitchen filled with folk remedies and a talent for telling tales. Dora becomes her apprentice at the outset of World War I, and together they help women through difficult births, unwanted pregnancies and even unfulfilling marriages. But their traditions and methods are threatened when a Doctor comes to town with promises of painless childbirth, and sets about undermining Dora's credibility. Death and deception, accusations and exile follow, as Dora and her friends fight to protect each other and the women's wisdom of their community. Hauntingly written and alive with historical detail, 'The Birth House' is an unforgettable, page-turning debut. Views: 478
Detective Chief Inspector Paul Cullen of the British Transport Police returns in his most dangerous investigation yet.When a body is discovered on tracks in West London, the hunt for a killer begins.But who is the victim?And how does the crime relate to DCI Paul Cullen?The race to uncover the truth commences.Meanwhile, Paul Cullen's recent past is about to catch up with him, with potentially deadly consequences.Dead Ahead is the third book in the DCI Paul Cullen mysteries series, from bestselling author Paul Pilkington. Views: 478
Published in 1967, we return to Port William during the Second World War to revisit Jayber Crow, the barber, Uncle Stanley, the gravedigger, Jarrat and Burley, the sharecroppers, and Brother Preston, the preacher, as well as Mat Feltner, his wife Margaret, and his daughter-in-law Hannah, whose son will be born after news comes that Hannah's husband Virgil is missing.
"The earth is the genius of our life," Wendell Berry writes here. "The final questions and their answers lie serenely coupled in it." Views: 478
NOTE: This is a sequel to book #3 in the Scott Drayco series, DIES IRAE, which should be read before ELEGY IN SCARLET if you want to avoid spoilers!What if a large part of your past turned out to be a lie?Crime consultant Scott Drayco is already in the middle of a possible career-ending legal battle when word comes that his mother, who disappeared 30 years ago, is very much alive — and charged with murder. With Drayco's father washing his hands of the matter and police convinced the woman is guilty, everyone tells him he should just walk away from the case and let the chips fall where they may.Except, Drayco finds he can't leave it alone and is obsessed with uncovering the truth: Is his mother really a killer? Where has she been all these years? And why did she suddenly leave her husband and children to vanish without a trace?Investigating the murder victim's colleagues, Drayco learns there are plenty who wanted the man dead, including a shadowy stalker who seems to have a... Views: 478
As a young man, Rabindranath Tagore wrote a series of letters to his niece during what he described as the most productive period of his life. By turns contemplative and playful, gentle and impassioned, Tagore’s letters abound in incredible insights—from sharply comical portrayals of English sahibs to lively anecdotes about family life, from thoughts on the nature of poetry to spiritual contemplation and inner feeling. And coursing through all these letters, like a ceaseless heartbeat, is Tagore’s deep love for the natural splendour of Bengal. In this manner, this volume also serves as a prose companion to his magnificent work Gitanjali.
Letters from a Young Poet shimmers with wit and warmth, and offers unforgettable vignettes of the young poet in those happy days before extraordinary fame found him. Views: 478
