Life throws so many things our way, good and bad, and sometimes it helps to take an alternative look, especially if we can have a bit of a chuckle at the same time. This collection of humorous verse takes a sideways look at some of the trials (and tribulations) that beset our everyday lives.We've all been there...Poetry Sucks - A Rebellion is a rare collection of poems by Frank Beuken.Author of an Arab Spring and In the Shadow of Love Views: 335
To know Puss, Junior once is to love him forever! That\'s the way everyone feels about this adventurous cat who is the son of a very famous father, Puss in Boots. In the Puss in Boots, Jr series of ten books written by David Cory and originally published in 1917-1922, Puss, Junior discovers that he is the son of the illustriious Puss in Boots and he begins a journey across New Mother Goose Land to find his famous father. Along the way, Puss Junior meets characters from children\'s fiction and nursery rhymes, helps the weak and downtrodden, and learns something about life from everyone he meets. In Books 1 and 2, Puss searches for and finds his father. Books 3 through 10 tell of more adventures afterward and some adventures that were left out of the first two books. In Book 1, Puss discovers his identity and meets Yankee Doodle Dandy, the Queen of Hearts, Mother Goose, Old King Cole, and many other characters. He joins a circus, climbs Jack\'s beanstalk, and attends a wedding. The original illustrations by Elizabeth Jones Babcock are included in the stories. Nine of these have been enlarged and printed in the back of the book as coloring pages for crayon or colored pencil. Adults using colored pencils can create vintage-looking pictures. The Puss in Boots, Jr books are lovely reminders that simple words can awaken the imaginations of children and adults alike, just as they did one hundred years ago. The original stories have been very slightly edited to change archaic words and references. Reading level is second grade but much younger children will enjoy hearing the stories read to them. Views: 331
Astonishing, a masterpiece, Paul Auster’s greatest, most satisfying, most vivid and heartbreaking novel -- a sweeping and surprising story of inheritance, family, love and life itself.
Nearly two weeks early, on March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson’s life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths. Four identical Fergusons made of the same DNA, four boys who are the same boy, go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives. Family fortunes diverge. Athletic skills and sex lives and friendships and intellectual passions contrast. Each Ferguson falls under the spell of the magnificent Amy Schneiderman, yet each Amy and each Ferguson have a relationship like no other. Meanwhile, readers will take in each Ferguson’s pleasures and ache from each Ferguson’s pains, as the mortal plot of each Ferguson’s life rushes on.
As inventive and dexterously constructed as anything Paul Auster has ever written, yet with a passion for realism and a great tenderness and fierce attachment to history and to life itself that readers have never seen from Auster before. 4 3 2 1 is a marvelous and unforgettably affecting tour de force. Views: 330
Following the death of a friend, the poet and pets' mortician Dennis Barlow finds himself entering the artificial Hollywood paradise of the Whispering Glades Memorial Park. Within its golden gates, death, American-style, is wrapped up and sold like a package holiday-and Dennis gets drawn into a bizarre love triangle with Aimée Thanatogenos, a naïve Californian corpse beautician, and Mr. Joyboy, a master of the embalmer's art. Waugh's dark and savage satire on the Anglo-American cultural divide depicts a world where reputation, love, and death cost a very great deal. Views: 329
The Vikings are laying siege to Paris. They want the Count's sister, in return they will spare the rest of the city. Can the Count really have ambitions to be Emperor of the Franks if he doesn't do everything he can to save his people? Can he call himself a man if he doesn't do everything he can to save his sister? Views: 328
Cassie Tremblay just wanted to focus on getting into a good college; she didn't want to become a rare magical wellspring that every demon and their uncle wanted for their own. But now that she's become the hottest commodity in the paranormal community, she must quickly learn how to deal with black magic-- and even worse, the politics thereof-- or forfeit her freedom forever.Cassie Tremblay divides her time between working the cash register at her neighborhood coffee shop and studying to produce the grades to get into a top-tier university. Sam, a mysterious co-worker at The Daily Grind, seems to have taken an instant dislike to her, but for Cassie, the looming specter of the SAT Verbal section is a much bigger concern. After a freak accident nearly leaves Cassie and her co-workers dead, a spell cast in desperation transforms her from a regular teen to a valuable familiar: a magical well a demon can tap. As if she didn’t have enough problems, now every demon (and their monstrous minions) seems to be after Cassie’s latent magic, and will stop at nothing to possess her. Sam, now her “master” (loath as Cassie is to admit it) works to protect her, but she soon realizes the security bought by his barely controlled black magic comes at a terrible price. She would love nothing more than to earn her freedom for herself, but with no ability to cast spells of her own, how can she fight back against creatures that wield awesome powers beyond mortal comprehension? Blending a hint of gothic romance with wry humor, The Problem with Black Magic is a YA-friendly novel that contains enough depth for genre fans of all ages. The first book of The Familiar Series, this is a tale of one young woman’s struggle for independence in a brand new world of sorcery, intrigue, and wonder. Views: 328
A brilliant Indian scientist with self esteem problems faces off against a redneck jet pilot in a bass fishing contest that defies probability.When super popular redneck fighter pilot Gator challenges theoretical permutational mathematician and supernerd, Inderjit to a fish off, Inderjit thinks he's got it covered because he was raised on the Ramaputrya river in India and can out fish any man on the planet. Unfortunately for Inderjit, he's in Florida and they don't fish with nets. Feeling pressured to prove himself, Inderjit steals a work-in-progress device to maybe give himself an edge. This proves, of course, why mathematicians make bad gamblers because they think about statistics instead of remembering that the house always wins, even when it loses. Also, there is a largemouth bass. Views: 326
Part of the Jewish Encounter series
From Elie Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, comes a magical book that introduces us to the towering figure of Rashi—Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki—the great biblical and Talmudic commentator of the Middle Ages.
