We do not know when we will die. We may see it coming from far away, or all at once. But I will die and you will die. You believe that, don't you?You get ready to die the way you get ready for a trip. Start by realizing you don't know the way. Study the language, look at maps, pack your bags. Let yourself imagine what it will be like. Think of this book as a travel guide: a guide to preparing for your own death and the deaths of people close to you.The fact of death is hard to believe. Sallie Tisdale explores our fears and all the ways death and talking about death make us uncomfortable-and she also explores its intimacies and joys. Tisdale looks at grief, what the last days and hours of life are like, and what happens to dead bodies. Advice for Future Corpses includes stories, exercises, practical advice, personal experience, and a little Buddhist philosophy.But this isn't a book of inspiration or spiritual advice - Advice for Future Corpses is about how... Views: 67
"Theroux's best novel in years."CHICAGO TRIBUNEMY SECRET HISTORY is Paul Theroux's tour de force. It is the story of Andre Parent, a writer, a world traveler, a lover of every kind of woman he chances to meet in a life as varied as a man can lead. From his days as an altar boy, to his job as a teenaged lifeguard, and then as a youth caught between the attentions of a beautiful young student and an amorous older woman. And as the boy becomes a man he turns his attention to writing, which brings him fame, and a wife, who may finally bring him to know himself. But not before he sets up his most dangerous secret life, one that any man might envy, but that could cost Andre Parent the delicate balance that makes him who he is....From the Paperback edition. Views: 67
A departure from the full-length James Bond novels, For Your Eyes Only is a stunning collection of five stories that sends 007 to Bermuda, Berlin, and beyond, and places him in the dangerous company of adversaries of all varieties. Titular “From a View to a Kill” whisks Bond to the French countryside where he must go undercover to expose a deadly secret-intelligence plot, and in “For Your Eyes Only,” 007 is absorbed into a private vendetta of M’s, blurring the lines between the personal and professional. In “Quantum of Solace,” Bond attends a dinner party in the Bahamas and learns how passion can soon twist into cruelty, while “Risico” forces the secret agent to fight for the lesser of two evils in a smuggling war set amid the Mediterranean. Finally, “The Hildebrand Rarity” lands 007 in an old-fashioned murder mystery at sea, where even he has a secret to keep. A collection of both classic intrigue and intrepid self-examination, For Your Eyes Only packs full, vibrant worlds into five classic tales.ReviewMr Fleming's licensed assassin is in good form ... Few men can have been able to mix business with pleasure so successfully as Bond The Times Literary Supplement About the AuthorIan Fleming was born in London on May 28, 1908. He was educated at Eton College and later spent a formative period studying languages in Europe. His first job was with Reuters News Agency where a Moscow posting gave him firsthand experience with what would become his literary bete noire—the Soviet Union. During World War II he served as Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence and played a key role in Allied espionage operations. After the war he worked as foreign manager of the Sunday Times, a job that allowed him to spend two months each year in Jamaica. Here, in 1952, at his home “Goldeneye,” he wrote a book called Casino Royale—and James Bond was born. The first print run sold out within a month. For the next twelve years Fleming produced a novel a year featuring Special Agent 007, the most famous spy of the century. His travels, interests, and wartime experience lent authority to everything he wrote. Raymond Chandler described him as “the most forceful and driving writer of thrillers in England.” Sales soared when President Kennedy named the fifth title, From Russia With Love, one of his favorite books. The Bond novels have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide, boosted by the hugely successful film franchise that began in 1962 with the release of Dr. No. He married Anne Rothermere in 1952. His story about a magical car, written in 1961 for their only son Caspar, went on to become the well-loved novel and film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Fleming died of heart failure on August 12, 1964, at the age of fifty-six. Views: 67
Alfie Day, RAF airman and former World War II POW, never expected to survive the war. Now, five years later and more alone than ever, Alfie finds himself drawn to unearth those strange, passionate days by working as an extra on a POW film. What he will discover on the set about himself, his loves and the world around him will make the war itself look simple. Funny and moving, wise and sad, Day is a truly original look at the intensity and courage to be found in the closeness of death, from one of Britain's most iconoclastic and highly acclaimed young writers.** Views: 67
A radical reappraisal of Charles Darwin from the bestselling author of Victoria: A Life.With the publication of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin—hailed as the man who "discovered evolution"—was propelled into the pantheon of great scientific thinkers, alongside Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton. Eminent writer A. N. Wilson challenges this long-held assumption. Contextualizing Darwin and his ideas, he offers a groundbreaking critical look at this revered figure in modern science.In this beautifully written, deeply erudite portrait, Wilson argues that Darwin was not an original scientific thinker, but a ruthless and determined self-promoter who did not credit the many great sages whose ideas he advanced in his book. Furthermore, Wilson contends that religion and Darwinism have much more in common than it would seem, for the acceptance of Darwin's theory involves a pretty significant leap of faith.Armed with an extraordinary breadth of... Views: 67
Discover magazine Top 5 Summer Read"Scientific American Recommended" feature reviewA masterful balance of science, history and rich narrative." —Discover magazineHirshfeld tells this climactic discovery of the expanding universe with great verve and sweep, as befits a story whose scope, characters and import leave most fiction far behind." —Wall Street JournalStarlight Detectives is just the sort of richly veined book I love to read—full of scientific history and discoveries, peopled by real heroes and rogues, and told with absolute authority. Alan Hirshfeld's wide, deep knowledge of astronomy arises not only from the most careful scholarship, but also from the years he's spent at the telescope, posing his own questions to the stars." —DAVA SOBEL, author of A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos and... Views: 67
