Five years in hiding. Five years in which Professor Kurou has thought only of revenge on the man who left him maimed. Now, small-town inventor Victor Michin needs Kurou's help. The shadowy figure hiding out in the town's derelict district is a genius with machines, and only Kurou's skill stands in the way of a devastating, inhuman army on its way to annihilate the town and everyone in it. The army is savage. It is deadly. It shows no mercy or remorse. And at its head is a old foe, a man who will stop at nothing to see Professor Kurou dead. Perhaps Kurou's chance for revenge will come after all ... Views: 462
Locked Room Mystery is dead! Can you work out the culprit in this witty short story? Views: 462
“Marisa de los Santos’s Belong to Me is my favorite discovery of the past years: a terrific page-turner that’s also poignant, funny, surprising and deeply heartfelt.”
—Harlan Coben
“Complex, engaging, and surprisingly moving.”
—Boston Globe
The sensational New York Times bestseller from Marisa de los Santos, Belong to Me is a gift for readers, an enchanting, luminous novel about the accidents, both big and small, that affect our choice of friend, lover, and spouse. A story centered around three very different suburban neighbors and what it truly means to “belong” to someone, this eye-opening, unforgettable book is the perfect book club selection—beautifully written, smart and sophisticated women’s fiction that invites discussion as it touches the heart—and the ideal companion to de los Santos’s previous blockbuster, Love Walked In.
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A brilliant, ambitious, insightful inquiry into the art of writing from the legendary Margaret Atwood.What do we mean when we say that someone is a writer? Is he or she an entertainer? A high priest of the god of Art? An improver of readers' minds and morals? Looking back on her own childhood and the development of her writing career, Margaret Atwood addresses the riddle of her own art. Her wide-ranging reference to other writers, living and dead, is accompanied by personal anecdotes from her own experiences as a writer. The lightness of her touch is offset by a seriousness about the purpose and the pleasures of writing. Wise, candid, informative, and engaging, On Writers and Writing provides an insider's view of the writer's universe, written by one of the most celebrated writers of our time. Views: 461
Will Lightbody is a man with a stomach ailment whose only sin is loving his wife, Eleanor, too much. Eleanor is a health nut of the first stripe, and when in 1907 she journeys to Dr. John Harvey Kellogg's infamous Battle Creek Spa to live out the vegetarian ethos, poor Will goes too.So begins T. Coraghessan Boyle's wickedly comic look at turn-of-the-century fanatics in search of the magic pill to prolong their lives--or the profit to be had from manufacturing it. Brimming with a Dickensian cast of characters and laced with wildly wonderful plot twists, Jane Smiley in the New York Times Book Review called The Road to Wellville "A marvel, enjoyable from beginning to end." Views: 461
Once a respected landowner, Abd el-Aziz Gaafar fell into penury and moved his family to Cairo, where he was forced into menial work at the Automobile Club—a refuge of colonial luxury for its European members. There, Alku, the lifelong Nubian retainer of Egypt's corrupt and dissolute king, lords it over the staff, a squabbling but tight-knit group, who live in perpetual fear, as they are thrashed for their mistakes, their wages dependent on Alku's whims. When, one day, Abd el-Aziz stands up for himself, he is beaten. Soon afterward, he dies, as much from shame as from his injuries, leaving his widow and four children further impoverished. The family's loss propels them down different paths: the responsible son, Kamel, takes over his late father’s post in the Club's storeroom, even as his law school friends seduce him into revolutionary politics; Mahmud joins his brother working at the Club but spends his free time sleeping with older women — for a fee, which he splits with his partner in crime, his devil-may-care workout buddy and neighbor, Fawzy; their greedy brother Said breaks away to follow ambitions of his own; and their only sister, Saleha, is torn between her dream of studying mathematics and the security of settling down as a wife and saving her family.
It is at the Club, too, that Kamel's dangerous politics will find the favor and patronage of the king's seditious cousin, an unlikely revolutionary plotter–cum–bon vivant. Soon, both servants and masters will be subsumed by the brewing social upheaval. And the Egyptians of the Automobile Club will face a stark choice: to live safely, but without dignity, or to fight for their rights and risk everything.
Full of absorbing incident, and marvelously drawn characters, Alaa Al Aswany's novel gives us Egypt on the brink of changes that resonate to this day. It is an irresistible confirmation of Al Aswany's reputation as one of the Middle East's most beguiling storytellers and insightful interpreters of the human spirit. Views: 461
Before the legendary Arthur became king, he took lessons from a dragon . . .
Artos is a lonely child, teased or ignored by the other boys in the castle of Sir Ector. One day, he follows Sir Ector’s runaway hound into a mysterious, dark cave, where he encounters a dragon who offers him the gift of wisdom.
Both frightened and intrigued, Artos becomes the dragon’s student and gains what he’s always longed for: the friendship and respect of other boys. Under the guidance of the dragon, Artos’s life begins to take shape in a way he could never have imagined. But has Artos really learned everything the dragon has to teach? And what does the dragon mean when he refers to him as “Artos Pendragon,” or “Arthur son of dragon”?
This ebook features a personal history by Jane Yolen including rare images from the author’s personal collection, as well as a note from the author about the making of the book. Views: 461
In three “immensely intelligent stories about the decay of passion” (The Sunday Herald Times [London]), Simone de Beauvoir draws us into the lives of three women, all past their first youth, all facing unexpected crises.
