If you had to name a statue, any statue, odds are good you'd mention the Statue of Liberty. Have you seen her?
She's in New York.
She's holding a torch.
And she's in mid-stride, moving forward.
But why?
In this fascinating, fun take on nonfiction, Dave Eggers and Shawn Harris investigate a seemingly small trait of America's most emblematic statue. What they find is about more than history, more than art. What they find in the Statue of Liberty's right foot is the powerful message of acceptance that is essential to an entire country's creation.
A Junior Library Guild selection Views: 849
Author Jim Harrison has won international acclaim for his masterful body of work, including Returning to Earth, Legends of the Fall and over thirty books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. In his most original work to date, Harrison delivers an enthralling, witty and expertly-crafted novel following one man’s hunt for an elusive cult leader, dubbed “The Great Leader.”
On the verge of retirement, Detective Sunderson begins to investigate a hedonistic cult, which has set up camp near his home in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. At first, the self-declared Great Leader seems merely a harmless oddball, but as Sunderson and his sixteen-year-old sidekick dig deeper, they find him more intelligent and sinister than they realized. Recently divorced and frequently pickled in alcohol, Sunderson tracks his quarry from the woods of Michigan to a town in Arizona, filled with criminal border-crossers, and on to Nebraska, where the Great Leader’s most recent recruits have gathered to glorify his questionable religion. But Sunderson’s demons are also in pursuit of him.
Rich with character and humor, *The Great Leader * is at once a gripping excursion through America’s landscapes and the poignant story of a man grappling with age, lost love and his own darker nature. Views: 848
In his final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system. Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive—there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him? Views: 847
With two years experience behind him, James Herriot still feels privileged working on the beautiful Yorkshire moors as assistant vet at the Darrowby practice. Time to meet yet more unwilling patients and a rich cast of supporting owners.
Full of hilarious tales of his unpredictable boss Siegfreid Farnon, his charming student brother Tristan, the joys of spring lambing, a vicious cat called Boris and James' jinxed courtship of the lovely Helen, this third volume of memoirs is sure to delight hardened fans and new readers of James Herriot titles alike.
'He can tell a good story against himself, and his pleasure in the beauty of the countryside in which he works is infectious' "Daily Telegraph"
'Full of warmth, wisdom and wit' "The Field"
'It is a pleasure to be in James Herriot's company' "Observer " Views: 844
For the first time in publishing history, Delphi Classics is proud to present the complete works of master storyteller Ambrose Bierce. This comprehensive eBook is spiced with numerous illustrations, rare and forgotten texts, concise introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)
Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Bierce's life and works
Concise introductions to the collections and other texts
The rare novella THE DANCE OF DEATH appears here for the first time in digital print
ALL the short story collections, with individual contents tables
Featuring 475 tales, many appearing for the first time in digital print
Images of how the books were first printed, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts
Excellent formatting of the texts
Famous works such as COBWEBS FROM AN EMPTY SKULL
are fully illustrated with their original artwork
Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the poetry, essays and the short stories
Easily locate the works you want to read
The complete non-fiction, with many scarce essays and newspaper articles
Includes Bierce's letters - spend hours exploring the author’s personal correspondence
Special criticism section, with essays evaluating Bierce’s contribution to literature
Also provides a unique ‘Biercian Texts’ section with interesting articles on the works and disappearance of Ambrose Bierce
Features a bonus full-length biography - discover Bierce's literary life
Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres
CONTENTS:
The Novellas
THE DANCE OF DEATH
THE MONK AND THE HANGMAN’S DAUGHTER
THE LAND BEYOND THE BLOW
The Short Story Collections
THE FIEND’S DELIGHT
COBWEBS FROM AN EMPTY SKULL
PRESENT AT A HANGING, AND OTHER GHOST STORIES
IN THE MIDST OF LIFE: TALES OF SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS
CAN SUCH THINGS BE?
