Countless writers and artists have spoken for a generation, but no one has done it quite like Chuck Klosterman. With an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and an almost effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter, Klosterman attacks the entire spectrum of postmodern America: reality TV, Internet porn, Pamela Anderson, literary Jesus freaks, and the real difference between apples and oranges (of which there is none). And don't even get him started on his love life and the whole Harry-Met-Sally situation.
Whether deconstructing Saved by the Bell episodes or the artistic legacy of Billy Joel, the symbolic importance of The Empire Strikes Back or the Celtics/Lakers rivalry, Chuck will make you think, he'll make you laugh, and he'll drive you insane -- usually all at once. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is ostensibly about art, entertainment, infotainment, sports, politics, and kittens, but -- really -- it's about us. All of us. As Klosterman realizes late at night, in the moment before he falls asleep, "In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever 'in and of itself.'" Read to believe. Views: 596
Thirst is a collection of short stories where jaunty, lusty, creepy, quirky characters, all needful, discover what they want is not what they get. A man obsessed with terrorism, a woman in an abusive marriage, a secret forced into the open are a few of the dilemmas faced by desperate characters reaching blind. Included in Thirst is the award-winning story "DMV".Reviews: "Composed of twelve short fiction stories about human desire and want, Thirst captured my attention from the moment I began reading it. Ranging from a story about a professor's unquenchable thirst for young undergrad women to the enticing read of two women playing off each other in a bar to attract men, Linda Lavid's writing is sophisticated, masterful, and full of desire." Great New Books"This short story collection is exquisite, exciting and a pleasurably fast read. Each story, although different in nature, is woven to the next with the common threads of infidelity, a multitude of flaws and the ever delicious...jealousy." Literary Lighthouse Reviews "I would recommend this book to book clubs. I think discussing which story is each person's favorite and why would be very interesting. And anybody can find the time to read "Jealousy". Especially for those who read during breakfast...Linda Lavid manages to write stories that are short and sweet, but branches out to the short and bitter, and manages to make them all short and startling." Reader Views"The author has written a delightful collection of short stories, filled with a wide range of human drama. I especially enjoyed the author's notes at the end of each story, giving us a window into the creative process. Enjoy!" JTreat"Linda Lavid's short stories are wonderful--mysterious, compelling, and populated by painfully human characters driven by fundamental needs. Lavid understands desire like few other writers. This book, like Rented Rooms, is well worth the time spent with it." GERoss Views: 596
Christy has always been something of a free spirit, stuck in an urban setting. Like a fish out of water, she feels out of place and longs for an adventure away from the place she has long called home. When circumstances change for the worse, Christy decides it is her time to go on the adventure she has dreamed of. Through chance she meets a handsome cowboy who seems to sweep her off her feet.Christy has always been something of a free spirit, stuck in an urban setting. Like a fish out of water, she feels out of place and longs for an adventure away from the place she has long called home. When circumstances change for the worse, Christy decides it is her time to go on the adventure she has dreamed of. Through chance she meets a handsome cowboy who seems to sweep her off her feet. That is until his past comes back to haunt them, and Christy must decide if this love is worth fighting for. Views: 595
He's having a hard time deciding between getting close to her...or walking away for good.Eden Karr never expected to find herself living alone in the small town of Arbor Glen, Texas, the proprietress of her own clothing boutique, and expecting twins but it's not a bad life. She has her work. She has wonderful friends. And now she has a carpenter who does a lot for those "eat a worm" days that she's trying her best to shake off. Problem is, things seem so much easier when he's around and she knows better than to rely on anyone but herself.Jace Morgan thought he had his act together. He likes being his own boss. He likes working with his hands. Carpentry isn't quite the same as architecture but it's close enough that he doesn't dwell on all that he's lost. What he doesn't like is waking up every morning and thinking about Eden Karr and the way she makes him smile. Or the way she almost makes him forget what brought him to this point in his life and that can't happen.Because forgetting cuts too close to forgiving. Views: 592
