Gaspard Winckler, master forger, is trapped in a basement studio on the outskirts of Paris, with his paymaster's blood on his hands. The motive for this murder? A perversion of artistic ambition. After a lifetime lived in the shadows, he has strayed too close to the sun. Fittingly for such an enigmatic writer, Portrait of a Man is both Perec's first novel and his last. Written in the late 1950s, it was rejected by all publishers, and buried in a drawer. Perec himself told a friend 'it will either become a masterwork or will wait in my grave for a faithful exegete to find it in an old trunk...' An apt coda to one of the brightest literary careers of the twentieth century, it is - in the words of David Bellos, the 'faithful exegete' who brought it to light - 'connected by a hundred threads to every part of the literary universe that Perec went on to create - but it's not like anything else that he wrote. Views: 1 127
In Eat the cookie...Buy the shoes, well known authorand speaker Joyce Meyer brings the issue of balance in our lives to the forefront. Not diminishing the importance of discipline, she lets us know that every once in a while it's okay to get off our structured regimen and enjoy a cookie, buy that pair of shoes you've been eyeballing, or even both! Views: 1 127
Tom Wolfe began The Right Stuff at a time when it was unfashionable to contemplate American heroism. Nixon had left the White House in disgrace, the nation was reeling from the catastrophe of Vietnam, and in 1979--the year the book appeared--Americans were being held hostage by Iranian militants. Yet it was exactly the anachronistic courage of his subjects that captivated Wolfe. In his foreword, he notes that as late as 1970, almost one in four career Navy pilots died in accidents. "The Right Stuff," he explains, "became a story of why men were willing--willing?--delighted!--to take on such odds in this, an era literary people had long since characterized as the age of the anti-hero."
Wolfe's roots in New Journalism were intertwined with the nonfiction novel that Truman Capote had pioneered with In Cold Blood. As Capote did, Wolfe tells his story from a limited omniscient perspective, dropping into the lives of his "characters" as each in turn becomes a major player in the space program. After an opening chapter on the terror of being a test pilot's wife, the story cuts back to the late 1940s, when Americans were first attempting to break the sound barrier. Test pilots, we discover, are people who live fast lives with dangerous machines, not all of them airborne. Chuck Yeager was certainly among the fastest, and his determination to push through Mach 1--a feat that some had predicted would cause the destruction of any aircraft--makes him the book's guiding spirit.
Yet soon the focus shifts to the seven initial astronauts. Wolfe traces Alan Shepard's suborbital flight and Gus Grissom's embarrassing panic on the high seas (making the controversial claim that Grissom flooded his Liberty capsule by blowing the escape hatch too soon). The author also produces an admiring portrait of John Glenn's apple-pie heroism and selfless dedication. By the time Wolfe concludes with a return to Yeager and his late-career exploits, the narrative's epic proportions and literary merits are secure. Certainly The Right Stuff is the best, the funniest, and the most vivid book ever written about America's manned space program. --Patrick O'Kelley Views: 1 126
The Leopard Hunts in Darkness by Wilbur Smith: In Manhattan, Craig Mellow is the toast of the literary world, a young writer whose bestselling novels and larger-than-life adventures are fueled by natural-born charisma. But Craig lost a limb and a legacy in Africa. And his heart still clings to the land.
A representative of the World Bank recruits Craig to return to his war-torn homeland--to use his knowledge of Zimbabwe's people, languages, and wildlife to stabilize its future. But once he sets foot on the continent, Craig cannot resist what runs in his blood…
Soon, this scion of a legendary family is caught in a new era of massive ivory poaching, of tribal warfare waged with modern killing tools, and international politics hardwired directly to Washington and Moscow. With a woman by his side and a traitor behind his back, Craig is about to learn a lesson of a brutal new age--if he can survive Africa one more time. Views: 1 126
Steinbeck's only work of political satire turns the French Revolution on its head, as amateur astronomer Pippin Heristal is drafted in to rule the unruly French. Enchanting comedy ensues as Steinbeck creates the most hilarious royal court ever around the brief, bold reign of the corduroy-clad Pippin, his social-climbing wife Maria, his star-struck daughter Clotilde and her Californian beau, Todd. Views: 1 126
In these seven interrelated stories we are again invited to Port William, Kentucky. Rich with humor and wisdom, this collection describes the depth of affection and tolerance for eccentricity that these neighbors bear toward one another, and highlights the comic and often poignant ways they cope with the intrusions of the 20th century into their idyllic, agrarian world. Views: 1 126
Twelve-year-old Alice, an orphan who has never been adopted because of her physical handicap and difficult personality, is shocked to discover she has an identical twin sister living nearby. Views: 1 126
What would you do if an old friend needed you, but it meant turning your new life upside down? Pen, Will, and Cat met during the first week of their first year of college and struck up a remarkable friendship, one that sustained them and shaped them for years – until it ended abruptly, and they went their separate ways. Now, six years later, Pen is the single mother of a five-year-old girl, living with her older brother in Philadelphia and trying to make peace with the sudden death of her father. Even though she feels deserted by Will and Cat, she has never stopped wanting them back in her life, so when she receives an email from a desperate-sounding Cat asking her to meet her at their upcoming college reunion, Pen goes. What happens there sends past and present colliding and sends Pen and her friends on a journey across the world, a journey that will change everything. Views: 1 126
Josephine Anderson is a 28 year old psychic empath. Isolated and alone, she\'d given up on finding love because of her "gift". She\'s haunted by her vivid dreams about a mysterious man that is her destiny...