Enthralling as faction, suffused with de Beauvoir’s remarkable insights into women, The Woman Destroyed gives us a legendary writer at her best. Views: 461
A literary phenomenon, Jean M. Auel’s prehistoric odyssey is one of the best-loved sagas of our time. Employing meticulous research and the consummate artistry of a master storyteller, Auel paints a vivid panorama of the dawn of modern humans. Through Ayla, an orphaned girl who grows into a beautiful and courageous young woman, we are swept up in the harsh and beautiful Ice Age world, home to the Clan of the Cave Bear. Now, for the first time, all six novels in the Earth’s Children® series are available in one convenient eBook bundle:
THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR
THE VALLEY OF HORSES
THE MAMMOTH HUNTERS
THE PLAINS OF PASSAGE
THE SHELTERS OF STONE
THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES
A natural disaster leaves a young girl wandering alone in an unfamiliar and dangerous land until she is found by a woman of the Clan, people very different from her own kind. To them, blond, blue-eyed Ayla looks peculiar and ugly—she is one of the Others, those who have moved into their ancient homeland; but Iza cannot leave the girl to die and takes her with them. Iza and Creb, the old Mog-ur, grow to love her, and as Ayla learns the ways of the Clan and Iza’s way of healing, most come to accept her. But the brutal and proud youth who is destined to become the Clan’s next leader sees Ayla’s differences as a threat to his authority. He develops a deep and abiding hatred for the strange girl of the Others who lives in their midst, and is determined to get his revenge.
Praise for the Earth’s Children® series
“Auel is a highly imaginative writer. She humanizes prehistory and gives it immediacy and clarity.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Storytelling in the grand tradition . . . From the violent panorama of spring on the steppes to musicians jamming on a mammoth-bone marimba, Auel’s books are a stunning example of world building. They join the short list of books, like James Clavell’s Shogun and Frank Herbert’s Dune, *that depict exotic societies so vividly that readers almost regard them as ‘survival manuals.’ ”—Vogue
“Jean Auel has established herself as one of our premier storytellers. . . . Her narrative skill is supreme.”—Chicago Tribune*
“Pure entertainment at its sublime, wholly exhilarating best.”—Los Angeles Times
“Readers who fell in love with little Ayla will no doubt revel in her prehistoric womanhood.”—People
“Lively and interesting, enhanced greatly by the vividly colored backdrop of early humanity . . . Auel is a prodigious researcher.”*—The Washington Post Book World
“Among modern epic spinners, Auel has few peers. . . . She deftly creates a whole world, giving a sense of the origins of class, ethnic, and cultural differences that alternately divide and fascinate us today.”—Kirkus Reviews *(starred review) Views: 461
Indulge in a lyrical, sensual feast. Karin Cox's eloquent poems will linger with you for days, reminding you of the beauty of language and the nostalgia of days gone by. Ranging in topic from whimsy to love poems to erotica, to an examination of nationality and what it means to be human, this collection features something for every lover of the written word.If the poet's job is to provide a reflection of an entire world in a single teardrop, Karin Cox's haunting anthology, "Growth", does so admirably. This collection of her finest poems—some previously published in anthologies around the world, others new; some rhyming, some free form—delivers beautiful sentiments, melancholy moments and some delightfully lyrical figurative language, all the while charting the poet's personal growth over several years.While introspective, Karin's work avoids self-obsession by interspersing political and broader global themes with the personal. What results is a whimsical anthology that brings to mind the challenges of just being human and fitting into a world that sometimes feels like a tight squeeze. A must-read for lovers of the English language and a wonderful gift for poetry aficionados, "Growth" will continue to bloom in the reader's mind long after the last page has been turned. Views: 461
A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection
Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Dave Eggers displays his emotional range in this quiet tour-de-force from How We Are Hungry, the often funny and masterful collection of short fiction.
After giving up responsibility, in her usual passive way, of much that has been of importance in her life—her adopted children, a condo, financial security—Rita pays for a guided hike to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.
An ebook Short. Views: 461
One of Canada's most celebrated author's debut novel for young readersBeatrice, a young girl of uncertain age, wakes up all alone in a tree house in the forest. How did she arrive in this cozy dwelling, stocked carefully with bookshelves and oatmeal accoutrements? And who has been leaving a trail of clues, composed in delicate purple handwriting?So begins the adventure of a brave and resilient Black girl's search for identity and healing in bestselling author Lawrence Hill's middle-grade debut. Though Beatrice cannot recall how or why she arrived in the magical forest of Argilia—where every conceivable fish, bird, mammal and reptile coexist, and any creature with a beating heart can communicate with any other—something within tells her that beyond this forest is a family that is waiting anxiously for her return.Just outside her tree-house door lives Beatrice's most unlikely ally, the enormous and mercurial King Crocodile Croc... Views: 461
A massive novel of World War II Los Angeles. The crowning work of an American master.It is January, 1942. Torrential rainstorms hit L.A. A body is unearthed in Griffith Park. The cops rate it a routine dead-man job. They're grievously wrong. It's a summons to misalliance and all the spoils of a brand-new war.Elmer Jackson is a corrupt Vice cop. He's a flesh peddler and a bagman for the L.A. Chief of Police. Hideo Ashida is a crime-lab whiz, caught up in the maelstrom of the Japanese internment. Dudley Smith is an LAPD hardnose working Army Intelligence. He's gone rogue and gone all-the-way Fascist. Joan Conville was born rogue. She's a defrocked Navy lieutenant and a war profiteer to her core.They've signed on for the dead-man job. They've got a hot date with History. They will fight their inner wars within The War with unstoppable fury. Views: 461