Wiesel brilliantly evokes the world of medieval European Jewry, a world of profound scholars and closed communities ravaged by outbursts of anti-Semitism and decimated by the Crusades. The incomparable scholar Rashi, whose phrase-by-phrase explication of the oral law has been included in every printing of the Talmud since the fifteenth century, was also a spiritual and religious leader: His perspective, encompassing both the mundane and the profound, is timeless.
Wiesel’s Rashi is a heartbroken witness to the suffering of his people, and through his responses to major religious questions of the day we see still another side of this greatest of all interpreters of the sacred writings.
Both beginners and advanced students of the Bible rely on Rashi’s groundbreaking commentary for simple text explanations and Midrashic interpretations. Wiesel, a descendant of Rashi, proves an incomparable guide who enables us to appreciate both the lucidity of Rashi’s writings and the milieu in which they were formed.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 326
From the author of Blessings and Still Life with Bread Crumbs, Anna Quindlen’s classic reflection on a meaningful life is the perfect gift for graduation, or any occasion.
“Life is made of moments, small pieces of silver amidst long stretches of tedium. It would be wonderful if they came to us unsummoned, but particularly in lives as busy as the ones most of us lead now, that won’t happen. We have to teach ourselves now to live, really live . . . to love the journey, not the destination.”
In this treasure of a book, Anna Quindlen, the bestselling novelist and columnist, reflects on what it takes to “get a life”—to live deeply every day and from your own unique self, rather than merely to exist through your days. “Knowledge of our own mortality is the greatest gift God ever gives us,” Quindlen writes, “because unless you know the clock is ticking, it is so easy to waste our days, our lives.” Her mother died when Quindlen was nineteen: “It was the dividing line between seeing the world in black and white, and in Technicolor. The lights came on for the darkest possible reason. . . . I learned something enduring, in a very short period of time, about life. And that was that it was glorious, and that you had no business taking it for granted.” But how to live from that perspective, to fully engage in our days? In A Short Guide to a Happy Life, Quindlen guides us with an understanding that comes from knowing how to see the view, the richness in living.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 325
In the years following the First World War a new generation emerged, wistful and vulnerable beneath the glitter. The Bright Young Things of 1920s London, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercised their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of capricious escapade. In these pages a vivid assortment of characters, among them the struggling writer Adam Fenwick-Symes and the glamorous, aristocratic Nina Blount, hunt fast and furiously for ever greater sensations and the hedonistic fulfillment of their desires. Evelyn Waugh's acidly funny satire reveals the darkness and vulnerability beneath the sparkling surface of the high life. Views: 325
As the turbulent years following the Russian revolution of 1917 settle down into a new Soviet reality, the brilliant and eccentric zoologist Persikov discovers an amazing ray that drastically increases the size and reproductive rate of living organisms. At the same time, a mysterious plague wipes out all the chickens in the Soviet republics. The government expropriates Persikov's untested invention in order to rebuild the poultry industry, but a horrible mix-up quickly leads to a disaster that could threaten the entire world. This H. G. Wells-inspired novel by the legendary Mikhail Bulgakov is the only one of his larger works to have been published in its entirety during the author's lifetime. A poignant work of social science fiction and a brilliant satire on the Soviet revolution, it can now be enjoyed by English-speaking audiences through this accurate new translation. Includes annotations and afterword. Views: 324
"The tender biography of a sickly marmoset that was adopted by Leonard Woolf and became a fixture of Bloomsbury society." —Dwight Garner, The New York Times "In short, glistening sentences that refract the larger world, Ms. Nunez describes the appealingly eccentric, fiercely intelligent Woolfs during a darkening time." —The Wall Street Journal By the National Book Award–winning author of The Friend In 1934, a "sickly pathetic marmoset" named Mitz came into the care of Leonard Woolf. After he nursed her back to health, she became a ubiquitous presence in Bloomsbury society. Moving with Leonard and Virginia Woolf between their homes in London and Sussex, she developed her own special relationship with each of them, as well as with their pet cocker spaniels and with various members of the Woolfs' circle, among them T. S. Eliot and Vita Sackville-West. Mitz also helped the Woolfs escape a close call with Nazis during a... Views: 321
Detective Sergeant Pierce Ryder of the Sydney Homicide Squad is on the hunt for notorious fugitive Gavin Hutton.After months of dead-ends, the breakthrough Ryder has been hoping for leads him back to the New South Wales Snowy Mountains on the trail of the suspected killer.Meanwhile, when an injured man bursts into the remote Thredbo lodge managed by Eva Bell, her first instinct is to protect her daughter, Poppy. The terrifying arrival of Jack Walker turns Eva's world upside down as the consequences of Jack's presence become clear.With a killer on the loose, Jack Walker and Ryder are tangled in the same treacherous web - spun across the perilously beautiful Crackenback Range.'Full of suspense and mystery, Lee Christine has crafted a novel that is guaranteed to keep the light burning, the wine glass full and the pages turning.' - Blue Wolf Reviews on Charlotte Pass Views: 321
