Princess Mia is dreaming about the prom - and contending with a hotel workers' strike - in the fifth, supremely hilarious episode of Meg Cabot's Princess Diaries. This time, Mia's in the pink about the upcoming Albert Einstein H.S. prom, and she's crossing her fingers that Michael will ask her to go. (They're in love, so why wouldn't he ask her, right?) But during Seven Minutes in Heaven at her b-day party, Mia learns that Michael is not the prom-going type. Good grief, what's a princess to do?
To make matters worse, Grandmere has gotten a busboy fired due to a mishap with her pooch, Rommel, at a swanky restaurant, so when all of the city's busboys go on strike, it causes a chain of events that result in Grandmere crashing at Mia's mom's place, her pal Lilly Moscovitz picking up a picket sign, and the prom being brought to a screeching halt.
Thankfully, staunch yet boy-wise Grandmere has a plan to change Michael's mind and put everything back on track, making Mia the happiest "prom princess" on this side of the Atlantic - and readers more starry-eyed than Molly Ringwald in her prettiest pink frock.
Following up the brief Volume IV and a Half and introducing a new addition to Mia's family, this knee-slapping fifth volume makes the series glitter brighter than ever, placing yet another jewel in Cabot's crown. Views: 1 167
Sumac Lottery is nine years old and the self-proclaimed "good girl" of her (VERY) large, (EXTREMELY) unruly family. And what a family the Lotterys are: four parents, children both adopted and biological, and a menagerie of pets, all living and learning together in a sprawling house called Camelottery. Then one day, the news breaks that one of their grandfathers is suffering from dementia and will be coming to live with them. And not just any grandfather; the long dormant "Grumps," who fell out with his son so long ago that he hasn't been part of any of their lives.
Suddenly, everything changes. Sumac has to give up her room to make the newcomer feel at home. She tries to be nice, but prickly Grumps clearly disapproves of how the Lotterys live: whole grains, strange vegetables, rescue pets, a multicultural household... He's worse than just tough to get along with -- Grumps has got to go! But can Sumac help him find a home where he belongs? Views: 1 167
Wiliam Boyd, winner of the Whitbread and Somerset Maugham Awards, introduces unlikely heroes desperate to redeem their unsatisfying lives.
From California poolsides to the battlegrounds of Vietnam, here is a world populated by weary souls who turn to fantasy as their sole escape from life's inequities. Stranded in an African hotel during a coup, an oafish Englishman impresses a young stewardess with stories of an enchanted life completely at odds with his sordid existence in "The Coup." In the title story, an arrogant, sadistic American pilot in Vietnam underestimaets the power of revenge when he relentlessly persecutes a member of his maintenance crew. With droll humor and rare compassion, Boyd's enthralling stories remind us of his stature as one of contemporary fiction's finest storytellers.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 1 167
Nora Silk doesn’t really fit in on Hemlock Street, where every house looks the same. She's divorced. She wears a charm bracelet and high heels and red toreador pants. And the way she raises her kids is a scandal. But as time passes, the neighbors start having second thoughts about Nora. The women’s apprehension evolves into admiration. The men’s lust evolves into awe. The children are drawn to her in ways they can't explain. And everyone on this little street in 1959 Long Island seems to sense the possibilities and perils of a different kind of future when they look at Nora Silk...
This extraordinary novel by the author of The River King and Local Girls takes us back to a time when the exotic both terrified and intrigued us, and despite our most desperate attempts, our passions and secrets remained as stubbornly alive as the weeds in our well-trimmed lawns. Views: 1 167
They called her Water Claire. When she washed up on their shore, no one knew that she came from a society where emotions and colors didn’t exist. That she had become a Vessel at age thirteen. That she had carried a Product at age fourteen. That it had been stolen from her body. Claire had a son. But what became of him she never knew. What was his name? Was he even alive? She was supposed to forget him, but that was impossible. Now Claire will stop at nothing to find her child, even if it means making an unimaginable sacrifice. Son thrusts readers once again into the chilling world of the Newbery Medal winning book, The Giver, as well as Gathering Blue and Messenger where a new hero emerges. In this thrilling series finale, the startling and long-awaited conclusion to Lois Lowry’s epic tale culminates in a final clash between good and evil. Views: 1 167
A major new anthology of Percy Bysshe Shelley's work, edited by Jack Donovan and Cian Duffy.'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the leading English Romantics and is critically regarded among the finest lyric poets in the English language. His major works include the long visionary poems 'Prometheus Unbound' and 'Adonais', an elegy on the death of John Keats. His shorter, classic verses include 'To a Skylark', 'Mont Blanc' and 'Ode to the West Wind'. This important new edition collects his best poetry and prose, revealing how his writings weave together the political, personal, visionary and idealistic.This Penguin Classics edition includes a fascinating introduction, notes and other materials by leading Shelley scholars, Jack Donovan and Cian Duffy. Views: 1 166
A funny, bittersweet exploration of how a child can change in one short year of love, loss, and growing up…
Seven-year-old Scotty Ocean decides that seven is going to be "his year." But soon after his birthday, his artist-turned-alcoholic mother abandons the family—leaving Scotty and his two older sisters alone with their father. As his perfect year is torn apart (falls apart?), Scotty begins to act out during school and takes a series of increasingly wild actions to try to win his mother back—and, when that doesn’t work, to replace her.