Amazon.com ReviewSolzhenitsyn's first book, this economical, relentless novel is one of the most forceful artistic indictments of political oppression in the Stalin-era Soviet Union. The simply told story of a typical, grueling day of the titular character's life in a labor camp in Siberia, is a modern classic of Russian literature and quickly cemented Solzhenitsyn's international reputation upon publication in 1962. It is painfully apparent that Solzhenitsyn himself spent time in the gulags--he was imprisoned for nearly a decade as punishment for making derogatory statements about Stalin in a letter to a friend. ReviewShort novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, published in Russian in 1962 as Odin den Ivana Denisovicha in the Soviet literary magazine Novy Mir, and published in book form the following year. Solzhenitsyn's first literary work--a treatment of his experiences in the Stalinist labor camps--established his reputation and foreshadowed his masterpiece, The Gulag Archipelago (1973-75). Set in the forced-labor camp in which the author was interned from 1950 to 1953, Ivan Denisovich describes a typical day in the life of an inmate. Published during Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization program, the work was released without interference from Soviet government censors and Solzhenitsyn became an instant celebrity. -- __
Amazon.com ReviewSolzhenitsyn's first book, this economical, relentless novel is one of the most forceful artistic indictments of political oppression in the Stalin-era Soviet Union. The simply told story of a typical, grueling day of the titular character's life in a labor camp in Siberia, is a modern classic of Russian literature and quickly cemented Solzhenitsyn's international reputation upon publication in 1962. It is painfully apparent that Solzhenitsyn himself spent time in the gulags--he was imprisoned for nearly a decade as punishment for making derogatory statements about Stalin in a letter to a friend. ReviewShort novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, published in Russian in 1962 as Odin den Ivana Denisovicha in the Soviet literary magazine Novy Mir, and published in book form the following year. Solzhenitsyn's first literary work--a treatment of his experiences in the Stalinist labor camps--established his reputation and foreshadowed his masterpiece, The Gulag Archipelago (1973-75). Set in the forced-labor camp in which the author was interned from 1950 to 1953, Ivan Denisovich describes a typical day in the life of an inmate. Published during Nikita Khrushchev's de-Stalinization program, the work was released without interference from Soviet government censors and Solzhenitsyn became an instant celebrity. -- __ Views: 67
With murder, mayhem and hot sex, Kitty-Kitty, Bang-Bang is a wickedly delicious sequel to The Kat Trap .It was her cutthroat ambition and ruthlessness that got Katrina, or Kat for short, out of the hood and on top of her game. Once a murderer on a seductive prowl with two missions in mind--satisfying her insatiable libido and killing unsuspecting marks--Katrina has lain down her guns. Having once used her alluring charm and exotic beauty to lure men to their deaths, Katrina has had a change of heart.She's settled for a simpler life and traveling, partying, and shopping have become her only guilty pleasures. In addition, she's avoiding relationships and men like the plague. For her, life couldn't be any sweeter--at least that's what she wants to believe. But, when drama rears its ugly head, Katrina returns with a vengeance. There's the issue of confronting her ex-friend who she learned had slept with an old boyfriend. Then there are her three aunts--who... Views: 67
London's Underground is associated with a multitude of ghostly stories and sightings, particularly on stations and abandoned lines, many of which are in close proximity to burial sites from centuries ago. This chilling book reveals well-known and hitherto unpublished tales of spirits, spectres and other spooky occurrences on one fo the oldest railway networks in the world. The stories of sightings include the ghost of an actress regularly witnessed on Aldwych Station and the 'Black Nun' at Bank station. Eerie noises, such as the cries of thirteen-year-old Anne Naylor, who was murdered in 1758 near to the site of what is now Farringdon station, and the screams of children who were in an accident at Bethnal Green station during the Second World War, are still heard echoing. These and many more ghostly accounts are recorded in fascinating detail in this book, which is a must-read for anyone interested in the mysterious and murky history of London's Underground. Views: 67
The Rising begins a new Left Behind series that will give you a glimpse into the lives of your favorite characters before the Rapture. Have you ever wondered what life was like before the Rapture for Rayford, Irene, and Chloe Steele, Bruce Barnes, Buck Williams, and Tsion Ben Judah? Plus, see why Viv Ivins plays such a pivotal role in Nicolae Carpathia's life. What were the events surrounding Nicolae's sudden rise to power? How did he become filled with evil? You will find all these answers and more in this exciting new series!In The Rising,Marilena Carpathia has only one dream: to be a mother. So when a mysterious clairvoyant promises the fulfillment of this dream, Marilena does not hesitate. Through genetic engineering and the power of the prince of darkness himself, Marilena is about to become a chosen vessel, one who will unknowingly give birth to the greatest evil the world has ever known.Halfway around the world, God's plans are subtly being carried... Views: 67
The electrifying conclusion to the New York Times bestselling series Children of Eden that follows Rowan as she leaves behind the paradise she's always dreamed of to save Eden—and the world—from a terrible fate.Rowan is finally in Harmonia, an Earth-friendly, sustainable commune in the wilderness she always thought was dead. Even in this idyllic world, she finds no peace. Harmonia has strict rules—and dire consequences. Thinking about Eden is forbidden, but she's determined to rescue the loved ones she left behind. Though they are in terrible danger, her pleas for help are ignored. After months of living as one with nature, a shocking reminder of her past pushes Rowan to act. With the help of new friends, she infiltrates Eden. What she discovers is even worse than the situation she left behind. In the chaos of civil war, Rowan and her friends join forces with the second children and other rebels trapped inside. They fight for their... Views: 67