FANTASTIC FABLES
NEGLIGIBLE TALES
THE PARENTICIDE CLUB
THE FOURTH ESTATE
THE OCEAN WAVE
KINGS OF BEASTS
TWO ADMINISTRATIONS
MISCELLANEOUS TALES
The Short Stories
LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
The Poetry Collections
BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER
SHAPES OF CLAY
FABLES IN RHYME
SOME ANTE-MORTEM EPITAPHS
THE SCRAP HEAP
The Poems
LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
The Non-Fiction
THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL, AND OTHER ESSAYS
THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY
WRITE IT RIGHT
ASHES OF THE BEACON
“ON WITH THE DANCE!”: A REVIEW
A CYNIC LOOKS AT LIFE
TANGENTIAL VIEWS
BITS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY
MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES AND REVIEWS
UNCOLLECTED ESSAYS
The Essays
LIST OF ESSA Views: 843
TWO SISTERS: Kate is bound for Stanford and an M.D. -- if her family will let her go. Mary wants only to stay home and paint. When their loving but repressive father dies, they must figure out how to support themselves and their mother, who is in a permanent vegetative state, and how to get along in all their uneasy sisterhood.
THREE YOUNG MEN: Then three men sway their lives: Kate's boyfriend Simon offers to marry her, providing much-needed stability. Mary is drawn to Marcos, though she fears his violent past. And Andy tempts Kate with more than romance, recognizing her ambition because it matches his own.
ONE AGONIZING CHOICE: Kate and Mary each find new possibilities and darknesses in their sudden freedom. But it's Mama's life that might divide them for good -- the question of if she lives, and what's worth living for.
Irises is Francisco X. Stork's most provocative and courageous novel yet. Views: 843
If you think the wildest, wackiest stories that Carl Hiaasen can tell have all made it into his hilarious, bestselling novels, think again. Dance of the Reptiles collects the best of Hiaasen’s Miami Herald columns, which lay bare the stories--large and small--that demonstrate anew that truth is far stranger than fiction.
Hiaasen offers his commentary—indignant, disbelieving, sometimes righteously angry, and frequently hilarious—on burning issues like animal welfare, polluted rivers, and the broken criminal justice system as well as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Bernie Madoff's trial, and the shenanigans of the recent presidential elections. Whether or not you have read Carl Hiaasen before, you are in for a wild ride. Views: 842
Carl Hiaasen serves up his unique brand of swamp justice in the New York Times bestseller Skink—No Surrender.
A National Book Award Longlist Selection
When your cousin goes missing under suspicious circumstances, who do you call? There’s only one man for the job: a half-crazed, half-feral, one-eyed ex-governor named Skink. Skink joins 14-year-old Richard on a breakneck chase across Florida, undaunted by lightning storms, poisonous snakes, flying bullets, and giant gators. There are a million places cousin Malley could be, a million unpleasant fates that might have befallen her, but one thing is certain: in the Florida swamp, justice is best served wild.
SUNSHINE STATE AWARD FINALIST!
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 842
Trent McCauley is sixteen, brilliant, and obsessed with one thing: making movies on his computer by reassembling footage from popular films he downloads from the net. In near-future Britain, this is more illegal than ever. The punishment for being caught three times is to cut off your entire household from the internet for a year - no work, school, health or money benefits.
Trent thinks he is too clever for that to happen, but it does, and nearly destroys his family. Shamed and shattered, Trent runs away to London, where slowly he learns the ways of staying alive on the streets. He joins artists and activists fighting a new bill that will jail too many, especially minors, at one stroke. Jem introduces him to the Jammie Dodgers, beautiful brilliant "26" to love and cemetery parties.
Things look bad. Parliament is in power of a few wealthy media conglomerates. But the powers-that-be haven’t entirely reckoned with the power of a gripping movie to change people’s minds ... Views: 842
Theoretically, you could find this type of humor anywhere. But only a topflight science-fictionist, we thought, could have written this story, in just this way. . . . Start here: It was quite by accident I discovered this incredible invasion of Earth by lifeforms from another planet. As yet, I haven't done anything about it; I can't think of anything to do. I wrote to the Government, and they sent back a pamphlet on the repair and maintenance of frame houses. Anyhow, the whole thing is known; I'm not the first to discover it. Maybe it's even under control. "All of his work starts with the basic assumption that there cannot be one, single, objective reality," writes science fiction author Charles Platt. Views: 841
In February 2000, "Rolling Stone" magazine sent David Foster Wallace, "NOT A POLITICAL JOURNALIST, " on the road for a week with Senator John McCain's campaign to win the Republican nomination for the Presidency. They wanted to know why McCain appealed so much to so many Americans, and particularly why he appealed to the "Young Voters" of America who generally show nothing but apathy.
