A NAMELESS STRANGER rides into the corrupt and explosive gold rush town of Lahood, California. His arrival coincides with the prayer of a young girl who is hoping for a miracle to end the sudden and random violence in the community. Fifteen-year-old Megan quietly recites from the Bible: "And I looked, and beheld a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." A story of confrontation in a lawless time, the nameless stranger becomes a catalyst for hope and retribution. A struggle between ruthless corporation gunmen and innocent independent miners takes on new meaning with the appearance of an enigmatic horseman. Clint Eastwood is the Pale Rider. Views: 70
The international bestseller that has touched millions of readers around the world is now available in a deluxe illustrated edition, featuring powerful illustrations by acclaimed artist Oliver Jeffers.Berlin, 1942: When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move to a new house far, far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people in the distance. But Bruno decides there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different from his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.Now available in a gorgeous deluxe edition featuring stunning artwork by award-winning illustrator Oliver Jeffers, The Boy in... Views: 70
Get ready for a Royal Crush in this third book in the middle-grade Princess Diaries spin-off series, written and illustrated by New York Times-bestselling author Meg Cabot.Olivia Grace Clarisse Mignonette Harrison is turning thirteen. Even better, she's finally starting to get the hang of this princess thing. Just in time, too, since her half-sister, Princess Mia Thermopolis, is expected to give birth to twins any day now! It's pretty much the worst time possible for a school field trip, but everyone is insisting that Olivia must attend the Royal School Winter Games. Between Grandmère chaperoning, Olivia's snobby cousin Luisa complaining about her relationship woes, and everyone insisting that Olivia has a crush on Prince Khalil (even though she isn't sure that he even wants to be friends anymore!), things are quickly turning into a royal mess! Praise for the FROM THE NOTEBOOKS OF A MIDDLE SCHOOL PRINCESS... Views: 70
An utterly unique collection composed by the award-winning poet and writer, a global anthology of pieces from lesser-known classics by luminaries like Franz Kafka, Samuel R. Delany, and Gwendolyn Brooks to up-and-coming writers that examine pathos and feeling, giving a well-timed rehab to the word "pathetic" "Literature is pathetic." So claims Eileen Myles in their bold and bracing introduction to Pathetic Literature, an exuberant collection of pieces ranging from poetry to theater to prose to something in between, all of which explore those so-called "pathetic" or sensitive feelings around which lives are built and revolutions are incited.Myles first reclaimed the word for a seminar they taught at the University of California San Diego, rescuing it from the derision into which it had slipped and restoring its original meaning of inspiring emotion or feeling, from the Ancient Greek rhetorical method pathos. Their reinvention of "pathetic"... Views: 70
Stationed in Bamberg, Germany, in the chaotic aftermath of WWII, pint-sized Charles "Chucky" Cronin O'Malley can't seem to keep himself out of harm's way. Whether it be with black marketeers, border patrols, or even his commanding officer, Chucky always seems to land in impossible scrapes, relying on a quick wit and blind luck (or is it Heavenly intervention?) to save his hide. And until the day he meets beautiful seventeen-year-old Trudi, a girl on the run from smugglers and the U.S. Army, he manages to keep himself in one piece. Trudi needs Chucky's help. If he isn't careful though, she may also make off with his heart. Views: 70
Three sequential tales of alien warfare in one epic volume from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Force Awakens and Star TrekInto Darkness. For millennia, the Weave, an alliance of species, have fought to resist the telepathic Amplitur, who strive to unite all self-aware life-forms in their great "Purpose." The Weave is slowly losing ground, but for both sides, warfare focuses more on outthinking and outmaneuvering your foe than destruction. In fact, most regard violence as hideously barbaric, and even the thought of harming another sentient being is beyond imagining. Then they come to Earth . . . A Call to Arms When one of its scout ships lands on Earth, the Weave quickly realizes that humanity's almost innate ability to wreak havoc and death may hold the key to turning the tide in their fight. Unfortunately for all, the Amplitur have the same idea—and mankind is caught... Views: 70
In this deliciously seductive account of an Italian neighborhood with a statue of the Virgin at one end of the street, a derelict bottle factory at the other, and a wealth of exotic flora and fauna in between, acclaimed novelist Tim Parks celebrates ten years of living with his wife, Rita, in Verona, Italy. Via Colombre, the main street in a village just outside Verona, offers an exemplary hodgepodge of all that is new and old in the bel paese, a point of collision between invading suburbia and diehard peasant tradition in a sometimes madcap, sometimes romantic always mixed-up world of creeping vines, stuccoed walls, shotguns, security cameras, hypochondria, and expensive sports cars.