When Alexandra Bo Fuller was in Zambia a few years ago visiting her parents, she asked her father about a nearby banana farmer who was known as being a tough bugger. Her father's response was a warning to steer clear of him: Curiosity scibbled the cat, he told her. Nonetheless, Fuller began her strange friendhip with the man she calls K, a white African and veteran of the Rhodesian War. A man of contradictions, K is battle-scarred and work-weathered, a born-again Christian and given to weeping for the failure of his romantic life and the burden of his memories. Driven by K's these memories of the war, they decide to enter the heart of darkness in the most literal way, by travelling from Zambia through Zimbabwe and Mozambique to visit the scenes of the war and to meet other veterans. The result is a remarkably unbiased and unsentimental glimpse of life in Africa. Views: 591
Visions of another dimension usher a young woman through an adventure of immorality, virtue, and self-discovery.Seventeen-year-old Alexis has visionary dreams that take her to Avalon, the realm of faeries.She discovers this other world is real, and it is where she was created. Switched at birth, Alexis is a changeling, simply disguised well to fit in with humans. Through a vision, she learns of her derailed heritage and about the day she was born, when the worst kind of evil killed her mother.This evil is now after Alexis, and a prophecy insists she is the only one who can stop it. As she plans the creature's demise, it spends its time terrorizing both humans and faeries. To complicate matters, Alexis falls dangerously in love with a depraved faery. One who is close to the evil she is trying to stop. She feels connected to both worlds, and also to both dark and light. Struggling with who she is while deciding how to fulfill the prophetic claims, Alexis must choose a sacrifice to stop this abomination -- be it human, fae ... or even herself. Views: 591
PAT CONROY—AMERICA’S MOST BELOVED STORYTELLER—IS BACK!
*“I was born to be a point guard, but not a very good one. . . .There was a time in my life when I walked through the world known to myself and others as an athlete. It was part of my own definition of who I was and certainly the part I most respected. When I was a young man, I was well-built and agile and ready for the rough and tumble of games, and athletics provided the single outlet for a repressed and preternaturally shy boy to express himself in public....I lost myself in the beauty of sport and made my family proud while passing through the silent eye of the storm that was my childhood.” *
So begins Pat Conroy’s journey back to 1967 and his startling realization “that this season had been seminal and easily the most consequential of my life.” The place is the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, that now famous military college, and in memory Conroy gathers around him his team to relive their few triumphs and humiliating defeats. In a narrative that moves seamlessly between the action of the season and flashbacks into his childhood, we see the author’s love of basketball and how crucial the role of athlete is to all these young men who are struggling to find their own identity and their place in the world.
In fast-paced exhilarating games, readers will laugh in delight and cry in disappointment. But as the story continues, we gradually see the self-professed “mediocre” athlete merge into the point guard whose spirit drives the team. He rallies them to play their best while closing off the shouts of “Don’ t shoot, Conroy” that come from the coach on the sidelines. For Coach Mel Thompson is to Conroy the undermining presence that his father had been throughout his childhood. And in these pages finally, heartbreakingly, we learn the truth about the Great Santini.
In My Losing Season Pat Conroy has written an American classic about young men and the bonds they form, about losing and the lessons it imparts, about finding one’s voice and one’s self in the midst of defeat. And in his trademark language, we see the young Conroy walk from his life as an athlete to the writer the world knows him to be.
BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Pat Conroy's The Death of Santini. Views: 589
In 1962, the philosopher Richard Taylor used six commonly accepted presuppositions to imply that human beings have no control over the future. David Foster Wallace not only took issue with Taylor's method, which, according to him, scrambled the relations of logic, language, and the physical world, but also noted a semantic trick at the heart of Taylor's argument.