The "Director's Cut" (three times longer than the RS article) is an incisive, funny, thoughtful piece about life on "Bullshit One" -- the nickname for the press bus that followed McCain's Straight Talk Express.
This piece becomes ever more relevant, as we discuss what we know, don't know, and don't want to know about the way our political campaigns work. Views: 840
A room of one's own: is there anybody who hasn't at one time or another wished for such a place, hasn't turned those soft words over until they'd assumed a habitable shape?
When writer Michael Pollan decided to plant a garden, the result was an award-winning treatise on the borders between nature and contemporary life, the acclaimed bestseller Second Nature. Now Pollan turns his sharp insight to the craft of building, as he recounts the process of designing and constructing a small one-room structure on his rural Connecticut property--a place in which he hoped to read, write and daydream, built with his two own unhandy hands.
Invoking the titans of architecture, literature and philosophy, from Vitrivius to Thoreau, from the Chinese masters of feng shui to the revolutionary Frank Lloyd Wright, Pollan brilliantly chronicles a realm of blueprints, joints and trusses as he peers into the ephemeral nature of "houseness" itself. From the spark of an idea to the search for a perfect site to the raising of a ridgepole, Pollan revels in the infinitely detailed, complex process of creating a finished structure. At once superbly written, informative and enormously entertaining, A Place of My Own is for anyone who has ever wondered how the walls around us take shape--and how we might shape them ourselves.
A Place of My Own recounts his two-and-a-half-year journey of discovery in an absorbing narrative that deftly weaves the day-to-day work of design and building--from siting to blueprint, from the pouring of foundations to finish carpentry--with reflections on everything form the power of place to shape our lives to the question of what constitutes "real work" in a technological society.
A book about craft that is itself beautifully crafted, linking the world of the body and material things with the realm of mind, heart, and spirit, A Place of My Own has received extraordinary praise. Views: 839
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward. Views: 838
The David Foster Wallace Reader is a selection of David Foster Wallace's work, introducing readers to his humour, kindness, sweeping intellect and versatility as a writer.
A compilation from the one of the most original writers of our age, featuring:
· the very best of his fiction and non-fiction;
· previously unpublished writing
· and original contributions from 12 prominent authors and critics about his work
From classic short fiction to genre-defining reportage, this book is a must for new readers and confirmed David Foster Wallace fans alike'One of the most dazzling luminaries of contemporary American fiction' Sunday Times
'There are times, reading his work, when you get halfway through a sentence and gasp involuntarily, and for a second you feel lucky that there was, at least for a time, someone who could make sense like no other of what it is to be a human in our era' Daily Telegraph
'A prose magician, Mr. Wallace was capable of writing . . .about subjects from tennis to politics to lobsters, from the horrors of drug withdrawal to the small terrors of life aboard a luxury cruise ship, with humour and fervour and verve' Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
David Foster Wallace wrote the novels The Pale King, Infinite Jest, and The Broom of the System and three story collections. His nonfiction includes Consider the Lobster and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. He died in 2008. Views: 838
The New York Times bestselling author of Zodiac now uncovers one of the most bizarre cases in the annals of American crime.
San Francisco, 1926: A series of women are slashed to death and dismembered. Incredibly, eyewitness reports claim the perpetrator was a hulking brute with razor-claws for hands who lumbered on all fours and laughed maniacally before shredding the nude flesh of his female victims. The tabloid press called him the Laughing Gorilla and loved every sensational beat of the story. For Inspector Charles Dullea of the San Francisco Police, the last honest cop in one of the most notoriously corrupt departments in the country, the serial killings raised a haunting question: who could commit such crimes? Nothing prepared Dullea for the answer. Views: 838