Tim Parks is anything but a gentleman in Verona. With an Italian-born wife, an Italian made family, and a whole Italian condominium bubbling around him, he collects a gallery full of splendid characters who initiate us into all the foibles and delights of life in provincial Italy.
More than a travel book, Italian Neighbors is a sparkling, witty, beautifully observed tale of how the most curious people and places gradually assume the familiarity of home. Italian Neighbors is a rare work that manages to be both a portrait and an invitation for everyone who has ever dreamed about Italy.
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The eponymous heroine of Miss Wyoming is one Susan Colgate, a teen beauty queen and low-rent soap actress. Dragooned into show business by her demonically pushy, hillbilly mother, Susan has hit rock bottom by the time Douglas Coupland's seventh book begins. But when she finds herself the sole survivor of an airplane crash, this "low-grade onboard celebrity" takes the opportunity to start all over again: She felt like a ghost. She tried to find her bodily remains there in the wreckage and was unable to do so.... Then she was lost in a crowd of local onlookers and trucks, parping sirens and ambulances. She picked her way out of the melee and found a newly paved suburban road that she followed away from the wreck into the folds of a housing development. She had survived, and now she needed sanctuary and silence. She's not, of course, the only Hollywood burnout who'd like to vanish into thin air. Her opposite number, a producer of big-budget, no-brainer action flicks named John Johnson, stages a similar disappearing act. After a near-death experience, in the course of which he is treated to a vision of Susan's face, he roams the western badlands. And even after his return to L.A., Johnson is determined to unravel the mystery of this woman's fate. Throughout, Coupland displays his usual gift for capturing the absurdities of modern existence. The distinctive minutiae of our age--junk mail and fast food, sitcoms and Singapore slings, and the "shop fronts bigger and brighter and more powerful than they needed to be"--come to vivid, funny life in this author's hands. And while Susan and John occupy center stage, Coupland is just as generous with his peripheral characters. A scriptwriter and his supernaturally intelligent girlfriend, a recluse who spends his evening generating Internet rumours--all manage to be blessed and cursed, numbed by their pointless existences but full of humanity when put to the test. Picture Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut collaborating on a Tinseltown version of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and you come halfway to grasping Coupland's brand of thoughtful, supremely funny storytelling. Views: 70
One of two beautifully designed hardback gift editions of Stefan Zweig's breathlessly dramatic historical sketches, out in time for Christmas.A single Yes, a single No, a Too Soon or a Too Late makes that hour irrevocable for hundreds of generations while deciding the life of a single man or woman, of a nation, even the destiny of all humanity.Five vivid dramatizations of some of the most pivotal episodes in human history, from the Fall of Constantinople to Scott's doomed attempt to reach the South Pole, bringing the past to life in brilliant technicolor.Included in this collection:"The Field of Waterloo": A fascinating little known story of Napoleon's defeat."The Race to Reach the South Pole": The failed expedition of the English to discover the South Pole first."The Conquest of Byzantium": Sultan Mahomet's defeat of Byzantium through a neglected door."The Sealed Train": Lenin's triumphant return from exile."Wilson's Failure": The Treaty of... Views: 70