Her world is turned upside down...
When she meets Stefan Lifsten, she\'s surprised to discover that he\'s the man from her dreams. He\'s tall, blond and drop-dead gorgeous, but he has his own secrets to hide. He\'s a millennia old vampire that\'s been on a quest to find her after his own vision 200 years ago...
Their fates finally collide...
Will their fated love and desire be enough to keep them together as she becomes entrenched in the world of vampires and her past unravels?
*This is a hot, romantic book. It contains sexy vampires, graphic language, adult content and situations that aren\'t for the faint of heart. Consider yourself warned.* Views: 1 125
Border Crossing is Pat Barker's unflinching novel of darkness, evil and society.
When Tom Seymour, a child psychologist, plunges into a river to save a young man from drowning, he unwittingly reopens a chapter from his past he'd hoped to forget. For Tom already knows Danny Miller. When Danny was ten Tom helped imprison him for the killing of an old woman. Now out of prison with a new identity, Danny has some questions - questions he thinks only Tom can answer.
Reluctantly, Tom is drawn back into Danny's world - a place where the border between good and evil, innocence and guilt is blurred and confused. But when Danny's demands on Tom become extreme, Tom wonders whether he has crossed a line of his own - and in crossing it, can he ever go back? Views: 1 125
While the study of psychology has offered little in the way of explaining the creative process, Koestler examines the idea that we are at our most creative when rational thought is suspended--for example, in dreams and trancelike states. All who read The Act of Creation will find it a compelling and illuminating book. Views: 1 125
The Story of B combines Daniel Quinn's provocative and visionary ideas with a masterfully plotted story of adventure and suspense in this stunning, resonant novel that is sure to stay with readers long after they have finished the last page. Father Jared Osborne--bound by a centuries-old mandate held by his order to know before all others that the Antichrist is among us--is sent to Europe on a mission to find a peripatetic preacher whose radical message is attracting a growing circle of followers. The target of Osborne's investigation is an American known only as B. He isn't teaching New Age platitudes or building a fanatical following; instead, he is quietly uncovering the hidden history of our planet, redefining the fall of man, and retracing a path of human spirituality that extends millions of years into the past. From the beginning, Fr. Osborne is stunned, outraged, and awed by the simplicity and profundity of B's teachings. Is B merely a heretic--or is he the Antichrist sent to seduce humanity not with wickedness, but with ideas more alluring than those of traditional religion? With surprising twists and fascinating characters, The Story of B answers this question as it sends readers on an intellectual journey that will forever change the way they view spirituality, human history, and, indeed, the state of our present world.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 1 125
Anthology containing:
So Well Remembered by James HiltonRandom Harvest by James HiltonWe Are Not Alone by James Hilton Views: 1 125
The seventh and final volume of The Accursed Kings series by Maurice Druon, The King Without a Kingdom, is available for the first time in English. The reign of the Capetian kings has ended and John II, 'The Good', first of the Valois dynasty, has taken the throne. But through the eyes of his Cardinal, Perigord, we see that a monarch, as vain and cruel as he is incompetent, now sits on one of the most powerful thrones in Europe. And so, under his leadership does The Hundred Years War commence, one of the most prolonged and bloody conflicts in history, as England and France tear each other apart. Warring factions plunder the land, famine threatens its people and the Black Death spreads far and wide, as France bleeds around the new king. Views: 1 125
The end of the Cold War spawns a fierce new villain, in John Gardner's eleventh addition to the classic, best-selling James Bond series. Now that the two Germanys have united, a joint British-American intelligence network in the old Eastern Bloc has disintegrated, to the dismay of SIS and the CIA. But their efforts to make renewed contact with the network, codenamed CABAL, fail when the two original case officers are killed under very suspicious circumstances before contacting their undercover agents. Enter James Bond and his American counterpart, Easy St. John. Following leads left by the dead case officers, Bond and the aggressive Easy track down one of the agents, who dies on his way to a rendezvous with 007. Certain now that the entire network is marked for death, Bond and Easy race across Europe, hoping to save the others from the unknown killer, only to find that they too have become the targets of CABAL's old enemy: Wolfgang Weisen, the shadowy onetime director of East Germany's Security Service. On the run since the destruction of the Berlin Wall, Weisen still maintains a following of loyal, highly trained security officers with access to a wide range of sophisticated weaponry. By setting a trap for Bond, Weisen plans to "neutralize" the secret agent before undertaking his true mission; the destabilization of Western Europe through a single, savage act. Packed with harrowing chases, magnificent settings, and a dynamite finale, Death Is Forever is a rousing read by a master storyteller. Views: 1 125
