Daniel Defoe was a writer, journalist and spy. He was one of the first authors to write a novel. In An Essay Upon Projects Defoe defines the word project and enlarges on the concept including looking at the economic ramifications of several projects he was personally familiar with. The Introduction sums up this first work by Defoe as follows. "It is practical in the highest degree, while running over with fresh speculation that seeks everywhere the well-being of society by growth of material and moral power. There is a wonderful fertility of mind, and almost whimsical precision of detail, with good sense and good humour to form the groundwork of a happy English style. Defoe in this book ran again and again into sound suggestions that first came to be realised long after he was dead. Upon one subject, indeed, the education of women, we have only just now caught him up. Defoe wrote the book in 1692 or 1693, when his age was a year or two over thirty, and he published it in 1697." Views: 912
James often finds himself gazing out the window at night, wondering about other worlds, and what it might be like to live somewhere else. But it is all just a dream--until the memorable night he slips into the laboratory of his friend, Mr. Woodforde. Brilliant but eccentric, the elderly physicist lets James in on a secret. For years, he has been working on a secret project: a time machine.
Welcome aboard, James. Next stop: the Past. Or…the Future…. Views: 909
Hijackers, representing a Palestinian faction, take over an airliner flying between New York and Frankfurt. But nothing is straightforward. The author also wrote Schindler's Ark, The Playmaker and Towards Asmara. This book was shortlisted for the Sunday Express Book of the Year Award. Views: 909
Personal recollections from André Gide on a man who profoundly influenced his work—Oscar Wilde André Gide, a towering figure in French letters, draws upon his friendship with Oscar Wilde to sketch a compelling portrait of the tragic, doomed author, both celebrated and shunned in his time. Rather than compile a complete biography, Gide invites us to discover Wilde as he did—from their first meeting in 1891 to their final parting just two years before Wilde's death—all told through Gide's sensitive, incomparable prose. Using his notes, recollections, and conversations, Gide illuminates Wilde as a man whose true art was not writing, but living. This ebook features a new introduction by Jeanine Parisier Plottel, selected quotes, and an image gallery. Views: 908
Humorous story written for older children by an author who has won many awards for his children's fiction, including a CBC Book of the Year Award in 1988. It relates the adventures and escapades of a new boy at a co-educational boarding school. Views: 907
Written in a time when criminal biographies enjoyed great success, Daniel Defoe's "Moll Flanders" details the life of the irresistible Moll and her struggles through poverty and sin in search of property and power. Born in Newgate Prison to a picaresque mother, Moll propels herself through marriages, periods of success and destitution, and a trip to the New World and back, only to return to the place of her birth as a popular prostitute and brilliant thief. The story of Moll Flanders vividly illustrates Defoe's themes of social mobility and predestination, sin, redemption and reward.
This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the 1721 edition printed by Chetwood in London, the only edition approved by Defoe. "From the Trade Paperback edition." Views: 907
A Hollywood millionaire with a terror of death, whose personal physician happens to be working on a theory of longevity-these are the elements of Huxley's caustic and entertaining satire on man's desire to live indefinitely. "A highly sensational plot that will keep astonishing you to practically the final sentence." -"The New Yorker." Views: 905
The thrilling finale to Kathy and Brendan Reichs’ New York Times bestselling VIRALS series
The Virals are back—but they’re not the only pack in town anymore. Terminal finds Tory Brennan—grandniece of the famous forensic anthropologist (star of the hit show Bones)—and the rest of the Morris Island gang tracking a pack of rogue Virals who call themselves the Trinity. The new pack was infected by a strain of supervirus created by Tory’s nemesis and sometimes-crush, Chance Clayborne, who accidentally infected himself, too.
These red-eyed Virals have openly challenged Tory’s pack for domination of Charleston, bringing on the attention of a shadowy government organization intent on learning the secret to their powers. Surviving it all is going to test the limits of the gang’s abilities. Views: 904
This devastating book begins with an account of a crime that is by now almost commonplace: on December 16, 1988, sixteen-year-old Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia high school with a Cobray M-11/9 and several hundred rounds of ammunition tucked in his backpack. By day's end, he had killed one teacher and severely wounded another.
In Lethal Passage Erik Larson shows us how a disturbed teenager was able to buy a weapon advertised as "the gun that made the eighties roar." In so doing, he not only illuminates America's gun culture -- its manufacturers, dealers, buffs, and propagandists -- but also offers concrete solutions to our national epidemic of death by firearm. The result is a book that can -- and should -- save lives, and that has already become an essential text in the gun-control debate.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 904
The guide of choice for anyone who plans to die someday--are YOU ready for the AFTERLIFE?