Funny and deeply affecting, An Ocean in Iowa traces Scotty’s desperate attempt to hold on to his childhood while the foundation of his family disintegrates. As Scotty’s year as a seven-year-old flies by—and the dreaded eight approaches—Hedges explores how Scotty sheds his childhood in a one-eighty of the year he hoped would be so perfect. Beautifully written, and with Hedges’s careful attention to period detail, this compelling coming-of-age novel sets the private turmoil of a disintegrating family against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the turbulent 1960s. Views: 1 166
This beautiful new edition features unpublished notes for the novel and other illuminating documentary material, all of which is included in a new Afterword by Tappan Wilder. On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below. With this celebrated sentence Thornton Wilder begins The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction and a novel read throughout the world. By chance, a monk witnesses the tragedy. Brother Juniper then embarks on a quest to prove that it was divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who perished in the tragedy. His search leads to his own death -- and to the author's timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition. This new edition of Wilder's 1928 Pulitzer Prize winning novel contains a new foreword by Russell Banks. Views: 1 166
Raven Queen, the daughter of the Evil Queen, is destined to give the poisoned apple to Snow White's daughter. But Raven has a spark of rebelliousness in her heart and she knows one thing for sure-evil is so not her style. Read all about her getting ready to return to Ever After High in this excerpt from the upcoming book The Storybook of Legends. Views: 1 166
'Lynne Reid Banks' compassionate first novel examines the stigma of unmarried motherhood in pre-pill, pre-Abortion Act Britain... While the social climate has changed drastically since publication, a transgressive frisson still crackles from the pages'
The Guardian
Pregnant by accident, kicked out of home by her father, 27-year-old Jane Graham goes to ground in the sort of place she feels she deserves - a bug-ridden boarding-house attic in Fulham. She thinks she wants to hide from the world, but finds out that even at the bottom of the heap, friends and love can still be found, and self-respect is still worth fighting for. Views: 1 165
This collection by Poppy Z. Brite, author of Exquisite Corpse and Love in Vein, among others, features anew story, Monday's Special. Poppy contributed story notes as well as the Preface. Views: 1 165
The second novel from one of the most celebrated voices in British fiction and film, The Black Album is an exhilarating multicultural coming-of-age tale featuring Shalid, a sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll-loving Pakistani student torn between a love affair with a gorgeous, free-spirited college professor and his desire to please his conservative Muslim community. Views: 1 165
In Finch, mysterious underground inhabitants known as the gray caps have reconquered the failed fantasy state Ambergris and put it under martial law. They have disbanded House Hoegbotton and are controlling the human inhabitants with strange addictive drugs, internment in camps, and random acts of terror. The rebel resistance is scattered, and the gray caps are using human labor to build two strange towers. Against this backdrop, John Finch, who lives alone with a cat and a lizard, must solve an impossible double murder for his gray cap masters while trying to make contact with the rebels. Nothing is as it seems as Finch and his disintegrating partner Wyte negotiate their way through a landscape of spies, rebels, and deception. Trapped by his job and the city, Finch is about to come face to face with a series of mysteries that will change him and Ambergris forever. Views: 1 165
Three all-new paranormal stories of lust, laughter, and love from the New York Times bestselling author, including an original novella featuring Undead queen Betsy Taylor.
With her trademark "sassy dialogue, lusty lovemaking [and] irreverent humor" New York Times bestselling author MaryJanice Davidson delighted fans with her wickedly sexy and wildly funny anthology, Dead and Loving It*-stories in which the worlds of the Wyndham Werewolves and Undead Queens collided. Now she returns to that sensual and irresistible after-dark realm of werewolves, vampires, and mermaids in three more original novellas--including an all-new Betsy Taylor novella. Views: 1 165
Stuff I've Been Reading by Nick Hornby - the bestselling novelist's rich, witty and inspiring reading diary
'Read what you enjoy, not what bores you,' Nick Hornby tells us. And in this new collection of his columns from the Believer magazine (taking off where The Complete Polysyllabic Spree finished), he shows us how it's done.
Or at least, how he does it: whether plunging into a biography of Dickens whilst his children are destroying something in the room next door or devouring a whole series of children's books whilst on holiday. Hornby is the intelligent, committed but sceptical reader we'd all like to be. Admiring Ian McEwen's On Chesil Beach, he points out a surprising anachronism. Reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road, he wonders why 'unflinching' is a term of praise among critics. And who but Nick Hornby could successfully juxtapose a discussion of a book on the Band with one on the Stasi?
These accounts of one reader's experience of buying and reading, and sometimes not reading, books differ from all other reviews or critical appreciations - they take into account the role that books actually play in the lives of readers.
This book, which is classic Hornby, confirms the novelist's status as one of the world's most exciting curators of culture. It will be loved by fans of About a Boy and High Fidelity, as well as readers of Will Self, Zadie Smith, Stewart Lee and Charlie Brooker.
Nick Hornby has captivated readers and achieved widespread critical acclaim for his comic, well-observed novels About a Boy, High Fidelity, How to be Good, A Long Way Down (shortlisted for the Whitbread Award), Slam and Juliet, Naked. His four additional works of non-fiction, Fever Pitch, 31 Songs (shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award), The Complete Polysyllabic Spree and Pray are also available from Penguin. Views: 1 165