Fate, Time, and Language presents Wallace's brilliant critique of Taylor's work. Written long before the publication of his fiction and essays, Wallace's thesis reveals his great skepticism of abstract thinking made to function as a negation of something more genuine and real. He was especially suspicious of certain paradigms of thought-the cerebral aestheticism of modernism, the clever gimmickry of postmodernism-that abandoned "the very old traditional human verities that have to do with spirituality and emotion and community." As Wallace rises to meet the challenge to free will presented by Taylor, we witness the developing perspective of this major novelist, along with his struggle to establish solid logical ground for his convictions. This volume, edited by Steven M. Cahn and Maureen Eckert, reproduces Taylor's original article and other works on fatalism cited by Wallace. James Ryerson's introduction connects Wallace's early philosophical work to the themes and explorations of his later fiction, and Jay Garfield supplies a critical biographical epilogue. Views: 589
What do you do when you are a child of the rich and beautiful. Well if you are tall, skinny, carrot topped and plain, you become a cop. This is the story of a rich girl and her rise thru the ranks of the LAPD. Join in as this spirited and fast car driving young lady puts her intellect against the worst killers in the city. Over 170 downloads in one week. Thank you.Jigsaw John was a real life homicide detective in the LAPD. This story is a homage to him as the goal of every officer with a gold shield is to emulate this great crime solver. The skill of a child of wealthy parents is put against street thugs and serial killers alike. From child kidnapping and death to a serial psycho with unbelievable cruelty, these cases are thrust onto her problem solving back as she is thrown into the middle of a career with only her natural ability to survive. A thrill filled chase scene fills out the story of this strangely sensitive police officer. With only her dog Katie at home to talk with, can she hold it together to the end? Views: 589
The Karluk set out in 1913 in search of an undiscovered continent, with the largest scientific staff ever sent into the Arctic. Soon after, winter had begun, they were blown off course by polar storms, the ship became imprisoned in ice, and the expedition was abandoned by its leader. Hundreds of miles from civilization, the castaways had no choice but to find solid ground as they struggled against starvation, snow blindness, disease, exposure--and each other. After almost twelve months battling the elements, twelve survivors were rescued, thanks to the heroic efforts of their captain, Bartlett, the Ice Master, who traveled by foot across the ice and through Siberia to find help.
Drawing on the diaries of those who were rescued and those who perished, Jennifer Niven re-creates with astonishing accuracy the ill-fated journey and the crews desperate attempts to find a way home. Views: 588
A Most Anticipated Book by: The New York Times Book Review * Wall Street Journal * Time * Esquire * The Millions * Vogue * People * New York Post * USA Today * Medium * The Philadelphia Inquirer * NewsdayFrom the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins comes another "literary miracle" (NPR)—a propulsive, richly entertaining novel about two brothers swept up in the turbulent class warfare of the early twentieth century.An intimate story of brotherhood, love, sacrifice, and betrayal set against the panoramic backdrop of an early twentieth-century America that eerily echoes our own time, The Cold Millions offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation grappling with the chasm between rich and poor, between harsh realities and simple dreams. The Dolans live by their wits, jumping freight trains and lining up for day work at crooked job agencies. While sixteen-year-old Rye yearns for a steady job and a home,... Views: 586
It is the spring of 1945, and the Nazis are eliminating all the witnesses to their horrible crimes, including Jews and foreigners remaining in the prison camps. Kommandant Repp, who is known as a master sniper, decides to hone his sniping abilities by taking a little target practice at the remaining laborers in his own prison camp. But one man escapes and becomes the key to solving the mystery of the cold, calculating Kommandmant Repp and his plans for ending the war.
Repp was the master sniper whose deadly talent had come to the notice of British Intelligence as the linchpin of a desperate Nazi plot to reverse the fortunes of the Third Reich at the eleventh hour. But what was the nature of the weapon that Repp was to aim--and who was to be his last target? Allied Intelligence officers Leets, from the U.S., and Outhwaite from England are dispatched to identify and abort his lethal mission. And when they finally learn the truth, the Second World War's deadliest race against time is on....
From the Paperback edition. Views: 585
Marriage of convenience, gunrunning, disability, Goliad, PTSD, Veteran, intelligence gathering, Views: 585