To find out, take this simple quiz:
1. Like Earth, the Afterlife has celebrities, outcasts, deadheads, losers, and busybodies.
True
False
2. Is there an Afterlife after the Afterlife?
Yes
No
3. When you first arrive on "the Other Side," you will be given:
a) a set of wings
b) a toaster
c) a copy of A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife
Don't worry if you're not sure how to respond. A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife has answers to these questions and more--and if you're lucky, some of them may turn out to be right!
An irreverent, one-of-a-kind compendium from the award-winning author of Ishmael, A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife can be read as a parable, an allegory, a work of fiction--or exactly what it claims to be: a helpful handbook for the recently deceased. It is filled with uncommon wisdom, bizarre imaginings, uncanny perceptions, and unexpected humor. Is it fantastic escapism or a seminal event in human history? Read it and find out....
Face it. The Afterlife is the ultimate test. You might as well study.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 904
The poignant sequel to "A Song of Sixpence."
The clinic stood high on an Alpine slope. Lush meadows, studded with autumn crocus, sloped steeply down. Across the valley, above the pinewoods, the high peaks were already dusted with snow. Like a toy railway, the line to Davos twisted and turned up along the mountain side.
Laurence Carroll breathed in the pure, clear air. A wonderful place, a not-too-demanding job as resident doctor to the convalescent children flown out from England; it was a million miles from his Scottish childhood, the struggles to qualify and the grinding, poverty-stricken years as a young GP in the Welsh mining valleys. He was relaxed. Happy.
But, soon to arrive at Zurich, a woman he had once known well, now a widowed mother, was to bring with her all the turmoil and anguish of his early years, flooding back into his casually ordered life. Views: 903
Saul Bellow's fiction, honored by a Nobel Prize and a Pulitzer, among other awards, has made him a literary giant. Now the man himself and a lifetime of his insightful views on a range of topics spring off the page in this, his first nonfiction collection, which encompasses articles, lectures, essays, travel pieces, and an "Autobiography of Ideas." It All Adds Up is a fascinating journey through literary America over the last forty years, guided by one of the "most gifted chroniclers in the Western World" (The London Times). Views: 900
Aljaz Cosini is leading a group of tourists on a raft tour down Tasmania's wild Franklin River when his greatest fear is realized—a tourist falls overboard. An ordinary man with many regrets, Aljaz rises to an uncharacteristic heroism, and offers his own life in trade. Trapped under a rapid and drowning, Aljaz is beset with visions both horrible and fabulous. He sees Couta Ho, the beautiful, spirited woman he loved, and witnesses his uncle Reg having his teeth pulled and sold to pay for a ripple-iron house. He sees cities grow from the wild rain forest and a tree burst into flower in midwinter over his grandfather's forest grave. As the entirety of Tasmanian life—flora and fauna—sings him home, Aljaz arrives at a world where dreaming reasserts its power over thinking, where his family tree branches into stories of all human families, stories that ground him in the land and reveal the soul history of his country. Views: 900
Lady with Carnations is not only the traditional name of a famous Holbein miniature which unexpectedly comes into a London salesroom in the mid-thirties: it is also the soubriquet by which some of her close friends think of the antique-dealer who buys it. Katharine Lorimer, by hard work, flair and courage, has worked her way to the top of a trade that traditionally belongs to men. Yet, having acquired the Holbein despite fierce competition, she feels not triumph but a terrible anxiety and desolation. The antique business is going through the doldrums, and she herself is reaching the limit of her resources. Worse still, she feels appallingly alone in the world. Reserved and fastidious, she keeps a certain distance from even her dearest friends, and the person she loves most, her niece Nancy, is bound up in her own ambitions to become a famous actress.
Katharine has bought the miniature as a gigantic gamble, hoping to sell it to a wealthy American collector, and she sets off for New York with Nancy and her niece’s fiancé. What happens to them all there, and how their lives are altered, makes an engrossing tale, a delightful love story, showing at its best Dr Cronin’s gifts as a novelist. Every Cronin ‘fan’, every reader who enjoys a novel with the old-fashioned virtues of a well-worked-out plot, sympathetic characters, and humanity, will find it absorbing.
In the magnificent narrative tradition of The Citadel, The Stars Look Down and Cronin’s other classic novels, Lady With Carnations is a great book by a much-loved author.** Views: 900
An intense coming-of-age novel from internationally best-selling author John Marsden, now in paperback.
For twelve years Winter has been haunted. Her past, her memories, her feelings, will not leave her alone. And now, at sixteen, the time has come for her to act. She must head back to her old home, where a pair of family tragedies forever altered her life. What she discovers is powerful and shocking -- but must be dealt with in order for life to go on.
This is the striking new novel from John Marsden, Australia's #1 best-selling author for teens, who is ready for his US breakthrough. It rings with hard truths that will resonate incredibly with YA readers. Views: 898
